The Cute, it Burns

[summer_jackel]

corpsefairy and starchy are fostering a couple of Incredibly Cute Kittens, and on my recent visit with them, I got to play with these kittens at length. My brain hasn't solidified yet, it melted so entirely.



I also had the opportunity to visit the Tilden Park carousel, an old favorite of mine and probably the machine I have ridden most in my lifetime. It's a turn of the century Hershell-Spillman.



I wish this one hadn't come out blurry. Alas, the kittens, being kittens, were not great at sitting still for pictures.


Play!


What do the resident cats, Yakko and Dot, think about the tiny houseguests?




Yakko is a noble beast and gives a great profile.




Carousel shots. I love this face!




Love the flag horse's expression


















I think that this is my favorite photo from the set.




Three friends




And on to some non-wooden horses. Equinox is growing so big and powerful! Alas, the greaseweed in their pasture is in full bloom, and the two of them look like they've been doing engine work. Still, so pretty.


Noble Dancer face. In the summer of his fourth year, my boy is starting to fill out, muscle up and look less like a weedy youngster and more like the horse he will be. Pretty fellow!


He's not the easiest horse to photograph, though, more's the pity. When he's bored...which usually happens when he sees the camera...he yawns. This horse yawns more than any I've ever met.


Bored now. Please do something interesting like pet me or give me treats.


On a roll.

Comments

[kynekh-amagire.livejournal.com]

I love carousels so much. I miss living in cities (well, Spokane and Missoula) that have a permanent one. The ponies on the one you photographed have such great expressions, I kind of want to dialogue-cap them. Plus, a cockerel! AND A CRANE! Eeeeee!

*wipes screen* Sorry, I got squee all over your journal there. I meant to say, "Also, your hosses are damned photogenic, even when they're making really silly faces. Naming no (Dancer) (Bey) names, of course."

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

I am, in fact, a devoted carousel geek. Thankfully, our immediate area is as thick in antique carousels as, I imagine, anywhere in the country. San Francisco alone has four: The Hershall-Spillman machine in Golden Gate Park, a truly gorgeous Dentzel menagerie at the zoo, a PTC at Zeum museum downtown, and a French machine on Pier 39. The pictured machine is in Berkeley/Oakland. A little farther afield, you have the Loof at the Santa Cruz boardwalk and the modern solar carousel at Real Goods up at Hopland. It's worth mentioning that Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm in SoCal each have a very fine Dentzel, but the ride at Great America in San Jose is a Frankenstein made from fiberglass replicas from many machines (pretty, though).

Dancer says: "aren't my faces the reason you pulled out the camera?"

[kynekh-amagire.livejournal.com]

HOW. HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS.

*hangs head in shame, makes travel plans*

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

Oh, consider it a gift from me to you as a life-long NorCal resident with a carousel fetish. I've often thought that a day tour of the 4 SF machines would be awesome, though it would involve a lot of driving and would probably be impractical, if only because the SF zoo is a day of its own. Still...tempting, innit? And if you just hit the 3 American rides and ended with the zoo, it could be a very nice (albiet still tiring) day.

I wish the American Carousel Museum was still open to the public. I volunteered there as a young teen, and thereby learned quite a bit, to say nothing of the pieces I met. (Dentzel hippocampus, which had survived a fire that seared only its paint, making it looked barnacle-scarred. Swoon).