OK, I'm back in a somewhat compromised (healthwise) form, but can now function at a basic level much of the time. Still have some "queasy stomach" symptoms and no stamina or energy levels, but I can totter around and make it to the barn and out to get a few photos, all of which I have been doing over the past few days, in between lying down sessions on my couch.
I'm aware that Christmas has come and gone. In fact, I rallied surprisingly on Christmas day, enough that I could thoroughly overdo things and set myself back considerably, but the season is about over-doing things, after all. My life had the added complication in the week running up to Christmas day of having to deliver and administer 30 antibiotic pills per day (in two dosing sessions twelve hours apart) for a week to my horse Alpac who had an infected surface wound in his hock area. This entailed, on a few days when I was too sick to drive, poor Jim driving me to the barn in the pitch dark and minus thirty degree temperatures so I could give Alpac his pills (cleverly disguised in a very tasty mix of his beet pulp with added molasses, applesauce, corn syrup and chunks of apple and carrot) for the evening and leave the AM concoction for the barn staff to serve up the next morning. We had a week of this, ending on the 24th.
Christmas day went off well for all concerned, with me hosting the traditional turkey dinner for the family members that were around--fewer than usual this year, but given the fragile state of health of many of us, likely that was just as well. Things on the home front were a tad more chaotic and haphazard than normal--- my "last minute" pretense of cleaning and tidying (or at least removing piles of interesting clutter out of view) not having happened on account of the circumstances, but I did log the necessary studio time to complete all my client orders, even though I was up until after 11 PM on Christmas eve fine-tuning the last of the photomontage works. That one was going to a family member so didn't have to get out the door to a client before midnight, mercifully. Somehow when I'm doing my usual last minute work on orders, it never occurs to me to plan an extra day or two's grace in case of things going south. Maybe next year I'll remember to factor that in!
For a change I'm going to detail today's shots from the bottom up. I'd actually rather do it the other way but I can't figure out the logic of how this blog displays photos. For a while I thought I had it cased--load them backwards to how you want them to appear, and they will come out in the right order. So far I've loaded these both in the order I *want* them to appear, and in the *reverse* order to how I want them to appear, and they come out backwards anyway. I'm reasonably keen on chronological order for these and it irks me that I can't get them to load in any form other than the reverse of what I would prefer, but I'm not willing to spend any more time trying to sort it out at the moment, so we'll be talking about them from the bottom up. I'm sure you're all bright people and can rise to this challenge of pairing the text to the image. Maybe next time I'll do them all in totally random order and you can try to figure out which description goes with which picture!
Shot five is one I took when I was still pretty sick but able to make it up to the top of the house to the studio for brief periods. It was minus 35 with a wind chill making it feel about minus 45, and as I looked out one of the windows to the southwest, I could see the setting sun shining through the furnace exhaust of the neighboring houses. I had to climb up onto a step-stool to get this and work around the rather ugly telephone poles and power lines, but I like the end result.
Shot four is one I got on Christmas eve day, mid to late afternoon. There is just enough snow in the countryside now to make interesting drift sculptures, if you can get to them before they are destroyed by snowmobilers. These ones caught my eye as they glittered in the sun en route home from my afternoon visit to the barn. The bonus for me was as I was standing on the edge of the highway taking my shots, not a life-form in sight, I could hear a far-off and faint noise. As it got closer I realized it was coming from above, and I looked up to see a pair of ravens swooping and diving in their synchronized flight as they came south along the line of the road. I managed a couple of shots of them as they passed overhead and left me with a smile on my face, feeling I'd been offered an early Christmas gift.
Shots three and two are a couple of the above-mentioned client works that I got done up just in time. These feature two sisters (and their horses) who ride at Ebon, both really good kids, devoted to their horses, and darn good riders as well. The color schemes were dictated by each girl's personal preference. These are mixed media collages featuring photo elements and various painted papers on stretched canvas.
The first (and last, as it were, keeping our reverse logic in mind) shot is of a Christmas gift we received of homemade jellies--always a welcome treat, and in this case one of them made from sour cherries from our own bushes that my friend Sue picked in late summer. Nice way for them to come back to us! Jim had set them on the edge of the dining room table on Christmas day, and as I walked by my eye was caught by the deep glow of the red as it was lit from within by the low winter sun. I'm now thinking about more shots of this sort as a homey "domestic" series of small works. The great thing about this subject matter is it doesn't take off on you with no notice, unlike my usual animal subjects.
So that was my week---not bad, all things considered, but still lots of room for the new year to bring improvement. My main concern now is not having ridden for a couple of weeks, between Alpac's and my own downtime. Miracles aside, I can't see riding for about another week yet, but at least I can get out a bit and do photos, and that's always a good option for me.
You can see a nice "horses in snow" shot that I posted yesterday on the Horse Art Blog--one of many good shots I managed since not only was it snowing, but it was actually a tolerable temperature! Works for me. Happy New Year to all!
