"When She Says Go, Go!"

 It may have been nearly five years since Pepper last put on a harness and guided her partner Sarah anywhere, but she recently proved to me that her guide dog chops are still very much present.

Pepper guiding Sarah in 2018 at The Seeing Eye in New Jersey.

It happened the other day. Craig was cooking dinner and I was upstairs in my office packing up some boxes for mailing. Craig loves to cook and he was trying a new method of searing meat. Well, it made  lot of smoke and suddenly the smoke alarms started going off. Since they are all electronically connected, every single one in the house, on both floors, was shrieking. And I mean SHRIEKING!

Knowing the cause, I stayed where I was despite the ear splitting noise and continued working; I knew that Craig would open the doors and windows and get the smoke out of the house and that then the alarms would stop.

But Pepper had different thoughts about that. She came racing upstairs, down the hall, and into my office where she stood right next to me and stared me down. When she caught my eyes, she backed up a few steps and waited, continuing to stare, then repeated her actions when I didn't move. She was all business and her message was clear - follow me!

And so I did. I stood up, and she immediately turned around and ran out into the hallway, looking back over her shoulder to be sure I was following. She paused at the top of the stairs so I could catch up, then barreled down them to the main floor, stopping at the bottom of the stairs and again waiting for me to catch her up.

Into the kitchen she hustled me where she stood by the back door. I opened it and followed her out onto the patio where we remained until the alarms stopped. Sobered and touched by her actions, I gave her a treat and a hug to thank her.

Later that evening I contacted Sarah and told her what Pepper had done. Was she trained to respond to fire alarms? Sarah's answer was a bit of a surprise. 

"It is not part of their training. But some dogs are very acutely alert to things like that. Good girl, Pepper! She loves you so much. I am so thankful for her. When she says go, go!"

I asked my other visually impaired friend Kathy the same question. Her response was similar to Sarah's.

"They are not trained for it but every guide dog school has a fire drill, just so dog and person know what to do. She was probably remembering that."

Pepper guiding Sarah on the day she received her PhD from Anderson University.

Pepper gave me a rare glimpse into what it is like to have a working guide dog, one who makes it possible for you to live a fulfilling life, loves you, and who keeps your safety in mind. 

The next time when Pepper says, "Go," you can believe that I will.

Conquering Mountains

My friend Kathy never ceases to amaze me. Just when I think there are no mountains left for her to climb, she finds one, and she conquers it. Actually no, Kathy obliterates it.

And usually she has Tate right at her side, ready to make sure she gets where she needs to go and get there safely.

Her latest mountain? Keynote speaker at the 2024 National Teacher Leadership Conference in Denver, Colorado. (NNSTOY stands for "National Network of State Teachers of the Year.") 

This is a huge conference, and the teachers attending were all past and current Teachers of the Year in their respective states. That includes Kathy - she was Indiana Teacher of the Year in 2015 and then also named Final Four National Teacher of the Year in 2015. (In other words, one of the four best teachers in the United States.)

Her keynote address was so powerful,  a friend texted me afterward and said that Kathy had received a ten minute standing ovation when she finished. This friend also shared that, unknown to Kathy, Dr. Scott Hanback, the Superintendent of the Tippecanoe School Corporation and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Dan Allison had flown out to Denver together and were in the audience while she spoke and were there to congratulate her when she finished.

Kathy, me, Allyson Anthrop, and guide Nacho after we co-taught together one day.

Well done, my friend. When I was still in the classroom, I looked up to you as a role model and hoped to teach some day at the level you did. 

And now that I am retired, I am still learning from you.

A Funeral of Sorts

Tim texted me this afternoon saying, "Grandkids and I held a funeral today."

Attached was this wonderful photo.

Tim said they'd been talking about life after death and one thing led to another. Soon a funeral was in full swing.

Two Socks had (what else?) two socks mounted to her cross with a bit of hay or something stuffed into one of them. At this point I was laughing - what a fitting tribute to that sweet little girl!

As I looked at the photo, I could see that Cowpoke Ian's contribution (the golf tee) was still present, too. (Small red circle.) My heart lifted and for the first time since she died, I did not cry when talking about Abby.

I'm healing, and little things like this help the process along.

Thanks, Tim and grands.

Seize the Moments!

As our family anticipates the wedding of JC and Jayci, we have been sharing some travel arrangements as well as lodging. Of course, the dogs are welcome.

Gus is so tall that he can rest his head on the table as we eat our dinner. Those mournful stares did not earn him a single bite of Curt's burger. (This time.)

He can do the same thing with our couch and really catch you off guard. Gus can also leap OVER our couch but that is quickly discouraged if we see him getting ready for a big jump.

Tammo is staying with his doggo cousins for the wedding. Here he is trying out the new bed I got him.

Tammo sees himself as Nash's second in command and follows him everywhere. (I suspect Nash views Tammo as a sweet but sometimes pesky little brother.)

With five of the doggo cousins back together for a while, they are having a great time rough housing and tussling around the house. Nothing has been broken. (Yet.)

Where one dog goes, the others follow. And then the adults follow the dogs and...

I have trouble writing. But, I also have fun with the family and doggo chaos. You have to seize those moments when they come!

Speaking of seizing, watch Tammo get the best of Pepper in this video.

Seize the moment indeed!

It Ain't Happening

This short post is probably all I'll get posted today. Some very welcome company has rolled in!

Beach Son Kyle and Tammo are here! We are all going out to JC and Jayci's wedding and Tammo is staying with our dogs while we travel. (Grateful for good friends who are happy to watch a pack of dogs.)

Me trying to write this morning. Needless to say, it ain't happening. But other good things are. 

I'll be back tomorrow.

Spalling is Appalling (but Fixable!)

Okay, I just had to use "appalling" since it rhymed so well with "spalling" and describes well the after effects of spalling. Haha!

And yes, spalling is fixable. Take a look at my little Sherif now.

Doesn't he look wonderful? Thanks to Sue Kern for repairing that appalling spalling.  (LOL)

I discovered Sue of Sakori's Customs after using several other other repair artists with mixed results. Sue was recommended to me, I gave her a try, and now she is the first person I call when I break a china. (That white spot at the base of Sherif's tail is glare from the light.)

Sherif's repaired tail from the top. (Photo by Sue Kern.)

I am so glad to have this piece back. Not only is he a beautiful example of Hagen Renaker's finest work, he is also a sentimental favorite. Teacher Daughter Lisa asked years ago to have her name put on his tag so that he would come live with her when the time comes.

Sue also repaired another sentimental favorite who'd tagged along with Sherif. When Craig and I got married, my mother started a tradition of annually painting a few Nativity pieces and giving them to us for Christmas. They're all signed and dated on the bottom and have been gracing my player piano for close to 50 years.

The completed Nativity is a family treasure.

The story behind this Nativity? In the 1970s ceramics were a hot hobby and my mother owned a ceramic shop where she taught people to clean greenware, paint it, and then fired it for them. (We had a kiln in our basement.) This Nativity set was something she sold in her shop as greenware.

Occasionally I run across another completed Nativity set like mine as I visit antique and thrift shops. I've found several finished sets but have left all of them behind - except for the set that this broken camel came from.

While not as nice as the set done by my mother, it was still quite well done. I bought it and gifted it to Hawkeye Sarah who was thrilled to have it as a remembrance of her Granny Slash.

Unfortunately the head recently broke off one of the camels. It wasn't spalling; it broke when it was bumped.

Reassuring Sarah that it could be fixed, I sent photos of the piece to Sue Kern along with Sherif's pictures and asked her about fixing the camel, too.

And soon that camel was standing tall and proud again, head carefully and firmly reattached. (All restored camel photos are by Sue Kern.)

Looks great, doesn't it?

Teacher Daughter Lisa went over to Iowa to visit her sister in early July and hand delivered the repaired camel. Sarah is glad to have the piece repaired and is looking forward to having a complete Nativity out on her table again this Christmas.

I know how she feels - I feel the same way about my repaired Sherif. 

An Incident of Spalling

Ever heard of spalling? Most likely you have seen it happen in concrete but it can happen to other materials, too. Ceramics are one of those materials.

Not only can spalling be caused by sudden temperature changes, but  flaws in the slip when it was poured, temperature fluctuations during firing, and age can also cause it. Spalling is not a common occurrence among china collectors in the model horse world but it does occasionally happen.

I recently discovered that spalling had happened to a cherished piece in my collection. I opened my china cabinet to get a horse and saw this:

A tail lying by itself on the shelf.

Next to it? A Hagen Renaker Sherif from the Monrovia era. Monrovia was Hagen Renaker's earliest era for Designer Workshop pieces so this piece is old. That age probably contributed to the spalling and loss of the tail.

Needless to say, I was dismayed and I may even have shed a tear or two. How could this have happened? I looked around for clues.

Because he is such a nice piece (Nancy Falzone has called this one the best Sherif she has ever seen and has asked to buy him from me more than once), I have always taken extreme care when handling him. He is also my favorite china in all my collection.

Whenever I remove Sherif or put him back inside the china cabinet, I move slowly and carefully. I set him away from the other pieces so I don't snap a leg or an ear off by accidentally bumping him against one of them. He is well away from the other pieces on that shelf so I ruled out an inadvertent bump.

I know he was intact and in one piece when I settled him on the shelf the last time I had him out. I enjoy looking at my chinas from their places inside the safety of the china cabinet and I would have noticed if that tail were gone. The break was recent.

Because the cabinet is screwed firmly into studs inside the wall, it will not tip, sway, or budge. Motion from the cabinet did not cause Sherif to wobble and the tail to break off.

Perhaps the Cowpokes and Pony Pals were responsible? Absolutely not. They know the china cabinet is off limits and they do a wonderful job of respecting that. They also know that if they want to see a horse, all they need to do is to ask and I will get it out for them. (Furthermore, they'd have had to slide their arm between multiple models to reach him - something else would've been broken, too, were that the case.)

In the end I was able to rule out any other way Sherif's tail might have been broken off and that left only one thing - it had to be spalling.

Years ago (WAY back in the days of Haynet and Yahoo Groups,) a china collector discovered a mysteriously broken model among her chinas and, like me, saw no reason for it to have been broken. She mentioned this on the china Yahoo group and someone brought up spalling. That person explained it to the rest of us and several other collectors responded that they'd had a random or unexplained breakage in their collections, too. The general consensus was that those may also have been spalling incidents.

I'd never heard of spalling prior to that and it was an enlightening discussion for me. So, over two decades later when I had my own random and unexplained breakage in my china cabinet, I was pretty sure it was a spalling incident.

Carefully I removed Sherif and his tail from the cabinet and took photos of the damage. Then I contacted my favorite repairer and restorer of chinas, sent her the photos, and asked if she had any slots open on her schedule. Fortunately, she did.

Stay 'tooned!

Vintage Club Kirk & His Insert

For weeks, the box containing Kirk, the most recent Vintage Club offering, has been sitting on my desk. I've wanted to open that box, but I needed time to take photos of him, to get him tagged, and then to find a space for him on my shelves. 

Finally, I got that time.

Aside from a small bent corner, the shipping box looked okay.

Kirk's inner box looked fine until I looked at the top of it.

Oh, no. The ears had come through it. 

Sure enough, despite being bubble wrapped,

Kirk's near ear had poked through the bubble wrap and then the box - twice. Fortunately though there were no rubs on that ear and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Kirk is absolutely gorgeous. He's a glossy splatter grey, a highly popular vintage color that is very well executed on this piece.

He has a striped mane and tail and my piece is flawless.

Kirk is also a throwback to the 1950s night lights and has a jack in his belly where he can be connected to a power source.

The removable power cord is quite long enabling him to be placed a good distance away from the plug.

Kirk is rapidly becoming one of my favorite Vintage Club pieces of all.

Anyone else catch this error on Kirk's certificate of authenticity? When I read that, I thought that that was a really odd way to describe his color. In fact, it made no sense. Something was wrong.

I compared the certificate to a screen shot I'd taken of his description when he was released.

Yep! ICONIC is the word Breyer meant, not chaotic. Makes MUCH more sense!

Informational inserts always come with Vintage Club pieces, and Andrea Gurdon used to write them. I've wondered who would do them after she passed away, or if perhaps we were lucky and she'd completed the 2024 inserts before she had. I'm not sure that she did, though.

This insert did not seem like her writing, but I can't put my finger on why - it just doesn't "feel" like Andrea. I've read her blog for years, I've read all of her Vintage Club inserts, and I read her Morning Glory Ranch Sampler every year it was published. I'm very familiar with her writing style and lean toward thinking that she may not have written Kirk's insert.

But, I may be wrong and she did write this one, too.

Please don't misunderstand - there is absolutely nothing wrong with this insert; it's fine. It's just that the writing style doesn't have the familiarity for me that Andrea's did. 

A part of me hopes that this insert is one last bit of Andrea's knowledge being shared with the rest of us. Wouldn't that would be lovely?

If you know who write Kirk's insert, please email me at horsiemama8@gmail.com or make a comment below. I'm curious and I suspect I am not alone in wondering.

Thanks.

The Maple Cakes Winner & New Haversacks

It's time to spin to win! There were three people who correctly guessed that the famous horse from Indiana who was born near me was Dan Patch. Good luck to Pam N, Jennifer, and Kat as I give the spinner a go!

Congratulations! I will get those maple cakes into the mail to you as soon as possible. Thanks to all who made guesses. This was a bonus July give away; another in August will be coming soon!

I thought that this Halloween fabric would sell out quickly and I was right. It is quite a unique fabric. I had a custom order for a traditional haversack just twenty minutes after I posted its photo on my Mercantile Facebook page.

I was hoping to have enough fabric left to make myself one, but I'm going to have to get some more of it for that to happen.

I also made an extra long traditional (XLT) from it to sell. This size sells really well as so many of Breyer's newer molds are shelf eaters.

Via Latte/Constantina is a good example of one of those.

After cutting out the two bigger pony pouches, there were several long remnants left. Not wanting to waste the fabric, I turned them into smaller, Curio/Venti sized ones with a little more length than usual on three of them.

I was pleasantly surprised at the variety of models they would fit. (It's the angle of the camera that makes Stormy look like she won't fit inside. She does.)

These will go with me to Marilou Mol's show in August as not only am I showing, I will be setting up the Mercantile, too.

Back to the sewing room - Marilou's show is getting closer and so is The Feast!