Gower is point B on this map.... It was 66 miles up there, but that didn't seem like a nice enough ride, so we took a longer way home... Out thru Atcheson and then down to Lawrence... About 195 miles in all....
This town is quite small, and main street is several blocks from the highway, so it would normally be very quiet... That is until 60 or more motorcycles show up..... Don't look at me, my honda barely makes any noise...
I'm the guy in the lower left with the dark green shirt on... With my back to the camera.... My best side, LOL
As we usually do, we went on to the McDonalds restaurant in Atcheson for a cup of coffee.. I usually get diet soda, as the coffee is quite hard on the GERD syndrome... And yes I know that its bad for me.... We were there for a long time, as their AC was much better than the little restaurant in Gower..
Map letter D is De Soto, Ks where Grandpa's Old Ford Garage is located from the post we did from last fall......
Changing the subject, Brenda from up North in Canada, commented that I shouldn't be scared of a little horse poop.... And I'm not, but!!!
Perhaps a few facts should be provided to put things in perspective.... They said there were 550 draft horses on the island of Mackinac... And something like 350 people live out there... So there are more horses than people....
All of these horses live in an area of about the South two or three square miles of the island... And these horses aren't like the smaller horses we keep as personal riding animals.... They are Draft horses, like Percherons and Belgians... Each weighing around 2,000 pounds...
Our driver said that his horses eat a bale of hay and a five gallon pail of oats every day.... And what goes in must come back out...........! Times 550, in two square miles..... See, that is more than a "Little" horse poop... There were men and wagons running around whose full time job it was to shovel up the evidence....
Our three horse team that pulled us up the hill into the wooded area of the island were large Belgians, who the driver claimed were in excess of 20 hands high... That's almost 7 feet at the lowest part of the mane.. called the withers... Each weighing in at 2,300 pounds..
I walked up to the front of this team, and the tallest horse's nose was above my forehead...
The driver joked with us that this big fellow had a problem lately, in that he had bad diarrhea.... That made the people in the front two rows of the wagon seats jump for the exits........
Retired Rod
Back to riding - and hopefully beautiful weather to go along with that ride. I just can't imagine how you would put poop scooper on a resume to make it work.
ReplyDeleteIt is a job without end too, those who know say each horse produces on average between 7 & 9 tons of manure a year. So given that your Mackinaw horses are probably bigger than average that makes for around 5000 tons per annum. Enough to keep a lot of rose gardens blooming.
ReplyDeleteI can almost smell the steaming pile of manure from Dogpound all the way from here on Vancouver Island. JB sure knows his manure!
ReplyDeleteYes he does Rick. Also I have not seen one dog that visits the farm from the city that does not go in search for our horse poop and eat it right up. It seems to be a pure delicacy for them. Just saying lol
ReplyDeleteI just noticed your map of states visited. You can now cross off two more....too bad you didn't go further west, and you could have caught two more. Maybe next year.
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ReplyDeleteOh Rod, you are a riot !!!!! We are all now caught up on horse poop info ..... I must say, I have been there and you are soooooooo right ..... I am with you how about some small motor scooters, etc.,etc., ???? Great trip though and unique ......