A Winter Drive

Craig and I made a trip over to Joseph today to visit the Valley Bronze foundry and to drop off a project.  I wanted to wait until the roads were clearer and the weather was better, but Craig was amped up to drive somewhere and he said that the mountain pass didn't scare him.  So, we put the truck in 4 wheel drive and away we went.  It turned out that the roads weren't as bad over the pass as we were expecting, and the trip went great.



A picture of me with the drummer indian in front of the foundry.

A Christmas Photo For Reeny!

Another resin that I painted a few years ago winning at live shows.  I painted this "Fabio" pony as a unique shade of classic champagne.  Photo courtesy of Natalie Sherard. 

A customer sent me a photo of a roan Icelandic mini that I recently painted, winning Reserve Champ at a live show.  Photo is courtesy of Natalie Sherard.

RIP

It's so sad.  =:(  I listen to a wide variety of music when I'm sculpting and painting and I was definitely a huge fan of Scott Weiland.  There was always a tiny "miniscule of hope" that I was holding on to for Velvet Revolver to get back together again someday.  Now that will never happen....  Such a shame to lose raw talent.

 

And my favorite Velvet Revolver track.  I've ALWAYS had a thing for hard rock, and this band certainly didn't disappoint!

A couple of photos of our flock in the snow this year!

Yearling lamb group, and one goat.  We sold the black goat kid Eboneezer but Rupert the red goat kid is still here with us.

Yearling lambs.  The green tape is to identify the crossbred meat lambs, the others are purebreds.

The ewe flock.  The two orange tape ewes are bred for 2016 lambs.  The pink and green tape ewes were bred to different purebred rams last year, (I just haven't gotten the tape peeled off the horns yet.)

Jydam

The bronze sculpture for 2015, Jydam.  She has a bit of a classical Greco-Roman flair.  I finished up the last of the small stuff on the sculpt yesterday.  Even though I don't think she's totally finished, (there is never a sculpture in existence that is totally finished...)  she's as close as she's gonna get to being done in my book.  I'm happy with the outcome.  The sculpt is in white primer form at the moment, but I think that she'll look really good when she's done in a traditional bronze patina - and also polished metal bronze form - with a marble base. 

There's also a special thank you to my friend Eishan for helping me to translate and correctly spell the name in the native language.  One of the dictionaries had the name mis-spelled with a "C" (Cydam) when in reality the native speakers pronounce it with a "J" instead.  Makes me wonder if us western speakers are butchering the native Turkmen horses names when we register them...

But now that the sculpt is done, I just have to get my butt in gear and sell a crapload of models in order to pay for the foundry mold and casting.  Yay!

"Jydam" meaning patience in Turkmen.  Small shoulder bust, sculpture measures roughly 5.75" x 6" inches in size.

Battle In The Saddle I

Nettie and I attended the first show of the local Battle In The Saddle winter series on Saturday in Pendleton.  We did the ranch horse classes, which was a lot of fun.  Craig stopped by at around 11 a.m. and took this photo of the cute yellow sweetheart.  =:)  She's so adorable.

Two custom stablemate minis recently completed in the studio, owned by Amanda Ingram of Illinois. 

A couple of photos from Smidgen's kindergarten sessions.

Photo from our ride today.  Smidgen and I heading to the river.

Just finished up two medallions for my personal collection.  =:)  Fun!

Here is a photo of the original version, sculpted by Russian artist Oxana Kuks.

I painted the first one as a metallic sooty palomino sabino.  I resculpted the tail to be swishing to the left side towards the flowers, and I also smoothed down the textured background area.

The second one I painted as a dark sooty buckskin sabino.  I wanted to see what the sculpture would look like without the flowers, so I customized it to be without them.  I kind-of like how it turned out - it draws more attention towards the eye of the horse and makes the subject appear larger.   

Videos of Irahm and Octopelle, autumn 2015. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZd-tDakH00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E2-6ZrD9Uw

Fall 2015

The leaves are turning beautiful colors and the weather is glorious outside!  I've been taking advantage of the nice days by doing some cart driving and leisurely trail riding.  Fun stuff!

A young tree in our yard is turning a brilliant autumn yellow.

The stubble fields are wide open and jog-able for miles.  Our little pony Gweedie has been getting some good workouts lately. 

He is such a good little pony.  I can't believe that he's 17 years old already!  I remember when Craig and I brought him home at 9 months old.  (I broke him to ride and drive as a late 3 year old.)  Time sure flies.... 



Our beagles enjoy trotting along behind the cart, but when they get tired there's a load of three of us for the pony to carry around!

A couple of photos from our last endurance ride of the season at the Milwaukee Rail Trail.  The photos are courtesy of Cassidy Rae.

A recently completed HA Al Sayyid resin that I customized and painted to a young transitional bay going grey. Owned by Dianne Finazzo of Minnesota. 

 


The original version of the mold can be seen on the equine resin directory, here:  http://www.equineresindirectory.com/showresin.asp?resinid=1715  I customized his tail, forelock, hooves, and also repaired a broken ear. 



Hair detailing.

Wow!

I hope that she makes it to the world cup.  (And what a great song for a video too!)
https://vimeo.com/137905492

Upholstering

My first upholstery project!  Craig and I are working on restoring our 1931 Ford Coupe.  He's working on the body welding and fixing a lot of rusty spots, while I'm attempting to refinish the interior.  I've never worked with upholstery before - so this project is a big learning experience.  My first seat didn't turn out too bad for being a "first timer".

Before.  This is what the seat looked like before I started with it.  It was some old bleached out red canvas stretched over burlap and straw stuffing.  The wooden frame needed some structural repairs from big age splits, and I had to sand a lot of rust off of the metal sides. 

Before.  Both stuffing cushions needed stripped down to the springs due to a bunch of rodent damage.  Once I removed the stuffing off of the springs, I noticed that some of the metal springs were broken - so Craig helped me sauter the broken ones back together again.  After the springs were repaired, I sewed new foam cushions onto the spring frame.   

Afterward, the finished seat!  Tuck and roll was a real learning curve.  (The car is going to be satin black and turquoise when it's finished.) 

Now I just have to get the rest of the interior work done.....

Damn, so classy!  A gorgeous young colt in Russia.

Craig next to the sunflowers in front of our house.  The nutty giants finally bloomed!

She would've looked great with socks!  (Some poultice that I put on her front legs after a hard workout yesterday.)   

Smidgen had her first ride outside of the round pen today!  =:)  I took her up the road to a big open summer fallow field and trotted a whole bunch and practiced turning.  She's still in a major learning phase and it takes her a New York city block to make her turns, but I was very happy with her progress today.  She's a wonderful little horse and feels like a million bucks under saddle, (a big engine in a little package.)  We'll be burning up the endurance trails in 2016!  Yahoo!

This came in today's mail - Yay!!!!   =:)   We're at 62 points and counting.  And the year still isn't over yet...

The Pasture Pony Ride

Sometimes there is a need for a spur of the moment "pony ride".

I love Nettie.  She's such a wonderful horse!  Definitely worth her weight in gold.  She's the kind of horse that retains training like a sponge forever.  I still remember the day that I broke her to ride very fondly.  She was a totally awesome horse then, and is still a totally awesome horse now.  My little yellow broomtail mustang sweet pea!  Love her.

Last night Craig and I were fiddling around outside cleaning some stuff up around the farm, and the hot temperatures outside finally started dropping.  Nettie was standing out in the pasture munching on her hay, and I realized that I hadn't ridden her in over 6 months!  As an impromptu wild hair idea, I decided to hop on her and see what would happen.  Craig got it on his phone.

This is what happened...

  
I wouldn't trade her for any amount of money on the planet!

 

The sunset was a brilliant shade of fiery red tonight!  Beautiful.

Pink Ribbon Classic 2015

A few photos from the Pink Ribbon show this year.  We entered only two halter classes, but it was fun!  I need to start taking Ira to more shows again, as this is the only one that we've been to all year!  =:(

Rant Alert!

Why won't people be polite and return a simple phone call....?  Am I supposed to read someone's mind and find my way to their house telepathically without an address...? 

A bit of brief history - it's no secret that I have a strong hatred of phones, (I tend to prefer e-mailing as a means of communication.)  BUT, even with that.....  I did make the effort to set aside my feelings about phones on this one.  I called someone SEVEN times to set up an appointment to view their horse herd, (calling once at the beginning of the week to introduce myself and to set the appointment in place, and then I called six more times in an attempt to make contact to get directions when we arrived in their town).  And they couldn't even make the effort to RETURN A SINGLE CALL EVEN ONCE!?!?!?  I shouldn't be so annoyed with this situation.  I should just let it go.  But, it's unfortunately just more BS to add to the giant pile of "unprofessional" crap that I've dealt with surrounding akhal teke people.

I was so very excited to see these horses, and I was very pleasant on the phone.  (Honestly, I was literally giggling with excitement all week and really looking forward to it.  Hell, I've driven all the way to Minnesota to view horses with stellar communications on both ends, so driving to Idaho to talk to someone shouldn't have been too big of a deal!  Right?)  The cell phone reception was clear as a bell when I talked to the owner twice at her home when we arrived in Idaho - so poor reception was no excuse.  I needed an address to find her home.  Simple.  But nada.  Silence.  After waiting around in town for awhile with no return in communications, my husband and I were starting to get pissed.  After some time elapsed (an hour) we finally realized that we were NOT going to get a phone call  and we got mad enough that we turned around and drove home in disgust.  Seriously, all it would've taken was one tiny call to make us happy and to show us that you cared!!!!!  Are we not worth calling back.....?  Apparently not.  At least tell us to get lost if it wasn't a good day for viewing anything.  I wasn't going to make an eighth phone call.  I would've been rolling some hot fumes on the other end of the phone line.  Both Craig and I agreed that it is just rude to make an appointment and drive all the way up there to see something - and then the owner won't even give us the time of day with a single call back with directions.  It was a big F-U to us.  I guess that we're obviously not people worth giving directions to.  I've never dealt with another farm owner that won't give a person the common courtesy of a return call before!  (Especially when they know that we've driven all the way up there and then are sitting there WAITING within their hometown...)  I guess that I shouldn't be surprised, but it was just a rather aggravating experience.

The Moscow teke herd is scratched from my list.  After today's little drive up north, I'm seriously not impressed at all.  Pissed off is more like it.  Rant over.

Sibling Rivalry

Big brother shoves her off of the hay pile, so Smidgen goes to the next one....

But then big brother decides that the original one wasn't good enough, so back and forth they go...  (the epic struggle continues)

The sunflowers in front of our house are huge this year!  Yay!

Currently:

Open ROM Standings 07/25/15

ENDURANCE RIDING

 

Regiestered Name:  Octopelle    Points:  31     CL TY SX PT

                                                                           Ho HU Ge So

I'm in a constant state of being penniless, because of THAT.....

Nom, nom, nom... the little piglet's chowing down. 

We just purchased our hay reserves for the year.  Since we only have 5 acres of non-irrigated dry lot, we have to purchase AT LEAST 30 tons of hay per year just to make it into the next.  This year we've got 40 tons.  With a young growing horse and also performance horses, it is good to err on the side of having "too much" instead of not enough.  The feeders are filled to the brim daily.  There are 10 tons of alfalfa for the bitter cold temps in the middle of winter, 5 ton of high protein orchard grass hay, and 25 tons of "filler" type low protein blue grass for free choice.  Plus, I stock up on Omolene grain for the shed.

Whew, there's only a little bit of lint left in these pockets...  ha, ha!

Our big boer nanny Daffodil had her little goat kid today.  He's a gorgeous solid red buckling.  Both of the kids this year have inherited their Nubian sires ears, floppy loppers on both of them!



He doesn't have a name yet, but he's a cute little dapper red fellow!

Old mama Daffodil knows her job well.



Harriet and little Eboneezer.

Eboneezer is a cute little buggar!  He's really filled out in just a few days.