I have to admit it. I like to collect skulls and antlers when I walk in the woods. I find them pretty fascinating and over the years I've gotten quite a collection.
I have bovine skulls, coyote skulls, 'possum, raccoon, and many deer skulls.
All of these bones and skulls have been discovered while hiking.
For my group on Fine Art Black and White photography, our assignment this week was on point of view or Depth of Focus.
I'd submitted a deer trail photo, then decided after seeing some 'still life' shots from other photographers that I'd try something inside.
[Good idea because it has been terribly cold here with wind chills in the -20's and below during the day. Not fun for a photographer and pretty rough on the equipment too.]
I'd seen some beautiful perfume bottles, flowers, and other macro work. But I am not a person who collects or has those things.
So I went out to my 'skull pile' and picked out some intact pieces to work with.
In the above shot, the left skull is raccoon, the middle is canine of some sort, and I am not sure what the right one is. Possibly a 'possum.
This was a great experiment with my Nikkor 40mm Micro/Macro lens and the Dolica TX570 tripod.
I used a piece of black velvet and my old wooden chair to set the items on.
See? You don't need an expensive set up to do some creative still life. There is the brick wall, the beat up chair, the wrinkled black velvet and Morris's crate all in the way.
Yet I was able to work around this set up and create these shots.
I used natural lighting that came in from the window.
I plan on trying to do some shots like this tonight and use another skull or two from my collection, but use an LED flashlight and a desktop lamp to see what I can do with 'creative' household lighting.
So being a 'bone collector' finally had some benefits.
I often wonder what makes a person want to 'fix' something that can be more easily replaced. I'm not that handy, but I can fix things. My husband is the "fixer upper" extrodinar or some such thing.
He will fix anything.
Even those things that should be just replaced.
He bought a new handle for the old rusted falling apart
storm door and then found out it wouldn't fit.
By
golly he was 'gunna' make it fit. I wondered aloud why he was picking a
day that it was only 8 degrees outside to hold open the door and work
on it.
I
wondered silently why he bought a NEW handle for a door that was in
shambles anyway. Couldn't a nice cheapo storm door worked nicely?
Ahhh. Out came power tools. The scream of metal being drilled through assaulted my ears.
There
were multiple curse words. More metal screaming.
More drill sounds
and more curses because now the handle was in but wouldn't latch to the
latchy thing because the door frame was ... I dunno, NOT right somehow.
So now he makes a shim to put the other latchy thing on and viola, it
latches.
Then the screws weren't proper for the door. Nope, they didn't look right or some such technical type thing.
Whew.
More drilling, hammering, cursing, slamming and opening ...and shutting the door while the cold air drilled through the house.
Finally, with a huge big smile Hubby turned to me to show me how great of a job he had done.
He showed me that I could push the little thingy and the latch would unlatch.
I admired his wonderous handywork. The poor door looks more sad now that it did before the fixin'.
It has holes in it from drilling. And works no better than the pre-fix.
But I was amazed and in awe of course.
Then I went for a walk to the creek.
I believe the temperature actually got to something like 8 degrees today. So after finishing up with the farm chores I decided to grab the snow shoes and trek down to the creek.
Once down there I wandered around looking to see what sort of changes had occurred since my last visit.
The ice wall was incredible.
Water seeps out of the limestone bank and slowly freezes in beautiful formations alongside the creek.
This is one of my favorite places to try and get some neat shots of ice.
Yeah.
I like ice.
Not the kind on the road that makes your car slip ice, cool ice shapes...ice.
The water was flowing fairly well IN the creek but frozen over in other places.
I set the snow shoes up against a tree and set up the tripod in the creek itself.
After about 40 minutes of messing around in the creek I noticed that my fingers were getting rather annoyingly cold.
So were my feet.
Obviously I was standing still for too long.
I picked up the snow shoes and hurriedly packed up the cameras putting them carefully away in the backpack and started hiking quickly along the creek bottom.
When I hit the trail that leads up and out of the valley, I stopped to put on the snow shoes.
Half way back to the ridge my fingers got warmed up and so did the toes.
I was anxious to see how some of my shots of the creek turned out.
Sad to say that I reviewed them and didn't care for them at all.
But the ice shots took the day and made it worth half frozen fingers and toes.
If the temps EVER get back above 10 degrees, I'm going to hike back to the ice cave.
Tomorrow? The high of 4?
Shot from about 3 years ago of the 'ice cave'.
Nope, doesn't look like I'll be taking my more sensitive equipment out.
But I could still go exploring in the valley out of the wind.
Or I could try some still life shots.
Even the deer are having issues with this weather, as well as the other wildlife.
I went out at 2pm yesterday to look for 'shots' that would qualify for my weekly assignment in my Google+ group 256SOG. I'm doing this to better my photography skills and doing some interesting studies in black and white.
Oh, this winter world is SO black and white!
The milkweed seemed to be the only weeds standing in the Meadow. Perhaps they were the only ones not blown down or weighed down by the deep snow.
I know they will drop their seeds when the time is right.
They still make a beautiful plant even in the dead of winter.
[Also a very important plant to the Monarch Butterfly!]
As I headed home I did find a bright colorful spot.
Wild Rose Hips.
So there, the day was not a complete waste.
I've gotten tired of trying to figure out what exactly the different weather people are doing here. One weather service names the snowstorms, NOAA doesn't.
That doesn't change the fact that our winter this January has been fairly unusual even for Wisconsin.
We've had sleet/ice/rain/snow storms, bitter 'Artic Vortexes' [I keep waiting to get swept away in one of these Vortex's], snow, cold, bitter cold, and then nice winter days such as yesterday.
It isn't easy on our stock or on anyone else who has livestock. While at the grocery store a friend told me that a friend of hers lost her elderly mare in this last cold spell.
So far all of our animals seem to be doing just fine.
Our Dexter Cattle seem very unperturbed at all by the weather. They eat. They lay down together out of the wind and chew their cud as if they have no worries in the world.
Fred, Dinah, and Siera, run and play or stand in the sun. They are experts at getting shelter from the winds.
Although this last Sunday night the winds howled so hard that it blew whatever snow was left loose into a frenzy.
I couldn't see out my south window. When I did I could see the snow moving across the ground in waves.
Yesterday I took a walk. Well, a hike with my snow shoes on. In places the snow is over knee deep. I can vouch for snow shoes. They really do help although you must learn to walk a bit differently in them.
At least I wasn't hip deep in some of the drifts.
I found animal trails in the woods. Coyote, Deer, and all sorts of other animals are using the same trail to get around.
Of course I had to break my own trail. After that is done with a pair of snow shoes it gets easier as long as you follow the same path.
I guess I have a lot of walking to do then!
I thought I'd get a walk in early Sunday morning before the winds came.
I hadn't been able to get out to take a good walk for a while.
I decided to walk out towards the far neighbor's place. I got only so far before Morris and I decided to turn back.
His driveway was drifted shut.
The patterns in the snow were beautiful.
Morris preferred to stick to the road when I wandered off into the deep snow.
He obviously needed to burn off a lot of Jack Russell energy.
The winds started to pick up when we turned and headed back towards our place.
I heard a shout behind me and saw the 'outlaw' neighbor [he's not really an outlaw] walking towards me. He'd come along the edge of the woods to stay out of the wind.
He said he had to walk out to meet a ride. There was no way he could get out and hadn't been able to get out with a vehicle for 5 days. He needed to do some work -- as a mechanic -- then grab some bread and other things and walk back to the cabin.
He was angry that neither township would plow his road out. See his driveway is in 2 townships and they argue about who should plow it. Zeke said he even talked to the Sheriff's department. And I agree, his driveway is long and he should get help from the townships he is in. Not be put in the middle of a quibble.
Zeke is quite the character every neighborhood needs one.
So Morris and I walked with him to the corner where his mailbox is.
Folks, that is a mile from his house.
We talked and walked. He was kind enough to let me take his picture. He has an interesting face.
After he was picked up, Morris and I headed towards home.
Unless I wear snow shoes, I won't be able to walk in the woods at all right now.
The weather did turn absolutely horrid. We had snow, and the winds were blowing.
At times I couldn't see out to the pasture because of whiteouts and whirls of snow.
Our driveway plugged up with blown snow in about an hour.
Now the weather is -10 F and still windy, but not as bad as yesterday.
They are still recommending no travel until this afternoon so that the road crews have a chance to get to clean up the roads.
Many of the rural roads are drifted in.
It has been a bit of a wild ride this winter.
