Could We Have a Lamb, Please?

Second Post of the Day

I am glad that March is over. The weather in Indiana (and the Midwest in general) has not been for the faint of heart.

Around the middle of March, this state weather update was posted:

But that wasn't the end of the roller coaster weather we would experience this month.

Predictions for Sunday, March 30 were more ominous than usual. We were warned that it would be a rough day in our area.

Leslie and Rick moved all their vehicles into the barn to protect them - not only were strong winds and tornados in the forecast, but large sized hail, too.

Craig and I made sure we knew where the dogs were at all times and had their leashes to hand. We took them outside for one last break and then turned on the live weather broadcast as the storms approached.

It was ugly with several tornados forming as it got closer. We saw a tornado pop up on the radar just south of town and then the sirens began blowing. The dogs were leashed and we headed into the laundry room to take shelter. 

The laundry room is not our usual shelter spot, but we made it work. As we got the dogs settled, I popped out to get a chair to sit on. And since I knew the tornado was not close, I went to the front door and filmed just a little of the sirens and the weather.

It's a midwestern thing and you can find lots of memes about it. But I felt safe since I had been closely monitoring the weather and knew where the tornado was.

Craig stayed close to Tammo who was very, very frightened.

At last he settled a bit and lay down - look at how he is pressed up against Pepper for comfort. Poor guy!

Lisa also stepped to her back door and filmed the storm. Her door is closed but listen to how loud that wind is! Luckily, her fence survived the winds and did not blow over like it had earlier this week.

When the storm had blown past, we came out of our shelter and checked our home. More shingles off the roof and a lot of standing water, but we were fine.

Downtown Lafayette as well as the surrounding area was different. Lots of trees down, roofs gone, and power outages.

There were semi roll overs on I-65

and damage to farms and rural places.

Tammo clung close to Craig for an hour or so before he finally relaxed and fell asleep.

April, will you please be nice and come in with lambs and butterflies, maybe some pastel colored flowers, too? Hey, at this point I think I'd even be happy with a sparkly unicorn - just please stop slamming us with all these storms!

Historic Saddles: Part 3

First Post of the Day

Today we are continuing to look at historic saddles. And Tim's tackroom is a gold mine of them.

Tim's Mexican Saddle, early 1900s

Shortly before Abby died, Leslie found this beautiful Mexican saddle at a flea market. She bought it to get it into the hands of someone who would value and preserve it. Who better than Tim?

Tim loves antique tack and bought it from her. Now it is on display in the barn lounge.

I have done some research trying to identify it but it doesn't fit the more common types of Mexican saddles (Charro, Montura, Vaquero/Vaquera). It partially fits the description of several different saddles, including a vintage bear trap saddle. It may not be a Mexican saddle as originally thought. (If you can help me identify it, please email me at horsiemama8 @ gmail. com)

Tim's Western Pony Saddle, 1940s/1950s

This little beauty is kept in Tim's barn office. When his grands were little, he had a pony that they would ride. 

Thunderbolt was a sassy little boy and liked to boss around the other horses. 

I didn't get to know him well; at the time Tim had seven horses and I'd just gotten Abby and was getting to know her and not spending much time with the other horses. 

Tim's Western Pony Saddle, 1960s/1970s

A much, much younger Cowpoke Lukie trying out Tim's other pony saddle. Judging by the tooling and the red seat, I'm dating this to the 1960s/1970s. (I got Amy, my first horse in 1970 and was perusing Horse & Rider, Western Horseman, and other magazines constantly. Many western saddles at that time had seats that were colored leather.)

The McClellan Cavalry Saddle, late 19th/early 20th Century

This saddle was actually mine and, along with O'Boy's bridle, was on display in the family room of our Illinois home back in the 1990s. 

I don't remember where I got it (most likely from another horsey friend) and I gifted it to Tim for Christmas in 2017. 

He has displayed it on an old saddle tree in the barn lounge ever since.

There are other saddles in the tackroom that are vintage and worth a look.

This is just one corner of the room!

Leslie's western saddle. Tim bought it when she stopped riding and he uses it on Easy. It's from the late 20th century. (Which is vintage to some and not to others, depending on how vintage you yourself are! LOL)

Speaking of vintage, here is a photo of Leslie going for a ride in her first saddle and on her first horse.

By coincidence, she sent it to me two days ago, and I couldn't resist sharing it! 

Another wall of saddles. (Love that Australian saddle!)

I'm still not finished sharing historic and vintage saddles. More to come tomorrow. 

Stay 'tooned! 

Historic Saddles: Part 2

Dad's Pony Saddle (1936)

O'Boy was my father's pony. I honestly believe it was Dad's love of O'Boy and the happy memories he'd made with him that made Dad so very supportive of my horsiness. He sure loved that guy.

If you don't know the story of O'Boy, who was a circus pony, it can be found in this blog post from 2016. It was O'Boy who kindled my love of circus horses and ponies.

O'Boy sporting a shiny new western saddle and standing with Dad's cousin, Betty Jean in 1936.

That pony saddle is in my garage now. It sat in Leslie's barn for years until she gave it to me a few months ago.

Time has not been good to it, but I am still glad to have it. 

Some decorative pieces on the pommel.

The horn is iron and looks quite shiny in the early photo of it. Sadly, not any more.

The fenders and stirrups are long gone. (A part of me hopes I'll someday get a text from Leslie saying she's found them in her barn.)

As for O'Boy's bridle, it's been in my possession for decades. I don't remember how I ended up with it, but back in the 1990s I had it hanging on the wall with some other antique tack in my family room in Illinois. 

There is one bridle rosette with it but none of the photos I have of O'Boy tacked up show that. Where did it come from? Is it a clue to the circus that he came from?

That bridle has even made an appearance at a live show - several years ago I did an Anything Goes entry on my circus horse and pony collection, and I used it and a photo of O'Boy as part of the presentation.

After that, I decided that it was simple too fragile for display and I keep it safely wrapped in paper here in my office closet. 

Dad (hatless) and Betty Jean with two unknown people and O'Boy. 1938

As for O'Boy's saddle, I'd like to stop the deterioration as much as I can. Getting it into the house rather than a garage or barn is a good first step, but I'm not sure that much else can be done at this time. And that makes me sad.

Like the two sidesaddles from yesterday, there's a lot of history held in that old leather. My father rode in it as did his siblings and cousins. And judging from what my father said about his time with O'Boy, that history is a very, very happy one.

More historic saddles tomorrow.

Stay 'tooned!

Historic Saddles: Part 1

Second Post of the Day

I came across some pictures a while back of several historic saddles that are in our family's possession. I thought it might be fun to take a look at two of them today.

My sister Leslie had a time in her life when she was riding side saddle with friends fairly often. And during that time, these two historic side saddles came into her possession. 

Aside from the time period they came from, I know very little about them. Still, they are a neat look into the past and I can't help but wonder about the women who sat in these saddles and went for a gallop hundreds of years ago.

18th Century (1700s)

This one is from the time period of The Feast of the Hunters' Moon so I find it especially interesting.

The protrusion on the top far right is the fixed head (also called the top pommel.)  Look at the beautiful leather tooling! And the seat is padded - maybe with horsehair?

The protrusion on the top far left is the leaping head or lower pommel. More lovely tooling. This saddle is truly a thing of beauty.

The 18th century stirrup iron.

19th Century (1800s)

The seat appears to be a heavy fabric, almost like what was used for carpets during that time period. You can clearly see both pommels. There is tooling - I wish I could see it better.

This close-up of the stirrup gives us a better view of the tacks used (they look decorative to me) and some tiny tooling below that.

The stirrup iron has a heart cut out of it - I would imagine that many female riders would have enjoyed that touch of whimsy. I know I would!

The Fort Ouiatenon Stirrup Iron

Now here is something interesting. Take a look at this stirrup iron that was found when the Fort Ouiatenon site was being excavated in the 1960s.

Scroll back up and take another look at the stirrup iron on the 18th century sidesaddle. See the similarities?

Gives me shivers to see the similarities of the one taken from the site of Fort Ouiatenon when compared to the one on Leslie's 18th century sidesaddle.

Tomorrow I will show a couple more saddles - stay 'tooned!

March the Lion

First Post of the Day

"Howling winds." "Incessant strong winds." "Highest winds [measured] at Purdue airport since 1991."

All comments by Chad Evans, longtime (and highly accurate) weather forecaster in our area. He was speaking about yesterday afternoon. And boy howdy, was he right.

One of Lisa's fence posts snapped in the high winds and a section of her fence came down.

She's done a temporary repair and we are all grateful that Nash and Mama were at our home when it happened. Had they not, no doubt Nash would have gone visiting and there is a very busy highway just a cornfield away from Lisa's back yard. A potential disaster was avoided.

Lisa also lost some siding on her home in those "incessant strong winds." She will call her insurance agent Monday morning about repairs to her fence and to her home.

Craig and I had some roof damage - this shingle landed on our patio and it isn't the only one gone. You can see that our patio rug has been blown around - we put a chair on it to hold it down until the winds died and we could straighten it out.

On Fridays, yard waste is picked up in our area of town and we had set a tub out at the curb. It blew away. A search discovered it down the street and in a neighbor's yard.

And, as we looked for the yard waste tub, I discovered someone's Amazon delivery had blown into our front yard. I retrieved it, checked the address, and then walked down to the home it belonged to and hand delivered it to its owner there. (They were shocked that it had blown off their porch and into our yard. I was pretty astonished myself.)

This wasn't our first wind event of the month and it looks like it won't be the last. We are expecting severe storms and possible tornados tomorrow. I have a new safe space in our home that fits both humans and dogs and we may get to try it out.

March is going out like the proverbial lion this year. Sure hope April will be quieter.

Losing JoAnn's

JoAnn's, the last of the big chain fabric stores, is closing its doors permanently. 

I wandered through my local store yesterday in search of buttons that I could make into sleeve buttons. 

I'd already braved the crowds once and gone through their button racks, but I was out running errands and stopped by. Glad I did.

JoAnn's will be missed. It met the needs of a big segment of the sewing community at large and has been a place where many beginning sewists came as they started out. 

Their fabrics were inexpensive and allowed a new sewist to learn without the worry about the investment that better quality fabrics are.

For experienced sewists, it was a good place to go for notions, patterns, and craft supplies, and I will miss being able to pop into the store, grab what I needed, and then returning home without losing too much sewing time.

So, what's left around town for sewists?

~ Hobby Lobby has a small fabric section. Their fabric quality is on par with JoAnn's and not what I would use, but I can get my notions and things there. 

~ I checked out Michaels a few weeks ago and was not impressed with the selection or the quality. 

~ Walmart? Nope. Never. They have a brand of thread whose name is VERY close to a major brand name thread. I fell for their ploy and discovered that the Walmart imitation thread was awful quality. It broke constantly as I tried to use it and finally I threw it away.

~ We do have a locally owned quilt shop but I refuse to go there. A few years ago I took one of my sewing machines in for a repair, and they lost my machine. A three week repair turned into MONTHS! They lied several times to me about where it was and finally quit returning my phone calls as I tried to get my machine back. That finally happened when I showed up in person, told them who I was and that I wanted my sewing machine back NOW. It took a while, but they finally found it. I will never, ever return to that store again. 

There was a time when we had more options for sewing supplies here in town. Sadly, JoAnn's put them all out of business.

Hancocks was one of them,

as was So-Fro Fabrics. 

Saddest of all was when Neuwelts closed. It was a two story, locally owned fabric shop here on the downtown square in Lafayette. It was chock full of all kinds of quality fabrics.

People came from out of state just to shop there. It was such an icon that I saved two bags that I found in my mother's fabric stash after she passed away.

A note pinned to a Neuwelt's bag from my mother. She was making chemises, too!

Since I buy better quality fabric than JoAnn's sells, my sources are not changing either for Horsiemama's Haversacks or for Jolis Chevaux. I already have some online sources plus there are sources for 18th century fabrics at events. 

In fact, Leslie came over yesterday and together we put together a big block print order from one of those online sources.

The Feast may be seven months away, but we are both sewing things now in preparation for it. (The obligatory sister selfie.)

Still, I will miss the opportunity to run over to JoAnn's and snag something I needed NOW and then be home and back at the sewing machine in less than an hour.

I sure hope that new sewists find another resource for inexpensive fabrics to learn on. For that, JoAnn's was unsurpassed.