Putting the buggy before the horse

Isn't it about time you take your horse out for a spin? This time, why don't you let him drive? Here is the next gizmo for all you gadget fiends out there.

Abdolhadi Mirhejazi, an inventor living in Dubai has built an interesting contraption that allows a horse to ride in the cart it powers. A cross between a buggy and an over sized treadmill, the Naturmobile is Mr. Mirhejazi's modern solution for all weather transportation using the age old horse and wagon.

The horse actually climbs inside the wagon and walks on a treadmill that powers the whole thing using a complicated gear system. Not only does it provide enough power to run the wagon, but enough to charge a battery that can give the horse a 20 minute break every now and again. Best of all, the horse is out of the weather keeping cool (or warm) right along with the passengers he labors so hard to transport with no real benefit to himself.

Is it practical? Probably best to ask the horse, but I will say this... I want one!!

For more info and a bunch of pictures, check out the article.

Healthier walking

I ran across another interesting article today. Now this may not interest plenty of you, but since I believe part of going green involves becoming healthier, I thought this was relevant to the theme. The article discusses walking healthier. Not walking for health reasons, but actually walking healthier.

Generally speaking, the idea is that when we walk around day in and day out, we are actually hurting our feet. Our feet were designed through evolution to carry us around efficiently, and over the last few thousand years we began mucking around by wrapping our feet in shoes.

The problem isn't so much the shoes as it is the design of the shoes. In other words, we are wearing shoes that are not particularly designed around physically sound walking principles and over our lifetimes we are causing damage to our feet as well as our joints.

Check out this article and see the alternative shoe idea they are promoting. It looks pretty cool to me, and if I can find a suitable affordable alternative I will give it a try.

I like to walk bare footed indoors, but my sissy feet don't do well outdoors so a basic covering will help tremendously. I'll keep you updated if I find a good alternative. Hmm... maybe I can find moccasins I wouldn't mind wearing...

Photography by James Eberlein