The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads!

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Journey to the Cross-roads
The Two Towers Edition

Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)

Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.

[HairOfTheDog]

I love shots like this.... our fantasy mingled with the harsh things of reality:

Shadowfax is truly being ridden at liberty there, and is standing on a 'mark'. I would love to have seen the horse training that went into him, that would make it possible that he could be made to stay on that mark with all that equipment and commotion, being ridden by a non-rider like Ian mcKellen. Outstanding work. No matter how many takes it took to get it right.

FYI for Becky, in the book the horse Shadowfax is ridden by Gandalf with neither bridle or saddle. Obviously, Ian is in stirrups we can see, for safety, but they are hidden or airbrushed out of a lot of the final shots, and I was so pleased that they followed that detail in the films. A lot of really hard work was done to stick to that detail on an Andalusian stallion, particularly in fast work, and work around other horses.

Photo from this story:

Two Towers Retrospective - Pavement Mag Special
5/25/03, 11:11 am EST - Demosthenes

Last December, Pavement Magazine put together a giant 42-page special feature chockers with interviews with Peter Jackson, Andy Serkis, Orlando Bloom and Miranda Otto (to name a few) to coincide with the debut of the Two Towers. It slipped under our noses. So now, several months later - and courtesy of Ringer Spy Alquawen, here it is for your enjoyment. [More]

[HairOfTheDog]

I could answer that!

[Overtaxed]

I don't want to keep horses. Cats don't need that much room.

[HairOfTheDog]

Depends how many you have...

[Overtaxed]

Her Majesty is a spoiled rotten only cat.

[HairOfTheDog]

Well, then 20 acres does appear to be plenty big.

[Overtaxed]

Well....the 20 acres appeals to my hermit wannabe lifestyle.

[HairOfTheDog]

Hermit lifestyles are good.

[osagebowman]

OT: 20 acres you say, well, I doubt you want to mow it, so, plant trees or plant prairie grasses like big bluestem, or sunflowers or rent it out to horse type people and make some of the mortgage payments. Possibilities, possibilities.

Don't forget the Kansas State Song is "Home on the Range".

[SuziQ]

now what would I do with 20 acres?

Create a little 'Hobbiton' and rent the Hobbit Holes out to Tolkien weenies like us!

[Overtaxed]

I can just rock my rocking chair with my cat and shotgun to hand out on the front porch of something like this:

20 acres is a bit much.....3 acres would be more like it. :)

[Overtaxed]

Guess I could always rais Buff Orpingtons.

[Overtaxed]

Create a little 'Hobbiton' and rent the Hobbit Holes out to Tolkien weenies like us!

Oh yeah...I can hear it now: "the roof leaks"...."there's mud oozing through the walls"... I'm not listening to that all day!

[Overtaxed]

Make that "raise"

[HairOfTheDog]

That looks like just the ticket.

[osagebowman]

OT: well, it could give you an opportunity to have "free range chickens"; would a cat help in herding and roundup?

Great pic; that could be any number of places in the Ozarks and several places in SE Kansas.

[300winmag]

A lot of really hard work was done to stick to that detail on an Andalusian stallion, particularly in fast work, and work around other horses.

I suspect some stallions are natural hams, and enjoy all the extra attention needed in filming.

A while back, I was online freeping, with the TV playing behind me. I'm paying no attention to whatever was on TV, but I hear this high-pitched whinney, and think, "someone has a stallion". I turn to look, and here's some Roman-looking guy (I'm assuming the movie is "Gladiator", which I've never seen), but at the bottom of the picture is a pair of darling white elf-ears. "White arab stallion" I tell myself. Sure enough, the next scene is a three-quarters rear view of horse and rider. Enough to see the very pretty head and shapely butt of the stallion. All of that from just noticing a whinney on TV.

Now if I was going to start some horse-type organization, I'd have the headquarters in Winney, Texas. Even though it's not spelled the same, it seems like a cute idea.

[HairOfTheDog]

LOL! speaking of high-pitched whinnies..... My pony is in heat again and bein' a hussy. (She sounds more like a pig though...) Bay is interested in her behavior, but he is really not clear on *why* it is interesting. He will crest and nibble her neck though, so there is some vague notion in there somewhere, but she gets so furious with him for never acting on it.

[Overtaxed]

would a cat help in herding and roundup?

Herding cats? No, I don't think so. Are there any dogs bred to herd chickens?

[Overtaxed]

I couldn't find a picture of a grandma rocking on the front porch popping squirrels. Guess I'd need a squirrel rifle, not a shotgun.