Horse and Sleight

I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of more slates!  Just last year I started doing more slate paintings and am going full throttle now.  One of the challenges lies in the inherent grain of the slate. This has been especially interesting when painting on the smaller pieces. I have enjoyed solving each one as it comes. Especially apparent in this group is the elephant, where you will see the chips along the edges, which worked nicely into the top of his head, and in his ear on the left side, and the tusk on the left, which has turned out to be a broken tusk.  Each piece of slate has its own personality, and sometimes I set one aside until inspiration strikes.  Right now, I am slate-less.  Ready for more.

 

Elephant, 6x8"

Bluebird Bath, about 4x4"

Sleigh Slate, about 6x16"

Horses in Snow, about 8x10"

Bunny and Trillium, 6x8"

Because Mean People Suck

 

I have a sweet friend who is slipping away.  Even though I haven't seen her in a year's time, I can feel her spirit leaving.  It might be because my consciousness knows she is going, and I am becoming resigned to the idea. 

I met her in 1989.  She is a great lover of animals and a champion of homeless cats, especially.  She is a tremendous patron of the arts.

But she is fragile.  The abuse she was witness to has hit her hard.  She was bombarded with dysfunction in her family and, probably because of her involvement in rescue, she had a high number of encounters with jerks.  Her sadness pervaded and there was always an air of desperation about her; an energy of forced attempt at happiness.

She wanted to die for a long time, but she was resigned to living.  Finally, cancer is having its way with her.  And this is our loss.  The world is losing a tremendous benefactor, a vessel of generosity.

Yesterday I had an unpleasant encounter with an unhappy person who oozes hatred, who puts her energy into twisting words and facts in order to trick people and fool people and cause dissension.  I am faced with the age-old question:  Why are the creeps allowed to stick around, while this beautiful, educated, kind hearted friend's life is cut short when she is barely 60 years old?

Because mean people suck!  They suck the living life blood right out of you.  They suck your energy.  They suck away your happiness and your positive thoughts.  They spread misery because it is all they know.

This is why the kind-hearted often succumb to disease, while the evil people forge onward.

Evil people will kill you.

I learned a valuable lesson from my sister Amanda, who has Down's syndrome, and recently went through a horrific time following the death of our Dad.  In the midst of bad behavior among her relatives, she stayed focused on what was important to her:  Love.  She was somehow able to shed all the abuse and hysteria that was heaped upon her, and concentrate on the thing that mattered most:  Her love for her family.

Now with my friend's demise, I am reminded again how important it is to turn away from the negativity dished out by those who thrive on it.  Concentrate on people who make you laugh, who love you, who are grateful for the time here.  Life is a brief and precious gift.  No matter who someone is, be they blood relative; be it a sibling or a spouse or a parent; no one has the right to steal your life away.  Get rid of the jerks; move on; stay focused on those who are kind, who have empathy, and who know how to love.  It's never too late to learn to truly live.

Horse Books

In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, sometimes it feels like winter is never going to end.  For a horse owner, it offers cold-weather challenges such as snow drifts, frozen water tanks and temps well below zero.  This season, the brave stewards of Clifford and Trudy, who took them in during dire straits in December have faced a hay shortage as well, due to the drought of prior summer.

I am so grateful to my friends who are caring for them.  I haven't seen much of the horses this past year, being consumed by Dad's health issues, and then work commitments have taken me on the road.  At every pet expo I attend with the dogs, someone inevitably asks, "Where is Clifford?"

The question always feels like a little kick in the gut, but it's good to have the reminder that people still remember and care about him.  He did make an impact.  We traveled to Long Island New York, to Florida and all over Michigan, visiting expos and libraries to promote "Clifford of Drummond Island."  I thought I might be able to sell some books and entertain people a little bit with my funny house-trained horse.  What I didn't expect was the way Clifford was reaching out to certain people.  He always gravitated to the smallest child in any group.  If that child shrank away in fear, he would turn away and move on to someone who was not afraid.  He was most remarkable with people in wheelchairs, nuzzling them softly without using the mouthing so characteristic of him.  He usually would sniff and examine their legs at length.  One quadriplegic boy asked if Clifford could take his baseball cap off.  His mom asked him why.  But I thought I understood.  It was one way he could make contact.  At my request, Clifford gently removed his cap and dropped it in his lap. 

I hate to think of this talented horse's time going to waste as we weather out a long winter and each crisis. The towing vehicle is broken.  The trailer has seen better days.  Financing travel with a horse can seem like a luxury during lean times.  There are many stories of Clifford that I haven't told yet, and they are the most wonderful stories of all.  I hope we will be able to tour again, as we have just barely scratched the proverbial surface of what Clifford is able to do.

I'm sure there is another book in us, as we explore the mostly-uncharted territories of animals helping people with autism and other disabilities.  Kids may not retain a lot of what we talk about, but they will never forget the day a horse came into their school!

Meanwhile, Clifford isn't exactly suffering, as he munches away on some of the country's best timothy hay, harvested right there locally in Pickford Michigan.  The snow blankets him but he hardly bothers to lift his head.  (Can horses burp?)  Trudy in the meantime is checking out the cute little Morgan stud colt right over the fence.

Maybe spring is coming, after all.

"Clifford of Drummond Island" and others in the Clifford Horse series are now available on Kindle!

Back on Drummond

I walked Ripple down to my shore lot yesterday. It was the first time I’ve been down there since the fourth of July. I walk and walk two miles to get there and then there is always a certain white rock that I sit on, which is right by the water. It has a smooth top and even a little shelf where I can rest my camera. I can put my feet in the water if I want to. The rock, of course, has been there since the beginning of time. It’s about the size of a large footstool.

Anyway, yesterday, I came down, and….. NO ROCK!!!!

I thought I might be losing my mind at first. I looked around just in case I had come to the wrong spot. But after 16 years of walking down here and sitting on this thing, well. …. I know where it was.

I think Vickie and I sat on it. I will have to check my Facebook page.

Anyway it had to be quite an effort to get it out of there. Of course, I am livid! Whoever took it came onto private property, and this is theft.

Drummond is loaded with rocks. But there is nothing close to this one that would really serve as a replacement.

Rode Trudy to the beach yesterday too. I will try to post photos to my blog later. That was another disturbing thing – I haven’t been there in four years, since before Scorch died. They have dredged it out or something, and all that wonderful hard, clean sand has been replaced by muck and swamp grass.

People are idiots!!!! I could scream.

The horses, however, had fun anyway.