More Pony Pictures

Selfies with Abby are rarely successful, so I am always glad when someone snaps a few photos of us together.

 Like this one of the two of us looking at each other over the gate.

Or me holding Mila while the mares visit with us (and hope for treats.)

Add in some kids, and my day has been made. (I love how Mila has her butterfly net at the ready - you never know when a fly might flit past!)

Stepping Stones and Horseflies

I spent the morning with my daughter-in-love, Vanessa, and my local grandchildren, Ian, Mila, and Lukas. We made concrete stepping stones for the garden - I make one for each grandchild the year they are born with either their handprint or footprint.

Vanessa adds Lukas' name and the date around the perimeter of his tiny footprint.

But when I am making one for a new grandbaby, usually his or her siblings want to make another one just for fun. As a result, I have close to thirty stepping stones now in my front flower bed!

And the grandchildren love to find "their" stones when they visit. (This is Ian from a year ago looking at his baby one.)

 Mila checks out hers in September, 2017.

We even make them for pets (Zeus was our black Lab)

and last year when Kyle's family evacuated Florida ahead of Hurricane Irma's landfall, his kids wanted to make one to commemorate the storm!

After finishing up the two new stepping stones, we all headed out to the barn to feed carrots to Abby.

Grabbing the two child-sized butterfly nets I keep in the garage, Ian informed me that he and Mila would be looking for bugs out at the barn. Especially flies.

 While a pasture full of horses is usually a good place to fly-hunt,

today those flies were in short supply. 

 Abby and Lukas check each other out.

 Ian kept an eagle eye out for flies but no such luck.

He also demonstrated to his mother how to feed Abby a carrot, which helped distract him from the lack of flies.

Spending time with family AND horses? Life does not get much better!

Horsey Neighborhoods

On the other side of town where our daughter, Lisa, lives, there are several neighborhoods that are named after horses. My own neighborhood has a horsey icon, and the more I thought, the more I realized that our town has many neighborhoods which pay homage to horses. So, I decided to do some research and then drive around town to take a look at them. Here are a few.

Arbor Chase

This is my neighborhood. It was just being built when we moved back to Indiana in 2006, and as Craig and I looked at homes to buy, we would drive past this sign and laugh, saying that it would be funny if we ended up buying a home in Arbor Chase.

Well... here we are! Arbor Chase is on the northwest edge of town and I can hop into my car and get out to the barn to see Abby very easily without having to drive on busy streets and traffic lights. And, we have enough space for when our six kids and their families come for visits.


Lexington Farms

Featuring a jumping horse on its logo as ours does, I sort of feel that we match! Lisa is our horsey child, and so it is fitting that she would live on Bluegrass Circle.


Saddlebrook
Adjacent to Lexington Farms and across a busy road, Saddlebrook has beautiful white fencing bordering the perimeter of its neighborhood.

There are streets named Furlong, Gallop, Saddle, Equestrian, and Trackside. Whoever built that neighborhood seems to have been a racing fan.

Their neighborhood sign is currently being refurbished; I'll try to get a photo when the new one is in place. The wall reminds me of some of the old, old stone fences you see in Kentucky. My guess is that that is by design and a deliberate nod to racing.

Bridlewood

Bridlewood and Saddlebrook are blended together into one and I have been unable to tell where one ends and the other begins. Bull Run, Trotter, Pacer Way, and Stable are some of its streets.

Hawthorne
There is a third neighborhood by Saddlebrook and Bridlewood, although I can tell its boundaries because it is fairly new. Its name is not horsey, but its streets sure are! Pimlico, Lariat, Belgian, and Farrier are all names of the new streets.

Hawthorne stretches along next to the other two, but it also crosses the road that divides Lexington Farms from them all. There is a lake between Hawthorne and Lexington Farms that further delineates their boundaries, but the builder continues the horsey theme in this newest neighborhood.

Polo Fields

Polo Fields is a very small neighborhood out in the country near the school where I taught.

There are only two streets, Funnycide Lane and North Funnycide Lane, and it is a little ironic that Funny Cide was a racing Thoroughbred (winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness) and not a polo pony!

Huntington Farms 

More race horse names grace the streets in this neighborhood! Alysheba, Secretariat, Alydar, Man O War, and even Cannonade! (1974 Kentucky Derby winner.)

As you might imagine, by this time in my research I was suspecting that the same builder was responsible for all these neighborhoods with their Thoroughbred racing names.

Arlington Commons
This one is a puzzle. It is a very, very small neighborhood (okay, can I just say that I smile every time I write the word NEIGHborhood in this blog post??) and in an older part of town.

The neighborhood has a city park name Arlington on the southwest corner of the neighborhood, and the three streets are Arlington, Melbourne, and Whitcomb. Whitcomb does not make sense to me - I can find some recent NASCAR connections, but this neighborhood was built in the 1960s and older than those connections. Perhaps this is really not a true horsey connection but just one of those coincidences.

Canterbury Farms
Another tiny, older neighborhood that is tucked away in an older part of town. These homes have been very well maintained and the whole neighborhood feels welcoming and inviting.

There are only two streets in Canterbury Farms, Canterbury Lane and Surrey Lane. Definitely horse related!

Belmont Apartments

Belmont Apartments is a ten unit building just across the Wabash River. Is it a connection to the horse world? Aside from the name, which could refer to something besides the race, I see no other connections. My guess is no.

Winding Creek

This neighborhood, and Coyote Crossing, the golf course it butts up to, is built on land once occupied by a large boarding farm where I briefly kept my horses when I was seventeen. 

 Is the street name a nod to the former horse farm? The only other street in this section is Petunia Place. Winding Creek has a larger section across the golf course and its street names are Flowermound, Grapevine, and Augusta. I see no patterns and have no explanation as to why this street is named after a breed of horse.

Gray Mare

This is a screen shot from Google maps. Gray Mare is outside of town but on the other side of the river and way out in the country, so I decided to not drive out there for a photo. It's just a single lane lined with seven homes. I have often wondered why it has such an unusual name - what is the story behind it?

This is what I have turned up thus far. It's been fun, and a bit of a surprise, to find so many horse-related neighborhoods in my town.

A Perk of Retirement

I am still grumbling about retiring early, but there are a few things that I really do enjoy now that I don't have to go to work every day. Morning visits with Abby are one of them.

This morning she led the charge out of the old barn when she heard me calling, coming down the hill at a canter.

Sultanna was hot on her heels with Diablo bringing up the rear. (I only give treats to Abby, but those two are ever hopeful. Hokey and Trouble, though, know the drill and usually don't bother to come see me.)

 She was glad to see me (and my peppermints) and we had a lovely visit.

Then, as usual, Abby watched me leave before heading back to the barn.

I miss school and the students terribly, but a late morning barn visit does have its perks and pleasures!

Variations: Proud Arab Stallions in Dapple Grey

I did not really care for Breyer's Proud Arabian Stallion when he first appeared in 1971. In fact, I didn't purchase any models of this mold until 1989, eighteen years after production began and he was produced in Breyer's beautiful rose grey color. He was so pretty! (And, there was a matching PAM and PAF to go with him - mom and baby needed the dad, you know!)

The next PAS that I added to my collection was a beautiful darker dapple grey one that I found in an antique shop. He is also a semi-gloss.

 And then I found a lighter one (along with its picture box) in 2014.

 I like them both, but the one on the left I especially like as his color is lovely.

He has drainboard markings as well as goop from the factory's drying shelves on his hooves, enough that you can actually feel it. (I have many models with hooves like this and I often wonder just what Breyer had on those shelves that so many models acquired and brought with them when they were marketed.) Again, you can see his beautiful dapples.

There is a very clear Breyer mold mark and USA stamp, but no B stamp on the first PAS. (One of my alabaster PASs has a B stamp.)

The lighter PAS has a much less distinct mold mark and USA which are very difficult to read.

A view of both dapple grey PASs from the top shows the dapple differences as well as the semi-gloss and matte comparison. There are differences in both the shapes as well as the number of dapples on each piece.

 A backside view. The darker one even has dapples in his mane and tail.

The darker model has beautiful pinking in its ears and on its nose. The other has very, very faint pinking in the ears but none on its nose. 

They have the same number of socks, but the newer piece has more black shading below his knees and hocks.

 And, I think the darker guy just may be a chalky. Look at the thicker, rougher  paint, especially on his off front hoof.

His barn buddy does not have that.

Here's the comparison of the two pieces together again.

There are also places on his nose and tail that make me think he is chalky, too. 

I have had several people look at him and offer their opinion, and the jury really is out. Some have labeled the dark dapple grey guy a chalky; others say he is not. I lean towards chalky myself.

Regardless of who says what, all have agreed that there is something odd about his paint job. And it is finding those oddities and trying to figure them out which makes collecting, especially vintage pieces, so much fun.

Molly Finds Happiness

Nine months after rescuing Molly, we saw great progress. She was calmer and liked to have one of us with her at all times, she wagged her tail at us and would take treats from our hands, and she enjoyed walks down by our neighborhood lake. But she still kept her distance from us and would not let us approach her and pet her if she was off leash. Molly just could not seem to help herself, shying away and then looking at us with some tentative tail wags when she felt there was a safe distance between us. (She had been a puppy mill mama with abuse and no socialization.)

When our daughter Lisa came over, though, Molly was a different dog. She would be so happy to see Lisa, sitting next to her, licking her hands and face, following her around the house, and just showing how much she loved to be with her.

We finally decided to see if Molly would be happier living with Lisa (and Lisa happy living with Molly). So, Saturday, September 16, Lisa came over and got her.

We could not have made a better decision for Molly.

Look at that happy face.

Millie likes having Molly around, and will probably grow more dependent on her as she is nearly completely deaf and is getting older. Having a younger dog around should be helpful.

Molly follows Lisa everywhere in her new home, including to the bathroom where she patiently waits outside the door.

 And she has found her "spot" in Lisa's living room where she likes to sleep.

She's given Millie's bed a try (although she has her own) ...

 ... but Millie doesn't really seem to mind. (Millie sleeps on Lisa's bed most of the time anyway!)

There's a doggie door so that she can go in and out at will, plus a fenced in yard for her to run around in without being on a leash.

We still get to have Molly in our home a few times a week while Lisa is at work. She and Millie spend the day with us and then go home around 5:00. 

Molly settles quickly back into being in our home, flopping onto her favorite bed and snoozing as though she had never left. But, she still keeps her distance from us.

No doubt about it, we miss her (and I have cried many tears the past week), but our goal for Molly was always to have her be happy and feeling safe.

Goal accomplished.