Ha!
Once more I release the awesome power of the 'Collins Concise English Dictionary' upon the world, because that title is a lot better than 'Horsing Around', which was going to be the original. 'Perissodactyl' is defined as 'Any placental mammal of the order 'Perissodactyla', having hooves with an odd number of toes'. Which includes horses, themselves being defined as 'A domesticated perissodactyl mammal, Equus Caballus, used for draught work and riding.' Art!
The AI was drunk
For today we are going to skim over one particular chapter in "Supplying The British Army In The First World War" by Janet MacDonald, which has a single word title: 'Horses'. British army parlance at the time also included mules. A mule was hardier than a horse, 50% less likely to suffer from disease, coped better with bad weather, required 25% less forage and took heavy loads with greater equanimity.
As a baseline, the 1913 General Horse Census - a phrase you probably never encountered before - mustered 900,000 in the UK in that year, which gives an idea of how prevalent horses were.
Although mechanisation increased greatly over the span of the First Unpleasantness, horses were still used extensively. Thus, at the fag end of the war in August 1918, there were a total of 828,360 horses (and mules) on the strength of the army, of which 197,747 were classed as 'riding' horses, meaning the remaining 630,613 were draught animals. Art!
General service wagon with prime movers
For those of us not up to speed with Dobbin et al, Ol' Jan helpfully breaks them down into 3 types: Hunters, for the cavalry; cobs, for mounted infantry; draught, for pulling guns and wagons.
Horses died or became unfit due to overwork, disease, injury or enemy action, and had to be constantly replaced, which was the function of the Remount Service in Great Britain AS WE CALLED IT THEN and which expanded enormously during wartime. They went from 350 staff in 1914 to over 20,000 by the time the Armistice came into being. Art!
In terms of performance, a horse in good condition was expected to cover up to 25 miles per day, at speeds of 4 PROUD IMPERIAL MILES per hour, making that about 6 hours of work.
To get said performance out of Black Beauty, they needed draught-free ventilated accommodation, clean quarters and a stable routine; which is to say, a routine in the stable that was consistent. Art!
Here's another statistic; your average horse needs 10 gallons of water per day - I wish I'd had this figure to hand when trying to work out English Civil Unpleasantness stats - either from troughs, streams or piped water. They were NOT to be watered at public horse troughs, as the risk of infection was too high. That totals about 50 tons of water daily for the horses of an infantry division. Art!
Another weighty matter: fodder. Horses were given 3 'corn' feeds per day, and 2 hay feeds, where the corn was usually oats or barley, or split peas and beans milled small. Per horse per day in an infantry division the amounts were: 12 pounds of hay (or 6.5 tons for the whole division); 10 pounds of oats (5.5 tons); 8 pounds of straw (4 tons). Multiply those totals by 63 and that's how much fodder was needed. Art!
I can't find a better picture of the British base depot at Calais, so please use you imagination. At Calais, an average of three forage ships arrived each day meaning well over a thousand per year, just to handle the fodder for the British army's horses, and they were only one of at least five base depots. Over 90 men worked to offload cargoes, managing a daily throughput of 1,100 tons of oats and 500 tons of hay. The volume of loose oats was so large a special conveyor was built to move them from barges that had taken off ship's cargo onto the quayside. There they would be bagged, a process also followed at Bassin Ouest base depot. Art!
Here's another wrinkle in horse care I never knew existed: horses' coats change twice over the year, in spring and autumn. They need to be clipped to prevent excess sweating, which can lead to them catching a chill.
Then there's hooves (or dactyls). Horses in the wild don't need shoeing, but when used for draught or riding purposes, they need them for grip and traction on road surfaces. NO! they were not put on by a blacksmith; the army used farriers to shoe horses, a skilled trade as horses have different sized hooves and need different shoes for fore or hind legs. Art!
Shoes were changed monthly, meaning the farriers needed to fit 57,600 shoes for the horses of a single division over a year.
Finally, for this Intro at least, there were Horse Convalescent Centres, where exhausted or ill horses would be sent for a rest, fattening up and a bit of TLC, all of which worked wonders in getting them back into shape.
I have been merciful and not gone into detail about horse 'tack'; which is stuff like saddles and bridles and bits. Perhaps we will come back to this. I bet you can hardly wait.
An Oddity I Found Online
A title that would fit most of the scrivel on here. Gentle reader, say hello to 'The Old Man Of Crater Lake'. Art!
A tree tump, you might say. A tree stump in the water, how utterly ho-hum.
Well, no. You see, this tree stump isn't growing from the bottom of the lake. It's a 30 foot mountain hemlock that has been drifting around Crater Lake for 450 years, measured by carbon dating. It averages over 60 miles of meandering around the lake over a year. Art!
The theory is that the base is so waterlogged that it balances the whole trunk upright. Art!
The submerged bit
Crushing It
In case you are not aware, compactors and balers, the compressing devices that crush (usually cardboard) into handily manageable blocks, are DANGEROUS! They do not come with cut-outs or sensors and the only thing that can stop them in operation is the Emergency Stop, if they even have one. Art!
This is a serious bit of kit
This is almost a Darwin Award. Somnolent Sid thought he was exhibiting incredible guile, by sleeping inside the baling machine, and covering himself with cardboard to avoid detection. The machine was turned on, and Surprised Bystander suggested they empty some of the cardboard out to prevent jamming.
All and sundry are gobsmacked when Somnolent Sid leaps out of the machine and runs to clock off. If SB hadn't suggested what he did when he did .....
Somnolent Sid was never seen again so SB guessed that he either quit or was fired. Maybe he learned a lesson.
Points And Laughs
If you want solid proof that Donnie Dorko is a drivelling idiot, look no further than his boasting about cutting drug prices by 700%, and the hilarious logical contortions from his boot-licking minions about what he really meant. Art!
I quote:
US pharmaceutical companies are set to raise prices on at least 350 different products, including vaccines for Covid-19, RSV and shingles, despite pressure from the Trump administration.
No doubt the Senile Sepia Sackbutt will rant and tant on Truth Social, and then do something spiteful and petty to the pharmaceutical companies. Which is stupid, these businesses are immensely powerful and wealthy and they probably make the dementia treatment drugs he'll need by the end of this year. Certainly they produce the stimulants he needs to try and keep awake when he's not talking. I'll bet their lobbyists are lavishly funded, too.
Finally -
Another Biercism to end on, because I can.
"Money,n: A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. An evidence of culture and a passport to polite society. Supportable property.'
As another combined gentle shoeing, Parthian shot and reference to the Biercism, Pyotr Kurzin on 'The Global Gambit' noted that the Ruffians are now propping their economy up by printing money at the rate of ₽3 trillion per week. Can you say hyperinflation?
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