Virtual Brush Box

Horses in the outside world. Would you ride your horse through a Tractor Supply store? Seriously. A Collection of Madcap Escapades: Double Trouble. I have mentioned this blog before, in relation to driving. [Driving, Lesson]

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Roeckl® Lona Gloves
Dressage Extensions

I recently found myself in possession of a gift certificate to Dressage Extensions. I decided to use the windfall to order something I would not normally buy. Purple gloves definitely qualify.

I don’t like riding with gloves. I stopped schooling with them as soon as I switched to jumpers with Previous Horse. However, gloves are de rigueur for saddle seat, in the ring or in a lesson.

Don’t know when my next lesson will be. When I do go back, I will be stylin’.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Last year’s IRL ride had problems. “To help riders meet this test better, you can look forward to expanded educational opportunities that will be offered after the first of the year.” The Tevis Cup: Get Ready – Here Comes 2025!, November 11, 2024.

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Virtual Tevis starts today. We did not sign up. Partly, the problems alluded to above. Mostly, us. We are not riding or driving these days (sad face, moving on), so it would have to be 100 miles of hand walking. We’ve done this before. [VT archives]

With our daily morning walk, I am going to come close to 100 miles in 100 days anyway. Last year, the Virtual Tevis was less of a challenge and more of a bookkeeping exercise. The other human in the house is still on injured reserve. He’s okay, but daily walking is out. He could only do it if we rode/drove. [Version 2.0]

Update, this decision was made (and the post drafted) before my foot injury.

Maybe some year we will get back to riding 100 miles in 100 days.

Elsewhere, folks are having fun with this. The Ohio Horsemans’ Council arranges group rides and a finish line party, allevents, Chagrin Falls: The Virtual Tevis.

The IRL Tevis Cup starts July 12th, 2025.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Comment seen on the Internet. Given everything that’s going on, do we really want to add pranks?

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The only point I’ve ever see in April 1st.

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Figured it out? Scroll down for answers.

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The Edible Book 2025

Beet, orange, onion, kiwi

Banana, orange, onion, kale

Links

UC LiBlog: And the winners are…Results of the 2024 UC Libraries International Edible Books Festival, Norris 2024

Sewanee, Jessie Ball duPont Library: Edible Books Festival > Previous Edible Books Events > Past Event Albums, 11 years of photos.

Previous Posts

[Edible Book 2024, Food Art]

[Edible Book] 2023, edible book links & discussion of April 1st.

Onwards!
Katherine

Horses of the outside world. “But it made me realize how painful eye injuries can be … . Putting yourself in another creature’s shoes helps you to imagine what they might be experiencing.” The Backyard Horse Blog: Usually, It’s The Horse With The Corneal Scratch . . . I agree. Relatedly, I think sometimes we focus on the specific injury and forget to cut the horse slack. We forget how irritable and uncooperative we can get when we are in pain. Injury affects the entire system, in us and in horses. (The search box tells me this is the fifth time I have cited this blog. Thank you!)

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If it’s spring, it must be time to cut names and tails.

The horses are not going anywhere, They don’t need fancy show trims. Manes and tails were cropped strictly as a tick prevention measure. Keeping the hair off the ground takes away the tick ladder.

Rodney’s Tail Remnants

Milton’s Tail Remnants

Milton’s Mane Remnants

Milton’s Mane Before

One doesn’t think of ticks crawling up the mane, until one thinks about horses with their heads down to graze.

Milton’s Mane After.

It’s fluffed up a bit since and doesn’t look quite so bowl cut.

Milton’s Forehead. Getting in touch with his Inner Saddlebro.

BSF, Milton likes to stick his head into all kinds of places, is really bad about getting ticks, and is even worse about letting us get them out of his ears. No touchy! No touchy!

Didn’t have the heart to cut off Rodney’s Fabio mane. He’s not the tick magnet that Milton is, at least not on his head and neck. Plus he’s better about letting us near his ears. We’ll wait to see how the summer goes.

I did, once again, send pics to Coach Courtney. She’d be disappointed if I didn’t. 🤣

For those who are not up on the joke, Saddlebreds are kept with long, flowing manes and tails. This level of tonsorial butchery is anathema. OTOH, they do shave the forelocks. It looks very odd on a Thouroughbred.

Previous hair-cuttery [Mane and Tail Time, 2023, looks like I skipped 2024]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. The Brothers Brick: Discover a new life, a new beginning. The intersection of LEGO bricks & trans life.

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Process Notes

In case it is not obvious, light blue is for sky and the dark blue is for the water that cities were historically built beside.

[City Letters] 2020

Onwards!
Katherine

🦁 🛖 🦁

Many years ago, when humanity was a child, life was lived on the plains. Lions also lived on those plains. Because of this, people had to look out for lions.

One person said if I pile dirt into a heap and stand on it, I can see farther.

One person said I want to stand on the heap with you and look for lions also.

One person said I want to stand on the heap with you and look down on my neighbors who are not on the heap.

One person said if I pile this rock on top of that rock, I can build a higher heap.

One person said I can move these rocks wherever I want and build a heap at the top of a naturally occurring heap so that I can see for miles around and be seen from miles around.

One person said if I climb to the top of my rock heap, I will stay safe while I burn down my neighbor’s house.

One person said if I combine coal, limestone, and iron ore, I can make my heap really high.

One person said I can make money on stores and offices and bedrooms and observatories in the really high heaps.

One person said since the steel heap is supported from the inside, I can have glass all around the outside. I can seen everything everywhere.

Many people said, we want to live on that very high heap.

And that is why cities have tall buildings. Because inside each of us is a 100,000-year-old ancestor looking out for lions.

🏙️ 🦁 🏙️

Afterword

Inspiration for form. The story percolated in the the same “ridiculous fable” space as last week. The result is not really a fable and not really ridiculous, but that was where the idea began. Therefore, a second thank you to Imperfect Patience: YOU MIGHT TEACH WRITING & Imperfect Patience: FRAMES & RLP. [How The Computer Keyboard Got Its Numbers]

Inspiration for content. New online class, UC Graham: From Istanbul to Cairo: The City in the Historical Novels of the Middle East. Expect to hear more about Cairo, Istanbul, and cities in general.

The bit about burning down the neighbors came from Florence, care of Professor Palmer, “These all-stone buildings were also fireproof, leading to a terrible but effective tactic: take your family, treasures & goods up into your tower then set fire to enemies’ homes and let the city burn around you while you sit safe above.” Ex Urbe: The Lost Towers of the Guelph-Ghibelline Wars.

Onwards!
Katherine

Views of the outside world. EarthCam: Top of the Rock & NYC Live Cam: Empire State Building. For giggles, ESB: Exhibits, scroll down to Kong.

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Moving forward with post-production of photos. This month, pushing buttons as a way to ease into the process. Two from the color menu. One from the filter menu. [Step Zero, Photo Editing]

Original, reposted. [When?]

Colors > Saturation. Low. A little bit more what it looks like IRL. Some areas, such as the mid-ground and street level, look better. Some areas, such as the background, look a little too blue. I suspect the answer is to adjust the blue as well. I will leave double buttons for a later effort.

Hard to see the difference unless compared to the original.

Colors > Saturation. High. As an intentionally weird effect.

Colors > Threshold. Mostly an effect. Adjusted a bit darker to bring out the central building.

Filters > Light & Shadow > Supernova. Used the base color and shape for the nova. Another artistic effect.

Thus ends today’s effort. Result, one serious, three goofy. Lessons learned. I can see the point of the serious. The goofy is more fun.

Previous Post Production Ponderings

[Foto Friday: Spotted in GIMP] 2013

[Pondering Post-Production Processes] 2020

Maybe this time I’ll stick with it.

Onwards!
Katherine