That Summer Feeling During Winter's Chill

 Another BreyerFest model has been announced - a Limited Edition that's available online only.

Meet Studebaker - another shelf eater but gorgeous! And, she's also been given a pearly finish, too.

Studebaker is available to all ticket holders to purchase but you must buy her online. And, she will not be offered to VIP ticket holders for prepurchase.

I would guess that more people know the name due to the car, but actually the Studebaker family began building horse drawn vehicles in the 18th century. In the mid 1800s they moved to South Bend, Indiana (near where Stone model horses are produced), and began manufacturing automotive parts and then actual cars which were given the family name - Studebakers.

There is one more Limited Edition model to be announced and that will happen later today. And then, tomorrow, February 1, BreyerFest tickets will go on sale.

Below are some snaps of the ticket information - it's wise to read through everything and be sure you understand what is offered with each type of ticket so that you get what you want.

You can also go here to Breyer's web site to see the same information.

And, go here to see all the models associated with the event that you can pick and choose from.

Confused about tickets? Breyer explains them here on the Breyer blog.

It may be February, but I am feeling that hot Kentucky summer sun as I write about this year's BreyerFest. Sure hope I get to go in person this year.

Fingers crossed!

Bits & Pieces

After two days spent sleeping in bed, I'm feeling a little better. Still no energy, but I am up and trying to write this morning. Forgive me if it's brief - not sure how long I'll last.

Breyer announced the BreyerFest plushy - Sulky, a little standardbred driver. It's cute and I may get one for one of the Pony Pals. 

I was able to get out to the barn but had to do another drive by due to the snow.

This time I saw the horses - that's Abby, Two Socks, Sultanna, and Hokey. (Dolly is out of frame.)

While I was driving to the barn, I saw a rare sight - two bald eagles together on the ground next to the road.

One flew off when I stopped my car, but the other remained on the ground. (There was a pretty gruesome kill they were working on; I clipped that out of the photo.)

Finally, a horsey friend of mine just sent me this photo of her grandfather (in back) with two friends on his pony Beauty in Salt Lake City. He later served in the US Cavalry and his saddle was down in his basement where she would go look at it when she visited. When the Cavalry was disbanded in 1950, he served in the US Navy.

That's all I've got in me today, friends. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be feeling like myself again. Stay 'tooned!

Gone Riding!

 I'm under the weather and don't feel like sitting at my desk and writing. 

I'll be back tomorrow if I am better.

Stay 'tooned!

Where's Abby?

Wondering where Abby is? I haven't written about her much recently for several reasons - weather, James' passing, and some health issues on my part. But she's fine; even if I don't get out to check her daily, Tim does, so I don't worry about her when I can't get there.

Yesterday, despite a heavy snowstorm earlier this week, I decided to go see her. Often in the winter I drive around the northeast and northwest pastures as I approach the barn.

That gives me some idea as to where the horses are and if I can get to them - always a consideration for me in the winter. Yesterday when I braved the roads, the heavy snow had been plowed or melted, but there was still ice left behind to negotiate.

The hay rack is in the northwest pasture and I couldn't see any horses there, so I knew they were probably in the barn. If that was the case, then seeing Abby would depend on the states of the gravel lane going back to the property entrance and then the second lane back up to the new barn.

I got stopped at the first lane - a visit with Abby was not going to happen. I do not have four wheel drive, and I knew from experience that getting up the hill to the new barn, if it was icy like the property lane was, would be difficult and with a good chance that I'd get stuck.

Drat! I pulled back onto the country road and headed back home.

I may try again today, but we had more snow yesterday and expect some this afternoon, too. It may be more than a couple of days before I see my girl.

I miss her!

Nemea & the Sator Square

Back to that last Nemea-related connection to Greek and my teaching career. But first, remember back to last May when a bunch of my hobby friends came to town and stayed with me for the Indy Blooms show. We went out to dinner and one of the wait staff was a former student of mine, William.

The same William whose name is abbreviated as WU in the following story.

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Just yesterday and today, some remarkable things have happened during the day where children took something I had given them to learn about and absolutely RAN AWAY with it. They came up with ideas and learned far more than I had intended.

First, WU and MB were intrigued by the Sator Square JT and DT had given me for Christmas last year and which I display in the classroom. A Sator Square is a palindrome of five Latin words, and they have been found from the ruins of Pompeii to France. They look like this:

Pretty cool, to my way of thinking, and to the kids in my class.

WU and MB asked if they could investigate it during the time we normally read silently after lunch. Since both boys are excellent students, I gave them the green light to get on the computer and see what they could find out. I sat at my desk grading papers while the rest of the kiddos read at their own desks.

Suddenly, the boys cried aloud, "Mrs. I!! You have GOT to come see this!" and beckoned me over. (The other kids were dying of curiosity, but stayed in their seats.)

The boys had found a bonanza of information about the origin of the Sator Square, its translation, and history. There were even connections to Christianity (the letters can be rearranged into a cross spelling out "Our Father" in Latin with A and O left for Alpha and Omega.)

The boys felt the rest of the students would be just as interested as they were in the Sator Square info, and asked if they could have 15 minutes, the use of the ENO board, and my tablet computer to discuss their findings! (Oh, and it "would be best if the lights were out" as well. Haha, I love it!)

Those boys were right - the other kids were fascinated, and we spent nearly half an hour learning about the palindrome and its quirks. Some kids got so excited that they have been borrowing my dictionaries and trying to create their own Sator's Squares using English words.

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It was wonderful to stand aside and watch those two boys follow an interest and then be so excited about what they had learned that they had to share it with the rest of their classmates. But believe it or not, there are two more things I could write about where my students became so excited in their learning about Greek and Latin that they took it way beyond my original intention for an assignment. 

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KO who is so intrigued by the Greek alphabet we are learning, he asked for a class roster so he could write everyone's name in Greek. He proceeded to sit down during free time and do so! (And it was a struggle because there are only 24 letters in the Greek alphabet and 26 in ours, plus the letters/sounds don't match up.)

Or NC who just finished reading The Odyssey and borrowed my Greek cookbook, trying to find recipes that Odysseus might have eaten. She wants to cook something authentic for our class to try when she presents her paper on the book.

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It's probably pretty clear by now that, shelf hog or not, Nemea is coming home from BreyerFest with me.

More BreyerFest Models

Breyer keeps chugging out release after release! Not only the BreyerFest model, but the 2023 product line is beginning to be in stock, too.

Othello, one of Breyer's most popular molds has appeared in the BreyerFest lineup, dashing the hopes of those who'd crossed their fingers that he might be the Stagecoach Surprise. This is FVA's Grand Design aka Tilly.

 Believe it or not, I do not have a single Othello. 

I do have the original porcelain Drum Horse which is smaller than the plastic Othello it became. (Photo from IYB.)

For the year of 2019 I got to have an Othello in the form of Great Lakes' Congress's traveling trophy for Most Valuable Member. That's Jamie Rott on the left and Liz Cory on the right.

Since 2010, Breyer has created a crystal model for each BreyerFest.

This year's is named Phaeton and it's a shrunk down Calliope.

It's chunkier and less refined than Calliope was, most likely because it is so fragile. It's one I will be looking to buy as I almost always get the crystals.

The third recent BreyerFest release was the Best of BreyerFest Stablemate set. 

No Donovan this year, so I was going to skip this set. Until I flipped the box over.

Oh, my! They are connected to Nashville and its music scene! Which means it is a connection to Music City Son Cole and his family! I'm gonna have to think about this set after all.

Finally, Breyer has released its first test run offering to collectors - a cute Misty in a pretty bay pinto.

At $1000, that's a no for me, although I am happy to admire it from afar.

Anyone else's head starting to spin from all these rapid fire releases? (Not that I am complaining!)

Nemea - I Forgot the Greek & Latin!

 Yesterday as I wrote about Nemea, my mind was more on pins, needles, and fabric. So much so, that aside from a brief mention of teaching Greek and Latin in my classroom, I forgot to include some things I'd filed away to add to that blog post. I'm fixing that today.

The last twelve years of my teaching career I taught a gifted 4th and 5th grade class. (Oh, how I loved having kiddos two years!)

My language arts program was solidly based on Greek and Latin roots and their underpinnings in the words we use every day. (I.e., "bio-" means "life," "-ology" means "the study of," therefore "biology" is the study of life.)

Elliot, Cody, and Brooke building words on the board and throwing in some Greek letters for fun. 

Brooke just got married last summer and is an engineer in Indianapolis. Madeline, another of my students, is in her third year teaching 4th grade. 

Katie learning the Greek alphabet and practicing spelling her name.

One of our favorite word activities was what I dubbed "Scrolls." (Sam, the boy in the blue sweatshirt is now an author and sent me an autographed copy of his first book!)

A team of 2-3 kiddos would take a Greek or Latin root and start finding all the words they could that utilized it. They'd write their words  down on "scrolls"(cash register tapes) that I provided.

Honestly, the first time I did it, I was stunned at how far they took that activity - I thought that MAYBE some would find 200 words or so, and that would be it. Instead, I ended up giving them a week to find their words and some of the kids even took their scrolls home to work on after school!

Believe it or not, this is an actual scroll unwound down the hallway.

Being a little goofy and measuring the length of a scroll by "kids" instead of yards, feet, and inches or the metric system.

Sometimes I tried to rein the kids in by reminding them that they did not need to go overboard, but there were always students who honestly loved the challenge of finding their root in words. (This scroll has 1300+ words. Look closely.)

The last day of the project, we'd share our favorite words, how many we'd found using only our brains, how many with help from online sources, and calculate the grand total the class had found. (Oh, my goodness - I just noticed the word "unicorn" is on that white board! I tell you, they are everywhere!)

See now why I am leaning towards making Nemea my first BreyerFest choice, even though I do not care for shelf-eating molds? 

This was just one activity I did with my students as we studied Greek and Latin roots, but I might share another. If I do, you may remember the "kid" whose photo I'll include.

Stay 'tooned! 

Patterns Through Time

Have you ever looked at something and asked yourself, "Where have I seen that before? It looks so familiar." 

That was me when I first saw Nemea.

But what was it? Was it the color and designs? I'd taught Greek and Latin to my students; we'd even made and painted our own clay jars, vases, and other Greek pottery. But that wasn't it.

Turns out the answer was right under my nose sewing needle.

The hand block printed fabric of the18th century shirt I was working on had a similar pattern to it!

Compare this to the decal on Nemea's neck. Amazingly similar. No wonder I kept looking at Nemea and wondering why that pattern looked so familiar!

Just as I am busily stitching up haversacks for BreyerFest, I am also making 18th century clothing to take to the Kalamazoo Living History Show in March. This is one of the shirts I've made to sell there.

Held at the Kalamazoo Expo Center, the event will run March 18 - 19. Tickets last year were $7 at the door or $10 for a weekend pass.

The time period for this show is pre-1890, so you will see a broader span of time periods represented by re-enactors than you would at The Feast of the Hunters' Moon. It's also an indoor show but there is still a lot to see and do.

If you live close to Kalamazoo, Michigan and happen to attend, please drop by and say hello. I'd love to meet you!

Planning for BreyerFest

 This summer, I am planning on doing something I have never done before, even as someone who has been attending BreyerFest since 1991:

Stay at the Clarion. 

It's hard to believe that I have never done that. In the early days, it was due to cost (six kids at home says it all) and the second reason was to be able to sleep. The BreyerFest host hotel is always hopping into the wee hours of the morning and I've been happy in the past to mingle and shop until I was tired and then head back to my own (much quieter) hotel.

It is now or never to do this. Battling the heat and crowds at BreyerFest is starting to wear me out more and more, and I can see me attending BreyerFests through the virtual option in the near future. 

I'm near the beginning of the wait list for a room, and so Horsiemama's Haversacks & Mercantile may just have a presence there!

Which means I have been sewing, sewing, sewing to get ready. I'd like to have a lot of haversacks and pony pads to bring to sell.

I've made about 30 haversacks already this January, some for sale

and some as donations. (This was a donation for Are You Kitten Me Live.)

As I stitch for BreyerFest sales, I am also sewing customer orders as well.

For every customer order I receive and make,

I make extras out of that fabric to sell at BreyerFest.

As you can probably tell by the colors and patterns on most of these haversacks,

I am also sewing for holidays, too.

Pinks, purples, and minty green for Valentine's Day.

Even orange and red dragons for Valentine's Day!

But I am sewing other colors, too, like this pretty blue Dala Horse fabric.

Not only do I plan to sell haversacks and pony pads at the Clarion, though. The name of my business is Horsiemama's Haversacks & Mercantile, so I plan to sell other horsey items as well.

I'd love to bring some of my horsey blackened beeswax ornaments.

Maybe even offer a choice between blackened and non blackened.

Either way, you still get that wonderful beeswax scent. (This ornament is not finished and still needs some of the excess cinnamon removed.)

Besides haversacks, I have other things I can sew, especially with my embroidery machine.

I can make ornaments of all kinds.

I made these dancing cowfolks for Tim and Loni's Christmas gift last year. I'll bet they would sell well.

Horseshoe ornaments in a variety of colors and prints.

An English rider (still experimenting with this one.)

The ubiquitous unicorn. (Note to self: no more turquoise eyes on the purple ones!)

A drafter that also works well as a pony. 

And I have lots of different designs I could embroider on hand towels.

All this is dependent on my getting a room at the Clarion and a few other things on the calendar staying where they currently are and not needing to be moved.

My fingers are crossed - staying in the Clarion is a bucket list item for me. I sure do hope my name is pulled from the wait list.

In the meantime, back to the sewing machine!