A Case for the Bridle Rosettes

Ever since I began collecting bridle rosettes, I have been looking for a way to display them. Shadow boxes didn't work well - the rosettes have a raised bar on the back so that they can be used on a bridle, and that made them roll around in the little cubbies.

Sorry for the photo quality - the sun isn't up yet as I write and there is glass in the cover of the box reflecting the lights in the room.

That bar on the back made it so that anything I tried for displaying them simply didn't work. Finally, I just put my rosettes into a box and set them on the shelf. I was resigned that I was going to have to have to go down to the frame shop and see what they could figure out.

Then, a friend posted on social media that she had bought a ring case to display her horsey jewelry and rings. Since I have a lot of horsey jewelry, I clicked on her photos to see if it might work for me. And in doing so, I solved my own problem.

Photo by Myla Pearce. Don't her things look great displayed like that? And how easy to find what she wants to wear!

I hopped onto Amazon, found a similar one, and ordered it. It arrived this weekend and I began inserting my bridle rosettes. Looks pretty good thus far!

I also included a photo of my father with his circus pony, Oh Boy. I have Oh Boy's bridle and there is one rosette remaining on it, so I plan to pop that one into the case, too. The plain silver one is from my first horse Amy's bridle. 

Thanks, Myla, for the wonderful idea! 

A Double Blue Ribbon Day

I remember getting a new Breyer as a child and peeling off the blue ribbon sticker that used to come with Breyer's early pieces. I'd play with those blue ribbons just as much as I played with the models they accompanied. And now all those blue ribbons are gone. I did not save a single one.

Once in a while I purchase a vintage piece just because it still has its blue ribbon sticker, so when this elephant was listed on an online sales site, I snagged it. 

Along with having its sticker, the price was good and the piece was in great shape.

But when I actually had the elephant in hand and could take a good look at it, I could tell right away that it was different from my other elephants.

It was a grayer color, but then color variations among Breyer are very normal. Was it a chalky? The paint did not feel thick, but just in case, I shone a flashlight through it. The light was blocked. Excitedly, I shone the light through the other two elephants, just to compare, and it shone through as expected.

So, the elephant blocked light like a chalky would, but it did not have the thick base coat of paint under its grey coloring. I then flipped it on its side to check its feet.

There was my answer - the feet were a solid grey color - the elephant had been made with grey plastic. This happened during the oil crisis of the early 1970s when Breyer had difficulty getting the right materials to manufacture models.

You can see the difference between its feet and my other two elephants. (They have drain board patterns on their feet which is also pretty cool.) And if you look at its tusks, you can see that they are unpainted grey plastic while the other two have white tusks.

Super thrilled to have gotten the double bonus of a blue ribbon sticker and grey plastic to add to my vintage collection!

Dad's Slides: Birthday Party Pony Rides

As Leslie continues to scan in Dad's slides, I am seeing events that I do not remember happening. These pictures from my sister's birthday party are case in point. I have no memory of giving pony rides to Jenny and her friends at her birthday party.

It was April, 1972. I'd been a horse owner for a whopping two years and was fourteen. Jenny was turning seven and had invited her friends to our home for a party.

Me with Jenny on Pokey in our front pasture. You can see the Wabash River across the highway behind us.

The birthday girl gets the first ride. 

As you can see, the Wabash is in flood mode and has covered much of our river pasture. More than once, we had to move horses quickly to dryer pastures!

If you look behind the girl on the far right you can see a bush and a culvert that goes under the road. The highway is raised about three to four feet to keep it from being flooded. Unfortunately, that culvert allowed floodwaters to pass under the road and flood this pasture, too. Then there were times when the water rose too high and swamped the road as well as both of our pastures. Luckily, we had a third pasture that was on higher ground and never flooded.

Unlike Leslie and me, Jenny has never been horse crazy, but she did like to ride occasionally.  I haven't asked her what she remembers about this party, but my guess is that having pony rides at her birthday party made her and a lot of her friends very happy. I think I enjoyed it, too!

Dad's Slides: Two Early Breyers and an Earthquake

Just as I'd hoped, a slide of me with some of my earliest Breyers has been found. The box of slides this one came from is labeled 1968, so that would make make this my eleventh birthday. 

Hercules, the Clydesdale with gold bobs is on the left, and Torpedo, the Western Horse is on the right.

Both pieces are still with me and proudly displayed on my shelves.

Torpedo has an interesting story behind him. One day I was playing with my carpet herd, sitting on the floor next to their shelf. Torpedo was still on the shelf, and his reins were hanging down (like they are in the photo above.) 

Suddenly, those reins began swinging back and forth. I remember being very surprised - I had not been touching the shelf and no one else was in the room with me. What was going on? 

It was an earthquake! Centered in southeastern Illinois, it struck on Saturday, November 9, 1968 at 11:02 AM and measured 5.4 on the Richter scale. The red dot with the arrow is West Lafayette, where I lived then and where I live now.

We've had three more earthquakes that I have felt and can remember since then - 1987, 2008, and 2010. I was nowhere near Torpedo during those to check his reins and see if they were swinging, but I would imagine they were.

As I remember this story from my past with Torpedo, I look around at the other vintage models I own, models that I have found in antique shops, on eBay, and in other places. I wonder what stories they could tell?

Dad's Slides: the Cowgirl Outfits

Yesterday afternoon a loud, cowgirl YEEHA!! could be heard coming from the Isenbarger home. Leslie had sent me a photo of us in the cowgirl outfits that our mother had made.

Jennifer, our youngest sister with her stick horse, Bluey, Leslie, and me.

 In a recent blog post I had written that I had found a pattern during an online search that looked like the one our mom had used. I was right; it was the same pattern.

Finding that was a bright spot for me, especially as I shelter in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a reminder of some very happy times along with the love that my parents had for me. Best of all, it was more hugs coming from heaven.

More of that Glossy Grey Appaloosa Goodness

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I thought that Breyer's glossy black Appaloosa was one of the best colors ever done on the Fighting Stallion. 

But I sure like it on other molds, too. To my delight, Breyer's second release in the 2020 Vintage Collectors Club is Starlight, the Eberl Shagya Arabian, and it is done in the old glossy grey Appaloosa.

 She is lovely in this color, and is my first piece from the mold. (What a shelf eater she is!)

 But I think Breyer did a super nice job with her and am happy to clear some space for her.

Just for fun, I pulled out all my glossy grey Appaloosa models. She fits right in with the rest of them.

Breyer's offerings this year just keep knocking it out of the park!

Dad's Slides: I Found a Horse!

As family lore has it, I began pestering my parents for a horse when I was a toddler. So, it is no wonder that they did not believe me early one morning when I told them that I had found a horse.

I was three and we lived on the edge of town in a small neighborhood. Directly beyond us were farm fields and woods. I had woken up before anyone else and wandered into the kitchen. The kitchen had sliding glass doors into the back yard and to my surprise, I could see a horse grazing on our lawn just outside those doors.

Running into my parents' bedroom, I gleefully told them that there was a horse in our back yard. My father responded (as the family story goes), "Nice way to try to get us up, Lynn." But as they soon discovered for themselves, it was true, and so my father caught the horse and put it on the dog tie out under our crabapple tree while he tried to find its owners.

 Leslie and me, feeding the horse carrots, ecstatic that we finally had our own horse.

We were pseudo horse owners for a week before we finally located its real owners. And that was a week of heaven as far as I was concerned. Dad would put us up on the horse's back and lead us around the yard, neighborhood kids stopped in frequently to pet it, and, if they were lucky, go for a ride, too.

Sadly (for me), the owners were located and they arrived in a station wagon to retrieve their horse. They did not have a trailer, and I remember a teenage boy with his arm out the back window holding the horse's lead rope, the horse walking beside the car as his father drove slowly down the road. 

I wish I had more information about the horse. Was it a mare or a gelding? Looks to me like a large pony, not a horse. (Although I remember thinking that it was huge.) Why did it take the owners so long to reclaim it? What was its name? Why is its halter in front of the ears? (My father had had Oh Boy and knew how to care for horses, so why is it not on properly?) What's with the odd tail?  And many more.

I'll never know the answers, but that's okay. It is enough to have these wonderful memories of my very "first" horse.

Dad's Slides: An Early Fighting Stallion

My sister recently discovered several large boxes that are stuffed full of our dad's slides. Dad was an amateur photographer with his own dark room, and my brother and sisters and I are very familiar with his films as we watched those frequently as a family. But, we never saw the thousands of slides that he took and then tucked away. Until now.

My sister bought a slide scanner and has been going through the first box, digitalizing the slides and then sending them on to the rest of us. I've been in tears more than once at seeing people, pets, and events that I did not remember until the photos brought them back.

As you might imagine, many of the slides of my sister and me have a horse in them. I'll be posting some of those in future blog posts. Here's one to start with.

This is Leslie opening her birthday gifts in April, 1969. That's a glossy grey Appaloosa Fighting Stallion, one of the prettiest colors Breyer has done on that mold. And he has a blue ribbon sticker!

That piece is still around and displayed on my shelves with my other Fighting Stallions. (Leslie gave him to me when she stopped collecting.)

And he's in great condition, especially considering that he was a carpet herd piece! (That yellow on his hip is from the light.)

I've seen people post photos on social media of themselves as kids opening now-vintage Breyers under the Christmas tree or for their birthdays. I never dreamed that there might be photos of me in that same situation. That would be a treasure to me.

But the biggest treasure has been that, as we look at all these old slides, it is very clear that Dad loved his family. It feels to us as though he is sending us hugs from heaven. And that is the best thing coming out of those big brown boxes.

Vintage Club Trailblazer

Oh, Breyer, I wish you celebrated your anniversary every year! The offerings, both regular run, club, and special runs for 2020 are awesome!

Trailblazer is the first offering to Vintage Club members.

Not only does he come with a slip saddle, but he has the old style grooming kit, too!

And a hang tag!

His color is beautifully done, too. 

Breyer, you outdid yourself with this one and I can't wait to see the next Vintage Club offering!

Happy Spring!

Nancy Kelly sent me this beautiful winter photo of her herd that was taken a few years ago.

Gus (QH), Thunder (QH), Buddy (TWH/Arab), and Toby (Haflinger).

It's a lovely photo, and it also made me think back to the days when I had out horses at home and had to go out in every kind of weather to feed, water, and check on them. While that can be hard work, you also get the bonus of seeing beautiful sights like this one.

 And funny ones, too, like this photo of Nancy's horse, Winston (love that name!),

and Gus at feeding time on a snowy day.

Thanks, Nancy! It may not really make sense to celebrate the advent of spring with winter photos, but these are crazy times.

Early No Muscle Clydesdale

I spied this lovely Clydesdale for sale at last month's GLC show and, after thinking about it for a few hours, went back and bought it.

  He's the early, no-muscle version and in great shape for his age. 

The eighth bob has been reglued as has an ear tip  but that doesn't bother me one bit. There is no Breyer stamp, either, so between that and the no-muscles, that makes him a very early piece. (There are five versions of the bay Clydesdale; this is version one. Some version ones had eye whites while others, like mine, did not.)

One of my first Breyers was the bay Clydesdale Stallion with gold bobs (above). I named him Hercules, and he was the "strong man" of my carpet herd. A gentle giant. As a result, I have a very soft spot in my heart for these early Clydesdales.

So, I am really happy to add this piece to my collection.

New (to me) Horse Books!

My hobbies are model horses, sewing, and reading. I read every single day, multiple times. Currently I am working my way through all twenty-three Dragonriders of Pern books by Anne McCaffrey. (Fourteen down, nine to go!)

Because I love to read so much, I am always on the lookout for books when I go searching for models to add to my collection. I was delighted to find three to add to my collection at the February Great Lakes Congress show.

Everygirls Horse Stories is a collection of stories about young girls and their horses, with the  stories originally published elsewhere between 1940 and 1951. (What kind of bit is that in the horse's mouth?)

The book itself was published in 1956. I had never seen this one, although I think I may have read one or two of the stories it contains. 

This pretty book centers on a circus and its happenings. I've not read it before, but I flipped though it to see if it was horsey. Circus ponies are my passion, so home with me it came.

 The book is 110 years old and in terrific shape.

 And it has those beautiful plates of illustrations that some old books have.

The third book is one that I already have multiple copies of, but for $1, I picked it up, too.

I have this 1968 copy already with its dust jacket and would love to more versions. This particular book will probably become a donation to a live show.

I look forward to reading these as soon as I finish the Pern series. So many good books to read! (And with the COVID-19 outbreak, I am getting plenty of time to read.)

1997 Sears SR Field Hunter

I found this gorgeous vintage Jumping Horse for sale online a week ago and am so glad I purchased him. (Photos from the seller's ad.)

 It's the 1997 Sears SR Field Hunter in semigloss dark dapple grey.

Only 1,650 were made, and they do not come up for sale very often.

 It reminds me of Rumbling Thunder, who is the same gorgeous semigloss color. 

 Rumbling Thunder was much nicer in person than he was in Breyer's promos!

He was produced in 1993 - 1994, and Breyer used his coloring on the Field Hunter, although they added white socks to him.

I'm excited to have finally found this piece!

Rescheduled

(Second post of the day.)

Well, I got a call this morning from Indiana University Health/Simon Cancer Center, my hospital in Indianapolis, and my surgery (this Thursday) has been postponed. It was not unexpected. Local hospitals are doing the same thing, and last night I heard that another major Indy hospital, St. Vincent, was canceling all non urgent surgeries starting Tuesday.

So, when I got a call at 9:00 this morning from the hospital, I had a pretty good idea what was coming.

I am scheduled now for surgery in the summer, and luckily was able to work around Happy Trails, The FAMulous Collectibility Show, and a visit from Beach Boy Son and his family. I'm still working on rescheduling a visit to Denver Daughter's and Mountain Mama's homes, but right now the times I have open and am not in recovery do not work for them. I've bought BreyerFest tickets but I doubt that I will be recovered enough to go. (That is, if that event is still held.)

I'll be honest, a part of me is very relieved that the surgery has been postponed while another part of me wishes to just get it over and get through it. I'm not excited to have it hanging over me for the next couple of months. But, I am in agreement with what is being done to try and contain the COVID-19.  

Stay healthy, friends!

Surgery Prep

As my surgery approaches, I have been following the news about COVID-19 carefully. Since my surgery is not an emergency, it is considered elective, and some hospitals in the area are no longer performing elective surgeries in order to free up rooms and doctors for patients ill with this newest coronavirus.

I went down to Indianapolis to meet with my surgeon a couple of weeks ago and had my preops done while I was there. They expire a month after they have been done; if my surgery has to be postponed, then I may have to do them all over again. (Would my insurance cover that expense? Or would I have to? A question to ask, for sure!)

The rolling bag containing all my preop/preparation devices and prescriptions that they gave me along with my purse while I was at the surgeon's office. 

Some of my preparation materials.

Yesterday, the surgeon's office called me to let me know that my surgery was still scheduled but I was cautioned that, "Things can change quickly." I asked if I should begin drinking my Impact Immunonutrition, a prescription drink that is very expensive. I am supposed to drink three of them a day.  I was directed to go ahead and start.

I do hope that I can have the surgery as scheduled. While I am a little self conscious about the "baby bump" (as Craig and I call it) that is so visible, there is a bigger issue than that. The bulge is so large that, while I can still snap my jeans, pants, and skirts, it is VERY uncomfortable when I do so. That makes it hard to go out in public. (Although I am staying home most of the time in order to stay healthy for the surgery. I don't want to postpone it like I had to in August.)

I guess time will tell; in the meantime, I am on pins and needles as I prepare. Wish me luck!

Snowfall in March

The first day of spring may be getting closer and closer, but it is still winter in Indiana. Today we had another snowstorm barrel through leaving behind a heavy, wet snow. 

Fortunately, the temperature was in the high 30s, so while the snow was falling and sticking to the fields, it was melting on the roads.

I had no hesitations about attempting the drive up to the new barn - even though the lane was snow covered, I was able to drive right on up.

 Tim was also at the barn, but he was out in the west pasture hauling up some hay with the tractor.

 Abby loves to roll in the mud; she was filthy!

 Sultana's foal is due in May and she is starting to look like it.

Trouble and Hokey together by the gate - none of the herd took shelter from the snow despite the fact that they have three places that they can go to get out of the weather.

 The horses at the neighboring farm were out, too. 

 And at the farm further down the access lane they were out as well.

Their barn matches their house and hay barn, although I didn't get photos of those.

Sultanna, Diablo, and Abby.

I gave Abby her peppermints, but I didn't go in with her or stay too long for our visit. It was just too muddy and with the heavy snowfall, I was getting soaked and cold.

Here's hoping that this is the last snow of the season!