Gonzai Gallery

I tuned up for the football game by going to the horse expo. I'm diverse like that. Mom managed to lose her ticket in the 12 feet between me giving it to her and approaching the ticket taker. Otherwise she wasn't too bad out there. After a great deal of prodding, I was able to get her to buy a present for my sister-in-law (Mom and I don't wear jewelry, but Janine does), a multi-colored fused glass pendant. There was a pen & ink artist there whose work is fabulous, so we bought a print of a horse standing in a creek, I'll mat & frame it sometime this week. Gorgeous piece. A horse trainer was showing how to introduce horses to unfamiliar situations by teaching a beautiful palomino to kick a giant soccer ball. Really. But mostly it was about visiting with the horses and ponies on exhibit. Some of them had had enough for the weekend and were sulking; but some were still interested and some - especially the draft horses from Gentle Giants rescue - were really enjoying the attention. It was hard to get good pics, but I got a couple.

 This rescue horse seemed to be in the dumps. But he held still, darn it.
 A Shire available for adoption, this big fella (his feet were nearly a foot in diameter) was loving the attention and demanding treats. But when he was given a strawberry - ptooey, said he.

Last but not least, a Norwegian Fjord horse. They are considered draft horses, but often and in this case are pony-sized. He also had an awesome haircut - his mane stood straight up and had three rows of different color hair. And he was friendly as heck, he couldn't visit with and sneeze upon everyone fast enough. I have a new favorite breed.

I took the day off. Mom is babysitting. The plan is to go to the State Fair and get my fill of animals. No horse racing tomorrow, but several horse exhibitions, lots of goats, and maybe alpacas. Then to the store to treat myself to the DVDs of Homeland. And home to watch whatever I darn well feel like, because Mom isn't home. And I seem to have picked the right day - forecast is for 82 degrees, mostly sunny, low humidity.

So hopefully I'm back tomorrow with lots of piccies!

And while I'd like to call it organized chaos, organized is too kind a word. The Dogfest was held on a steeplechase course, which means a lot of space and a lot of hills and parking in a different zip code. Mom was pooped half an hour in and had to go sit for a while.
There were as many dogs as people and the dogs invariably headed in a different direction than their people. Since all the tents & booths were a whopping 10 feet from each other, you can imagine how that went. I did see many a cute and furry face, plus some furries with hooves and a couple bunnies. Donated a lot of money in drips and drabs as I could, mostly to rescue but the largest chunk I gave to the Baltimore City Police. The city, in its infinite wisdom, decided graft and such was much more fun than horses and scrapped all of the funding for the mounted patrol. ALL OF IT. Leaving the mounted cops on their own to come up with $50K to keep the program running and not much time to raise it. I don't live in the city but unlike the city I see the benefit of a mounted patrol, so I gave them $25. Which I can't afford, but they need it too. The horses, meanwhile, were doing some serious grass chomping and I got a close up look; one, a Belgian, had hooves the size of dinner plates. I wouldn't want him stepping on me! 

Anyway, 2 hours of mayhem was plenty, so I'm home now.