Lovely feature!

Just sending a thank-you to ShadowDog Designs, who has featured one of my Thoroughbred horse portraits not only in a new equine-themed collection of handcrafted goods, but a really primo blog post about the influence of the horse in human culture throughout history, even going back to antiquity.

I was born into a horse-loving family. In fact, when my parents married, both sides of the family joked that Mom loved Secretariat more than she did my father! My sister and I both have substantial herds of Breyer model horses and spent many years taking riding lessons. Countless hours were spent at the barn riding, grooming, and simply enjoying the presence of these precious, magnificent creatures.

Even though I’m now an adult, my love for horses has hardly waned. (I am Irish—an O’Hara—maybe it’s simply in my blood!) We actually live near some riding stables now (odd, so near to the city, when in West Virginia there wasn’t a horse for miles around our neighborhood!), and I’ve been tempted to begin riding again—or even just mucking out stalls, simply to be near the horses. Several of my vacations have been centered around visiting horses, mostly retired racehorses like Creator, the star of my photo “Presence“, at Thoroughbred retirement farms, and of course the stallions at the big stud farms in Kentucky. (In this house, Triple Crown race days and Breeder’s Cup days are full-fledged holidays.) We live near a racetrack now, and though it’s not a big show like Keeneland or Saratoga, I’m definitely keen to head out there simply to enjoy seeing Thoroughbreds do what it is they are born to do—run like the wind, strive to win, give their all while reaching for victory.

I think that horses, Thoroughbred racehorses especially, have so many similarities to humans in that way—they are intelligent, determined creatures with an intense will to win. It is very likely those qualities and those similarities that have made them such ideal partners for humankind over the years. As ShadowDog notes in her blog post about horses, quite a few historians point to the horse’s companionship and abilities as vital when it comes to the spread of civilization.

Well, enough rambling. Please go read ShadowDog’s blog post, where she talks about her own experiences with equines and shares some really fun historical and cultural hores-related nuggets. And definitely go take a look at her Horses: Symbols of Power & Freedom collection of equine-themed fine art, jewelry, handbags, and other fab handmade goodies!

 

Upheaval

I don’t even know how I found this article, but I ended up stumbling across it and something author Jennifer Fulwiler wrote really struck me:

…the average modern woman who is out of the workforce lives her life on a suburban desert island. The nearest family member lives miles (if not thousands of miles) away. She doesn’t know all the people on her street, and not many of them have kids anyway. If she’s like many Americans, she’s moved within the past few years, losing any sense of community she’d built in the last place she lived.

If you have looked at my blog at the shop (which is entirely neglected now, alas…), I mention a few times how much I miss my old neighborhood. I am that dame who works at home, in a suburban desert island. My entire family save one cousin (in Illinois) lives in Michigan; my friends are scattered throughout the country, but none closer than a six- or seven-hour drive; my in-laws live on Alabama’s Gulf Coast and in Cincinnati.

Worst of all, though, we just moved here last summer, spending three months in an apartment and then moving into this house just as school started, the holidays were coming, and winter was expected. I lost every single person I’d gotten to know over five years living in West Virginia—neighbors we’d had over for drinks, neighbors whose parties we’d gone to and front porches we’d sat on and whose recently dead pets we had mourned with them. Neighbors whose backyards I’d sneak into late at night to leave an apronful of freshly picked garden tomatoes or cucumbers on the back porches of; neighbors I’d leave casseroles and cakes for after deaths in their family.

Neighbors who knew I was ill and would come check on and chat with me on days I was so exhausted that I couldn’t walk Ben to the corner and back without stopping to sit beneath the trees on their lawn.

They are some great people.

I miss those people. I miss them a lot.

I miss our vintage home and neighborhood—it really and truly was like Mayberry—but I think it is those front- and back-porch friends I miss the most, because here, we don’t really know our neighbors at all. Maybe it was the bustling season during which we moved here—I surely hope so. But whereas in Weirton I would wave at somebody I didn’t even know driving down the street and get a wave in return, here, even our semi-immediate (across the street) neighbors don’t wave back. It is not helping my sense of loss.

Because it is finally dawning on me: it is a loss I’ve gone through. I lost not just a sense of community, but an entire network of people I care for very deeply, people who were like an extended family to me.

It rather feels like I had my roots pulled up and chopped off.

Of course, spring is here (is it? Or did it pass us by and just give us summer, which is fine?). That means I’ll be spending countless hours outdoors in the gardens, front and back yards, and my hope is that I’ll be able to meet folks (not in my usual vintage cute, but more often than not with dirt smeared on my face and a weed hanging off my shoulder…alas) then, as more neighbors will be out thanks to school being out and the weather being something other than grey, windy, and cold.

At the same time, though, reading that article helped me realize that it is possibly a form of mourning I’m going through. There are a whole bunch of people I was accustomed to seeing and talking to that I don’t get to see at all anymore. So maybe it’s okay to be sad and miss the people I grew so close to.

Anyone else ever experience anything like this? Not sure why it is such an epiphany to me—maybe because I’ve always felt I can “do it myself” and get along on my own. My, what a surprise this has been!

In closing, I’d like to share one of my favourite photos from the neighborhood. It was snapped on a whim as I was balancing on a couple of feet of snow, but I am so glad I have it—it shows our neighbors all digging out after a true blizzard. True to the character of our neighborhood, when folks were done with their own drive and walks, they went to help the other people still working on their own, and then everybody cleared the drives and walks of the people unable to do it for themselves.

It’s not the best picture I’ve ever taken, but it is definitely one of the most precious to me.

That maniac is our mailman!

Mail-lady, really. Remember the Chevy Chase movie “Funny Farm”? That’s how I’m beginning to feel.

In our old neighborhood in West Virginia, our mailman introduced himself. We’d have brief chats if I was out working in the garden or playing with Ben in the front yard. We knew our mail carrier and both of his substitutes by name—it was wonderful!

We have been here in this house in Ohio just shy of six months. Our regular mail-lady is actually great. However, her substitute…Let’s see. She once tried to run me off the road when I was passing her as she was stopped putting mail in a mailbox (and as I really like my car and don’t want it destroyed, I’m a cautious driver). Another time she tried to run me off the road coming up from behind me—that was probably just for the fun of it.

Worst of all, though, she has even delineated from her original route when she has seen me waiting at the mailbox with an order or two to hand her, as they’re too big to fit into our mailbox. No joke—she will turn the corner even though it’s not her normal route, and has done this several times. (My office overlooks the street, so seeing the USPS truck go by is really just part of my day; I’ve gotten to know the routine. Yes, this is sad.) And once I saw her smirk as she did this. She smirked! As I stood in the rain and wind! Oh, the shame.

Of course, if I want customers’ photos to go out, I must wait for her return. It’s the most ridiculous thing—and seems to unfailingly happen on a day when the weather is nasty. Lovely! I’ve worried that she’s going to bend someone’s order, but thank goodness, it hasn’t happened yet. That would be too obvious, most likely. For some reason, this woman has a vendetta against me.

We actually hit our local True Value and grabbed a large mailbox that will at least fit 10×13 photos, ridding me of the necessity of standing beside the mailbox in a hailstorm so y’all get your prints.

Even so…Sometimes I am just waiting to hear that maniacal cackle as the substitute mail-lady drives by.

Do you plan your photos?

Though photography is my job, nearly everyone has a camera and loves taking pictures. As such, I wanted to share this article on PopPhoto.com with you: Great shots take great planning. I’ve learned this myself, and it never fails to pay off, even for shoots far from home; with the internet, it’s so easy to scope things out ahead of time, thanks to the work of fellow photographers. Note I’m not saying copy their shots—what’s the fun in that?—but you have an opportunity to get a decent feel for the place and think about possibilities before even hitting the road.

Since You’ve Left

Especially if you’re shooting your children (with the camera, that is…!), which is something often done at home or at least locally in familiar places, you really have a great opportunity to plan what it is that frames and adds flavour to your shots—maybe including a tree you planted with the family, or looking up at your child or pet (because for some of us, the only kids we have are fur-bearing…) through or around the garden plants and blooms as they help you garden. At the risk of going Buck Laughlin on you, that’s just ideas off the top of my head after a long day. Just hope I’m explaining it well! Of course, you can do the same on vacation. It never hurts to try something new—and if it makes you feel better, take your standard shot, then try this technique. Let the surroundings help you tell the story; think about what will really emphasize where and when you are.

You don’t need an expensive camera or collection of lenses to do this, either. You could end up with some wonderfully creative and beautiful photographs you and your family will treasure forever, all for a little legwork—which costs absolutely nothing but time and consideration! Gotta love that!

After reading the article, definitely check out some of author Jason Lindsey’s work. Beautiful photography, and you’ll see he does as suggested in his article a great deal.

Still more tornadoes!

I am sure that all of you are aware of the many tornadoes that have attacked the nation’s middle today—Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama—again, really. Sadly, twelve deaths have been confirmed, and of course a great deal of property damage has occurred. At least one town in Indiana has reportedly been utterly destroyed. It is beyond heartbreaking, and rather baffling considering the time of year—but now it seems the mild weather is having its revenge upon us.

As someone with many loved ones in the endangered region, I’ve been on edge all day, and was downright anxious late this afternoon when everything began to hit. Looking at the radar (having made the huge mistake of turning on The Weather Channel) I saw a wall of red and maroon charging across much of the nation. Talk about frightening!

Happily, I’ve checked in with all my loved ones and everyone is okay, praise God. But many others are not untouched by this outbreak. Please keep everyone in prayer.

Unfortunately, the storms are not over. Reports warn that tonight will be equally dangerous, and that we may see similar dangerous systems tomorrow. Please continue to pray for all the people in the path of these very dangerous storms, and if you are in an area expecting them, please heed all warnings! Stay alert.

If you have a smartphone, make sure you have an app like the WeatherBug app (it’s free!)—I like it because it allows you to set it so it audibly alerts you to various weather events (mine is set to go off at the severe thunderstorm warning level, if I recall, though it lets me know about watches as well). Especially at night when we can’t see the sky and are usually asleep, having something like a weather app (on a fully-charged phone, yes?) or a NOAA weather radio could save your and your family’s lives. Being in the “better safe than sorry” camp, I also suggest keeping matches and candles in your safe spot, be it a closet, bathroom, or (ideally) your basement or crawlspace. I suppose if you have children, keeping a stuffed animal or two there during such a period wouldn’t hurt, either.

If you’re on Twitter, you may also want to follow @BreakingWeather and @SevereWarn, as both will keep you informed about dangerous storms today and every day.

Also, something one of the men on The Weather Channel said was smart—as you head to shelter, grab your shoes, because when you emerge, there may be glass and debris about. As a barefoot kinda gal (yeah, I know), I’d never thought of that, and to be honest, in the rush to get ourselves and the critters into a safe place, it wouldn’t have crossed my mind before—but it will now.

Stay alert and stay safe out there!