Golden Retriever Puppy

I drew this puppy last night, with a Prismacolor Scholar 2B pencil. I think it turned out very well, and Mara said that she thought mine was better than the one in the book, 'cause mine had character. I had a little bit of trouble drawing the tail, because I was a little too close to the edge of the page, but I just had to make it go a little more up instead of out. I think that it looks like a little fat puppy, starting to lift its paw.

Labrador Puppy

Mara and I were drawing last night, and I drew this puppy. I haven't ever really gotten interested in drawing, (especially after an art class we took when I was younger, and I really didn't like how the instructor drew,) but Mara has been drawing a lot during the past few days, so when mom found a book about how to draw puppies and kittens I drew this. I think it turned out pretty good, especially considering that I haven't drawn anything in years. I am going to keep drawing with Mara, and will probably post most of what I draw here. I am going to work through the puppies and kittens book, then draw horses, and then I hope to draw a centaur. I am also going to start learning calligraphy, so the amount of art that I do will be going up a whole lot.

(P.S. I have been going around the house all day, remarking on how I drew a cute puppy, but mom said she hasn't gotten tired of that yet, so there ought to be no problems in that regard.)

Look Who Dropped In!

Some one decided to climb over the fence and take a lengthy nap in our yard.

The neighbor's cat had come apparently come over to our yard to take his nap under our overgrown rose bush, where it was shady. We had seen him when he was all curled up, sleeping. When we went outside he was still there, staying partly hidden, but when Benedick started swinging the hula hoop about, the cat approached us rather slowly.

Rather startled by Mom walking around,
hence pausing cautiously under the chaise lounge.

Coming closer again.

For some reason, he seemed to be attracted to our hula hoop.
When Benedick stopped playing with it, the cat started investigating it.

Moving on from the hoop, enjoying Benedick's shadow.

Looking rather disgruntled when Benedick moved,
and he was no longer in the shade.

Reclaiming his hoop. 

"I dare you to take it from me!"

Apparently deciding that some
fresh salad would be more to his liking.

Maybe our grass tastes better than our neighbors. 

Resting in the shade some more.

You can see his yellow eyes better in this picture.

Getting up to leave our yard and hospitality,
(in the form of not chasing him out at first sight,
but letting him stay and enjoy our shade). 

Shortly after this he climbed back over the fence, and returned to his own yard. I hope he liked his short stay in the yard of the strange people who point interesting objects at him, and swing curious hoops about.

Secretariat

Mara and I went to see the movie Secretariat last Friday. I had never gone to see a movie at a movie theater before, and it was a nice one to start with.

Me & Mara at the movies!

The horse Secretariat was a big chestnut colt sired by Bold Ruler and foaled by Somethingroyal. He was born at Meadow Farm in Caroline County, Virginia. He was owned by Penny Chenery Tweedy, trained by Lucien Laurin, and mostly ridden by Ron Turcotte. The way the coin toss—deciding who would get which foal—worked out in real life was a little different then from the movie. In the movie there were two unborn foals. One from Hasty Matelda and one from Somethingroyal. Ogden Phipps won the coin toss but he picked Hasty Matelda's unborn foal so Mrs. Tweedy got the foal she wanted. In real life there was a live colt out of Hasty Matelda, and a live filly out of Somethingroyal, along with an unborn foal of Somethingroyal. Since Phipps won the coin toss he took the filly out of Somethingroyal, leaving Mrs. Tweedy with the colt out of Hasty Matelda and the unborn foal of Somethingroyal.

Secretariat raced several times as a two-year-old, and he was American Horse of the Year both as a two-year-old, and as a three-year-old. To skip right to the Kentucky Derby, Secretariat broke from the gate last, but came from behind to win the Derby by 2 1/2 lengths. He ran each quarter-mile segment faster than the one before. He set a Derby track record that still stands of 1:59 2/5. It was 28 years before any other horse has won the Kentucky Derby in less than two minutes.
Then, again in the Preakness Stakes Secretariat came from behind to win by 2 1/2 lengths. For the third race in the Triple Crown, only four horses decided to race against Secretariat in the Belmont Stakes. Among these was Sham, who had finished second in both the Derby and the Preakness, also three other horses thought to have little chance of winning. Secretariat and Sham started quickly, setting a ten length lead on the rest of the field. Sham started to tire a little farther on -finally finishing last. But Secretariat surprised everybody by continuing the fast pace, and getting farther and farther ahead. He finally won by 31 lengths, and set a world record for 1 1/2 miles on dirt of 2:24. Secretariat became the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years, and he was the 9th horse to win the Triple Crown.

Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and now my whole family needs to watch it. It has a quotation from the book of Job about horses in it from the NIV version. Secretariat is a great movie, and I'm glad I went. Now I think I know how Alec Ramsay from the Black Stalion books feels whenever he enters a race. I think when people write about horse races it is still pretty exciting, but they can't quite catch the excitement of actually seeing it.

Dinner at the Lake

Me and all my family except for Mara had dinner at the lake today. It was lots of fun, and here are some pictures.

Goose parade!

Can I have some?

Coming on the run.

Feeding the ducks.

Completely surrounded. 

Just about out of bread.

Polyhedrons and Hawks

Yesterday I was making polyhedrons out of paper to help me with my math. I made an icosahedron, and it turned out pretty nice so I thought I would post it.

Then today I was looking out the window, and I saw a hawk! It didn't look like any hawk we'd ever seen before, as it had yellow legs, and was rather small. Benedick took a bunch of pictures of him, so here are some.

The hawk.

I thought this one showed his chest nicely.

Here he is on our chaise lounge.

Mom thought this one was a nice silhouette. 

My Petco Adventure

Mom took me to Petco earlier today, and while we were there we saw two cats up for adoption that were kind of an apricot/golden color. They are brothers that seemed to get along very well, because when we were looking at them they were laying snuggled together with their paws around each other. There was also a cat that Mom said looked like a cat her family had when she was younger. Then we looked at the parakeets, and there was one green one that was hanging upside down on the roof of the cage. It looked like it wanted to get down, but it didn't want to fly. It made its way to the side of the cage where there was a thermostat kind of thing, and tried to perch on it, but it only came out about a half inch from the wall so he had one foot holding onto the thermostat, and the other one holding onto the roof. Then he gave up on perching on it, and went back totally to the roof. Then he finally flew down to the floor of the cage. We tried to spot him among the other twenty or so parakeets, but almost all of them were green so we couldn't be sure which one was him. Then we saw one that looked like him, and acted like him, so we figured that that one was it. I hope that someday I can get a parakeet.

Fun with Lorikeets

This post is basically an excuse to put up this picture of me and Helena feeding the lorikeets at the Wild Animal Park. I thought I should say a little bit about lorikeets' life in the wild. Lorikeets are from the Australasian region. They have a specially created brush-tipped tongue for feeding on soft fruits and nectar, and the majority have brightly colored feathers. Now we progress to the fun part of this post! During the summer Dad took Helena, Benedick and me to the Wild Animal Park. Helena and I fed the lorikeets. We had never done that before and it was so much fun. I loved being in the aviary with the birds and having them land on me, and feeding them! I hope I can do it again sometime.