Virtual Brush Box

Amusement from the outside world. Pride & Prejudice & Puppies. Unleashing Mr. Darcy. Pride & Prejudice reimagined at a dog show. Have not seen. IMDB: Pride and Prejudice Adaptations, lists 16 movies, including the dogs. Reading With Delaney: Ranking every Pride and Prejudice adaptation I have read, lists 8 books, no dogs that I can see. Does anyone remember Wishbone? There was a P&P episode, Wishbone: “Furst Impressions” JASNA, Jane Austen On Screen: Pride and Prejudice.

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Went over to watch Coach Deana teach a lesson at Rosewood Stables.

Old barn, new owners. I was there often for saddle seat shows. Back in the dark ages, Previous Horse and I showed jumpers there. That was the one with cows next door. Cows! He was fine in the ring. A wee bit uncorked when we weren’t competing.

Back to the present. The plan is to graduate from Razzy and take a lesson or two on a Rosewood school horse. Borrow an old hand to jump around a course or two. I’ve been yapping about jumping for years. Probably should make sure I really want to do this thing with Next Horse.

Barn was amazing, not just money, but money well spent. Gorgeous fencing. Lovely jumps. A lounge area possibly bigger than my house, definitely cleaner. If there were amenities missing, I didn’t see them.

For all the bells and whistles, the best thing I saw was in a maintenance storage room. On the floor was a dog crate with the door removed and a dog bed inside. On a shelf above was a cat bed with dishes of food and water on the shelf beside. Those are the kinds of details I admire.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Flu shot yesterday.

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Weekly lunging check-in on Saturday. Rodney NQR. No bad steps. No outright lameness. The occasional trip with the left hind hoof. Walking directly behind him as he sauntered back to the barn showed a disinclination to fully bend his left hock. Found a small swelling high up on the inseam of his left leg.

First thought was a muscle sprain. Perhaps a groin pull from getting up, or slipping, or shenanigans. Never rule out shenanigans.

Ice and gentle walks to stretch leg & stimulate circulation.

Second thought was a bug bite. Large and in a location to make him reluctant to lift his leg. We have had horses with big reactions to bug bites in the past. I won’t call them overreactions because a) not our call to make & b) I have been bitten by some of those bugs. The horses are not wrong about the ferocity level.

Same treatment. Ice and walks.

The swelling is behaving like a bug bite. Growing quickly but also sliding down the leg. OTOH, his attitude says muscle. Actually, his attitude says Fear! Fire! Foes! must Flee! He gets spooky when he is in pain. Bute settles the panic. That would be weird for a bug bite.

It’s always something.

The above is not completely true. My first thought was degenerative arthritis to his hock that would eventually cripple him, leaving him three-legged and unable to accomplish the tasks of daily living. Other barn minion thought neurologic. That horror didn’t even occur to me. Nice to see we are keeping it on the positive.

Milton is doing well. Took a bad step in a tight turn at a trot. Otherwise, fine. He is back to marching off lead during morning walks, including taking point if the rest of us are too slow.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Appreciating the interesting parts of history while keeping it real, Behaim Globe.

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To understand Milton’s comment, one must know about Rodney’s hay habits. Rodney gets essentially free-choice alfalfa, from which he eats the parts he wants and leaves the rest. Yes, he’s so spoiled picky that he gets to be selective about alfalfa. I admit it is ridiculous. I want to get hardcore and tell him to clean his plate. It’s gorgeous hay. It’s not a big ask. However, it’s difficult to play hay chicken with a 26 year-old hard keeper. Occasionally I insist, but mostly Rodney gets what he wants.

Milton gets the leftovers.

Leftovers, may I remind, of very nice hay.

Milton’s meals are distributed into buckets by his minion. I serve them through the day.

One day at breakfast, I heaved the relevant bucket under Milton’s nose. Milton tossed the hay around, looking for the good parts. He stopped and glared at me. He then went over, stood in front of the pass-thru, and pointed himself toward the hay corner.

I called his minion.

Me: Did Milton get any new alfalfa today?

Minion: Nope. There were enough leftovers.

Me: Well, Milton would like to inform you that you did it WRONG!

I never thought for an instant that Milton was refusing food due to illness. That’s our go-to fear. In this case, he was so clear that he was fine and his universe was not.

Whoever says animals can’t communicate, just isn’t listening. [Talk To Me]

He got new alfalfa.

On A Related Note

To recap. Hay is served in clean manure buckets hanging from the wall. Milton has three types of hay in his bucket: timothy/alfalfa, leftover alfalfa, & alfalfa straight from the bale. Rodney gets one type of hay, alfalfa.

Milton is in the habit of snorkeling through the first two types of hay to get at the good stuff. There is much bucket banging as he does this. Rodney has no need to search through his bucket. He only gets one thing and it’s all prime. And yet, he has started banging his hay bucket against the wall.

It’s what the cool kids do.

Onwards!
Katherine

Art of the outside world. I’m Fine I’m Fine Just Understand: BONUS: Emoji Painting Gallery, FAMOUS PAINTINGS RECREATED USING ONLY EMOJIS!. Hat tip to M.

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Pears
Acrylic Painting Class with Chris Cruz
Class 2 of 4
Shelby County Arts Council
Columbiana AL, USA
14 September 2024

Instructor website, Chris Cruz Designs

Caption. My table at the start and at the finish.

We began with a pencil sketch supplied by the instructor. We went over the lines with a pen and the directive not to draw straight, flat lines. The resulting rough outlines reminded me of Jules Feiffer, who I recognize due to repeated rereads of The Phantom Tollbooth.

Caption. Golden: OPEN Slow-Drying Acrylics

Today’s art factoid. The good thing about acrylics is that they dry fast. The bad thing about acrylics is that they dry fast. Golden makes an acrylic paint that acts like an oil in terms of drying speed. We used this in the second coat that soften the colors we had applied in the first pass. Yes, I underpainted. Imagine that.

Caption. Group photo, L to R, instructor, me, other student.

Main photo taken in parking lot when I realized I had left the class without one.

Previous Post [Class #1]

Onwards!
Katherine

Text

💧 ☁️ 🧊

Water is life.

Water is rain.
Water is lakes.
Water is rivers.

Water is drinking.
Water is boiling.
Water is showering

Water is floods.
Water is giant waves.
Water is small tragedies.

💧 ☁️ 🧊

Steam is energy.

Steam is clouds.
Steam is mist.
Steam is fog.

Steam is cooking.
Steam is coffee.
Steam is lift.

Steam is burns.
Steam is explosions.
Steam is the dark side of the industrial age.

💧 ☁️ 🧊

Solid Water is weight

Solid Water is the name of an age.
Solid Water is as small as a cube.
Solid Water is as big as a glacier.

Solid Water is cooling.
Solid Water is art.
Solid Water is Baskin-Robbins Mint Chocolate Chip

Solid Water is biting.
Solid Water is burning.
Solid Water is freezing.

💧 ☁️ 🧊

Afterword

Hat tip to J.

Someday the word for solid water will once again mean solid water. Today is not that day. I admit that the “solid water” formulation hampers the flow. However, I did not enjoy having that word bouncing around in my head while I was writing this. YMMV

I thought water would be the easiest of the three but came up with solid water entries first.

Onwards!
Katherine

Art of the outside world. Hyperrealism. From pencil to paint. Cj Hendry website. Examples under CJH: Originals. Hat tip to Bored Panda: This Is Not What It Looks Like! These Giant Paint Blobs Are Actually Pencil Drawings, Grašytė 2017.

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Color Mixing

I was fascinated by the shapes.

Blob was on the palette from acrylic class #1 [Beach Scene]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Wild Horse Fire Brigade. I know it’s more complicated, but horses eating down excess vegetation sounds like a good plan.

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Ears.

(Click) What was that noise?

No. I will not put my ears up. Distractions in front of me will not work. I will remain alert. You are doing odd things back there.

Ramsay
Saddle seat lesson
Stepping Stone Farm
September 2025

Onwards!
Katherine