We Did It!

Huzzah! It's the last day of January! I am smiling and happy about that and thought I'd share some "January moments" that might make you smile.

First, a lovely wildlife photo.

A herd of deer outside of Lisa's home the other night. She lives on the edge of town and has farm fields behind her home and woods to the east. Aren't they beautiful?

Lisa has had some mystery prints in a snowbank right up by her front door. They weren't the dogs' paw prints and they certainly weren't from the deer. 

The prints ranged from about the size of a quarter to much larger, rounded holes. What on earth was doing that?

Well, if Molly had her choice, she'd be a Water Spaniel. She drinks and drinks and drinks. We even had her checked for diabetes. Nope, she just likes water. Lots of it. Lisa keeps three water bowls filled in the house to keep Mama happy. (It's a good thing there's a doggy door and Mama knows how to use it!)

Well, snow is a fun to eat seasonal treat made from water, so you have to eat it when it's on the ground, right?

 

Finally, a photo with a story behind it. This picture of two newly minted police officers and their brother crossed my social media feed yesterday. These boys men have always made me smile. 

Good kids, lively kids, not a mean bone in their bodies. But they were very, very accident prone. Their mother was up to the challenge and took everything in stride. 

One of my most memorable teaching memories centers on all three of them.

The one on the right, C1 was the oldest and in my classroom. It was the last day of school and we were preparing for dismissal. C1 was winding his way through the desks when he tripped, fell, and smacked the side of his head on a desk. I heard the bang and then a scream, one of those that you know means the kid is really hurt.

He stood up with blood running down the side of his head. I ran to him, wrapped my hands around his head, and hollered to my aide Jackie that she was in charge. C1 and I then ran down the hallway to the nurse's office, with me keeping my hand pressed against the side of his head to staunch the blood as best I could.

There was another child already sitting on the bed in the nurse's office, C1's brother. C2 was sniffling and holding an ice pack to his head. Turns out his class had taken a last recess and he had somehow run into a tree! C2 scooted over for his brother, and the nurse began treating C1.

Mom arrived shortly after C1 and I did. With her was C3, the youngest, preschool brother. He wanted to sit on the nurse's bed with his brothers, so they scooted over for him. C3 hopped up and went right over and off the back, landing on the floor with a thud!

His mom took it in stride, rolling her eyes and quipping that their summer was getting off to a good start as she helped C3 back up and onto the bed by his brothers. 

The nurse took me aside and said quietly, "C1 is missing a chunk of his ear. You might want to check your classroom for it."

Let me tell you, that kind of news will stop you dead in your tracks!

I hurried back to my classroom and Jackie (bless her) was still there after having gotten our class out to the buses and off for summer break. I explained how C1 was doing and that there was a piece of ear somewhere in our room. Bless her again, she helped me look for it. And we did find that piece of ear.

Mom and the Cs had already left for the ER and the nurse said the piece wasn't viable, so we just wrapped it up and disposed of it.

In the end, all was well with all three boys. C1's ear was stitched and looked just fine despite the missing piece. 

Such a memory associated with these three boys men! I can smile about it now but at the time the adrenaline was really pumping. 

January 2026 has been a lot like that experience with the C brothers. Crazy and unexpected, with a sigh of relief that it's over. There have also been moments of great beauty and even awe such as the deer in the field behind Lisa's home. Times of humor when doggy nose prints showed up in the snowbank. And more.

January has passed and tomorrow is February 1.

To quote Reese Witherspoon, "We did it!"

Another Birthday, that Fighting Stallion, and Oh, Deer!

Four family birthdays this weekend - cake and ice cream two days in a row? Yes, please! 

Saturday we celebrated my sister Jenny; Sunday it was Cowpoke Ian's big day. We headed over to his home Sunday evening for a family gathering that included Vanessa's side of the family. 

My sister Leslie is another one of those having a birthday. I brought something special for her to Jenny's celebration Saturday night.

That beautiful glossy dapple grey Fighting Stallion! He's now in my collection but that wasn't always the case.

He was a birthday gift for Leslie when she was eight or so. Les had found this picture last week (she is digitalizing all the family photos) and had sent it to me.

I thought she might enjoy seeing that early Fighting Stallion again, and maybe even want to have it back. 

She has recently gone with me to live shows and has enjoyed seeing some of her former models (the two ebony woodcut Harlands in this picture) find success on the show table. Would she like to have this piece from her childhood back?

Leslie laughed in delight when she unwrapped him and enjoyed seeing him, but in the end, she said she'd really like it if I kept her Fighting Stallion on my shelves with my other models.

We ended our cake-and-ice-cream weekend on an adrenaline rush.The drive between our home and Curt's closely follows alongside the Wabash River, and sure enough, the inevitable happened on the way home. A deer suddenly jumped out onto the road and crashed right into the side of our car. Craig hit the brakes, turned around, and slowly drove back up the road, looking for it.

It was nowhere to be seen, so it must have been able to get up and finish its run across the road. Luckily, there was no damage to my car and we were unhurt. Poor deer! I hope it is okay and not suffering.

The Indy Blooms Swap Meet is this Friday, so I am anticipating a full week of preparations for it. I need to do a final inventory of haversacks and then go through all those sales models I sorted out this past winter and see which ones I want to take.

With Midwest Mini Mayhem the following week (see my tea towel?), I am going to have two weeks of concentrating on model horses and my collection.

That is going to be fun.

A Bambi Moment

High school football season has begun, and Craig, Lisa, and I are Friday Night Lights people. Craig was a talented football player (Indiana All State team, Best of 100 Years Team, and recruited by several universities.)

That means that late August through mid November, we can be found sitting in bleachers somewhere in Indiana on a Friday evening. (I am not the football fan that they are, but I enjoy sitting in the stands with them and watching the game.)

That means I missed this cool moment out at the barn. Luckily, Barn Buddy Kelsey was there and captured the moment.

It's almost like the deer are hiding behind that tree!

It doesn't appear that the horses even saw them - they were too focused on coming up to get their treats for the evening. (See that lush pasture? Despite it being August and having had a drought for much of this summer? More evidence of the great care and pasture management that Tim provides.)

I watched the videos several times while sitting in the bleachers, missing our team score 9 points. Oops! 

We won the game, but I sure wish I'd had the chance to see those deer scurry across the pasture. Thanks, Kelsey, for sending the videos!