Tuesday, 3 December 2024

This week in the life

 Update to last post: the bear has not bothered us further, but he broke into a neighbour's livestock barn and did a bunch of damage so conservation service needed to be called. I'm not sure what the end result of that was (it's a bit of a divisive issue so public updates aren't always a thing) but I haven't seen him around for a bit. Maybe he moved on, maybe he is no longer. It feels mean to say but either way it would be a relief.

I'm struggling again with the weather and the dark here in the ever gloomy winter raincoast. The rain didn't use to bother me badly because I'm still happy to be out and about doing things and the temperatures are normally nice and moderate, even if a bit damp. The past couple of years though, the never ending rain has felt a bit more personal. Trying to maintain a tiny horse property of our own has me worrying about fun things like paddock footing and arena drainage, along side the 'normal' wet climate horse things like preventing mud fever and rain scald and keeping my tack from molding. 


Another dark and stormy night

It's more the dark days that really get to me, especially combined with a 9-5ish job that has me indoors while it's light out. I've shifted my hours to start earlier in the morning which means I can normally be done by 3:30. Having that little half hour to an hour of daylight this time of year really helps.  I'm forever grateful that my 9-5 office job evolved to work from home/remote with much more flexible hours.

pony grooming in the daylight, I love my weekends right now

attempting some cheer on a gloomy night

I know I said we were scrapping the idea of purchasing a bit more pony real estate, but the owners came back to us and it's back on the table. There are a bunch of things on their side that need to happen (planning approval from the city, for one), so we'll see. I know I should count myself lucky to have the option (and the support of G in this) and let what will be, be, but I'm finding it quite stressful. This wasn't on the bingo card at all and the timing honestly stinks, but it's just too perfect a situation to not at least try. 

When we bought the babies with the current space we have it meant Sophie would be moving to a new home eventually. I was OK with that, but now with more acreage possibly in the future, I've been holding off on that and found myself making tentative plans involving keeping Sophie. So, I feel like I've inadvertently wrapped some of the emotions around Sophie into things. I really am going to be OK either way. I'd just like to fast forward to the part where we know how it's going to turn out so I can start planning accordingly :)

In related news, Black Friday happened right when I was feeling very anxious about things, and I totally succumbed to some retail therapy. I feel sort of icky about that because normally I plan and budget purchases very carefully and I wasn't actually going to buy anything. But, for the most part it was things I had bookmarked as wanting/needing and they were on great sales. I got a nice longeing cavesson that I can use now for Sophie, but also will be really nice for the boys when I start ground driving them.

Kieffer lunge and ride cavesson I had this filed under 'nice to have but don't need' but after borrowing a friend's I was sold. It's so more stable than using a halter or bridle to lunge and nice for groundwork too. It comes with bit attachments as well, which solves my baby horse dilemma of wanting a halter to lead from and a bridle to ride with on ride and lead trail adventures.

Also acquired, better headlamps for mucking paddocks in the dark. LED spotlights for same. Haynets because a bunch have mysteriously disappeared. Waterproof saddle covers, because see above about wild winter weather and damp/moldy tack. There were some frivolous things thrown in though too - did the boys need fancy browbands at this stage of their lives? No, not really. But I'll be ready when they do!

Load of hay delivered too, which is the biggest expense these days. It's running about $1000 a ton and Sophie wants it, current fence testing situation below.

(Yes I know these taps don't need insulation but I'm baiting my stepdad ;) Relevant part of the story is that Sophie's door latch is to the right of this tap and she knows the door latches somehow...but she's not quite figured out how she's opened it herself previously. Does it relate to the tap? Hence the teeth marks and my sad little misting hose torn off - I think she's now decided pulling that potentially leads to releasing the door latch. She took it one step further hay delivery day and bit through (unplugged) electric fence wire and started pulling on that and then checking the section of wooden fence behind to see if it would open like a gate. Her brain is a funny thing.




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Wednesday, 27 November 2024

A Proper Raincoast Break and Enter

 The wild winter weather has continued. So, when I walked around the farm to feed dinner late one exceptionally rainy and windy night, I was surprised, but not *super* surprised to see the barn doors hanging off their tracks. Weird, because they latch and have stoppers and windy days normally barely rattle them, let alone completely rip them off the building. Did I forget to close and lock them?

And whoa. Somehow the wind blew one of my (full of grain) feed bins out of the building and halfway down the yard?

Pre break in when I was feeling a little smug about my storm prepping organization

When I walked into the feed room side of the barn, the actual cause of the chaos became a little more obvious. Muddy bear prints everywhere. In retrospect walking into the barn on a dark and windy night with fresh muddy bear prints all over it maybe wasn't my wisest decision, but my brain needed to catch up to the evidence.

The good news is that I think I might have interrupted the burglary in progress, because aside from my feed bin and a few things rummaged through or tipped over, everything inside the building was undamaged (note a few days later - the oil I top their feed with had one tooth hole in the container and slowly leaked everywhere before I noticed. RIP to that and all it touched)


No actual pictures of bears or barn mess in the moment because it was late in the evening in a 'bomb cyclone' and I was just trying to get everything patched back up to survive the night. This is from a couple of nights later. My other excuse for poor media is this is the light situation after work days. Check out how flooded everything still was though. It's dried out a bit since, but it still is so grim around here this time of year :(

The doors sustained moderate damage - the latches were broken and needed replacing, and he spent a bit of time trying to pull the bottom of the doors apart so the frames needed repairing and reinforcing and some boards reattached. Again, no photo documentation because there I was at midnight in the dark, wind and rain, fixing them so I could lock everything up again. I think my cheap sliding system on the top of the doors might have had an unexpected bonus because the bear was eventually able to simply lift the door off the tracks rather than continuing to try to break through them. He’s strong though, it was a two person job to re hang them all! 


All reattached and repaired and you can't even tell it was a thing. Surprisingly gentle bear, my cat scratched a door in our house worse than this :)

So, more good news, because it turned out to be an easy enough fix.

The bad news is that a freaking bear took the doors off my barn looking for snacks.


Sophie has this gate behind the doors (I leave them open in summer for airflow) so while she was understandably concerned, there were no pony escape worries.

He found nothing, apparently hay and horse vitamins are not to his liking because my bag of feed was taken out of the bin and dinner feed buckets tipped over, but no contents were eaten. In addition to my hay stall door he ripped Sophie's stall door off too and moved the black planters around. Although logically I know he is not looking for horses to eat...what if he is looking for horses to eat? *cue sleepless nights*


Electric wire around the back of the barn until I figure out how to make the perimeter yard gates people friendly but not bear friendly. Electric wire across our front yard gate would be the most practical, however maybe not the most inviting for visitors and deliveries:)

Sort of good news (for me, not him) is that he's young and little-ish and his MO is breaking into people's sheds looking for garbage or freezers of food. So this might have been an exploratory thing rather than targeted and now that he knows we aren't worth his time I can hope he stays away. It’s pretty late in the season though, so I’m worried. We have careless neighbours and if he’s finding enough elsewhere to hang around this winter, I am worried he might get himself in trouble.

Sophie helping with fence repairs. Between her scratching her butt, rambunctious yearlings doing their thing, and Yogi climbing over everything, our fences/fence posts took a beating this year. I'm so weird about things that it's going to annoy me to no end to have new posts and rails that don't match the rest of the fences (until I can stain them in the spring) Not to mention the mud and bear scratches all over the back of the barn lol, why is my brain like this because I REALLY want to clean and paint it now.







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Saturday, 23 November 2024

Harvest Gold

 Sophie's winter coat is always extraordinary, I'm reminded of those facebook posts you see ranting against crossbred dogs and the hit or miss nature of what traits the puppy will have. Normally mentioned are the sometimes unexpected grooming requirements for doodle breeds. In Sophie's case, she's the pony equivalent of that doodle. She's got a Welsh pony dad and a TB/WB mom. Take your standard extra thick and long welsh pony coat, but make the actual hair TB fine. She is very very soft, and stays very warm and dry under there, but also there isn't a curry comb in this world that will easily get to the bottom of it. 

So soft, so luxurious

Today marked the first official day of 'these brushes are no longer working' winter coat. 

In a related side story, years ago we were doing some work on one of our houses and in the closet I found a box with a 1960's shag rug rake. I don't even remember what we did with it. 

But, today while I was complaining about the inefficiency of my grooming tools, pondering whether a nice long hair dog coat brush might be the thing for her more sensitive spots, I suddenly remembered that thing.

So, I googled to find a pic to show you in the context of 'here's something that might work on Sophie's unclipped winter coat, ha ha'. And of course the requisite vintage shag carpet room pictures popped up. 

And I need to tell you that I have discovered that Sophie is currently a near perfect match for Harvest Gold shag.

Find the pony! I'm sorry but I had to do it



 

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Monday, 18 November 2024

What’s Up

I've written a novel of a post on so many things lately, then left them all sitting in my drafts folder. This TL;DR version of it all feels like something I’ll actually hit publish on.

- I’ve been enjoying some annual leave time! I got a ton of work done on the new kitchen in between spending many hours of my day giving pony scratches. Time well spent! 


This still looks depressingly in progress this week but I promise the hard parts are done.

Next project is to turn this storage loft into my new office hideaway. The centre ceiling is only 5'8" but I am 5'2" so why not. Husband is 6'4" so he's denied access :D


If you were wondering why I wouldn't just utilize a normal space, it's because this is the view out the window and seeing the horses while I work overrides the negatives.


Ponies getting spa days, it felt pretty luxurious to walk out of the house at any time of the day and 'waste' an hour or two with the horses.


- The above (you might argue excessive) enjoyment of AL has confirmed a need for some change. I’ve got most of the time between now and New Years off, then in 2025 I'm going to keep my actual work hours scaled back at part time and take on some more side jobs when I’d like extra money and tire of scratching ponies. This feels like a nice compromise between being a responsible person with a reliable income and medical and dental plan and all those other adulty things, but adding some more variety and interest. Hard to make that call when on paper there is literally nothing wrong with my job to justify changing - I am just bored. But the time feels right to start opening some new doors.

- Ponies being ponies. Tradey got cuts/scrapes just under his eye (likely playfighting with Buck), one of which ripped his lower eyelid and swelled up pretty bad. That gave me a heart attack for a few days there...but it's healing well and it even looks like it might only leave a tiny scar. Both of the boys had/have (we are awaiting results after a further autumn deworming) ascarids AGAIN. Do I want to put that on the internet? Not really. But if it helps someone else, then yes. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned they arrived with some drug resistant friends (not unusual these days nor anyone's fault) and it's been a bit of a thing to keep on top of.  Advice: get your vet involved, send in manure samples on whatever schedule they recommend and treat with what they tell you to. Some horses are naturally more prone to less than ideal parasite loads than others, and there seem to be a lot of resistant worms out there so your go to protocols might not be working as well as you might hope anymore. 

- The property with the field the horses use in summer is coming up for sale. We love having it, so considered purchasing (G was actually the one really pushing for it, so for a while there I thought I'd be telling you about our new house!), but ultimately we made the call to let it go.  I get the whole 'real estate as an investment' aspect but I couldn't wrap my head around being so financially committed here. I’ll be sad to say goodbye, but maybe we’ll acquire more horsey neighbours? 


I'm very sad. But, fingers crossed, I have been offered other neighborhood options in the past, so hopefully something else will come up to borrow or lease. I think the big lesson learned was that at the end of the day we're happy with the status quo.


I got more sand for the ring a couple of weeks ago and it's starting to look really perfect. So we have to stay here, at least until the yearling cobs are old enough to ride :D

-The weather. I can't not mention it because we continue to get the brunt of storm after storm. Currently we're awaiting a 'bomb cyclone' arriving tomorrow, which (fingers crossed) should actually be less dramatic than the storm last week. The general state of things means the ponies get minimal turnout that's not on a gravel or sand surface - there is water everywhere. We also have been losing power regularly so I'm getting good at doing pony chores in the dark. I'm grateful we have the place set up in a way that suits us so well. Besides the weather being depressing it's not impacting the horses too much at all - the gravel paddocks with enough room for them to run were a really good investment. The last place I boarded it would be a different story right now. 


Running errands before things get worse and we risk falling trees and power outages - another lovely day on the west coast


Terrible picture but he looks pretty cozy

It was a dark and stormy night  4:45pm ;) Battery powered floodlights for the win

Current grass status: green but is a swamp


She's so dedicated to being a bog pony I caved and give her this little area on the worst days. Her normal grazing area has huge trees that regularly lose giant branches that make me nervous when the wind picks up. The boys are quite content to stay in their paddock, but Sophie stands at the gate looking longingly out, even in the worst of weather.


Whew, that was still almost a novel. But I think we’re all caught up? 




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Monday, 4 November 2024

damp, Dark and bear infested

That's my 'zero stars - would not recommend' review of this autumn. It's normally my favorite time of the year, but the weather just didn't cooperate and we had what felt like endless rain and wind storms. Endless rain isn't breaking news around here, but this year it just feels like more than normal. I don't have any data to back that up beyond the fact that our property is so, so wet and muddy and there doesn't seem to be time for it all to drain before the next storm comes. I've been spending time mitigating the mud and improving drainage where I can, but when the entire stormwater systems are backing up into the road there's just not a lot you can do.


A rare sunny day reprieve. The horses live in the little residential/farm area in the centre of this picture, it's a beautiful spot. Except during heavy rain when all the water run off from this hill and the ones behind it flows through our neighbourhood on it's way to the ocean:)

Is part seal, and doesn't care about weather


The clocks have gone back as well this past weekend and now sunset is early and creeping towards 4:15pm towards the end of the month. How's that for a doom and gloom post intro? :)

In good news, I think the bears have mostly vacated the area and gone off to hibernate. Despite all my attempts at fencing them out and beefing up the electric perimeter, they figured out the front gate and an alternate route in/out via climbing on a neighbour's shed roof and then dropping in to my yard via overhanging trees. They are ninjas, but despite my worries they didn't break any horse relevant fencing or seem to bother them too much.

Stall mats also came on sale in a timely fashion. I expanded my grooming area. Load of sand/gravel to tackle the rest of the mud is incoming later today.

These two also got an expanded area. We were having issues with the ditch on the other side of the barn backing up and flooding the gate area. The city came and dug out the relevant things on their end, so I think that's all resolved, but adding some mats as extra mud protection and a bigger lounging area for the boys seemed like a useful thing.

Halloween came and went without issue. The weather was awful so I think that toned down the fireworks and general shenanigans. I wrote about them a couple of years ago, surprised it was such a thing here. You all made me aware fireworks and halloween aren't normal anywhere else, but here we are. I did a little research and it seems our little melting pot of cultures has created a Guy Fawkes/Diwali/Halloween holiday tradition. Fun for everyone, just maybe not the horses.   I was worried, but didn't need to be. The horses were a little on edge, but the current dynamic is a good one, with the boys normally being much more sensible than Sophie, and her happy to take a lead from them. Surprisingly, I think they were happier last year when the louder fireworks were closer and they could see them, this year the fireworks displays were just far away for it to be out of sight, but still loud.


I swear he gets more handsome by the day

Not impressed with the Tradey photobomb

get yourself a good camera lens, it makes it look like there's proper sunshine

fall colors and a Sophie butt

part of the reason for the mud situation - they play, sleep and eat. And that's it.

Yard pony

Other than that, I'm busy as always. I have a week off to install our new kitchen (yay!). Sand is getting delivered today to top off/finish the ring (also yay!) so I'll be spreading sand for the foreseeable.


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Wednesday, 23 October 2024

One Year

I'm not sure how it's been an entire year since we went to the city to pick up two little colts from a cross Canada journey. That also makes it slightly over a year since I was sat on a ferry having an actual panic attack over all the impending changes in my horsey life. While the fun of having new babies incoming was super exciting, my heart wasn't sure I could actually part with Bridget, even on a lease to a friend. (And awkwardly, my ferry trip companion that day was said friend who I'd already promised B to, lol)

It's hard when things are happy and comfortable, but not leading to the more quantitative things you hope for. Sunk cost fallacy is also a thing, I had a very real feeling of not wanting to change my existing path because I had invested so much time and emotion into it.


 Bridget and Sophie dynamic duo throwback

But, if we're being real, I didn't/don't feel done yet with some small-ish eventing and dressage goals. While I was OK with staying involved, but putting those off to a future time (where I currently live is not conducive to showing/lesson goals), when that whole issue with compressed discs in my back came to light I suddenly felt like time maybe isn't on my side as much as I might have wanted and a Plan B might be warranted.  Besides, I'm not sure if my Plan A of 'waiting until things are easier' was a valid plan for goal getting, anyway.


B fulfilling some dreams - my very first horse trials!  circa 2016-ish. 

 While I admittedly miss Bridget and have small regrets about leasing her out vs just trusting my gut and selling Sophie, it's definitely a case of everything working out the way it needed to. I'm a broken record over here when I say I'm still so, so happy with the boys and the decision to go for youngsters. Baby horses are fun, I like a good project, and having them from foals also fills the want for me to know a horse's history. I think my looking off and on for years at older horses already doing the thing and not finding 'the horse' was a sign that I what a really wanted was a Welsh Cob foal (or two!) :) 


Their little faces when they arrived! Luckily for him was not a fan of being touched back then, so risk of me overly squishing him was minimal

So cute

Change is hard, but I also think change also needed to happen and I'm still pinching myself that I have not one, but two amazing future partners.

two very goofy partners :)


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Monday, 7 October 2024

Checked Off The List

I know I've mentioned we get a large amount of black bears here every fall. They're literally everywhere from about Sept -Nov, eating everything they can find in preparation for winter. There's a whole neighborhood here of hobby farms backing on to crown land that goes forever (fun stat, 95% of the province is crown land/wilderness). Maybe aside from a previous life as a park ranger near a major salmon river, I'm not sure I've seen so many bears in one place, ever.

I have a few fruit and nut trees, plus the last of the garden, and it's an entire thing keeping the bears out of them and the fruit picked every year. Our place has an excessive amount of electric fence wire everywhere right now, and still...there are two people gates that it would be weird/inconvenient to have fortified, and it took them no time at all to start using them. One even opens the gate rather than climb it (and does not close it when he leaves) which is just beyond ridiculous. They can't currently access any of the fruit trees or vegetable garden from the yard around the house, but they still visit regularly.

Said gate with claw marks by the chain and bent hinges. Also my very sad flower garden and some apologies this week for the lack of media effort - it's been mostly dark and rainy and I have some grainy phone pictures and that's it.

So, long story short, despite all my efforts to keep them out, I had a feeling the boys had probably seen a bear or two by now. Generally speaking, nearly all the horses I know just get used to them minding their own business and ignore them but it is a bit like loose dogs, some horses just get grumpy or scared about it or have maybe had a bad experience at some point.

Sophie striking a dramatic pose yesterday because I left the lawn tractor/harrows parked in a different place than normal. Bears are no big deal lol


We put it to the test last night. I was walking Tradey back home from a trailventure and it was getting dark and a momma bear and her two cubs popped out on the road in front of us.  Her body language wasn't bad, but it wasn't great because she really wanted to head our direction but we were in the way. So we stopped and waited for her to decide where she wanted to go. After staring us down for a little bit she eventually rounded up her cubs and went off into the bush on the other side of the road to wait for us to go by. Tradey was a very good boy and patiently stood and waited and was intrigued, but not worried. He also marched past the spot where the bears were lingering with no problems, they popped out and continued on their way once we were past, and everyone was happy.

Home safe and sound. Looking at how dark it is, I did leave our walk home a little late :)


So, we can check that off the list. Reliable trail horses here really need to be ok with seeing wildlife. Buck saw a bear from a less worrying distance on our last outing and was fine as well, so I'm feeling good that my future riding buddies and I are going to be fine. I know sometimes I write about this sort of thing and some of you think it's crazy, but it's totally the norm here and everyone kind of just respects them but goes about their normal lives. Discovery channel does them dirty with all the 'a bear attacked me!' dramatizations making it seem like they eat people on the daily, but it's not like it could never happen either. So, I'm a chicken compared to many and don't go hiking alone this time of year - either husband or friends (or reliable ponies, yay!) need to be in tow :)

Also, I invested in a battery box and lots of lights after last year's adventure with a bear sleeping outside the barn at night lol

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Tuesday, 1 October 2024

Standard Horses

 I took an extra couple of days off work this past weekend and it was absolutely wonderful. I finally (finally!) finished painting the exterior of the house. That took a whole year, but who's counting? The delay was not due to lack of work ethic, more to do with the top of the ladder being a scary place for me and there being plenty of other jobs to tackle. I'll have to get some updated pictures, just need to do some further garden tidying before it's 'after photo' worthy.


Bedtime pony chores require party lights. It's getting dark so early again :(


Had his first mane trim/thin. I couldn't quite bring myself to go sport horse length, so it's long-ish still

Alongside that, I actually got all the ponies off property for assorted adventures. Tradey/Reggie had been out a few times in the spring, but it had been a while since then. No worries, though, he's quite happy to march off to see the world. There's a trail at the end of our road that loops up over a mountain, but there is a lower path that is horse friendly and spits us out in a city park, then we can walk through a residential area to home. It takes a little over an hour and is a nice mix of things to see for the horses. Tradey was a pretty cool dude and took it all in stride, as expected. I like that he's curious about his surroundings and the default is to snort and explore rather than spook/run if he's uncertain. He's naturally quite surefooted and aware of his body too, so rocky trails and up/down slopes don't require much of a learning curve. He's a good boy and I'd happily send him out with anyone and trust his manners to hold.

'wild stallion' interlude


I'm trying to think if Buck has been anywhere solo and I think maybe I took him for a couple of short 10 min walks around our little laneway last winter/spring. He's getting more confident so it felt like it's past time to get him out a bit more than that. So, off he went on a similar loop to Tradey's. He struggled a little more with the idea of being away from his friends so there was a bit of calling and pooping. I looped back before the park and stuck with the quiet forest trails for a positive first for him. Overall, very proud of him. He's not as naturally confident, but is so willing to try and by the mid way point was happily trucking along. He surprised me by being in no big rush to get home, either. He's not quite as body aware as Tradey so it's a bit of a work in progress keeping him 'out' and not bumping into me. I feel like half of it is needing further ground work, and half of it is genuinely he's not sure of where his feet should go on the more technical bits and is tempted to want to put them where mine have been. His inspection of the rocks and first steep grades on the trail was actually very cute - he needed to 'test' for grip before committing. Smart guy. I feel like I'm tempted to baby him a lot more than Tradey, and I try to be aware of that - it's one thing to take things at whatever pace they need to stay confident and learning, another to start making excuses for him because he's cute :)


Not so sure about this nature thing yet

With the weather changing and all the outdoor and gardening projects slowing down I'm hoping I'll have more time to do these sorts of things. At 18 months old, the boys are old enough to go for some longer walks and adventures and I'm not feeling shy about putting some things into the calendar for them. I can't see loading Buck up and taking him anywhere solo quite yet (I mean, I could, he's fine to load and trailer, but I want it to be fun for him and I think without a buddy in there he'd still struggle). I have a mid term plan of a few more walks in the same area so he's super confident with the routine, then loading him up for the 5 minute drive to the trail head. Then it's short and easy, he gets out at a place he knows, we do our normal trail loop and we go home. My other option is the club grounds across town, but it's literally across town and about a 25min drive.



Tradey returns to Pony Kindergarten at those club grounds tonight, so that's fun!

While we were out and about this weekend, G commented out of nowhere "it's nice to have normal horses again". I know what he means - these two guys remind me of a couple of horses I had years ago, who were definite favorites. They have their little quirks and likes/dislikes and they're of course very young, but basically they're solid citizens and 'standard horse' in their thinking. I'd like to hope I've learned some things over the years and have more tools in the toolbox than I used to, but it's a nice feeling with them both being super ammy friendly and uncomplicated. They're not hard work at all and that's a thing I think we both appreciate. I feel like the past ten years or so has been something else, we have super quiet/tuned out Bridget (and while we love her, that comes with it's own set of challenges) and then the other extreme with spicy, mare-y and very tuned in Sophie and Ginger. It's nice to be back in the middle of the curve :)

"you talking about me?"

Current status: will not willingly go through that gate and graze in her field, even if I put breakfast out there. It's always something.



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