Old and New...ish.

I had the opportunity this past week to visit a local museum. There were saddles in the basement! There wasn't much lighting, and the only camera I had was my cellphone, but I tried to get what reference photos I could. This saddle was small, but it had a really deep seat. The stirrups were missing. It didn't have any info on it, but it did have a rifle case.

There was also a tree...

And several sidesaddles from the 1800s!

 

I may go back sometime and take my real camera.

The other thing that I did is visit an antique store. There was some tack there, too. Mostly stuff that was beyond hope of repair. I found a white mechanical hackamore that looked pretty gnarly, and a presentation halter with silver. But what I took home was a humble-looking dirty leather halter.

 Which turned into a nice, clean, fairly decent and barely-used-looking leather halter!

Overall, it was a pretty good day!

The Best $4 I Ever Spent

I'm one of those weird people that goes into pet stores when I don't have pets. Or house improvement stores when I don't have a house (I have an apartment and it's against the rules to improve it). I am always looking for things that can be repurposed for miniatures.

I found something at Petco. Pet stores often have little cage ornaments and things that can be used for dollhouse embellishments, but often they are pretty expensive. I feel pretty lucky and happy to have found this for $4 and change!

It's just a bunch of sticks stuck together with wires. But it's amazingly versatile, and just the right size...

The wires not only keep the sticks together, they allow them to be curved...

It can take the weight of a Breyer horse! (or in this case, a Peter Stone)

It's a great bridge, and it could be a ramp, a raft, even a jump or a fence!

So many possibilities...my imagination is just going crazy imagining scenarios.

I don't live show, but if I did, this seems like it would be a great performance prop!