Judy Wood art/photography

Another good-bye

2012-01-23T19:51:00.000-06:00

We ran out of time for one of our dear dogs this past week. After over a year of struggling to keep Mickey's health problems under control and still give him a good quality of life, we had to concede the battle. His medications were failing on a regular basis, his dignity, comfort and sense of pride were under assault by his illness, and the equilibrium between good and bad days was tipping in the wrong direction. His refusal to eat in his last couple of days was the final message we needed to make the decision to let him go. Many times over the past year, when we were experiencing a downturn in his condition, one or the other of us would cautiously and carefully mention that maybe his time was coming. The other person (we traded back and forth on this) would say "no, not yet", and indeed he would rally and we'd see him return to a reasonable quality of life. Last Wednesday was the first time that we both agreed the end was at hand.

As it happened, we already had a vet appointment for the next morning, as Oscar needed some blood work done. Since it was a viciously cold morning when no-one would voluntarily go out, we thought our chances of getting Mickey into the clinic at the same time were good. That turned out to be the case, so we all set off for Mickey's final journey. He went very quietly in lovely surroundings at Forest Grove vet clinic. They have a comforting room with big windows, many plants, comfortable chairs, and a rug in front of a fireplace for the departing friend. On thinking about it after the fact, I'd be happy to lie down in front of that fireplace and go peacefully myself when my time comes. Jim, Oscar and I were all with him, and for what it was, it was the best it could possibly be. Go in peace, old friend.

Shot one shows Mickey and brother Oscar as tiny puppies, photo courtesy of their breeder. Oscar is on the far right, Mickey is resting his head on Oscar. Their life story saw them separated as puppies, to different owners in different provinces, then as their intertwined fates evolved, Mickey ended up with our family as a young adult, having had two previous owners before he came to us. Brothers reunited.

Shot two shows the boys as six year old adults. That's Mickey on the left. His first owner campaigned him as a show dog, hence the cropped ears. I have always stayed with natural ears for the Boxers I have raised, and even the show world is slowly evolving to accepting non-cropped ears. It was often quite hard to get a good shot of Mickey. He was a very handsome dog, but somehow contrived to look neckless and squat in many of the shots I have taken of him over the years.

Shot three shows Mickey more recently (earlier this year), greying out but with a lot of mature dignity, in a characteristic position catching some of the morning sun in the dining room.

Shot four is one of my favourite shots of Mickey, showing his alert good looks when he was in his prime.

Shot five shows the fireplace-mantle shrine commemorating our boy. It features an art image I did a number of years back from the photo above, flowers sent by my daughter in BC, and a stylized pen and ink work by Mickey's second owner, who lives in the city and has kept in touch with him over the years.

Sad as it has been to see our boy go, we are grateful to have had him in our life. He was the one who worried about us, kept track of our comings and goings, did security patrol in the back yard, welcomed guests with great enthusiasm, and generally took on the responsibility of keeping everything in hand on the home front. Oscar, the entitled brother raised by us, was more than happy to hand over all responsibility to Mickey in order to log more time on our bed. Mickey was the "what can I do for you?" brother, whereas Oscar is all about "what can you do for me?" Doubtless I went astray somewhere with the one I raised! Oscar has changed his patterns a bit since Mickey left us, and now seems to feel the need to check on us a bit more often, but he certainly lacks Mickey's dedication to the job. I think for Mickey it was a calling and one he fulfilled well.

A change in the weather--

2012-01-16T20:52:00.001-06:00

In the big scheme of things, nothing much (as usual) of great import happened this week. Since we mostly live in the "small"scheme of things in our day to day lives, I can report a couple of notable items. One is that we finally have winter here. Not just a bit of winter either. We are plunged into a classic Saskatchewan January deep freeze. We've gone from daily highs a few days ago of around 0 C / 32 F or a bit warmer, to today's high of -25 C/ -13 F, with the windchill making it feel like something in the mid minus 30s. Throw in the weekend's high winds and relatively heavy snowfall, and it's "instant" winter here.

The other notable family news was that my daughter in Nelson BC acquired two littermate brother Boxer puppies. This wasn't a planned acquisition, but when the little guys turned up in the local SPCA Jen's husband (that would be the one that didn't want either any more dogs or a Boxer) made the arrangements to pick them up and brought them home for her as a surprise. The only thing more surprising than this was his comment that if the third brother hadn't already been spoken for, he likely would have taken all three. Thank goodness for whoever took the other brother! I love my Boxers but I've never raised two from puppies at the same time, and that will be enough of a challenge, I'm sure.

I'll try and get some photos from Jen to share on this blog. Sadly, because of my *own* littermate brother Boxers, now in various degrees of health decline due to their age (they're 11, breed average age is 8), we can't go out to visit as our boys can't be left at a boarding kennel any more, so we stay pretty close to the home front these days.

Shot one today shows the leading edge of the weather front that brought us winter. The ditches and fields that are relatively bare in this shot are now covered with snow.

Once the snow has fallen, it's easier to appreciate the individual shapes and forms of the roadside weeds and grasses, that up to now were just part of a gold-brown mass in the ditch.

I was surprised at how much snow came down overnight on Saturday. Jim spent a good portion of Sunday working at clearing the walks and driveway, with the snowblower and shovel. I was concerned that my perennial plants would be hit hard by the predicted cold as they were uncovered and open to the air, but now that they have a good insulating cover of snow, I'm not too concerned for their welfare. This shot shows our front yard, complete with several bird feeders which are suddenly much more popular.

Here are the above-mentioned fields and ditches with interestingly sculpted shapes formed by the blowing wind.

In the "who knew?" department, we finally got to see some photos that were taken in the late 50s (I'm guessing 1958 or 59). I came across an old film tin in the spare room, and knowing that my grandson likes artifacts from the "old days" of film cameras, I offered it to him. He opened it to find an unexposed roll of film. We had no idea how old or what it was, so Jim thought it worthwhile to take it to a specialty camera store and get it processed and put on a disc. Imagine our surprise when old family photos appeared in the end result. This is one of the shots, showing my friend Heather on the left, me in the middle (great glasses, eh?) and my sister Jean. Location looks to be a hill on the side of the river where the cars were lined up to take a river ferry to the other side. Photographer would almost certainly have been my Dad.

Still November

2012-01-09T20:35:00.001-06:00

So far this year, it's more early November yet again. Mild temperatures (mostly a bit above freezing) by day, a little cooler at night, and very little snow on the ground. That's somewhat offset by an excessive amount of ice underfoot, but for the most part if you are careful you can navigate most of the streets by foot. Since we have yet to experience winter here ( although it is projected to be colder in a couple of days) I was particularly interested today to hear the reports out of Cordova Alaska, where they have had 15.5 meters /18 feet of snow in the last three weeks. At the moment the National Guard has been called out to help the locals deal with it. Since the prairies are a generally dry climate (with the occasional stunning exceptions) year-round, we tend not to get a lot of snow at the best of times. We specialize in dry cold (usually *darn* cold), sunshine, and wind for the most part. Just not yet this year.

With the nice weather, my "winter" photography has continued. Last week I went out to visit a friend and get some photos of her new puppy, Noah. Noah is an Italian mastiff/catahoula leopard dog cross, favouring the mastiff side of his heritage so far, with a calm demeanor and low-key energy. This photo shows him in one of the horse turnouts with his "big brother" Gus, who is a Boxer/Mastiff cross.

After we finished the dog photos, I wanted to check on the part of her horse herd that was close at hand, so we went to visit the young stock in the east pasture. Something was happening off in the distance that had the attention of all the horses. I was running short on time by the time we got out to the horses and didn't get that many shots, so I hope to make another trip soon to spend more time with the equine population at her place.

With the potential end of the nice weather forecast for later this week, I thought I'd better get out to the zoo today to see what I could photograph. I try to go there fairly often, but it's been quite a while since I last got out there. The swans and waterfowl live indoors in the winter, but have access to a fenced yard outside, and that's where I found this swan today, enjoying a good preen in the outdoors.

Many of the animals were quite active when I was at the zoo, including the male lion. He came here a year and a half ago (if I recall correctly, not a given) as a juvenile, but has certainly grown into solid adulthood in the interval. He is now a father as well. The female and the two cubs were in the indoor enclosure and apart from him, and I think he is likely missing the company of his mate.

Here is a close-up shot of his head with his now abundant mane.

Off we go--

2012-01-02T20:12:00.000-06:00

Off we lurch into a new year, which for me has started in a somewhat uneven fashion. I've added another year to my personal count in the past week, with my birthday falling between Christmas and New Year's day. If you're old enough to remember the Beatles' song that has the words "will you still need me, will you still feed me..." you'll know how old I now am.

We had a low-key "in between" week, and a quiet New Year's eve as well. I got a few rides in here and there, working around the riding workshops, schooling show, and "New Year's barn dance celebration at the stables" preparations. Didn't go to the barn dance partly due to dog issues and partly due to my aversion to large gatherings, but of course in retrospect I now wish I had, as it sounds like it was a great event. Maybe next year! :-)

We walked the dogs on New Year's eve, a first as best I can recall since it's normally way too cold for any of us, then vegged out for the rest of the evening. I ended up watching "Airplane" on the comedy gold channel, which was ridiculous (somehow I've never managed to see this movie in the several decades since it came out) but strangely satisfactory viewing for the occasion. Got up New year's day to realize that a blood vessel had burst in one of my eyes overnight and I now look as though I binge-drank so much that my eyeballs started to bleed. Not really an effect I care to cultivate, but not much to be done about it. I didn't even have a glass of wine the evening before, never mind anything stronger!

The strangeness continues with a murdered body having been found this morning on the south side of the highway I take to the stables every day. I often drive down the little gravel road adjacent to the highway, where the body was located, since I can stop to get photos without being in danger from other traffic. Glad I wasn't the one to happen upon the scene today!!

On to cheerier topics and the photos for this week. Shot one is of a Gypsy cob filly at North Fork stables. I went out there on the 31st with my friend Ed (the rocking horse carver) and his extended family. Ed might have a Gypsy cob rocking horse project in his future, and he wanted to take the chance to meet the real thing. Luckily for him, one of the largest herds in the country is just north of the city, so off we went. It was mild but really windy that day, as you can see by the wild mane of this young mare and the dancing snowflakes. It has been a long time since my last visit to the Gypsy cobs, and I don't want to let that much time go by before my next visit. They are endlessly fascinating to photograph and observe.

We've had a touch of snow since Christmas, so the country landscape looks a little more wintery than was the case in the past month. Shot two was taken from the side of the road on another very windy day. Come to think of it, we've had a number of windy days in the past few weeks!

I got a couple of very nice additions to my raven collection for Christmas. This shot shows the wonderful raven silhouette lamp that my daughter in BC gave me. It got slightly damaged during transport, but today I got it mended and installed in the living room. I'm thrilled with it!

My grandson and I went down to the riverbank one day last week for a photo shoot. The light was poor but we toddled along the pathway from the art gallery to the weir and back again anyway. Shot four shows Mark lining up a shot, likely of some of the ducks that are still around on the open water. The footing was quite icy and at one point I slipped a bit, which caused a bit of a reaction from Mark. Thinking how nice it was that my grandson was aware of my advancing years (I think this was the day after my birthday) and concerned about me, I made the comment that since I hadn't broken anything when I went off my horse a couple of months ago, I likely wouldn't have hurt myself if I had fallen. His comment was "but you're carrying *two* cameras!!". Oh, right. Heaven forfend the cameras should be in danger!

There are some interpretive installations along the riverbank walkway, giving information about the various species of birds and animals to be found in the area. While I'm not generally in approval of defacing public property, I did find this little bit of graffiti to be quite funny.

It came and it went

2011-12-26T20:24:00.000-06:00

As it does every year, Christmas has now come and gone, whether we were ready or not. My festive season seems to get simpler as the years go by, so none of the run-up was too stressful. Despite never really going "shopping" as such, I acquired the "family and friends" gifts one way and another over the year, and with one exception also got them dispatched around the country in a timely fashion.

We did our usual family to-and-fro from one household to another on Christmas eve (game night, playing Joker/marble Pursuit -although we have a hand-made wooden board which is visually far superior to the one featured in this link), out to my local daughter's home for gift opening and breakfast on Christmas day, then back to our place for turkey dinner, with me going to the stables in between to help bring in horses and give Alpac his special Christmas beet pulp. One way and another, the entire day pretty much consisted of driving back and forth and food preparation and consumption. We also managed to squeeze in a pack walk with the dogs (our two Boxers and the mini-Dachshund we are baby-sitting) which is a first in many years for Christmas day as it's usually too cold for the dogs. We are sitting on or slightly above freezing temperatures these days so it's really very acceptable for outdoor activities.

One day last week I spotted this coyote in the ditch as I was driving to the barn. He was pretty relaxed, so I was able to get the car onto his side of the road, get stopped, and get the camera focussed on him. He gradually worked his way farther off into the roadside grasses, and the trio of shots below show how he just fades into the surroundings as he gets deeper into the grass.

The lack of snow and warm temperatures here are really remarkable. Normally we'd be looking at 20 below C and snow cover, but not this year. I got shot two as I headed home from the barn last week. It features our barn man exercising his horses in the fields north of the stables. Those power pylons are a real blight on the skyline at the stables, but not much way to avoid them most of the time in pictures.

Shot three shows what was the undoubted hit of this year's Christmas gifts in our family. My daughter bought this wonderful vintage typewriter (we think it's from the early 1930s) for my fourteen year old grandson Mark. Mark is all about "old style" things and has expressed interest in "real" typewriters for several years now. This one was an amazing find, sourced via the local Kijiji listings. The other keyboard gift for Mark this year was a solar-powered computer keyboard. I think he's just about got the bases covered now for keyboard technology, old and new.

We went down to the Mendel Art Gallery today to check out the shows, and took a little walk on the riverbank pathway afterwards. Another seasonal first for us was seeing a kayak on the river. Again, totally unexpected, notable, and really quite wrong in so many ways for Boxing Day.

Today was overcast with little light and low cloud cover right until late afternoon, when the sun emerged briefly before setting to give this wonderful light for photography. I was just leaving the barn at the time and took the long way home via the back roads so I could make the most of the photo op. Shot five is one of my favourites from this shoot.

Apparently not quite that easy

2011-12-19T20:21:00.000-06:00

I've been spending time down in the dump lately. Not in the dumps, as in the odd expression for being unhappy, and, technically, not *in* the dump, just in the general vicinity. After my realization that the lower river road near the city dump is open to traffic again, and that the ravens are hanging out in the area, I've made several trips across town to lurk with the camera in hopes of snagging some decent raven photos. Not an easy task at the best of times. Last week I popped over on the first decent-light day and found a veritable treasure trove of ravens. There were about a dozen perched in a tree right beside the road, all gone, of course, by the time I got the car stopped and the camera focussed. However, they had only gone a short distance to hang out on and around the old train bridge, and were doing overflights to keep an eye on me, so in quite short order I got a *lot* of photos. Feeling very smug and rather pleased with myself after this success, I went home to announce that I had the whole raven photography thing cased now. Fast forward to the subsequent three quite unsuccessful photo attempts since then, and I'm now feeling a bit chastened and humbled. I have no idea what the magic combination of conditions were that allowed me that first wonderful day, but it's starting to look like I'll have to put in a lot of time and effort to duplicate it, if indeed I ever do. Guess this is just another one of those life lessons I seem destined to have to relearn every so often. This one starts out "never assume..."

Shot one shows the progress of the new bridge being built in the vicinity of the raven hangout. Since I only had the big lens that day, I couldn't fit the whole thing into the viewfinder from my vantage point.

Shot two shows the old train bridge where the ravens congregate (at least they do some days!!). There must have been about thirty ravens over, on, and under the bridge while I was there, with a lot more airborne over the dump which is a few kilometres away. The winter raven population in the city is increasing rapidly, which is just fine by me.

Following a recent theme of "big things appearing out of nowhere" on the road to the barn (see the post of a few weeks back showing the large house that suddenly appeared one afternoon) , this wind generator wasn't in evidence one day, and there it was the next. As witnessed by the bare stubble field in the foreground, pretty well all that nice snow we got a month back has melted due to weirdly warm weather in the past few weeks. Tomorrow is supposed to be plus 5 C / 41 F which is really pretty crazy for near Christmas in Saskatchewan.

Yesterday (Sunday) was another lovely afternoon and I suggested we take the dogs to a nearby more interesting park in the area instead of our usual neighbourhood outing. We started off down one of the pathways, and I was just commenting to Jim that the tracks in the little bit of snow were those of a pair of fairly good-sized horses when he said, "and there they are", and we beheld a nice team of greys with a load of happy riders, touring the park area. This isn't a normal experience as our part of the city is nowhere near anything rural, but it turned out to be a free afternoon attraction put on by the school and/or community association. It was certainly popular as the wagon, which held a considerable number of riders seated on straw bales, was fully occupied for the time that we were there, with more riders lining up for their turn. I have to report that this is the closest my dogs have ever been to horses (possibly the first time they have ever *seen* horses, as I certainly don't take them to the barn) and they behaved in an exemplary fashion. Thank goodness.

I had a hair appointment on the west side of the city this morning, so had to head for the dump road one more time since I was on that side of town. Only one or two ravens to be seen in the distance, but the bridge pigeons were doing aerial maneuvers so I got a nice number of shots of them. Not quite what I was after, but I'm always happy to gather pigeon shots when I can. They are masters of the air and so beautiful in flight.

There are a couple of links you can check out if you are so inclined. The Canine Art Guild, of which I am a member, has the latest online dog art show, Helping Paws, up now. Check it out here. I have a digital photomontage as part of this show. It's on the left, a little more than halfway down.

Also check out my latest art photo post in my other blog judywoodartphotographyjusttheart to read about Aunt Doris and how she became part of my rocking horse photomontage.

Settling Down

2011-12-12T20:47:00.000-06:00

Things are slowly settling down now that my my pre Christmas show/sales are done for the year, although I'm still in "order fulfilment" mode, trying to get all the Christmas orders handled and out the door. While it seems that for every item I take off the top of my "to do" list, another three appear on the bottom, I am making progress and I should be able to meet all my deadlines.

I have an odd follow-up to my post of a few weeks back (Nov 20) regarding the courteous thief who went through my vehicle and removed my parking change in its special cup, but left the GPS unit and all other items, which I appreciated. Fast forward to early last week when we were heading down the front walk with the dogs for a late afternoon walk. Jim spotted something in the snow by the walkway to our house, and when he picked it up, it turned out to be the stolen change cup from the car, thoughtfully returned after a couple of weeks of being MIA. I'm not sure if this is a thief with a conscience (although the few dollars in coins were still missing), or if they are blog readers and read that I wanted the cup back. Either way, it's an entertaining end to the story.

The main concern for local residents these days is the horrendous ice coat on most streets and sidewalks since the big snow followed by the big melt of a couple of weeks ago. Shot one shows the glare of the late afternoon sun reflected on the ice of the streets in our neighbourhood. Most of the sidewalks are covered in glare ice as well, so walking is hazardous and stressful, and even the dogs are slipping and having their legs go out from under them. Needless to say, the turnouts at the stables and the roadways from barn to turnouts at Ebon Stables are pretty treacherous as well. Luckily the horses tend to be sensible about being careful when the footing is so bad, but they are all getting energy build-up due to not being able to run around outside as they are used to. We really need a good dump of snow to cover the ice so we can all get on with regular programming as far as winter goes.

Shot two shows the interesting cloud formation I saw on the way home from the stables last week.

Shot three features an old barn that was scheduled for demolition last Saturday, so by now it's history. I learned about it from one of the barn owners, who noted my fascination with old farm buildings while at the Sundog show the previous weekend. She inquired about my interest in photographing old barns, and indicated that I would need to move quickly if I wanted to shoot this one. I knew I would regret it if I didn't follow up on this opportunity, so on Wednesday I headed out to the farm site to get some shots while I could. You can't tell from the lovely warm light in this photo, but it was appallingly cold that day. Temperature-wise it was only about minus 5 C, but there was a fiercely strong wind that put the wind-chill into the low minus twenties. I got the shots I was able to as quickly as possible before my hands seized up completely, then was more than happy to head indoors for a welcome cup of hot coffee in the farmhouse. The house itself is wonderful, a very well cared-for and maintained Victorian farmhouse. The barn was from the same era and they would have been willing to restore it, but it had shifted on its base and was structurally unsound and unsafe, hence the need to take it down. Another grand old pioneer building gone, but at least I got some photos.

On Friday we headed out to Solar Gardens to check out their Christmas offerings and take some supplies for their SPCA fund-raiser. I got this shot on the way home as we were approaching the city. This was taken around noon, and shows how little light we have been seeing on the many cloudy days of the past week. This is looking south over the South Saskatchewan River, which is starting to ice up as winter tightens its grip.

A little closer to the city, we came upon this fine raven having a snack by the side of the road. He was refreshingly non-spooky as ravens go, so we were able to slow right down and get a few shots before he moved along. It really helps to have decent light for raven photos, so as soon as the sun returns (if ever) I plan to go back to that area for more raven photos.

This week marked the launch of a wonderful new website, Network for Art Collecting (NAC) . This is a content-rich "go to" site for everything to do with art and artists in Saskatchewan. This province has a disproportionately large number of artists and fine craft artisans for the size of the population. Nobody quite knows why, but it's been that way for a long time. It's nice to see a site that gathers together such a lot of information on Saskatchewan art and artists. I'm glad I took up the option of being a part of this comprehensive site. I'm in the "artists" area, under the Ws.

Thank goodness that's all over

2011-12-05T19:58:00.000-06:00

Two three-day shows two weekends in a row is kind of challenging. Add in the computer problems of the "between shows" few days, my lower back issues, and the dog's meds not working right, and I feel a bit like I was caught in the revolving door for a few too many rotations. However, I have now been flung out into the world of house chaos and Christmas prep, which actually seems like an improvement.

The brief version is: show number one was good for sales. I was set to start printing replacement photos for show number two last Monday when I remembered I needed to write my blog. Got the memory card into the reader to download some shots, and the whole system hung up. I have a Mac and usually if things go wrong you turn it off and when you turn it back on everything is fine. Tried this, then couldn't get the computer to turn all the way on or all the way off. It was just sort-of somewhere in the middle and no amount of forced quits or restarts could change it. After it spent a day and a night at the local Mac store, the verdict was "computer is fine". They wondered if it might be a card reader issue since that was where things started going sideways. Took the card reader and memory card to the store for them to try out, and sure enough it was the darn card reader that was somehow messing up the entire system. So now I have a new card reader and have downloaded both sizes of memory card with no problems. All is well.

Shot one was taken a week ago as I headed out to the stables for a quick visit to my horse, not having seen him for a few days due to show number one. This rather large house had appeared out of nowhere since my previous trip to the barn. That's a lot of house and garage to get onto a flatbed! As of today it is on its foundations and all settled in. Now there is an endless stream of huge dump-trucks dumping earth between the house and the highway. I assume there is a game plan, but I'm not sure what it is, unless they are planning to build hills. They have already constructed a massive pond on this site, so I suppose hills aren't totally unlikely. Time will tell.

I can't remember the name of this decorative grass, but I love the visuals in the winter and often shoot it in the late afternoon as I am coming home from the barn. I always have my camera with me then and the grass is just at eye-level to me as I am pulling into the driveway.

One of the positive outcomes of the computer panic for me was that it galvanized me into getting more one-of-a-kind artworks done. Since I could neither access nor print any of my photo art images, I thought I'd better cover the gaps in the system by getting some mixed media work done for the show.

Shot three is a raven mixed media collage that I really liked. I debated whether or not to take it to the show as it would have fit nicely into my raven shrine in the living room, but in the end I took it and it has sold and moved on to a new home. I'm sorry I didn't get better quality shots of it, but at least I have something. It's not really that light on the bottom--there's a bit of a glare issue in the photo.

Shot four is a mixed media encaustic of wasps, with the grey stripy bits being real wasp paper that we gathered in the fall when the wasp nests were abandoned.

Shot five is another encaustic with image transfers. The raven is one of the young ones I photographed and posted about a couple of weeks ago.

So I managed to get enough work done for show number two. I even got some new photos printed once the computer was back. It wasn't a stellar show for sales, but was excellent for making contacts so overall would have to be considered a success.

Checking in briefly

2011-11-30T11:34:00.000-06:00

Tried to download some photos on Monday for the weekly blog, got into a state with the computer where I couldn't turn it on, so it's been in the shop for diagnosis. Turns out not to be the computer (yay) but the card reader having gone rogue and making the computer freeze. Now I'm so far behind printing images for the Sundog sale that starts Friday that I have no time to do this week's blog. Come to Sundog and see all the new stuff if you are in Saskatoon and area on the weekend. Friday-Sunday at Credit Union Centre (aka Sask Place for we who have been here a while). Plan to spend at least a couple of hours as there are over 200 booths to check out. I'm in my usual spot on the concourse/upper/entry level. Hope to see you there, and the blog will resume as usual next Monday, all else permitting!!

Plunged into winter

2011-11-21T19:56:00.001-06:00

We seem to be well and truly into winter now, and despite the fact that the temperatures are forecast to moderate to possibly a couple of degrees above freezing later in the week, there's enough snow on the ground already that I think it's here to stay. It's been darn cold, too, for the time of year. Temperatures in the low teens C / -1F with nasty winds taking the windchill effect into the low 20s C/-28 F, and colder at night. All kind of sudden and a bit of a shock. I've got the horse well dressed for the season with his blankets, but have yet to root out my own seasonally adequate head and hand gear.

Mid-week I went to the car to head out to the barn, to discover that the insides had been "tossed". There was a great pile of oddments from all the various compartments sitting on the passenger's seat. This certainly wasn't how I left it the night before, and when I asked Jim if he had been piling through it for some reason, he denied all knowledge. This all seemed strangely familiar, and I believe was the work of the "considerate thief". My car occupies the driveway in winter, and Jim's newer model gets the garage. There have only been about two occasions in the five years that I have owned this car when I have forgotten to lock it up overnight. Both times the thief has struck. This leads me to contemplate the mathematical odds of this being random chance, or, alternately, to think that this person tries the doors of my car every night and has gotten lucky twice in five years. Either way, it's a tad strange. I am grateful, however, that they only want cash. Last time they didn't even get that as they somehow overlooked the coin cup that had the pittance of parking money in it. This time they got both the cup and the cash, but luckily for me, although they moved the GPS unit from its hiding place and added it to the pile on the passenger seat, they didn't make off with it or anything else, although come to think of it my car's collection of filthy and broken horse halters wasn't likely all that appealing. All in all, if you have to have a thief in the area, you could do worse than be victimized by this one.

Shot one was taken in the midst of the most recent fall of snow. Rather dark for photography, although it wasn't yet four in the afternoon. This shows one of the Ebon school horses waiting for the supper feed to be delivered, back to the wind.

Shot two shows what I encountered on the way home the next day. This is somewhat notable in that the city seems to be taking street clearing seriously for a change, and also shows the amount of snow already accumulated.

Yesterday I was huddled in my studio trying to avoid going out for the groceries I had to get, when Jim and grandson Mark came in from an outing to announce the presence of two ravens feeding on the ground a couple of blocks east of us. That got me out the door very fast, and I got several entertaining shots. They were quite a motley pair, fluffed up against the cold and generally a bit untidy looking. I got the strong impression that they were a pair of teens from this year's hatch. One took off for the safety of a tree soon after I stopped the car, but this one was fairly unconcerned and marched up and down, working on the little stash of peanuts he had secured. Eventually he left too, and I carried on to the grocery shopping. I'm trying to work out what I can put out on the platform feeder to try and lure this pair into my yard. Peanuts won't work as the bluejays will make off with them, but I think some kibbled cat or dog food might be appealing to the ravens and not to our other bird species.

Later the same day I spotted this grand coyote as I was heading out to the barn. He was quite a bit closer to the road when I first caught sight of him, but by the time I got the car stopped and the camera ready, he was moving off. I think he is the same one we saw when we did our field walk north of Ebon a few weeks back. He's very large with a beautiful full and healthy-looking coat.

I'm in show/sale mode for the next couple of weekends. Starting Friday I'll be downtown at TCU place with a booth at Artisan. Anyone in Saskatoon and area that would like to attend the show, email me
at judywood@sasktel.net and I'll send you an email invitation that you can print out for $1 off the show entry price. Artisan is a high-quality showcase of Saskatchewan arts and crafts, and offers a calm and peaceful shopping environment at a hectic time of year.

By the way, I've added a few images over the last while to my "just the art" blog, so head on over there to check it out if you haven't visited in a while. http://judywoodartphotographyjusttheart.blogspot.com

Trial by water

2011-11-14T20:31:00.000-06:00

It's been one of those "caught in the revolving door" kind of days for me. Started way too early (well before 5 AM) with Mickey, the Boxer with the weird and rare form of diabetes, having a crisis of his meds having stopped working and going into uncontrollable pee mode. We've had a few too many of these episodes in the last few weeks, but are modifying the way we are handling the eye drops he gets to control it, and hope we can win through and get it under better control. I finally poked Jim around 5:30 (he's the morning person around here) and suggested he get up to deal with things while I got a couple more hours of sleep.

We had to have my vehicle to the dealers for a recall check (I ended up with a new computer in the car at no charge) by 9:30, then to my friends Ed and Serena to drop off some artwork that they are taking to a show in Calgary. Did some photos of his new work (he's the rocking horse guy) while I was there. Then to the vet college on the way home to get new meds for Mickey. Finished up writing a new Ebon Stable newsletter before heading out to the barn (in Jim's car) to see my horse. Had to rush back from the barn to catch a ride across town to the car dealership for my own car, then carried on to Costco since I was on that side of town anyway and needed a few things. Got to drive home in not-too-bad rush hour traffic, make supper, organize some more of my own art and drive back downtown to deliver it to a gallery for a show next weekend. And here I am. Add in quite a few loads of laundry (all the towels in the house were used to clean up after Mickey) and we're about up to date. Now that I think of it, though, I've still got laundry to finish up. So there you have it, way too much information about my hectic day.

I don't seem to have done a lot of photography this week. Shot one shows the leaves blown onto the snow in the front yard. I like the patterns, shapes and colours of the leaves on the pure white of the fresh snow.

My prints that are going to the Calgary show all feature Ed's rocking horse, and are designed to be a complementary line to his "real life" carved horses. Shots two and three show a couple of examples of these images. I have about a half dozen done so far, with more in the works.

Shot four shows a couple of Ed's newest horses which are substantially smaller than the "ride-on" one featured in my art images. Not a great shot as I was using the flash indoors, but you can get an idea of how charming these little guys are.

Shot five is the invitation to the show my pieces will be in next weekend. This is the second year for the
Little Gems show, and if last year is anything to go by (and the pieces I saw being delivered by the artists this evening), this will be well worth checking out if you are in Saskatoon or area.

Quick turnaround (of the weather, that is)

2011-11-07T19:52:00.000-06:00

It had to happen that one of these days I'd have to stop banging on about the lovely long and mild fall we have had. This weekend (Saturday night and all of Sunday) I got my comeuppance in the form of the first snowfall of the season. The forecast was for flurries, and I figured we'd get a few flakes, then it would melt and we'd be in "business as usual" mode for a while longer. Don't think so. We've got enough snow on the ground to make the streets an icy and treacherous mess, and with enough depth that I think it will likely stay. After making about ten attempts today at phoning the local tire store to see about getting my winter tires installed (line perpetually busy) I finally stopped by and inquired in person about what my chances would be. Looks like if I jump through the right hoops I can get it done before long, which is good as I don't like to take chances with safety issues.

You can pretty well guess which shots I got earlier in the week, and which were taken on Sunday.

Shot one was taken as I was heading home from the stables. The skies were certainly forbidding (this was on Saturday as the weather system was moving in) but the sun in the west illuminated this stubble field and line of trees to make a striking scene that called out to be recorded.

Mid-week I had the fun of heading to Martensville (just north of the city) to do a photo shoot of Ammo the Dogue de Bordeaux and his new young companion, Tonka, also a D de B. It was a lovely day and the boys had a great time romping in their back yard as I took endless shots of them. Ammo's customary rather sober take on life has been modified a lot by having a puppy in his life, and he showed his own inner puppy as they played and wrestled on the grass.

Shot two shows the boys eyeing each other during a brief break in the action.

Shot three is pretty typical of how the boys interact. Ammo is good about getting down low so that Tonka can maul him more effectively.

No direct sun on Sunday, but a lovely luminous quality to the overcast due to the falling and fallen snow. Shot four was taken in the front yard, showing the fruit of the high-bush cranberry with their snow caps. If we're lucky later in the winter, we may get a flock of waxwings feasting on the dried berries.

Shot five is also from the front yard, this time showing the sparrows swarming the nut tube feeder. They get fed daily in four different feeder locations in the yard (two in front, two in back), but they are always interested in other options as well. Although this feeder is not meant for sparrows (mostly we hope to get nuthatches and the occasional woodpecker) they are versatile and resourceful little birds and can usually find a way to exploit all the food options out there. I'm very fond of my home flock of sparrows so have no problem with them going after whatever food source they want.

Out and about some more

2011-10-31T19:18:00.000-06:00

Focussing on writing this post is a little challenging due to the on-going ringing of the doorbell (accompanied by loud barking of the dogs) as the Hallowe'en trick or treaters filter through the neighbourhood. They got an early-ish start in our area and are out in larger numbers than I've seen in the past few years. Nice cheery and polite bunch so far, too. It's a pretty decent night for the end of October in these parts, which is good as we can actually view the costumes, unencumbered as they are by large winter coats as is sometimes the case.

The past week was highlighted in our house by the appearance of our BC daughter, back in the city for a few days to visit and to take in the Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson show (she and her sister loved it). Jen is the photographer daughter, so we made a couple of field trips to some sites of interest.

Trip one was mid-week to my favourite ghost town site west of the city. It was a beautiful sunny fall day, ideal for our purposes. I haven't been to this site for a year, and was encouraged to see that not much has changed. Sometimes there is noticeable minor vandalism of one sort or another, but happily this didn't seem to be the case. Jen hadn't been here before and we spent an enjoyable couple of hours poking around in various nooks and crannies. A great grey owl has taken up residence in the grain elevator since I was last on site, and he took off hooting and swirling around when we got too close. Shot one was taken as a "farewell" image as we were heading back to the car, and until I got home and downloaded this image, I wasn't aware that I had caught the elevator owl heading back to his home

(aiming for the little window in the upper right of the building) now that we were departing to leave him in peace.

We stopped at several other abandoned buildings on the way home from the town, including this one which I love for the wonderful crackled and crazed paint finishes on the interior. Once, this home was well loved and cared for, as evidenced by the nice two-tone paint job, complete with hand-painted border at the intersection of the two colours. That work was done with thought and care by the original owners. On other occasions I have ventured up those stairs, but not this time. There was an odd noise coming from the upper level, and my daughter fled while I lingered to get these shots. I have to say I was a bit spooked myself and was half expecting to see a booted foot suddenly appear on the top step. I was prepared to run if I had to!!

We paused briefly to pay our respects to the remains of the wonderful church at Laura, now sadly in its final throes. It was only a matter of time before this would happen as the "spine" of the main part of the building was broken and sagging, and inevitably gravity would win the battle. Still, it's a shame to see it in this sad state.

Our second outing was to the crooked trees of the Hafford area, a natural aberration I had heard about but never actually visited. We were challenged from the get-go by a darkly overcast day with intermittent rain and the occasional flake of snow, but we persisted with our plan to head out, and while it was still a gloomy and very cold day (it was windy in addition to being just barely above freezing) it did get a bit better as the day progressed. The trip up to the tree area was notable for the number of bald-headed eagles we saw huddled in treetops or soaring over the fields. I saw more eagles in the wild that day than I have in years. Lots of ravens too, although they are quite a bit more of a common site in this area of late.

Shot four shows Jen just entering the twisted tree (or bush, as it is also called) site. There is a small stand of perfectly normal aspen of this sort about ten meters away from the deformed tree area. There is no commonly accepted explanation for the structure of this particular collection of aspens, although theories abound, from unexplained natural mutations to alien interference.

Shot five shows Jen taking a shot from within the site. I've outlined the course taken by a single branch on this tree to show the strange growth pattern. Some of the trees had extreme right-angle deviations, while others favoured more curved and rounded weirdness. The light was terrible for photography and it was so cold that I could hardly move my fingers to press the shutter release button, so these aren't great photos. I certainly plan to go back in more favourable circumstances to spend more time getting photos of this very interesting area.

Art and nature

2011-10-24T19:20:00.000-06:00

My life largely consists of paying attention to art and to nature in various ways, but they merged a bit more than usual this past week. On Friday I was one of the judges for the open/intermediate painting competition for the Saskatchewan Wildlife Art Association's annual juried show. I've judged at this one a couple of times in the past, but in the photography section. It was fun to join other jurors Val Hinz and Carmen Heinrichs to spend some time with the many and varied styles and media on display. I'm always mildly surprised at how consistently artists with different backgrounds and experience can come to the same conclusions when ranking works in a juried show. Occasionally there will be a bit of discussion, but overall the top three seem to rise to the surface with very little effort. I don't understand how this works, just observe that this has been the rule in any competitions I have judged.

Speaking of nature, it seems a bit off in the park down the street from our house. Something not quite right caught my eye when we were walking the dogs a week or so ago, and I realized that it was this little newly planted (late spring this year) apple tree, which is somewhat confused as to the season we are in and is in blossom.

In a different area of the same park, this grand elder statesman has risen to the occasion with a beautiful show of fall colour. We've had a very long and extended fall, with sunny days and little wind for weeks on end. As a result, the trees have been following their own inclinations with some totally bare, others still wonderfully colourful, and some still relatively green. Makes for interesting visuals.

On the weekend, Jim and a naturalist friend and I headed into the north field at Ebon Stables to check out the big wooded area that is a bit of a wildlife haven. We spotted this coyote trotting along the skyline of the harvested field. He was big and healthy looking with a beautiful thick coat. On this same outing we also saw a great horned owl, and many moose tracks around the edges of the watery zone, but mercifully no actual moose. I'm quite fascinated with the idea of the Ebon moose and would like to get some photos, but not when I'm out there on foot with no place to hide. Moose are large, fast, can be aggressive, and are generally dangerous, so caution is always in order.

I'm on the lookout for wasp paper to use in some of my mixed media encaustics. Jim pointed this one out in the bushes on the south side of the stables. It's so pretty that I didn't have the heart to take it away from its setting, so I contented myself with photos for now. I'll keep an eye on it and if it gets torn up by birds or starts to fall apart, I'll help myself to some of it then. It's always a bit of a surprise when the leaves fall and wasp nests are suddenly on view all over the place. This was a big wasp year so I'm sure I'll find lots over time.

The final shot is also from Ebon Stables. I've been having hip and leg pain so my riding is somewhat curtailed. I hadn't ridden for a couple of days and thought I'd turn my gelding Alpac out in the big pen for a bit of a run. He had a wonderful time racing and bucking and visiting with the horses over the south fence. I was just as happy that he was getting all that energy out of his system without me on him! Pretty lively for a twenty-one year old horse.

If you haven't checked out my other blog lately, take a look at what's new. I've done a "grunge" polo image that I'm particularly happy with. http://judywoodartphotographyjusttheart.blogspot.com

Feel free to sign up for new posts on that one (as with this one) by email.

Field trip

2011-10-17T19:59:00.001-06:00

Last week painter Val Hinz and I made a field trip to a friend's farm. We were last there in the spring (well, really more like late winter for the amount of snow on the ground then), and despite our intentions of returning in the summer, it's taken this long for all of us to get on the same page, one way and another.

We've had the occasional day of less than stellar weather in the last week or so, and the day of our outing dawned as a dim and very foggy prospect. We don't get much fog around these parts, and I am always quite happy to shot in the fog, so off we went as planned. The main concern was actually getting to the quiet country grid road that leads to the farm. To do that, we had to drive through the city and then cross a couple of fairly busy highways. That was quite nerve-wracking as the fog was thick enough in the north of the city that we really had to make a calculated assessment/guess of whether there was on-coming traffic, then dodge across quickly hoping for the best. Luckily we made it to the grid, and proceeded slowly with many stops for photos on our way to the farm.

Shot one shows a raven flying through the mist in front of a stand of trees at the side of the road. There were about a half-dozen of them along with a couple of crows and magpies all in one area. I may need to go back to this hang-out on a sunny day to try again for corvid shots. No such thing as enough shots of them.

A little farther along we came to a herd of cows that were fairly near to the road. Val has an interest in doing cow paintings, so she wanted some shots for her files. I was entertained by this pair who were enjoying each other's company. The cow on the left was giving the one on the right a thorough going-over with her tongue, much in the way a mother cat would give her kitten a good cleaning. I don't know if these two are mother and daughter, or are just good friends.

There were a couple of new work-horses at the farm this time round. Both were harnessed up ready to do chores when the time came, and in the meantime were just hanging out and munching on some handy hay bales. I was fascinated by the one in shot three due to its very interesting haircoat. When I asked my friend about the breed input on this one, I learned that it was a Belgian, Curly and Appaloosa cross. The Curly influence definitely predominates in the coat. I've never seen a Curly of any sort before, and was quite fascinated by this horse. I'm curious to see how this kinky coat will look once it has thickened up for winter.

There's always an abundance of barn cats on this farm, and a couple of good farm dogs, one an older veteran, and this handsome young black fellow (black lab/Great Pyrenees cross) who is taking over the more active work of guarding the property and keeping an eye on things. He and all of the cats have a wonderful relationship, as can be seen by shot four.

Shot five shows the herd trotting in the mid-distance out in their pasture. One of the many reasons I enjoy trips to this farm is the interesting variety of species and breeds that co-exist there. The horse breeds represented in this shot consist of Canadians (the two front ones), then the two Hackney fillies, one Clyde, the Quarter horse, followed by the llama and the final Clyde bringing up the rear. Quite the collection of sizes and shapes!

No deadlines--

2011-10-10T19:58:00.000-06:00

Finally a small breathing space for me with no imminent deadlines, having hung a bunch of works in one of the Circle Park Mall public gallery spaces a week ago. I was quite unwell that day with a cold which was miraculously short-lived and lasted only a few days rather than the usual two weeks to a month that is generally my lot. Luckily I had husband Jim to herd me around and assist with what needed to be done. That's about the end of my art obligations until the pre-Christmas shows which start for me at the end of November, although there is an invitational show I might submit to earlier in November. I also have a couple of pieces in the Saskatchewan Craft Council members show, up at the Affinity Gallery now. Whew--now that I stop and look back, it's been a bit hectic on the art display front in the last while.

I also joined the Saskatoon Camera club for the first time this year, and placed first in my category in the birds/wildflower competition for this month with a gull shot.

Most years in the fall we get grackles passing through the area. This year they had their second go-round last week. There were likely a couple of hundred of them in front and back yards over the course of much of a day. Shot one shows one of them (I suspect this must be a male from the plumage) pausing in the big cedar tree by the back deck. These birds are not as hard to photograph as corvids, but still are a bit challenging. Most of my best shots were taken through various windows from inside the house, as they were less aware of my lurking presence. Luckily I was ambitious enough to clean the windows a couple of weeks ago, so shooting through them was actually possible.

Shot two is also from grackle day. I call this one "Simple Sparrow and the Invasion of the Grackles". Simple is a little hatchling from this spring that I believe I have written about here before. She is not a standard-issue sparrow, being a bit slow on the uptake and less given to fear and flight. She's always the one left sitting behind when the flock has fled from a startling sight or sound. She has a very devoted father who I think is the main reason she is still with us, since the finely-tuned survival skills of the species don't seem to exist in her. There were no other sparrows to be seen when the grackles were swarming over the yard, other than poor Simple, who was sitting by her usual feeding spot, wondering what was going on and looking generally confused.

I was lurking in the back yard trying to spot the nearby raven that I could hear but not see, when I looked up through the leaves of the oak to get this shot. The positive and negative shapes of the leaves and their shadows always make me think of jigsaw pieces.

Shot four was taken on an overcast day last week (we did actually get a day or two of rain, for the first time in months) on the way to the stables. A couple of weeks before, this was a grain field. As soon as harvest was over, the digging started for this very large pond and the foundations for a house, not visible to the right of the picture. Instant trees, too. I don't generally approve of good farmland being developed this way, but at least there is going to be a body of water that will be useful to the wild birds of the area. The main part I don't get about this project is why on earth they are building so close to the highway. Seems to me if you can afford a pond of this scale, you can afford the snow removal equipment that would allow you to have your house and pond a little farther away from the road.

It was quite dark all day Friday when we had the rain, but I got out between downpours to catch some water droplet shots while Jim toiled away at the drain on the corner, trying to clear it of the massive amount of leaves that were totally blocking it and flooding the intersection.

Still growing

2011-10-03T21:12:00.000-06:00

Ho hum, yet another week of sunshine and lovely weather, with a brief interlude of a little overcast and cooler temperatures on the weekend. My basil is still untouched by even a hint of frost, something I don't think I've ever been able to say before in October, although it is looking rather exhausted, not aided by the fact that I keep forgetting to water since that isn't generally in the cards at this time of year. Usually by now the hoses are put away, underground water systems drained, and exterior taps turned off until the spring due to the cold. Guess we'll get all those chores done in due course.

I had one final art deadline to meet, which was to sort out the works for a show at a local mall gallery space. Despite me having had a full year (or more) head start, I ended up rethinking the game plan and working to finish new pieces right to the last minute, which was latish last night. Got the work into the gallery space this morning, and now I can forget about it for the next six weeks. If you're in Saskatoon, check it out at the Sienna Gallery (near the movie theatres) in the Circle Park Mall on 8th Street. None of this last-minute frenzy was helped by the fact that I have picked up a cold (almost certainly from one of the masses at last weekend's art show and sale) and feel pretty feeble and pathetic, not to mention that much of my brain seems to be wrapped in cotton wool. I'm in "flop around and read" mode now, with the occasional poking at the computer to edit client horse show shots from the summer. Some day I may reach the end of that job.

Shot one today was taken at Ebon Stables on Saturday. I didn't plan on riding but usually I go out to deliver treats and worship the horse even on non-riding days. I was mildly surprised to note a stretch limo parked out front until I remembered that one of the young woman riders was getting married that day, and had planned on "wedding party with pony" photos. I caught this shot of the departing wedding vehicle as it turned in front of the paddocks, doubtless heading back to town for the reception.

The first weekend in October is our annual family and friends outing to Pike Lake (a small provincial park about a half hour from the city) for a Sunday morning breakfast to commemorate various birthdays and an anniversary that cluster in late September and early October. This year our numbers were a bit smaller due to the anniversary couple (my sister Jean and her husband Warren) having moved to Vancouver Island, but we threw a few logs onto the fire on their behalf. Shot one shows my grand-dog Arrow enjoying the leaves near the picnic site.

Shot two is of a view I particularly enjoy of a little finger of bay stretching off from the main body of the lake. "Main body" is a loose description as it is a very small little lake, but in the south and south-central parts of this province we take our bodies of water where we can find them. Northern Saskatchewan is a different story with huge numbers of lakes, some very extensive in size by any standard.

As per usual on the trip to and from the picnic breakfast, we spotted Sandhill cranes in many of the harvested fields, as in shot four.

Because of the lack of frost and the ongoing mild weather, it's been a bit of an odd fall so far. Some trees (mostly native species) have changed leaf colour and lost their leaves. Some are just turning, and some are still totally green. Some of our roses have given up and gone to bed for the winter, and others, as in shot five, are still blooming nicely.

Totally satisfactory

2011-09-26T20:08:00.001-06:00

My week was pretty well consumed with last-minute details to do with the Art at Agar's show on Saturday. That, and trying to stay cool, with summer fighting to maintain dominance over the advancing fall, giving us temperatures into the 30s C/mid to high 80s F yet again, accompanied by the usual brilliant sunshine and clear blue skies that we almost take for granted now.

The art show day topped out at about 33 / 91degrees which made for a rather warm environment for artists and customers. Visitors started pouring through the door right at opening time, or possibly even a little before, and stayed steady for most of the day. The artists came through big-time with a wonderful display of original works in various media, and the atmosphere was busy and positive. The site owners tried valiantly to keep up with demand for the sit-down lunches they were providing in their heritage farmhouse, but it was a challenge for them. I never did get to leave my booth to try out the food offerings, but word filtering back to the art site was very positive. Next year I'll have to have a better game plan for that aspect of the show for me personally. All in all, I'm happy to report that the launch of the expanded version of the show in the new venue was a huge success from my perspective, and I hope the artists were equally satisfied with the day. I owe them all a big debt of gratitude for being willing to take the gamble (which all of these shows are, one way and another). Here's to another successful go-round this time next year!

Shot one was taken at the art show site on Friday evening as we were setting up. I just missed the best of the light when I got out of the building with the camera, but still am happy with the tranquil beauty of this shot, taken at the south edge of the farmyard.

As I was contemplating the beauty of the sunset and taking a few minutes of quiet time enjoying the above view, there was a sudden quacking and this collection of ducks went scorching past, hustling against the dying light to get to their evening resting place. I had the shutter speed fairly low due to the poor light, so the wings are a bit blurred in this shot. Normally I prefer crisp "stop action" effects, but in this case I think the blurring of the wings adds to the feel of the shot.

Shot three shows the inside of the coverall building where the show was held, taken by my grandson Mark as the artists were setting up. The white translucent walls of this structure are wonderful for creating ambient light for viewing art.

When I was out in the garden today (it says something about the state of the vegetable garden of late that I had to remove weeds with a spade as I couldn't pull them by hand) I noticed that the new fall-blooming aster had come into flower, and was swarming with butterflies and other insects, happy that there were still some fresh blossoms to be accessed. Our big established aster out front won't come into bloom for at least a couple of weeks, and is often to be seen flowering under a cover of fresh snow, but somehow this year I don't think that will be the case.

Shot five isn't notable as a decent photograph, but it shows the beaver activity we have right in the heart of the city. Jim and I went for a walk along the riverbank downtown this afternoon and spotted this large tree that had been felled by beavers. While I always regret the loss of a tree, I have to admire the ambition of the beavers, and appreciate the fact that our river, while not pristine, can still sustain a large number of species.

Art show/sale next Saturday

2011-09-19T19:21:00.002-06:00

And now a word from your sponsor. This isn't really an infomercial, but I want to alert everyone in Saskatoon and area (or those who can get to Saskatoon and area) that next weekend is my fourth annual invitational fall art show and sale. For the first three years I held the show on the grounds at Ebon Stables, a good venue with the added attraction of horses on site, but one with some limitations, chiefly the fact that we were at the mercy of the weather in an essentially outdoor setting. I decided my nerves couldn't take the uncertainty about the weather any longer, and found a good new venue for the show, just down the road a few kilometres from Ebon, at Agar's Corner. We have an indoor site, paved roads pretty well the whole way (one gravel strip of a few hundred metres), lots of parking, and the added bonus of a heritage farmhouse on site that is now the home of a catering business, so sit-down lunches in the old farmhouse are a welcome add-on. Come one, come all. I'd love to see you. No admission charge.

We've been pegging away at household repairs and improvements (there's an endless list) and last week it was time to repair the areas of the deck where chairs and people were at danger of falling through the soft spots. Our friend Ed the ever-capable provided the expertise for the job, and also helped with the hauling, as in shot two here. Ed (in front) and Jim walked the twelve-foot long 2 x 4s a couple of blocks from the Co-op Building centre to our house, none of us having a vehicle that could comfortably hold them. I caught this shot of them nearing their destination.

Harvest is pretty well completed in this part of the prairies, and despite the traditional laments from the farmers in the spring, it was a good one. Shot three shows the field across the road from the stables last week in process of being harvested. It has been dry here for a long time and huge clouds of dust swirled around the combine as it moved slowly along. Overhead this day there were about a half dozen large hawks (either Swainson's or Red Tailed) following along, swooping down intermittently to scoop up a dazed gopher who had just been stunned by the passage of the combine.

Shot four shows my boy Mickey as he checked out the local school skating rink enclosure last week on a walk. The inside of the rink fence was painted years ago by the schoolchildren, but the artwork is dull and faded now, as can be seen on the bits of fence behind Mickey. This is the west-facing side which is much more faded than the east-facing, for whatever reason.

I took this shot the same night that Mickey and I were out wandering in the schoolgrounds. It's dark these days by 7:30, and when we head out for our after-supper walk, the shadows are very long. It was the size of the shadow cast by these pebbles in the road that caught my eye for shot five. I'd actually seen a wonderful big ant shadow on a previous walk and was hoping to get a picture of that, but on the evening that I had my camera with me, no ants were to be seen.

I didn't forget

2011-09-12T19:53:00.001-06:00

OK, this week I know what day of the week it is. Didn't really know what day of the *month* since when I checked my library books due date online (Monday is library day in my world), it seemed equally likely to me that it was either the 12th or the 19th. On checking with Jim, I found it was indeed the 12th so I'm safe for another week. That's what happens when you don't have a "regular" job. You'd think I'd be used to it by now after a lifetime of being self-employed.

Yet another glorious week weather-wise, if you like bright sun, heat and no wind. I am more of a fan than I used to be, as long as I don't have to accomplish anything much, so I loafed through the week in pretty good fashion. I need the weather to shut down a bit so I can get some studio work done, although today it was enough cooler so that with the fan and a bit of air conditioning on I was able to spend much of the day working in the studio. Nothing like impending deadlines of various sorts to create production panic.

I've been meaning to get to the zoo for quite a while, since the lions will apparently vanish sometime this fall and I want more shots. Not sure why, or what I will do with them, but if I ever feel the need, I want a good collection on hand. The day I went it was into the 30s temperature-wise (around 90 F) so none of the mammals were very interested in doing anything other than laying flat out in whatever shade was at hand. The waterfowl were happy enough, though, in their watery element, and I got a smile out of this duck as he/she trailed those cute pink webbed feet in the water.

My back has recovered enough so that I can ride again, but on one of the hottest days last week I opted just to go out to the barn in the evening to turn Alpac out for a run in the big pen. I was thrilled when I entered the east end of the barn to see this sight at the west door. I hustled back to the car for the camera and got a whole series of shots. You can see another version, with rider in attendance, on my new "other" blog http://judywoodartphotographyjusttheart.blogspot.com That's a heck of a long url to type out, but luckily for you, you just have to click on it. I did have some sort of reasoning behind it when I chose it, but now I wonder.

Friday night I attended a wonderful evening (Arabian Nights) featuring the Arabian horses of Rae-Dawn Arabians, just east of the city. I've always wanted to get to one of these annual events, but this was the first time I actually made it. I did a bunch of shots with the flash (never a very satisfactory situation in my view), but when they dimmed the overhead lights and put the smoke machine and the spotlight on their stallion, Bey Ambition, I shut down the flash and went for the art shots. I got a series of these images, and am very happy with the results. As with shot two above, check out the new art blog for another shot from this series.

One of the reasons I was at the Friday night event was to get photos for my friend Ed
(Canadian Rocking Horse). He has been working like a fiend for the past several months, creating a custom rocking horse based on the Rae-Dawn stallion. He got it done just in time for it to be launched at the Arabian Nights show. Shot four shows the finished product (complete with "boy parts", as requested by the owner) .

And shot five shows the stallion meeting his wooden counterpart for the first time, with owner Murray Popplewell and his little grand-daughter in the background. All in all it was a wonderful evening, and I was glad to be a part of it.

I forgot!!

2011-09-06T10:08:00.000-06:00

In a first for the many years I have been doing this blog, I totally forgot to do a new post yesterday. It was a lovely long weekend but as long weekends can do, it left me a bit unmoored as to the day of the week, and it wasn't until I woke up at 2AM that it suddenly struck me that it wasn't Sunday, it was Monday, and I had missed my weekly blog update. Oh well, the sun still rose and the earth continues to turn, so apparently there are no serious consequences this time. If I make a habit of this, who knows??

Lots of horse photos this week. I did something terrible to my lower back as a result of spending the better part of two days sitting on wooden backless bleachers getting dressage show shots a week ago. I've been pretty non-functional a lot of the time since then as regards normal activities. I did want to try riding towards the end of the week, but knew that Alpac would need a bit of a blow-out before I got on. Here he is in one of the larger turnout pens where he had a good run to get rid of some pent-up energy. In this shot he is pausing for a brief scratch. Insect life is rampant these days and the poor horses are quite tormented by them. In his normal turnout mode Alpac has a fly sheet on, but there are still lots of bits sticking out for the various flies to get at. He's still pretty flexible for an older guy if this posture is anything to go by.

This weekend saw the second annual gaited horse show at the exhibition grounds, and I stopped by briefly en route to a jumping clinic south of the city where I was photographing a few clients. This is one of the gaited horses (likely a Peruvian Paso), photographed as it cruised the warm-up ring outdoors.

As I was getting the warm-up ring shots, there was a sudden clatter of hooves on pavement and this young Thoroughbred came pounding across the parking lot and over to the turnout where the Peruvian was. Loose horses can get into and cause a lot of trouble very quickly, so I grabbed the little bit of rope hanging from the halter and stood there holding the horse and awaiting further developments. Soon enough a "chase" car appeared and a man got out ready to take the horse from me. The man in question turned out to be a farrier friend of mine that I haven't run into for most of the past decade, since he no longer lives in this city. Small world. The horse had broken off the hot walker and headed west, but no harm done, and it was nice to get a chance to say hello to a friend I hadn't seen for a long time.

As I continued on my way south of town to the jump clinic, I had to stop and photograph this herd of paints as they stood by the water, keeping as cool as possible and trying to catch a bit of wind. It's been a hot summer with no end in sight, and indeed the weekend temps were in the mid to high 20s, with this week forecast to be even hotter, in the high 20s and low 30s (mid 70s-80s F) all week. Quite hot considering that in some years it has snowed in early September. No frost yet, although we have dipped down into single digits a few nights.

I stopped at an acreage antiques sale on the way home from the clinic shoot (searching rather futilely for a small bookcase) and paused to get this shot of the wonderful entryway of a new home being built on the country road. This was as good as I could do without trespassing, but you can get a feel for the nice use of materials in this place. I love the way the tree on the door extends over the windows to either side.
Neat place!

Do-it-yourself

2011-08-29T20:27:00.000-06:00

One of the ways I entertain myself during the course of the week is by composing interesting blog tidbits in my head as I go about otherwise mundane chores that don't need my full attention. I have many fascinating internal monologues that I know I will remember at least in essence, if not in detail, when I come to compose the weekly blog. Sometimes, as with this week, I even remember to make notes or write down key words in the "sticky note" section of my Mac. And all too often, as happened this week, I look at the noted words and don't have the remotest clue what I was thinking when I put them down. That would be why I mostly just sit down at the computer and ramble on about whatever *does* come to mind. Thank goodness I have the photos to comment on. I usually *do* remember those details.

If you want to play the "imaginary blog post" game along with me, here are the words for this week: "wasps" and "sweating the small stuff". Go ahead. Help yourself. I'm sure what you come up with will be just as interesting as whatever I had in mind.

Jim and I made a foray to the butterfly house at the Forestry Farm park this past week. I must remember to remind him to put this in next year's "to do" list for late June, as by late August there isn't much to see. Shot one features a very pretty butterfly (one of only four we were able to spot) sitting on some window screening. Since he/she was strongly backlit I had to use fill flash which rather flattened out the visuals, but this gives some idea of what a pretty insect this one is for colour and patterning.

Shot two features a young female house finch, photographed way up near the top of our big cedar, conveniently located just outside the little studio balcony on the upper floor of our house. We have had a lot of small birds feasting on the seeds that are abundant on the cedar this year.

The city of Saskatoon does a wonderful job with street and roadside planters full of flowers and decorative grasses in the summer months. For several years I have admired the fountain grass they frequently make use of, so this year I bought some of my own for one of our containers. It is in full "fountain" mode now, and an ongoing source of enjoyment.

As anyone who has seen much of my work will know, I do love my "barn silhouette" shots. These are always grab shots of scenes that suddenly appear before me. If I'm lucky, I have the camera in my hands and can actually get the shot, as with shot four, taken on the weekend while I was at Ebon Stables photographing the dressage show. This shows "the girls"--- supportive and dedicated "barn" mother, rider-daughter, and their mare, coming in after competing in the show.

The barn swallows at Ebon have found time for one last (I hope) set of babies to round out the summer. These little things were spotted up in the corner of a roof overhang north of the barn. Since it was very dark in their corner I had to use the flash to get any sort of image at all. These two shots were taken in quick succession. The bright flash of the first shot set them all off into wide-mouthed "feed me" mode. I'll try to get back there with a better photo game plan when it is less busy at the barn and see if I can get some better shots of this little family.

Too hot to paint---

2011-08-22T20:36:00.001-06:00

Whew. Darn hot out there the last couple of days. This being the case, there is a lot of laying low happening on my part, reading indoors (900+ page book which should last me a while) and venturing out intermittently to hose things down in the yard.

I'm still in mild "paint application"mode after painting the kitchen a couple of months ago, so have now done the front door (a job that has taken a wait of five or so years to happen), and have purchased paint for the big overhead door on our double garage, although it's too hot to do a good job with a quick-drying paint, so that will have to wait til the temperatures drop a bit. And for those of you who follow this blog, I'm sorry that I didn't finish the "floor and kitchen" upgrade saga of June. I'm happy to report that we did indeed get the new flooring totally installed (cork, non-glue "floating" installation), got the baseboards and other woodwork refinished and reinstalled, and the new floor has already been christened by a couple of unfortunate dog incidents, and has come through with flying colours.

Yesterday I did something I have been thinking about for a bit, which is to launch another blog, strictly for my art and art photography. That's what this one started out to be years ago, but it has wandered off elsewhere in the meantime. The new one will stick to the art program, and will have images and very little text commentary. Check it out here http://judywoodartphotographyjusttheart.blogspot.com There are only a couple of posts to date, but I'll keep adding them in, on a random but regular basis. If you want to keep up with them, sign up to have them come to your email inbox, or check them out on Facebook.

Today's first photo is another one from the Ebon horse show. This is a pony who shows his great intensity and focus in this typical head shot. He and his girl were good competitors, and for a little guy he can really get over the jumps.

I was out in the area of the front sidewalk a couple of days ago, perched on my bike and waiting for Jim to join me, when I gradually became aware of a vast and teeming horde of wasps crawling all over one of the front-yard evergreens. Turns out the little cones on whatever this evergreen is (identifying conifers is not one of my strong suits) exude a sap at this time of year that is wildly attractive to wasps, as you can see in shot two.

Shot three is another front-yard shot, showing my little friend "simple bird" on the platform feeder. I have written about her in previous posts. She's is a darling little thing but not over-endowed with sparrow smarts. She's relatively easy to photograph and identify, as she's always the one that is still sitting there looking around wondering what just happened, after all the others have spooked and fled. As long as she sticks around the relative safety of our yard, her chances of survival are reasonably good.

I'm not a partisan or actively political person, being mostly of the "a pox on all their houses" school, but in common with the rest of the nation, I was saddened and dismayed today to learn of the death by cancer of Jack Layton, the leader of the NDP (now the federal official opposition party) and a man of great honour and integrity. Political leaders of his character and honesty are rare, and we can ill afford their loss. Shot four shows the flag at our neighbourhood school lowered in respect of his passing.

As a brief follow-up to last week's post about my dog Oscar, who is in palliative-care mode with bone cancer, here is a shot of him taken today, with his littermate brother Mickey in the background. We have achieved a good level of pain control for the moment with the drugs Oscar is on, and he is relatively comfortable and quite cheerful, as you can see in this shot.

Life goes on, for the most part

2011-08-15T20:21:00.000-06:00

As is always the case in life, we never know from one week to the next what new joy or sorrow will come to us. This week, for us, it has brought sorrow, with the certain knowledge of more yet to come. Oscar, one of my littermate Boxers, has had an odd lump on his right elbow for about a month. Initial thoughts from the vet were that it was a hygroma, or pressure lump, and not a cause for great concern but we should keep an eye on him and watch for further developments. A couple of weeks later, he suddenly became lame on that same leg, in the area of his paw. The condensed version is that

x-rays show he has bone cancer in the elbow area, causing the lameness and considerable pain down the leg. There is no surgical or other reasonable treatment for him, and even if there was I wouldn't put him through it as he is just a couple of weeks shy of his eleventh birthday. For the breed this is a fair age, and he is definitely a senior citizen. We are in palliative care mode for as long as he can maintain some sort of quality of life and the pain can be controlled. He started on his first round of pain meds today and already is moving better and seems more himself. My "gut" feeling, based on my intimate knowledge of my dogs, is that he won't be with us for long, but until that has become a fact, I will continue to love and care for him to the best of my ability. When his life no longer has anything positive to offer him, we will end it peacefully and with dignity. I've had Boxers in my life for almost fifty years now, and I know that cancers and heart concerns loom large as part of the package. The fact for me is, though, I can't imagine *not* having a Boxer, so I will continue to throw my heart into the ring with Boxers for as long as I am able to manage them.

As is also the way of things, life does carry on as planned whether we are carrying new heartaches or not. It was a show weekend at Ebon Stables, and I was happy enough to be out there with my camera getting shots for clients and for my own entertainment. Took my mind off my troubles. Shot one shows a lineup of new saddles on offer by one a mobile tack store that was at the show. I was amused by the visuals of the line-up.

Shot two is another show shot. I often have to put in time ring-side waiting for my clients to compete, and I like to entertain myself by working with tight crops and interesting angles. I was happy with this shot of an"incoming" jumper powering towards me.

I'm a member of the Saskatchewan Craft Council, which will be hosting its first "member's show" in the fall. Today was the deadline for getting CDs in for jurying for inclusion in the show, and of course I was working almost to the last minute to get my pieces sorted out /finished, photographed, and to fill in the paperwork. I did make the deadline, though, with three whole hours to spare. The SCC takes a reasonably broad approach to the concept of "fine craft", so my photography and mixed media works are allowed into the mix. Shot three shows one of the mixed media collages that I put the finishing touches on this morning.

Shot four is a digital photomontage I did a year or so ago, featuring my Oscar (on the heart and in the lower right corner) along with a variety of other dogs belonging to friends and family. That's his brother Mickey second from the left, third row from the top.

We have a family of blue jays frequenting the back yard feeder now. I was out with the camera last week and caught these two as they came in to collect peanuts. The poor gawky teenager on the left is at a very unfortunate and visually rather grotesque stage in his development. Hard to believe that he'll soon have the same sleek beauty as his parent on the right.

High summer

2011-08-08T21:10:00.000-06:00

High summer now, or as high as it ever seems likely to get. I think by another week or so we'll be starting the long slide towards sensing autumn in the air and in the light, distant though it may be.

We're feasting off some of our garden produce now (beans, anyone?) and already in "next year" country for some of the veggies that didn't work out this season. On Sunday a group of us forayed out to a "secret garden" tour of eight gardens of various sorts scattered about the city (a fund-raiser for Nest refugee assistance) where we got lots of good ideas for ways to handle some things that need to be addressed in our yard. Added bonus is that it's just generally enjoyable to snoop with permission in other people's back yards. I'd be happy to do that tour again next year.

Weather continues hot and sunny and you can always trust the barn cats, as in shot one, to find the optimal spot in which to relax. This cat wanted the warmth of the outdoors but not to be in the direct blast of the early afternoon sun, and she found a good compromise by wedging herself behind the seat of the Ebon golf cart where she could be both warm and shaded.

I went "crow hunting" with the camera a couple of evenings last week, since I found an area relatively close to us where they gather in the evenings. Shot two is a composite of two photos from those outings. One was of the crows, typically fleeing the area when they realized I was there with the camera, and the other was a strong backlit shot from the same area. Combined, the two shots make for an image I am happy with.

I put the old macro lens on Nikon minor last week and played a bit in the back yard. I've learned a few things about the macro. One is that for the most part you are only going to have a very small part of the subject matter in focus, unless, as in shot three, it is fairly flat. This is one of the spider webs covering the succulents, right after a heavy rainfall. I'm quite fascinated with photos of drops of water, and the macro has good potential for this subject matter.

Shot four is another macro/water drop shot, this time on one of the daylilies, and featuring an obliging fly who landed in the middle of my shoot. I have to do the macro shots with the tripod, so unless the fly comes to me, as in this shot, my chances of getting animate life in the macro shots are pretty remote. I've only just started using the tripod so am pretty slow and fumbly at getting it set up just right, but I have a feeling that it's never going to be a speedy process even when I am more experienced at it.

Horse show this coming weekend at Ebon Stables, and I volunteered Jim and my grandson Mark to come to the barn with me on Saturday to do some much needed trimming-back of tree branches around the riding rings. Jim is wielding the "remote control" long-handled trimming saw here. The "remote control" part consists of a long rope around a pulley at the working (sawblade) end. You pull the rope back and forth and the sawblade cuts the tree limb. Simple in its way, but effective. Also nice to have a chance to use all the odd pieces of specialized equipment such as this, every so often.

The heat goes on---

2011-08-01T20:13:00.000-06:00

Typically for a summer week, it seems like I've done a lot and also not much at all. A lot like many other weeks in that respect. Continued hot summer weather has kept me outdoors much of the time, poking at the weeds when I feel mildly ambitious or guilty, otherwise lurking a lot in the yard with the camera, recording the flowers and the birds, all of which are varied and abundant at this time of year.

The high point in terms of memorability (low point in all other respects) of the week was me taking a header off my horse when he spooked in the outdoor ring. I've ridden that horse for eleven years now, mostly five times a week, and this is the first time I've ever come off him. Guess it had to happen sometime and at my age (sixty something) I'm happy that I'm not too damaged by the process. I am hard core about wearing head protection, and although my head and neck are pretty bruised and sore from the force with which my head bounced off the ground, everything is still functioning as it should, and for that I credit my hard hat. I finished the ride after I came unglued, which I felt we both needed to do, but have only had one ride since. My head still feels a little odd at any gait other than a walk, so I'm giving it a few more days to settle down. Pretty hot and very buggy (that would be biting bugs, as well) these days so it's not too big a sacrifice to miss some riding time. I still get my fix by going to the barn daily to feed goodies and tend to whatever needs doing.

I had a photo jaunt with my friend Ed to Rae-Dawn Arabians, just east of the city, to do some shots for a project Ed is working on. We needed to get some reference shots of their fancy young stallion,

Bey Ambition who is a serious contender in the Arabian horse show world. Here he is in shot one, in relaxed mode. This young stallion is pure quality, top to bottom, and a true gentleman.

Shot two shows the flower spike on one of the canna lilies in the back yard. I always plant a few of these for their showy height and the architectural splendour of their flowers. This year, most of them have failed to get more than about a foot high and show no signs of flowering, which makes me extra appreciative of this one that is behaving as the species should.

The merlin pair that were scouting the neighbourhood in the spring for a nesting site mercifully decided to set up house somewhere far enough away that we can't hear them. They are very vocal neighbours at the best of times, more so when raising their young. We get fly-overs most days as they are out hunting, but today was the first time I happened to be in the yard with camera in hand as this happened. They are very fast and focussed when in motion, and you have to have quick reactions to get a shot.

Shot four shows one of the many day lilies in bloom in our yard. They are one of my favourite flowers for their hardiness, ease of care, and their stunning variety of colours and shapes.

Shot five is one I took today while at a friend's house. I was just lining up a shot of her cat relaxing on the chair when he gave a huge yawn. That is one seriously large mouth this cat has! It's a bit of a silly shot but I couldn't help wanting to share it.

Still summer here---

2011-07-25T20:01:00.001-06:00

This year we in Saskatchewan are fortunate to be enjoying a good (possibly great) summer, in common with the "middle parts" of Canada. Apparently this isn't the case on the east and west coasts. I have first hand reports of the lack of summer at either end of the country from various family members so I guess it must be so. I was talking with my daughter in the Nelson BC area earlier today and she reports that so far for them it's like a perpetual fall, with clouds, rain and cool temperatures. Not so bad in September and October when you kind of expect it, but not so great for July, and possibly August which will soon be upon us.

I feel today's photos are kind of a distilled essence of our season. Colour, life, abundance, and texture. It's been an outstanding year for most flowers, and for the weeds as well. My vegetable garden has gone sideways on me to a certain extent, but the things that are doing well (basil, flat beans, tomatoes--so far) are doing really well, and some of the other things are just plain odd. I'm starting to think that you might need two zucchini plants (which is generally agreed to be at least one and a half too many) to get produce. I thought I was being clever by only purchasing and planting one zucchini bedding plant this spring, but I don't seem to be getting any actual zucchini. It's in the usual spot in compost bin #3, and is a huge and hearty plant which has been flowering enthusiastically for quite a while, but no zucchini are developing. Just when I thought I had the whole "too many zucchini" thing figured out. Apparently it is also possible to have too "few" zucchini as well. Who knew?

Shot one is a "ditch" shot, taken en route to Ebon Stables. The tall textured plants are dock, a nasty weed, but plentiful this year and very appealing in a visual sense. Seeing this sort of colour and texture at this time each year always makes me think how inspiring this would be for a weaver or other fibre artist.

Shot two features one of the "next generation" of dragonflies that have invaded the city and completely cleaned up the mosquitoes that were plaguing us. The first wave consisted of very large "helicopter" type dragonflies with bright turquoise and black markings. The current crop features these beautiful little gold ones, much smaller and quicker but equally beautiful and plentiful. I heard a naturalist on the radio last week saying how many species of dragonflies we see in Saskatchewan and it was a totally astonishing (to me, anyway) number, something like 60 or 80.

I rode yesterday for the first time in a while, since Alpac's elbow problem has responded nicely to the antibiotics and the passage of time. I hadn't been in the outdoor ring for a while before that due to the rain, so I was interested to check out the killdeer and her nest at the north end of the ring. It seemed like she had been sitting on her eggs absolutely forever, but finally the nest was empty of mother and of eggs.

I carried on with my ride and at one point noted a trio of odd little birds in the grass just outside the ring. It was three baby killdeer, quickly joined by mother who was herding them around in anxious fashion. I've never seen the babies before and they are beyond cute. Very small little replicas of the adult birds, quick and lively. One must have met some sort of sticky end as there were four eggs in the nest but only three hatchlings. I could get a relatively good look at them as long as I was on my horse, but when I went back later on foot with the camera, all I could see was mother flying about trying to distract me, shrieking "danger! danger!" the whole while. I got a shot of her as she whizzed past then retreated to let her recover her composure.

We've been blessed with large numbers of bees in our yard this summer, thanks, I believe, to our neighbour and friend down the street hosting three beehives for the season. She had hundreds of blossoms on her pear tree last summer but due to lack of pollination ended up with only four pears. Determined not to let this happen again, she arranged to have the bees come to our neighbourhood, to the benefit of all of us with flowering and fruiting plants. I look forward with hope to being on the receiving end of some of her excellent pear jam.

I'm a big fan of "structural" flowers, those that have interesting sculptural shapes. Gladiolas fit in that category, and I plant a few pots each spring. Shot five shows some of the mixed colour mini Glads currently in bloom.

Summer heat

2011-07-18T21:28:00.001-06:00

Continuing hot. 34C/93F today (and supposed to be hotter tomorrow) and uncharacteristically humid (60%), which is putting a bit of a crimp in outdoor or indeed any activity. I don't have to feel guilty about not riding as Alpac has an infected elbow (either a puncture wound or a nasty horsefly bite gone wrong) which is swollen and tender, and he can't be ridden until it heals up. I'm doing two trips a day to the barn to deliver antibiotic pills (24 a day! in two lots of twelve) and clean and medicate the wound. Luckily for me, as long as pills are ground up and fully incorporated into his beet pulp, he will happily gobble the whole thing down. Not many horses are this co-operative about ingesting medications, and I am suitably grateful that he is one of the ones that does.

I'm not generally a person that enjoys temperatures much above 20C/68F but I have to admit that so far I am not minding the current heat wave too much. Likely after a few weeks of it, I'll be whining, but it is consistently sunny and bright, and things are lush and green so for now it all seems like a welcome change from the long and dark winter we survived. Doesn't hurt that we have air conditioning in the house and I have the option of a relatively cool indoor riding ring when the going gets too tough outside.

We have lots of bird families (mostly sparrows, but they are welcome too) this year. Shot one shows a very devoted father and his big girl. I've always thought of these strongly patterned and coloured sparrows as male, and it turns out that this is indeed the case, according to an article Jim read recently. It also said that the more black on these boys, the more dominant they tend to be in sparrow hierarchy. At any rate, this fellow is wonderfully attentive to his offspring, and they are regulars at the backyard feeder, which is only a few yards away from the birdhouse where the youngster hatched. She appears larger than him at this stage, and while she can fly in a slow and clumsy fashion, she is rather clueless and needs quite a bit of managing by Dad. She is able to feed herself, but if Dad is anywhere near she goes into helpless mode, wriggling her wings and opening and closing her mouth pathetically. Usually he gives in and feeds her, but occasionally he will insist that she show a bit more ability to cope on her own. I've not been able to identify a mother or any other siblings by observation, although it's likely they are around the yard somewhere.

It's a wonderful year for lilies, and every few days I tour the yard, front and back, and get shots of the latest to bloom. This one is particularly nice with the contrast of the warm tones of the throat against the white of the outer parts of the petals.

Grandson Mark and I went out on a photo shoot Saturday morning, to get some shots of the young falcons being hacked by a friend who breeds peregrines. Shot three shows a couple of them on the roof of his house, just getting ready to lift off. They always make me think of gargoyles on the roofline.

Shot four shows one of the peregrines on the falconer's gloved hand.

Last week I decided to cowboy up and deal with some aspects of photography that I've been avoiding. One was shooting using a tripod, which ended up being much less of a struggle than I was expecting, although I sure wouldn't want to carry that thing very far as it is darn heavy. Jim has a very good quality tripod for his birding spotting scope, and it conveniently (for me, anyway) works with my camera and shoe as well. Since I was setting up to use the tripod, I thought I might as well dig out the old macro lens that is so touchy that it really benefits from a tripod. It is a good lens but decades old and can only be used in all-manual mode. I was a bit dubious about all this, but in fact it works well with my digital camera bodies and I have enjoyed playing with it. Shot five is a detail I took with the macro of a dragonfly wing. We have been rejoicing in the past week at the appearance of hundreds of dragonflies all over the city and countryside, which have made big inroads into the previous intolerable numbers of mosquitoes.

Well dang!

2011-07-11T21:50:00.000-06:00

Sorry about this, folks. The carefully crafted post that I just spent a fair amount of time creating vanished into thin air when I hit the "publish post" button. I really don't have it in me to recreate it so for today we'll just have some brief remarks on the photos. Maybe I should think harder about doing my composing in another area of the computer and then using "copy and paste". Or not.

This ring-billed gull was having good luck with his fishing at the weir last week. I watched him for about ten minutes, and he pulled in at least eight fish while I was watching.

We worried that maybe the pelicans had all left our part of the river since there were none at the weir, but then we spotted them crowded onto this sandbank a few miles downstream. Most of their usual hangouts are underwater this year due to the high river (which is finally receding a bit).

Summer is camp time at Ebon Stables, and last week was the regional Pony Club camp. This shot shows some of the young participants heading down to the riding rings for their lessons.

I think of this as a "tools of the trade" shot. The barn farrier had everything set up ready to work when I got this shot, with the green grass and yellow of the canola field across the road as a colourful background. That's my gelding Alpac on the right.

Shot five shows a young sparrow peering out at the big world that he will soon have to cope with. We've had a number of successful bird families of various sorts raised in our yard this year.

Too much and not enough

2011-07-04T21:31:00.002-06:00

Strangely, despite the river level here in the city being the highest in decades, we have been told by city hall to limit our water use in the last week or so, due to problems with the filters at the water treatment plant. Seems like all the excess debris carried along by the flooding and fast-moving river is playing havoc with the system, so despite there being more water than ever flowing through the city, we can't make full use of it. I have some issues with the way these limitations have been implemented, but am being compliant with the request as best I can. I don't recall this having happened even in the severe drought years of past decades, so it's kind of ironic that it takes an unusually large amount of water to make conservation efforts be put into place. As one of my somewhat cynical friends observed, by next year they'll be putting water rates up due to not enough having been consumed this year and subsequent falling revenues at the city utilities. Could happen.

Shot one was taken last week in the town north of the city where my local family lives. We were heading over to the achievement day ceremonies at my grandson's school, and I noticed this observer in a house window. The window is on an upper split level of the house, so the dog has a wonderful warm and sunny vantage point where he/she can relax in comfort while still keeping an eye on passers-by.

Summer is horse-show season, and on the weekend I headed out to Willow Ridge stables south of the city to get some photos of clients who were showing there. I was quite thrilled (and surprised) to see this competitor, not a local, doing jump courses on her very nicely turned-out mule. They worked well together with only one or two examples of "mulish" behavior, and all in all put in a good showing. And in defense of the mule, I've seen a lot of horses put up way more resistance and carry-on than the mule did, although I do understand that once a mule *really* decides not to do something, there's not a lot you can do about it.

Shot three shows some of the branches on one of our front yard flowering shrubs. It looked odd the other night when we headed out to walk the dogs, and on closer inspection I discovered that it was covered in fine cobwebs, as shown in the photo, and there were hundreds of little spiders all over it.

The wrens are nesting in the nice glazed clay birdhouse that we have hanging in our big cedar tree. I don't know if they are the wrens of earlier in the season who were nesting a while back by the oak, or if they are a new pair. Either could be possible, although I tend to the theory that it's the original pair starting a second family in this new location. Wrens are so territorial that I can't imagine having two pairs in the same yard, even though they are relatively far apart. This tree hangs over our deck and is right outside the studio balcony, so we can enjoy their sweet song all day as we all go about our business.

Shot five is from the front yard pathway, and shows the brilliant lilies in bloom, nicely set off by the rich colour of the smoke bush. Both of these plants are somewhat notable. The lilies are the little potted ones that you can buy at this time of year at the grocery store as a potted plant. Once they have stopped blooming in their pots, if you plant them outside they will turn into wonderful big yard plants. I have these "popsicle orange" ones, and another bunch, not yet in bloom, that are a beautiful clear bright yellow. The smoke bush is doing very well in our yard, which is somewhat odd as it is considered a chancy one in this zone. We planted a couple when we redid the front yard a few years ago (took out all the grass to the horror of some of the more conventional neighbours) and didn't really have strong hopes that they would last. Not only have they lasted, but they survived the dreadful winter of a couple of years ago that took out many bushes that *are* for this zone and had survived, up to that point, for many years.

That's just another of the many "go figure" things about gardening in this climate.

Read, weed, repeat

2011-06-27T20:40:00.001-06:00

It's been a day of alternately reading and weeding for me. I'm not even too unhappy about the weeding part since that means it's not raining, of which it's been doing a fair amount lately. At least it hasn't been the relentless and unending biblical downpours of last summer, when it was grey and sodden for weeks and months on end. These are more like "regular" (whatever that is anymore) June rains, with a good soaking alternating with sunny and rather nice days. Apparently we are heading into our first hot days later this week, so it does seem as if summer is here. My activity pattern could be set for a while, since I have a number of books to work through, and the weeds have been glorying in the alternating wet and warmth, and have put on exponential growth spurts in the last weeks. Throw in riding most days as well, and that's going to keep me fairly well occupied for the foreseeable future.

My husband Jim is a volunteer for "Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness", and one of his tasks is to get photos of headstones at local graveyards for those who have family connections in Saskatoon but are not anywhere near here geographically. We went off to one of the large and relatively old (for around here, which means about 100 years, give or take) graveyards last week in quest of several members of the same family who were, in theory, interred in various locations. We struck out on all three (unusually), not finding a single one of them despite having a reasonably good map indicating what area they should be found in. Apparently further research is needed here to figure out what is going on. Shot one is from that outing. There were two dogs running happily about, with no attending people in view. I think they must be neighbourhood dogs. The black one was quite territorial and not happy to have us in "his" area, barking and raising his hackles to show his displeasure. I didn't feel he would follow through with aggression, but on the other hand I didn't push my luck with him either. I'm perfectly fine with "live and let live" for the most part.

Shot two shows some of the "big sky" of the prairies outside the city, a very typical view at this time of year.

Shot three is part of the herd of young warmbloods down the hill from Ebon Stables. They are all products of the Ebon breeding program and will over time move up the hill to the stables for their schooling and training. For the moment, they are a pretty carefree bunch, enjoying the rich grazing in the pastures.

The roses in our yard are starting to come into their own now. This is one from the front yard collection. Seems like this will be a good rose year, from the evidence to date.

Shot five shows the signboard for the swimming pool we pass most nights on our dog walks. Luckily I don't plan on swimming there any time this summer, as this completely confuses me. I'm not sure I'd be able to figure out what time on what day in what month would be my best bet.

There and back again

2011-06-20T20:47:00.000-06:00

Well, we made it to Regina (for the Bazaart sale) and home again, not without some moments of excitement. It was raining lightly as we departed mid-afternoon on Friday. The farther south we went, the heavier the downpour and the wilder the winds. At some points we thought we were going to be washed right off the highway due to the combination of a river-like surface and winds gusting to 80 KPH blowing us sideways. We got to our destination around supper-time, to see the faithful Saskatchewan Roughrider football fans trooping into the stadium for the first pre-season game. Nothing deters them. We, on the other hand, were happy to get to our hotel, have some dinner and cower in our room for the night, listening to the wind howling around the building and watching the trees whipping about down on street level. Need I point out that this was an *outdoor* show/sale?

I was strangely calm (unusually for me), figuring that worrying about it wasn't going to change anything, and knowing that whatever show day brought, I was only one of 149 other artists and craftspeople who were going to be in the same boat. At that point it seemed like boats might literally be required, but miraculously by the next morning the rains had stopped, and the winds, while still a lot gustier than I liked, had gone down some. We got our display tent up, helped by our location which had a nice big bush that blocked the worst of the wind, and the show went on. It went reasonably well until mid-afternoon when a series of thunderstorms with brief but heavy downpours started rolling through, which put an end to most of the shopping activity.This was my first time at this show, and despite it having been, apparently, one of the most challenging in the past twenty years, I enjoyed it, made some decent sales, and met a lot of interesting people. In all likelihood I'll try it again next year.

Shot one today is from one of our evening dog walks. Jim had his iPhone with him, and here he is taking a photo of a leaf from one of the trees in the park. He has an app that will identify the kind of tree from the leaf photo!! I remain astonished.

Shot two was taken from the window of the car as we were on our way home from the show. The sky was still full of heavy clouds from the recent weather system.

Shot three was taken as I was driving home from picking the dogs up from the boarding kennel on Sunday. You can see what shape the road is in after the rain. I had to pick my way around the deep spots, mud and puddles. Luckily the roads are very sandy in this area and don't get as muddy as would be the case east of the city. This isn't great quality as it was taken through the car windshield which is both lightly tinted and fairly dirty, but I thought it would be a fun shot nonetheless. The fellow on the left-hand horse was talking on his cell phone as he rode along.

Shot four is of the hawthorn blossoms we are currently enjoying as they evolve. They are unusual in that they start out pure white, then darken over time to a deep rich rose colour. The hawthorn is, in fact, a member of the far-flung rose family.

Shot five is an example of one of the new mixed media collages I got done for the show. This is a direction that I am quite excited about, and I look forward to further exploration along these lines. I've decided this one would benefit by a line of small flying crows in the upper left-hand corner, so will get onto that when I get back to studio work. Before that happens, I have a *lot* of yard work (weeding) to get through.

Birds and horses, with the occasional flower

2011-06-13T20:55:00.000-06:00

I see my blog host has now "improved" various options to do with blog composition. Being the way I am, this has caused me some consternation, but as usual, staying calm and poking and clicking seems to have done the job for me. I'm enough of a stick-in-the-mud to feel that if it was working fine before (and it was, once I figured the quirks of the system) it shouldn't be messed with, but by next week I'll doubtless have forgotten it was ever any different than it is now.

We're caught between fire and water around here these days. The north of the province is dry and burning up with forest fires, although not as actively this week as the previous ones, and the south seems to be inundated with the kind of water overkill that we (in the centre of the province) experienced last year. So far, we are managing reasonably well in the middle ground, although the river is still very high and fast, with a couple more feet of rise expected overnight due to upstream overflow.

Shot one today is from our garden. I'm hard pressed to keep up with the new flowers that have come into bloom every few days in the last couple of weeks. After a long slow start to the growing season, it's coming along gangbusters now. This is one of our Japanese irises, one of my favourites for the grace and colour it shares. I have several large clumps of these in the area of the fish pond.

I was concerned that our little housewren pair was going to give us a miss this year, as they were late in appearing, but they have happily set up house in their usual birdhouse shaded by the oak tree in the back yard. Shot two shows one of them (presumably the male as the female is likely sitting on the nest) as he paused on the back fence en route from the brushpile to the birdhouse in the warm evening light.

Ebon Stables hosted a dressage show on the weekend. This is the annual "Give it a Go" show, where an interesting and eclectic selection of horses and riders participate. You don't often see legs like this in the dressage ring, but there they were this weekend. This is Bob the versatile Clyde, who has appeared at Ebon shows in the jumping ring in previous years.

Shot four shows another aspect of the show competitors with this beautifully turned out pair going through their test. Grey horses such as this tend to be a minority in general, but we had several beautiful greys at the show this weekend. My first horse was a grey so I have a soft spot in my heart for them, although I'm glad not to have to keep a grey clean any more.

Since we had some errands on the other side of the city (and of the river) today, we stopped by the weir to check out the pelicans. They've had to relocate their "lounging" grounds due to the high water, and most of the three dozen I counted were on the far side of the river near the shore where the current wasn't quite as strong. This fellow came over to our side to visit a couple of his friends and I caught his landing.

I'm heading south to Regina to participate in the annual Bazaart art and craft sale, so if any of you is in the Regina area, or plan to visit, call by and say hello. I'm in booth 149, which is the row farthest to the south, near 23rd Ave, if I am reading my map correctly. I've never done this show before, and by all accounts it's a good one for all concerned, so I'm looking forward to it. Please let there be no high winds and/or rain!!

June. Not much snow.

2011-06-06T19:51:00.003-06:00

Things are moving right along here seasonally. Leaves are mostly out on the trees, garden is as planted as it's going to get, spring flowers are blooming, all a little late this year, and of course we've had the first big rain of the year, this past weekend being the first outdoor horse show of the season. Everyone at Ebon stables worked like fiends to get the riding rings and grounds looking good for the show, then the skies opened up, submerging most of the outdoor rings and causing general chaos. Since this is close to standard operating procedure at summer shows, everyone rallied and various work-arounds were arranged at the last minute, but it was a disappointment since when the weather co-operates, these shows can be such fun. As it turned out, it was just another endurance test for horses, riders and viewers, but that's the way of horse shows.

I just passed through the show site briefly due to the extremely poor lighting, winds and pelting rain of the first day. In addition, I had done something dreadful to my back the previous day and could barely hobble around, and certainly not in anything approaching an upright position, so I wasn't too sorry that the weather allowed me to cut short my show photos and go home to rest up. Day two was an improvement in that it wasn't actively raining, but the rings were still very muddy and mostly unusable. It was very cold, 5 degrees C /41 F at 11 in the morning when I headed out to do photos in the jumper ring, and at one point there were actually a few flakes of snow falling from the sky. I managed to log about four hours before my hands stopped functioning (not having thought I'd need gloves in June) and I called it a day. I only warmed up again that night after I crawled into bed as an act of desperation to get myself defrosted. Of course today, now that the weekend has passed, has been supremely lovely. It's hard not to feel just a *little* bitter, but we have to be grateful for every nice day that comes our way, whenever it appears.

Shot one was taken after a wildly windy couple of days that took the blossoms off the neighbour's tree. The petals were piled up in the driveway, as in this shot, and in great drifts all along the curb, still scenting the air with their perfume. This cluster caught my eye as it is almost in a heart shape. I thought about helping it along shape-wise before taking the shot, but the purist in me didn't want to adulterate the found image, so I didn't. Kind of an odd stance for someone so devoted to creating totally unreal visuals in Photoshop, but there you have it.

Shot two is from the weekend horse show, and shows the kind of slop the rain created in many of the rings. This was in a warm-up ring. The actual jump ring, with sand footing, was less sloppy and indeed I didn't see any horses slip or have problems with the footing in the jump ring, allowing that portion of the show to carry on without too many problems.

Shot three is a close crop of an incoming jumper just lifting off.

I always like to play with close crops at the shows. My eye was caught by the linear quality of the reins and breastplate on this horse, and I liked the lively contrast of the scarlet saddle pad with the black of the horse. The black horse reminds me that when I was at a meeting in the country this afternoon, I could view the highway from where I was sitting, and saw at least four big RCMP Musical Ride horse trailers heading west. They will be on tour to various small towns in Saskatchewan this month, and I hope to make it to one of the closer venues to get some photos. If it isn't raining, that is!!

Shot five shows the "lion dog" who is resident at the farm where my meeting was taking place. He apparently gets hot in the warmer months, and tends to have a lot of matts in his hair, so he gets this annual haircut for the summer months. Quite striking, to say the least! It certainly got *my* attention at any rate.

Shots and shows

2011-05-30T19:27:00.004-06:00

Lots going on in the past week, of one sort and another. I was part of a group show/sale on Sunday, so had to busy up and get some artwork knocked into shape. I'm very good at getting things *mostly* done, but once I see that they have turned out OK (or not), I tend to move on to the next challenge without doing the finishing touches on the previous one. That was the case prior to the weekend show, but, also as usual, I got everything sorted out, although not without the customary mild cursing and muttering and vows to change my ways.

We're in the midst of rotating teacher strikes and other job actions, so I had my grandson Mark as a companion for a couple of days last week. He brings along his camera (my old Nikon D200) and we get out for some photo shoots as a general rule when he comes to stay. We had to shop on the west side of the city, so as per usual made a stop by the weir to see what the pelicans and other water birds were up to.

Shot one shows a couple of the four pelicans that we were able to get close to. The river is so high and running so fast that part of the island where they gather is underwater, and I have yet to see any of them venturing to the base of the weir, which is normally their fishing ground. I was struck by a statistic in the local paper, which pointed out that the typical summer flow rate of the South Saskatchewan as it passes through the city is 150 cubic meters per second. Last week it was estimated to be 1,232 cubic meters per second. No wonder even the waterfowl are showing it some respect! There are now high water warnings for impending rising water due to heavy rains upstream in Alberta in the past week.

Shot two shows Mark pausing as we were en route to the pelicans. Wednesday was international towel day, an obscure and generally unknown day for the vast majority, but an important one for followers of the books of Douglas Adams, and the anniversary of his untimely death. Mark now has his own R-strap, and his camera is in fact very safe, despite looking rather precarious in this photo.

The Canada geese of previous blog posts this spring are still hanging out high up on the weir area train bridge, and are presumably nesting up there. Shot three shows one of them putting the run on an offending pigeon.

I've been in "wasp" mode in my encaustics of late, and shot four shows one of my encaustic mixed media works. The wasps are image transfers laid into the encaustic medium (a mix of beeswax and damar resin), with added natural elements of "keys" from maple trees. This piece is 6" x 6"/15 cm x 15 cm.

On Saturday Mark and I headed south of the city to catch the glass blowing demonstrations at the hotshop glass studio near Blackstrap lake. In this shot, Joan Hiebert, one of the shop owner/artists, is bringing the pipe with the molten glass on the end out of the "glory hole" of the glass furnace. I had been to the studio before, but not when the hot glass was in production, and it was fascinating to get the chance to see glass blowing in action.

For those in Saskatoon and area who are interested, this coming weekend (June 3 and 4) will feature the first spring/summer season horse show at Ebon stables. Head east (towards Clavet) on highway 16, turn left at the first turn after Boychuk Drive, then immediately right onto the PCS Patience Lake road. Carry on for approx. 4 km to range road 3042. Turn right and in 1 Km

you'll be there. I'll be there with my camera much of the time, so don't hesitate to tap me on the shoulder and say hello.

Two out of three

2011-05-23T19:34:00.004-06:00

Long weekend here in Canada, the launch of the outdoors and gardening season. Saturday and Sunday were utterly sublime. A whole summer of that sort of weather would suit me just fine. Warmish but not too hot, nice breeze to keep the bugs down, lots of sun, all just lovely. We even had the air conditioner turned on a bit yesterday to temper the slightly too warm indoors. This morning on getting up, I turned the thermostat directly from air conditioning to furnace, as it was darn cold in the house. We went from a high of 26 degrees C (79 F) to 6 degrees (42F)

overnight, and if I'd known that was going to happen I wouldn't have left all those windows open at bedtime! The "high" for today didn't get much beyond 6 and there's a cold wind and heavy overcast sky, with the occasional spit of rain just to complete the effect.

This being the case, I'm really glad that my several hours of standing out in the big sand riding ring on Saturday and Sunday, getting photos of horses and riders, happened on the two nice days. Riding being what it is, the clinic I was shooting would have carried on even in today's weather, and I would not have been a happy person, because dutiful photographer that I am, I would have been there. As it is, I was able to spend much of today in my cosy house, finishing up the painting of the kitchen. Next stage on that project will happen in a week or so when we tear up and replace the flooring. Then on to the deck repairs. Oh joy.

I'm not sure why I took shot one, or why I like it, but here it is nonetheless. It's one of those classic prairie shots, although long trains like this are a bit fewer and farther between than they used to be.

Shot two features a neat little ceramic pond ball that I found when we were shopping at a local garden centre. Seems to me it really shouldn't float, and the one that was many times larger, but also claims to be a floater, *really* shouldn't float as it was quite heavy, but there you have it. As with so many things that seem improbable, this defies my initial skeptical reaction and works exactly as advertised.

Shot three is one I got at Ebon stables in between taking horse shots. The killdeer are back in numbers, as per usual, and are all over the outdoor rings rushing about in their rather feckless way. I don't like to make generalizations, but these really do not seem like very bright birds. That said, they seem to be reproducing well enough to return every year in somewhat increasing numbers, so who am I to judge? This shot shows one of their haphazardly and messily assembled nests, with a clutch of eggs. No mother in sight so perhaps this one has been abandoned. At least it's not in the middle of a riding ring as is often the case.

Shot four is from the clinic shoot. I was doing "diagnostic" shots for the participants, getting their "good, bad and ugly" moments as a learning tool for their training. The still photo can isolate aspects of a ride that would slip by too quickly for the eye or even the video camera to highlight in the same way. We had the occasional exciting moment with bucking and bolting horses, but overall things went very well for all concerned and it was really interesting to see the improvement of horses and riders on day two of the clinic. This photo shows young Paige and her mare Brook, working into the approach to a jump. I was glad to catch the huge multi-piece equipment "train" in the background, as the farmer across the road was prepping his fields for planting. I was also kind of astonished that his field was dry enough that he could take his big equipment onto it without getting stuck. Seems like things are drying up a bit at last.

Shot five is one I got at lunch-time today. I was having my fruit and yogurt at the dining room table since the kitchen is in such chaos, and I started feeling that I was being watched. I looked up and there in the living room window was this robin, sitting pretty well at my eye level on the metal hanging hook of one of the front-yard feeders. He/she was looking pretty chilly and mildly disgruntled at the turn the weather has taken.

One last note for today. Next Sunday (May 29th) I will be part of a new art show and sale being held at the Forestry Farm House in Saskatoon. There will be ten artists on hand with various media, and refreshments and tours of this historic house on offer. Check out the Friends of the Forestry Farm House website for details, and I hope to see you there. Hours are noon to 5 PM.

Moving forward (eventually)

2011-05-16T19:55:00.005-06:00

We've been in the midst of reno/mild upgrade in our kitchen area (so far) for the last while. It's moving along at a glacial pace, mostly backwards, but since we are our own tradespeople we are cutting ourselves some slack and as long as *something*, no matter how small, gets done each day, we're happy enough with the process. So far we've mostly gone backwards, but in the last couple of days have stopped regressing.

It all began with the decision to get badly needed new entryway/kitchen (and doing the stairs going up and down while we're at it) flooring. I knew what I wanted (cork floating floor) so picking and buying the product was the easy part. Our friend Ed will help install, but he said we'd need to remove all the baseboards to do it right. That being the case, I thought I might as well paint the kitchen. Jim pointed out that the ceiling would need painting and I don't do ceilings, but he was happy (well, willing, anyway) to do that part. That meant we'd need a new fixture wired in to replace the embarrassing fluorescent bulbs with no covering that we've had since the last millennium. Yesterday saw the installation of the new light fixture, Jim having completed the ceiling work, so that felt like an accomplishment.

Mind you I'm not at all sure this is the right fixture for our lighting needs, but you only find that out after you've wired it in and generally rendered it non-returnable. At least it looks nice when it's not turned on. I've filled all the many holes in the walls with spackle, and tomorrow I hope to buy the wall paint, but I guess we'll have to pull off the baseboards and quarter-round before I start my painting job. After that we get to tear up the old flooring. Somehow I think I'll be glad when this is all over.

Things are moving right along in the yard, where it suddenly seems almost summery, or at least definitively spring. Shot one shows the tight flower buds on one of our lilac bushes. Lilacs are one of my favourite flowers and always a visual and olfactory treat in the early part of the season.

Not to be outdone by the outdoor plants, my Clivia started blooming about a week ago. Normally I put my houseplants outdoors around this time of year and the Clivia blooms in late June. Not sure why it's changed its schedule this year, but as always it is a beautiful jolt of colour.

Outdoor riding has begun at Ebon, with the sand ring in quite good shape considering the water it's been under. The dirt rings are a little less user-friendly to date. When I went out for my ride on early Sunday afternoon, I saw that the annual cross-country clinic week-end (this coming weekend) was being anticipated with a lesson in the sand ring, the first outdoor one of the year for horses and riders. It was a wildly windy day (although today was even worse) and it would have been understandable if the horses had come a bit unglued with the wind and the general excitement of it all, but horses and riders all stayed calm and focussed and acquitted themselves well.

Shot four is one I caught as I looked up while I was doing horse photos in the sand ring. This little barn swallow was flying straight into the strong south wind, but not actually going anywhere. Gave me the few seconds I need to focus as best I could and grab this shot.

Today was even wilder and windier than yesterday (gusts to 70 K) which worked for me as I had a date to visit some "big hair" horses, and that made for some entertaining shots. This lovely mare belongs to my friend Bill, and is a Canadian. Bill is trying to reduce his herd size, and since an artist friend is interested in the breed, I took her out for a visit. Bill has a selection of mares and a couple of geldings that he is looking to sell, so if this is a breed that interests you, drop me a line and I'll put you in touch.

Keeping on--

2011-05-09T19:32:00.004-06:00

One more week of mostly dry weather behind us, still cool and generally breezy. We had one big dump of rain that amounted to two inches overnight at Ebon stables, putting one internal road and several horse turnouts underwater yet again. The water table is really high so when any amount of rain falls these days, it doesn't have anywhere much to go. Sadly, that happened the night before I was planning on riding outside for the first time this year, as the footing had finally dried up enough. Now it looks like it will be at least a week or two before we

get back to that stage again.

Today's photos reflect the slow unfurling of a long cool spring. Shot one was taken a week or so ago as we were heading home from a visit to our daughter's, north of the city. I wanted to head home by the back road in hopes of catching some raven shots at the landfill (aka dump), but when we hit this spot (shot one) we decided that Jim's new car wasn't really meant for these conditions, so we backtracked to the highway. I've run into a fair number of country roads with "road closed" blockades across them this spring. I think maybe this one would have qualified!

We get weekly farrier visits to Ebon, and last week I got a shot I've been wanting for a while. Farriers in general are an interesting and complex lot. Some are cheery and chatty, others tend more to the monosyllabic and/or communicate by way of grunts. Some are a combination of both. The Ebon farrier is of the classic "traditional cowboy" mostly taciturn sort, so it always makes me smile when he unloads his tool bucket, featured in shot two. I'm sure there's a story behind this pail, but I don't know what it is. That's Norm working on the horse, complete with moustache and obligatory ball-cap, and that's his little mini-Dachshund, Andy (a gift to Norm from the Ebon management and clients a few years back), on the right. I suspect the little girl at the front end of the horse is the artist, but that's just speculation on my part. I think it's great that this is the default working bucket for his farrier tools. It takes a man who is secure in his masculinity to carry this particular bucket along as one of his work tools. Not to mention having a very small mini-Dachshund running at his heels. Good on you, Norm!

Shot three is another Ebon photo from last week. Terry is the one that puts the first rides on the young warmbloods as they start their journey towards ultimately becoming hunter/jumpers or dressage horses. He has been logging some "road work" with various of the youngsters in the past week, since the gravel roads are the only secure and non-muddy footing out there just now. In this shot they are heading back towards Ebon at a good brisk ground-covering trot.

Shot four is one I took on Sunday as I was driving home from the barn. I noticed that there was a "different" bird on the fencepost as I drove by, so I stopped and backed up, camera at the ready. This was taken with my big lens from quite a distance away, and I couldn't really make a positive ID as to species until I saw the image in the computer. When I did, I was glad I had stopped to get the shot, as this is a shrike (likely a loggerhead at this time of year) which is an endangered species. I've seen them around Ebon in the past, and it's nice to spot one so early in the season and to know they are still in the area.

I've spent some time over the last couple of weeks working on memorial pieces for friends, featuring loved companions that are no longer with us. Shot five shows one I did for the owners of Solar Gardens who sadly lost their Great Dane, Dylan, earlier in the year. He was still a young dog, not anywhere near his allotted time, and learning that he had died was quite a shock to me. It gives me some solace to be able to do pieces such as this to honour the memory

of the departed animal. Again, sadly, I've just finished a horse one for another friend whose gelding died suddenly and unexpectedly last week. Thank goodness I had photos of both these fine animals so I could pay a final tribute.

A final post-script to last week's post about the house that was on the move. The day after I posted that blog, we happened by the site and the house was demolished and a pile of rubble. Here's a link to an article on it.

Fine spring days (for the most part)

2011-05-02T17:17:00.003-06:00

It continues to be mostly pretty nice around here, and we in the central area luckily missed the huge white-out blizzard that hit the south-east part of the province a few days ago with high winds and a huge dump of wet snow. We got a lot of wind and some clouds and coolish temps, but that was mostly it. I'm just as happy to see May stay snow-free if possible.

My grandson Mark was off school for Easter break so was with me much of the past week. He's always entertaining to have around, and I'm especially pleased that he is back into photography mode so we can go on shoots together. He's got a good eye and an interesting perspective, plus decent camera equipment (my "old" Nikon digital camera and some superannuated good lenses) so he's pretty well set up for one so young.

Shot one today was actually taken by Mark (despite me having gotten carried away and putting my own name on it when editing), with my "baby" Nikon. It's a drive-by "grab" shot, taken as we were heading home from an expedition to the west side of the city. This house has been at the top of the University bridge for many years, evolving in size, shape, and exterior finish. Now it is being moved as the site is to be redeveloped. It is sitting on a flat-bed trailer with a truck in front in the photo, although that's hard to see from the angle and the passing traffic. The day after we got this shot, there was an article in the local paper saying that while the house had to be off the property by the end of April, the planned new location had failed to be approved, so at that point the house didn't have a destination. It also apparently houses only two people, despite having seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms. I haven't been past that corner lately so I don't know whether it has moved on or not.

My friend Ric has a show in a downtown gallery, and although I keep pretty well up to date with Ric's work at the sales that we both attend, I have never actually made it to one of his gallery shows. Mark and I remedied that situation by checking in one day last week. This shot shows a small selection of his whimsical and entertaining recycled materials sculptures, with Ric himself lurking (if one can lurk in a seated position) in the background. The show is on for the next couple of weeks at the SCYAP gallery, 3rd Ave South, if anyone wants to check it out.

Last week also saw our first trip to Solar Gardens for the season. This is the home of vast numbers of succulents, as can be seen in shot three, showing part of one of the greenhouses. There is so much to take in at this venue that it can be pretty overwhelming. I plan to head back before too long to see the 39 different colours of Japanese maples they are show-casing this spring, due to arrive any day now.

On the drive home from Solar Gardens, we went past this nice little scene along the highway, and Mark and I prevailed on Jim to pull over so we could get some photos. There aren't a lot of waterways in Saskatchewan, and this looked so pretty in the sunshine that it needed to be appreciated. I love the reds and yellows of the native willows along the edge.

Shot four was taken on the north side of the road, and there was a quite different but equally appealing view to the south side, where the little stream can be seen to join the South Saskatchewan river. Mark and I made our way down the steepish (and muddy!) embankment to the edge of the water, and were amazed to see vast numbers of little minnows blackening the water's edge on both sides. As we stared at the minnows, I realized that this crayfish, along with a lighter-coloured partner, was taking advantage of the abundance of fresh food there for the taking. The little fish are a bit hard to see, but you can pick out a few of them on the right, and most of the dark areas in the rest of the photo are solid minnows. I picked up quite a bit of glare off the water, so they are somewhat hard to make out.

April showers---

2011-04-25T18:52:00.002-06:00

--have been mercifully absent so far, for which I am profoundly grateful. We've had a nice run of mostly sunny and bright days for the last week, albeit with the occasional clouds passing by and with some good winds, all of which are helping dry things up nicely. I've noted another seasonal milestone by bringing my riding boots home from the barn, as it is now dry enough out there that I can put them on at home (instead of donning them after I have dragged the horse through the mud and water and into the barn) which is one less thing to worry about. My muck boots have done good service for a few months now, but they are getting a rest for a while. Hope it's a good *long* while.

Not many horse shots these days. Eventually the outdoor show season and the welcome calls to come do foal and mare herd shots will tap me on the shoulder, but in the meantime I seem to be continuing in nature mode as much as anything else. I've started carrying my big camera on our evening dog walks, as with my R-strap I can tote the camera and still have my hands available to deal with dog stuff. I like to think of myself as reasonably observant in general, but it does seem to be a fact that when I have my camera with me, I notice a lot of small details that I otherwise wouldn't. In true perverse fashion, though, now that I have my camera with me on these outings, the sightings of crows and ravens have fallen off tremendously. It's one of the ongoing trials of my life that I am so keen to get good corvid photos and have so few really good opportunities. I try to look on it as yet another example of character-building and an opportunity to practise my patience--

I had a "different" sort of photo op last week. I was listening to an astronomer on the radio as I was coming home from the stables, and he was describing the trajectory of the International Space Station which would be readily viewable Friday evening at 8:53. There was a link on his website to a chart that detailed times and places for viewing, so we decided to give it a shot. Jim insisted I had to take a picture of it, so at the appointed time we stepped out onto our front walk, me with camera in hand, and gazed up into the south-western sky. Astonishingly (to me, at any rate) there it was, looking like a fairly bright star and zipping along at a brisk pace from the southwestern sky to the northeast. I did the best I could for photos, which wasn't up to much as I hadn't spent any time optimizing my settings and was hand-holding the camera, but still I have a record of the event. Shot one shows the rather noisy and grainy sky with the little white dot being the space station.

Saturday morning I wanted to check out the Farmer's Market in quest of a new birdhouse for my backyard sparrows. We usually park by Persephone Theatre and proceed along the riverside walkway to the market. This sturgeon is part of the interesting interpretive play area that "reproduces" the South Saskatchewan river basin area, and I believe is life-size. Sturgeon such as this do inhabit our river, although they are rare.

I have an on-going interest in "pigeons-in-flight" photos, and the many pigeons that reside under the Senator Sid Buckwold bridge are always good for keeping me entertained. They were in a frenzy of flying back and forth gathering nesting materials, so I had lots of chances to try and grab some action shots as we continued on our way to the market. As with corvid shots, pigeons in flight are very challenging as they are very fast and difficult to track.

I looked down as we passed a seemingly totally bare bush on our walk, and was surprised and pleased to notice a few brave little flowers right at ground level. I'm reasonably sure this is a forsythia.

The final shot for today is a very nice display of bracket fungus, one of my newly-noticed bits of nature "discovered" on one of the neighbourhood dog walks last week.

Birds and blooms

2011-04-18T19:07:00.003-06:00

We're looking at the end of April now, off in the middle distance, and still stuck in single digit (C) temps, i.e. just a few degrees above freezing most days. Despite this, the snow has continued to melt slowly away, and, doubtless *because* of this, we haven't seen the catastrophic flooding and water damage that other parts of the province have experienced. All in all, I guess, an acceptable exchange. I've had to dig out a few layers of clothing for myself and my horse that I had put away in a fit of optimism when we got into double digit temps a few weeks back, but on the other hand have definitively stored the really cold weather gear, so it still seems like progress of a sort.

Gardening to date has mostly consisted of Jim putting semi-frozen dog poop into containers, a nice change for me since I'm usually the one to have to do this end of winter chore. I bought Sweet Pea seeds and garlic bulbs for planting today, and they at least can go in the garden right away. I'm aiming for garlic "sustainability" this year and hope to grow enough so that I don't have to buy it in future. We'll need a good crop as we seem to go through a lot of it. I always thought it was a something of a challenge to grow garlic, but I planted a bit last year, very late, in appalling conditions, and essentially doing everything wrong, and I still got some nice end product so now that I've learned a bit more about the process I hope for even more success. I'll do a fall planting as well if I don't forget.

Photos this week seem themed on birds and flowers. The skies have been pretty active around here of late, in both city and country, and I do my best to get shots of the avian life. Drawing a bead on a fast-moving bird in a large expanse of bare sky is generally pretty difficult. I have a huge respect for the patience, dedication and skill of serious bird photographers. I've been entertained in the past week by the on-going corvid wars being waged in my neighbourhood. The raven pair who inhabited this territory all winter have opted to stay on, and are in conflict with the newly returned crows who traditionally occupy this part of the province in the spring and summer. Every couple of days lately the ravens come to forage pinecones from the big spruce trees across the street from us, followed in short order by vocal and outraged crows who come from far and wide to chase and harass them. I always rush down from the studio and grab my camera hoping for shots of the action, but getting a clear shot without tree branches in the way is usually beyond me. All quite exciting while it's happening, though.

Shot one is a "bloom" shot. One of the orchids currently in bloom tried to fling itself off the table last week, and in catching it, Jim accidentally broke off a few of the blossoms. Luckily the main plant and flowers were saved. I remembered that we had this interesting flower globe and thought it would work well for the orchids, which it has.

Shot two shows one of the neighbourhood crows in a quiet moment having a march around the school playground. I love the expressive body language of crows that always shows such character and confidence.

My grandson Mark and I went on a photo outing on Sunday, starting at the Mendel Gallery conservatory where you can always count on many and varied blooming plants. I was a bit disturbed to see this blue ( !!) orchid. I've never seen or heard of an orchid this colour before (granted I'm not an expert but have seen quite a few over the years) so I don't know if this is a natural colour or whether it has been forced or enhanced in some way. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it--mildly unsettled at least.

We proceeded from the Mendel along the low nature trail by the river and caught our first glimpse of the newly returned pelicans as they rested on a sandbar. This is just the advance guard of what is usually a colony of twenty or thirty pelicans that stay here in the summer.

When we got to the area of the weir and the train bridge, I saw something new, which was a couple of pairs of Canada geese way up at the top of the cement bridge supports, usually territory exclusive to the pigeons, and looking as if they were thinking of nesting there. We'll have to keep an eye on this and await further developments. You can see one of the geese silhouetted at the top left of the middle cement support in shot five.

Life goes on---

2011-04-11T19:01:00.004-06:00

Despite the sad events surrounding the death of my good friend and riding instructor on April 1st, life does go on one way and another, especially so in the spring that has finally arrived with a rush in the last ten days. Every day sees a new bit of growth in the yard, a newly returned bird species, and less and less snow. All this is a comfort and a sorely needed bit of cheer for those who have made it through the tough and seemingly endless winter we experienced this year.

As is the case as often as not, Lake Shannon appeared on our corner at the height of the snow melt. If, as this year, we get a few warm days followed by some cold ones, snow-melt water runs into the storm drain freely at first, but then freezes several feet below the ground level and causes a block which creates the "lake". Fully a quarter of our corner intersection and much of the sidewalk were immersed for a couple of weeks before the city got a crew out to steam the ice blockage and let the storm drain function again. As photo one shows, Jim's inner "neighbourhood retired guy" is in good working order. In this shot you can see him "supervising" the crew to get the job done. I'm sure they wouldn't have managed without his input. :-)

With the warmer weather, my gelding Alpac finally got to be turned out without a blanket for the first time this year. As shot two demonstrates, he had a really good roll in the sea of mud of his paddock. I never mind having to deal with this annual event as I imagine how wonderful it must feel for him to have his blanket off and to be able to wallow in the mud. An added bonus of this activity is that the dried mud, when groomed off, really helps pull out the old winter coat that is being shed in copious amounts in the spring.

Another happy sight of spring is the first butterfly sighting. This is a mourning cloak, one of only a few species that overwinters in adult form in this area.

Shot four features one of the three different types of orchid we currently have in bloom. I think this must be the first time this one has bloomed for us, as I don't recall seeing it before and I'm pretty sure I'd remember something as spectacular as this one. It is also really *big*--about twice as large (in both dimensions) as my hand.

Shot five shows my entry to the online Canine Art Guild show, "Mug Shots". This one features Ammo, an on-going friend of this blog. When I heard the title for the show, my mind immediately went to the "wanted poster" concept, and who better to feature than Ammo?

You can check out this splendid show on the Canine Art Guild site. It's a real treat for lovers of dogs and art.

Going there---

2011-04-04T18:21:00.003-06:00

I try in this blog to keep a positive tone, not "going there" when things are wrong or have gone astray in my life, but sometimes things happen that are too big not to be acknowledged. This is one of those occasions.

On the evening of April 1st, the horse world of Saskatchewan lost one of its leading lights, and I (and many, many others) lost someone who was a good friend, mentor, supporter, instructor, and source of inspiration for the past twenty-five years. Elaine Partington was all these things for several generations of riders in our area.

She was one of those larger-than-life characters that are in rare supply these days. With a big personality, more character than many could handle, and a deep and abiding love and knowledge of horses, she was always my equine "go-to" person in good times and bad. Her understanding of horses and how to work with them evolved over a lifetime of "hands on" work and a never-ending desire to better her methods and ways of teaching horses and their riders to work together to be the best they could be. I rode under her instruction for a quarter century, and to the end never ceased to be amazed at her ability to come up with new exercises for horse and rider, new ways to expand on refining our performance, and her ability to make "old" concepts new for us and to keep her lessons fresh, challenging, interesting and occasionally alarming. Her dedication applied equally to those of us who train and ride for the satisfaction of being with horses, as to the "performance" show riders of the dressage or hunter/jumper rings.

I witnessed her endless patience with beginners, and with many of us who were not beginners but just couldn't seem to "get it" some days. She could go over the same concepts again and again until the penny dropped for us. In my case, some things took years for me to understand and incorporate into my daily riding, but she never told me just to go away, although likely there were days when she felt like it. By the same token, if a rider who knew better was unfair to their horse or was performing in a less than optimal fashion, she could blast them out of their saddles with some well-chosen language that would get their attention and shape them up quickly. Effective communication was the order of the day in Elaine's lessons. She could employ diplomacy as required, but "political correctness" wasn't something you were going to experience. Generally speaking, you got what you earned, and if you didn't like it, you needed to check out your attitude and performance level, whether you were horse or rider.

In looking over some of the photos taken around Ebon from the past few years, it is striking that Elaine was always in the midst of the activity, whether it was teaching, running a show, or just enjoying a rare bit of down time. She was the ultimate "hands on" trainer and show coach, and I have endless shots of her raking the sand ring, resetting jumps, coaching riders over warm-up fences, gesticulating wildly, consoling unhappy riders who were having a bad day, praising those who were functioning well, in crisis-management mode when the weather caused a show to fall apart at the edges, zipping around in her golf cart or on her scooter, talking on her mobile, laughing and chatting with visitors, or taking a moment with her grand-children or her beloved little dog Murphy. It is incomprehensible that we will never again get to experience those special "Ebon moments" with the person that was at the heart of it all. She was a great "family" person, and luckily for those of us who were at Ebon, her family extended to embrace all of us.

Go in peace, Elaine. You've earned your rest, but it was far too soon.

Another week in----

2011-03-28T19:34:00.004-06:00

And still "spring" continues to elude us. It was a week of high winds, drifting snow, icy highways, occasional windchill in the -25 range, yadda, yadda. Well, April's within hailing distance so maybe things will start to improve soon.

The above being the case, my outdoor shots for today tend to bear a remarkable resemblance to most of the others I have posted over the past five months of this endless winter we are enduring. I posted a shot of the view north on our crescent earlier this winter, but here is another one with Jim and Oscar to give some scale. Keep in mind that the tall mound of flung snow around the elm tree was even higher a few weeks back before we had those few days of above freezing temperatures. I never see this pile being added to (our house faces the other direction) so I don't know if it has been "hand flung" or done with a snowblower. Either way it's an impressive pile.

One of the hopeful signs of early spring/late winter around here is the annual "Gardenscapes" show, which features garden items and decor of all sorts and reminds us that eventually we will be able to grow things outside, assuming we don't have another summer of no sun and monsoon-like rains as we did last year. This year there were a number of artists in attendance as well as the expected plant and garden displays, and I really enjoyed checking out the artwork. This wonderful contraption (shot 2) caught my attention. It is actually a water feature for a garden (or, I guess, a house) done by Douglas Walker of Waterworks Garden Sculpture, all the way from Vancouver Island. As you can likely tell from the photo (not a great one, I admit, but the situation was challenging for photography) it is made up of old brass band instruments of various sorts. His works were well conceived and constructed, and had a wonky Rube Goldberg-style craziness that I find very appealing. I was also glad to get a chance to check out "in real life" some of the works whose creation I have been following via an online blog, those of local artist, Monika Kinner-Whalen. You can read about her experiences at her first Gardenscape venture here.

In a fit of morbid irony, I felt I had to take shot three as we were leaving Gardenscapes. This shows the outdoor environment outside the garden display venue. Quite a contrast to the flowers and greenery on display indoors.

Shot four is a snowy owl that I photographed on the way home from the barn on Sunday afternoon. It was tremendously windy, and he was perched on the fencepost, facing into the strong east wind like a great weathervane. I got a number of shots from the window of my car, not wanting to push my luck and scare him off by getting out of the vehicle, and eventually he got tired of me and hopped down onto the snow below to hide behind the grasses, hoping I'd take the hint and leave, which I did. While I was taking these shots, I encountered a common hazard of doing photos in rural Saskatchewan, which always takes the form of a helpful local farmer who stops to inquire if everything is all right, since you are just sitting there in your stopped vehicle. Guess I shouldn't complain about this (and really, I'm not, since this time he didn't scare the bird away) but sometimes a good photo op flies right away while you're explaining that you aren't in any sort of difficulty. On the other hand, it's great to live in a province where people actually are concerned about your welfare and are there to assist you when and as required.

It was a banner weekend for my local grandson. In addition to it being his birthday (14!!), it was also the weekend of a big prop sale in Regina (three hours south of here), featuring items from the popular (VERY popular, with him) Saskatchewan-made TV comedy series, Corner Gas. Mark and his mother and their friends headed off on Friday, and he managed to purchase quite a number of odd bits and pieces from the set of the show. My favourite was this certificate, awarded to Davis, the Native RCMP officer of the fictional small town, who needed a bit of reprogramming to bring him up to contemporary politically-correct standards after he exhibited a bit too much enthusiasm for telling "blond" jokes. That's one of the episodes that I haven't seen, so I look forward to tracking it down and enjoying it even more than usual, now that the actual certificate is in safe-keeping within the family.

Spring??

2011-03-21T19:50:00.003-06:00

Things looked a bit hopeful for a while there last week. It was pretty nice temperature-wise, and the water was running in the streets of the city from the melting snow. This year we don't really want a "fast" melt or we'll be in big trouble from flooding, and the weather has obliged by reversing itself and backing once more into a more wintery mode. At the moment much of the south of the province is under a blizzard advisory with a fair amount of snow and high winds coming our way. We're a little north of the area that will likely be worst affected, but it's blustery out there (has been all day) and it feels like something is coming. I made a quick run to the stables today (not usual as Monday is "horses' day off " at the barn) to add a cosy liner under Alpac's turnout sheet, and all the horses were a bit crazy, running, rearing and bucking in their paddocks, I'm sure as a response to the coming weather system. I also passed through the "big" library today as well in case we get socked in--nothing like a good supply of books on CD and a collection of art instruction books to make you feel better about being house-bound.

Shot one today features one of the "spring" signs of last week when the weather was moderating. This is the herd of young warmbloods from the Ebon breeding program, who live down the hill from the stables. They've spent pretty well all winter lurking in the sheltered areas near the barn and their shelter, where they can keep out of the wind and are close to their hay bales. It's always a sign of spring when they finally venture into the open fields to get a change of scenery and poke around in the snow in hopes of finding some grass under there. Not much light when I got that shot, despite it being early in the afternoon. We've had a *lot* of dim and overcast days (and nights, which meant I missed the "supermoon" of a couple of days ago, which irritated me to no end).

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, our Ebon barn man does his chores with the help of one or another of his horses these days. I wasn't feeling well right one day last week, and didn't think I had a ride in me, but went to the barn anyway to say hello to Alpac and deliver his treats. As always, I had my camera with me, and since it was quite mellow out that day, I decided to shadow Klayton and his mare as they did chores. Shot two shows Klayton cutting the strings off some hay bales, while his mare waits patiently.

Since it was a rare sunny afternoon, we decided to head out to the west field after chores and get some action shots. I love getting a chance to do this sort of photography, and Klayton and his mare seemed to have a good time providing my photo op.

Shot four was taken on the first day of "spring". I'm so glad it isn't winter any more!! :-)

And yet another sign of spring for shot five. I was just sitting down in my studio(which is up on top of the house, giving me a good view of bird activity) to start this blog post when a huge flock of crows went past the windows. This was my first crow sighting of the season, and I'd say it was a flock of about sixty crows, wheeling across the sky. I went shrieking downstairs to grab the camera, causing my poor husband great distress and alarm, since he had no idea what was going on but thought it must be a huge crisis from my shrieks and rushing about. I'm not rational when it comes to corvids, as I'll freely admit. It was pretty dark out when they went by, but I caught part of the flock as they passed. I'd say they got here just in time, considering the weather, and I hope they will find a good safe place to spend the night.

At last---

2011-03-14T19:07:00.005-06:00

I can finally report something other than cold and snow around here. Today was warm!!--i.e. several degrees above freezing, sunny, bright and windy. Almost seemed seasonal for this latitude and where we're at in the calendar. Lots of melting and water running in the streets, and even a little rain shower at suppertime. Nice to have something different falling from the sky, although goodness knows we don't need any more moisture of any sort.

I've been applying myself quite consistently in the studio over the past week, since until today the weather wasn't notably wonderful, hence it was fairly easy to stay indoors. As the season evolves, it gets harder and harder for me to make myself stay indoors, even to do things I enjoy. It's always a bit of a disjointed time between mid-March and early May, since I really want to be outdoors, but depending on where the melt is at, there often isn't a lot I can actually *do* outdoors, at least in the way of practical yard maintenance. This year even heading out into the country with the camera will be questionable as the country roads are going to be frightening during spring thaw. However, I'm sure I'll find ways to entertain myself. I always seem to.

I've managed to complete a couple of ongoing projects in the last weeks. I want to use my art and photography skills to help with various animal causes, and have hit upon the idea of using greeting cards as fund-raisers. My current projects are in support of New Hope Dog Rescue, Street Cat Rescue, and wildlife rehabilitation in Saskatoon and area.

Shot one is one of the wildlife cards. In real life, the young raccoon and the baby skunk weren't in the same place at the same time (they were in fact in the same place but *not* at the same time), but with the help of Photoshop I was able to achieve this visual.

Shot two is from the cat and dog series. Dr. Teresa Chu of All About Cats and Dogs vet clinic worked with me on these cards. She selected twenty-nine of my cat and dog photos that appealed to her, and these are now available for purchase at her vet clinic. $1 from the purchase of every card will go either to New Hope Dog Rescue or to Street Cat Rescue. I hope this venture will prove to be worthwhile for all concerned. Anyone in the Saskatoon area who wishes to purchase these cards can call by the Churchill Shopping Centre (Taylor and Clarence) where the clinic is located and pick some up. Cards are in packages of two cards/envelopes with two different images per package, for $8.

On another front, I am developing some images featuring the hand-carved rocking horses created by my good friend Ed Schille (Canadian Rocking Horse). We thought these photomontages would be a nice complement to his "herd" at the sales he plans to attend this year. This is the first of a series I hope to do.

Yesterday was the first day that it worked out for Jim and I to get our snowshoes on, despite our best intentions over the past few months. I needed to go to the stables to see my horse, so we decided to go for a tour around the Ebon property. I got shot four on the west side of the mare's pen as we slogged along. I knew from past experience that seeing a person on snowshoes can get horses pretty darn animated, and that was certainly the case with the mares. These two young mares took great delight in getting as close as they could, then whirling and galloping off in great swirls of snow, only to come back cautiously in order to repeat the whole process. You could almost hear them giggling as they went. And I would like to say here that it does seem possible for there to be *too much* snow for snowshoeing. At least we found too much soft and fluffy snow, and were often up to our knees even with snowshoes on. Pretty hard slogging for us, unaccustomed as we are this year.

Shot five took me back in time to the first year I had my snowshoes, about four or five winters back. I bought them so that I could get out to do snowdrift shots after the *big* January storm. This lane was one of my usual snowshoeing walkways that year, with the difference being that the snow was piled so deep after that blizzard that I was walking pretty well at the top of the treeline, with the uppermost tips of the bushes being about knee level on me that year, and mercifully for me, it was good hard-packed snow with no "give" to it at all.

More of same

2011-03-07T19:39:00.003-06:00

I could just take some time off from this blog and put on a repeating loop of the posts of the last few weeks (in summary, cold, very cold, darned cold, windy, snowy) and nobody would likely be missing anything new. Another week into March and we are still in the low minus 20s (or so) most nights and up into the low teens in the daytime. Only a couple of weeks to "calendar" spring, which translates to about another couple of months here before we can start getting excited about such things as gardening and riding outdoors. Ah well, that's all about par for the course so no point getting excited about it.

I take the camera with me to the barn most days, hoping for raven sightings (mostly a bust. I see them every now and then but can never get the shots I want) but also with an open eye for whatever might be of interest. I've done some sunset chasing in the past week, with mixed results. The dog people (agility workshop) had the riding ring rented during the days, disrupting my normal riding schedule, so I was heading out to check on my gelding around suppertime most days, in quest of sunset photo ops on the way home. At least the sun is working its way back to this part of the world for longer periods of time. In mid-December I would be catching sunset shots at 4:30 in the afternoon. Now it's close to 7PM. That's got to be progress of some sort!

We had a good (or bad, depending on how you view it) dump of snow early last week. Shot one shows the new "curtains" I found on a studio window the next morning.

Shot two is another of the series of sculpted snowdrift shots I've been collecting. This one is in a reliably good spot for these drifts, just north of the jumper ring at the barn.

Shot three is of the "cosy interior" sort. Cosiness is a very good thing at this time of year. Jim has set out to do a very demanding jigsaw puzzle, the whole process made yet more challenging by the ongoing assistance of Scout, our ancient kitty. We were dog-sitting our grand-dog Arrow while her family were in Panama, and you can see Arrow's intense face in the lower left of this shot. Arrow's main purpose in life seems to be cat herding, a pastime she can only indulge here.

Given that the cat is now twenty years old, we worry about a likely not-too-distant future when Arrow won't have a cat to herd when she visits. Not sure how we'll handle that one.

Shot four was taken just outside the entry to the stables as I was heading home after one of my suppertime horse-check outings. This kind of sums up the weather we've been having.

Shot five is another of the post-barn sunset series. I was going home by way of a more "photo-friendly" back road, and was surprised to see this visual on the road ahead of me. There seemed to be a sort of snow-crystal fog hovering over the road and fields, coloured by the sun which had almost set. Just as good as a flashy classic sunset in its own way.

In the purple zone

2011-02-28T19:15:00.002-06:00

We've been in the purple zone on the weather map from the back of the local newspaper for the bulk of the last couple of weeks. That would be the coldest area of the happily-coloured map, going from the minus twenties on down. I know I bang on endlessly about the weather, especially in winter, but it does rather preoccupy a person. Actual temps were in the low minus twenties and "high" minus thirties for much of the previous week, with the nasty winds putting the windchill (the equivalent temperature when you factor the wind in to the actual temperature) in the mid minus forties. We had a one-day break on Sunday, then today back to minus twenty with a big wind and snow. Then it will apparently plummet further to put us back into the minus forties windchill zone tonight and tomorrow. Should be quite the shock for my poor family members who are returning from two weeks in Panama. On the other hand, they did *get* to spend two weeks in Panama, so they aren't too hard-done-by. My daughter emailed at the start of their stay to say the temperature was 32 (C) where they were. I replied that it was 32 here as well, just minus zero. That plus or minus are pretty critical.

For the first time this winter, I had to work to convince myself to layer up and go out to the barn to ride. It was school break and unlike other years when the school kids are around, this year I think they were all out of town, as the stables were devoid of activity. I was riding alone most days in a riding ring that was dark and frosty, both physically and psychologically, and it was made more challenging by Alpac having decided that there were ghosts in the east end of the ring and spooking regularly, at one point coming closer to ditching me than he has done in several years. All in all, more of an endurance test than a happy week of riding. If nothing else,

I do hang in there, and by week's end we had worked through a few of our issues. I have also decided that his saddle fit needs some tweaking, so with any luck once we get him more comfortable in his tack we can all relax and settle down.

It was in the minus 30s when I took shot one. One of the trade-offs is that when it is intensely cold it is usually nice and sunny, which does help. This shows the street on the west side of our house. The neighbours are starting to run out of space in which to pile the snow, and it keeps coming down.

Shot two is some nicely shaped drifts along the highway between the city and the stables. One of the side effects of the winds we've had is that they sculpt the snow into many and varied interesting forms.

Shot three shows the prevailing conditions today. For reasons too convoluted to detail, but which made sense at the time, I was heading out to the car wash. Visibility was very limited at some points due to drifting snow, and I got to the carwash only to find it wasn't operating so my car is still dirty. On the other hand, I now don't have to worry about the doors freezing shut, always a concern in winter.

The high point of today was the arrival of a flock of Bohemian waxwings who were availing themselves of the high-bush cranberries and hawthorn berries in our front yard. I was just settling in with a book and cup of coffee in the living room when my eye was caught by something moving through the air. At first I thought it was leaves blowing on the gusting winds, then I realized it was waxwings. I grabbed the camera and got what shots I could from various windows (now I realize why I should wash them in the fall!) and also ventured out into the front yard to get a few shots, being very cautious so as not to scare them off.

Shot four shows some of the flock as they rested in the American elm, facing into the north wind.

Shot five shows one of the flock, happily ready to devour a cranberry. These berries are just about the right size for waxwings. It's been a number of years since we had these birds in our yard, and I was glad that they found our berry bushes. There have been many large flocks in the city for several months now, so I guess it was just a matter of time before our turn came up.

Frosty Friday, and Saturday, and Sunday....

2011-02-21T19:57:00.004-06:00

Despite the darn cold (low minus twenties or so C with nasty winds) week that we've had, I still hold to my theory that winter can't have a whole lot left to hit us with, now that March is almost in sight. Oddly, it was really only this past week that I've felt the cold and experienced a little reluctance to venture out to do my normal day to day activities. Up to now, the winter really hasn't had much of an effect on me at all. Go figure.

Notwithstanding the vicious effects of the low temperatures and high wind chill, life at a training and boarding stable goes on, for horses and horse people alike. Shot one shows Terry (husband of Elaine who runs the stables and coaches the riders) braving the elements to work with one of the Canadian warmblood youngsters. Terry's job (one of many he does at Ebon Stables) is to get the young stock mannerly and used to such things as saddles and reins, plus put the first few rides on them in the western saddle before they are turned over to daughter Shawna who uses English tack to teach them how to be the hunters, jumpers or dressage horses that most will evolve into. Shot one today shows Terry heading by the north end of the riding arena with an alert and somewhat cautious-looking youngster.

The same day that I got the shot of Terry and the youngster, I came to realize that our barn man has abandoned his snowmobile of late in favour of using his horse to help out with chores. Being a big fan of horses, and not one of snowmobiles or anything mechanical that is fast and loud, I think this is a great improvement. Klayton has to get full marks for hanging in there with this concept no matter what, as it was close to twenty below with a fierce wind from the northwest when I took this shot. I'd say the windchill would have made it feel close to minus thirty-five, but even in those conditions, physical labour will provide warmth, so both horse and rider were coping. This certainly brought back memories for me of my uncles on the farm over fifty years ago, who always preferred to do chores with their teams of horses rather than with their tractors.

One side effect of the week we've had is that I've been applying myself to warm pursuits in the studio, and shots three and four demonstrate a couple of the pieces I've been working on. These are encaustics, getting close to being done, but not quite there yet. I'm not quite sure what they need, but eventually it will come to me. I seem to be in a bit of a minimalist landscape mode with these, but living where I do that kind of comes naturally!

Shot five is one I took from the end of our driveway a few days ago. Saskatchewan isn't noted for big snowfalls, specializing more as we do in just plain cold, dryish, and windy, but this year has been a "good" one for snowfall. Coming on top of the endless rain we had all last summer and into the fall, I'm not sure "good" is the word, but there has been quite a bit of it, for better or worse. The city gets the streets cleared every now and then if you complain enough about the ruts, but as you can see from the mounds by the sidewalks, they just pile it up on most streets and leave it until nature takes care of it in the spring.

Getting better--

2011-02-14T20:06:00.003-06:00

Things seem to be progressing in a satisfactory way on a number of fronts. The various computer/Photoshop/printer set-backs of past weeks seem like relatively ancient history now and all systems are functioning fairly well, aside from the customary puzzling things that happen when we are trying to learn new versions of familiar programs. Luckily most things can be Googled and figured out, one way and another.

The weather has shaped up nicely too, to the point that while spring is a ways off yet, it feels like winter is in retreat, and no matter what else it throws at us in the next weeks/months, how bad can it be? Likely I'll have a nice detailed answer to that question before the grass starts to grow, but for the moment, a mild optimism seems in order.

My grandson Mark and I attended one of the annual spring flea markets that we like to mooch around, despite the fact that last year I was so peeved with the market that I instructed Mark to remind me never to go again. He did remind me, but I chose to ignore the directive, and in fact it was perfectly OK. I didn't score any great finds, but felt it was quite worth the time and the small admission fee for us to check out the wares on offer. Rule one of making great finds at these places is that you have to be there, so I did my bit.

It was close to noon as we were heading home, and in his teenage-boy way, Mark was focussed on lunch options. I mentioned there were hard-boiled eggs in the frig and he could have an egg salad wrap. That met with his approval, so he rooted the eggs out of the frig as soon as we got home. By the time I hit the kitchen, he had the eggs lined up on the counter, and they didn't look quite the way they did when I had last seen them.

Jim was off at a boreal forest/native plants information day so he wasn't around to comment on this anomaly one way or the other, but since he's the only other body with an opposable thumb in this house, he was the main suspect for the egg mystery. My first thought was an appalled "Good heavens, he's going downhill fast in his retirement if he's been reduced to this....". Soon, however, all was revealed when Mark took a phone call from his father (my son-in-law---I hasten to point out we are not connected by direct kinship) who, it transpired, had passed through the house in our absence and who was responsible for the egg "message". Coming from Bill, this seemed pretty run of the mill. Coming from Jim, it could have signalled the beginning of the end. Shot one shows the eggs in question.

Jim and I have been doing more neighbourhood walks since the weather moderated. Shot two shows a bicycle emerging from a (very dirty) snowbank that we go past en route to the grocery store. I have visions of the owner seeing this and thinking "So *that's* where I left my bike!"

A friend and I headed west of the city this morning on a photo shoot. As we were proceeding down a grid road, I spotted this little creature perched on a fencepost. At a bit of a distance, I thought it was a porcupine and was quite excited, but the fact that it was meowing made that theory a bit suspect, and indeed it was a very fluffy and unhappy little cat stuck up there. I felt quite badly for it as it seemed distressed, but there was a farm very close by, almost certainly where it lives, so we let it be and carried on to our destination. If it had been very cold and/or truly in the middle of nowhere, I might have felt obligated to do a rescue attempt.

Our photo destination is one I always enjoy, as there are a varied and interesting number of species sharing space on this farm. Both my friend and I (for reasons neither of us can really detail or understand) love doing chicken photos, and chickens were one of the main reasons for our trip. As it turned out, there were a couple of newly acquired Guinea hens with the main flock, and until the Guinea hens had been acclimatized, no-one was leaving the spacious henhouse, as they will wander until they have settled in to a new home. We did some photos in the henhouse in questionable light, and will have to wait for another occasion for outdoors shots of them. The geese, however, were out happily wandering around in the yard, and proved to be good models. The handsome fellow second from the right is an African goose, and I think (but don't know for sure) that the others with similar markings are the females. I love the warm colours and strong patterning of these geese against the white of the snow.

Shot five is one of a number of action shots I got of the horses. This features one of the Clydesdales heading out, closely followed by a Canadian mare. In addition to the Clydes and Canadians, there are a number of stylish and attractive Hackney youngsters also on the property. They will be schooled to drive as a four-in-hand later this year, and I'm looking forward to getting shots of them in driving mode later in the year.

Back again, sort of---

2011-02-07T19:55:00.003-06:00

Well, I've clawed my way partially out of the black hole of technological regression that I fell into a week ago. I'm still not fully functional with the things I could do perfectly well before I spent time and money "improving" the system, but at least I can do some things with my photos and I have the computer back. Not sure for how long, as I still have a few problems that need sorting out and it may need to leave home again for a bit.

It all started with me trying to view the RAW/NEF files that I had taken with my Nikon. Couldn't do it with my existing version of Photoshop. Couldn't find a compatible download for that problem that would work with my computer's operating system, so I upgraded Photoshop.

I could now open the RAW files, but my printers wouldn't work with the new Photoshop. Took the computer to the local tech wizards for diagnosis, and in the end they decided it was an operating system problem, so we upgraded the OS to the latest. Now I could use the printers but the main print dialogue I needed wouldn't work. Talked to Adobe and got a work-around for that (seems to be a problem within CS5).

The most recent development is that most things I want/need to do with the computer make the system freeze totally--such as downloading photos from the memory card, moving images from one folder to another, etc. The only "good" thing with all this is it has got me back doing a lot more with my encaustic art, since it doesn't involve computers, and is basically a technology that was developed 2500 years ago. It's always good to have options.

All that said, at least I do have some photos to post this week. Shot one is the interesting "cloaked figure" made of ice on the side of a local school. Luckily I got this shot a week ago, as we witnessed it being hacked off the side of the building by the caretaker when we were walking the dogs a few nights ago, and now it is no more. It was about twelve feet/3.6 metres tall.

Shot two shows another aspect of ice. We've had alternating very cold and really-too-warm-for- the-time-of-year (as in a bit above freezing) temperatures for the last few weeks. There was a fair amount of freezing rain one day, which coated the city streets and the fields on the way to the barn. You can see the glare produced by the dull sun reflected off the ice-encrusted snow.

We have a large cedar tree in the back yard that overhangs the deck, but also blocks my view of the bird feeders when I look out the studio window into the back yard. Grandson Mark was with us one day when it was reasonably mild out, and he and Jim did some trimming of branches so I can keep better track of the yard activity while in the studio. We've owned the long "remote control" branch trimmer forever, and rarely have a need to use it, so getting to play with it was an added bonus of the operation. Mickey the Boxer acted in a supervisory capacity, and I got the photos from the little studio balcony one floor up.

The best part of the past week was getting to spend some time with Marley, the young English bulldog. I first photographed her last October when she was quite a tender young thing. She's still a puppy, but a much larger and more solid one than when we first met. My daughter and her family have been puppy-sitting while Marley's owners were away, and we were lucky enough to have her visit here. After the initial excitement (on the part of my dogs) and mild consternation and confusion (on Marley's part), everyone settled in and got along very well. Despite superficial similarities in body shape and type between Marley and the resident Boxers, I found her to be quite different in style and personality--much calmer, quieter and less reactive than the boys. Also after having her around for a few hours, my dogs suddenly seemed very lean and long of leg and nose. Shot four shows Marley at attention in the back yard.

Shot five features Marley and "uncle" Mickey. Mickey has had a few "other dog" issues over the years, so I was especially happy that he was a good boy with Marley. Generally speaking, adult dogs will recognize puppies as being in a special "be nice" category, so although we were mildly cautious when putting them together at first, we were fairly confident that all would be well, as it was.

Sorry!

2011-01-31T11:00:00.002-06:00

Hi Folks--

I'm in computer regression hell at the moment and will be taking the Mac in to the technical experts for sorting out, hence will be unable to post my usual blog later today. This is part of the fallout of last week's Photoshop update (sigh) which has caused my printers to refuse to play nicely, and it's beyond my power to sort out on my own. I'm not sure how long I'll be computerless but it should be safe to predict I'll be back on track by next Monday.

Not what I hoped for--

2011-01-24T19:06:00.004-06:00

Well, what we plan and what actually happens, as I observe quite regularly, don't always intersect as we would hope. I had an interesting bunch of shots that I thought I could use for this post, but technology has decreed otherwise. For a variety of reasons, which I could detail but won't, to spare tedium, I shoot my digital images in JPEG format. This has worked fine for me for many years, but photo purists feel that shooting RAW is the way to go for ultimate control over images. There are pros and cons to both systems, but my BC daughter, also a photographer, nagged me about this one time too many and I reset my Nikon to shoot RAW for the past week, only to discover that my Photoshop software won't read it. So the visuals I hoped to present this evening aren't actually available to me for now.

I've done a bit of quick research online and the short version seems to be that I need to upgrade my Photoshop program to the newest version, which supports the RAW file format without added plug-ins. Either my camera is too new or my current CS3 Photoshop is too old for the plug-in solution, but one way and another I can't find a work-around for this problem short of laying out the cash and upgrading. I've always sworn I would upgrade whatever Photoshop I am working with after every two "next" generations, in order not to fall too far behind the technology curve, so it's time anyway, but I would have preferred not to be shoved into it, kicking and protesting. On the other hand, this has at least forced me to make a decision and get on with it, and I am quite looking forward to seeing all the neat new things I'll be able to do with the enhanced version, including being able to see all my photos from the past week.

So on to the photos that I took before I changed camera settings. I've been thinking about trying some landscapes in encaustic, so have started a collection of reference shots, of which shot one is representative. I've gone for the "big sky" feeling with this one.

Last week we had this visitor to the platform feeder in the back yard. Gives new meaning to the term "bird feeder". This is a sharp-shinned hawk, likely the same one that visited our yard last summer. This is a species, along with the raven, that didn't used to be seen in these parts in winter. Ravens formerly stayed north, but now are quite common here, and these guys used to head south for the winter. Not sure I'd say they are common here in the city, but they are definitely around.

Shots three and four were taken one of the many "snow" days last week. We've had many days of big soft flakes sifting down, and since it wasn't quite so cold, I thought I should head out to my "winter" herd for some shots. For some reason I have quite an obsession with doing horse photos in falling snow, so I often head to my friend's place south of the city when the conditions are right. Shot three features one of last year's foals with a lacy covering of big snowflakes sitting on his fuzzy winter coat. (sorry about the underlining here--I think I know what I did wrong to make it happen, but I don't know how to make it go away!!)

Shot four features one of my favourite broodmares, keeping an eye on me through the bare branches and the falling flakes.

Finally, another horse in snow, but in a different location. This mare and her youngster live in a field that I go by daily en route to the stables where my horse lives. Both the mare and her offspring are devoted to foraging in the snowy pasture, although getting down to the dried grasses is becoming a challenge for them as the snow gets deeper by the week. I have a lot more (and possibly better) shots of this pair in the currently non-accessible photos files. Maybe by next week I'll be able to see them.

Some maintenance required

2011-01-17T20:06:00.005-06:00

I've always been pretty prompt and responsible about vet care for my animals, both for minor crisis mode (luckily most of the crises, with a few exceptions, tend to be minor, as with my horse and his broken tooth last week), also for regularly scheduled check-ups for their ongoing health needs. I've been pretty good about keeping my car in good working order as well. I haven't been quite so dutiful with my own care and maintenance. By the time I've dealt with all the other animate and inanimate objects in my care, I've pretty well used up whatever patience I have for making and keeping appointments. Eventually the guilt catches up with me (or I start falling apart on various fronts) and I cowboy up and deal with the backlog.

That's pretty much where I've been in the last couple of weeks. Having run out of excuses *not* to make the appointments, I have made a dental appointment (check-up and cleaning, outstanding since 2009), made a doctor's appointment (follow-up on something I've been avoiding since late fall), dealt with getting new glasses (left over from last February's eye appointment), and started with the chiropractic treatment that I hope will help my riding. The last one is the only thing I have dealt with in a timely fashion, and that's only because of the riding part. If not for that aspect, I could have put that phone call off indefinitely as well. So now that I have all these things tacked down, I can move on to feeling guilty about more entertaining activities, like dealing with some of the many art projects I've thought up, getting out for more photo shoots, maybe doing some snowshoeing (if it warms up a bit) and making a dent in the pile of books waiting to be read. Somehow I think I won't be putting any of these activities off quite as long as I do the "regular maintenance" ones.

It's continued very cold and snowy for the entire last week. I'm thinking I need to read "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" as that seems to be the mode we are in. While I know the essence of the story (perpetual winter), I don't think I have actually ever read it, as my daughters were into reading for themselves by the time they got to that series of books. Shot one illustrates this pretty well. This was taken early afternoon one day last week as I was heading to the barn, and is pretty typical. Not much light, not much visibility, not much colour, and pretty darn cold. Despite all this, I do have to say I've been enjoying the winter so far, and hey, we only have to live through another three and half months more of it, give or take, and it will be winding down.

One of the things I enjoy about January is the flowers we usually have around the house at this time of year. We have a fair collection of orchids of various types, and Jim has a pretty good handle on keeping them happy. They live in the basement under lights in their own little greenhouse, and as they come into flower we bring them upstairs so we can enjoy their beauty.

Shot two shows one that is currently gracing the dining room table for all to appreciate. I'm not sure what sort this is, but in addition to the good visuals, it is quite highly scented as well.

Shot three shows the amaryllis that I had almost given up on a month or so ago, since it was very slow to get itself underway. Now it's huge and beautiful, with two tall and sturdy flower stems, each of which will have at least two giant flowers.

Shot four features one of several hyacinths (with another one not quite so far along beside it) of various colours that Jim has been forcing. Luckily for me, he has the knowledge and patience to bring all these flowers along to brighten our winter months. Usually we have a nice display of forced tulips as well, but we managed to overlook buying the bulbs last fall, so we're out of luck for indoor tulips this year.

The cold weather and perpetual snow make using hot-plates with molten beeswax and heat guns quite a welcome prospect, so I've been working at some new encaustics over the past couple of weeks. Shot five shows one I am calling "As the crow flies", which will likely evolve into a series of works featuring crows and maps. Technically this is a mixed media work with encaustic, rather than a pure encaustic painting, as I have used some collaged elements as well.