Sunday Stills ~ Black and white

 

Miss H202

My early Sunday morning walk.

Dead end. But what a great view when it opens up on the other side of darkness.

This is my first try and a Sunday Stills challenge.

See more here: Sunday Stills

Photos shot in the early morning with an infrared camera. With an 850nm filter which only will shoot in black and white.

Hot and Stuff

This is just going to be about things I've seen over the past week including things of beauty, things that make me curious and things I photographed just because.

Wednesday's storm front. I was on the way to CrossFit when I saw that I was driving into the heart of a huge cell. The closer I got to town, the meaner it looked. According to the weather service it was to go northeast of us. 
I don't like storms, I don't like to be in storms. 
I've been in two tornadoes and one really exceptional storm in 2007.

I pulled over to the side of the road and grabbed my camera. I only had my IR camera with the 850nm filter. It really only captures stark black and white and really highlights details in clouds. We had some winds when the front came through along with rain but thankfully no damage.

Other areas had hail and up to 3 inches of hard quick rain.

Shot of the neighbor's cattle pasture at dawn. Yes, the cow in the middle of the photo is pooping. 

Dogwood. I found some! 

Wild Grapes! They look plentiful and I wonder about making grape jelly.

That would take a LOT!

Sumac. It looks like it wants to start turning colors! Heat and drought stress?

Elderberry flowers. Most are done flowering now and the berries are turning dark. This one had a tiny bee on it.

Queen Anne's Lace in the meadow across the fence to the east of us.

Ohhhh!

Chicken of the Woods? I saw it, I didn't pick it because it was too beautiful. However I would like to have an expert by my side to try something like this. 

Apparently my soldiers will keep an eye on it. It was too bloody hot and stormy to continue wandering around the woods with the heat and 'thick' air. But I will get back to it!

Indian Pipes! Generally they grow near an old oak's roots especially those oaks that have 'health' issues. Interesting to note that so many life forms are so intertwined with the forest like that. I mean I knew it, but I didn't KNOW it.

Moving right along. 

Last thing. 

The storm Wednesday night. Uffdah. The winds were pretty nasty so it looks like today is my day to go see if trees fell on the fence. Our corn was flattened and I found branches this morning down by the stock tank which is over 100 ft from the trees in one direction. Branches were down in another direction too and some found way out east of the house. No damage to buildings but small branches on top of the shed too! Interesting. You may be able to guess what I will write about later!

Hank update

From...this wet shaking cold little thing....

to

But the clean up every day!

At least it is all frozen stuff.
I have a wheelbarrow, but the 'carcass' sled is much easier on the snow.
The little apple picker doesn't work on cow piles so I've resorted to the shovel.

Hank makes a bed out of any new hay in his pen and Stella has to eat around him.
This weekend it is going to warm up so the heat lamp will go off and I will take the sides off the makeshift pen.

I've got to figure out what to do with the pair after a month or so. Stella was always 'picked' on by the other girls and I don't want her and Hank pushed around. I may rewire a pen near Little Richard and put them in there. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do yet.

However. Hank is doing fine. He is running laps around Stella and kicking up his heels.

Stella is being a good mother and very patient.

Stella is also really good about me being in the pen with her and Hank, of course I have to watch her, but she allows me to capture Hank and hold on to him.

And that is your Hank Update.

This and That

What a welcome surprise. Nice unusual weather.
Dry and warm.
The National Weather Service has issued advisories however that this warm dry spell has increased our fire danger.

However we are taking full advantage of it.

Last minute fence repairs before mother nature blasts us with subzero temperatures and snow.

Moving the round bale feeders.
I do love a guy who can operate a skid steer!

Morris supervised from the porch. He had been sleeping on the blanket I gave him but decided to start barking at everything. I brought out his crate and he went in it.
His imagined monsters can't get him in the crate.
He settled down and napped when he wasn't watching.

Rich and I pulled fencing from the Merry Meadow. The work to maintain the fencing is now too large of a job. Mowing the meadow wasn't done this year and since it isn't our land I'm willing to just let it grow wild again.
It served a good purpose for years, however the more things stay...the same, the more they change.

We met with Rich's speech therapist again yesterday. She gave us some insights to the 'new' Normal. I do not like that phrase Your New Normal, but it is appropriate.
COPD affects so many things. She enlightened us to the fact that the brain uses 20% of the oxygen in the body. When short of breath from exertion, the brain is getting shorted also. An already damaged brain from a stroke is fighting harder to get its oxygen.
Confusion and memory issues immediately arise.
If left short of that wonderful 02, more brain damage can result.

It helps me understand what is happening to Rich when he is trying so hard to do chores. He is not a quitter. But it helps me understand why he feels lost when he is out of breath.
COPD is an insidious disease that forgives no one. You cannot escape it and as it slowly eats away at your health.

Our new thoughts to take home from Speech Therapy are these two things:
I am Rich, I am "As Is."
The more things stay the same, the more they change.
[Yes that is the exact opposite of the saying, but this fits better in our case.]

So.
It seems that some or most of the work will fall into my hands for getting everything ready for winter.
I'm up to most of the task.

The Dexters we are keeping will move into the paddock just south of the house where they can share a 300 gallon heated stock tank of water with the equine who will be in their winter pasture also.
One heated tank. One hose to fill it. The chores will become much more manageable through the cold.

Mr. Morris seems to be doing fair. Yesterday the neighbor and her son came to let him out for a potty break and drink of water. Morris apparently didn't 'see' the porch post until he ran into it. He has done this off and on lately. I don't know if he really has doggy dementia or what. I do know that his hearing is negligible and that his eyesight seems at times to be a bit questionable.

However, all of this and that aside, we are having an incredible end to November.
The skies have delighted us with morning and evening surprises of brilliant colors.

And thus, another month ends.
Tomorrow is December.

Let's go fencing!

We don't have the normal pastures, no nice flat land, no nice even terrain.  Steep hills, steep terrain and a lot of woods.

The downed trees were supposed to be moved, and piled but since hubby had to put these things off due to going for cancer treatment, I decided to go ahead and fence around and through the 'downed' stuff.

The mules need to get back in this section of the woods and do some cleaning. After a year's rest, many areas had grown back with lots of grass and good mule browsing.

At the upper end of the property Annie, Speedy [the calf], and Valerie watched me set up the connections for the new fence on the wooden post.

All that is left for me to do is run the Enduro-soft electric fence.  The breaking strength is 1800 lbs and has a life time of up to 25 years.
The fencing is pricey, but I've had trees fall on it and it didn't break the fence, but did stretch it.

The fence is like a soft rope and can be used as a permanent fence.

We use a combination on some of our fences. Here is a sample of what we use around the cattle's meadow.

Once I finish this project I have only one left.

We also use electric to keep our animals off from the line fence which is barbed wire.

It works great.

Since I have become the 'head' fencer this summer, I've enjoyed the work.

Soon we'll have the last of the mules on summer pasture.

SHHH, don't tell my husband that I actually have enjoyed this work. The only really difficult part was carrying everything to the woods and using the old method of 'post pounding' to set the posts.

Well...it can keep an old lady in shape!

Hot & Humid Day at the Farm

The Dexter cattle were sleepy and content in the meadow.

Thor was ever the alert Jack.  He always keeps an eye on movement around the farm.

Morris, the supervisor watches the guys wrap bales of oat hay.  

He is a great supervisor.  Yes he is tied up, machinery is too tempting for him, he'd try and hitch a ride on the skid steer or help out with the operation of the bale wrapper.

Just before sunset, I went out to check on the mares in the back meadow.
Belle, our farm hound who is a people 'shadower', followed along.

The boys in their pasture where doing the 'fly' swishing thing.
Funny how they lined up.

Chores were done late to avoid the high heat from the sun.

Our skies have been orange nearly every night.  I don't know if that has something to do with the wildfires out west and the smoke in the atmosphere or not.

But last night the colors conveyed the heat quite well.

And then darkness fell and the crickets began their night song.  The Robins chirped their songs and fell silent.
Off in the distance young coyotes ran and yipped.
Thor and Bob brayed their challenge.

And our small farm went to sleep for the night.

Trip to a Dairy Farm

Some things happen in odd ways.
On FB, I admired an old acquaintence's dairy cows.

She said I ought to come out and take some photos for her.
I decided to go ahead and plan it as best as one can plan for the weather and working with animals.

I headed out early because her 'girls' are out in the cow yard for an hour or so each cold winter morning.

I wanted to catch them outside naturally.
The drive was beautiful.  We'd had an ice-fog which turned the winter landscape into a fantasy-scape.

 

Her cattle were out when I arrived and I got to work.
Photographing cattle or other animals is not an easy job.  There are a lot of 'wait' and see moments, and sometimes you get very lucky ...or not at all.

I felt I had some good luck.
First is the calf pen, then a young calf, and two of her Aryshire milkers who thought they'd give me the 'eye'.

However I had two favorites from the time I spent there.  Tag #71 and the cow peeking around the silo where you can see her expression and the mist of her breath.

My subjects were difficult at best but that made it all the more fun I think.

I posted these to FB in an album and shared it with the Wehling Farms.  She shared it [with my persmission] and the folks on the Vernon County Board of Tourism ~~ of which she is a part of have contacted me for next year's Tour Guide.

All from a visit to the farm.
Who would have guessed.