Lalala! I found a treasure

Of cotton fabric!

See Hawthorne Threads if looking at fabric and touching fabric, and thinking about what you can make with fabric is like eating a gorgeously dusted lemon bar with shortbread crust.

July 4th

In remembrance of the great thinkers that said that people are free when they are born. I know sometimes it seems we have to fight eachother. And that for some countries still, freedom will be at the end of a long, bloody road. Many are concerned we are losing ours here in the US. But I am quickly moving away from the need to glory in the belief that someone's son or daughter has to bleed to death (or cause another to bleed) for me to be free. I think a good dose of amnesia would go a long way in dispersing some of the attractiveness of war. I'm with Matisyahu. He makes me proud to be an idealist.

Prophet Dub and Buddy

I finally found a Tennessee Walker trainer. Ellery is on Prophet and had her first lesson. You know you're in Texas when you drive down a road called Confederate Park and pass aproximately 274 1/2 churches. One little white one with a steeple had a longhorn standing by the front porch.

The couple is older and only have 6 horses in training. It seems sort of a "winding down" operation. Dub says that's a full day's training if you do it right. I liked him immediately. I know he knows a lot-he's been training horses since he was twenty.

He calls Ellery 'Babe' and me 'Girl' I think in part because he can't remember names.

I rode Buddy an old show horse for padded classes. The pace of this breed is so comfortable but you still feel like you have a powerful mount under you. I am going to have to redo the budget to afford lessons for the two of us but eating more beans and shopping for sales on clothes will be worth it. We had so much fun.

Ellery, fascinated that her jeans got this dirty. The smells of horse and leather--if she gets the bug, I'll get her some boots and she will have lots of dirty jeans in her future.

Robin Hood

That's what the guys at the range call it when you shoot a bullseye--then you shoot that arrow. To the first of many in the future, Soren