Off we go--

Off we lurch into a new year, which for me has started in a somewhat uneven fashion. I've added another year to my personal count in the past week, with my birthday falling between Christmas and New Year's day. If you're old enough to remember the Beatles' song that has the words "will you still need me, will you still feed me..." you'll know how old I now am. 

We had a low-key "in between" week, and a quiet New Year's eve as well. I got a few rides in here and there, working around the riding workshops, schooling show, and "New Year's barn dance celebration at the stables" preparations. Didn't go to the barn dance partly due to dog issues and partly due to my aversion to large gatherings, but of course in retrospect I now wish I had, as it sounds like it was a great event.  Maybe next year! :-) 

We walked the dogs on New Year's eve, a first as best I can recall since it's normally way too cold for any of us, then vegged out for the rest of the evening. I ended up watching "Airplane" on the comedy gold channel, which was ridiculous (somehow I've never managed to see this movie in the several decades since it came out) but strangely satisfactory viewing for the occasion. Got up New year's day to realize that a blood vessel had burst in one of my eyes overnight and I now look as though I binge-drank so much that my eyeballs started to bleed. Not really an effect I care to cultivate, but not much to be done about it. I didn't even have a glass of wine the evening before, never mind anything stronger!  

The strangeness continues with a murdered body having been found this morning on the south side of the highway I take to the stables every day. I often drive down the little gravel road adjacent to the highway, where the body was located, since I can stop to get photos without being in danger from other traffic. Glad I wasn't the one to happen upon the scene today!!

On to cheerier topics and the photos for this week. Shot one is of a Gypsy cob filly at North Fork stables. I went out there on the 31st with my friend Ed (the rocking horse carver) and his extended family. Ed might have a Gypsy cob rocking horse project in his future, and he wanted to take the chance to meet the real thing. Luckily for him, one of the largest herds in the country is just north of the city, so off we went. It was mild but really windy that day, as you can see by the wild mane of this young mare and the dancing snowflakes. It has been a long time since my last visit to the Gypsy cobs, and I don't want to let that much time go by before my next visit. They are endlessly fascinating to photograph and observe. 

We've had a touch of snow since Christmas, so the country landscape looks a little more wintery than was the case in the past month. Shot two was taken from the side of the road on another very windy day. Come to think of it, we've had a number of windy days in the past few weeks!

I got a couple of very nice additions to my raven collection for Christmas. This shot shows the wonderful raven silhouette lamp that my daughter in BC gave me. It got slightly damaged during transport, but today I got it mended and installed in the living room. I'm thrilled with it!

My grandson and I went down to the riverbank one day last week for a photo shoot. The light was poor but we toddled along the pathway from the art gallery to the weir and back again anyway. Shot four shows Mark lining up a shot, likely of some of the ducks that are still around on the open water. The footing was quite icy and at one point I slipped a bit, which caused a bit of a reaction from Mark. Thinking how nice it was that my grandson was aware of my advancing years (I think this was the day after my birthday) and concerned about me, I made the comment that since I hadn't broken anything when I went off my horse a couple of months ago, I likely wouldn't have hurt myself if I had fallen. His comment was "but you're carrying *two* cameras!!". Oh, right. Heaven forfend the cameras should be in danger!

There are some interpretive installations along the riverbank walkway, giving information about the various species of birds and animals to be found in the area. While I'm not generally in approval of defacing public property, I did find this little bit of graffiti to be quite funny.