Virtual Brush Box

Our parade reporter is back for a double hitter this year. Welcome, Michelle. [Parade Art]

Slow motion Budweiser Clydesdales video from Endymion Mardi Gras parade.

Links

Good Morning America: Budweiser brings back Clydesdales in 2024 Super Bowl ad, YouTube

Irish Sport Horse: Our Top Ten Budweiser Clydesdale Commercials

[Even The King] with links to previous Clydesdale posts.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Pray Tell: Ash Wednesday: Remember You Are Stardust, 2021.

~~~

We have been taking the horses for morning hand walks daily since last spring. We get out almost every day, missing at most one or two days a month.

What stops us?

Rain. Light mist is fine. Even predicted rain, because we can often fit our few laps before it gets heavy. True downpour? No thank you.

Footing. Once the rain has stopped, there is usually one day where the field has standing water and the mud is deep and slippery. We give it a day to drain.

Cold. Slight cold is okay. True cold, no. Fortunately this happens about once a year. [Walking During The Recent Weather]

Logistics. We have to be somewhere at x, which means we have to feed at x minus y, which means we don’t have time for a walk that day. Or one of us has to be at work early.

What doesn’t stop us?

Heat. Quite the opposite. In high summer, mornings are the only time to get anything done.

Cold. A few degrees below freezing is often nicer than a few degrees above when the ice/frost is melting and making everything damp.

Dark. We can go out in the lighten before sunrise. It doesn’t take much light to see your way at a walk around a quiet and contained space. [Sunrise Stats]

Weekends are on a semi-stop. Back when horse work was still happening, we would go for a walk in the morning and work in the afternoons. These days, we take our walks in the afternoon and sleep in. Well, as much sleeping in as you can do with animals who are expecting bathroom breaks and breakfast.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Acadiana Profile: Laissez les Bons Temps Rouler, History of a Problematic Expression, Cheramie 2021. Mardi Gras World: “Prenon du bons temps!” (Say what?)

~~~

Final set of beads from a work convention in New Orleans.

Previous Beads

[Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler] with commentary
[Mardi Gras Beads II]
[Mardi Gras Beads III] with links

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Vox: The Puppy Bowl, explained, Pai and Koski 2020.

~~~

Rodney has had his feed ration reduced. It is an ongoing balance of keeping weight on without having the calories bubble out his ears.

He’s been due for a while, but you hate to cut feed going into winter. The good news is that he wasn’t stressed, as he has been in the past. He was a good mood. Perhaps a little to good. The shenanigans during the arctic blast were the last straw. Frozen mud is not a forgiving surface. Plus, we are – though it seems hard to believe – moving toward spring.

Rodney is now calmer. More able to think through a situation.

The weird part is that Milton is calmer as well.

Rodney is easier to live with?

Or is it something more pervasive?

We are starting to wonder how the herd dynamics play out.

For example, before Milton, Rodney had no interest in the salt block. We had one, because that’s what you do, but it was largely ignored. Milton loves salt. Milton has salt daily. Milton will stress lick the salt block after a hard day. Now, Rodney uses the salt block.

Humans don’t understand. Humans can’t understand.

We are social creatures. We are not herd creatures.

Horse A spooks at X. Horse B spooks at horse A spooking. Humans laugh. This happened as recently as the last show. I saw the bird fly into the arena. The horse in front of us spooked. Optimus didn’t care about the bird. He spooked at the other horse spooking.

This makes complete sense when you are lion kibble out on the savannah. You don’t have to see the lion for yourself. Trust that the other guy saw something. You spooking? Good enough for me. Let’s get out of here.

Run first. Ask questions later.

As a reaction to physical danger, it seems obvious. Does it go deeper? Does a horse take on the mood of their herdmate(s)? Is the herd an organism made up of individual horses? Do they model their behavior on each other more than we realize? Do the horses have to be living together as a herd or does it apply to horses stalled next to each other as well?

Research is ongoing.

Onwards!
Katherine

Art & commerce of the outside world. Entertainment Weekly: The 20 best Super Bowl commercials of all time, Wolfinsohn 2023. Country Living: A Comprehensive List of The Best Super Bowl Commercials of All Time, Horton Jan 20, 2024. SuperBowl-Ads.com: Super Bowl Ads Archive.

~~~

Legend

Bird – Bridge of Birds
Wand – Harry Potter
Dragon – The Hobbit
Wizard – The Wizard of Earthsea
Horse – The Blue Sword/The Hero & The Crown
Castle – Knights Castle, Edward Eager
Door – The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Turtle – Discworld

Emoji from Emojipedia.

Frame colors from cover art or website. Lots of animals, which says more about what I notice than it says about what is in the books.

Book selection. Venn diagram of fantasy with available emojis. For example, I could not find good representation for Rivers of London. The Tolkien one is marginal. LOTR would have been more on point than The Hobbit. Had to include something. You can’t spell fantasy without “T”. Also gets in the requisite dragon as symbol for fantasy. Harry Potter has not made it onto my personal reread shelf, but one cannot deny the cultural impact.

Process Notes

As with the dragon, my mental image of this was full of swoops and fancy scrollwork. Classic fantasy art tropes. Alas, my artistic vision may have swoops, but my artistic skill does not. Both the dragon & the letter were reimagined as images that could be constructed on grids. [D is for Dragon]

Onwards!
Katherine

Where Is Fantasy Found?

In the footsteps of Frodo.

Over the rainbow.

Down the rabbit hole.

Through the wardrobe door.

Beyond the tollbooth.

Awareness of the outside world. The Guardian: The eyes have it: 100 of the world’s cutest photos – as chosen by readers, 25 Jan 2024.

~~~

Shelby Iron Works
January 2024

In the grand tradition of portal fantasy.

Technical Details

Brick arches. f/7.1, 1/100 sec., 105.0 mm, ISO 100. Manual mode & auto-focus.

Post production. No cropping. Framed through the lens. Resized, border, & watermark. Border colors, gray for project, yellow for Nikon. [Photo Safari The First], [Quarry, Photography, Things I Forgot]

Previous Posts
[Head In New England, Feet In The South, Walk Report, Boston Virtual 5K, Shelby County Iron Works]
[End of The Road]

Onwards!
Katherine