new image

Finished today, this is other entry for Draft Horse Classic (Sept 06).


"The First of Spring"
colored pencil and graphite on gray stonehenge paper
10.5" x 13.5"
May 2006
will be for sale at DHC if it's accepted


Just for interest sake, here's an extreme closeup of part of the mare. This is way more detail than you'd see just looking at the original drawing. Color and form are created by laying the colored pencils. That can mean layering one color to create a gradation of light-dark, or layering many colors, going from light to dark--building up to create a form that appears to have depth. There are 10 colors used in the body of the mare (not including hooves, muzzle, eyes): white, cream, beige, sand, goldenrod, terra cotta, tuscan red, black cherry, burnt umber, indigo.

new image

Again, not new, but newly scanned. I am entering this one in Draft Horse Classic (Sept 06).


"Oregon Wade"
intaglio etching (dark brown ink on cream paper)
printed in late 2005
plate size ~4.25" x 5.75"
edition size: 20
for sale: prints 1-20
$145 plus tax unframed

new image

This isn't *new* persay but I finally got around to scanning it today.


"Oregon Wade" (negative image)
intaglio etching (white ink on black paper)
printed in late 2005
plate size ~4.25" x 5.75"
edition size: 4
for sale: prints 2-4
$200 plus tax unframed

Up and Running!!!

Woo hoo, the computer is back!!! I got the call Friday late afternoon telling me that the new hard drive was installed and I could come pick it up. Since I was heading out of town for the weekend I figured I could either get it on the way and take it with me or wait til Tuesday. Of course waiting til Tuesday would mean not having it today.. So yeah, I took the computer on vacation! :-)

The really good news here is that NOTHING was lost from the hard drive (at least not that I've discovered yet). Woo hoo!!! The guys at Core Care in Sacramento are awesome.

So, I spent this weekend at a Clinton Anderson horse training clinic in Red Bluff, and I stayed with J.C. and D.C. about an hour northeast of there. The clinic was great, I feel like I learned a lot and I sure like the way he presents information. I'm excited about really getting going and applying this training to Shylah, and I realize I need to do a lot more groundwork before I think too hard about riding. It was very informative, and funny. And he's really really hot stuff so that's always a good thing too. ;-) If I was brave I would have gotten a picture with him and posted that here, but... alas I am not brave.

I think it may take a while for my butt to recover from sitting on bleachers for hours and hours and hours. Bleachers, I think, would be a pretty effective torture device. Ugh!

I did take a gazillion pictures of horses and other things at J.C.'s place, and actually took a bunch of landscape shots too. It's rare that I'm visiting there when it isn't either ankle deep in mud or over 100 degrees, so this was pretty much a perfect weekend, and the clouds were really neat. It is so gorgeous there.







"Objects in viewfinder are MUCH closer than they appear" The photo below is cropped down a fair amount, the horses didn't take up that much of the frame in the original photo, but I was standing there shooting a series of running pics, and when I looked up away from the camera I realized the mare was right in front of me! I think I said something along the lines of "oh crap!" The horses are Andalusians, and the bay colt that's pictured above and below (not the one with the white markings) is for sale (thought I'd throw a plug in there for you J!) :-)

La dee da

It's going to be a miracle if this posting actually survives. Exploder was telling me that cookies were disabled (um, no they're not, I haven't touched the cookies and they worked beforehand!) so I've resorted to writing this one in Netscrape 4.7. It looks really really weird. We'll see...

Still no good news on the computer. I talked to Apple directly and was told that "most backorders are filled in ten business days or less." Well, even that would put it into early June. They said if it takes longer than ten business days "there are steps we can take." I am not sure what that means but I think we're gonna be taking some steps... I have work to do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It doesn't really occur to me to take photos lately since I can't post them on here at the moment. Not that anything exciting is going on anyway.

I moved the oldest batch of chicks outdoors today. Dang I have a lot to get rid of, I wish I could get rid of them now but they are too little to take to auction.

I am almost done with a drawing that I am entering in Draft Horse Classic. When I am able to scan it and post it here I will do so. I feel a bit guilty for drawing horses instead of chickens but it's a necessity, that's a very important show for me.

I attended an art club meeting tonight and we learned about drawing caricatures. Those are tough. Mine ended up looking more cartoony than caricature-ish (is there a difference? I guess overly-accentuating features isn't something I do well). Maybe I'll post those here some day too.

When I was backing up all the files off the hard drive I realized I never posted any of the figure drawings I did either... I could do that too some day. Should I add fig leaves? I suppose some people might find them offensive. I don't, it's art..but hey, whatever....

Enough rambling, I think I'll hit the publish button and see if this thing self destructs.

BBRed Rosecombs

This is the only part of my website I can edit right now which is the only reason I am posting this info here, on the off chance that some interested person will read it. A buyer was supposed to send payment for BBRed Rosecomb eggs and has not (yet?) Eggs don't keep forever. There are 18+ ready for IMMEDIATE shipment, would need to go out by Wednesday the 24th. Email me for info.

Nope, not yet...

I called the computer repair place this morning, still no word from Apple on when the new hard drive will be in, so I have NO idea how long this could take... my fear is it may turn into weeks. The guy told me I can take my computer back home if I want to, and it may come to that.. it was still working (to an extent) and I could continue to use it until the new drive arrives, and then I'd just take it back for repair. I need to think about that. There are things I need on there, and even though I have them on backup, I can't open them on this laptop. Plus I can't print anything from here, or scan anything, or get images off my camera.... However, I am still most grateful to be able to do email, thanks again JJ!!! :-)

Oh! And I need to be able to update my website!! I sold the three kitten paintings over the weekend and need to change that.. no can no now.

We had a decent amount of rain over the last two days, which was actually kind of nice since it had been miserably hot there for a while. I feel so sorry for people who have hay down in the fields though, ugh! My 60 bales of hay was delivered last week, but the bale wagon doesn't fit into the barn so they had to drop it out front. It took me two days to move ALL the hay into the barn and restack it. 21 bales into the extra stall (6 bales high on one end), one large stack in the aisleway, 8 by 8 feet and 5 bales high, and then a few leftovers along the wall. I was sooooo sore by the end of that. They are heavier this year! It's not exactly a fun job but there's something immensely satisfying about doing it alone. Well, to be fair, E.H. (Patrick's owner) did show up right at the end and help with a few bales and that was nice since I was about to croak.

Things are still weird with the horses, and more and more I think it will not work for Patrick to stay here, it's dangerous out there. I've been turning the three of them out together. Gwen acts like a stallion. She charges at him, kicks him (he did fight back at one point, that was dramatic) and will NOT let him get near Shylah. Gwen is always between them, and I can tell this is starting to annoy Shylah, I've seen her make a run for it a couple times but she can't get away from Gwen. If Patricks ends up in the middle it's NOT pretty, Gwen pretty much tries to kill him (pissing and swishing her tail the whole time, it's really gross). I've ridden her with other geldings and she's never been like this before. There is just something about him that has a strange affect on her. It makes them hard to be around. *sigh* They are so weird.

I'm debating setting one more batch of eggs or just stopping now (there is one more batch due, in two weeks). Hmmmmmm........

Ok, back to work.

something borrowed and orange

I'll keep this short and sweet.

My computer's hard drive decided to stop working...or was on its way to making that decision, so it's being repaired and I have been computerless. The new drive is backordered with no estimated date of arrival... I don't like the sound of that. I think I was able to back up all my documents. I miss my computer! If I'm going to not use the computer I need that to be my choice, and not just that it's not here!

J.J. has loaned me this cute little orange iBook because I was suffering from the lack of internet. So at least I can email (well, if I happen to have memorized addresses, since all that stuff was on the old hard drive..) I keep spelling everything wrong because the keyboard is way different! And the screen is so tiny! IE 5.1 (tee hee, old!) is a little quirky with the blogger site, and Netscape (hoo hoo ha ha!) didn't work worth squat, so I probably won't be blogging much til I get my computer back.

There is a lot to talk about though, so we'll see, I may be compelled to deal with the quirks anyway.

I know, you're all missing me terribly. ;-)

Hasta pasta!

One of those days....

It's sorta been like that for the last couple days, very Murphy's Law-esque. *sigh*

I moved the pipped eggs into the hatcher last night right before I went to bed. 4 of them were pipped but the rest were not (there are always over-achievers!) I've found they hatch best if I wait until they pip before moving them to the hatcher.. So all was well, no problem. This morning a few more were pipped in the incubator and one was hatched out there, but it sounded weak and acted lethargic. Hmm, not good. I opened it up and took the tray out, and immediately I could feel that the inside of the incubator was no warmer than the room. CRAAAAAP, not again! I quickly moved all three trays of eggs into the hatcher, just for safe keeping. Although "room temperature" in there is about 85 degrees, eggs need to be just over 99..so that's a problem, and I really really really hope it didn't kill the next two batches of eggs or take too heavy a toll on those that are due to hatch this weekend. I took the top off the incubator and fiddled with the wires again, but there's really nothing to fix--nothing is broken! Ack!! I don't know what the issue is! This the same thing that happened a few months ago, but at that time there was some corrosion in the wire connector. Everything's clean, I fixed that issue way back then! So.. I don't know. It started to work again and seems to be fine. We'll see... Arg!

A couple days ago the computer started to act much slower than normal and stall while opening programs and whatnot. The little colored wheel would spin and spin.. eventually it would come back to live, but this is not normal, it's a very zippy computer. And then it started to click. OH NO. I emailed a Mac guru and he confirmed what I was dreading, sounds like the hard drive is failing. CRAAAAP! I hope I don't lose anything. I will be taking it in for service next week, I hope that doesn't take too long, I feel pretty worthless without computer access (not just for incessant email checking, but also for legitimate work, graphics, scanning, etc.) Arg!

And then there was a broken water pipe too but that's pretty small potatoes compared to this other crap. I can't spell-check this posting, the computer I'm on (am house-sitting) won't let the window pop up so I hope I didn't make too many errors.

Something I've never seen before

I have always wanted to see a Praying Mantis egg case hatch, but I had never been that fortunate. I would find them on the side of the house, or around the barn, and I'd try to be diligent and check every day but I always missed the big event. Until today... I was coming back in from the pasture, having just brought Patrick in from an hour turnout with Shylah, and when I reached for the gate latch in the corral, I realized just before I grabbed it that there were some sort of little bugs crawling all over it. Eww gross, I thought, and yanked my hand back. But then I took a close look and practically shouted with delight! Baby Mantids! Soooo cute! Mind you I am not a big fan of bugs in general, but I do have exceptions to this rule, and Praying Mantids are on the exempt list. I ran in and got my camera and took some pics. It was really hard, these little guys are about 1/4 inch long and FAST, very jumpy. Within a few hours they were all gone. I hope to see some of them all grown up!! I'm sure it's a small percentage that makes it to adulthood though. :-(

This is the egg case and a few hatchlings. It's on the underside of a gate latch on the pipe corral, I'd never even noticed it, you can't see it unless you get down underneath it:

I got one to hop up onto my hand, here it is on my pinky:

And on my pointer finger:

"Here's looking at you, kid."

What's funny is just the other night I was admiring this website and all the wonderful photos!