Bumper sticker poll results -- Thanks to all!

The Winner
Thanks to buildasign.com for letting me design these signs myself. They're magnets so they can be removed/reapplied easily...

From other horses

The runner up
Actually this was the third place runner but it is a sentimental favorite (any excuse to have a picture of Riley on the bumper)

From other horses

Presently both are on my bumper.

Quaterback babies, now in fashion colors!

I didn't know they came in black (disclaimer: not a true black, but chocolate brown is gorgeous too)


Or creme!

Bay, and wow, fancy fancy!


Here's a yearling that skipped the fugly stage


And of course chestnut...


And now for my book tag response...

I was book tagged by Cdncowgirl from http://myhorsesmylife.blogspot.com/, and my instructions are to grab the nearest book, go to page 56, sentence 5, and take the next two to five sentences. I'm at work, and it's lunchtime. My nearest book is Flash 8 in 24 hours. Hang on to your hats!

"These fills and lines are all drawn on the same plane meaning that if you draw two shapes on top of each other, the one drawn second will wipe away the shape underneath. This behavior can actually be used to your advantage although it can be disorienting at first."

Sorry it could not be more exciting than that....

An antisocial social network: A mini-rant

This weekend, while surfing the net, I signed up to join an equestrian social networking web site. the site begins with a "b" but I'll call it StableMate (wink wink, nudge nudge). A social network for horse folks, sounds pretty cool, right? Well, my experience was decidedly uncool. The drama unfolds...

Saturday afternoon

1. I join Stablemate, log in, and start exploring. My goal is to find a way to connect with other horse people in my geographic area á la Facebook and LinkedIn.
2. Hey, here's a link that says Connect. I click, and rather unexpectedly I see instructions for setting up a blog. Like I need another one of those. No thanks.
3. I explore the StableMate member's blogs. There aren't many there. In short order, I run across a blog that redirects to a Blogspot blog. Okay, that I can do, and blogs seem to be the only communications vehicle.
4. I go back to the Stablemate blog page, and after two unsuccessful attempts, I create a blog with an introduction and a URL to my BTB blog.
   
5. Fine. But blogging isn't why I came to this site. Where's the social networking part? I see links to Classifieds and a few other options, but no community.
   
6. Having had my way with this shiny Net object, I log off and move on to other destinations.

Monday late afternoon
I check my gmail account. There's a message from StableMate with the header Your blog has been deleted. I get three of these messages, all identical.

THEY WRITE:
Your blog My blog has been deleted.
It may have been deleted by moderator or by yourself.


I RESPOND:
Hi, I received this message but there is no explanation. I'm guessing you have a policy against redirects? I was hoping your site would let me pull in content via RSS. My blog does not advertise or sell anything. Also I did see another member posting a redirect to her non-Stablemate site. I'm surprised you deleted it without any warning or explanation...

THEY WRITE:
You did nothing but advertise your blog on BarnMate's blog. This is basically nothing more than publishing spam. You also did this three times so there was multiple blogs all doing the same thing.


Ok, so now I have NO INTEREST in participating on this site. My delicate sensibilities are offended. In fact, I'm scandalized that they would call my innocent attempts to explore their site "spam." Me! A librarian! A model computer citizen!

I RESPOND:
To paraphrase, I inform them...

• I'm not a spammer, but I did have trouble using the site and may have accidentally duplicated my blog.
• I wanted to use the site to connect with other local equestrians, not to blog.
• I only tried to add my blog because blogging is the only social forum available on this site.
• Another Stablemate member has a redirect to a Blogspot blog site. That's why I assumed it was okay.

THEY WRITE (rather huffily I might add):
The member with the blog redirect in question is a member in good standing and long time contributor. So it seems her blog redirect is hunky-dory. Mine is Evil, capital E.

MY REACTION:
The member with the blog redirect has a fairly well known blog, and I've almost certainly seen her comments on my blog. I decide to log in to StableMate to refresh my memory on which blog it is. After entering my username and password, a message displays: You are banned from this site.

Good lord. I'm done!

MY LAST RESPONSE:
You should expect confusion if StableMate allows some users to violate policy and not others. For a social network, your practices are decidedly unfriendly. Good luck with your site, it ain't for me!

In the final analysis
Even if I had not had this experience, Stablemate is a disappointment. While StableMate bills itself as a social networking site, it just doesn't have the functionality of other Web 2.0-type sites. These sites rely on participation of the target audience to be successful, and there just weren't many people there. For all of the above reasons, I give it a thumbs down...

Eternal youth or arrested development?

I admit I'm a little obsessed with tracking activity on my blog. It's cool to see links to my blog from a horse chat site in the Netherlands, or, say, a bulletin board about mules and donkeys. But while I'm grateful for any interest, it was a surprise this morning to find a slew of hits from Horseland.com. Why? Take a gander at the Web site:

I have a following among the "My Pretty Pony" set? How? Who? Unfortunately I can't see the links to know what article is of interest. Oh, wait. I bet I can guess...

What's your favorite horse color?
Earlier this year I did a blog entry on the brindle warmblood, Natal. My research for the article included several lengthy phone conversations with Natal's owner in Kentucky, who is also a horsewoman and breeder of some repute. At the time, Natal was competing in Florida with a young rider, Renick Townsend. I wasn't about to contact a kid over the Internet, but I did correspond with the girl's mom (Jill) in Florida. Jill was very open and pleasant in our long email exchange, and in her concluding email, she remarked...

"I'm so glad to have met you. You're a very interesting young person!"
[emphasis mine]

Embarrassment
No, I'm not a precocious youngster. Should I tell her I'm probably a dozen years older than her? No sirreee. I'd rather leave Jill with a favorable impression of me as an overachieving teen than weirded out to hear I'm a 46 year old stuck in the horsey-ga-ga stage.

Here's an analogy. Woody Allen wrote a story called Remembering Needleman about an absent-minded professor who delivers a lecture to his scholarly peers. After the lecture he discovers that he neglected to remove the coathanger from his suit coat before putting it on. "Good," he says. "Let those who have taken issue with my theories think at least that I have broad shoulders."

Needleman didn't reveal he was wearing a coathanger, so I'm not volunteering my advanced age. Okay, maybe it's not the best analogy. But I love that line in Needleman and it's a good excuse to share a laugh.

God help me if someone leaves a comment that I "write well for a teen"...

How much grass equals a flake of hay?

This question has nagged me as I ponder how difficult it is to find a facility that offers turnout on good pasture. Can I possibly make up the difference with handgrazing? I did a simple home study with Harvey, in lush grass. He took 27-30 bites in a minute as I stood with a stop watch and tried to ignore other boarders looking quizzically in our direction. Let's call it 30 bites a minute. Doesn't that sound like a lot? Although it seems like in 10 minutes, or 300 bites, he'd consume a flake, you have to consider moisture content. In the livestock feed/grazing research they refer to "dry matter," and I think they're adjusting for moisture differences in their comparisons. You know how fresh apricot looks like a lot more food than a dried apricot, but they're really pretty similar? Same thing.

I posted my question to the Chronicle of the Horse list, and one reader, JB, responded with some pretty good info. I tried to locate the research she cited, and I think I found it reported in The Horse magazine.

Grass consumption (dry matter basis)
Grass consumption rate depends on how much the horse likes the grass, how much there is, and how long they are pastured (horses on pasture fewer hours will eat faster, god love'em). But The Horse magazine reports that horses will eat about 1-1.4 pounds per hour (DM basis). A horse on grass for 24 hours, grazing 17 hours/day (which is the amount of time they typically spend eating), can consume up to 25 lbs of forage. A minimum of eight to 10 hours at pasture would be needed to achieve a DM intake of at least 1% of body weight. The magazine concludes that "anything less than this duration of grazing and the horse will need supplemental forage (such as hay) to satisfy his forage needs."

The answer to my question
The depressing answer to my question is that if I want to make up for lack of pasture time with hand-grazing, I should definitely bring a book, if not a laptop and DVD. Two hours of handgrazing would perhaps be equal to a small grass hay flake, while three hours might make a big grass flake or smallish alfalfa flake.

RESOURCES
Pasture grass, the healthy choice from The Horse magazine

Cribbing study: It just "don't seem right"

Thanks to chickenrider whose recent comment on sweet feed inspired this article...

Below are some passages excerpted from an article that appeared in The Horse magazine in June. I have an opinion on this study if you care to scroll down :-)

clipped from www.thehorse.com

Brain Dysfunction in Cribbing Horses Gives Researchers Something to Chew On

"The results of our study found that noncribbing horses made more responses than crib-biters to the red side, and that the number of correct responses increased over three sessions, showing the normal horses learnt the discrimination easily," explained Parker. "In the crib-biting horses, no improvement was observed.

In each session, four normal horses and four cribbing horses were exposed to a
red or green light, each associated with a specific plate the horse was to touch
with its muzzle. During this phase, they could obtain a treat by pressing the
muzzle plate for 10 seconds (red) or 20 seconds (green). The optimal strategy
was to press the red side more often during the course of the procedure.

My response
Research, schmeesearch. Dopamine, schmopamine. Let'em do their silly studies and conclude cribbers have messed up brain chemistry. I have incontrovertible evidence that leads me to the opposite conclusion.

The evidence
Now I ask you, is this the face of a brain-injured horse (click for larger picture)?

Why ask why?
Riley does not fit the profile of a cribber -- as a baby he had 24/7 turnout, with buddies, and ample access to hay. I've stopped wondering why he has this tendency. Many experienced horsepeople have told me that some of the best horses they've owned have been cribbers. Riley is terribly clever (and I'm not just saying that because I'm his mom). MENSA all the way, baby.

Can you tell I'm emotionally invested in whether cribbers have a brain dysfunction? My response to these researchers: "Feh!" You're gonna have to do better than that to convince me. Meanwhile I'm trying to shield Riley from this nonsense. He's sensitive that way.

Your horse does NOT want you to read this...

Uh Oh. As much as I love Harvey's chunksterhood, it seems it is not healthy to keep them too well-cushioned...

clipped from www.sciencedaily.com

Fat Horses Face Health Problems

ScienceDaily (July 10, 2007) — America's growing obesity problem has alarmed physicians and public health officials, and veterinarians have recently focused their attention on fat dogs and cats. Now, a team of researchers in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine (VMRCVM) and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) at Virginia Tech has determined that horses are also facing serious health risks because of obesity.

Fifty-one percent of the horses evaluated during the pioneering research were determined to be overweight or obese -- and may be subject to serious health problems like laminitis and hyperinsulinemia. And just like people, it appears as though the culprits are over-eating and lack of exercise.

If that isn't bad enough, a study reported in Science Daily claims that sweet treats can INTERFERE with a horse's training! If this is true, Harvey would be the wildest, scariest, spookiest horse ever. And he's not.

clipped from www.sciencedaily.com Sweets Make Young Horses Harder To Train, Study Finds ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2008) — Young horses may be easier to train if they temporarily lay off the sweets, says a Montana State University study where two-year-olds wore pedometers, wrist watches and Ace bandages. A commercial mixture of corn, oats, barley and molasses -- sometimes called "sweet grain" or "sweet feed" -- gives horses the glossy coat and lively spirit that makes them attractive to prospective buyers, said Jan Bowman, an animal nutritionist at MSU. But the extra energy provided by sweet grain during the early stages of training made the horses in MSU's study more disobedient and fearful than horses that only ate hay, Bowman said. The grain-eaters spent more time resisting the saddle. They startled easier. They bucked and ran more during training.

"Never blog about cats"

When I read about the do's and don'ts of blogging, I recall reading this rule: Never blog about cats.

This is not my cat or my horse, and I certainly would never have selected the music (seriously, turn off the volume for this video). But it's too adorable not to share...

What amuses me most is how the cat is obviously mugging/playing it up for the camera.

Exquisite equestrian jewelry at Etsy.com

Through my experience at Entrecard and the bloggers there -- namely fiveoclocksomewhere--I learned about Etsy.com, a wonderful Web site featuring handmade crafts and artwork. The site is set up somewhat like Ebay -- it's highly organized and easily searchable -- but the uniqueness and quality of the items will knock your socks off, and you don't have to bid. Of course I searched using the keywords "horse" and "earrings." Take a gander at these beauties:

From artist Fearlessfreak, my personal favorite earrings $40

clipped from www.etsy.com

Prancing Ponies

Description

Two dancing horses jump over pretty purple posies. Hot pink, purple, and blue-these earrings are the kind that people will notice, and love, and then be envious of. Free Gift Wrap, international shipping and lots of love from fearlessfreak.

From fiveoclocksomewhere (also a blogger!), a rejuvenated vintage horse head bracelet, $85

clipped from www.etsy.com

Peaceful Ride Equestrian Bracelet

Description

Faceted Smokey Quartz rondelles and sterling silver Balinese beads finished off
with a large heavy Vintage Reverse Horse Head Intaglio Box Clasp Set in Sterling
Silver. Measures just shy of 8". Will fit 6-1/2 to 7-1/2 inch wrist nicely. Can
be resized.

About the Clasp:
The vintage clasp is hand painted from
behind. Set in a sterling silver. Essex crystals, sometimes referred to as
reverse crystals or Intaglio, came into being in the mid to later 19th century.
Rock crystal is cut en cabochon (a back flat, the front rounded and smooth).
Skilled artists then carved out the rock crystal from the back in a desired form
– often animal motifs. Once carved out, the depressions were then carefully
painted in detail. Mother of pearl was often used as a base and backing and once
turned to the front, an extraordinary image is evident in-the-round.

Artist Fantasybeader's unicorn earrings (love the blue eyes), $20
If this image doesn't display you can view it here.

clipped from www.etsy.com

Stunning Unicorn Seed Bead Earrings

Beautiful Unicorn Earrings, hand made from Czech glass beads size 11's . Can be worn with formal or casual clothes. These earrings are very stunning and will get attention. The Unicorn's are aprox, 3inches, including hook. I take pride in my work and spend a great amount of time to make them as perfect as I can. The Ear hooks are Surgical steel. I have sold at craft shows and art shows. I will ship within a few days of payment. Usually the next mailing day) Thank you kindly for taking the time to look at my hand beaded earrings. Any questions just ask, I will answer the best I can. The earrings look much better in person :-) I hope you find something in my shop that you really want :-) Come back often :-)

From Miss Chick Boutique, earrings for the western-minded, $31

clipped from www.etsy.com

Horse Feather Earrings - brick stitch, beadwoven

Description

For the horse lover – a lovely pony created in seed beads in a feather style. These earrings are hand stitched by me one bead at a time in place. They are done in a brick or Cheyenne stitch style. They are made with uniform seed beads and blue fire polished beads. Colors: black, brown, white, yellow, red, blue, brown and cream. They measure ½ inch (1.2 cm wide) and 2 ½ inches long (6.3 cm long) (not including the surgical steel ear hook). These earrings were made by me, design by Mary Hipple, aka KODIAK Wolf Den Dezigns (here on etsy as: wolfdendezigns38). Please be sure to check out my Boutique for different colors, styles or lengths. Thanks for looking! :-) CLIP ON OPTION: Also for the ladies that would like to exchange out to clip on earrings please check out this post on my blog for current options. ---> http://misschicboutique.blogspot.com/2008/05/golden.html I will be adding to these as I acquire more options.

Where will we ride? Land for our horses

When I moved to Pennsylvania in 1998, I boarded at a facility with six miles of trails. Those trails went onto adjacent properties and our enjoyment was made possible by the farm's neighbors, who permitted us to ride on the perimeter of their land. No one took their generosity for granted.

Now, years later, much of that farmland has been developed, and even the boarding barn has sold off land to developers. What can be done to preserve our open spaces and rural areas? Well, I know that organizations like the Nature Conservancy and other land trusts sometimes buy land at its fair market value, and that local and state governments have land preservation programs for properties that meet certain criteria. But only recently have I tried to deepen my understanding. Here is a bit of basic information on one tool for protecting undeveloped open spaces: conservation easements. If there is interest, I'll write more on this topic.

What does it mean to own land?
Land ownership can be described as a "bundle of rights." It's possible to "unbundle" the rights of land ownership and sell or donate certain rights to other entities like government agencies. A land owner can sell mineral rights to a property, for example, while retaining all other ownership rights.

What's a conservation easement?
An easement is a transfer of certain usage rights while ownership is retained. The most usual easements are those granted to public utility or telephone companies to run lines on or under your private property. A conservation easement is designed to exclude certain activities on private land, such as commercial development or residential subdivisions. Its primary purpose is to conserve natural or man-made resources on the land. Some features of easements:

• Easements are voluntarily sold or donated by the landowner to either a trust or government agency.
  
• They generally have no time limit (are held in perpetuity).
  
• The owner must still pay taxes, maintain the land, etc.
  
• Public access to the land may or may not be a part of an easement.
  
• There may be tax advantages to owning land with an easement. In fact, the U.S. Congress recently passed a law that considerably increased the tax incentives for people considering donating conservation easements.

Agricultural easements prohibit the sale or use of the land for industrial or residential development. Agricultural easements can benefit the equestrian community.

Easements for equestrian use
Landowners can specify that their property be available for equestrian use. Easements can be written to include language granting an equestrian organization such as a trails association or riding club and, in some instances, a government or conservation organization, the right to use land for equestrian activities. Conservation easements can permit general equestrian use or even require that the land be kept open for specified equestrian activity. The Equestrian Land Conservation Resource has prepared a publication called Easement Guide for Equestrian Use. It's a unique and relevant guide for anyone interested in preserving land for equestrian activities.

Here are some resources on preserving land for equestrian use.

Equestrian Land Conservation Resource
This group provides equestrian activitists with the knowledge and tools to advocate for preserving land for equestrian use.

Preserving farmlands and open space from FREE Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment

Bluegrass battle: horse farms vs. developers from USA Today Why horse farms need to be saved from the NYT

Here today, gone tomorrow: Is your competition venue protected? from Apples 'n Oats

Urban Sprawl legal issues of horse owners

Conservation easements from The Horse magazine

Finding a horse friendly land trust

Landowners Guide to Conservation Easements

Horse show names: A call for reason!

When I was a young kid I loved to make up show names for horses I hoped to own. Even as an adult, those threads on bulletin boards begging to "help me name my horse!" have an undeniable allure. Naming other people's horses is fun and easy. Naming your own horse is not. I was stumped when it came to naming Riley. His breeder had named him "De La Rouge" but Bob and I agreed it was too French. I liked Danke Schein a la Wayne Newton but it did not meet my strict guidelines for naming (see below). In the end we picked Delancey.

At the risk of sounding like the Miss Manners of horse show names, I have prepared some guidelines for selecting a horse show name. Note: all examples of names are actual horse show names drawn from show results around the country. Here goes...


SHOW NAME DO'S

• Pick a name that is timeless, or at least good for a few years. Names that are cool today are tragically unhip tomorrow. Somewhere out there is an old, retired horse or pony named MC Hammer or Vanilla Ice. If you want to name your horse iPod or Facebook, think again. Let your horse grow old in dignity.
  
• Choose something reasonably easy to pronounce and spell. This is why I discarded Danke Schein. Blunders I've seen or heard:
  
  • Remember the famous cutting horse Trashadeous? The Chronicle of the Horse once reported on this horse's accomplishments but mistakenly called him "Trashy Dancer."
    
  • The gorgeous Hanoverian stallion Sir Wanábi (accent on second syllable) had his name mispronounced "Sir Wánnabe" at Devon this year.
    
  • On COTH a woman lamented that her horse "Land Yacht" has been announced as "Land Yak."
  Now imagine an announcer grappling with these names (found in show results online): Giouvuanneise; Frans Fan 'E Hurddraversdyk; Kadorijke; and Fferm Gwenfwrd Master Blend.
• Keep it simple. Some of the best, classiest, most memorable names are one word:
  
  • Overdressed
    
  • Wishful
    
  • Mystify
    
  • Icon
    
  • Authentic
    
  • Flannel
    
  • Hoodwinked
• Pick a name that's unique to you or your horse. The name Delancey came from my first real date with Bob -- we went to NYC and spent time on Delancey Street. Some nice names that have significance to the horse or owner:
• I've Been Spotted (for an app)
  
• Ring Finger (sale finalized on owner's wedding day)
• Consider breed registry naming conventions or sire naming conventions The limitations may seem challenging, but with a little thought you can make a name really creative and memorable. The sons/daughters of the famous sire Alla'Czar have some pretty cool names...
  
  
  • Budweis'czar
  • Alla'bout Me
    
  • Braczen
  • Whimczical

SHOW NAME DON'TS

• Don't pick a name that is already common in show circuits. At least one horse at every show will be named:
  
  
  • Foxfire
    
  • Limited Edition
    
  • Custom Made
    
  • Afternoon Delight
• Avoid names that are long or complicated. They don't really work as horse names:
  
  • Sunshine on my shoulders (gag me)
    
  • Starbucks: A Bad Habit (come'on, a name that needs a colon????)
    
  • We Can Only Hope (at least it shows humility)
    
  • Night Of The Lunar Eclipse (maybe there's a neat story here)
    
  • Radiant Princess of Monaco
  • Solar, Flare Hot as Hell (again with the punctuation)
• Don't use the sponsor or farm name as a prefix to the horse's name.
  
  • Margie Goldstein-Engle's horses all start with the same long prefix, "Hidden Creek's Blah Blah." Yuck.
    
  • Fleeceworks sponsors several event horses, but having Fleeceworks at the beginning of the name makes it harder to recall the darned horse's name.
  What to do instead? Many breeding farms use acronyms for their farm name and put them at the end. Rather than "Bridle Path Farm One Time Too Many," for example, the horse is named "One Time Too Many BPF."
• Unless your horse is an absolute stunner, don't pick an over the top name. Not too many horses will live up to:
  
  • Invincible Adonis
    
  • Omnipotent
    
  • Maserati
• Don't choose naughty or borderline tasteless names to get attention, e.g.,
  
  
  • Unzipped and Exposed
  • Sofa King Fast (say it very fast)
    
  • Slick Manure

Help in picking names
I personally don't care for the online horse name Web sites. Instead I use
the Oxford English Dictionary (useful for finding names for horses with naming restrictions) and the thoroughbred horse name database. I read the New Yorker to shake my vocabulary loose a bit and introduce words beyond what I normally use in conversation.

My other car is a horse: the new car in my life!

Did I mention I got a new car? Yep. A 2008 Toyota Yaris hatchback. Until I saw the 2 door Yaris, I would never have guessed there were smaller cars on the road than my Focus. Going from a Focus to a Yaris, I went from a car that could fit two small bales of hay to one with a trunk the size of a laundry basket. I have a shoebox with my barn shoes, two containers of horse emergency items (bandages, iodine soap,etc), and there is barely room for groceries. Sigh.

But my 2000 Focus was not starting reliably, and the mechanics didn't know why. Last Saturday, it failed to turn over while Bob was out of town. I waited awhile, tried again, and when it started I drove straight to the Toyota dealership.

Horse vs. car, horse wins
So why get the Yaris? It's all about money. As much as I wanted to save for a "real" car (one with four doors), the horses are always in the back of my mind. I didn't want to spend money I might need for the horses. "Show me what you have for under $15K," I told the dealer. My preference is to pay cash for cars, and I had 13K in savings. In the end, I bought the manager's special. It was the last 2008 Yaris on the lot, with black cloth seats, no GPS, no automatic anything(goodbye keyless entry), and no extras on the dash (e.g., no tachometer). But it was priced at under $13K. My fiscal constraints guided my decision. I'm not disappointed -- it is kind of a cute car, easy to maneuver, and I got 43MPG in the first 250 miles. More trips to the barn!

And now I need a bumper sticker :-)
Help me pick one! Here they are -- vote for one in the poll, top right of this blog. Thanks!

• Whinnying is everything
  
• My other car is a horse
  
• Chestnut is the new black (featuring a picture of Riley)
  
• Horses get great grass mileage
  
• I halt for dressage
  
  

Or, find me another one.

Equine Photographers Network

I ran across this Web site -- www.equinephotographers.org -- and couldn't resist peeking at the portfolio (hundreds of professional photos, searchable by keyword). The photos are gorgeous and this site seems like a great resource for publishers of equine magazines and books. Here are a few highlights of my favorite photos and the people that made them happen...

Carien Schippers

clipped from www.equinephotographers.org

clipped from www.equinephotographers.org

Tracey Bish Photography

clipped from www.equinephotographers.org

Violetta Jakowski

clipped from www.equinephotographers.org

Tom Sapp

clipped from www.equinephotographers.org

One caveat about the portfolio
I was viewing one of the categories and there was a photo entitled "The peace she found." A horse is lying near a giant mound of hay, and here's the thing. I think the horse is dead. Normally I wouldn't say I'm squeamish about death, and in the Victorian era it was common to take photos of loved ones after they passed. It was an artistic but stark photo. It disturbed me a little to see it.