Pages

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Night riders

Last night was the kind of night that I wish would happen more often. I had an absolutely lovely ride with friends. It was sort of a last minute thing, and by the time we got on the sun had mostly set. My barn owner is an incredibly gracious person. She's always said I could use her horses for any friends that want to ride. My former barrel racing friend hadn't ridden in a long time, so she rode the western pleasure lesson horse. My other friend, a fellow SCAD Equestrian dropout, had never ridden a gaited horse. My barn owner has a little Tennessee Walker mare who is such an odd ride if you're not used to gaited things. It was hilarious on both counts. I rode Finn, and let everyone have a turn on him. We laughed, and played, had a beer or two, and sweated our butts off. Yes, even light riding after dark and I still came home soaked to the bone.

Anyway.

The latter of the two friends, has known Finn since I got him. Our horses are two months apart in age, so they both just turned 7. We've had them both since they were babies. We have decided that 7 is quite a good year. All of a sudden our babies have become "real horses". It's kind of hard to describe what we mean by that, but it's like all of a sudden they have come into themselves. Suddenly I have A Real Horse, and not a dimwit baby. He stands still, he travels in a straight line, he is polite. It's amazing. I mean, he still has his moments, but he's 99% better than he was even 6 months ago. He has just been blossoming and being all sorts of amazing lately (knock on wood). I'm so proud!!!!

Also... I have had the Finn-monster for 5 years this week. I plan on doing an anniversary post this weekend, after I take new conformation shots of him. Finn and I have quite a history in only 5 years together.

Tonight I am working on art stuff, but man... I lost a sketch I did for something and it's driving me crazy!!!! I had this great image in my head, I sketched it out so I wouldn't forget it, and I lost it. Crap.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Mine all mine

I'll love you forever
I'll like you for always

_MG_0182

_MG_0092small

As long as I'm living
My babies you'll be.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

want vs. need and the story of Ewok

I don't need to go to the Humane Society. Ever.

kita

Because I will inevitably find one I want. This one though. She's my picture perfect dog. I have always wanted a small, female, bat eared pit. It doesn't help that she's a gorgeous color, and already house trained. I want. SO badly. I mean LOOK at her! She's is everything I've ever wanted in a dog, at least in physical appearance. Uhg.

The other two would not approve of a new addition. They hardly spoke to me when we took in a stray a few weeks ago. They got so offended.

ewok2

That was Ewok.

One night after work, I got out of my car and there was a small furry dog by the curb in front of the house. I walked up to him, expecting him to run away, but he politely wagged his tail instead. I picked him up and we walked up & down the street looking for any potential owners. Of course he had no collar or tags. I put him down and he followed me back to the house. Ken came out, and little dog greeted him just as politely as he had to me. We decided we couldn't just leave him out there. He was obviously someone's dog. He had been groomed at some point, though he was thin and flea infested. So, we got the big dogs. I was worried. We introduced them one at a time. Surprisingly, both Papu & Jet sniffed the little guy and went "Ew... it's little, and insignificant." We walked up and down the street, letting everyone get acquainted. Little dog followed along with no leash. When we got back to the house I said "Well everyone gets along, lets go inside". Little dog bolted up the steps, to the front door, and wagged his tail.

Ewok was a Shih-tzu. He was perfectly housebroken, trained not to get on furniture, and he was in love with me. He followed me everywhere. He even slept on the floor next to my side of the bed. I took him to the vet to get scanned for a chip with no luck. We plastered the neighborhood with fliers. Even though I began to think that maybe he was dumped. He was very thin, not fixed, he had a bad eye, fur missing on his back with black skin patches, and those damn fleas. I bathed him and it didn't help that much. Papu and Jet were tolerant of him, but extremely put out. They did not enjoy his presence, and ignored him most of the time. Ewok didn't know how to play with them either. Though, towards the end of his time here, they were all starting to come around.

Sadly, it was not meant to be. I was falling in love with him, but because I didn't need the extra vet bills, I had a few homes lined up just in case. As soon as I thought his owner wouldn't come forward, I got a phone call. She had been out of town. Her sister had been watching him. Apparently they let him out all the time (with no collar or tags) and "he always comes back." I really wanted to bitch her out and tell her I thought he'd been severely neglected. But I didn't... I did tell her he was too skinny, and she didn't say anything. I miss him. Poor Ewok.

Should Ewok ever wander back over here... I'm not calling her, or putting up fliers again.

ewok3


I wonder about a third dog. I don't need the extra vet bills, or the food bills. However, my two are getting older. I would love to have a younger dog around to keep them moving. We play and we walk a lot, but Jet would LOVE another dog with his energy level. That is, if he liked said dog. Jet is very opinionated about these things. Papu is MY dog. I want that gorgeous pittie girl, but Papu would be depressed for weeks. She might get over it eventually, but if Ewok showed me anything, it's that Papu can't handle it.

I'll continue to tell myself what I've always told myself. The right dog will come along at the right time. When it does, I'll know. Just like I did with these two. I hope. Because... you know... I can't her out of my head.

3 dogs

The 3 brief, almost amigos. The perception is a big wonky. Papu's not that big. For size reference Jet is 63 lbs, Papu is 43, Ewok is 10. Pretty pittie girl is 7 months old would top out at less than 50 lbs.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Adventures in gardening

I wonder what would happen if you could purify sweat. Could you bottle it all up and reuse it? I doubt it, but somehow I wish it was possible considering the amount of it that came off of me today.

Ken and I worked in the yard all day. I checked weather.com at one point, considering I was on my 3rd set of dry clothes, and it said the heat index was 122. Wunderground.com said it was 105. I'll just average the two together and call it even.

We got a lot done. Ken worked on the arbor that we started, oh... over a year ago. We had to meticulously unwrap the wisteria from around the support poles. Some of the new vine got broken in the process, but I think it'll be ok. He put lattice along the sides, evened the poles out, re-wrapped the wisteria around them, and now all that's left is the top.

Meanwhile, I was playing in the dirt. This spring, I had the grand idea to remove all these old lillies and crocosmia that had taken over the west side of the house. They were probably planted by someone that meant well, many moons ago. Then the house got sold to some SCAD boy's parent to provide his son & his friends with a place to live. Something tells me college boys aren't into gardening. The flowers were left to grow wild, and oh did they. When I removed them, there wasn't much soil there. It was one huge mass of bulbs, roots, bulbs, roots, and more bulbs. I was moderately successful. Except that I didn't really have a plan of what I was going to do with that side of the house after that.

Later on I realized that I really liked those flowers after all. Of course. When I moved the flowers, I didn't believe that I could throw a perfectly good (nonpoisonous) plant away, so I threw them all in pots together. Miraculously they survived in the pots, with no soil, only sun and water. Today, I put them all back. However, this time I did what that good old house inspector told us to do when we bought the place. I pulled the plants away from the house with a good layer of rocks & weed blocker to deter them. They seem happy to be home so far. I did have to throw away some of the bad ones, so I guess I successfully thinned out a flower bed... in a very roundabout way.

I also planted some new hosta and some siam tulips in my other beds. I will have to take pictures, because I just adore them both.

So... success! In one way or another.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Sketchbook Sunday

Some things I drew...



Hey it's 7-11 today! Awesome!