Recirculating Cheese

+1. Bought a western bridle for Cheyenne today. I don't own this horse, and in 15 or so years of riding, this is the first bit of tack I've ever bought. But I ride him, and he came with a western saddle, but not a bridle. For the longest time, I rode him english with a saddle and bridle that were nominally for another horse. Lately I've been riding him western with his own saddle and the barn owner's bridle. Except she's cleaning tack this week, so the bridle is up at the house. So I used an Australian saddle belonging to another of the leasers, with the English bridle.

You're confused by this point, and so am I. Suffice it to say that it's easier if the horse has his own set of tack.

I hadn't been to State Line Tack since they moved from Plaistow to Salem. I was severely dismayed to find that they're now just the Horse department of PetSmart, with less than a quarter of the stock they had in the free-standing store. It occurred to me that I should have just gone to the local tack store, but there I was.

Cheyenne came with a cheap synthetic saddle, so I got an embarrassingly cheap synthetic bridle to go with it. I mean, $8 headstall, $5 reins, $5 noseband/tie-down combo, and $15 bit. OTOH, I can't wait until Sunday to try it out.

-2. Went to the Conservation Commission meeting this evening. The business I was there for was scheduled for 8:00, but didn't come up until 10:00. They spent the longest time on plans for recreation and reclamation at Martin's Pond, including duelling biologists on whether fan-wort was an alien or native species, and what it meant to call it invasive.

The business I was there for concerned the 6 acres directly behind our house, which the town took out of conservation protection and sold for development, in order to buy parcels on the other side of town, to save them from development. The town has issued the Orders of Taking to acquire the land, only to find out that the developer doesn't have the $1.7M in the bank to hold up his side of the deal. He needs the town to green-light the building plans so that he can go to the bank for a loan.

Long story short - the developer has the town by the short hairs. Did I mention that it was the developer's idea in the first place to sell him the (formerly) conservation land so that they could buy the land on the other side of town for conservation purposes?