Give me a "V"

In honor of Karen Crossley, a Canadian hobbyist and active blogger who passed away in 2020. Lynn Isenbarger, Anne Field and I are finishing Karen's alphabetical tour of her collection. Today's letter is V.

After college, I spent five years working for a mobile tack shop on the A show hunter/jumper circuit. We attended some thirty to forty shows a year, the vast majority of which which were held somewhere other than our home base in Memphis, Tennessee. It was a lot of driving, a lot of hotels and a lot of real horses. There wasn't much time or energy leftover for models.

Despite that, I ever lost interest in the hobby. I maintained my subscriptions to Just About Horses and the Hobby Horse News, I bought the occasional Breyer and I saved pictures of performance entries I wanted to create and tack I wanted to make. I always knew that at some point things would slow down, and I'd find my way back to the models.

Eventually, of course, I met Seth, quit my tack shop job and got married.

And just like that, the models made their comeback. I bought a whole slew of plastic ponies during my last couple years in Memphis. These included Benediction,

Etiquette,

Gallo del Cielo,

KayCeeMoe,

the second Poka Tia,

Twist and Shout...

and Vargo.

I was all about photo showing during this time period, so all these horses - but especially Vargo - had lots of performance pictures.

This was kind of challenging because I didn't have much in the way of tack or props.

Still, I was pretty good at cobbling together some reasonably competitive performance entries.

Lol.

Another issue was his gait, which is kind of... indeterminate. After a lot of back and forth, I decided that because his legs are moving in diagonal pairs, he was trotting, albeit very slowly.

I attempted to make him look speedier by using different angles.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Either way, I still like these photos.

I feel the same way about Vargo. He's no longer a competitive show model, but he's a cute little block of a horse. I like seeing him on my shelf, and who knows? Maybe someday I'll dust him off and tack him up again for old times' sake.

Now it's back to Lynn for the letter "W"!

Almost wordless Wednesday

The theme for this year's BreyerFest Diorama Contest was Prost Parade! Entrants were asked to create a scene from a German festival using at least one Breyer model in any scale. Here are some of the entries that were on display when I visited the tent on Friday. Enjoy!

The queen of clean

 Before I got Olive, I spent several years riding a series of piggy-poo white horses.

Lucy

I miss every single one of those horses, but I do not miss grooming them.

Stealth

Nope!

Yesterday we got three inches of rain in Aurora.

This morning, the barn was a wet, muddy mess, and most of the horses looked like this.

Guaranteed

Piggy-poo.

Guaranteed

Not Olive. Other than muddy hooves and some splashes on her legs, she was as clean as ever.

It was too slick to ride, so I turned her out instead. She walked around, sniffed some poop and said hi to the neighbors. She did not roll.

Olive loves to roll, but only when it's dry. 

She is the opposite of a piggy-poo white horse. If it's even a little bit muddy, she stays on all fours.

After her turnout, I gave her a really good, thorough grooming. It felt a bit like tempting fate, kind of like washing your car when storms are in the forecast.

I'm not worried. Olive is the Queen of Clean. I'm willing to bet she'll look just as good tomorrow except for muddy hooves and splashed legs.

Good girl, Olive!