Busy busy

Monday was a day of surprises.....

It started out with a text from my youngest son.

"Call me when you wake up. I'm bored driving home." He and his wife and their daughter were on their way home from Colorado.

I called since I was up at my usual time: Hannah Time ----->> which translates to predawn.

We talked for a little bit and then he said he had to pull off the road for gas...and "WAIT wait! Oh my goodness the sunrise is amazing!" 

As he said that, I was about to pour a cup of decafe when I took a peek towards the NE direction. The fog was heavy but there was a slight color threatening to brighten the sky. 

I texted back: Later! I'm headed towards the ridge to see our sunrise! 

My phone pinged once more: See you mom in about 5 hours!

I passed our mailbox on the ridge and saw a typical driftless region sunrise where the valley was thick with fog. The cool waters in the rivers and streams often produce amazing fog.

I pulled out my regular camera with my long lens. 

The shape of the land I live has wonderful shapes. When we have valley fog, the ridges and the trees appear above the fog creating an unusual sight. Meaning, I'm still not used to it after living here for 30 years.

The fields are not flat and even, our world is uneven and wonderfully rough. Contour farming is the only way to farm.

I thought I'd drive down into the valley and take a peek around. Sometimes the valley fog hangs 40 or 50 feet off the ground.

Not this day! However, the swallows were so busy at the bridge over Black Bottom Creek that I just stood in the road and watched them for a while.

[Yep, I could stand in the road on the bridge and not even see any traffic at that time of day!]

They were literally swarming the area. You can see that the sun is ready to dip into the valley from the light on the top left of the photo.

Depending on the season, it can take up to two hours before the valley sees the sun.

Back up on the ridge the sun was shining brightly. I was able to see across the valley fog to the dot on the map that is called Folsom.

This is one of the Folsom Lutheran Churches on the next ridge over.

I stopped back at Linda's Tractor on the way home. I taken a sunrise shot through the tractor and wanted one afterwards. It is rare that she leaves any equipment in the field. In fact this is the first time in 30 years that I can recall she has left one parked on a field she rents.

Linda still farms and is in her later 80's. She hires help of course, but still does quite a bit of field work on her own.

The heat and humidity set in by the time my son and his wife showed up but I had to walk them back to our 'campground'.

They were amazed at how cool it felt in the grove of trees and the definite lack of bugs.

Here is Mari who is 5 she was having a blast playing with Charlie and Hannah.

<--------------->

Today [Tuesday] I got to go to a birthday party for the grand daughter of a friend. I went to help and take some photos for fun because I was asked to.

Everyone was smitten with my friend's mini horses!

We came up with the idea of a birthday party with the idea of the kids decorating the minis. 

Safe to say, it was a huge hit.

All I can say is that it was a blast! I think the little girls are going to remember this as the coolest birthday party ever. Homemade cake, homemade ice cream, decorating mini horses, and so much laughter.

Grandma Pat is obviously the coolest Grandma Ever!

 

Our Big not Big 4th

 We have safely passed through another big Holiday. Rich was not a 4th of July guy. He preferred to stay at home and let 'the rookies' get into trouble on the Holidays.

He actually would have trouble with fireworks, especially those being set off when he didn't expect them.

Loud noises, sirens, helicopters, low flying planes, fireworks, and gunshots. They were all triggers for his chronic and severe PTSD. So all of our Holidays over the years have been at home and very quiet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hannah's incision was well enough for us to sign up for a 1 mile walk/run [there was also a 3 mile, 5 mile, and 10 mile event but the dogs wanted to go...and is was hot ... so...]

So I asked the 'kids' if they wanted to go to town and take a walk. This was their reaction.

[Charlie was yawning, but we can pretend he said YES!]

The start of the fun event was held at our CrossFit gym. One of my friends didn't want to do the 1 mile walk alone so she'd asked if I'd go. I felt it was a great opportunity to introduce the dogs to chaos.

Hannah was so happy and Charlie watched for any human that might want to pet him.

As it happened a young cross country runner and his father asked to pet them. We got to chatting and I said I loved cross country, it was the first woman's sport team I was ever on. Title IX allowed girls to be in sports.

I mused that the first X-C meet I was in at college, we wore Basketball uniforms inside out to run. The guys were entertained.

Nice little dogs make for good conversations and break the ice.

Hannah wore her Security shirt. I just thought we might need her for that, right???

Below...
the pups sat like this
through the 
Star Spangled Banner.

We headed off behind the big crowd of runners with my friend Charlene and her grandkids. The cool-ish morning turned very hot so I am very happy that I hadn't decided to do anything foolish like try and walk 3 miles with the dogs.

We finished the walk and when I went to the kiddy pool to pick up a little bottle of water for me, Hannah tried to jump in it. I did have water for them with their little foldable doggy water bowl.

Next stop was the Farmer's Market. I had told another girlfriend that I'd stop by. I took off the 'clothes' and we headed into a crowd of kids, dogs, and holiday goers. 

We ran into quite a few tourists who asked about what 'breed' Hannah and Charlie were and were they related? There were some very nice and friendly dogs at the Market too. 

The point of the excursion was to get Hannah used to crowds and socialization so she will be a good dog. Charlie mostly ignored people and other dogs as if he were above it all.

Except little kids.  He loves little kids. He stood quietly wagging his tail and panting as he was fawned over. 

Once in a while he'd look over at Hannah and I as if to say...

"You know who is the STAR here!"

The two of them were tired and worn out after the busy morning and spent most of the day napping while I read a book and relaxed. 

It was still too wet to mow and the yard still squished when I walked in the lower areas.

Charlie slept on his chair and Hannah? Well, our house and farm were as Secure as ever as she kept a watchful [ahem] eye on the place.

I bet no one makes off with her chew bone or ball.

Wet Weather

3:30 am on Wednesday...

Hannah started to growl and do some quiet 'woofing'. She was standing at the foot of the bed looking out the window.

I woke up and was surprised to see lightening and heard thunder. I grabbed my cell phone and checked the radar and the weather.

Thunderstorm warning with hail was expected shortly. I ran outside and moved my car into the machine shed.

After day break, I moved the car back out. The weather seemed to have passed over.

Two hours later? I moved the car back into the shed. Another line of heavy storms were on the way.

The dogs and I enjoyed some time on the porch with the cooler temps that the storms temporarily brought.

I had to deal with some little dog that once again tried to lick open her incision. She went out to go do her morning business and ended up chasing a rabbit through the mud with her pink shirt on. 

I grabbed Charlie's Hawaiian shirt [he used to wear that shirt when visiting nursing homes]. 

Charlie didn't care as he is not a dog who likes dog clothes.

She is darned cute with it on and doesn't seem to mind it at all.

I just want her to heal up and we can get back to our normal exciting life.

It was still muggy and humid, but I went to Kristi's. I wore shorts and decided to ride bareback. I found a blanket in my totes of horse blankets that Kristi really liked. Since I had one for Rich and one for me, I gave her this flag blanket. It looks amazing on her Black Bay horse.

Since we'd had so much rain we decided to ride along the dead end road to one of her pastures. I don't often try to take any photos while riding unless I have my point and shoot camera along. I don't like messing with the cell phone while riding. Especially bareback.

Halfway around the field Johnny was surprised by something and leapt sideways in a spook. Sunshine jumped to her left to avoid being bumped into. I caught some air over her back and amazingly settled where I was supposed to be.

The incident lasted less than a second and we humans looked at each other with surprise while our mounts just moseyed along as if nothing had occurred. What caused his momentary spook? We won't know but we were down in a field next to the forest.

I laughed and told Kristi that the ground there was soft anyway and I was riding a short mule. 

Despite the glitch, we had a nice quiet ride that felt so good. 

When I got home I found that I'd gotten a surprise package.....

How lucky can I be that I got a visit from a very good blogging friend!

Say hello to my friend Mary. She even brought a bench along so we could visit in comfort.

Thursday:

Overnight we had some rain. Okay, that is an understatement. By 6am we had 4 inches of rain, by 8am we had 5 inches.

The Sheriff just announced that there are roads that have had mudslides on them and that another local highway will be closed soon for water over the road.

Thursday seems to be a good day to stay home and go see what happened in the valley if the rain ever stops today. However, the forecast says that it will rain until some time on Friday.

If this keeps up, I will have to go empty the rain gauge. We are creeping above 5 inches and it is only 9am.

Flowers

I took flower photos Monday morning while weeding the gardens early. I did it before the sun broke through the clouds and made things much hotter.

Petunias

 Lilies!

Love in the Mist

This first shot is when the lens fogged up
from the humidity. I took it anyway
before setting the camera in a
camera bag to acclimate to the weather.

I should have remembered to stick it in a camera

bag and set it on the porch to slowly acclimate.

These are one of my current 

favorites!

They are so easy to have in the garden and they will reseed themselves. 

Love in the mist is surrounded by another easy
keeper called Creeping Thyme. 

So easy that I have to mow it back. However I would rather
have this in the yard than grass! 

It smells
nice when mowed or stepped on!

Creeping Thyme

This sunflower plant seeded itself between the round stepping stones 

just off the porch.

I let it grow and the dogs enjoy its shade!

Borage.
The flowers are edible and

taste slightly like watermelon.
I often decorate salads with these.

I had fun with this borage stem. 
I used a double exposure trick
with fern leaves. A bit of 
fun on a hot afternoon edit.

Morning Glories are another flower that

reseeds itself.

I have pulled all the little ones that I didn't want

growing from seeds spread last year.

I am allowing one plant to spread and provide

shade for the porch also.

I don't have just blue and purple flowers. The Zinnias and Cosmos of every single color are coming along nicely in the gardens I planted at the start of June. 

My nasturtium is doing its thing also. Soon, I'll have flowers and leaves to add to my salads right next to the porch.

And...

Hannah.

I am still dealing with her itchy incision. If I leave it uncovered in the morning, she goes after licking it. I imagine the whole area itches because her fur was shaved off.

I can't wait until she is all healed up.

She is such a high energy dog! 
Here she is helping me this morning inspect the meadow. I have to admit, it looks rather lovely right now with all the wildflowers blooming in the area I didn't mow.

Her new healing outfit with gauze over the incision and an Ace Bandage covering the area better so she can't pick at it.

Oh Hannah. She loves to give me the 'look'. She is driving me crazy!

Hot Summer Days and Nights

Good morning. Well, the shot below was a shot looking west taken on Saturday morning. The skies were amazing. Hannah makes sure I am awake for predawn. When she can hear the first bird peeping, she lets me know that I can get up to serve her breakfast and to let her outside, not necessarily in that order.

She and Charlie eat do their stuff and promptly go back to sleep.

Doggone dogs!

Here is just about the same view last night.  I went out and thought I'd look for Fireflies. Since it was cloudy, the clouds covered the stars and I didn't have to deal with star trails or adjusting for a full moon.

The moon brightened the land even if the moon was behind clouds. The shot of the house and the Lightening Bugs are my favorite ...

I tried an experiment with my headlamp and tried to illuminate 

or 'paint' the tree with light to give the photo more depth.

Seems my sky colors and 'white' balance are 

always a bit off when shooting at night.

~~~ I need to do more studying and experimenting
to do this better. At least I tried. ~~~

The one below is a composite shot of the outhouse

and the spot I park in. 

I set up the camera and then took the dogs for their night business. This is the amount of Lightening Bugs that were moving around not far from my back door.

I walked to the ridge to see if I could see anything that was interesting there. Nope, the wind was blowing and the insects had moved deep into the woods. Perhaps one of the next nights, I can try a few shots in that forest with light painting.

It is worth a try just to see if I can get anything interesting. After all, photography is all a matter of perception and experimentation of what you can imagine.

The photo below is a Lego Space Robot I dubbed as Bobo. He is visiting Earth and exploring. 

I set this up on Sunday while it was storming. It looks like I may have to do some things to stay cool today. 
I'll treat this weather like an extremely subzero winter day.

My opinion on this Heat Dome and Climate Change? 👇😢

I'll probably practice some more indoor photography when things are at their hot peak today.

Hannah was doing so well until she started licking and annoying her incision from surgery. I did some quick thinking and came up with this.

She is a good dog because she accepted me dressing her in a onesie without any fuss. But that look!

She did just fine modeling an 18 month old onesie.

I took her and Charlie for a nice long walk to the meadows and then to the ridge yesterday so they would be content for the evening.

What's up with anyone else in this Heat Dome today?

Hope you are all staying well.

Over 80 F or 26.6 C at 7am. It could be a cooker.