Virtual Brush Box

Awareness of the outside world. The Big Picture: Surviving the Next Four Years, The Big Picture and Jay Kuo, Dec 24, 2024. Useful activist advice for any time. If you don’t want to sign up, look for the small print “no thanks” to click thru.

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Happy Birthday

As Thoroughbreds, both horses age up on the first of January.

Rodney, born in 1999, is 26.

Milton, born in 2008, is 17.

Hand Over The Alfalfa

While we’ve all been partying for the holidays, Rodney has decided that he now eats alfalfa, thank you very much. Technically it’s an 80/20 mix with timothy. The result is slightly cheaper and much easier to handle. The 20/80 – timothy with a touch of alfalfa – is only good for bedding, in Rodney’s opinion.

I held out for a while, insisting he clean his plate. In theory, he would get hungry enough to eat. But I also worried that he needs the calories. I caved first. He now gets close to free choice 80/20.

He’s made it this far. Who am I to argue.

Bring The Blankets

Milton has decided he likes more blanket, thank you very much.

We started blanketing during a cold snap last month. [Let The Blanketing Begin, Weather Wednesday Continues]

As the degrees bounced up and down, we would mix and match the level of blanket to the particular horse and the expected temperature. Sometimes they both got blankets. Sometime only Rodney did. We left Milton au natural more often than not. We thought it was what he preferred. Milton made it clear that we were mistaken.

Milton is the second horse to warm up, so to speak, to blankets as the years go by. Mathilda turned her nose us at blankets for years, only to become a blanket hog in her old age.

Onwards!
Katherine

Art of the outside world. V&A. This was my favorite museum in London.

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My newest alphabet will be colorwork. The project is based on the historic embroidery technique of blackwork.

The plan. Draw outline of letter. Fill-in with blackwork-style patterns. To start, the interior patterns will be iterations of the letter. That may change. To be posted every two weeks, give or take, on Sundays. First letter scheduled for 19 January.

I am doing the letters in color because 26 letters in monochrome would get monotonous.

I am calling it colorwork because the result may not resemble authentic blackwork patterns.

No embroidery will be involved in any of the letters. This is strictly a computer-based design project.

The posts that got me started, Blackworkembroidery.org: Kim Brody Salazar & String-Or-Nothing: The Unstitched Coif Exhibit. Hat tip to G.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. “Whenever I’ve had a little TV spot here in the States, the reporter has never read SF, though the cameraman always has.” Sidelines: Talks and Essays by Lois McMaster Bujold (Spectrum 2013), in Travel Memoirs, Croatia, April 2002. Note date. I wonder if this has changed.

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How to keep up with a horse blog when your content is not cooperating?

The original plan was to ponder this question at length. However, that would involve whining about not riding. I think we can take that as read.

So, short version. The blog will continue.

As for content, I will continue to take up as much space as I can with what I have.

“OTOH, not unhappy that I can stretch the photo retrospective over a second post.” [Optimus is an Insta Fav]

“Yes, I am spreading this show report jam over as much post toast as I can manage.” [Getting Ready For Not Showing]

Sure, lots of things are technically happening with the horses. They keep us busy. But it’s all feed and water and poop. Not a lot one can say about poop. Although I have tried. [Scenic Poop 2023, “I’ve just spent an entire post considering horse poop and pee.” The Poop-O-Meter 2018]

Putting out into the universe that 2025 will bring to all of us interesting and joyful and uplifting content.

State of the Blog [Archives]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. “The glass-bottomed, 1,312-foot long (400-meter) walkway, perched 1,000 feet (304 meters) above the floor of the Sunwapta Valley.” Columbia Icefield Glacier Skywalk in Jasper National Park, Alberta Canada. Would you? Hard pass over here.

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Altadena Valley Park
Vestavia Hills
Birmingham, AL USA
December 2024

This is the third former golf course in three months. [5K, Oct & Nov]

Is golf booming or going bust? Depends who you ask. Here’s what I found with a small amount of searching & asking around. Results not definitive in any way.

Age of Majority: The (Slow) Death of Golf as We Know It, Weiss. Golf reinventing itself as an activity with less time commitment. On the other hand, the article is not dated and may be as far back as 2017.

Golf course & real estate National Parks & Recreation: Implications of the Rise and Decline of Golf, Crompton, 2020. Pre-pandemic but interesting for the relationship between golfing & real estate.

National Golf Foundation: Big Shift for Course Closures in 2021, 2022. Closures are a correction from overbuilding.

National Golf Foundation: Golf Supply Update More Openings, Fewer Closings, February 29, 2024. ‘Closing less fast’ sounds like spin to me. OTOH, does make a good point about golf course closings being more obvious that restaurant closings.

Sports Business Journal: Interest and participation in golf, driven to new heights during the pandemic, continues to rise, Carpenter, 3.11.2024. Their definition of golf success includes “off-course participation.”

A family member who is serious about the game (waves hi!), says that golf is doing great & tee times are hard to come by.

My opinion. Golf, like riding, benefited from the interest in social distance. Perhaps there are adjustments now that folks are resuming indoor activities. Perhaps golf is rising in one place while declining in another.

As always, I was not alone in the park. Civic spaces get used. Planned improvements, Vestavia Hills Parks & Recreation: Altadena Valley Park. Having walked the park, I can tell you that the middle and lower red paths already exist. The dog walkers & I needed a way to get from point A to point B. The upper red path and the one to the far left do not exist and will be a nice way to make a full loop of the perimeter.

Any golfers care to weigh in on the current state of the sport?

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. “Their bond was so strong that the former presidents asked each other to speak at their funerals. Carter fulfilled that promise in Grand Rapids in 2007.” Fox17: Jimmy Carter & Gerald Ford’s connection lasting through life and death, Witkos, Dec 29, 2024. The Sun: Ford, Mondale’s Sons Will Read Eulogies Their Fathers Wrote for Carter Before Their Own Deaths, Rice, Dec. 30, 2024, Updated: Dec. 31, 2024. For The Sun, you have to enter an email to read the rest of the article, which I dd not do. Enough info to get the idea from the headline & before the jump.

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As of 31 Dec 2024, generated by Top Nine for my blog’s Instagram account, @virtual_brush_box. Image is a screenshot. #topnine

Photo Subjects

Four Horses
Optimus – five photos
Rodney – one photo, shoulder in shadow photo
Andre & Bubba – one photo

Shows & Showing
Ribbons – five photos
Shows – four photos

Locations
banquet, show, show
home, show, Stepping Stone Farm
SSF show, SSF, banquet

Misc
Cart – four photos. Note in the cart lesson photo (bottom middle) I am wearing my fancy riding shirt. [OOTD, Selfie Photography]

Significantly, seven of the photos are not mine because eight of the photos are of me, or part of me. Foot in the center photo, shadow in the center left photo. Why did these photos rate higher than the rest of the photos I posted? Shows are special occasions? Friends waving hello? Instagram prefers humans? No idea.

Stats

155 photos for the year.

Posts

I use the Instagram account to put up notices of new blog posts. Therefore all of these photos appeared both over on Instagram and on a post here.

Top Row, L to R
[Celebrating The Series, AWTA 2023-2024 Banquet] March
[A Last Look Back at 2023, Driving] January
[Soloing In A Crowd, Show Report, ASHAA Summer Fun Show #4] September

Middle Row
[Saddles!] February
[Finishing The Series, Show Report AWTA 2023-2024 #3] February
[A & B & Me, Show Report, Alabama State Games] June

Bottom Row
[Hey Kids, Let’s Put On A Show, ASHAA Fun Show] May
[Other Barns] April
[Achievement Unlocked, ASHAA Banquet for the 2023 Show Year] January

Coda

I could have put this with the photography recap last week, had I remembered that Top Nine exists. OTOH, not unhappy that I can stretch the photo retrospective over a second post. More about this on Saturday. [Photos of 2024]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Times Square Arts: Midnight Moment.

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Will spend the year as a suncatcher in my kitchen window.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. CNN: Follow the New Year around the world, Sottile and Trammel 2023.

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Hand walk with both horses each morning.

Been doing since March 2023. That year, the Virtual Tevis started just when Milton had come off stall rest. Daily mileage was the only way we where going to make it. We got our hundred miles in 100 days. Then we kept going.

Gets the humans out of the house and into the fresh air, enjoying the company and the countryside.

Gets the humans and the horses moving. Both species evolved to walk more than we do.

A time for the team to be together.

Walks for the win.

Onwards!
Katherine