Loot

 

Now that Wycked Wynd is here, I set out to do my third and last BreyerFest Loot shot.  But like all good photography sessions, it got carried away.  It went from two stallions to five horses to a color comparison between Perlinos to comparing my last three resincasts!  You get the idea... (Ed. Note:  The first two Loot shots are featured on my SBY FaceBook page.)

...So let's start with those two stallions I was talking about back in July.  On FaceBook I said I'd blown nearly all my funds on two stallions right before BreyerFest.  One arrived quite quickly and the other has taken his time but has been quite worth the wait.  (Indeed he is shaming my own mail-order fulfillment habits.)  Ladeeez-ann-Gennlmen, May I Present! 

Fireheart and Wycked Wynd.  

They could not be more different, except maybe in the hair department.  Fireheart in particular reminds me of the time I was judging a Mustang class at NAN.  I came to the conclusion that with this breed, hair-dos mattered more than anything else.  That class should have been named Hair-Do Class.

While Fireheart is the much larger horse, his ribcage is surprisingly narrow.  Wycked Wynd has got himself in proportion, but will need prepwork before painting.   Fortunately I have many fine jewelry files that will come in most handy for the job.

I do not regret spending what I did.  Fireheart has been named and has already had the most memorable and astonishing adventure a member of my herd could have.  He's traveled 2 x 1600 miles in the heart of a pandemic and lived to tell the tale.  Wycked is in the process of being named and I am very pleased with his quality and beauty.  Like his sculptress, I'm very much wanting to see him tacked up.

I acquired more horses than last year's haul.  You must excuse the parade set -- I'm unwilling to take it off Seurat/Sorpresa right now.  Note the color difference between Seurat and Fireheart.

Danash joins several others in my stack of boxed horses.  This category is not new, merely expanded.  I have to spread out my acquisitions for an entire year,... or longer, if the mood takes me.  Also, the shelves are full and there is barely enough room for the unboxed.  It takes me a long time to fully develop and enjoy a horse.  The boxed ones are sort of... quarantining.  It's an additional step to make sure I really want them.

Some I really wanted from the beginning!  Like Uffington... I don't know what I'd've done if a "Gothington" (as Yashka aptly named the SilverBlack Holographic version) had landed with me.  Thank all saints I got my original desire.  Now I have two Breyer OF Perlinos and it is very interesting to compare them.

They both have blue eyes.

Uffington is more of a yellow-gold, while Shazada [I don't have a factory name, so I'm using my own for this individual, a Persian word meaning Prince] has a pearly-pink-peach tone.  [Editor's Note:  the factory name is Quelle Surprise.]

Uffington is lighter.  His mane and tail are almost white.  Shazada has more gold in his mane and tail.

 Photographing and moving light-colored and white stallions around, I looked up at my shelf of unfinisheds, fitting in Wycked Wynd.  While I knew that my last resincast was also an arabian stallion, Denderah, I hadn't realized until this moment that the resin before him was also an arabian stallion!

Orion, by Margarita Malova!!

What possessed me!!  I am not an Arabian person, by any stretch -- never have been.  Yet here was the evidence, very solid.  Was it the emphasis on Akhal Tekes, with their own connection to Arabs?  Or was it simply the sheer beauty of these animals?  Was it my admiration for these artists?  Not telling you, not shown, is my Indian Silver by McDermott, yet another unfinished Arabian stallion... (oh and mini Khemo... umm...)

I love their tails.

Unlike last year, I have no idea which resin I will tackle for NMPM.  But I have learned to trust my Muse.  I will enjoy each and every one of these marvelous creations, and treasure the relationships my hobby has brought me.

Bowsaw at Goodwin, plus birds

 

During our stay in Boulder, CO, we visited a place just one mile from my parent's house, yet I had previously been there only once as a teenager (that I can remember).  Back then it was called Goodwin Memorial.  Today it is known as Legion Park.

I had this horse named before I got him.  I wanted a strong, simple word full of unthinking power, but it wasn't until I was trimming our blue spruce, 'with only a bowsaw and a rusty pair of hedge shears,' that I realized this was the right name.  The blanket is by Nichelle Jones (thanks Nichelle!).

(Don't fret: not all these pix have Fireheart in them.)  The top of Goodwin hill, just north of Arapaho Ave, east of town, normally has a beautiful view west to the mountains and east to the plains.  But this day we were seeing a spectacle so rare that there was a continuous stream of photographers driving up, shooting and leaving. 

All four days of our drive out to CO and at least half of our 12 days in Boulder were smothered in smoke and haze.  Instead of the glorious views of the Rockies, or even of Nebraska, we were entombed inside a bluesilver mist.  You could be 15 miles from the Front Range and not even see it.  In all my life, I have never witnessed anything quite like this.  (And I have childhood memories of Denver's Brown Cloud.)  It was equal parts amazing and depressing.

Goodwin was built in the CCC era.  I recall it as a great spot for submarine races  :)  and to take your date to when you learned to drive.  Fortunately there were few cars while I shot Bowsaw.  The general spectacle was too much competition for a mere model horse.

Here is the view straight west, across Boulder to the Rockies.  Normally you can see Sugarloaf, Indian Peaks, the High Divide with Mt Audubon and Longs Peak to the north.  But this time, it's Valmont Public Service, long ago coal-burning but these days definitely not.

Swing slightly to the right, north, and here are the reservoirs.  Yes the air really was so bad you could not see the horizon.  This was August 7th, Saturday, later found to be the worst day of all that week, and the only time I actually smelled smoke.

Here is the entrance road, looking south.  The only way to get to this park is by turning right while coming in west on Arapaho Avenue.  No left turns on Arapaho there!

It's a simple gravel parking lot with stones around it, but I had forgotten how long the entrance road was.  In this picture, Arapaho Ave is just beyond those trees.

In this picture, still looking south, you can see a 'barn' on the horizon, just left of 2 pine trees.  That 'barn' is actually a house at the bottom of my parents' neighborhood.

Here we're looking west by south-west.

Stepping right and looking west again.  The lakes were originally there for cooling purposes for the power plant.  Nowadays they're refuges for birds and no one can go there.  Valmont Reservoirs.  There's 2 lakes obvious on the map of southern Boulder, Valmont and Baseline.  I grew up within a stone's throw of Baseline, named after the fortieth parallel.

In this picture, the white car is ours.  We're looking north.

A few more shots of Bowsaw:

I can't explain why I'm so taken with a bridle-unfriendly horse.  I'll come up with something...

He wanted to get going.

 I promised there would be birds.  See those tiny dots on the lake?

Canadas.  Not the first time I've used the zoom feature of my camera to identify birds.

And here's something I originally thought was a,... pelican?... a Loch Ness monster??  Nope, only a cormorant on a rock....

 The day was so weird and the atmosphere so strange that people were moved to do silly things,

instead of acting like upstanding, normal citizens.  This is the north end of the park.

Yours truly.  If I stood up, my hat disappeared into the white sky.

We were standing around at the north end, knowing we should leave and not breathe such bad air any more than we had to, yet treasuring the eerie peace and aloneness and uniqueness of it all, when I spotted this magpie on the entrance wall.

What a lovely zoom feature.  Thank you Fuji!

You will be glad to know that in the latter half of our visit, the sky turned blue again and we could see the mountains as they had always been.