Collection Cleaning and Rearranging: Done at Last!

Sometimes you need a little help to finish a job, and I had to have help to clean the last part of my collection. I simply could not reach the models that were on the top shelves. I'd tried using a Swiffer Duster with an extendable arm, but decided that I wanted to thoroughly clean everything, not just lightly brush them.

It had been hard to get them up there two years ago when I replaced my shelves, but since I lost a couple of discs during my spinal fusion this spring, I am just enough shorter that I can't reach them anymore. 

My balance isn't very good, either, so standing on a step stool wasn't an option. 

Teacher Daughter Lisa came over to give me a hand. 

Not only is Lisa an experienced tadpole wrangler, she's an experienced model horse wrangler, too!

Some of the models in my collection are actually hers and she attended many model horse shows with me when she was younger. (I keep her old tags on the models because I am very sentimental.)

Thanks to her, I am finally finished with the dusting and rearranging!

Things look much better and I now have open shelf space for my BreyerFest purchases and other models I'll be buying.

Well, actually, I still need to get to those pesky Hartland shelves. And I just realized that I will need Lisa's help with the Hartlands on the top shelf.

So maybe I am not truly done, but I am calling it good and I will have her help me the next time she pops over.

MCF: Another Misty

 I've always had a fondness for Misty of Chincoteague, but since becoming a board member of the Misty of Chincoteague Foundation (MCF), I have actively looked for models, books, and other items related to Misty and author Marguerite Henry. 

Recently I found this in-box Misty on Facebook Marketplace. 

Misty was first introduced in 1972 and is one of Breyer's longest running (if not the longest) models. Judging from the yellowing clear plastic, I figured this one was twenty years old or so.

I wasn't too far off - inside the box was a JAH flier and the 1996 Breyer catalog.

I slid her out of her box and compared her to the two other Mistys already in my collection. 

The differences between the three are pretty unremarkable although the underside of her hooves are pinker than the other two. 

I carefully put my new Misty back into her box (that yellowing plastic is brittle) along with the catalog and flier. Most likely I will keep her in the box, at least for now.

This post is the first in a series I will be writing about Marguerite Henry, her books, the Breyer models of horses from those books, and more. Since my interest is prompted by the Misty of Chincoteague Foundation, all titles will have MCF in them to make them easily searchable.

Stay 'tooned!

Collection Cleaning and Rearranging: Still Working!

 Just because I was curious, I scrolled through blog entries to see how long I have been working on cleaning and rearranging my collection. I was a bit surprised to see that it's been over three weeks! But, I am getting it done.

Aside from a box going to Good Will and a painting to be hung, the upstairs family room is done and Craig can walk unimpeded into his library.

The spare bedroom library sewing room second model horse room is finished and I've migrated the longer models like Dundee, the Shagya Arabian, Pacer, and others to the deeper shelves in there.

Holding my breath, I cleaned and rearranged the Freeman Leidys, Metlox Poppytrails, Chevals, and other unusual china horses that are in the antique china hutch. I didn't break anyone, thank goodness.

Since I had very recently rearranged the Hagen Renaker minis (in a repurposed media cabinet) I did not do anything to them.

I do still need to do the Hartland shelves but I left that for the time being - I am thinking of selling most of them and wanted to think about that first.

Saturday I made a concerted effort to get started on the shelves in my office, the original horse room. 

And that's where the rearranging really began. I like to group by mold and so that means I get open pockets of space to fill. Almost everything on the bottom three shelves was transferred over from other shelves in the room.

During my spinal fusion in April, several discs were removed and I am shorter as a result. There are times when I can literally feel the difference that that makes and this is one of them. The topmost shelves have always been hard for me to reach; this time, I ended up using a Swiffer Duster on an extension handle to clean them instead of taking the models down individually. I simply could not reach them.

After I'd gotten all the Classics gathered on the narrow shelves by the window, I finished for the day.

I've got some completely empty shelves and then some open spaces on others for playing model horse Jenga when I get back to work this morning. 

Definitely this project will be finished this week - we will have three of our children and their families (and dogs) in town for the 4th of July weekend, so I want to get the collection rearranging and cleaning done by then. 

Wish me luck!

Haying Time and More Tadpoles

I love haying time - the smell of the freshly cut hay wafts on the breeze and you know, without a doubt, that it is SUMMER! (It's also a sign that winter will be coming, but let's not talk about that in June!)

There are four horse properties off the lane that takes you back to the barn,

and all four of them were haying this week.

That included us - these round bales are for Abby and the herd. We need twenty round bales for the winter, and we got that the first cutting. We already have around 75 square bales in the hay mow of the old barn so we are in good shape.

I also did a second tadpole wrangling Saturday. While there are far fewer than there were the first wrangling,

I was able to pull about 100 more tadpoles out of the tank and release them in the lake across from my home.

I'll keep my net and bucket in the trunk of my car and check the trough again - I suspect I still have at least one more tadpole wrangling ahead of me!

Two "Palominos"

My favorite photo from the tadpole wrangling. 

Two "palominos" with their manes blowing in the wind.

Life is good.

Impatient Ponies

 Sometimes you just can't unwrap the candy canes fast enough.

Abby, are you sticking your tongue out at me? What's the deal about that??

I am down to my last two boxes of candy canes, and for some reason, these were problematic to unwrap.

It didn't help that Sultanna, who had just had a drink of water, nuzzled me and got my hands wet.

That made it so that any bits of candy cane that were partially unwrapped became sticky which made my hands sticky which made it even more difficult to unwrap the treats!

In the end, everyone got a nibble, and my two favorite girls were happy.

Make that three happy girls.

Tadpole Wrangling

With a little help from some Cowpokes, a Pony Pal, Teacher Daughter Lisa, Local Son Curt, and Craig - we wrangled tadpoles yesterday!

Tadpole wrangling is a lot like herding cats - those little froggies-to-be can swim fast and dodge nets!

We quickly figured out that the best approach was to put the net in the trough and then swish it back and forth a few times.

There were so many tadpoles in the trough that you were bound to have netted a bunch. (Pony Pal Mila had a cold and so she wore a mask.)

The next step was to carefully bring the net over to the bucket where one of the adults would tip the froglings into the bucket with the others that had been caught.

Cowpoke Lukie was absolutely fascinated by the tadpoles.

He had a net to use, but was happiest just watching the tadpoles wriggle around in the bucket.

He spent a lot of time squatting next to the bucket and watching the nets be emptied into the water.

Because it was a beautiful day with temps in the 70s and low humidity, we got out the camp chairs and hung out a bit.

Of course, soon the horses got curious and came over to check out what we were doing.

We gave them a couple of cut up apples and then shooed them away so we could finish netting tadpoles.

In the end, we removed a lot of tadpoles from the trough. After packing everything into the car, I went back for one last look at the trough to see if many tadpoles were left.

Looks like we've got some more tadpole wrangling to do!

SLIDING into the Seventies Photo Showing

 Last year as the pandemic surged and the world closed down, the hobby saw a resurgence of photo showing. 

It has been amazing to see just how much photo showing has changed from back in the days of long grass, blurry backgrounds, and more.

When I first started photo showing in 1971, my dad, ever supportive of my horsey side, offered to take the photos. He was a photographer with a darkroom in our basement, and so we went downstairs and set up my models on the pool table using old drapes to mask the shoe boxes and background.

I was dismayed and almost in tears, though, when the photos came back - my father had used slide film! (You can see that I actually tried to show a couple of them, but that didn't work very well.)

Dad took the slides down to the camera shop and had them converted into small photos (2 x 3).  Most show photos were 3 x 5, but I was just glad to have the pictures and showed them, small though they were.

Feathers from my parakeet, Buttons, were used to make this regalia for my buckskin Indian Pony. 

Soon I was taking my own photos with my Kodak Instamatic camera.  I liked to go down by the Wabash or into our pastures for more realistic scenes. (See the date in the photo's left margin? July, 1972.)

The concrete cover of our well was a perfect place for photos - or so I thought at the time.

My photos continued to improve as the years passed, but while it is fun to photo show, it is a lot of work and to be competitive, you have to take really good photos.

My photos are just average, although I have had some good wins this past year.

Live showing has recently resumed and NAMHSA is approving shows again. Will the hobby continue on with photo showing now that we can gather again? Or will it fade away with sporadic shows and associations like MEPSA keeping the tradition alive?

I am hoping that this connection to our earliest hobby days continues to thrive.