Looking forward

I'll be away for the weekend at a folk festival. It's a small, friendly and rather ecclectic gathering in a farmer's field by a river. We'll camp and live in the open, so a (mostly) favourable weather forecast is appreciated.

I'll be glad to be away. Work is busy and too much seriousness surrounds the barn. For two days in a row suspicious people have been loitering around. These have ranged from neer-do-well men driving old cars around the land to a very low-bred woman trying to take her brat into the barn "to see the ponies". All are spying out the opportunities for theft. So I have brought my trailer home and all those with any sense have removed their gear from the tack room. Now the lack of CCTV and lights on motion sensors is coming home to bite. Now the costly arena (the more so because it was dug up twice owing to wrong materials being used) does not seem like the best use of money. However, in the midst of a recession where many are losing their jobs, prices are rising and wages falling, crime seems more appealing. The police force is demoralised due to pay reductions and job cuts. However many of the thefts take place to buy drugs. Gear isn't stolen to feed families, but to feed habits, and I suppose that the profits roll all the way back to Taliban warlords who kill our soldiers. (So why don't we use the military to break the cycle closer to home?)

Meanwhile the scum wouldn't steal saddles unless other riders were willing to turn a blind eye and buy these "bargains". As usual riders can be their own worst enemies.

The drive at home is a bit narrow for a trailer, and the neighbours moan about it - for no good reason other than that they can. But it will be safe here, not least because there are old people living around here who operate a surveillance regime that the KGB would have envied. Whether they do this out of an interfering streak or social-mindedness, it keeps the street safe.

A break from all this will be welcome. I may not get to ride for a few days. But I shall see friends in a quiet rural place, enjoy music, and relax.

A bit of real summer would be nice. The sort where one does not dodge roving rain showers. A good hot afternoon that produces the occasional thunderstorm I do not mind. One sees the storm and has time to take shelter. Besides, such a storm is impressive: the inky purple clouds, gusts of wind, lightning, and finally a crashing of raindrops so big that they raise the dust until the ground is soaked. Perhaps August will yield these things?

In the meantime there is a whole weekend to enjoy.

Comments

[Horseideology]

Wow! That's scary!

Tack is so hard to trace, making it an easy sale. There are so many stock auctions around here that stealing tack or a horse and flipping it quickly before the authorities can even trace it is not uncommon.

However, since the recession, and the removal of horse slaughter houses for food to be shipped to Canada, Japan and France have shut down in my state and Texas, horses are not as lucrative anymore to steal. The object at risk is definitely trailers.

With the prevalence of videos and cell phone cameras I'm surprised that someone isn't taking photos of these people and their vehicles. But then again I live in a state where you can Conceal and Carry your gun anywhere but a gov't building.

[funder]

Hope you had a fun weekend! Thieves are despicable. I've never really had to worry about "outside" thieves, just occasional "borrowers" of loose tack at boarding stables.

[White Horse Pilgrim]

Fortunately horse theft is quite rare. There isn't a slaughter trade here to drive thefts. These thieves want something that they can pass on quickly to buy their next fix from the dealer. It's tools, saddles, quad bikes and so on that go most often. We've a good idea which trailer park they come from. But, as usual, the police are afraid to enter those parks.

Horse trailers are stolen by gangs, and they seem to know just what they want. New trailers being expensive, there must be horse owners perfectly willing to buy stolen property at a cheap price. The horse world here has a really low class underbelly. We're lucky that in this yard people are honest. Most yards contain people who, at a minimum, steal feed. Usually such individuals are friends with the manager, who isn't too honest or intelligent herself, so they stay long term whilst honest people become fed up and leave.

I'd have hoped that someone would have photographed these people, however most of the riders during the day are teenage girls who don't want to become involved. They have been told to call the police next time they see anything suspicious, but no-one has done so.