The year of other animals

My hobby year began with a trip to Austin, Texas for Shannnon Southard's A Midwinter Night's Ball. When packing for the show, I left a little bit of space in my suitcase  just in case a pony followed me home. As luck would have it, one did!

However, the weekend's biggest score wasn't a horse at all. It was this beautiful china Siamese cat by Animal Artistry.. 

A month later, I fell head over heals in love with Anna Dobrowolska-Oczko's Wrona resin during NaMoPaiMo.

bay pinto Wrona painted by Anna Dobrowolska-Oczko, dun Wrona painted by Natalie Nimblette

I decided I had to own one, so I placed an order and was absolutely delighted when she arrived with a bonus woolly friend.

Beep beep! It's a sheep. I love her almost as much as I love Wrona.

In April, I attended Heather Malone's spectacular Rocky Mountain Spring Fling show. My performance pony won the Best in Show china Caprice, and my name was pulled for the Levi raffle. Those were both really great moments, but I was almost as excited when Pixel and Aeh won this resin kitty in the cat class.

More recently, I've acquired a new cow... 

and a llama.  

I think I love the llama as much as I love the sheep.

It's clear that 2018 is the Year of Other Animals.

I can't wait to see what the second half of the year will bring.

P.S. I am hoping for a camel!

Not going to BreyerFest

This year's BreyerFest?

Yeah, that's not happening.

There's no big drama. 

The person I'd planned to travel with had to cancel, and I wasn't able to come up with an acceptable and affordable alternative.

It's okay.

No really. It's okay.

I'm going to miss seeing everyone, but I'm pretty sure I can find things to do around here.

See you - or not - in 2019!

Friday favorites

This was perhaps my favorite exhibit at the ProRodeo Hall of Fame and Museum of the American Cowboy.

Ten almost 1:0 scale saddles lined up in a row, showing the evolution of the Western saddle.

There's the Conquistador's war saddle from 1500,

the Spanish colonist stock saddle from 1600,

the Mexican vaquero saddle from 1700 through 1970,

the Santa Fe saddle from 1800,

the Early Texas saddle from 1850,

the late California saddle from 1870,

the Texas trail saddle also from 1870,

the swell fork saddle from 1892 to 1971,

the all around stock saddle form 1930 to 1971...

and finally the modern day working saddle, from 1971 and onward.

What a neat display this was! The only thing that would make it better would be if all the saddles were from leather by a skilled model horse tack artist who is not me. That would be absolutely amazing!

Zebras, too

Zebras also aren't horses, but for the purposes of this blog, they're close enough. In fact, I've written no less than a dozen zebra posts in the almost ten years I've maintained this blog.

This post is a unlike the others in that instead of focusing on Grevy's zebras at the Denver zoo, it's Grant's zebras at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

That may sound like splitting hairs, but they're actually quite different.

The Grant's zebras are shorter and more pony-like, with smaller ears...

and more refined heads.

They also have much broader stripes.

Partway through my visit with the Cheyenne Mountain herd, one of the zebras retreated into his hut.

This allowed me to take a whole series...

of black background pictures.

Oh, I love these! 

What a good zebra. 

The giraffes are the undisputed stars of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, but on this particular Sunday, the Grant's zebras were a very close second.

Giraffe day

I realize that giraffes aren't horses, but today is World Giraffe Day and I'm sitting on a pile of giraffe photos so...