horses and friends

Yeesh, I feel like I can hardly find the time to sit down and write blogs lately. I'm juggling a whole bunch of art projects right now, so there are lots of deadlines and things over which to feel stressed.

I'm probably going to visit a camera store downtown on Friday, hopefully that will give me some more info about whether or not what I want is even going to be within budget. Word seems to be that my lenses "might work" with certain cameras, but I definitely would not order anything without knowing for sure. And it's quite possible it all might be too expensive anyway, so I'm not going to get too excited about it.

I've been sort of doing inventory of the art I have around here, and I think in June I'll go ahead and do an "I'm running out of storage space and I need money for vacation" sale and way slash some prices on 1) old stuff 2) things that aren't really what I do anymore. My art show booth has started to look pretty cluttered. Out with the old, need room for the new. :-) So watch out, your favorite piece might come up for sale!

Anyway, I don't want to ramble on about art too much, and I'll have WIP pics later or tomorrow or some time when I don't feel like my brain is exploding, but in the mean time I thought I'd write about the weekend, because it was fun.

I've waged war on the house sparrows. Considering my world-renowned bad aim and 20 year old BB gun I think they're pretty safe, but I'm at least going to wreak havoc on their lives as much as possible. They are trying to take over the nests that the cliff swallows have been working so hard to build out back, and I won't stand for that! I hate house sparrows. Nobody messes with the swallows and gets away with it. Grrrrrr.

I went on a big trail ride on Sunday with a lot of people out at Lake Natoma. This is only the second "big group" trail ride I've done (and the first on my own horse) and it was a lot of fun, but I have to say I'm not too keen the huge group thing, I really prefer to ride with no more than a few people. Otherwise it's like organized chaos. Or just plain chaos. Shylah, with short legs, short stride, and generally relaxed attitude, is a slow moving horse. That's fine, but she really lags behind the group. Luckily there was another rider with a slow-ish horse, so we rode together and she's really nice and I'm hoping we might go riding some other time. For the most part Shylah isn't too concerned if the other horses are way ahead, she's content to look at the pretty scenery and try to scope out if any of the joggers/cyclists are carrying food. But on the way back when all the horses up ahead were getting jiggy and trotting on the narrow trail it was hard to hold her back, and I REALLY wish people would not let their horses do that on the way back, it's really not good behavior, but boy when you're the last one in the pack it's hard to keep a horse from following along, and when they get into that mindset they don't pay attention to what they are doing or where their feet are, they just want to stay with the pack. I'm all about the relaxed trail ride. Trot on on the way out, not on the way back. Anyway aside from that rant I had a very good time and enjoyed the ride and would love to get Shylah out on the trail a lot more. She's awesome, and it was a busy day on the trail, lots of people and bikes and dogs and the picnic area we walked through was packed and smelled like all sorts of food.

Here are some pics:

The staging area before the ride:

Lunch break. Wendy are you laughing at me? :-)

The whole group (I'm on the far left).

Little Shylah, always bringing up the rear...

Arriving back at the trailers:



And for another type of horse, I told someone I would post pics of my collection of horses (and similar) so here it is:

some random horses that don't fit on the shelves (and if you are going to ask "who is that "Deadly Buckaroo" character in the back, well I made him up and drew that when I was about 12, he's a soft-hearted rodeo bull who just couldn't do his job because he didn't want to hurt anyone. I had a whole troupe of characters for western story):

The Schleich and similar horses and my sculpture of Thunder (yeah, I really do have unicorn posters on my wall, hey it's an easier way than painting to put some color in room):

The main part of the collection, all the Breyers, Hagen Renakers, and a bunch of other ones (some I've made, some relics of my childhood, some vintage given to me by a friend):

January 22 work in progress and other pics

Having drawn almost this exact same image in graphite a few months ago, it's really interesting to compare them. This is SO much harder! And it's going to take longer for sure. But, I think I'm going to prove what I aim to prove with this piece. Cross all your fingers and toes that the weather gets better by this weekend. I am a little worried about the drive to Reno....never driven in snow before but I *really* want to go!!! Eek!



It was a super busy day. I started the icky taxes this morning then did scrim ALL afternoon til it got dark and then worked on sewing tonight (along with rotting my brain and watching half of American Idol).

I was surprised to find the yard full of turkeys when I came back over here during one of two breaks this afternoon (once for hot tea and once to put on another pair of socks because I could no longer feel my toes, they went numb from cold). Not that turkeys are unusual, it just startled me to look out the window at them. It was too dark today (rained all day) to get good photos.




The dogs normally ignore them, so I was super shocked today when arthritic deaf Jessie leapt out of bed and ran after them and darn near caught one. I know this photo sucks but the black blob is Jessie and the other blob with a red head is a turkey. Wow! I don't like the turkeys coming up in the yard around my birds anyway so I'm okay with them being chased out (usually it's me doing the chasing). I am glad she didn't catch it though, that would have been awkward.



My cute soggy horses, Gwen (with the white blaze) and Shylah (with the fantastic hairdo):




What is it with cats wanting to sit on whatever I'm working on? Here is Olin "helping" me sew outfit parts.

Happy New Year!

Yup, it's New Year's Eve and I'm in here alternating between updating my website (still nowhere near done!) and drawing chickens. I have no life, but you already knew that... Just thought I'd write a quickie blog and wish everyone a wonderful 2007.

I took a bunch of pics today:

Gwen, Dusty, and Shylah


Dusty and part of Gwen


Shylah, with Gwen in the background.


Dusty's normal expression ("hey, whatcha doin?") He was informing he was done with breakfast and ready to be let out. He eats sooooo slowly that I have to pen him up alone when I feed him.

Feeling his oats.

He's going to be going home soon. I am happy with how he is now, he's a good horse to ride. I never did get the gaiting consistent, but with me having no gaited-horse experience and him just not being inclined to do it anyway, I think that aspect was doomed to fail. I am going to miss him, he's been fun to have around, and I definitely plan to go visit him and ride him where he lives (it's only about 15 minutes away) and I hope to get him AND Shylah out on the trail some time.


Gwen, the grand grump. She was actually rather sociable today, I was impressed.



Shylah can be hard to photograph, because she wants to be rather close. She's so fuzzy!




I set up all the tables and chairs for the shindig tomorrow, and walked into the room to discover that Olin had decided to make a centerpiece out of himself. Good thing he's cute! :-)