Your Career Plans as a Kid?

[ducks4you]

SO many riders on green horses, horses never get broken and usually end up as meat...after 5 days driving to Mexico.
There are stables that will let you LEARN to "break" them, which is really to gentle and desensitize them.
I visited a now gone Welsh Mountain Pony farm. I asked them why there were about a dozen yearlings in a paddock with halters and dragging leads. They told me that the ponies teach themselves not to pull back better than a trainer can and assured me that, when finished these ponies tied quiet.
I had 5-7 (at any particular time) stone cold broken horses. I had a year round outside lesson program AND we went to about 8 Civil War Reenactments. The gunfire and cannon fire trained them to not fear loud noises and reverberations. The lessons taught them, more or less, basic Dressage, AND they were handled by EVERYBODY.
Couldn't repilicate this today.
If you ever go horse shopping again, choose somebody's show horse that is well behaved but doesn't place well enough in the show ring.
THAT is the closest you will get to what I had.

 

[SPedigrees]

SO many riders on green horses, horses never get broken and usually end up as meat...after 5 days driving to Mexico.
There are stables that will let you LEARN to "break" them, which is really to gentle and desensitize them.
I visited a now gone Welsh Mountain Pony farm. I asked them why there were about a dozen yearlings in a paddock with halters and dragging leads. They told me that the ponies teach themselves not to pull back better than a trainer can and assured me that, when finished these ponies tied quiet.
I had 5-7 (at any particular time) stone cold broken horses. I had a year round outside lesson program AND we went to about 8 Civil War Reenactments. The gunfire and cannon fire trained them to not fear loud noises and reverberations. The lessons taught them, more or less, basic Dressage, AND they were handled by EVERYBODY.
Couldn't repilicate this today.
If you ever go horse shopping again, choose somebody's show horse that is well behaved but doesn't place well enough in the show ring.
THAT is the closest you will get to what I had.

This was how I ended up with an extra Shetland pony that I needed like a hole in my head. Born just down the road from my house and not even halter broke at age 3, I knew that little Ruby's fate would be the slaughter buyers, so I paid $50 for her with the intention of training her to be a good kids pony and finding her a home. I trained her to carry a rider and pull a cart, but it became obvious that she was too high strung for a child to handle, and too tiny to carry a larger rider. So she stayed with us for her 36 year lifetime, but hubby and I were glad in the later years, because, being the youngest of our equines and the longest lived, she extended our tenure as horse owners by nearly a decade.

Our two dogs guarding Ruby while she ate, RIP all.

That Welsh pony farm sounds like it was run by people who really *knew* horses.

It has always amazed me how so many horses are unfazed by gunfire or thunderstorms, while many dogs are terrified of the same. You would think it would be the opposite seeing as prey animals tend to spook easily. I was always in awe of police horses who would work in the downtown area of Boston unfazed by the traffic noises all around them.

 

[SPedigrees]

I always wanted to be a school teacher, but ended up being a designer. I love designing and building web pages and also doing design work for various marketing materials and books.

I built web sites back in the late 90s using just basic html (wouldn't know how to do this with today's tools) and I really enjoyed it. I'm still happy doing design work and photo editing, really basic stuff like creating labels for jars of food, bumperstickers for my car, simple animations, and desktop wallpapers. Used PSP6 (paint shop pro) back in the day and now fool around with Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). I can get lost in any design project while the hours tick by and have to tear myself away, but my creations don't approach anything on the scope of professional design.

 

[Dahlia]

I built web sites back in the late 90s using just basic html (wouldn't know how to do this with today's tools) and I really enjoyed it. I'm still happy doing design work and photo editing, really basic stuff like creating labels for jars of food, bumperstickers for my car, simple animations, and desktop wallpapers. Used PSP6 (paint shop pro) back in the day and now fool around with Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). I can get lost in any design project while the hours tick by and have to tear myself away, but my creations don't approach anything on the scope of professional design.

I like Gimp and Inkscape for design work. They are free open source programs and very similar to Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator (expensive to keep the subscription going). I have used both and they are comparable.

 

[Dahlia]

I built web sites back in the late 90s using just basic html (wouldn't know how to do this with today's tools) and I really enjoyed it. I'm still happy doing design work and photo editing, really basic stuff like creating labels for jars of food, bumperstickers for my car, simple animations, and desktop wallpapers. Used PSP6 (paint shop pro) back in the day and now fool around with Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). I can get lost in any design project while the hours tick by and have to tear myself away, but my creations don't approach anything on the scope of professional design.

Yes, I used to design and develop websites using plain html and CSS too, but now everyone seems to want to use page builders. So now I build with Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy, Astra, Elementor, and Divi mostly.

 

[SPedigrees]

I like Gimp and Inkscape for design work. They are free open source programs and very similar to Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator (expensive to keep the subscription going). I have used both and they are comparable.

I should look into Inkscape when (if) I ever have time. A lot of designers seem to recommend it for operations beyond the scope of, or in addition to, GIMP.
(Open source is a big draw for autonomy-loving me!)

 

[Dahlia]

I should look into Inkscape when (if) I ever have time. A lot of designers seem to recommend it for operations beyond the scope of, or in addition to, GIMP.
(Open source is a big draw for autonomy-loving me!)

Inkscape is great for drawing digital art!

 

[AMKuska]

SO many riders on green horses, horses never get broken and usually end up as meat...after 5 days driving to Mexico.
There are stables that will let you LEARN to "break" them, which is really to gentle and desensitize them.
I visited a now gone Welsh Mountain Pony farm. I asked them why there were about a dozen yearlings in a paddock with halters and dragging leads. They told me that the ponies teach themselves not to pull back better than a trainer can and assured me that, when finished these ponies tied quiet.
I had 5-7 (at any particular time) stone cold broken horses. I had a year round outside lesson program AND we went to about 8 Civil War Reenactments. The gunfire and cannon fire trained them to not fear loud noises and reverberations. The lessons taught them, more or less, basic Dressage, AND they were handled by EVERYBODY.
Couldn't repilicate this today.
If you ever go horse shopping again, choose somebody's show horse that is well behaved but doesn't place well enough in the show ring.
THAT is the closest you will get to what I had.

I do recall my first lesson was on the horse used for show/paying lesson takers. I imagine if I'd gotten to ride that horse every time it would have changed my path. The horse was smart enough to know what was a 'cue' from a rather wobbly rider and what was just a wobble, smooth as glass on all its gaits, and if it felt you were going to fall off it would heave you back up with its shoulder so you stayed on.

Sadly only got to ride it one time.

I built web sites back in the late 90s using just basic html (wouldn't know how to do this with today's tools) and I really enjoyed it. I'm still happy doing design work and photo editing, really basic stuff like creating labels for jars of food, bumperstickers for my car, simple animations, and desktop wallpapers. Used PSP6 (paint shop pro) back in the day and now fool around with Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). I can get lost in any design project while the hours tick by and have to tear myself away, but my creations don't approach anything on the scope of professional design.

I use GIMP! It's my favorite for working on pictures for my blog.

 

[flowerbug]

i like keeping it simple for website stuff since i don't do any payment or database stuff behind the scenes. so a static website generator is very easy to do and deploy without having to spend a lot to host it.

Linux made me a very happy camper when i stopped working at the university but still wanted an actual command line oriented system (not that it has to be as i also have a desktop where i can put as many terminals and groups as i want).

 

[SPedigrees]

I do recall my first lesson was on the horse used for show/paying lesson takers. I imagine if I'd gotten to ride that horse every time it would have changed my path. The horse was smart enough to know what was a 'cue' from a rather wobbly rider and what was just a wobble, smooth as glass on all its gaits, and if it felt you were going to fall off it would heave you back up with its shoulder so you stayed on.

Sadly only got to ride it one time.

I use GIMP! It's my favorite for working on pictures for my blog.

I had forgotten about your Chihuahua blog, AMKuska, and it was nice to rediscover it.
https://www.allthingschihuahua.com/
Lovely pictures and great information. I've been owned by Chihuahuas (older rescued dogs) for the past dozen years, and they are the most delightful and unique little creatures! Lost the last little one recently, down to my elderly Sheltie now, and the house feels empty.