Another Finished

Some Things in Progress

This horse one isn't quite finished yet. 

Sycamore

Update on Various Things

I haven't posted anything new in a while because I've been rather busy. So here's a brief summery of what I've been up to. So brief I won't even include how I was sick with the worst cold ever for a while, and went bowling for the first time in forever the Tuesday before last (and enjoyed it even though I'm horrible at bowling) Or worked on cleaning up my flowerbed this weekend, or any of that.

Painting: 

I've got a custom portrait or two in the works. They're gifts for people so I can't show pictures for a while. So there will be more on that in several months.

I finally finished this painting for another pillow pet and have started working on a few more:

I've been painting some wine and grape themed paintings as well as trying to add to my other animal paintings. (Basically I'm trying to just paint every free second I get):

 

I sold all of my horse paintings, the proceeds of which paid for Stormy's 60 days of training. Very appropriate I thought.

Pets:

Roman is getting bigger:

Stormy is getting smaller:

I've been riding Stormy a lot. This particular photo was taken at the end of the longest ride I have ever been on. About 4 and a half hours if you count time just standing around visiting. Which I do since I was still in the saddle during that time. My knees and ankles count it...

I've decided I want to get Stormy freeze branded. When there have been wildfires, I know some people have been forced to just open gates/cut fences and let their horses loose for lack of time and/or a trailer. Horses also just get loose occasionally. People steal horses. And since Stormy's physical description would be "bay" (she has no white on her at all) I'd like to add something more identifiable. She does have some scars on her face but that isn't good enough. I want something I can register.
Here's the sketches I've been working on:

Fire storm

The start of another painting.

My horse (who happens to be the model for this particular painting) lives in Luther, Oklahoma, along with several people I love. She was out of the path of the fire, but this Friday all I could do was watch the news as a fire burned through parts of the town. I am so so thankful to report that that nobody I know lost their home to the fire, but a lot of other people that live around there did. (I've been hearing varying numbers, but somewhere between 25 and 30-something homes were lost.) Please pray for these people/families. I can't imagine. 

Cody

I didn't realize how difficult it is to investigate and remove a possibly neglected animal until following Cody's story. I'm sure I don't know all the details just from reading stuff on Facebook, but the gist is that people started reporting that they saw this horse, then vets were apparently called in and deemed his condition to be due to old age and surgery (to remove golf balls he had ingested). Then other people that are higher up (like the DA) got involved and the horse did end up being seized. He was severely dehydrated and malnourished. One wonders how much longer he would have survived in his dehydrated state in these over-100 temperatures we've been having.
I don't know how long this has taken to get him removed and cared for but, Animal Cops (the tv shows) makes it look a little faster than this.

If you want to help Cody and others like him, I'm offering the print from my giveaway (scroll down a couple of entries to see a pic,) on my Etsy page for $15 (not including shipping) with $15 going to Horse Feathers Equine rescue for each print sold. You can also of course, donate any amount directly to Horse Feathers by going here.

Riding Horses like Motorcycles

 Last Saturday I got to ride Stormy on a dirt motocross track. The guy that owns it has a professional motocross team that trains on that track, and it just happens to be a very ride-able distance from my trainer's house. (Stormy is at the trainer's right now...did I mention that?) Since nobody was going to get off their horses and take pictures, here are some rough sketches of what we did:

There were small moguls. good for trotting or cantering over. I learned to switch between leaning forward and leaning back very fast. it was like going over tiny jumps in a row...only not.

There were also big steep hills that were fun to run up. Here's the first one we went over:

And here is what happened when we got to the top:

There were also flat areas and banks on the curvy areas. Lots of running happened

t h e  e n d.