February means Valentines day, which you can either love or you can hate. I tend to go back and forth, if the truth be told. In January winter is usually in it's zenith. Crisp blinding white days, and cold nights which require much cuddling to keep warm under wool blankets, in front of a roaring fire or space heater. February enters the scene playing second fiddle, and we are all a little tired of the tune. We know spring is around he corner, and February has arrived with a bouquet of wilted flowers and a half eaten box of chocolates. This year it's a whole day longer which is all the more reason I'm praying for clouds February 2nd.

We've had great feedback to this year's calendar, Thanks very much. This cartoon is the "Miss January" of 2012 and I'm sure whether or not you have horses or know anything about thoroughbreds, you can relate. We have a great year planned at Happyhorse cartoons so keep in touch.

As the weather gets colder I start to crave the comfort foods. Now this is different for everyone, but based on my extensive research it is usually a plate, or bowl of hot food. Stew is my all time favorite. I have about a ga-zillion variations of stew so I never get tired of stew. It's another reason why fall is my favorite season.

It started with a sneeze. It was raining, cool, felt like fall for the first time this season. Now I do work in a barn, full of hay, and dust, so a sneeze is not out of the ordinary. But this one was different. I knew immediately. By the end of the day I had the sniffles. By evening it felt like my head was under water. A cold.

Three days later and I'm in full cry-baby-husband mode, and my wife, to her credit has ignored me, my symptoms, and has left town on "business". 

This morning, though the sun came out again, it feels warm and I have hope that this too shall pass. Besides I can't smell the manure so mucking out was a breeze!

You have to take the good with the bad.

I had to get rid of some wasp nests this summer. I had noticed a few, high up and away from everything and I thought that they wouldn't be a problem. Live and let live. Then one afternoon Red, our crazy retired thoroughly-thoroughbred, was running up and down the fence line. Now this in its self is not unusual, but every time he got near the gate he would spasm and half buck and run away down the fence line only to return and repeat the same action.

I quickly realized that every time he got near the gate he was being stung by some angry wasps that had taken up residence in the holes in the gate. I got stung three times getting poor Red to safety, and Red calmed down immediately and was no worse for wear.

I wrought the foamy-chemical death on the whole nest. 

It's hard to be Zen when someone is suffering.

Someone once told me that horses poop once an hour. 

Anyone who has "mucked out" a stall, or a thousand, will tell you that the glamour of performing manual labour wears off at about stall four.  It remains a never ending constant if you stable horses. Every morning like Groundhog Day the stall which was as fresh as a new idea when you put the horse in has been reduced to that hotel room in the movie The Hangover by morning. Every morning. How do you deal with the tedium? You can tell yourself that it's physical exercise, or that it is in essence a selfless act which you must endure on your way to sainthood, and a bronze statue in the town square. 

The secret is to treat the whole experience as you would the rain, the heat, the snow and the cold. It is what it is.

That and getting someone else to do the work. Then you can sit back and talk all "philosophical" and hope nobody notices that you're making s**t up.

We've had a lot of water lately, (and for those of you in Houston I apologize) which poses certain challenges. 

I can get my horses to walk through puddles, instead of jumping them like invisible verticals on an Olympic course, but what do you do when you have so much water that your paddock becomes the ultimate slip-n-slide? It's gotten so bad that my neighbour Norah is building something big in her barn, she's been collecting animals and spends an inordinate amount of time talking skyward with her outside voice, and she doesn't seem to have a cell phone. Now if you'll excuse me the sun just came out and I have to go and mow the grass.

We take care of an older horse named Red. He is a huge thoroughly-thoroughbred and when he senses the first flying insect (black-flies) of the spring he starts to run around the paddock like a little girl at a picnic. We're creating a special Hazmat suit for him, a sketch of the preliminary design can be seen below. Bzzz.

I don't know about you but watching some poor sod get nailed in the twig and berries by an errant tennis ball always makes me laugh. Maybe that explains my chosen profession. I do sympathize but I laugh first. Horses are much more empathetic. Take the horse in this cartoon, he's quite concerned even though his next sentence is: "Can I have your hay?"

I start with an idea, like Spring. It's a great time of year. The snow melts, the air gets warmer, but there is a down side that people who live strictly on asphalt and concrete don't see, and that is mud. How do you get mud? Here is a receipe:

Take a 1400lb horse that stands on four spindly legs, (and for those of you who don't have a horse take your kitchen table, and then put your refrigerator directly on top of the table; now imagine it walking, running and sliding around your backyard.)  put it on your pasture that is still soft and wet from the recent snow melt. Wait half an hour. You will have mud. You can also do this in the fall after several days of rain, but the horses are as excited about being outside. There is nothing like a Spring day that will turn even the oldest horse into a three week old foal.

So I take this idea and I make a number of sketches until I have one that works for me:

In this case I made a digital colour version to try out a colour scheme:

Finally I transfer the drawing to watercolour paper and paint the final cartoon painting:

If anyone is interested in more of the "how to" kind of stuff, send me an e-mail. If I get enough interest I'll do something a little more exciting.

Sometimes a complex idea comes along where words are, well ... too wordy. Fortunately the picture to word exchange rate still sits at around one thousand to one. So, from this cartoon do you know what a NOSODE is? Can you guess what they do? (For the answer see http://www.kamanimalservices.com/tips/ )

It has occurred to me that most people coming across this website, and these cartoons in particular, may not be aware that they go hand and hand with an article put together with our friends at KAM Animal Services. KAM has a tip of the week and I have been given the great job to illustrate the idea that appears on various webpages across the blogosphere. So if one of the cartoons found in this blog doesn't quite make sense to you go and read the article, and then send me your feedback. I'm always interested in what you may have to say.

 Today is the first day of Spring, so I feel that this cartoon, which has to do with breeding is more than appropriate. 

You know how everyone is supposed to have a spirit animal? That true universal nature of the self that if we are in touch with our spiritual selves can help direct us through our corporal existence? Well, when it comes to construction my spirit animal is definitely a horse. I have trouble hammering nails, but I do like my tool belt.

It takes a lot for a horse to trip and fall. They have four on the floor, which makes them pretty stable. (Yes I meant the pun.) I've seen horses slip on the mud, just yesterday in fact, but to trip and fall the way we humans do? No. 

I tried all sorts of sketches, that failed as long as two feet were touching the ground. Suffice to say that if your horse is stumbling around, you should look into it.
If your horse looks anything like this cartoon, then take a picture, send it in and then call your vet.

For those of you who are counting the days until the temperature starts to warm up, here's a little something to tide you over.

Occasionally, I draw something that just doesn't work. Actually this happens quite a bit. Take for instance this week's cartoon to show EPM (Equine Protozoal Myeloencephalitis in horses). Loss of coordination, tilting and stumbling are the symptoms, and I really wanted to show the horse leaning and stepping one leg over the other. The only problem was that every time I tried to do this the lean, which I really wanted to emphasize, just got lost and the horse looked more stable than without the legs crossed. So I went with the lean.

So today is the day that you get that special someone in your life a gift, maybe a special treat, or a rub down. Oh, and don't forget to get a little something for your boyfriend or husband too.

This week I've been shoveling snow, so I went with the back joke.

The great thing about drawing cartoons is that if you haven't got an idea, just be as silly as possible. A horse standing in a tub? Very unsafe. A horse taking a shower? Not unusual except for the back brush, which isn't nearly long enough. But a horse in a shower cap? That's just silly.

I needed to draw a horse in a nurse's uniform. I, of course, drew a mare. Would it be funnier if it was a gelding?

Uhmmm.