2018 in Review, July - December

And the 2018 Year in Review continues!

July, 2018

Allison Pareis hosted a swap meet/get together at the tail end of June that drew collectors from across Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Michigan.

 In July we met our local kids and grandchildren in the small town of Delphi for the annual Delphi Canal Days celebration, complete with a parade!

 I found a big box of vintage trophies and ribbons for sale and purchased them to use in future Happy Trails shows.

 I got to spend many warm and happy hours with my girl. (Doesn't everyone write their grocery list on the back of their hand?)

Although I'd straightened the hobby closet earlier in the year, I decided to pull EVERYTHING out, go through EVERY box, and purge. What a mess, but I got the job done!

Health-wise I was not up to the rigors of BreyerFest, but dear friends Liz Cory and Susan Bensema Young made sure that I got the models I wanted. (Heartfelt thanks, ladies!)


August, 2018
August started out very rough. My teacher friends all went back to work with fresh faces in their classrooms while I stayed home. I was terribly sad, and second guessing myself as to whether or not I had made the right decision to retire. 

Spending time with Abby helped put a bandaid on my heart, but I was (and still am) very sad to be no longer teaching.

Having said that, I spent the first day of school and several subsequent days after that in the hospital. I had a bad bout with diverticulitis and would never had been able to teach that first week of school. Oddly enough, that helped underscore that I had made the right decision to retire.

There were new faces out at Tim's. Shayne and Guppy's owner began renting the blue barn and its pasture. (Sadly, Shayne died a few months later.)

 I was lucky enough to find one of Donna Chaney's circus ponies for sale and bought it.

And at the end of the month I went to the August Great Lakes Congress Show up in Chicago.

September, 2018
After nine months of trying to help our rescue, Molly, relax and adjust (Molly was used for breeding at a puppy mill and had little socialization, high anxiety, and many fears) we let her go live with our daughter, Lisa, and her other dog, Millie.

Molly would cling to Lisa when she would come to our house and clearly felt safe with her. While it made us sad to lose her, she is happy and much less anxious and stressed in Lisa's care. Just look at this picture of the two of them! (And Millie's backside. Haha!)

 Allison Pareis invited me to join her and a couple of other ladies in her home for an afternoon of model chatting, trading, swapping, and crafting.

My dear friend, Susan Bensema Young, came for a visit and we had a lovely day talking non stop about horses, looking at tack and binders of tack photos, and Sue even played a mini concert for me on the piano! (She is a very accomplished pianist.)

 I found and purchased two decorator Running Mares in September,

 spent time documenting my collection,

 learning about Breyer's twelve molds that have molded on tack,

and examining variations among my collection.

Since it was apple season, lucky Abby got a seasonal treat, apple spaghetti!


October, 2018

Since I was now retired, I could go out to the barn whenever I felt like it. 

Pony Pal Mila liked to join me there.

I spent some time documenting the site of the very first live model horse shows in my area, if not all of Indiana. My friends Bobbie, Carol, and I started gathering our horses for shows in this home way back in 1966. (Yes, I am old!)

I wrote about horses that I have owned and loved. (This is me on my Quarter Horse gelding, Cee Hunt, at the 1974 Tippecanoe County 4-H fair.)

We spent a week in North Carolina with some very special Pony Pals! (Look closely and you can see the horse with glitter in Cambria's hand and the unicorn tucked between us.)

And I took up Jennifer Buxton's challenge to try candy corn as a treat for Abby and see how she reacted. Well, she loved it, and the post I wrote about it, a nod to Dr. Seuss, was my favorite of all the blog entries that I wrote for 2018.

November, 2018
Jennifer asked if she could use my post on her blog, and I agreed, not realizing at the time just what that would do for Horsiemama.

I received over 500 visits in just twenty-four hours! Thanks, Jennifer, for the exposure!

During November I carefully picked apart a Breyer blanket and made a pattern from it, then started sewing some of my own.

And, I found a very unusual Freeman-Leidy Circus Horse - in green! Pink, purple, and blue, yes, but green?? I have never seen this piece in that color. I have been doing internet searches but have not yet turned up any others in this color. I am also looking for the matching head-down version.

December, 2018
Craig and I traveled to St. Augustine, Florida to visit our son and his family for a week.

Naturally we played my favorite car game, Horses Across the USA. 

I wrote about several of the beautiful barns that are in a mile radius or so of Abby. This one is my favorite.

And all our kids and their families came to spend Christmas with us, so we had eight kids younger than four at our home for a week.

Since five of those were girls, there were a whole lot of unicorns trotting around my house!

As I have written yesterday and today's posts, I am amazed at how much was packed into the year. Retiring was, and still is, hard for me, but I have enjoyed the opportunities that being at home, having time to travel, and spending time with family that retirement has afforded me. No doubt I will continue to adjust.

Have a happy, healthy, and blessed New Year!

2018 in Review, January - June

I thought it would be fun to do a year-end review of the horsey aspects of my life. So much has happened, though, that I ended up splitting the year into halves. Here's January through June of 2018. Enjoy!

January, 2018

  2018 began with tough weather - low, low temperatures and heavy snows. 

All that snow covered the access lanes to the barns, and because I have some mobility issues, for a while I was checking on Abby by doing "drive-bys." Since Tim checks the horses daily, I knew she was okay, but I missed getting to visit and share peppermints with her.

January brought me my most wanted model horse - the woodgrain Semi-Rearing Mustang. I found it on eBay for a reasonable price and won the bidding. Such a thrill!

When you are staying indoors due to weather, it's a good time to sort closets, and I went through my hobby closet. These are old photo show records - look at those dates. 1971!

February, 2018

What a dreary month! Temps warmed and all that snow melted, which meant lots and lots of flooding.

Roads were underwater everywhere - this school bus got into trouble trying to cross a flooded road right by Tim's driveway.

 It was nice to see bare ground again (and to be able to get down the lanes)

but standing water was everywhere and the horses (Snickerdoodle, Abby, and Sultanna) were very muddy.

Susan Benesama Young pointed me in the direction of a very unusual piece for my collection on eBay in February - an Irish Dresden Circus Pony. The tack is made of fabric and lace and is very, very fragile.

March, 2018

 To celebrate my upcoming retirement from teaching, I decided to throw myself a pony party, an all-vintage Breyer model horse fun show. I spent a lot of time in March prepping for it.

I found these unusual and very beautiful bridle rosettes on eBay. They are a nice addition to my collection of circus ponies.

On a non-horsey note, four of my former students, Nick, John, Noah,  and Jacob (the four boys on the right) were state champions for the Indiana Quiz Bowl and were invited to Nationals. Way to go, guys!

April, 2018

Spring at last! But spring means tornado season in Indiana, and one went right by the school where I teach. 

Hitting a beautiful farm that raises black angus cows, it took the roof off the barn and left bits and pieces of it in the surrounding fields.

 Spring is also shedding season for the horses, as you can tell from Abby's back.

 I acquired a gold charm Running Foal 

and two unusual circus ponies. They're plastic and about an inch and a half tall. Cake toppers, maybe?

My student teacher gave me a beautiful painting of a horse by a local painter as a thank you gift for mentoring her.

May, 2018

My last month in the classroom was very bittersweet. I didn't really want to retire, but my health issues were making it more and more difficult to teach. I knew I was no longer at the top of my game and that the kids deserved better. So I retired.

The Tippecanoe School Corporation Retiring Teachers, 2018. I am in the middle row, second from right.

A bunch of former students, with the approval and aid from my principal, threw a surprise party for me during the school day, bringing so many loved people back for a visit. I could not believe it; it was so good to see them. This party will always be one of the highlights of my teaching career.

May also brought a trip up to Shipshewana for the spring Stone model horse show.

 Fan girl moment here - that's Peter Stone talking to Liz Cory behind me.

I got a new curio cabinet as the one in the living room was getting so crowded, you could not see everything.

Into it went my three new Chevals from South Africa. They no longer make them; I asked at just the right time and got three, including this lovely Gypsy Vanner.

And in an odd coincidence, I had a South African student in my class this year, and one of his interests was making balloon animals. He made me a horse in orange (my favorite color) as an end of the year gift!

My family held a retirement party for me Memorial Day weekend, and all our kids and grandchildren were there.

Trinity, our oldest granddaughter and horse lover from Aurora, Colorado, visited Abby with me.

 Ian and Pony Pal Mila visited the big barn at Prophetstown.

 My sister, Leslie, and me with Ryder, one of the Standardbreds at the farm at Prophetstown.


June, 2018

Teresa Rogers kindly picked up these three Metlox circus horses from the late Karen Grimm's collection for me at Clinky Mania. They now reside in my new curio.

 After such a rough winter, it was so nice to see all the greenery in the pastures again!

Happy Trails, my retirement pony party was a blast.

 Allison Pareis, Pat Reed, me, Yvonne Rott, Jamie Rott, Steff Bodamer, Michelle Evans, and Liz Cory were all in attendance.

 Two rings were set up in my kitchen; one ring loaded while the other was being judged.

 Despite being just a small fun show, the competition was fierce!

We also played some games, including a Breyer trivia game. 

Check back tomorrow for the horsey events of July through December!