Halter and some other critters

First off, a black and silver stock breed halter made for the Stone ISH, for sale for $30 ppd.

The strap tips are 18 gauge aluminum wire hammered flat and filed to shape. The cheek silver is embossing aluminum with tooling and purple 5ss size Swarovski crystals.


Since that's all the tack I have to show off at the moment, how about some non-equine figurines from my collection:

"Ingrid"

I don't actually own this one anymore, I sold her to a collector in Spain several weeks ago. But she was so darn cute I had to include her. I showed her as a Pietran sow. She was a MIC resin found at a flea market in New Braunfels, Texas.

"Miakoda"

A Hagen-Renaker mini buffalo. I got him one day walking back to work from from lunch. Work was located just a block or two away from the San Antonio Riverwalk in Texas, and you could take a shortcut through several little shops located below street level, overlooking the riverwalk. That was one of the nicest places I ever worked.

"Spirit"

A H-R Papa Wolf, and my stable mascot. :) He was sadly attacked by an enraged Breyer unicorn one day and broke three legs. He's been repaired, but there was a chip lost out of his right front leg. I've never been able to find one of these with this kind of detailing.

"Sarabi"

A chalky Breyer Elephant. She came sealed in her box with a catalog from 1976! Since 2002 I've seen several of these on eBay, as well as at many antique malls around Kansas City, MO (just saw one last month, in fact!). Someone here in KC had attended a warehouse sale downtown and bought several cartons of elephants, all sealed in their boxes. According to the vendor, they were sold at the 1976 Republican National Convention, held at Kemper Arena, so I guess these were the leftovers. Now I wonder if there are any chalky Breyer Donkeys from the '76 DNC floating around NYC... hmmm.

Top row left to right: Tabitha, Little Orphan Annie, Rishi, and Scar;
Bottom row: Fraidy, Cissie, Marmalade, Smudge, and Uncle Bob.
(yeah, I named a few after dear old kitty friends who have shared our home.
It's how I remember them.)

Because no barn, real or model, is complete without barn cats, right? :D Most are either Schleich or H-Rs, the three matching tabby and white kitties are hand-painted pewter and came from Germany. The kitten... oh, wait, you can't see her? She's on the tack trunk, next to the left front paw of Rishi the tiger cub. :p OK, here's a closeup:


As I was saying, "Annie" is only slightly bigger than a penny:

I showed her once in a live show that was offering an "other animals" division, and she won Reserve Champion Other Animal. She really was dwarfed by that rosette she won...

And here's one that actually belongs to my mother, but I had to include him:

This is a George Good "I 'heart' My Cat" series porcelain, found at an antique mall in the same shopping center as our local Tandy store. He's not in scale to Breyers, but how could we not bring him home? It's a Si figurine!

Until next time!

Fall is fell

I ordered a yard of of the pink 'roo lace from Australia, then as I was taking an inventory for another order, I came across a couple feet of lace from a previous order. Oh, well, can't have too much of something that takes a month to ship, right? So I made a halter for the Stone Weanling. It's for sale $25 ppd First Class, Paypal or MOs. If it doesn't sell by Sunday, it's going up on evilBay.

In kitty news, Si has a new "jacket" harness from Met Pet. We've tried other harness options and he's wiggled his way out of all of them. This one seems determined to stay put, and Si is slowly but surely (with lots of complaining!) coming around to having it on. He gets to go outside as a treat when he accepts it, and he's getting the idea.

Here he is on his way downstairs...


Gives the car a butt slam and a tail rub on the way out...



And a nice roll on the warm pavement, surrounded by his favorite "salad", dried leaves. And it being fall and all, there's an abundance of them in the driveway. Heaven for a leaf-muncher like Si! (no, we don't let him eat them, but he sure loves to try....)


That's old Allie's leash that she used for many years. The weight really irritates him, though, so we're looking to get one that's a lighter weight.

I've got several model "barn cats" on the shelves, I wonder if I could do one of these in miniature. Hmm...

And so it started...

Going through some old photos from our childhood, I found one of a couple of funny-looking kids (aka my sister and me) getting their first Breyers for Christmas 1984 when they lived in Mackenbach, Germany.

The Base Exchange at Ramstein Air Base had three of them in stock, the Action Stock Foal in bay pinto, grey appaloosa, and sorrel. While Mom distracted us, Dad sneaked them up to the cashier and out to the car. Poor Mom and Dad, they just didn't know what they were starting...


Mine (on the right) was the grey appaloosa, and Meredith's was the bay pinto. Their names were/are Napa and Pint. We still have both of them, though little Napa has been missing an ear for a long time. (long story involving paper pegasus wings and being tossed off the top of the refrigerator...)

And just for the heck of it, here are the two kittens we got a year and three quarters later in the fall of 1986:


That's Cinder (later known as Cissie) in front, and her brother Marmalade in back. Their mother belonged to my Dad's boss.

OK, back to tack next time!

Well I guess I didn't need the light box just now, anyway...

Ah, the joys of cat ownership...