Ethereal Fire and Earth

I have more pictures of Fire and Earth as promised. Unfortunately they are a little bit blurry--I still haven't quite gotten the hang of keeping the camera still.

Earth

Fire

I have yet to come up with original names for these two, so any suggestions are appreciated!

Last post I said I might have a palominos with white markings in my future. (That's a little redundant because palominos have to have white manes and tails, but whatever.) Now you get to learn about it!
It is the Just About Horses Special Run, a dappled palomino with sabino markings on the Wintersong mold. He's called Pamplemousse, or "Grapefruit" in French. And he's glossy. I still have to decide if I really, really want him or not... but I think I may be leaning toward yes.
Breyer stock photo:

Pamplemousse

Someone really needs to tie my hands. My shelves are already getting full... haha.

Sneak Peek

I just got my Ethereal Earth and Ethereal Fire today! They're both absolutely gorgeous.
I'll post just a couple pictures right now and more tomorrow.

Fire

Earth

And I recently discovered that my future will most likely hold more two colored horses--especially palominos with white. But you don't get to learn about that until tomorrow.

Plastic Pony Photos

After homework I took some models outside to take pictures because the light was just right and I had nothing better to do. I'm starting to put the pictures up in a larger format so you can see them more easily without having to click.

The first horse is the WEG Driving Stablemate. He's new and I think--and hope--he may be LSQ. Still it's unlikely he will ever show.
His name is Benjamin or Ben for short. Sara and Zoe, who may or may not read this post, know of my LOST obsession so this makes sense. Possibly.

Benjamin

Next up is GG Valentine. I wanted her for a while and my dad eventually bought her for me. (Thanks again!) I call her Victoria because of the real GG Valentine's great success.

Victoria

And her son, Heartbreaker. He obviously came with Valentine.  His name with me is Abu, or "Nobility." Because the real foal Heartbreaker comes from Hunter breeding nobility. He's shown here with his momma.

Abu

My last Original Finish model for today, Headley Britannia. She was already in this post but the photos weren't great and I've been wanting to get new ones. This mare is known to me as Iphigenia, just because I like the story about the daughter of Agamemnon. It's sad, but it's one of my favorites.

Iphigenia

The last horse we have for today is the one I customized for the Stablemate Swap on Blab. He's my first finished one and with him I learned many lessons (mostly about protecting the horse from snowflakes under sealer). Nothing special in the least. I think his coloring is about two times less rich and two times more grainy in person, but you get the general idea. I'm only posting him because I highly doubt that the person he's for reads this blog.

That's all for today. Enjoy the photos!

Long Silences

Never a good sign. I've been exhausted for a week by my own doing. Just wonderful.

Anyway. Nothing new here, really. The latest news from Breyer is that there will indeed be a Treasure Hunt this year. It's on a new mold from Brigitte Eberl and it's supposedly an Arabian mare. The mold is basically Mascha/the trotting Arab gelding or whichever with a redone mane and tail.

The theme this year is Weather Girl. So each horse is a weather pattern. The first is dark--black, I think--and is called "Thunderstorm." The second is a palomino called "Sunny." And the last is a gray pinto called "Partly Cloudy." The last horse is called "Rainbow" and is a mystery color. There's a bunch of speculation going on now over on Blab as to what it will look like. The first three will first be available in April. Several dealers are not ordering because they're afraid of having horses left over, but there are still plenty of internet dealers who will have them.

This Treasure Hunt does NOT fit into my plans for BreyerFest. My savings are still not as far along as they should be at all. I guess I'll have to take the leap and ask people at the barn if they need tack cleaned, but oh my, how embarrassing. It's such a small barn everyone knows everyone and it's not the kind of place people clean tack for money. Oh well...

The Early Bird ticket price is $70. In order to even go to BreyerFest, I have to write a six-chapter Bite, Snatch, and Grind story. For those of you not familiar with Bite, Snatch, and Grind, they are three trolls who star in stories that my dad tells while we hike. Most of the time these stories are totally random--well, actually, all the time. Characters appear as needed, and there's a lot of "meanwhile, back at the ranch." They're really only good if my dad tells them, but I have to write one before the month is over and probably sooner. What fun. I'll post updates as it progresses.

GG Valentine and Heartbreaker

They arrived today. The Giselle mold is even better in person and I love the set. And you'd not believe the hoops I had to jump through to get these pictures--indoor lighting is not my friend. Please excuse the terrible lighting...

Anyway. According to my mom, I've been laying on the "procrastination" thing too thickly on this blog. She's right, but just in case any admissions officer is skeptical, I didn't procrastinate tonight OR last night. Aren't you proud? No? You try it then... haha. No, but really--it's nice to not procrastinate. You won't hear about it much more from now on.

I think I need to put a little more content other than pictures up. Sadly, there's not too much to talk about. The  beginnings of a novel are floating around on my computer waiting for something to happen, but first I feel like I have to get halters out of the way. Which would entail actually working on them once in a while... haha. Stupid matches not working...

Oh yes! Duh! We went riding today! Jones was really good--he started a bit slow but decided to turn on the engine toward the end. It was so windy that I had trouble staying in a half-seat at the canter some directions. Jones didn't mind me holding his mane, though, so it was all right. We did a bounce today. Trot in, canter out, with three fences and on a diagonal. The one thing there was a problem with was drifting to the left. It was because I kept turning early, but we fixed it eventually. We also did the outside line, but it felt a little awkward because it was low, Jones got bored, and was just jumping flat. It's not like he needed to jump up much, either... Next time it should be better.

BreyerFest Information!

It's up on the website at last! It's not advertised on the main page but it is up.

For those who don't know:
Pecos is on the Esprit mold.
Kripton Seni II is on the Legionario 2 Mold (I think? I don't know that one well).
TS Black Tie Affair is on the Huckleberry Bey mold.

I like Black Tie Affair but he's not a must have and neither is Kripton. Of course if I go I'll get two of Pecos (because my dad will not be interested in the LEAST in Breyers) so there's not much I can do there. He looks pretty nice though.

The SRs are pretty good. There's a big mountain goat, a porcelain, and a dapple gray pinto on Big Ben as well as a bay appy on the warmblood or whatever Mon Gamin was on. I like the last two very, very much and I hope I can get them...

We didn't get out to the barn due to wind and cold, but we're supposed to go out on Saturday now and I can get lots more pictures then. And of course it'll be light out and the pictures won't turn out nasty and blurry like most from Tuesday did. Expect photos then.

For now, I have some older ones to share.

Enjoy!

Lots of horse pictures, both real and plastic.

I finally got pictures of Headley Britannia. Her color looks striking here, doesn't it?

And I finally got to the barn yesterday. Sadly it got dark early but I got a couple photos of Jones before the ride. This is one of two.

 And Annie, one of Kim's mares that she's selling, was looking so forlorn by the side of Jones's paddock I couldn't help but take a picture. She has a cute face, too.

Aside from pictures, I have a book recommendation for horsey people. The book is Arke: The Classic Story of a Champion. It is about Arkle, the greatest steeplechaser of all time. Though it is an old book, published in the 60's, it's very very good. I have hardly been able to put it down. Read it!

Enjoy the pictures!

Sigh.

Both good and bad things happened this weekend.

The good things were that Rusty and Pepper were really friendly this weekend and Rusty was being a nice boy. Another good thing was having so many comments come in for the halter raffle. I also received my Headley Britannia and managed to experiment successfully with making Western headstalls.

The bad thing that is casting a big black cloud over my whole weekend and potentially the rest of the week is that when I was reaching over Flash to grab a sheet of paper me heavy sweat-shirt sleeve brushed him and knocked him onto the floor. This has happened before with some of my old bodies when a cat brushes them, but none of them have ever broken. And, to my chagrin, though he fell on the carpet his hind hoof broke off. My dad thinks that super-glue will fix him but I think now that he's broken there's not much I myself can do. He was body quality anyway... but I still do remember when I got him. Maybe I should explain so I don't seem too pathetic to all the model horse people reading this.

Several years ago I got a certificate for Christmas. It was the same year "The Polar Express" came out as a movie. The certificate read:

To Eva:

This certificate is good for two (2) Breyer Horses of your choice.

From Santa

Or something along those lines. I, of course, held onto the certificate and took it with me everywhere, even though it was in my mom's handwriting and I knew it wasn't from Santa. One day I couldn't find it and got into such a state... Grandma Doris (who died two years ago) offered to buy me two models to make up for it but I refused, perhaps trying to hold my head high over it. Later my dad gave me another one which read the same as the first but also included "Fix that hole in your pocket!" The two models I got were Flash and Smart Little Lena (the Classic set). I eventually found the original certificate in the car right before a snowshoe trip up near the Teton Pass but I didn't cash it in.

So now you know. And now that the sentimental part of that is aside...

I'm probably going to find someone to put the hoof back on, prep it, and paint it. I might even ask for it to be the same as it was, but I doubt it. I'll probably get him painted to a pinto though, or something else flashy.

Okay. Today is the end date for the raffle. Since this is a longish post already and I don't want the raffle winners to be lost in the sea of self-pity I have created for myself, I'll make another post for that.