Virtual Brush Box

Wooden Covered Bridge
Brierfield Ironworks
Brierfield, Alabama USA
2 November 2024

Technical Details

Camera phone.

I seem to be on a bridge kick. If two can be called a trend. [A Bridge To The Past, Photography]

I need to get back out with my big camera. That was the point of this Friday feature. But I keep finding post-appropriate subjects when I have my phone. [Photo Safari The First, Beeswax Creek Park]

Onwards!
Katherine

AFK

~~~

Cahaba Valley Creek, also known as Bishop Creek
City of Pelham Park AL USA
August 2024

Byproduct of photo trip [Reflection, Leaf]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Waiting. Undecided when I went to bed last night.

~~~

What has the home team been doing lately? Nothing of substance. Well, from lifestyle POV, they’ve been busy: eating, sleeping, pooping, walking, living their best life. From an achievement POV, nothing of substance.

Rodney had a western ride in late September. [Western Saddle Observations]

Milton did a fly-by of the cart at the beginning of last month. We asked him to stand between the shafts. He was fine during, but exhibited nervous behaviors after. [Circling Back To Square One]

After that, the wheels didn’t fall off so much as gradually roll to a stop.

One weekend was pet issues. [Jasmine Has An Outing]

The next weekend was pitiful. [The Post-Vet Woe Report]

The subsequent weekends suffered from motivation leakage. Work slid off the schedule. Also, the end of October and the beginning of November contained horse shows that I was not at. This always puts me in a mood. [Off To The Show They Go]

Time will tell if this is permanent situational realignment or a brief blip. We did keep up with the morning walks, even during the pitiful, albeit slowly.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Election day in the US. WHAM: Headstone at Susan B. Anthony’s gravesite now protected by plastic case, 2020.

~~~

One morning, I was getting the walk started with the two horses while the other human was busy. Leading these two is tricky as Rodney is – understandably – concerned about keeping his tender hindquarters away from the bitey bits. There tends to be an element of disarray.

The three of us walked off.

I unhooked Milton to see if he would fall in. [Follow The Leader]

I halted the train next Milton’s favorite rest area. Did he need to stop?

No, he did not.

In fact, he charged to the front, the actual front, past me, and marched off.

He then proceed to lead all the way to the turnaround point at the far corner of the field. Clearly, we were doing it wrong and he needed to take over to show us how it was done.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Taco Bell is advertising a 90s menu. When I was in college in the 80s, the 1950s were an ancient time, suitable as a source for goofy costumes. For kids in college now, the equivalent time is the 1990s. That is not possible. I don’t care what the math says. I remember the 90s. They were last week.

~~~

If you don’t have horses at home, do you ever want to know what it is like? Non-stop excitement, I tell you. If you do have horses at home, you are laughing by now.

Last Saturday on our way out to actually go somewhere, we had to stop by feed store #1 to order another bag of yeast supplement.

We also picked up a bag of treats, which saved us from having to stop at feed store #2.

They were the wrong style of treats. The individual cookies are bigger, which means we will go through the bag faster, which means we will eventually end up at feed store #2 for treats of the correct brand and size. While we are there, we will pick up bags of sawdust pellets for Rodney’s stall.

The wonder of it all.

Onwards!
Katherine

Art of the outside world. “Non-members are also free — our holiday gift to you! –” Washington (DC) Calligraphers Guild: Alphabets & Letters & Accordion Books, Oh My! with Julie Wildman. Wed, Dec 04 via Zoom. Check it out. WCG has great presentations.

~~~

Process Notes

These are more traditionally fractal than my first set of fractal numbers. Five iterations, 50% reduction. To start, I made each individual number more box-like so that there was a place to put the next batch, but not too much or the design defaulted to 8. I was tempted to skip 1 & 7. Figured the fractal bits would be floating around in space. They both came out kinda cool. TIL, clicking can copy to a specific spot, which is useful when your design has many repeat elements that aren’t quite repetitive enough to copy and paste an entire section.

Got the idea for this when I revisited the square post for another project. [Fractal Square]

I like this better than the first set. Those were better in theory than in practice. [Fractal Numbers, take 1].

[Fractal Alphabet]

Update. In case the 3×3 grid is not showing up on your screen, this is how the colors are arranged.

Onwards!
Katherine

🐈 🐈 🐈

I am not a dog person.
Never have been.
Never will be.

first thing. help get senior dog, Jasmine, out for her morning airing.

I have had cats all my life. The brief periods when I have been catless were quickly remedied.

after breakfast, take junior dog, Rose, out for her long walk of the day, follow her around while she poops, eats grass, sniffs, and, after about 10 minutes, heads back to the house, note to self, use time to practice Duolingo, so I can keep an eye on the dog.

My husband had a dog while he was in college. Not the usual move for a student. I came into the marriage with a cat & a horse. He arrived with dog-shaped hole in his life. As a surgical resident, he had no time to take care of a dog. One rotation was so onerous that I felt sorry for him. I told him that if he could find a dog we could afford, he could get one. Within a week, he found a free, one-year-old, German Shepherd who needed rehoming. This was before the Internet, so I don’t know how he heard of her. Maybe the bulletin board at the grocery store? Maybe telepathy? We named her Schatten which is German for Shadow, the name of the shepherd he had in college.

throughout day, change Jasmine’s towels as needed, refill her water dish making sure to serve small amounts otherwise the water gets dirty and she turns up her snoot.

Husband’s family has always had Basset Hounds, yes, hounds plural. Adding one to our menagerie was as inevitable as the second horse. Over the years, we’ve had six Bassets, two Shepherds, and one lab mix delivered up our driveway by the dog distribution system. At first, we agreed that one dog equals two cats. Then we got complicated cats who where equal to one dog in their own right and big dogs who were worth three cats. Eventually, we tossed out the math and simply said, Whatever.

2 pm. serve lunch at barn. put Jasmine out for a few minutes, give saline drops to moisten her right eye, let Rose out, she will walk down the ramp, do her business and return.

On one occasion, husband and I had words about the pet situation. Back when we had younger cats and bigger dogs, the cats ate on top of the refrigerator. They would jump on a corner of the counter on their way up and down. They were remarkably good about stay off the rest of the counter. However, if one left items in the landing zone, the items could get knocked to the floor. One evening, husband made a series of jokes that were not jokes about all the stuff that was getting knocked over. I was not amused. I explained about leaving the landing zone clear. The jokes-not-jokes continued the next morning. I had enough. I outlined all the ways his dogs made my life difficult, starting with storing my leather saddle in my office so that the shepherd didn’t treat it as a ridiculously expensive chew toy. I put up with his dogs, he could leave my cats the hell alone. The subject was dropped.

6:30 pm. serve dinner hay, offer Jasmine her pill which she will scarf up with out prompting, way easier than cat pills, Rose goes out.

Years ago, mother-in-law was concerned that she had her last dog. No. We told her we would take whatever dogs needed homes when the time came. At one point, she had three dogs and we had three dogs. We absolutely would have honored our promise, but that’s a lot of dog.

As it turned out, we were between dogs for the first time since Schatten. MIL had two elderly Basset Hounds and was thinking about a puppy when she passed.

evening, husband home, I go back to being assistant dog minion, help with Jasmine’s eye meds, ensure she is reclining where she can supervise dinner.

We debated the best way to get the dogs from Massachusetts to Alabama. Airplane? Pet shuttle? Were they too old? What was best for the dogs? Finally, we simply put them in back seat, got in the car, and drove until we got home. They were stars about the trip.

dark of night, visit smallest room, Rose out, refill Jasmine’s water.

Cats rule!
Dog drool!

🐕 🐕 🐕

Afterword

Readings were done in a different room. Classroom was the one behind.

The assignment #4 for class #5 was a transition modeled after the Hero’s Journey or the Heroines’ Journey. Assignment #5 for class #6 was to rewrite one of the previous assignments to be read aloud.

The above text was my assignment #4 for class #5 that I read aloud for class #6. I skipped assignment #5. Neither of the two I submitted were calling to be rewritten. I plod thru my first draft to such an extent that by the time I’m finished, I’m done with it. There is a popular writing theory that you dump everything unto your first draft and then rewrite. My brain doesn’t seem to work that way. How can I gone on to step two when I dont know what step one is? Instead, I work over & over as I go. Perhaps holdover from too much journalism under a deadline. Bottom line, I don’t rewrite. Tweak yes; wholesale changes, no.

Enough about process.

As far as cleaving to the assignment, there is a transformation. Hero’s Journey, not so much. Regardless, I like this one. While it is still expository, it is not my usual conversational info dump. What I really like is that I don’t directly mention the transformation. You have to piece it out by the contrast between the two sections. For me this is the height of subtlety. With a dash of unreliable narrator, which is so not me.

In reading it aloud, I had to model the two section with different deliveries, boisterous for plain font, quieter for italics. Posted as read, with minor typos corrected on the fly.

Previous Class Posts

[What Is Personal Narrative, Thoughts Before A Class]
[Why I Write, Personal Narrative Class #1]
[What Is The Story Of Your Name? Personal Narrative Assignment #1, Class #2]
[Turning Yourself into a Character, Personal Narrative Assignment #2, Class #3]
[Life in Seven States, Or Seven State-Like Entities, Personal Narrative Assignment #3, Class #4]

Onwards!
Katherine