In 1979, needing a change of scenery, she moved to Seattle, a place she'd only ever seen through the letters from a friend. Patti's love of the outdoors and backpacking in the Sierra Nevada and Coastal mountains of California transferred to the Cascade mountains of Washington. She worked as a landscape gardener and her love of animals had her volunteering at the Humane Society and the Woodland Park Zoo.

It was at the zoo that her life started veering down a path that would take her away from the city life. She started out helping with waterfowl but found herself drawn to the farm animals rather than the exotic and wild animals most people associate with zoos. She fell head-over-heels in love with the team of Belgian draft horses that pulled a wagon for the visitors to ride. Many hours were spent in their company, grooming them, in awe of their size and gentleness. She attended her first draft horse show when the zoo decided to enter their team. The sight and sounds of all those magnificent horses in their "Sunday best" took her breath away. It was something she'd always remember.

The love of draft horses stayed with Patti even in the far reaches of the Alaskan tundra where she worked for several months at a small guest lodge above the Arctic Circle. When she got back down to the "lower states," she packed up her belongings and spent the next few years in Washington, Idaho, and Arizona, helping friends with their draft horses. Working for room and board and an education, she learned how to harness and drive horses for ranch work as well as shows. She lived and breathed the giant horses. They became her life and she found herself sometimes sleeping in her truck overnight at shows or in a barn while waiting on a mare to foal. When offered a job on a Percheron breeding ranch in north central Washington--the beautiful eastern foothills of the Cascade mountains--she jumped at the opportunity to learn about "birthing and babies." It became 3 1/2 years of hands-on experience with mares, stallions, and foals.

The spring of 1991 took Patti further east, moving to Montana to help friends with their horses. Jobs were scarce in the Big Sky Country, so she started painting eggs to sell at a gift shop. The goose eggs were still packed and in storage so she used brown eggs from her friends' chickens. She had to empty out plenty of eggs. To do that, a hole is drilled in one end and the yolk punctured and stirred up. A large needle and syringe is used to inject air in the egg. The air pressure forces the egg contents out through the same hole (there must be enough space around the needle to allow this).

That fall, Patti painted many eggs for the Christmas season. The most popular scenes painted were of horsedrawn sleighs and teams of horses pulling bobsleds heavily loaded with hay to feed cattle during the winter. She also painted the draft show horses in patent leather harness and braided manes. These were sold at horse shows and sales.       to page 3