Pepper & Halloween Prep

First, today is a special day for us as it was five years ago that Pepper came to live with us!

Me meeting Pepper for the first time at the home of the woman she guided, Sarah.

Pepper on the day we brought her to our home. Cow and Donut were her favorites of all the toys we'd bought for her.  Go here to read about her first day with us from her perspective in a letter she wrote to Sarah.

We love this girl so much and cannot imagine our lives without her. 

Tomorrow is Halloween, of course, and I thought you'd like a look at some of the Halloween decorations around our home - almost all of them horsey.

Illuminati, the 2006 Halloween Horse, is really a cool model. And he is on a vintage mold, the Running Stallion. I have him on display in the sewing room this year.

He's pretty neat in regular lighting, too!

On the upstairs overlook, Crane, Ichabod, and EEK stand on the coffee table. All three glow in the dark.

Cryptic is my favorite Halloween horse of all and, in my opinion, one of the most unusual models Breyer has ever done. He's made to look like a concrete stature that you would find in a cemetery. He, too, glows in the dark.

No horses here, just baby footprints from Pony Pals Cambra and Titan, a light up ghost, a jack o'lantern tin, and a candy corn candle.

A light up raven candle (battery operated), and a cool ceramic Halloween black cat that holds candy. (Found at Sam's Club along with a Frankenstein one.) I put in mini Halloween ornaments - Craig and I would eat the candy before trick or treating kids started showing up! The humorous sign is from a close friend and sort of Addams Family-ish.

Beowulf adorns the dining room table - he glows in the dark, too.

We have 16 bags of candy on hand for tomorrow's kiddos. Many of Lisa's students, current and former, live in our neighborhood, so she will be joining us with special treats to give to them, too. As prepared as we are, it would not be unusual to run out of candy. I may run out and buy a few bags more today.

(Perhaps the fact that I've already broken open a bag of Twix and started in on them contributes to that shortage...)

Scheduled for tomorrow? A very special Halloween post.

Stay 'tooned!

50th Anniversary: Lifelong Friends - Beth Dickinson

Sue Seese was not the only penpal that has remained a lifelong friend. Beth Dickinson also responded to my 1970 penpal ad and we became dear friends and are still writing each other.  

Both women have known me longer than Craig has!

Beth was a lover of drafters and then later moved on to chinas and resins.

She was also vice president of the club I formed, the All Breeds Model Horse Shower's Association. If I remember right, she also took it over when I graduated from high school and went off to college.

Beth enjoyed photo showing and did some really nice set ups.  During the 1980s and 90s, we "leased" models from each other just as people do in the real horse world.

These photos were taken by Beth and are from the 1990s.

Take a look at this early Tiffany Purdy Arabian costume! She had a similar one in red and black at Lincoln Land Live (a live show I held in the 1990s) and I liked it so much that she agreed to make one for me.

Beth loved my 1970s Sherry Cook repaint, Midwest Tumbleweed, and leased her from me for years.

She sold me this Cantering Welsh Pony with gold braids. Sadly, I sold her in the 2000s.

Beth has won big at many NANS. This is NAN 1995 or 1997 in Lexington, Kentucky.

Beth, me, and Stephanie Clift at BreyerFest in 1999. I wish I still had that tee shirt with Breyer's porcelain Saddlebred on it!

Speaking of tee shirts, note that drafter tee she's wearing! Beth and me at BreyerFest 2017. 

I saw Beth in passing at BreyerFest 2019 but she was helping Jennifer Danza with a seminar and couldn't talk. I was only there one day as we were traveling down to Nashville the next day to celebrate Music City Son Cole's birthday, so Beth and I never did get an opportunity that BreyerFest to chat.

Like Sue Seese, Beth is not on social media much. She does have an email address, but we mostly communicate the way our friendship began - through letters sent via snail mail. And you know what? It's still just as thrilling to open my mailbox and see a letter from these two dear friends waiting for me as it was back when we were kids.

Entries end for the cowpokes haversack Thursday night at 11:59 PM EDT. Comment to win the cowpokes haversack and the surprises inside! 

(The horse is not one of the surprises.)

My Penpal, Pepper: A New Toy!

(Second post of the day.) This is a non horsey post. Our dog, Pepper, is a retired Seeing Eye Dog, and to let the woman she guided know how she is doing, Pepper and I send "letters" that are posted in My Penpal, Pepper. Enjoy!

Dear Mom,

Oh, boy, just wait until you hear about this! I have a new toy and I am so excited because I absolutely love it. Can you guess what it is? Here are some hints for you.

First hint: It's round. 

I'll bet you guessed a tennis ball. Nope! It's not a tennis ball. They're fun, but this is funner. (Lynn says that "funner" isn't a word, but I had her look it up and she discovered that by the usual rules of adjective formation, it is a word. She says she still won't use it herself but agreed to type it in for me.)

Okay, here is another hint. My new toy is round and flat.

I can hear you now - you think I got donut #5368, right? It isn't a donut! (Although I love, love, love all my donut toys. Lynn says the food donuts are even better, but she won't share with me when she eats one. She said that if I want to stay svelte for my sweet Nacho, then edible donuts aren't for me. Hmmmm...)

One last hint. My new toy can fly! Well, it can fly IF the person playing with me has a good arm. ::cough cough:: (Lynn needs practice; a lot of it. Just sayin'!)

It's a frisbee! Did you guess? (Photo of Pepper lying in the grass, green frisbee beside her.)

Lynn and I have been going down to the park every day to play with it. (Picture of me loping after a green frisbee. Lynn would like to point out that it IS FLYING despite what I said about her ability to throw. I say that she got lucky.) 

When Lynn pulls my frisbee out of the cabinet by the front door, I grab it in my mouth and carry it all the way to the park. (Photo of me carrying the frisbee in my mouth.)

I don't mind that I can't sniff at all the trees and things to see who has visited the park before me. It's more fun to carry my frisbee and worth missing out on the pee-mail. (Another photo of me carrying my treasure.)

Lynn has promised to practice throwing it, and she said that, in the meantime, I should be glad that she hasn't (yet) thrown it into the lake or someone's back yard by mistake. (Picture of me lying in the shady grass with my frisbee between my front paws.)

Call me one happy dog!

Flying high into the sky I remain,

Your Pepper