Sooo..... Steph II, the evil pastry chef, has been stealthing about planning a ball in honour of... well... me. It's my own birthday Regency ball! How COOL IS THAT?? I've NEVER had anything like this happen on my birthday before. Nobody's ever planned such a fête for me! OMG! I'm so excited! And humbled too! I'm so afraid I'm gonig to burst into tears and weep the WHOLE night. How embarassing. ::heh heh:: I will NEED a new gown for this event, no doubt. I will have to start researching the extants again. I want something beautiful. Maybe in silk taffeta? I dunno. But ... YAY!My Husband comes home tomorrow! YAY! I'm so excited to have him for TWO WEEKS! This is huge. Six days is barely enough. Of course this means it will be through the holidays, which is stressful, but nonetheless, he'll be there with me. I won't be alone--thank God.
I have FINALLY found a farrier to trim Tag's feet. Apparently American farriers are afraid of large horses. Many, many of refuse to do draft horses, and those who do, charge 'California' prices to do it. It has been a task and a half to find someone to trim and balance my boy. I found a reasonable farrier who seems excited to meet my stompy fellow. What makes me laugh is that Tag; relative to most standard European horses, is really not that big. Tag is only sixteen hands. His legs are thick, his hoofs are biggish... but my first full-sized horse, Tequila, was taller than Tag, and had the same size hoofs (she was clunky, an ex police horse, not exacty graceful, but she was the best horse in the world). Apollo, a Dutch Warmblood, was almost 18 hands. American horses (Mustangs, quarter horses, etc...) are pretty dinky in comparison to the warmbloods and heavy European breeds. The farriers apparently balk at anything that has a little size and heft. And Tag has both.
I was offered another free draft. A black percheron mare named Katie. She is huge. Taller than Tag by a lot, and beautiful, with wavy raven mane and tail. If I could afford the keep and the time, I'd take her in a second. Alas, it isn't practical. Another will come along at the right time. I want to focus on training my big boy Tag (besides, Mares are such a pain in the rear, temperamental and PMSey; Geldings are much more pleasant to work with).
This is a new office special! OMG! it's my Mr. and Mrs. Badger go for a stroll picture. I finished it no more than half-hour ago.
Happy Friday all. ;)
I first discovered her in AP lit in Middle School. Pride and Prejudice was on our required reading list, and it was one of the books we were told to buy for the school year. My mother, stumbled into the British book shop near the mall at Woluwé-Saint-Lambert, and bought a book of Jane's works instead of just P&P. It was a thick book with a soft cover, and those really thin crinkly sounding pages. Somewhere on my shelf, among the many other versions of Jane's works, that dog-eared book still lingers. The spine has creases in it, and most of the cover is worn off. I read, and re-read, marked, folded, quoted, browsed, referred to and thumbed through every page. It's in rough shape--but I still can't bring myself to throw it away.
I've always been a reader. I remember reading Jean Auel's Valley of the Horses when I was in the second grade. With a family of 'book thieves' (which means that if you were reading something and left it sitting in an accessible area, you risked it being stolen by another family member and would have to suck it up and wait for them to finish before you got it back)'--it was inevitable that I would be a book-nerd. I was one of the few kids in class that actually enjoyed required reading. That doesn't mean I did my assignments on time or at all; I was a lackadaisical student to say the least, but I did my reading regardless of whether I cared to prove it to my teachers. And Jane's books were hands-down the ones that had the greatest impression on me. There are a series of books I've kept all these years; 1) Jane Austen's complete works... 2) The Lottery Rose by Irene Hunt 3) The Velveteen Rabbit, 4) and the complete collection of Beatrix Potter books and 5) Jean Auel's slowly growing 'Earth's Children' series. I have all of those. The children's books are meant to go to the child I hope to have someday.
Kay Demlow of 
