Another entertaining week on a number of fronts. The good weather has held on, with snow melting fast, so there is lots of water (and mud, depending where you are) underfoot with much more yet to come. I saw a flock of newly returned Canada geese in the field en route to Ebon stables last week, which seemed early to me, but is a definite marker of the changing seasons. I’ve been gathering up supplies for a couple of new art directions (one that will involve my photos, and one of an entirely different sort) and trying to research what to do and how to do it, a process I always enjoy. When and if I get anywhere with either of these directions, you’ll be the first to know.
One other thing of note in my personal realm was the installation of our new dishwasher. I’ve lost track of how old the previous one actually was. It was in declining health for a number of years, although it did get the job done, more or less. Many of the support prongs on the shelves had rusted out and were gone, the thing made a huge amount of noise (it did from the get-go so that wasn’t new), and the door seal had gone so that at several points during any given cycle it would release greater or lesser amounts of water onto the kitchen floor. Usually I would remember to place a bath-towel in a strategic location to contain the flood, but not always. Since I’d generally way rather spend money on things like new lenses, camera bodies, saddles, or almost anything other than household appliances, we put up with it for a long time, but new kitchen flooring has finally risen to the top of the list, and no way was I going to get new flooring while the dishwasher was still spewing water. So the short version is we now have a roomy, flexible, energy efficient, and blessedly silent dishwasher. Next stop, kitchen flooring!
Shot one was taken last week when I went to deliver some photos and have a visit with my Paint breeder friend. For once, I wasn’t out stalking the horses at her place, rather was very taken up with her interesting pack of dogs, especially young Gus, the star of shot one. He is about a year and a half old now, and has grown—a lot–since I last saw him when he was only a few weeks old. He is a Boxer-Brazillian Mastiff cross, and if I hadn’t been informed of the Boxer part, I wouldn’t have guessed it by looking at him. He favours the Mastiff side of his heritage in both looks and in his low-key approach to life, although there were a few tell-tale Boxer moves that I detected in the way he interacts with visitors and with the other dogs.
The next day I carried on with photo ops, this time with my more usual equine subject matter. I had heard from a couple of sources that there was a breeder of Friesian horses newly located in the district. Since this is one of the ultimate “artist” breeds for me, I was of course very interested in getting a chance to get them in front of my camera. With my new camera equipment and the weather finally consistently bland, I thought now would be a good time to start my collection of photos of these horses. I called the owner who was most accommodating and willing to share her horses and her time, and spent a very happy couple of hours out there on Saturday afternoon. Bonus for me was that in addition to her Friesians, she has a Gypsy cob stallion and a collection of Clydesdale mares, since she is branching off into breeding Drum horses as well as Friesians. Couldn’t be a better set-up from my point of view. Shot two shows her Friesian stallion in full flight in his pasture.
Shot three shows the mare herd (and one gelding mixed in for good measure). The Friesians are leading the way, followed by the “big girls”. It was interesting to note the self-imposed segregation of the two breeds, with the Friesians being quite unwilling to mix on an equal (orany) basis with the heavy horses, preferring as they do to stay in their own breed group with minimal interaction.
Shot four shows the two stallions play fighting. They are both very well-socialized young fellows, and have no problem sharing their large fenced area. The mares are quite far away from the boys in the pasture set-up, so they won’t feel the need to compete with each other for attention from the ladies. I’m always pleased to see stallions allowed to live like normal horses, and not confined and treated like dangerous beasts as can sometimes be the case.
Shot five takes us somewhere else entirely, which is to my feet in their new “Five finger” Vibram barefoot shoes. These have recently come to my attention, and when my daughter bought a pair that I could try on, I was quite taken with the whole concept. I’ve always enjoyed the barefoot feel, but never liked the grit my feet picked up (that could get me into vacuum cleaner stories, but I’ll spare you) or having chilly feet in winter. These provide a good work-around for those concerns, and are supposedly ergonomically very good as walking/running shoes. For any who have met me in real life, you’ll recall I’m the farthest thing imaginable from a runner (I’m built for comfort, not for speed) but I think these will be just the ticket for house wear, yard wear and for walking the dogs. Definitely *not* barn shoes, though!!
©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.
