Rocks in My Head

We moved to Attica, New York in the summer of 1953.  I had just turned seven and our parsonage was located on the edge of this tiny town, in a Leave it to Beaver neighborhood.  The Tonawanda Creek meandered at the bottom of a huge clay cliff behind our house and the mixture of neighbors was right out of a sitcom:  the rich folks at the end of the street with an extensive orchard of lilac trees, the reclusive former teacher with the stark "modern" house that did not even face the street, the kids, the teenagers, the dogs, the cats, and the mysterious elderly couple next door.  I do not remember their name but I will never forget their home and the priceless gift they gave to me.

This couple had a lovely garden, festooned with beautiful rocks, gazing balls and vessels.  They traveled frequently so I rarely saw them, but I used to sneak peeks at their magical side garden.  One day they invited me inside and gave me a tour. I remember being in awe of the museum-like interior.  They collected vases from all over the world (from dollhouse scale to taller than I was!) and they collected rocks and minerals.  My eyes must have been like saucers.  Then they presented me with this precious gift that still inspires me to this day.  They gave me a massive chunk of white quartz with shiny black crystals here and there.  It was so huge I could barely hold it in my two little hands.  Oddly enough, though, this rock seems to have shrunk over the years because now it fits easily in one hand.

My first rock - 1953

This rock has moved with me almost a dozen times and my love for it sparked a love for rocks and minerals of all kinds ever since.  I believe it also helped to inspire my dad to collect rocks, and lug them back for me from many trips.  Since his death I have inherited his favorites (also survivors of many moves).

Last week I joined a rock group (I have always wanted to say that!) - actually a Facebook group of rock hounds and collectors.  This has prompted me to photograph some of my small but much-loved collection and dig up some memories.  As time goes by I have become increasingly tired of dusting and re-dusting my collections and I have been trying to protect everything in display cases, or in the case of small rocks and crystals - I have been framing them.  Hey, I am a framer and a collector - it is a perfect matching of my interests.

Geologea was my first attempt at framing part of my collection.  In my hoard of materials was a wooden box, fashioned with a rounded spine to resemble a large book.  I cut down an worn old gold-leafed frame to fit inside this book, fitted it with glass and suede walls, and placed my little loves inside.  I can add new ones and rearrange them any time.

Geologea, 2004

The smooth pale green speckled stone has delighted me since my grandma and I both spotted it at the same time on the shore at Lowbanks, Ontario and I snatched it up first.    I have always loved it because it reminds me of the color and pattern of the fabric in one of her dresses.  My best friend in junior high school gave me some of these crystals.  The slab of lace agate was a gift from a high school friend (her dad was just getting into rock cutting).  Some I purchased from a rock hound friend when he was broke  and in need of money.  Some of the fossils I found in the creek bed.  I love them all!

Specimen card, circa 1955

I framed the specimen card  after I realized that the thin cardstock that I had been holding and oogling for so many decades was finally starting to disintegrate.  I used to recite the names like a mantra:  Rose Quartz, Pyrites, Chalcedony.  Magical, mysterious, beautiful and ancient.  

Rock collecting has snuck into my dollhouse scale roomboxes.  Madam Tabitha is a rock collector and she displays them on the shelf in her parlor.  She has recently added a few new specimens.  She loves to rearrange her large bowl of rocks, crystals and shells, and she is also very proud of her malachite pyramid.

Madam Tabitha's Parlor

Madam Tabitha's shelf

Madam Tabitha's collection

Alas, my legs no longer allow me to clamber around in slippery shale creek beds, or wander for miles down rocky beaches, struggling back with pockets laden with great finds.  But rocks still seem to find me. Terrapin Station in Buffalo is a sweet source to buy small specimens and I have found a few pretties at Lily Dale.  A few years back a friend gave me a generous gift certificate good for anything in the Galleria Mall.  Now, I hate malls and avoid them at all costs - but hey, a gift certificate is a gift certificate.  I searched through many stores: clothing - ack,  jewelry - ack.  Then I found The Nature Store.  It was like a museum with price tags.  I was in Heaven!  Of course my friend looked at me like I had lost my tiny mind when I told him I had bought a rock with his gift certificate.  (I think he was hoping I'd buy lingerie.)

Current and perennial favorites

In the photo above the striped specimen in the top left was one of my dad's favorites.  He found it in the Southwest.  The round black half sphere has always been a mystery since my late partner Kim saw it at Terrapin Station and said, "Wow - Mar would love that!" and Barry gave it to her to give to me.  I have already told the story of the white quartz, and the petrified wood in the center has been with me almost as long.  The sphere is a recent find at Terrapin Station.  The starburst crystal is part of my inheritance from my dear friend Barbara, and the ammonite never ceases to transport me to another time and place.  Even if I had a room full of ammonites, this would be the most loved.

I guess I will always have rocks in my head.  I still have dreams of finding piles and mounds of pretties or stores full of them.  But until money falls from the sky I will be happy to play with the pretties in my collection that have been in my life for decades.  Rose Quartz, Pyrites, Chalcedony - nice mantra, eh?

Transient Global Amnesia

Tuesday began as a normal winter day.  There had been a heavy snowfall on top of the two feet of snow already on the ground.  I was not sure if I could make it out my driveway but I gave it the old college try and got stuck halfway down.  I did try digging out, and placing cardboard under the tires for traction, but I eventually gave up, went into my house, called my regular plow guy and posted the following on my shop's Facebook page.

11:10am  Alrighty then. The plow never came so I tried to make it out and now my car is stuck half way down my driveway. So I may or may not make it in to the shop today - but don't worry, I always leave Mama Lucy with a week's worth of food!

11:48am  Snow plow guy just tried to plow/push me out - he barely got out with his truck intact. So I needs to find someone with a backhoe or a dozer. Crap. 

11:59am (Posted on my personal status) Plow guy came and almost got stuck himself - he suggested a backhoe guy - and miraculously he answered his phone (I have been trying to get in touch with him since last fall about my danged driveway) - so he'll be by after lunch. Bye bye $$$$$ *sigh*

12:05pm  Found guy with backhoe. He'll be by after lunch (how lovely - he gets lunch!). *grump*

1:18pm   Still waiting...

I kinda  remember writing those posts but the next 7 or 8 hours are missing.  Gone.  Vanished.  Around 8pm I wandered out to the garage and found my car inside.  My driveway and parking area were fully plowed and ringed with mountains of snow.

I looked on Facebook and read my shop posts.  I went through my purse and found $250 cash and a receipt for $400 from the bank machine.  It was timestamped 14:14 (which means 2:14pm).  I had zero recollection of going to the bank. I presume the missing $150 went to pay one or both plow guys - but I have no memory of either one of them.  I know that there were two different plow guys because my neighbor told me he saw both of them.  He also told me I called him and talked about roadside assistance.  

4:41pm - Donnie messaged me to ask if I was alright.

8:53pm - I noticed his message and responded "Is it really Tuesday?"  Seems I was under the impression that it was Monday.  My first clue was NCIS was on TV instead of Murdoch Mysteries.  Then I remembered I had watched Murdoch.  Last night.

10:30pm - I posted this to my cat group (language cleaned up for blog): 

 
OK - this is going to sound really weird - so here goes.
I have my shop open Tuesday through Saturday. I worked on Saturday. But, after getting stuck in my garage and unable to make it out the 500 foot driveway due to huge snowfall, I am at the mercy of the plow guy.
Somehow or other, I made it down the driveway on Saturday after work, then it snowed all day Sunday and I was hoping to have the plow guy do his thing on Monday. He did not make it until today. Late - so I missed not only being at my shop today but a whole day somewhere. And, somehow or other, I managed to make it to the bank machine a half mile away to take $400 out of my Visa account. I now have $250 left. WTF? I am a day behind! I don't drink or smoke. What the hell - how did I lose a whole day? This is freaking me out big time.  (I admit in re-reading this it is a tad garbled.)

My cyber kitty friends from around the world leapt to my aid - asking cogent questions and making rational suggestions.  One person came up with Transient Global Amnesia, (description from Mayo Clinic website):

"Transient global amnesia is a sudden, temporary episode of memory loss that can't be attributed to a more common neurological condition, such as epilepsy or stroke.

During an episode of transient global amnesia, your recall of recent events simply vanishes, so you can't remember where you are or how you got there. In addition, you may not remember anything about what's happening in the here and now. 

Fortunately, transient global amnesia is rare, seemingly harmless and unlikely to happen again. Episodes are usually short-lived, and afterward your memory is fine."

I made it into the shop around noon on Wednesday. An interesting aside is that I noticed that my car headlights had been switched off, which means I had not put it into the garage.  Only men (mechanics and the like) completely switch off headlights that turn themselves off. I also found small scrapes of red paint on my front bumper (from the plow trying to free my car). 

Mama Lucy was delighted to see me and meowed, "Where have you been?"  My kitty group had managed to convince me that my situation was potentially quite serious so on Wednesday afternoon I gave in and called my doctor's office and made an appointment for Thursday afternoon.  A few minutes later they phoned back and told me to get to the ER.  I decided to stop after work (am slammed with Valentine's jobs!)  By the time I arrived at the Fort Erie hospital's Urgent Care facility it was 7pm.  They put me through triage, signed me in, gave me a bed and hooked me up to the ECG machine.  They also took blood samples and urine.  Then I sat and waited and waited and waited for three hours.  It was after 10pm that the ambulance returned to transport me to Welland hospital (next town over) for a CAT scan. 

Gave ambulance attendant complete history and story of events as I understood them (that was about the fourth time I had to do that).  And, of course - nobody responds or tells me anything. Upon arriving in Welland I was tucked in with warm cozy blankets and waited some more.  Busy night for CAT scans!  Finally it was my turn for this test which took less time altogether than the trip up and down the labyrinthine halls.  Then wait some more until finally the adorable young doctor came by, introduced himself and told me the scan looked normal as were the labs.  They still want a neurologist to speak with me but they said that office would call and make an appointment at the Niagara Falls hospital.  He did, however, allow that transient global amnesia sounded like a reasonable diagnosis.

Aside from not eating much all day (one energy bar and two rice cakes) I was still not very hungry but boy, was I tired by the time the taxi (health system paid for it!) brought me back to my hospital where my car was parked.  It was 2:30am by the time I made it into my house to confront a clowder of hangry kitties.  I fed  them, updated Facebook and curled into bed.

Woke up this morning feeling totally normal.  Got a lot accomplished at the shop between all the phone calls responding to my Facebook status: This is apparently what happened to me on Tuesday between posting about getting stuck in my driveway and waking up on Facebook later that evening. Just got checked out from stem to stern and doc says everything looks fine - NOT a stroke.  I included the Mayo Clinic link about transient global amnesia.

Talk about a long strange trip (or a short strange trip?).  I spent all day Wednesday playing detective to track down what I had done all afternoon Tuesday.  Without Facebook I would have been totally in the dark - with only a bank receipt and some unremembered cash (and believe me when I say that poor people are always ultra-aware of their financial situation!).

I am still waiting to hear from the neurologist's office, but at least I am confident that this was a one off event and I can safely go to sleep without waking up dead.  I have also been startled into doing some thinking about stuff like what would happen to my cats and how would anyone know what had happened to me?  I believe I need a digital executor as well as a set of house keys for my best friend.

Signing off with enormous gratitude.

Two wristbands, and a  whole lot of sticky patches.  Yikes!

Didja miss me?

In September my forty-year-old  faucets in the bathroom sink gave up the ghost.  They were leaking badly and they could no longer be repaired - they needed to be replaced.  

Ugly and crusty  (and covered in cat hair!).

A diligent search on eBay turned up the perfect new set at an even more perfect price; they were installed by my friend/handyman.  Look at that spout - it is so tall!  Sleek lever faucets - I am in love! Woo hoo - don't they look wonderful?

Shiny!

 

 

 

Of course after the installation of such glorious creations, I then found myself replacing the handles on the cabinet doors and another lengthy search on eBay turned up this gem: coke-bottle colored glass knob for the medicine/linen closet.

My precious!

Then the tub faucets began to misbehave and again I searched ebay, found a great new set, and these were also installed by the friend/handyman.  Last item needed was a new door knob - since the old dark brass one was becoming increasingly difficult to turn and I feared I would end up either locked in or out of the bathroom.  I found a lovely brushed chrome lever knob on eBay (where else?) and could not wait to install it!  I brought a couple of screw drivers into the bathroom, and set to work.  The old knob was one with hidden screws so it took a bit of research and two days of wrangling before I was finally able to get it to budge.  The metal had corroded over the years.  I was thrilled to finally remove all of the components.    By this time many of my tools had found their way into the bathroom.

Of course the new latch was larger than the old one so I had to play around with needle files and a keyhole saw to enlarge the hole.  I finally managed to install this latch, and thought I should check to make sure I had the latch facing in the correct direction.  

Ever suddenly come to the chilling realization that you should not have done something about a split-second after you do it?  I realized when I shut the door, sans knobs, that I might be in trouble.  I could not open the door.  I was locked in my own bathroom!  My phone was in the living room.  My exterior doors have triple locks.  No one has all the keys except me.  So even if I could phone someone, no one could get into the house - and even from the outside of the bathroom door - no knobs!

Let's see - I could climb onto the counter and squeeze through the window and fall eight feet down onto the ground (and probably break my arm or my ankle) - but then what good would that do?  I would be locked out of my house!  With a broken arm or a broken ankle. Yikes.  Alrighty then, what tools do I have?  I tried a small screwdriver but it was too thick to fit into the jamb to spring the latch.  I tried the keyhole saw - too thick.  Wait.  I know!  The hinges - I'll take the door off of its hinges!  Except they were rusted solid and the pins would not budge - even when I tried to hammer a needle file into the bottom.  

OK - I have water - no food - none of the cats are in here with me.  But there is catfood. I could eat catfood.  (Ugh!)  And the toilet - thank God!  I can pee if I have to.  Oh man, I gotta get outa this place!  Tools - tools!  What other tools do I have in here?  Aha! - a bucket of tools I was using in the shower stall to remove the caulking, grout, and tile.  Hmm.  What is this?  The dull plastic cutter, the one I was using to remove the caulking.  Nice hook on the end, though, and a thin blade - it just might fit....

Inserted it into the door jamb, gave it a twist - and voila!  I am free!  Thank you little plastic cutter!!!

Salvation!  Freedom!  Hallelujah!

The rest of the installation job went smoothly - and I am beyond pleased with my new lever door handles.  

Ain't it purty?

But it sure scares me to think what might have happened if I had not had any tools in there and locked myself in like that.  How long before anyone would have missed me?  My cats depend on me.  My cat people  depend on me.  Yikes.  

Tell ya one thing, I have oiled the hinges and I am keeping that little plastic cutter in the bathroom from now on!

More Kitten Camaraderie

Today is my second anniversary of discovering the Kitten Cam(s).  With six thousand other watchers all over the globe, I spent last evening fascinated and glued to the screen witnessing Mama Dorothy give birth to the six Kittens of Oz on foster mom Shelly's Tiny Kittens cam.  Dorothy was kicked out of her home after coming home pregnant and luckily found herself at Langley Animal Protection Services, LAPS, near Vancouver, British Columbia.  She hit the kitty lottery and ended up for the last several weeks growing huge and healthy in Shelly's care.  She is a tiny young first-time mother (and last-time, too!) and was exhausted and confused during the birthing process - without Shelly's tender ministrations the story may not have had such a happy ending/new beginning.

Shelly is orchestrating seating at the milk bar and feeding Mama Dorothy (talk about a lovin' spoonful!) in her nest.  One of the tiny kittens is really tiny so Shelly is supplementing her with formula, to jumpstart her interest in nursing.  Little by little the mothering instincts are kicking in and soon, with Shelly's skillful assistance, Dorothy will be a pro.The poor dear is plumb knackered (as is Shelly, who had been on active birth-watch for four days or more!  She has also been talking on camera for nearly all of this time and I just do not know how she does it.).

I am thinking a lot about my own semi-feral rescue kitty, Mama Lucy.  Although she managed to win the affection of a number of people in her neighborhood - some who made sure she had food when they discovered her pregnancy - when she gave birth to her six little boys, it was all alone and in the dark and on the packed dirt floor of a dusty crawl space.  It was also during the no-doubt frightful aural onslaught of Fourth of July fireworks.  Mama Lucy is a city kitty, but that racket must have been terrifying for her.  We will never know for sure - this litter may not have been her first.  By the time I met Mama Lucy her boys were five weeks old, they were fat and happy and she was giving them her all.  If she had experienced a retained placenta or tangled umbilical cords, kittens might have died.  She did not have the luxury of clean blankets, fresh towels, heated nests and the soothing voice and hands of the amazing Shelly (and all the unsung heroes of the rescue world).  Mama Lucy was fortunate to have found shelter.

Mama Lucy and her boys at 7 weeks of age

In my lifetime of living with cats, three have given birth in my own home and I have never learned so much about cats as I have from watching Kitten Cams.  Malaika gave birth to two kittens who suffered from congenital complications and died tragically, little Leela gave birth to a litter which included Shadow and Junior (Leela Junior)  and Junior gave birth to two litters, making Joker (from the May litter)  and Sunday (born one day after the rest of her September littermates) half-siblings.  All of these pregnancies were quite unplanned - this was the early eighties - spaying and neutering was not done as young as it is now. I remember my vet making me wait until a female was at least six months old.  Too late!  In those days it was easier to find homes for the kittens that I was not keeping as my friends were not all way over their limit of kitties. 

Right now in Seattle, another lucky mama-to-be kitty named Marge is awaiting the birth of her litter, which will go on to be raised by the inimitable Foster Dad John.  Marge and her kittens will move into FDJ's care as soon as mama kitty is comfortable.  In the last year John has raised and graduated several more litters of marvelous rockstar kittens and mamas into the world, and he broke all his own rules when he fell in love with one amazing little soul and adopted her into his own feline household.  If Kitten Cam kitties win the lottery, Trillian won the Powerball. 

In the last year Kitten Cam watchers have developed even closer bonds - we have supported each other through thick and thin, triumph and tragedy.  So far I have met one avid watcher in person and I am trying my darndest to talk myself into traveling to Seattle in May for the Kitten Cam Convention - me, the world's least likely traveler!  Will the Camaraderie of the Kitten Cams be enough to lure me out of my cave and onto an airplane?  Stay tuned....

Cake Two

I posted this story of the birthday cake a while back but now I have found the photo!  So here is the story again.

Dad and I arrived back home in Albion very late one evening – we had been out visiting hospitalized church members all the way over in Rochester. It was Dad’s birthday, October 13, and we had been gone all day – we had pretty much forgotten about celebrating.

We entered through the back door into an almost completely dark house (most unusual since my mother usually kept every light on in the place when she was alone). Mom was nowhere to be found but there, in the corner of the kitchen, on top of the chest freezer and illuminated by one gooseneck desk lamp, was a cake.

This was not just any cake. This cake had a rusty orange zinnia with a broken stem drooping off to one side of it. A large white candle kind of angled out of the cake like a cannon. The chocolate frosting was flecked with  cake crumbs; the frosting was all over the cake plate. There were little birthday candles stuck here and there into the cake’s frosting and we also found several egg shells and a couple of spoons wedged into this amazing creation. A few pieces of the cardboard cake mix box were also sticking out of the frosting.

Mom soon emerged from the darkened dining room and related the story of this cake. As usual, it was a layer cake that she had tried to bake. And as usual she had encountered problems removing the layers from the pans. When she had finally succeeded in prying the chunks of cake out of the pans, they really weren’t in “layers” anymore so she tried to “glue” everything back together with frosting. A few toothpicks inside to hold everything in place – voila!

Mom always had trouble with layer cakes because the layers never came out of the oven flat or even – they always dipped in one direction or the other – that is why she had to use toothpicks to hold the layers together. It was many, many years later that I discovered that ovens came with leveling feet – and that my poor mother’s years of problems over unlevel cake layers was not her fault but the fault of unleveled parsonage ovens.

But on this day in October this particular birthday cake was not cooperating with her and soon crumbs were in the frosting and frosting was everywhere. First she got mad - then she got creative. And because enough time had elapsed between when she made the cake and when dad and I came home, we all had a good laugh over the cake and cut it up and ate it. We just had to be really careful and watch out for those toothpicks.

The Yahooti Chronicles

Yahooti was my mom's cat, but he ended up living with my grandparents when my mom and dad married and moved to Boston so dad could finish school.  After dad graduated he was appointed to the church in Elma and they moved into the ramshackle parsonage.  Shortly thereafter my grandparents also moved to Elma, two houses and a church away from the parsonage.  Yahooti then proceeded to divide his time between these two houses. 

I have been doing a bit of research in an attempt to discover the origin of Yahooti's name.  Yehudi Menuhin was a child prodigy back then and Cab Calloway recorded a song called "Where's Yahootie?" which became a popular catchphrase.  "Yahootie" became the name for a mysterious invisible prankster - people blamed him for everything!

Yahooti the cat was a calm soul.  As all cats were back then, he was an indoor/outdoor cat, and he was never neutered.  He stuck pretty close to his two homes, he enjoyed Grandma's lush flower garden, and he especially savored lounging in the shade of the tall peonies.  Hooti was a pretty laid back fellow.  Grandma said she once saw him carefully backing away from a threatening tomcat.  He was not a fighter. 

Here is a pencil drawing done by my uncle in 1941.  The scene depicted was a complete fabrication, artistic license. Hooti would never have been such a bad kitty.  The worst story I ever heard about him was about the paw prints in the frosting on the cake Grandma was about to serve to company.  She saved her reputation by placing walnut halves onto the cake - no one ever suspected the source of her inspiration!

Yahooti by Robert E. McPherson, 1941

Hooti was probably six or seven years old by the time I was born.  My mother got one of her madcap ideas for a great joke to play on her dad.  My grandfather was a skinny nervous kind of man (think Barney Fife).  He had steadfastly refused to "hold the baby" because he was afraid he would drop me.  So Mom weighed Hooti and and she weighed me every day until I weighed exactly as much as the cat.

Mom strolled over to their house with poor Yahooti completely swaddled in my blanket and she finally persuaded Grandpa to hold "me".  Of course by this time Hooti had had quite enough and he exploded out of my startled grandfather's arms.  That story was told and retold many times over the years.  I am not sure if Grandpa ever totally forgave Mom for that stunt.  It is a wonder he had not had a coronary.

Hooti and me

Yahooti was a polydactl - you can see his massive paws in the above photo.  In my childhood relationship with Yahooti I was taught how to behave around cats.  "Don't bother kitty when he's eating."  "Don't pull kitty's  tail."  "If you see kitty burying something in the garden, do not dig it up."  He and I spent many happy hours together and I shared my toys with him.

Yahooti and the mechanical wind-up bear

Yahooti was famous for his occasional forays through the furnace duct work.  Grandma would be trying to clean the vents and Hooti would disappear into the dark tunnel.  He could be heard thumping and banging along, then he would emerge in another room, all covered in dust and cobwebs.  Grandma always made sure to thank him for his assistance, and of course she helped him to restore his coat to its original color by cleaning off the soot.

Hooti was also given credit for inadvertently helping my mom out of a bad situation.   She had gone to the dentist in the city and the session was so lengthy her jaw had locked in the open position.  She came home on the bus, horribly embarrassed and even more frantic than usual.  The dentist had told her the jaw would close sooner or later.  Mom decided to try to take a nap, and as she lay in her bed, Yahooti came into the room and jumped up onto the dresser.  This was strictly forbidden (and he knew it).  Without thinking, Mom tried to yell, "Get down!" and her jaw snapped closed.  She gave him a big hug (how could she have been angry?), he had solved her problem!

Yahooti was probably fourteen or fifteen years old when we received a call from my grandparents that something was very wrong with him.  We no longer lived in Elma but Dad drove us to Grandma and Grandpa's house to assess the situation.  It was decided that Hooti was indeed a very sick kitty and my dad found a box for him and prepared to take him to the vet.  Everyone tried to reassure me that he would be OK, but even though I couldn't have been any more than six or seven I somehow knew that this was the last time I would ever see my little friend.  I remember asking my dad, "Hooti's not coming home, is he?"  I thought my dad would cry, he was so sad when he had to answer, "No, he's not."

Yahooti was the kind of cat who enjoyed life and took it as it came.  He radiated calm as my dad carried him out to the car.  I never saw Hooti again.  Since then I have had jumpy cats and scaredy cats and snuggle-bunny cats and needy cats and super smart cats and mischievous cats - but Hooti was just a big lug, my first big lug.  Yahooti was also my first love and no one ever forgets their first love. 

Collecting: My Thoughts

I collect many things but my oldest and dearest passion has been horses - swap cards, paintings, prints, books and figurines.  It all began when my dad brought home a little china horse for me when I was three years old.  I don't imagine many dads would gift such a young child with so fragile an item, but he was quirky like that, and unbelievably, the figurine remains one of the few in my growing collection that has never been broken.  Clumsiness, kitties and a lot of moving have taken their toll over the years, but this has had an unexpected side benefit - I have learned a lot of ways to repair broken artifacts and people at my shop actually pay me to fix their stuff.

A lot of people collect plastic "model" horses - Breyers and Hartlands .  I did not even know the name Breyer until a couple of years ago, although I had had several in my collection for many years.  Breyers are very realistic looking (for the most part) and there is a massive community that has evolved around their collection.  They make outfits (tack and costumes) and have "horse shows" and take photos with realistic backdrops.  They make manes and tails from real hair and repaint the models with excruciating detail. I have little interest in this; I have my special old Breyers, that is enough for me.

Another community is built around the collection of Hagen Renaker porcelain figurines.  I have about a dozen, dating back to the early fifties, but, again, I did not know anything about them until recently.  Some were gifts but most were bought one at a time, when my dad had to go visit someone in the hospital in Rochester and I went along to keep him company. He rewarded me by taking me downtown to a little gift shop off of Main Street where they sold small china figurines and a good number of novelty items (magic tricks and pranks).  Most in this collection are tiny and spindly and very fragile - and all have at least one broken leg and some have lots of breaks.  I have always repaired them, using increasingly better adhesives as they have become available.

A few years back I acquired a collection of Breyer miniature Stablemates - it took me quite a while to realize that that many of these were identical to my little Hagen Renakers and I was baffled at such seeming design thievery.  I eventually discovered that Hagen Renaker had licensed some of their molds to Breyer for recasting in plastic.  Mystery solved!

Original favorites

In the above photo, Horse Number One is the one in the center.  Clockwise from the upper left is the porcelain foal given to me when I was very young by a little old lady from our church.  She said it had been hers since she was a little girl - I figure it must be almost 150 years old by now, and I have never seen another one like it.  The next one, with the saddle, was made in Japan as a souvenir of Niagara Falls.  Others like it are all over eBay every day.  The grouping of three are Hagen Renakers and designed by Tom Masterson.  The white and gold horse with the spaghetti trim is Queenie, one of the few named horses in my collection.  At least as far as eBay goes, she is pretty unique.  Below Queenie are a pair of Bergen hard plastic horses (I called them Black Beauty and Ginger), and the pair of pintos are salt and pepper shakers.  The jaunty black and white colt and the little white Trojan have always been amongst my favorites and I have had them as long as I can remember.

Current favorites

My taste seems to moved away from mostly realism towards mostly fanciful.  My current favorites all seem to have an artistic style to them.  The one in the middle is one-of-a-kind hand modeled, recently repainted by me because the original paint had become drastically soiled.  I was so delighted to find it in a thrift store.  Upper left is a beautiful pink and blue drip-glazed Royal Haeger, then my collection of little porcelain Trojans (thank you, eBay!), the red rearing horse and the two green rearing ones were designed by Don Manning and I have discovered that they are from the late forties, early fifties.  The little pink gal is a Hagen Renaker (I love her!), the row of colorful colts are also Don Mannings, the elongated green glass colts are made by Mosser, and the white mare and foal are a recent thrift store find.  Aren't they sweet?

I have become a savvy eBay shopper and I have made myself very happy winning these little treasures.   The Internet is proving to be a wondrous resource for researching the origins of my figurines, but much information is lacking. I wish more makers would placed identification marks on their creations!  Not stickers - stickers fall off!   Sadly, I have found only a few books on the collecting of horse figurines. Maybe some day I ought to write a book about the subject, but for now I am keeping myself busy documenting my entire collection.

I am lost in the admiration of the creation of these figures - how lovingly and cleverly and carefully they have been sculpted by such wondrous and mostly unsung artists!  I run my fingers over the elegant lines and shapes.  The beauty makes me smile every day.  I will sing their song.

Horse Collection 1956

Horse Collection 2014