My life

Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My!

Kristian Beverly6 Comments

About a year ago, my mom, her friend, and I went to a local wildlife rescue called T & D‘s Cats of the World. We heard about it with enough time to go to the final weekend it was open. It’s a hidden gem in central Pennsylania. While the name mentions only the big cats, the whole place was packed with many types of exotic creatures. We opted to do the guided tour so we could hear the stories about all of the different animals.

All of the animals are rescues. About 300 call T & D their home and have since its establishment in 1990.
Some animals were housepets until being a pet was no longer an option.

Others came from zoos or governmental facilities.

No matter the background, each animal found its way to the rescue.

There were Tigers.

Look at that face and those stripes!

I really loved the Tigers.

Lion.

Bear.

Patagonian cavy.

Prairie Dog!

Lemur.

Some of the wolf/wolf hybrids played with their toys when we got to their enclosure.

This Coyote was over ten years old. He had the sweetest face.

There were different types of deer.

I never realized that Emus made a vibrating drum sound.

The animals will live out the rest of their lives there. While it was sad to hear about the different circumstances that landed the them at T & D, it was nice to see them in their final home.

If you’re in central PA or plan to visit, I highly recommend going to the rescue!

Drape and MFA

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This is the current status of the Watership Down parade set. One side of the drape is done. I’m happy with the rabbits.

My friend and I drove out west to Pittsburgh today to look at the Seton Hill MFA program. It was about 3ish hours each way so we left early to make it there at a reasonable time.
It was nice talking to the program coordinator about how the program is run and all. It was an easy drive once we made it through a few tunnels and left behind the rain. I’m still not sure about a MFA but I still have some time to decide. 

YMCA Pony Rides

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I got a tiny bit of Breyerfest editing done today. This is soon to be Breyer horse Harley.

I also helped out at a local pony ride. It was at the Harrisburg YMCA for their summer camp program.
Initially I thought it would be rained out, but the weather held out just long enough. Each kid that wanted to ride a horse got to.
We brought two quarter horse mares from the farm. This is 22 year old Lady and she was so elated to have to work. 
Each kid was shown the proper way to get on a horse. One little boy explained how much he liked to ride donkeys in Mexico. 
Each kid had to opportunity to ride twice. I think there were eight or nine kids in total.
Everyone enjoyed riding the horses. It’s always cool to expose kids to horses.
Afterwards I hopped on and plodded around on the second mare named Dolly. 
Not long after the horses were loaded the sky opened up and the rain has yet to stop. There’s supposed to be another pony ride on Wednesday but when looking at the weather I think there’s a good chance it’ll be rained out. 

In Which I Graduate

Kristian Beverly4 Comments

Last Saturday I graduated from college.
 The night before I finished decorating my cap. I only had one chance to not screw it up so I waited until the night before to really finalize the quote I wanted on it.

I’m not sure about how many people overall people were graduating but I do know that there were nine people that fell under the Humanities major. So there’s that definite.
 As I said in the previous post I handed my camera to my sister and told her to snap away. One of the best pictures she took was of a fellow classmate’s father being handed her degree. She passed away during the semester and he took her place. I had a few classes with her since her major overlapped with mine and was shocked to hear about her passing.
 Family and friends came to support me.

Artsy picture that my sister took.

While graduating happened last Saturday, the final team meeting for the Equestion Team took place two weeks before that. I was a part of the team since my sophomore year and will miss it. The first year of showing for the team was also my first year showing. My last showing season was far from my best. Our region was changed so the class sizes increased. I’m an okay rider so having to only compete against five other riders guarenteed me a placing. Once those numbers were closer to 10 it became a A+ for effort haha.

Anyways, here’s the first team photo.

Last team photo. It’s been fun showing and hanging with my fellow teammates. I’m excited to watch the team grow and continue!

I’ve been the Visual Arts Editor for Penn State Harrisburg’s Literary Magazine, From The Fallout Shelter, for two years so this was my last issue that I got to work on. 
I had a few pictures printed in it along with one of mine being voted for the cover. This was my favorite year for the magazine. It’s gotten better every year that I’ve helped on it. 
Penn State Harrisburg also had a Student Award Ceremony and I was nominated for the Outstanding Undergraduate Creative Writing Award! I totally didn’t expect it.
I submitted a short story to a magazine in the fall and one of my professors asked if I was interested in having it published in a local magazine called TheBurg, so I had a historical fiction short story printed in there too. I actually forgot about it so by the time I remembered, most of the issues had already been picked up. Luckily my professor had an extra copy for me. 

It was a busy but awesome final semester. Now onto vacation!