We made it home to Texas late Tuesday evening. The trip to France was very nice, the wedding went off without a hitch, and I have tons of pics that I will hopefully get around to sharing soon. I also discovered the best way to get rid of the weight that I'd gained by eating endless baguettes, brie cheese, and croissants (did I mention the chocolate croissants? No? Those too.) is to get really, really sick with a nasty stomach bug at the very end of your trip. Perhaps not ideal for your poor husband who has to put up with you being violently ill.
But enough about that.
So we are home, and the boys are well. Ok, Taran decided to have a nice impaction colic this morning that required a trip to the vet, but he's doing great this evening and should be home tomorrow. Also, our biggest rooster has started attacking people (this morning he went after hubby, repeatedly), so he is destined for the stew pot in the very near future. I'm sure he'll be delicious.
There are about a million other things to post about (we have jumps! we're going XC schooling! the saddle fitter is coming out!), but I'm running out of steam as my body is still fairly certain that it's in another time zone, so I'll just leave you with some of the promised pics from France...
This has to be the most opulent saddle setup I've ever seen. I believe it belonged to Napoleon. Why can't we use saddle pads like this in the dressage arena instead of those booooring white ones? Whyyyy?
Jousting leg armor from the 16th century. These pieces were special because you can see they don't wrap all the way around the leg, but instead leave the inside leg free to make contact with the horse. The roll you see halfway up the thigh is the top of the boot, which was white leather.
Fantastic suit of horse and rider armor from the early 1500s, German. According to the sign that went with this display, the riders armor weighted only 33 kilos. Pretty impressive considering! The armor is acid etched and done with gold leaf. Gorgeous!
French calvary saddle from ~1750-1775. It's so interesting to see the evolution of saddles, from jousting to the more familiar modern-looking English style.
A parade saddle from the same time period.
A calvary officer's saddle from the same time period, with pistol holders on the front of the saddle.
FAIL. This armor belonged to the unfortunate 23-year old Carabinier Antoine Francois Faveau, who was shot with a six-pound cannonball that smashed through his armor at the battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815). Poor fellow likely had no idea what hit him.
Slightly more recognizable curb bits from the 1700s. The shanks on the one of the left are still quite terrifyingly long, though.
LOVE this bridle. If you look closely, you'll see that the noseband and cheek pieces are integrated - that is, there is not a separate strap holding up the noseband. And look at that browband! To think that we are considered "blingy" these days if we have a few understated beads or crystals sewn on! You could positively blind a judge with this thing, coming down centerline!
I'll take two, with matching saddle pads in the Napoleonic style, natch!
Hi Jenj, thank you for your comment on my blog, which let me find your blog! Love it! Anyway, I did volunteer work a few fires back, taking care of horses evacuated to the fairgrounds, and a few came in with phone #s spray painted on them. I thought that was an excellent idea! I had never heard of that before, but obviously you had. We hope that we're never seperated from the horses, but we're spray-paint ready.
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