Capybaras

When I was little, I dreamed of owning all the animals. Like, literally, all of them.

In the past fifty years, I have owned - alone or in partnership with my family - eight dogs,

one rabbit,

nine rats,

one parakeet...

and one pony.

It's not exactly the zoo my younger self dreamed of, but at this point, it feels like enough.

And yet, there are some animals I still dream of owning.

Thanks mostly to Bill Peet's Cappyboppy, capabaras are high on that list.

Last year, a bunch of my hobby friends travelled to Florida to attend Breyer's Ponies and Palm Trees event. I followed their adventures on Facebook without any FOMO at all, at least not until afterwards, when Mel, Sandra and Maggie went to a wildlife sanctuary that had capybaras.

photo courtesy of Mel Miller

I can not tell you how jealous these pictures made me.

photo by Mel Miller

Yeah, that should be me.

photo by Sandra Gibson

So I did what any self-respecting, capybara-loving model horse collector would do: I logged onto Amazon and found a 1:9 scale, Mojo capybara for my herd. Then during BreyerFest, I found another one.

I had a little bit of unexpected free time this week, so I painted them.

They aren't officially finished, but they're good enough for pictures.

It's not the same as owning a real, live, breathing capybara, but this is a surprisingly good substitute.

I love them.

When I was little, I dreamed of owning all the animals, and someday I just might, in 1:9 scale.