the horse ranch

I've become friends with a woman whose sister manages a Thoroughbred brood mare farm. Seven stallions, about 130 mares so lots of horse sex and lots of babies in the spring. I went out there this afternoon and wandered around taking pics. They're pretty self-explanatory, but here's a quick run down - calf (going to end up in the freezer eventually so they call him Stew), mama cow, Rio the farm dog, lots of baby horse pics, Owl the curly tailed farm cat. So lovely to walk around trailed by the dogs and cat, scattering chickens as we go, stopping to feed carrots here and there, scratch a butt. I came home smiling and smelling like horses.

chevron postcards

Playing along for the first time at Sunday Postcard Art. I've been meaning to but just haven't gotten to it till now.

The theme this week is chevrons and I didn't have any chevron stamps so I dug out an eraser that I bought a bunch of at 25 cents each someplace or other. It's oval and I didn't bother squaring it up so my chevrons are sort of over-all egg shaped.

Gelli print backgrounds (no! really?? sorry, it's all I can do lately) on cereal boxes.

Cat in a Tub has a pic of a couple of my cats through the years - Jack and Chili, long gone now - sitting in the tub. Play play play is cut from a digital collage that I printed out, and the chevrons are the stamp.

The dog is from a magazine somewhere along the way - just loved his expression and his coloring worked perfectly for this card.

I stamped the chevrons on a page from a foreign language (Hindu? Pakistani? love the curly alpha) book. Dabbed some black, then white, paint thru sequin waste.

Doodled a bit with a turquoise marker and a white gel pen. Rounded the corners simply because I found the corner rounder punch under a pile while cleaning up this morning.

Chevrons are cool and I like both cards. They'll go off to unsuspecting people on MMSA's casual swap list.

4-legged house guest

While walking Maggie a week ago Thursday, a woman stopped her car by me, rolled down her window and said, "Is that your dog?"

I looked down at Maggie, standing at the end of her leash and replied, "Um... yes."

 "Not that one," the woman said. "THAT one," pointing back over her shoulder at a little white dog sniffing a bush about 100ft away.

"Nope, not mine," I said, hoping that would be the end of it but knowing I'd go rescue the dog. So we walked toward it, me talking in a dog-friendly voice and Maggie wagging her tail off at the thought of a dog to play with. It came right to me and since I happened to have an extra leash with me, I snapped it on her. Luckily she had a collar but no tags. TAG YOUR DOGS, PEOPLE!

I proceeded to walk the neighborhood for 30 minutes hoping to find its house. No luck, so I went home, took her pic, made flyers and set out in the car stopping everyone I saw to see if they recognized the dog. Still no luck, so I took her home and there she stayed until Saturday evening when her family finally called. We named her Betty for no reason other than she looked like a Betty and lit up when we called her.

She and Maggie ran themselves silly in the back yard for hours, and while she was with us, she fit right in like she'd been here for years. Maggie sleeps with us, in a dog bed down by our feet, so I wedged another dog bed in, pointed at it, and Betty hopped right in and slept the night.

In the evenings, we sit on a love seat-sized La-Z-Boy and watch the tube or read. She jumped up, found a spare lap and flopped down. Too funny.

When her family called, I gave them a brief earful about being a responsible pet owner. But they seemed like nice people and Betty (aka Charlie) was thrilled to see them so I gave her back. Turned out she lived about 75ft from where I found her, in one of the few houses whose door I didn't knock on. If she'd had TAGS, I could have called them within minutes of finding her.

the freaking weather and a napping dog

Here's our forecast for the next week.

Tonight

N/A | 66°

Clear

Tue

104° | 64°

Hot

Wed

102° | 63°

Hot

Thu

94° | 58°

Sunny

Fri

90° | 57°

Sunny

Sat

95° | 57°

Sunny

Sun

93° | 58°

Sunny

I love how it says Hot for the two days that are over 100, but just Sunny for the days in the 90s. And the blazing orange icon. They want you to understand that they mean it when they say it's gonna be hot. Not just warm, like 95.
No, it's going to be HOT!

Here's what the dog does on a hot, lazy afternoon. Just ignore DH's hairy legs. He was asleep, too, in the recliner, with the TV droning away. Maggie hates having the camera pointed at her, and is trying hard to pretend I'm not there.

Sunday studio shots & the dog

Cleaned up a bit from last week. Boxes of books line the back of my car, headed for the library book sale after the members of my Thursday book club paw thru them.

These are pretty boring, huh? I'll have to show my works-in-progress next time or something. But I did mend the pillow case and put the fleece jacket away since I now don't need it until next winter...

Sleeping with her butt pushed up on DH's leg.

All legs.

The cat down the street. They're in love. 

Snoozing on the old quilt on the guest room bed. 

More legs. For a small dog, she takes up a lot of room.

She lived by the heater all winter. The closer, the better. She'd edge you out if you got too close to it. We were worried she'd singe herself, but no.