Emotional support pony

Not going to lie: This has been a really terrible week. 

A friendship I thought was a to death do you part kind of thing turned out to be... not that. 

I am bereft and have been leaning heavily on my emotional support pony. 

She's cute, right?

That's pretty much all I have for today. I'm spent. It's been awful, and I don't expect it to get better any time soon.

Build a barn, part two

After the successful completion of the International Model Horse Painting Party, I treated myself to one of Tomás Varela's Tabletop Stable kits.

After a couple of false starts, I got the basic framework assembled and painted.

The next step was cleaning up the areas I wasn't pleased with...

and grubifying.

I used Christine Sutcliffe's tutorial to create the concrete pad.

So satisfyingly grubby!

I also weathered and dirtied the walls...

and added some additional structure to the window frames.

The next step was adding the roof.

I painted and fitted the beams.

Then it was time to start laying down the tiles.

I lot of the tiles that came with the original shipment broke in transit. Happily, after I let Tomás know, he sent some beautifully wrapped replacements. I can not overstate how wonderful his customer service has been.

The tiles are super fragile and fiddly, but look how cool!

Here's the barn at the end of business today.

The roof comes off in three sections. In fact, the whole barn can be disassembled and stored flat.

There's still a lot of work to do, but the end is in sight. This barn is looking so cute already. I can't wait to play with it when it's finally finished!

Tack reference Tuesday

Remember when this used to be a tack making blog? Ha ha. Me too.

While it's true I don't make a lot of tack these days, my interest in the subject has not waned.

Once a tack girl, always a tack girl.

All scales.

All styles.

I can't imagine I will ever lose my interest in tack, especially tack that looks like this.

Last week, globe trotting hobbyist, Karin Hullatti, attended the Gangaur festival in Dundlod, Rajasthan, India.

She posted these pictures on her Facebook page.

Of course, I immediately copied them for reference purposes.

I have two Breyer Marwaris and a Rajah resin.

It could happen.

And even if it doesn't, I can not imagine a time when I wouldn't want to have these pictures in my files.

You can never have too many reference pictures.

Never!

Thank you so much, Karin, not just for taking these photos...

but also for allowing me to share them here. 

I know they will inspire many past, present and future tack makers!

P.S. In case you're wondering, Karin says the painted on marks are made with henna. 

Zorthian extra

When I was eight years old I attended an unconventional local day camp called Zorthian Ranch for Children.

The camp had a lot of different activities, but I only cared about one, and I cared about that one a lot.

I spent every day hanging out at the riding ring, begging for rides. By the end of the summer, I had ridden no less than seven horses. They were Anahid, who was my favorite,

Tonka, the shetland pony,

sweet Ladybug,

Ladybug's son, Ahab...

and three I don't have pictures of - Dos, Margaret and Silhouette. I have only the haziest memory of the first two, but Silhouette... well, he was important.

Silhouette's story begins on the one day of camp when I did not ride. I was slow making my way to the ring that day, and when I got there, all the horses were gone. I found a counselor and asked her where the horses were.

"They went on a trail ride," she said cheerfully. "They won't be back until the end of the day."

"But... When do I get ride?"

"Not today! Maybe go play volleyball instead?"

Of course, I did not play volleyball. I'm pretty sure I went to the bathroom and cried. The rest of my day was split between the arts room and the horse pasture, where I fed Anahid many, many handfuls of grass and cried some more.

It was terrible.

After that, I made sure to be at the ring first thing every day, which was a good thing because there was another trail ride the next week. Once again, there were more interested campers than there were available horses. Everyone who wanted to ride had to pick a number and hope. By the time they got to me, there was only one horse left.

Never have I felt so much pressure to make a perfectly accurate random guess.

I said a little prayer in my head and chose the number seven.

God must have been listening, because that was exactly the right choice. I was boosted up onto a tall, dark bay, ex-racehorse named Silhouette, and we hit the trail.

Not Silhouette, but how I remember him

I don't remember much about the ride itself other than it was long and wonderful. Silhouette was livelier than the other horses I'd ridden, and we did a fair amount of unauthorized trotting. I loved every moment. It was the Best Day of My Life, at least until the day I rode Anahid.

Build a barn, part one

Every year I buy myself a present at the end of NaMoPaiMo. Usually it's an unpainted resin. This year, I bought a barn.

More specifically, I bought one of Tomás Varela's Tabletop Stable kits.

The kit arrived promptly.

Nice branding!

I did a little bit of work on the "feet."

Then I snapped the frame into the base. So satisfying!

The next step was paint. I chose a cheerful weathered olive green and brown color scheme.

Then it was time to start gluing the boards to the frame.

This is where I ran into problems. Despite my best efforts, I just couldn't make the spacing work.

Oh, that gap was killing me!

I contacted Tomás, and after a lot of troubleshooting, we decided that I needed a couple extra boards. The project got put on hold while I waited for them to arrive.

The wait ended last week. I painted the new boards and then glued them onto the frames. Then I did another quick assembly 

It was even more satisfying this time.

Although marketed as a 1:12 scale stable, the size is just right for a traditional scale pony.

Here's the view from above. Even a good sized pony like Cookie has plenty of room.

There's still a lot of work to do, which is fine, because I'm enjoying every minute of this. Thank you so much, Tomás. I can not think of a better way to reward myself for surviving another February!