Holiday Horsiness: A Fancy, Festive Hat

 Aside from a small group of collectors, the Old Timer doesn't get a lot of attention in the hobby. Count me in as one of those collectors who values him.

The mold portrays a steady, older horse who is resting peacefully at the end of the day. He's the kind of horse you'd like to give an apple or carrot to and then spend time giving a good scratch.

Most releases of the Old Timer have come with hats, and over time those hats get separated from the model and then lost. I've seen many Old Timers in antique stores, but almost always they are sans hat.

Luckily, you can have a replacement hat made for him.

Or, a festive holiday hat if you are so inclined! (Am I ever!)

He looks quite ready for the holidays, and maybe even prepared to help pull Santa's sleigh! 

Because, don't you know, that's the kind of horse the Old Timer is.

Holiday Horsiness: Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot

Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot by Frances Frost is a childhood favorite. The second book in a series of four, it's the story of a boy named Toby and his pony Windy Foot as they celebrate Christmas together.

As a girl, I loved to read this book just before Christmas as the book begins on Toby's last day of school before Christmas vacation.

Toby's friend Tish and her father are coming to spend Christmas with them. Toby met Tish in the first book (Windy Foot at the County Fair) where a friendship grew up between the two families. 

The illustrations in the book are line drawings but they aren't simple - see that frog in Windy's raised hoof?

This photo makes me think of Breyer's  black point dapple grey Proud Arabian Stallion.

Written in 1948, the book is very much a reflection of the times. Horses are used for work around the farm and the family cooks on a wood stove. (One of Toby's chores is to keep the wood box full.)

It's a gentle, peaceful story with popcorn stringing, barn chores, and trips into town for holiday shopping as Toby and his family enjoy the days before Christmas together.

During the story, Toby fixes up an old sleigh to fit Windy Foot. After shining up some old sleigh bells found in the tool shed, he's ready to take Windy Foot out for some fun.

I've been lucky enough to go sleighing in a horse drawn sleigh and the experience is like no other. (Snowmobiling cannot even compare!) It is exhilarating, joyful, a little chilly, and so much more.

No doubt Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot is one of the reasons I love sleigh bells so much.

And since sleigh bells are a symbol for the season, it's another way I can slip horses into my holiday!

More Blind Bag Luck

 Earlier this month I took a chance on getting the blue decorator Indian Pony in the 70th Anniversary Blind Bags. I bought an entire case of 24 with the odds that I'd heard being that there was 1 Indian Pony in every 12 cases. (Or, 1 in every 288 blind bags.) To my surprise, the first package I opened contained her.

As I so frequently say (and then do the complete opposite), I do not collect Stablemates. But I do like the Lippizaner mold. So when Breyer offered a holiday blind bag that included it, I took a chance again. Called Festive Filigrees, four models were offered in filigree holiday colors.

Photo taken from email sent by Breyer.

I didn't really want any of the others; based on Breyer's photo, the colors looked too bright and almost garish. But sometimes the actual in-hand pieces look better than their photographs, so I crossed my fingers and ordered two.

I pulled the first bag from the box and felt the outlines through the packaging. My excitement started rising - it felt like the Lippizaner.

It was! I'd gotten the model I'd wanted in the first bag I'd opened again!

And his color is much prettier and far more muted than that garish gold in the promo photo.

Setting the Lippizaner aside, I started running my fingers over the outlines of the Stablemate in the other package. I didn't really want any of the other offerings, especially the red Smart Chic Olena, nor did I think I'd get lucky and get a second Lippizaner. 

It felt like the Croi, and when I tore off the top of the bag, I was right. And again, the color was much nicer in person. That eye really isn't wonky. It's a combination of shading and trying to take photos at 5:00 AM in very poor lighting. The eye is fine.

Nor does it have a black flaw in its mane. Not sure where that came from, but it's gone now.

After opening the case of 70th Anniversary Blind Bags earlier this month, I discovered that Croi, a mold I do not care for, is not too bad when Stablemate sized. It's been growing on me ever since, and when I saw that the Holiday Filigree Croi was actually a more muted green instead of in-your-face neon, I was actually quite happy with it.

Now that these are here and nothing else is on order, it might be wise to remind myself by (mis-) quoting the Cowardly Lion, "I do not collect Stablemates, I do not collect Stablemates, I do not..."

A Surprise at Thanksgiving

As Thanksgiving Day wound down, I decided to end the day by going through a box of my mother's papers and photographs. She was a historian who knew the value of those old photographs, papers, and documents, and I never know what I am going to find. 

Horse lover that I am, it is always a delight to discover old photos of horses like this one.

I'd never seen this horse before and wondered why its photo was in with my mother's things. My guess was that it might be connected to my great aunt, Clara Honeywell Canady. She and her husband farmed in nearby Watseka, Illinois, and my mother had been very close to her.

I flipped the photo to see if anything was written on the back. I was right.

"Old Maude - had her all the years on the farm that we used horses. Taken possibly 1942-3 in our drive way. Fern - Aunt Clara 1965." (I love that you can see the rise of mechanization with the reference to "all the years we used horses.")

And then another photo - on its back was simply written "Fern and Maude." My mom looks about 13, so this photo is from around 1941. And what a sweet looking mare. I am guessing she is a Percheron.

But there was another reason that I found these photos so intriguing. I have a china horse from childhood named Old Maude.

Old Maude originally belonged to Leslie and she was the one who named her. I have always thought the name was really odd, and when you take into consideration that Leslie was 6 or 7 when she named this piece, it is not the name a child normally thinks of.

Now I know. No doubt our mom suggested the name to her, remembering Maude from her girlhood. And that speaks to me of the relationship my mother and my great aunt had with Maude. Because cameras and film development were so expensive in the 1940s, people usually took photos of family and friends although taking take a photo of a girl on a horse would not have been too unusual.

But to take a photo of the horse all by herself? Old Maude had to have been a special, beloved horse. And that makes me glad that her name and memory continue on through a little "glass" horse in my china cabinet.

Happy Thanksgiving!

May today be a bright spot for us all!

Trouble in Trouble

Trouble was bred by Tim and foaled on the property.

Tim is an entomologist (someone who studies insects) and since Trouble was born the summer Indiana was expecting the hatching of a brood of 17 year cicadas, Tim named him "Cicada Trouble."

Trouble more than lives up to his name and you have to keep an eye on him. He is not mean, but he is very, very curious and always checking things out.

A lead rope left hanging on a post? Trouble will find it and chew it.

Using a hose to fill a trough? Don't turn your back or walk away to do other things.

Trouble will pull that hose out and play with it, squirting everyone (including himself) with water. And you will have to get the hose away from him and hang around a little longer to fill the trough.

Once when Tim was traveling and I was watching the horses, I discovered some rebar that had surfaced right in front of the trough where the horses stood when watering.

Craig got his pickaxe and came with me to the barn to dig it out of the ground. Guess who showed up to investigate?

Afraid that he might get hurt while Craig was swinging that axe, I had to get a longe whip and snap it around a few times before Trouble moved away. But as soon as I stopped snapping, back he came.

He also paws the gates. So, when you discover this,

 you figure there was a good chance that Trouble was responsible.

He may have pawed one gate too many - for the past couple of days his off front leg has been bothering him. He will hold it up while grazing and has a small limp at times.

Tim hasn't called the vet yet, but he did move the herd into a smaller pasture and closer to the new barn so he could more easily check on Trouble's well being. And when I last spoke with Tim, he felt that Trouble was improving. 

I'm heading out to the barn early this morning and am hoping that that improvement has continued.

Grandma Honeywell's Cherry Pie

 Last November just before Thanksgiving, I shared Grandma Honeywell's pumpkin pie recipe here on Horsiemama. It is my favorite pie, but the rest of my family thinks her cherry pie is even better. I will be making both this week and thought that I would share her cherry pie recipe this year.

This recipe does not use store-bought cherry pie filling, it uses pitted tart red cherries.

My original recipe card from the mid 1970s. You can tell that it is well loved and well used! I have also added notes to it - they continue on to the back. (I double the filling now despite what my 1997 note says. And, I omit the salt.)

Grandma Honeywell's 1955 Cherry Pie Recipe

2 cans of cherries, drained in a colander with the juice saved

1 cup sugar

2 1/2 tablespoons quick cooking tapioca (NOT the pearled!)

1/3 cup of the saved juice (discard the rest)

1 tablespoon butter, thinly sliced into pats (sometimes I omit this, too)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Combine the sugar, tapioca, and cherry juice in a medium bowl. Stir until well mixed and let stand while preparing the pie dough. Roll out half the pie dough (or use a prepared crust) and place bottom crust into a 9" pie pan. Mix the cherries into the sugar/tapioca/juice mixture and then pour into the pie pan. Place thin butter pats on top of cherry mixture. Roll out the other half of the pie dough (or use prepared pie crust) and place on top. Cut a few steam vents into the top. Bake at 450 degrees for ten minutes, then turn the heat down to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes. 

Now, because there are 29 Isenbargers and every last one of us loves homemade pie, I always double the recipe. It's easy peasy - I use 5 cans of cherries and 10" pie pans. (Just roll the dough thinner to fit the pie pan.) I do not change anything else in Grandma Honeywell's recipe.

When doubling, I make each recipe twice in separate bowls. 

The cherries and sugar/tapioca/juice have been mixed together and poured into the pie pan.

Dotting the top with butter before adding the top crust.

The top crust has been added, the edges fluted, and the steam vent cut into the top crust. (Use the tip of a sharp knife to cut your vents. Hold it vertically to the pie crust and cut with a quick, shallow, up and down motion.)

Hot out of the oven and cooling on the counter.

Cowpoke Ian checking out the desserts - the cherry pie is the bottom right pie.

Because our family is so big and there is so much food being prepared, we run out of space quickly. The solution to the space crunch? Putting completed dishes that do not need refrigeration in other places in the house - on top of the the washing machine, outside on the patio table (which sometimes doubles as a second refrigerator if the weather is cold enough), and...

... in the tub in my bathroom. As you can see, Cowpoke Ian has discovered them. Usually all the grands have to come take a peek. They get the giggles when they see pies in the bathtub.

Grandma started baking this cherry pie recipe in 1955, maybe earlier. It wouldn't be the holidays to me or to my family without a slice of it.

I feel very close to her when I make it and often get a little teary, too. She passed the recipe to my mom who passed it to me, and I have passed it on to my children. An unusual legacy, but a very important one, too.

Enjoy your cherry pie, and Happy Thanksgiving!

New Faces at Windsong!

Despite being a die hard vintage collector, I do think that some of the new Breyer molds are lovely. Enough so that when Breyer had its Collector Club Appreciation sale, everything I bought was a new mold.

Lippizaners are one of my favorite breeds, and Favory Ariella is lovely.

So is her foal.

I owned a Morgan once, and have been eyeing the Classic/Freedom Fairfax, so I tossed him into my virtual cart during the CCA sale.

Sadly, he has a lot of scuffs and rubs on the box side. I was disappointed, but I kept him.

Me with my Morgan, Irish Flame, leading her to the farrier for a trim. He used to set up under the trees along the river where it was cool and shady.

I like blue roans, and love my Nayati in dunalino, so I purchased American Dream.

Another new mold that I like, especially as Carter, and so last but not least, I ordered a Peptoboonsmal.

The CCA event stated that if you ordered $125 worth of models, you would receive a glossy model worth $150 with your order. Breyer teased us by telling us the names of three of those models and others (the teaser part) which they did not identify. 

When my shipping box arrived and I pulled out my new models, I discovered that I had received the Orrin Mixer Quarter Horse. He is really nice. (I was a bit relieved as I don't care for the Emerson or Connemara Mare molds which were two of the possibilities.)  

Like I said, I consider myself a vintage collector, but Breyer keeps introducing beautiful new mold models. That's why this non Stablemate collector is currently waiting on two Stablemate blind bags.