Spooky stuff or Not

I am forever the experimenter....or is it experimentor? I like the ...or spelling better but spell check doesn't.

I wanted to try something different and new. I ran across a Seasonal Tips offered by Olympus which was fun. After all I couldn't be outside mucking about in the storms we had, so I decided to clean the basement.

You know how this works. I rearranged the tubs of clothing. I sorted the hunting clothing...I needed blaze orange for the 9 day gun season. The insulated coveralls come out of the tub and light jackets go into the tub.
Restack everything and think about getting rid of things.
Put the summer stuff under the steps in the hard to get to places.
It will be months before I get out that stuff again.

Get the winter stuff out. Oops! See the Fall decorations.
Pull them out. 
Sort.
Pull out the Halloween Stuff that the neighbor kids really loved.
Hmmm.
See the decorations for Christmas. 
Put them back. Go have coffee.
Watch the rain.

Rich gets hungry. Feed Rich. 
Storm gets worse.
Rich goes for his afternoon nap.
It is dark outside.
Sort the Halloween stuff and the Fall Stuff.
Time for Tea.

Nope, can't go out to walk.
Okay.
Get out the decorations and play with the camera.
Sounds good.

Dark and dreary. Some Still Life with plastic skulls and an old jar with marbles and lights.

In the shots below I used an Art Filter to create black and white grainy shots. This is a hanging skeleton/ghosty thing. I held it by the twine string attached to the top and shot it as it slowly turned back and forth.

Just the right amount of spooky-creepy.

And then back to the skull on the table with the lights:

I tried something I'd never done before. A long exposure of 10 seconds with moving the camera slightly during the exposure [twisting it slowly on the tripod].

The result was kind of fun.

Then one with a pumpkin.

Now a lot of folks shy away from spooky creepy stuff. Be assured that is not all that is on my mind. I just like experimenting with different ways of presenting a photo. If it creeps you out, then I did my job as a photographer. I made the viewer feel something.

So if that is not your forte...here is some other Still Life photos. I am not all Creep and Scare!

And the last photo. 

To make you laugh!

I was given my Virtual WOD for CrossFit and the coach said since I didn't have a rower, I could run one portion of my workout instead. I do have to be accountable once a week and send a photo of working out to the coach.

Here is my WOD photo of the week titled: I think I need a new rowing maching!

To which the coach replied..."I think it works better IF the water is on the outside of the boat."

Stay safe.

I'll be off to find more things to have fun with. Spooky or Not.

Not the day I imagined

Sure I had planned an afternoon of bicycling along the Kickapoo River and doing some exploring.

However.

Things sometimes do not go according to plan.

The day looked cloudy and rainy, so I delayed my bike trip up the Kickapoo Valley and decided to work on other projects.

Here is Sven doing some of his work. I stake him out in areas that need a bit of cleaning up. He does his job well and tramples the other weeds he doesn't eat.
Right now nettles are his favorite along with tall grasses.
The only issue is that once he cleans this area up, you can see all the 'junk' and chunks of metal that Rich has tossed over the years.
This is on my list of things to clean up this fall. One small area at a time.

Projects....

This is a rocker I picked up at a rummage sale. It needs a new 'stay', but since they only come in pairs, I guess I'll replace both of them. I'm going to sand the chair down a bit and let some of the natural wood come through...or I will paint it. I'm not sure quite yet. It is a tiny rocker and suited for very small people. Charlie and I sit on the porch and rock a lot together in the evenings.

This old chair needs a face lift and...well, one leg is slightly shorter than the others. The paint is chipping off badly. So I got after it with some sandpaper and then ...

I thinned some white paint that is mildew and water resistant and 'whitewashed' it. I sandpapered sections again to smooth it out and decided to brighten up the areas I'd had painted red at one time.
When I am done, I'll coat it with a polycrylic paint and it should weather the porch better. Once the cane is worn out, I'll use it as a planter. This chair has really survived the ages! I've had it for about 27 years.

Just after I started with repainting the little spools, my neighbor showed up and it was time to get to work.

Justin began to saw and I began to stack. He was grateful for the firewood and I was grateful that he could cut up the downed tree.
The Honey Locust is very dense and hard wood so he dulled up one chain just cutting!
He showed me how to gas his saw up, how to change the blade, how it started...he even showed me his chaps that he wears. Apparently they are safety chaps that will stop the saw blade. He said they are warm, but a good safety precaution.
He said I could operate a small chain saw, like an electric one. I was skeptical. He is trying to convince me that I could even get an electric powered one with a battery. Lighter and able to do a lot of the work I needed done.
Hmmm.

Anyway, I started to stack and carry. The little stuff from the tree top went here.

And the BIG stuff.

I had to bring up from the bottom of the yard and toss over the little sand hill [left over pile of sand and rock from when the basement was dug for remodeling]. I'm hoping to hire someone to come in and smooth out that section of the yard for me in the next year, along with the other trees that are just west of the house getting cut down.

I told Justin I'd carry the chunks of wood and toss them where we could easily get at them to stack them in his trailer.
He kept saying, "That is heavy."

I replied that my Deadlift PR weight was 105, and if I used the Sumo Deadlift stance and a jerk to the waist ... I was able to pick up the small logs and carry them fairly easily. I had to think about how I'd been taught to lift and think it through more than once.
When we got close to the stump, I chose to roll those pieces up the hill and into the big pile.

We were pretty surprised that the tree was solid throughout. It was not rotten.
However the root system was so shallow it was a wonder that it hadn't blown down years ago.

Our conclusion was that perhaps further below the dirt, it could be rock and perhaps that is why it was so shallow? I guess, we will never know.

What about Sven? I moved him a few more times and he did a fine job of uncovering an old Snapper mower that was buried in nettles. He then stood on the seat of the mower and reached higher.

Oh and the last note for this morning.

After lifting and carrying all of that wood, I am not stiff or sore.
Amazing.

Goings On

Rich hasn't felt well enough to go visit his mother. It isn't a very long drive and we could do a short stay.
However he still fights for oxygen saturation. If he walks across the floor...say 10 feet across the house, even with 02 flowing, ... his 02 drops into the 80's and takes a few minutes to come back to a low acceptable saturation.

Talking exhausts him. Quiet conversation between us is halting with a little grunt or look from him. Like clockwork now he gets up about 9AM. I get his coffee, help him with getting his breakfast and meds. By 10:30 he is ready to lay down.
If we are lucky, I fill him in on what I have to do on the 'farm' and errands I may have to run by then.

Today I used his 'nap' time to run to the feed store and get mineral salt for the mules and sweet feed for Mica who needs more calories than she is getting. She is a hard keeper and has been since she arrived her 17 years ago. 
I was able to fit in a CrossFit class and I'm glad I did. It felt good and I met some different folks.
All ... very nice.

Burpees, Box Jumping [I jumped on and off a stack of 45 lbs weights], jump ropes, ... that was our WOD at AMRAP. WOD...work out of the day. AMRAP...as many repetitions as possible in a given time. This was after 3 sets of 500 meter rows combined with bar lifts and shoulder touches. No worries, this was all foreign language to me a while ago. But the end result is that I felt good afterwards. I felt relaxed and ready to take on the rest of the day.

I grabbed 50lbs of feed and a salt block and headed home in time to wake Rich up and feed him a later lunch. All was good.

During his afternoon nap, I moved Mica to a separate paddock next to Little Richard, filled the large stock tanks and filled Mica and Lil' Richard's water buckets.

Charlie and I spent the rest of time tidying up some loose end on a few items that needed a quick fix. Like the place where a deer had broken a wire.

I gathered my fertilizer [the kind that melts ice] sand, and old hay chaff together. This combination is my secret weapon for ice.

We are supposed to get some snow tonight that will turn into rain. On frozen gravel roads and driveways that causes the road to become an instant ice rink.
If we get the heavy rain we will have creeks and rivers rising from the quick run off.

Yesterday was a 'free' day. I did chores and not much else. I did put Charlie's Christmas sweater on and took him to see my MIL. I took some shots of her with Charlie and sent them to a few relatives.

Funny. My MIL has always said she didn't like dogs. She likes Charlie.

Charlie also met another resident who asked if he could pet him. I said yes. The resident gave Charlie a ride in his wheelchair.

Charlie made the day for some of the folks at the elder apartment building.



Yup. I think I'm set up for the winter storm. I wonder if it will track this way or go north?