Virtual Brush Box

Exhibit from the outside world. AMNH: Dragons: Mythical Beasts. Interesting dragon facts.

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YouTube tutorial, Love Origami, Dragon

Process Notes.

Basically a modified crane. Tried a different version first, but there was that Here A Miracle Occurs step. Science Cartoons Plus

Another dragon, Ryujin 3.5. by Satoshi Kamiya, was voted the hardest of all origami models. Straw Poll: The Most Difficult Origami: Mastering the Art of Intricate Folds, Krambs, Feb 16, 2024. (As of 16 Feb, in case the results change.) Visuals & how it feels to fold this, Wonko: Ryujin 3.5 Lessons from a Master, 2014.

Onwards!
Katherine

The books are fantasy. The post is non-fiction.

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Narnia

The story I tell is that my mother lured me into reading on my own by reading aloud the first two books of the Narnia series. When I wanted to know what happened next, she handed me The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and told me to find out for myself.

Which makes Dawn Treader one of the first books – if not the first book – I read.

That’s how I remember it.

But we already know about the reliability of my memory. [Pondering The Past, Wondering If It Ever Even Happened]

Looking back, I start to wonder.

Was there a devious plan or did it just work out that way? Maybe a busy single mom doesn’t have time to entertain an inquisitive child. Maybe I picked up the book because I didn’t want to wait.

Maybe it didn’t happen that way at all.

I remember the apartment we were in, so I was around 8. Is that late to start reading chapter books by oneself? Are there other, earlier books that didn’t have the same impact and therefore don’t get a foundational moment?

I don’t know. It’s a good story. I’m sticking with it.

Wizard of Earthsea

Back in the age of the dinosaurs, I was in sixth grade. Our teacher started reading aloud The Wizard of Earthsea, the first of the Earthsea trilogy. Halfway thru the book, our teacher stopped coming to class.

It was a convent school. A disappearance was more problematic than the norm. The head of the order came to our class and gave a disjointed speech, which boiled down to Never think about her again.

The new teacher did not continue where our teacher left off. They decided to read No Kiss For Mother. An uplifting tale about a child who didn’t want to kiss his mother good-bye.

To sixth graders!

Who had been hearing LeGuin!

I was furious.

I immediate found and read the rest of the trilogy. So much for stifling our curiosity.

I often wonder if her choice of book was an indicator of the issues that lead to her separation from the convent.

Books and Their Movies, The Lord of the Rings

If I see the movie soon after reading the book, I might conflate the two. Harry Potter has totally become the movie visuals.

It depends on the time between.

The Lord of the Rings had been in my head for so long that I was not affected by the Peter Jackson movies.

In fact, I didn’t really see much of the first movie. I spend the entire time thinking, Yes. No. Yes, but in a different place.

Also, it’s not just movies. Illustrations can have the same effect. Tenniel is Alice. Baynes is Narnia.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Feb 14, 1849. On This Day: Oldest Photo of a Serving US President. The White House Historical Association: Daguerreotypes: James Knox Polk.

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Shelby Iron Works
January 2024

Technical Details

No meta photo since this was taken as a flyer while doing something else. [Passage To Elsewhere]

Colors. f/4.5, 1/100 sec., 42.0 mm, ISO 100. Manual mode & auto-focus.

Post production. Rotated, cropped, resized, border, & watermark. Border colors, gray for project, yellow for Nikon. [Photo Safari The First], [Quarry, Photography, Things I Forgot]

Photo of wall in context at end of post, after spacers so as not to spoil the ambience of the photo with too much reality.

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Onwards!
Katherine

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.

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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?)

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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.

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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