My painting has greatly improved since 2017 as well. I do a mixed media now, using whatever I have in my arsenal in order to achieve the right effect. It usually starts with an acrylic base coat, followed by pastel blocking, and finishing off with final detailing and body shading in oils. I'll admit that I take absolutely FOREVER to do any paint jobs now, but the results are generally worth the wait for the owners. Most of my models do pretty well at live shows.
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| A mustang that I painted in 2023 doing very well for its owner. He's taken Reserve Champion at a midwest show. Photo courtesy of Nikita Shoepflin. |
Ira's awards in 2022. He earned the very first belt buckle I've ever gotten, (a pewter 500 mile that is shown in the second photo). We worked our butts off to get it! He's an amazing horse, but can be a real handful at times. He's great when he gets seriously down to work.
I'm hoping to do a bit more with him this year, maybe some open shows or western dressage.
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| The standings when we finished in October. It was some really tough competition for a while between us and the second place entrant. We kept leapfrogging back and forth and trying to overtake each other with mileage. Ira and I ended up getting it! Yay! |
Gearing up again for the new endurance season in 2025.
For the past few years I've been concentrating more on logging long distance miles through online challenges, due to the rising fuel costs and not being able to afford to travel to many places. Last year I did successfully make it down to the AERC Nationals in LaPine, and it was a blast. I was entered in the open category, and it was the absolute best ride ever! The Oregon outback and Ft. Rock is really an amazing place. Max and Darlene put on a heck of a good ride.
So, I think this year I'll renew my membership in the PtHA. I'd love to get more points for Ox and compete in the open endurance category again. The Distance Horse Nationals are going to be held in Idaho this year, so that will be a good goal for us to achieve in getting there. We'll see if we can accomplish it!
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| 2024 AATR buckle -750 miles |
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| 2023 AATR buckle - 500 miles |
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| Crossing the finish line last year in LaPine. What a fun ride that was! |
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| Oregon outback. Ft. Rock is in the background. |
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| Intake photo. I don't think that I stopped smiling the whole time I was there! |
Ah ha! I found the link to my Wix website again, now I just need to figure out how to link it to this blog again and update it. When I click on the "Our Horses" button to the right, it automatically goes to the main Wix home site. Hopefully I can figure out how to change that. I'll post the link below so I can easily find it again.
In other news, I really need to get off facebook for a while. People are driving me absolutely insane. It was such a happier experience when I just posted on here. I look back at most of my older posts on my blog and think about how joyful and happy most of them were. Seems like it was more simpler times before everything got muddled. Feeling burned out and hating human beings in general on facebook. I need to get some passion back, so hopefully coming back on here and getting my thoughts out without any input or rebuttals will help. I need to figure out how to get happy again, and it seems like this blog is more therapeutic for that.
