Wednesday, June 17, 2009

ramblings

I need to do some serious house cleaning. Human house, chicken house(s), corrals and stall. Sometimes I think I'd like to be a neat freak, but I don't think I ever could be.

I feel like a total blog slacker with not posting WIP pics. Things are going well though. Belt buckle in progress, all sketches now approved for pistol grips, image approved for pendant (and pendant shaped and sanded from a very rough piece of ivory, looks nice!)

I think I might try creating one pendant a week for sale though. Now that I'm using an inking technique that's more durable, I feel comfortable doing jewelry work and would like to get that on the market somewhere (okay I know where I want it to be sold, I'm just going to keep that to myself right now).

I got to spend some time with L (my sis in law) and baby C (my niece, two months old already!) today without extraneous grandparents hovering about, and I have to say I greatly enjoyed that. Much more relaxed. Babies are quite foreign territory to me, but hopefully I won't be totally inept as an aunt. I have to say I did catch myself eyeballing the little girly clothes at Horse Expo over the weekend and scheming to take C with me in a few years and get her all cowgirled up. Hee hee. :-)

To those of you who dared to complain about that AMAZINGLY WONDERFUL weather we've been having, curses on you!!! It's getting hot now, I don't like that. It had only been getting into the low 80s, loved it!!!! I've been riding every day, able to work outside without feeling like I might croak, etc. In my perfect world it would never be over 85 degrees.

I don't talk much about riding. There's not much to talk about. I ride. Sometimes not very often. Sometimes every day. Trail rides are exciting, I always write about those (and want to go on more!!!) but around here it's schooling, training, arena work. What the clinician said on Sunday at Horse Expo really made an impression, that we just don't canter our horses enough. That's been pretty true with me, and as you've heard me say before, Shylah has a pretty choppy canter and I've been willing to just not do it. So I'm going to try out the theory that doing it a LOT more will develop whatever needs to develop (her balance, strength, etc?) to improve it. And also just improve her stamina. In the few weeks that she has been on the [dry, dead, crappy, weedy] pasture she's totally porked up again despite lots of riding. Arg. I think I'm going to have to put her back in the corral and on a diet. Some horses are just too easy to maintain!

Okay, it's bed time, I have nothing else to ramble about today.

5 comments:

Jan Blawat said...

I could recommend the Oregon coast for a continuous 85 degree temperature, but I don't know where you'd ride. The trees and underbrush are so dense, you'd have to send 3 guys with machetes out in front of you to clear the trail. I suppose you could ride on the beach. The beach where Jean lives is 28 miles long, would that do it? It would be a great place if tsunami potential doesn't freak you out.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jan!
I like your pic! It's a good one!
--CS
P.S. I agree about the heat, Katherine...gadzooks. We just blame it on the start of the fair...

Mammoth said...

I just realize the 'micro' detail compared to the size of a penny. I as well prefer stipple work over the cross-hatch method due to detail worth. I often think about doing more scrim work but it is so much freedom to do sculpture and since I have a large supply of ivory in stock it is just an all out dust storm most of the time. Lucky, in Bali, I work almost outside taking advantage of the offshore / onshore breeze to keep the dust going going out to the jungle. Again, Jan, I am very impressed with your scrimshaw detail and if you need mammoth ivory, summer is the best time for me and I cannot think of anyone who would do it the best service. "Are you ready for major work, say, on a three foot vertically mounted tusk? It would be a museum object of great worth! William Sidmore

Katherine Plumer said...

William, thanks. I'm definitely much more interested in scrimshaw than sculpture, so I think a three foot tusk would be a bit large for that sort of work (and no doubt out of budget!). I'm more interested in small pieces that could be used for jewelry.

ps- I'm Katherine. :-)

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