The Breyerfest Wrap

It's Sunday afternoon, and I am in a very different Clarion from last night. The flyers on the walls are gone. It's quiet. The pop up vendor that appeared in my hallway has vanished. The conference center is setting up to host some bridal show. My people have left Lexington again, off to their homes with new treasures. I am on the road early tomorrow.

The highlights:

- NAN 2013 is in Harrisburg, PA. Three hours from home. I'll only need to take a day, maybe two, off, instead of a week.
- Apparently some on the west coast have decided to split from NAMHSA over this. I wish them luck- if they can solve the issues of manpower and money all hobby organizations suffer from (RESS, anyone?) we will all benefit.
- There were still shires, Cleveland bays, Cigars and Esprits left in the SR lines. I grabbed a shire.
- NAN itself went off smoothly, and seemed drama free. And it ended at 8 on the first night and 6 on the second. Midnight NANs may be a thing of the past!
- I had fun at the Stone show, and attending the Breyerfest auction.
- Found some very nice glossies to add to my collection. And a Ratrod I plan to performance show the crap out of. And placed an order with Bill Duncan.
- Also found some fun halters and horse blankies for my nieces.
- Lots of time seeing my friends. Lots of excited plotting to hold shows.
- Relatively cool weather!
-I didn't get to watch many of the horse demos, but I did see that woman with the nine Arabian stallions at liberty-amazing!

I don't feel burnt out on the hobby this year. It's been a great Breyerfest. Good to see you all, and hope to see you back here for Denim and Diamonds!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Exciting developments

In case you've been under a rock, or on the road to Lexington all day, or maybe swaddled in bubblewrap... Breyerfest and NAN got a lot more techie today.

If you have an iPhone/iPod touch or iPad, go search Breyerfest on the app store. You'll find the program, photos of all the auction models, and maps of the horse park. My favorite part is the map of CHIN complete with an area to make notes! No more forgetting my notepad somewhere!

No Android equivalent this year, maybe 2013?

Not going to NAN but not looking forward tot he lag of having results and photos up? Well, NAN is being live streamed this year. Set your browsers to these links:

http://www.livestream.com/medieval1

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/medieval1

I don't know how this is going to work. I am going to check in the stream while at the show to see. You will need Flash to do this, so if you're on an iPad (like me) use a Flash enabled browser (I use Photon, it was like $5 in the app store)

I can hardly wait!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

It's that time of year...

My husband takes Monday off in the summer. Monday is my day off and we go do fun stuff. Last week, work nearly killed me, despite the national holiday in the middle. It just did not end up as a holiday for me. So Friday I begged Dave to give me Monday to prepare for Breyerfest and NAN. All the other times I put aside got eaten by one thing or another, and I had too much to do, including building a marathon harness that has been in the planning stages over a year, and that had, as of this morning, gotten as far as having one piece cut and dyed.

I am happy to report that the most complex part of the harness is done, and the next most difficult bit is underway. I can borrow parts from other harnesses I have (this is when it's great to be a tack whore) if I get in a bind. But I am off this weekend, so I am optimistic about having a 100% new harness for NAN.

My show string is extra light this year, and they are all organized, tacked and packed, except for the harness horse. She has 13 classes at NAN so she gets her own session tomorrow. I did some party shopping for Lexington. I even had time to dink around on Facebook a bit. I think I really love the Pre Breyerfest period now that we have Facebook. I love watching everyone get ready. It almost extends the event for me.

I look forward to a fun, and relaxing time in Lex this year. I am only showing 2 days at NAN. Then I get my Breyerfest volunteer obligation out of the way by judging Breakables Thursday night. I do have SR tickets in the first group to go (debating that Gambler's Choice...other than the Cleveland Bay, I am not really feeling the SRs this year. Please don't be something I hate.) and I am doing Stone Age Live on Saturday, so its really a pretty relaxed Fest this year. I'll have real time to shop!

See you all in about a week!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Breyerfest, here we come!

My Facebook feed is full of people wrapping up packing details and hitting the road for Lexington.  Breyerfest gets underway this week.  I'm traveling Wednesday with my bestie, Heather Malone, and my plan is to live blog the trip since the whole cell phone experiment worked.  Plus, we will have an internet connection in the car, so there may be actual posting as we travel from NJ to KY over 12 hours.

I am showing at Breyerfest Live for the very first time this year, and find myself inexplicably nervous.  I don't know why.  I am showing a handful of CM Breyers, but maybe 2 have a real chance of doing much. I also discovered that I do not own a single Traditional CM Breyer that is suitable for performance.  I was shocked.  So I am showing OF performance.  That was where I earned my performance chops in the first place, and this year OF and CM performance are split for the first time ever (typically, they run together) and most of the people I think would give me a run for my money are showing CM.  I am debuting a few-several-new set ups, but this isn't unusual for me.  I've pulled that stunt at NAN before. With good results.

It would seem Breyerfest Live is the last super prestige show I have yet to conquer.  I've judged it before, so I know what it can be like.  And about the only reason I am showing this year is that it is no longer held in the horrible tent, but in a nice, truly air conditioned hall.

But why the butterflies?

Potpourri

So, the wonderful Breyer History Diva blog supplied me with a list of this year's Breyerfest Special Runs (as in, those that are attainable--not raffle horses, or auction horses!) and where I usually find myself wanting one or two, this year, I want FOUR.  I either need to buy 2 tickets, or be prepared to spend on the secondary market.

What's tickling my fancy?

Under the Sea, a clear blue plastic Bluegrass Bandit.  I have a disturbing love for blue horses, and the translucent ones.  I do not think I care a whit about the mermaids.

Jasmine, the Weather Girl.  I am going to conga the crap out of this mold, I can feel it.  I'm already looking for a nice, simple repaint on one.

Hansel and Gretel, a mom and foal pair of Black Forest ponies by Birgitte Eberl.  In Classic scale.

Spun Gold, an as yet unnamed mold in 3 unnamed "Gambler's Choice" colors.  I missed out on the last Gambler's Choice at BFest and I sort of regret that, as I love the idea.  If its a Mesteno, I will reconsider this.

Going to be a rough year in Kentucky for me, thank goodness I won't have the madness of NAN before me, with the tempting treats in the tack and props area that crop up in NAN years.

In other news, I have been working on catalogging my colletion for a while now, and have FINALLY gotten to the point where I have a hard count on the OF Breyer plastic end of the world:

Traditional scale: 386
Classic scale: 66
Little Bits: 25
Stablemates 88

Total: 565 !!!  I had no idea it was THAT many--I've been putting the number of horses in my collection around 7-800 for several years now.  Looks like that needs to be adjusted UP.  Wonder if I've broken 4 digits yet??

Now onto the Stones, OF china, customs, Artist-resins (painted and not), tack, props....oh and getting it all photographed and uploaded to the Collecting Blog. But at least the Plastic Breyers are all tucked in their own spredsheets.

Finally, last weekend, Dave and I cleaned the basement.  During this, I found many amusing photographs (like those vet school pictures from 1993)  Here's one I wanted to share:

This would have been taken at the fall version of the Kaatskill Classic, 1994.  My first overall championship, earned by my Misty's Twilight "Freudian Slip."  This was my killer show horse in those days, when I was still a hardcore OF performance shower.  The CM overall was won by Rick Clark, but I forget that particular horse--its a custom he did.  Rick did these neat horses that he painted in car paints. It was damn near impossible to rub that paint.  I have one that is a bright red Running Black Beauty--I mean, he is candy apple red.  Does anyone know what's become of Rick?