Not a lot of time for leather working

I haven't posted anything new on here in a while. It's been kind of busy here at our house the last few weeks. My son Jake graduated from high school a little over a week ago. A lot of my family came up to attend graduation and spend a little time with us. My oldest son Dusty was here for 2 weeks. It was great having him home again. We haven't seen him very many times since he moved to Salt Lake City where he's been living and working the last couple years. My parents, my sister and my younger brother and his kids were also here for a few days. It was nice to see all of them too!

Our weather has finally gotten nice which brings yard work along with it. I haven't been doing much in the way of leather work, but I did manage to make Dusty a plain black belt while he was here, and since the first one ended up being a little too small, Jake now has one too :o) The are both talking about wanting ranger style belts too, so there may be some more belts to make. We haven't gotten very much farther on the saddle projects either. We did cut out Jake's stirrup leathers (again). We realized after cutting the first ones that they should have been longer if he wants them laced instead of having buckles. They are now hanging from the basement ceiling with weights to take the stretch out of them.

We did finally get a chance to start working with our new horses. On Sunday evening we got on both Biscuit and Buttercup for the first time and were pleasantly surprised at how well that went. No rodeo!! They both seem to be pretty quick learners. Jake took a few pictures while I was saddling the horses and a couple close ups that I asked him to take.

One that turned out really neat was a close up of an eye. You can actually see him taking the picture in the reflection, along with some of the corral in the background. I'm thinking that will go into the "someday I might have to try this on leather" file. It might be a while cuz that list is getting pretty long. I'll also be starting on a new lesson with Jan Schoonover pretty soon. This one will be a black bear. I've done that one before, so the class will be a nice refresher for me, and I can really concentrate on getting pictures and notes taken. We sold a few of the antelope lessons and the people that have bought them seemed really pleased. I'm looking forward to seeing pictures of their projects using the lessons.