Second post of the day - comment to enter for tomorrow's drawing!
Fall is my favorite season, and October is my favorite month. I love the cooler weather, the trees changing and the fields being harvested, and the feeling that we are headed into the holidays.
I don't do a lot of decorating and still have the same furniture in the same places with the same paint on the walls that were there when we moved in 14 years ago. (Rumor has it that our kids are planning on changing that when they are here for Christmas - I've been asked, "If you could change the paint in here, what would you want?" Hmmmm...)
Still, I do put a few seasonal things out.
Hanging on my front door (on a metal horsey hanger) is a horse head made from autumn sticks, leaves, and nuts and wearing a twine halter. It's all artificial and I store it carefully away December - September and get it out again when October rolls around.
As you step into the house, my player piano always displays Cryptic in October. Cryptic is my absolute favorite of Breyer's Halloween horses. He really does look as though he is made of concrete instead of plastic!
I have an antique table that belonged to my grandparents that I use for seasonal displays in the living room. (And a set of antique sleigh bells year round because I like them!) That's Illuminati and he lights up when you press a button under his belly. (The Cowpokes and Pony Pals love my wind up ghost and jack o'lantern!)
Upstairs my carpet herd Old Timer wears his new Halloween hat in my office. Plans are to get him a hat for every season. His Christmas one has arrived and it is really cool!
He stands with Ichabod, Crane, and Nevermore. (Nevermore is another really cleverly done Halloween model.)
None of the other Halloween models ever really appealed to me and so aside from a few pumpkins on the porch, that's about the extent of my Halloween/fall decor.
The resurgence of photo showing during the pandemic has been fun and has allowed me to interact with hobby friends without leaving home. I am entering three or four shows a month, and enjoy adding my models to their classes and then waiting for the judges to announce the placings for each class.
The Mares in Black held a photo show with a lot of creative classes - Stock Market, Feathers, Old But Still LIT, Wildin' Out... The possibilities were endless! And needless to say, hobbyists had a fun time creating entries for those classes.
I loved watching the classes load and seeing all the ideas that hobbyists had for these classes. There were so many entries and such creativity that I did not expect to win anything but that was okay - I was having fun.
Yesterday I got a notice that Jacki Rossi had commented on one of my photos. My first thought was that they were stewarding the show and that I needed to move a model into a different class.
I did not expect to see that I'd won the Just Dance - Specialist class with my Flamingo Pond entry with Mr. Nedz and Circus Girl Lynn, the doll Anne Field made me!
Two more placings rolled in during the afternoon. Apple Jack (my Dad's nickname) placed fourth in the Working class.
And Windsong Sherif won 6th place in Baybees.
The judging continues and is not yet over. Class winners will be announced on a special Mares in Black Halloween Live Stream Party. I've got plans to trick or treat with a couple of Cowpokes and Pony Pals that day, but maybe the Mares will record it and I will still be able to catch it.
Thank you, Mares in Black, for hosting such a fun show. And congratulations to all the other winners and entrants.
Today is the last day to enter to win an embroidered blanket for your model. Comment to enter!
After buying the web special Sassy, there was so much snarking and unkindness on a hobby blog or two and some Facebook forums that I have been limiting my time on Facebook and social media ever since. I am simply tired of (and very saddened by) the meanness. Rarely do I comment about things like that here, although I did make an exception in that Sassy post.
I thought the Sassy post would be the last comment I made about the ugliness that seems to be swamping our online hobby world. But yesterday I heard rumblings and took a quick peek online to investigate. Oh. My. Goodness. A morass of nastiness was playing out on some online sites. And that caused Breyer to make an unprecedented move.
Never, ever did I imagine that Breyer would withdraw a model due to the escalating mean spiritedness. But they did. You can read about it on the Breyer blog. (Apparently Intuit's owners asked that he no longer be the celebration horse. Thanks, Jennifer Buxton, for the additional information.)
Certainly I have my own opinions about the issue, some of them quite strong. But I am not commenting on my thoughts about Intuit or Breyer's choices here - I am commenting on the responses that some of us are posting in public. I'm making a plea for some kindness, better self control, and keeping in mind that we are all human with feelings and hopes and aspirations. There are ways to express opinions civilly without personal attacks and vitriol.
Please, be kind when you state your thoughts and opinions. Please, phrase them in a way that makes your point without devastating or smearing someone else. Please.
Yes, comments are accepted on this blog entry for entering the drawing.
My family owned and operated a family apple orchard when I was growing up. It was an old orchard with 3,000 plus trees (I remember helping my dad count and log them all - what a job!) with many varieties that are now considered heirloom. We had Northern Spy, Grimes Golden, Maiden Blush, Winesap, Rome Beauty, Paula Red, Lodi... I wish I could find all those old varieties now!
A 1960s family picnic among the trees during apple blossom time. That's my mom's parents, Georgia and Earl Honeywell, on the left and our cocker spaniel, Benny, lying in the grass in the middle.
A fall tradition when I was growing up was making homemade applesauce from some of those apples and freezing it for winter. I continue that tradition now, even though I have to buy the apples instead of growing them.
I was delighted when my sister found an orchard in northern Indiana that still grew Northern Spies. She brought me some so I could make what we consider to be REAL applesauce.
I always save all the cores and peelings in a large bag and take them out to the horses.
Apple spaghetti makes them all very happy.
To ensure that no one horse gobbles it all, I walk along the fence row and sprinkle handfuls on the ground, spreading it out for quite a way.
Independent Hokey was a little slow in coming up, but I made sure that he got his fair share, too.
I miss having access to fresh off the tree apples, but the memory lives on every fall when I make applesauce and pies. I serve it at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and boy howdy it DOES NOT last long.
Apple pie baking with Cowpokes and Pony Pals.
Luckily, the memories last forever.
Comment to enter for the blankets - I will be drawing several names this time!
As I look back on the 2000s, it seems to have been the busiest decade of my life and probably the most challenging, too. Not only was I teaching full time, but my kids were graduating from high school and college, getting married, and having their own children. I was always on the go.
Having attended my last BreyerFest in the 1999, it would not be until 2012 that I finally had the time to go again. Fortunately the internet was exploding and I kept up with the hobby through Haynet (the grandaddy of hobby social media sites) and other online forums and sources. I still added new pieces to my collection and was active on hobby forums, but I simply did not have the time to attend any live shows.
My health took a nose dive during this decade. It was an unexpected shock in 2001 when I was diagnosed with two brain tumors. Luckily they are benign, and as long as they don't grow, I can avoid brain surgery. A third, different type of brain tumor was found in 2008 when monitoring the first two. It is a meningioma and is more concerning than the first two, but if it has to come out, it is in an easily accessed location. (Thankful, thankful, THANKFUL!)
Then, I began to notice while teaching that my hip was really starting to hurt. It began interfering with my mobility, especially in the classroom. I ended up having my right hip replaced.
I recovered from that, but then my knees began causing me trouble and I started falling. After my third fall, I saw my orthopedist and X-rays showed that both knees were bone on bone. I had to have them replaced.
Recovering at home after my first knee replacement. That's our Lab, Zeus, snoozing with me. Like Pepper, he was a retired service dog, only he'd been a narcotics sniffer for the police. He was huge - about twice the size that Pepper is - and very gentle.
A grizzled Zeus with my mother - they had a very strong bond and he would always sit by her when she visited.
Sadly, my father passed away during this decade. He had always championed my horseyness and was still buying me model horses until his Alzheimers made it so he could not drive anymore.
Skip-bo, one of the pieces that my father bought me.
Despite the mounting health challenges, life was good. Our children were all independent and doing well, and while we missed them terribly, we enjoyed this new phase of life. Craig and I were busy, but we also had more flexibility in our schedules since it was just the two of us.
We'd always hoped that we could go Back Home Again (to) Indiana. Finally, after almost 30 years away, we had the opportunity to return. Craig was offered a position at Purdue here in West Lafayette, the town we both came from. We discussed our options and decided that it was time for us to go home.
Packing up my collection was more than a bit overwhelming. Not only did I have shelves lining the basement walls with Breyers and Stones, I had several china cabinets full of Hagen Renakers and other breakable horses upstairs. On top of that, I'd just had ankle surgery and was hobbling around in a boot while finishing my Masters at the University of Illinois.
What a whirlwind! Several of our kids came back to Illinois to help us with the gargantuan job of sorting and packing. But I graduated, the models were safely packed, and I was cleared to remove the boot the day before we were scheduled to leave.
As excited as we were to go back home, it was difficult to say goodbye to Illinois - we'd made lasting friendships and had loved our time there. But we were also glad that we would be closer to our parents and able to help them as they dealt with their own challenges that came from growing older. It was time to move home.
Yesterday afternoon I played around with those fabrics that I had shown as possible blanket fabrics for Giveaway 5. They just are not going to work very well for embroidering - you won't be able to see the words very well on any of them. So, today I bought a bunch of solid colored cotton fabrics online at JoAnn's doorbuster sale.
Top left to right: Royal blue, kelly green, pink, and yellow. Bottom left to right: Black, rust red, navy, and sailor blue.
I'll be drawing several names for Giveaway 5 so the chances are good that you might win one!
This past weekend, Teacher Daughter Lisa brought her friend Tyler and his two daughters out to the barn to meet the horses. It was a cool, blustery day, but those girls were so excited about seeing the horses, it made us forget the chill.
Sultanna continues to follow Abby wherever she goes, and lucky girl, I relaxed the "don't feed Tim's horses treats" rule. Sultanna cashed in.
She is taller than Abby, and that worked to her advantage.
She could put her head over the gate while Abby had to push her head between the bars.
Lisa helped the girls with their ziplocs of apples, carrots, and candy corn. (Sultanna didn't even have a Green Eggs and Ham moment - she snarfed that candy corn right up!)
I did stand guard to keep Trouble back. He was living up to his name and I did not want him chasing off the girls, horse or human.
You can really see the size difference between the two mares here. Trouble, who is a massive, big boned Quarter Horse, is a half brother to Sultanna's sire. Those big bones and size are a family trait.
As I listened to Annabelle and Coralie squeal and giggle over the two mares, it made me glad that we had braved the wind and chill to visit the horses. Put two sets of girls, horse and human, together, and it made for a lovely afternoon.
Comment to enter Giveaway 5 - I'll be giving away several blankets and will embroider them if you want.
