(INTO THE WOODS AND BEYOND!)
It’s been a long time since I last saw the horses. I went over to the farm to deliver some “Being Bob” books to Melvin,Bob’s owner and look who wandered in from the fields. The other horses arrived at the barn well ahead of Bob…but he finally got there. I think he’s mad at me…he wouldn’t come over to say hello, so I kept my distance. I wish I’d had a better camera with me, but I’m just glad to have these images. I’ve missed Bob!
It’s been awhile….but here’s the fabulous Bob. I haven’t seen Bob in a while and I miss him.
Recently Melvin gave me a lesson in brushing a horse’s mane…..The hair that grows on the top of their neck and then lays down the side….I was a little concerned that they might not like it at first because their hair was twisted into “ropes” from not being brushed in a while….Melvin hadn’t done it himself since his second stroke.
I have to admit that I had an ulterior motive, but I was up front with Melvin about it…I wanted to get hair from each horse so that I could braid it and then take the braids to the book signing this Saturday. I wanted people to be able to actually see the difference in the color of their manes and feel the texture of horse hair.
Melvin got a few laughs out of the whole experience…He found himself sitting in his golf cart with five baggies full of horse hair…that alone was worth a laugh and then he got to watch me try to ever so delicately comb through huge knots of hair.
A few days later I tried again and I worked on Mac…I didn’t get a lot of hair, but Mac LOVED being combed…I combed and combed and combed him and when I would quit and start to walk away, he would follow me and stand waiting for me to start again. The images above are of the “styled” Mac….I am pretty proud of myself….BUT…..the best thing from the whole experience??????? On my first day, I combed awhile and then walked away to get a shot of the other horses…when I turned around, this is what I saw…..
These famous words say it all……”A pictures worth a thousand words….
Well…we did it! I loaded the car up with all of the animals…and headed south. Many, many hours and potty breaks later, we made it to Nashville…spending money buying treats from the vending machines at the rest stops for everybody to keep them happy is expensive!
I checked into the cool hotel and got everybody through the lobby and into the elevator…getting all of us into a glass elevator was fun and scary….I think there might be some smudgy spots on the glass…Bob and Joe kept putting their mouths up against it and breathing hard.
In all seriousness… It was really interesting…I had to check in the next morning and get an I.D. badge and then found out who would be interviewing me…the entire floor of the hotel that our room was on was used for the interviews…there were SO many people! I even met a fellow whose son is looking for someone to write the book he wants to illustrate!
I had no idea that this would be such a big deal and I found out that I wasn’t the only nervous human there! Long story short…I had my interview….we discussed the books and then started talking about Mama and the boys and horses and animals in general and it was a great meeting. I was given a business card…told to send an email to the interviewer and he would give me the secret information on who to contact and work with next! We still have a way to go…a few more hurdles…but we’re just happy to have made it over the second hurdle!
A WINDOW INTO THE WOODS 
