My original plan for tonight was that I would be out at a friend's very nice farm, getting shots of her horses and the various other interesting species that she cares for, on a lovely prairie evening, ending with a nice series of sunset shots. Instead, I am here at the computer waiting (with a limited amount of optimism) for the city crews to appear and diagnose/fix our major out-drain so that we can use our sinks and other even more vital facilities that put water into the city sewer system.
It started around noon today. I had put on a load of laundry and was getting myself some lunch after a nice morning of lurking in the garden trying to photograph our varied bird population, with a little bit of recreational weed-pulling on the side. I needed some more yogurt to go with my fruit, so popped down to the basement to access my back-up supplies from the little downstairs frig. I had one of those "what am I seeing?" moments as I stopped on the stairs just short of the small lake of water covering much of the basement floor. Right.
A quick glance showed me that the water was the outflow from the washing machine, and that the floor drain at the base of the machine wasn't actually draining anything. Luckily we have a wet-dry vacuum cleaner which was for a change right there where I needed it, and not miles away being used by other family members. I'd never run it before, but fairly quickly figured it out, although I do confess to wondering if I'd be electrocuted in the process as vacuuming water (or doing anything with water and a machine that involves an electrical outlet) just seemed so wrong. However, it did the job with great efficiency and I soon had the worst of it handled. By this time Jim had come home from his morning's work, and we agreed that this was likely a "tree roots in the drainage pipes" blockage, and that with any luck it would be the city's tree and their job to sort it out for us. We're still working on this theory, although it is many hours since we called and were told they would "try" to come out today to get us functioning again. Turns out their work day extends to 11 PM so there is still a chance we'll see them sometime in the next few hours. In the meantime, I have to stay here and hold the fort, as Jim had a "date" to go to the Fringe festival with a friend, so my photo shoot is postponed for another night. Might not have worked out anyway as we had a bit of a deluge (first one in several days) just around suppertime and things are still cloudy and decidedly soggy.
We had a lovely week and week-end, all in all (long weekend too!) as can be seen by today's photos. Shot one shows my grandson and partner in crime, Mark, doing some hauling on Thursday. The neighbours down the street had some large chunks of wood left over from a mulch job, and I thought I could make use of them as decorative elements in my front yard area, which tends to the rustic. Mark was delegated to be the mover of these chunks, and I caught a photo of him and Arrow inward-bound with their haul. The sad little dead tree in the background is one of the many victims of the strange fall and tough winter that claimed a lot of trees and shrubs.
Saturday morning saw me heading west of the city to a lovely horse facility that was hosting the Oldenberg Inspection of mares and foals, part of a rigorous program common to many of the Warmblood horse breeds (and indeed of many others) to keep the quality of new generations high and to uphold the breed standard. The inspectors were from Germany, touring western Canada and stopping at various locations to grade the horses on offer. This was a first for Saskatchewan, and seemed well received by the testers. Shot two shows a very bold little filly, totally confident and unconcerned about her poor mother who was not happy to have the youngster free-lancing around the ring on her own. Note the braided mane on this little one. I've never seen braids (and nice ones, too) in such a young foal. That has to be a testimony to someone's patience and determination!
Sunday I was at a small horse show at Ebon Stables, doing show shots for various clients.
One of the visiting horses was Enzo, who now lives about a half hour out of the city, but who in former years was owned by the person I got my gelding Alpac from, and indeed they were "room-mates" for several years before I acquired Alpac. The boys hadn't seen each other for over ten years, so we let them say hello over the gate. I'm not sure how to assess their reactions to each other, but Alpac (black on the right) at least was certainly very interested and perky. Enzo was a little more low key, but that pretty much sums up their personalities anyway. It was really a treat to see the boys back in the same place at the same time after all those years. Funny thing is they both started out in Cranbrook BC and each made their way to Saskatoon over the course of the years.
Towards the end of the horse show, one of my barn friends came along to tell me that the baby barn swallows near the pony pen were having flying lessons. I made my way up there after the show and they were still in the area. Even a fledgling barn swallow is pretty hard to photograph in flight, but I caught this little one just in process of the pre-launch count-down. I always marvel at the acts of courage and faith these valiant little things display when they try their wings out for the first time.
I finally got all the Saluki dog show awards completed (and on time, too) and that show was this past weekend in Calgary. Shot five shows one of the images I created as part of this project.
I call it "Saluki Heritage", and it was this concept that had me heading out a few weeks ago to get my Peregrine falcon shots. I still plan to get back to the falcon place for more, as it is an exciting photo op for those of us who hunt images.
And before I leave you for this week, the excellent news for me is that finally Alpac got his horse shoes back on and I actually was able to ride on Saturday for the first time in two months! Regular readers have put up with me moaning about this for all of the two months--if you are new to this blog, the short version is that we have had such massive amounts of rain that the mud was pretty much sucking shoes right off the horse's feet. I gave up trying to keep Alpac shod until it was dry enough that they would stay on. He needs the shoes for a problem with his front feet, and while he is "pasture sound" without them, he needs them for work under saddle. I haven't handled this well, but now, with any luck, it is all in the past for us. :-) 
