Virtual Brush Box

Awareness of the outside world. “Remember: foods vary in nutritional value, but they hold no moral value.” YLE: Halloween candy: A smart guide for parents, Jetelina & Maisano, Oct 29, 2025. [Spooky Season]

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I don’t remember so much Satanic panic surrounding Halloween.

Local churches advertise Trunk or Treat. I think this is car-to-car trick or treating in a parking lot. Notice the name difference. I’ve gone on about the misinterpretation of Halloween before. [Halloween Rant]

My point here is that I don’t remember this much noise when I was trick-or-treating as a kid in the 1970s. It was a small holiday. Candy. Costumes. Pumpkins. Orange UNICEF boxes. Done. Moving on.

Perhaps it is personal. When I was trick or treating, I lived in a city. There was one girl in our class who always had the Halloween party. We would trick to treat up and down the floors of the apartment building she lived in. Looking back, people must have been expecting us. They would have a light on or perhaps decorations out, the adults would know which doors to stop at, and the residents would be ready with candy and pennies. Now I live in the Southern US. Religion may or may not be the same as elsewhere, but the delivery style is louder. They may have been making these noises all along. I just wasn’t around to hear them.

Perhaps it is practical. How would you trick to treat in a rural area? Drive from house to house? Gathering at a central location makes sense logistically. Around here, churches are centers of the communities. Are they gathering at a church to shelter from Satanic influences? Or are they gathering there because it is where they are in community? Not just churches. My local library is having a trick or treat gathering. I donated notebooks with spooky covers.

Perhaps it is perception. In the 70s, mass media was radio and network television. Unless it was on Bugs Bunny or an episode of M*A*S*H, kid me would not have been exposed to it. If a local church was having a satanic panic, the reach would have been flyers posted around the neighborhood. Now, media is 24/7, comes at us from many angles, and from all over. We know far more about what people elsewhere are up to.

Some events are clearly historical moments. [Witness to History, Where Were You When?]

What about other moments? Beyond the obvious events, how do you know if you are witness historical change or seeing something that was always there but you had not noticed?

What is history? What is you?

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Christmas lights spotted. Already? Seriously? A business with three freestanding trees – red, green, & yellow – made from strings of lights. Elsewhere a house with lights that could be seen as Halloween lights.

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In the past, I have railed against portrait mode and expressed a desire to rip it out of my phone camera. I remember the feeling. I’d take a bunch of photos only to realize that the camera had swapped to portrait and none of what I had was usable. [Bean Can]

Either the camera is not doing this as much or I am more aware of the issue and more likely to check the settings. (Crosses fingers.)

I’m also starting to find uses for portrait mode.

Food

Repost. “The camera inadvertently switched to portrait, as it had done in the past, much to my annoyance. However, this time it worked out.” [Grub Gets a Glamour Shot]

Feet

Repost [My Breyerfest Weekend]

For this, I deliberately chose portrait mode to blur the background. Since I was taking a photo of a model this didn’t feel like an artistic choice as much as standard operating procedure for model photography.

The feet of the model make it look as if the background was added. No. It was right there. The light was just weird. More accurately, the choices the camera made to capture the light led to a weird result.

Yes, I’m still using my phone camera on full auto. Would I learn more about photography with a SLR camera on manual? Also yes. I’ve softened to a possible maybe on the idea of going back to a big camera. But I digress.

Fencing

Repost [Ribbonsss]

Again, I deliberately shot in portrait mode. The intention was to get a photo that concentrated on the ribbons in specific, rather than a photo about the show in general.

The alternate photo is a valid choice. I thought about using it or its kin. So, I made a deliberate creative choice to take and use the first one.

Portrait Mode. From I hate this, to this can be useful.

Onwards!
Katherine

Lessons of the outside world. Autonomous Dressage: Ohio Adventures Part 1 – Saddle Seat Lesson!

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Boogie
Stepping Stone Farm
22 October 2026

I am here to tell you that ASBs do not steer with one hand. Got photo. Got in the ring. Got started.

Perhaps I should ride the horse I plan to show? On the Thursday before, I did so. Furthermore, I mounted in the barn and went right to the big ring. If that’s what I had to do on Saturday, better do it for my lesson, right? [Report]

Doesn’t sound like a big deal. Somehow I had made a big deal of riding a fancy horse in the big ring. I’ve had several lessons with Boogie recently, but all driving. [Trying to Give Myself a Hand]

I rode him back in July, but in the smaller, covered ring. [The New and The Old]

I rode in the big ring in May, but that was on Optimus. [Caretakers On The Hoof]

I’m realizing my lizard brain gets intimated easily.

Anyway.

Saddle seat position? Check. No hunt seat.

Saddle seat riding? Not so much. Boogie took exception to pond end of the ring. No problem. I bent him to the inside & pushed him over with my inside leg. BZZT. Wrong! That’s hunt seat. It did not get better. Going past that end of the ring started to become a thing. Finally I got it right. Forward with both legs, steady on the outside rein – the ridiculously short outside rein, if you ask me – and gentle taps on the shoulder for guidance. Boogie understood and said he’d give it a try. A few more laps & we were trotting around just fine.

Poor horse, I was squawking at him in a foreign language.

By the end of the lesson, we built up some of the speed and zip we had in the cart. [Hand]

Onwards!
Katherine

Shows of the outside world. At Louisville this year, SSF rider Reagan Upton won the ASB Adult Three Gaited Country Pleasure Div II and took Reserve in the WCC Adult Three Gaited Country Pleasure with It’s General Holiday, owned by Anita Britton, trained by Stephanie Brannan. Big noise! Go team! [Watching Louisville 2026]

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More from the show. [Report]

Nerves

Yes.

Mostly worked up about work. Why does work get me so stressed? I. have. no. idea. It is a simple assignment, one I have done before, and one that I am good at. And yet I get anxious to the point of inaction. The joy of being me.

The show piled on top of that.

Texts

Text to a friend who was also riding in show. I was all sage and supportive. “Dont think toooo much & get in your own way. Ride like you know how to do.”

Pause.

Second text. “Now I just need to take my own advice …”

So easy to say. So hard to do.

Technicalities

For those who do not have my show calendar on the front page of their Bullet Journal. I did show earlier this year. No ribbons. [The Ride, AHJA Kick Off Show 2026]

I did get ribbons earlier this year. They were for shows in 2025. [Back in the Bling, ASHAA Banquet for 2025]

These are the first ribbons earned this year.

Onwards!
Katherine

Shows of the outside world. Blog contributor Karen and her USDF Gold Medal horse Hampton, get loot, face cows, and go cross-country in costume. Contact: Wins, speeding tickets and dirt for lunch. [Saddlehorse World vs. Dressage, Part I, Part II]

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Stepping Stone Farm Barn Show
Chelsea AL USA
24 October 2026

6. Adult WTC Showmanship. 1st of 2.
7. Adult WTC Equitation. 2nd of 2.
Thank you to the Kasperian Family for Boogie.

I had the opportunity to show the horse I showed last year in Tennessee. [Trip to Tennessee, Show Report, Southeast Academy Championship 2025 text, Ribbons Are A Family Affair, Pro Photos from TN Show, photos]

I managed to remember where I was and rode an adequate saddle seat. We did not get the zip we had in the lesson two days earlier, but neither did we have the errors from that ride. More about the lesson anon.

I felt good and thought we looked good. Of course, I had the leisure think about styling because Boogie is such a nice horse. It is absolutely true that a good horse makes the rider look good.

As usual, a great ride is wonderful to live through but doesn’t make for gripping narrative. We went in. We did what we were supposed to do when we were supposed to do it.

The only item of note was that we had four immediate, soft canter transitions, which I have not been getting over in hunterland.

To paraphrase Benny from The LEGO Movie, Horse show! Horse show!

Onwards!
Katherine

Words of the outside world. Last Friday, 23 October, HOBBIT counted as a legit entry in the word search puzzle Squaredle.

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First ribbons of 2026.

More tomorrow. It was a small show, but I’m still going spread it over as much of this week as I can manage.

Onwards!
Katherine

Art of the outside world. IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts: Virtual Exhibitions.

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Bag from upcycled baling twine
October 2026

Monica Newman Moore is one of those folks who I will listen to or take a class from whenever the opportunity presents itself. Talking with Moore at this year’s Moundville Native American Festival inspired me to dig out my twining loom – bought from Moore – finish what was on there & see what I could do with baling twine. It is after all both plentiful and colorful.

The pattern & color variations are from her demo this year.

Technical Notes

Verdict – Method

Success. Enjoy. Should do more.

My hands ached. Not surprising, given my tendency to tighten & hold. But my wrist didn’t hurt, despite this being a new move. [From Cursewords! to Soft Progress]

Verdict – Form

I have questions.

I dislike the tube method of bag production. The security of the contents relies on my ability to sew the bottom. I think I would prefer to weave the front, bottom, and sides, then fold the bag, then sew the sides.

I could use this loom create to flat, narrow panels the width of the loom, much as I did for completing the flap.

Verdict – Material

Not suitable for this application.

Baling twine is stiff, unravels, and is hard to finish off. The final product does not fold easily. The knots either have to be dealt with, or be considered part of the decor. For the truly organized, you could cut the baling twine off the bale at the knot. Not likely to happen.

In an ideal world, the warp & weft would be different colors. I swapped them once or twice. Nothing that was hard to sort out, but two colors would be less confusing.

For the right use, this could be a nice fabric. The result is sturdy yet flexible, and more colorful than I anticipated. Mats would be a piece of cake, but to what purpose? Perhaps suitable for some sort of openwork basket?

Links

YouTube: Virtual Moundville Native American Festival – Twining (Monica Newman Moore)

UWA: Monica Newman Moore brings Black Belt history to life

Onwards!
Katherine