Birds and spring growth---

Spring seems safely ensconced here on the prairies, with nice temperatures and no snow left or in the offing. Nature is working away in the usual fashion, although some trees and bushes are slow to leaf out, while others seem to be working to the expected schedule. I finally got the snow tires off my vehicle, and have taken my first outing on my bicycle for the year. This was also the first test of my new hip for bicycling, and I'm happy to report that it works wonderfully, way better than the original has done for the past few years, so that's another "first with new hip" to mark off the list. All that's left now is getting on my horse, and that will happen next month. 

Shot one today features a Swainson's hawk perched on a fence post alongside the road to the barn last week. I had to brake and back up to get photos of this fellow, and he was strangely OK with the attention. My husband (the real birder in the family) explained that Swainson's are much less reactive than the Red Tail hawks I often see on the way to the stables. He said that if it had been a Red Tailed hawk, it would have been gone before I could focus on it. There has been a pair of Red Tails patrolling this particular territory for a number of years now. I don't know if they have been displaced by the Swainson's, or if they are sharing the hunting grounds. 

I always love the fresh yellow-green of new foliage in the spring, and the variety of tones and interesting shapes in this Elderberry shrub in our front yard are certainly eye-catching.

These clouds are very typical of summer cloud formations on the prairies, stacked up and stretching back to the distant horizon. Due to the wet ground from the melting of the big snows of this past winter, few fields have yet been tilled or planted, as the ground is still too soft for the big farm equipment to work. I did see one tractor and cultivator out today for the first time this year, so things must be drying up at last.

This fuzzy bunch of crocuses is located in our front yard. I love backlit photos, and the furry coating on these stems and flowers light up perfectly in the early evening as the sun sinks lower in the sky.

With the quantities of meltwater ponds in the countryside, there are also quantities of waterfowl. This fine Shoveler and his lady companion have been cruising up and down in the flooded ditch alongside the entry road to Ebon stables in the past week. I hope they aren't planning on setting up house here, as the water will be gone in the next few weeks. In the meantime, they are tidying up whatever they can find to eat in the grasses and at the bottom of the "pond".

Forgot to mention this! I will be one of the artists featured at the Saskatoon Forestry Farm 100th Anniversary celebration, Sunday May 26th, Noon to 5 PM. We'll be in the largish building at the southeast side of the zoo parking lot. Free admission to the park and activities ( but not the zoo) for the day. Come by and say hello.

Crazy

Crazy that in last week's post I was commenting on the final (seemingly, we're never totally sure) departure of winter, and as I sit at the studio computer today, I have my fan and air conditioning on and it's still pretty warm up here. The whole mid to south part of the province is under alert for grass fires due to extreme dryness and wind conditions, and one week later it's just a whole different set of circumstances.

I finally got farther away from the city than the stables where my horse lives. A friend and I wanted to head out to an open studio pottery and painting sale the better part of an hour east of the city. It took us all weekend to achieve this, but we did get there in the end. Saturday we headed out in her car, planning to take our time and stop wherever our fancy took us to do photos. This worked well for the first while, until after one stop an ominous red light on the dashboard appeared. The car was overheating, not a good thing. We read up on what to do in the manual, followed instructions and all seemed well. For about eight kilometres. Then the red light was on again and we pulled off to the side of the road ( a busy and narrow highway with no shoulders at all ) into a farmer's lane entry and started making phone calls. The better part of two hours later, the tow truck from the city appeared, followed by my friend's husband a some time later. I have to commend Astro towing for this wonderful employee, as he was very professional and reassuring, and wouldn't leave to take the car back to the city until Donna's husband arrived and he knew we would be safe. By the time we got back to the city, it was suppertime and we were bushed. Since the open studio is a once a year event, and Donna had never been there, she was still really keen to go, so Sunday morning we headed off again, this time in my car, and we finally got to our original destination.

Shot one is from the first day, and shows a small portion of a huge flock of snow geese that were resting up on their trip to the northern breeding grounds. Despite the large pools of standing melt-water in the fields, the ground itself is very dry due to lack of precipitation and the recent warm and windy weather.

Things were still fine in our little world when I took shots two and three. This is the very small town of Peterson where I wanted to collect some grain elevator shots. These icons of earlier days in the prairies are disappearing quickly, and I take the chance to photograph any that I come across, both as a record and for use in my art work.

Shot three features a now abandoned church, also in Peterson. I'm not up on my religious structures, but this is likely a Ukrainian Orthodox church. There is a newer and still functioning church, not of this type,  across the street, and when we made our second foray past Peterson on Sunday morning we were amazed at the number of cars parked outside it for morning services.

When we finally got to the open studio, I was delighted to realize that they have a pair of sealpoint Siamese cats, who were much in evidence. I have had Siamese in the past, and love them dearly, although I think my days of cat ownership are now behind me. These fellows reminded me of our long departed but fondly remembered Uncle Roger, a Siamese who appeared as a stray on our doorstep one bitter winter, and become a loved family member. Here we see the typical feline disregard of anything other than their own wishes and convenience.

Shot five shows the impressive exterior of North Star pottery. It is a repurposed church, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, that has been renovated to serve as studio and living space for Mel Bolen and Karen Holden for several decades. (click on their names for a link to their work)  The pottery operation carries on here year-round, but for the summer months Karen has a wonderful barn loft studio overlooking the fields that inspire her. It wasn't yet open for the season this year, with the endless winter having only just departed, so we didn't get to see it this time round.

Spring at last comes to Saskatchewan

Winter has finally wandered off elsewhere for at least a few months, and we are now enjoying (and I do mean *enjoying*) sun and warm temperatures. Lots of activity around the city this past weekend with everyone getting out of doors and taking advantage of the end of winter. Grandson Mark and I made an expedition to the Farmer's Market, but having been so recently in snow and ice management mode, I really couldn't wrap my mind around all the market garden flowers and bedding plants on offer. My yard was under several feet of snow only a couple of weeks ago. How can I contemplate flowering plants already? I think I need some transition time here. Note: this is not a complaint!

Shot one illustrates what I mean. These are both shot from more or less the same spot in the back yard, less than one month apart. Quite a difference in the landscape in a short time. The snow had receded a fair amount even in the top shot. The horse head sculpture at the left of the top image had snow right up to the horse head, with none of the base showing at all. Shot two shows a little snow still lingering along the far fenceline, but since it was 29 C / 84 F today, it's not going to last much longer. The yard looks pretty shabby at this stage, but we'll get it knocked into some sort of shape over time. 

We feed the local and itinerant birds all year round, and enjoy the visitors that come to eat, drink, and sometimes nest at our establishment. Here is a pair of house finches, the male being the more brightly coloured of the pair. I got this shot last week. I'm not sure whether they nest in this area, or if they go farther north for breeding season. 

I love the colour combination of the intense red of dogwood branches against a clear blue sky.

Mark and I walked along the riverside pathway en route to the Farmer's Market on Saturday, and observed this busy muskrat working away by a pond area below the walkway. Since we have so much meltwater from the snow in the countryside, the muskrat population is quite active, but I wasn't expecting to see this fellow right in the city.

There were a few residual chunks of melting ice in the Ebon stables dugout on Sunday. I liked the sculptural effect of this one. It makes me think of a big skull of some sort, with a long-toothed jaw. I'm glad I stopped to get shots when I did, as the dugout was completely free of ice today.

It's a Saskatchewan thing

The end of April is nigh, and we in Saskatchewan continue to moan and groan about the lack of spring, although Saturday, the warmest day we've seen since last October, made a nice stab at it. Sadly, it was an isolated event and we are back to cold, wet and windy, at least where I am. In the course of the day while listening to the radio, I have heard reports of prairie grass fires, washed out roads, flooding, snowfall, and the possibility of heavy thunderstorms, depending on what part of the province you are in. It's a Saskatchewan thing. This is a big province and just because it's dry and on fire in one part doesn't mean another area will be spared a heavy snowfall on the same day. 

Our resident sparrows are carrying on as if everything was all right and are staking out their territory in the various birdhouses around our yard. This one is popular as while it is somewhat lacking in paint, it is nicely situated right by the feeding station and our small pond, so it has a lot of convenient amenities close at hand. 

Shot two illustrates some of the flooding potential with the melting of the big snow pack. This is Ebon Stables on Saturday. My last trip out prior to that was a few days before, when there was no water at all to be seen in this area. We're actually lucky to be having cool temperatures just now as it helps slow down the melt and keeps the water levels from being even worse.

The young Warmbloods down the hill from Ebon are making forays out into the pasture, another sign of the changing seasons, as they have been sticking close to their hay and shelters in the farmyard all winter. Soon enough ( I hope) they'll be finding some new bits of grass to feast on.

We've made a start at yard cleanup now that much of the snow has gone. We didn't get the place prepped for winter very well last fall as the snow came early and stayed, catching us by surprise. The front yard gargoyle seems willing to do his bit to get the "sidewalk cafe" area sorted out.

More water. This is the employee parking lot of a business on the road to the stables. Guess rubber boots would be pretty essential workwear these days, if only to get from the parking area to the buildings.

Slow progress

I detect a bit of progress on a couple of fronts this week. One is the now much improved behaviour of my computer after its visit to the Mac specialists. Turns out that all the "freezing" problems and subsequent forced shutdowns I've been enduring were caused by a downloaded program that I had installed. It was running perpetually in the background and giving my other operations grief. I have now uninstalled it and things are running rather well now. That's not a solution I would ever have come up with on my own, so it was worth the couple of days of being without my precious and the modest fee charged for diagnosis. 

The other bit of progress is with the gradual departure of the snow. There's still lots of it around, just less than this time last week. We have set new record low temperatures for the coldest March and April here in one hundred and thirteen years. I'm not sure who would have been around this part of the world with the time to take note of what it was like then, but this is what the weather experts are stating. This time last year the daytime high was 21 degrees C / 70 F.  Today we made it up to 0 C / 32 F. Sigh. 

I still can't drive but my husband has been getting me out to Ebon Stables a couple of times a week to visit my horse. Shots one and two show the withdrawal of the snow, creating the usual sea of mud, and the large amount of snow yet to melt, giving even more spectacular and depressing mud options. 

Shot three shows some hopeful signs of life renewing itself in our front garden. This is an Alpine perennial of some sort, so it makes sense that it would be one of the first to pop out despite the ongoing cold.

I got this shot yesterday, of a pair of visitors to our house, siblings owned by a local fellow Boxer lover. I last saw this pair when they were only a few months old, so I see quite a difference in them. One thing that hasn't changed is their size difference. They are litter-mates who were very different in size right from the get-go, with the male being very large (and he now weighs approximately 95 lbs) and his "little" sister, still a petite lady, being very little, at least compared to brother.

Shot five is one of my newer image transfer tiles, this one done for an equine event. I see that this image isn't as sharp as it might be photographically, but it still gives the idea. I've been continuing to add images to my new art sales website, so check out www.1-judy-wood.fineartamerica.com to see what's new. 

Success this time---

Well, it seems the planets are lined up right for me to get photos into this blog today. I'm not sure if my problems are with my system or elsewhere, but I'm beginning to suspect my main hard drive of getting ready to give  me grief, so in a rare fit of foresightedness I plan to deal with this before the crisis happens. In the meantime, we're good to go here for today.

Last week most of the shots I was planning to share featured the deep snow and wintery conditions that prevail in Saskatchewan, despite us being well into April. Not to worry, there's still lots of snow to go around for this week's images as well.

Shot one shows how we all feel about the snow and endless winter here. This shot was taken a couple of days ago on the way home from Ebon stables. I still can't drive yet, but Jim is taking me out to the barn a couple of times a week to get my horse and barn fix. It's nice to get out of the city after being housebound for so long.

The crows have returned, and many evenings I can get a few shots (albeit in very bad light) as they congregate before heading off to wherever they are roosting in the evenings. I got a series of shots of this crow and his/her friend on the back lane telephone pole a few nights ago. I love the messy expressiveness and personality this silhouette shows.

Here is one of the shots from last week, showing the snow on our side street. Looks pretty much the same today.

I was mildly horrified a few days ago when a friend posted on Facebook that the pelicans had returned to the city. Since we had to head across town today on a shopping outing, I got Jim to stop by the river weir to see for myself. Sure enough, I spotted at least a couple on the far side of the river. I only had one chance for a shot. As soon as I took this one my camera battery announced it was done, so I'm lucky to have this one. I'll get out for more before long, as it's not often I get to photograph ice and pelicans at the same time, poor things.  The pelican is a bit hard to see, but is pretty well in the middle of the image just beyond the finger of ice. There are a couple of ducks of some sort as well, to the right.

I continue to load images into the various galleries in my new sales website,
1-judy-wood.fineartamerica.com . The image below is one of the new ones, in the Fantasy/Mystery gallery. There are a lot more images and a couple of new galleries since last week's post, and there will be more to come.

Three strikes and I'm out

This seems to be yet another of those nights when this blogging platform and my computer can't get along. I've tried loading photos three times now, had the computer freeze and had to do a forced quit each time.   That's my limit, so no photos tonight. Maybe next week.

I even had some outdoor shots (all of snow of varying depths from our neighbourhood and the stables in the country) since I have now been on a few out-of-house trips in the past week. My recovery process continues well. I can walk relatively normally and am off pain pills for the first time in well over a year.

One of my projects for my still mostly indoors life is creating a "sales" website with Fine Art America. I wasn't going to mention this until I had it more complete, but in the interests of giving you the option of some visuals, here's the link http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/1-judy-wood.html So far there are three galleries. I'm still adding to the horses one, and have two or three galleries yet to add. I'll give another heads up when it is more complete.