The End of November

Meanwhile in Wisconsin...

We had snow! I even tried to photograph a single snowflake like my friend ---> You know,  like that Aurora gal at equine expressions. 

All I got was cold because I wasn't acclimated to the weather yet and I didn't have the proper clothes on.

I did however get a comparison photo of a few days before the snow and the day we had snow.

This isn't far from the mailbox and it is the grape vine that I used for making grape jelly.

These grapes are still hanging on. I wonder if they are still so sweet?

The photo below was taken two days before gun season. I was enchanted by the color of the leaves and the gossamer webs that quivered in the morning sun.

I'm still struggling with grasses and photos of intriguing grasses. I didn't go very far after the snowfall on Sunday morning. It was windy and bitter. I hope to get out to the cropland soon and pick some 'weeds' for my fall bouquet.

This was an effort. I guess without practice and failures one doesn't get proficient at certain things. Winter grasses will be on my list. I've never stopped to study them before, but I did find them pretty intriguing as an abstract form.

For some odd reason, I find this photo comforting and pleasing. 

November is nearly done! One more day! So I need to finish up my photo project of finding beautiful things to photograph in November.

Gooseberry bush. 
I took this before hunting season.

Ninebark seed head. It is a pretty bush that has beautiful flowers in the spring. Taken the day before deer season.

Fun with Fungi.

Again taken before I was ousted from the woods for nine days.

My neighbor who has cattle and horses on the ridge bought this guy at a sale and he is the only donkey left in our area. He talks all day and all night. He is a mini. This is the very first time he has been along the pasture that is near our gravel road.

I took the following shots on Sunday after the snowfall. When I walked to the ridge to get the mail, I discovered no vehicle tracks in the fresh snow.

It seems the hunters on the land east of us had decided not to hunt the last day of the season.

Ninebark seed heads with snow caps.

The Queen Anne's Lace can have such a beautiful shape even in the winter. I can see the seeds waiting to be bumped off by a passing animal.

The Queen holds court
waiting
for a passing
touch

For now, I'm going to wave goodbye to November's colors as the snow and cold has turned the landscape into winter.
Indeed, November was full of color that I never noticed before. Fall lingered on and on producing unexpected beauty in places I haven't looked in before.

Farm life

This summer we had a lightening strike that literally exploded a tree that was in Thor's paddock.
Thor seemed fine at the time, just very shook up. When I checked out the wires in his paddock they had been fused together. Thor didn't act much different but he started to lose some weight.

The vet said that he probably had some residual effects from the lightening strike and hadn't been struck directly but since it melted the wires in his paddock, it probably affected him somehow. Otherwise Thor seemed almost normal. The vet said there was really nothing we could do other than just watch and wait.

Thor was born on our place and was a super funny character as a donkey.

I will miss Thor's constant antics. He would take his water bucket and flip it outside the paddock. If he could find a branch...well,...

He'd hold up sticks and present them to you like a dog. Sometimes in the summer he'd stack all sticks he could find in his water tub. He loved attention and would bray at the sound of a vehicle, coyote, owl, or the neighbor's mini jack a mile away on the ridge top.
Thor was vocal. So vocal that one of the guys at CrossFit said "Oh, you are the donkey lady! The one with that loud Donkey!"

Yes, he could heart Thor from 1 mile away on certain days.

Each morning Thor would greet me when I brought him hay. It was generally a series of grunts and groans that precluded a long loud bray.

Yesterday morning, he wasn't there. I dropped his feed and went looking for him. He was laying down but didn't wake up when I approached.

He was still slightly warm but had no pulse.
Gone.

Your voice will echo through this hills for a long time and I will miss you every day.

Goodbye you big goofy donkey.

Gardens and Donkeys and Ponies

Well now those things really don't mix together now do they? Or do they?

So why on earth would I even put them together in the same blog post?

Well because I worked on these things in the past couple of days.

The new garden. It is in the place where all of the 'stuff' from remodeling sat most of last summer and through the winter. I dug it up after cleaning up the bricks and pieces of carpeting. I hauled the mess to the dump. One huge load that filled the back of the Jeep cost only $10 to get rid of.

Anyway, I looked at the huge ugly bare spot and decided early that this would be a fun spot to put some iris's and maybe some other plants.

And the project kept growing. I put in 50 vinca plants and tossed in some other transplants.
Last week while we were at the hardware store, I begged for a garden cart and hubby agreed to buying me one.

I am using old rusty and busted up buckets as planters again this year. I think they make a fun contrast to the beautiful flowers growing inside of them.

Photo from last year

So I began to add a few things like a brick border. Bricks I found in a pile over by the garage. And some rocks from another garden.
I just place things and then constantly rearrange them.
I thought just to be fun I'd add a Yard Gnome. I am not a fan of Yard Gnomes, but it would be a fun little twist anyway. I also considered a Dragon.
Someone notified me of this item: The Gnome Massacre

Now this would be perfect and would definitely satisfy my strange sense of humor.

I looked it up on Amazon and some other sites. My finger was itching to hit the 'order' button. I may still do that.

Imagine my surprise at finding some marigolds sprouting up in the 'new' garden area. I tossed last year's marigold blossoms and dead heads into the 'junk' pile. Apparently the seeds were good!

I've arranged the odd rocks I collect while hiking in Awesome Creek. The neighbor kids call it Dog Poo Rocks. I admit, they do look like dog poo. But they are such odd rocks, I have to have them somewhere!

Someone else said I needed to put some of my 'skulls' in the garden for display.
Hmmm, that would be interesting too. I should take some of those old skulls and paint them.

These flowers begged me to purchase them at the store. I walked by the Petunias and was ready to put some into my cart when I stopped and looked at these.

My father was pretty fond of these flowers. I've heard them called Pansies and Johnny Jump Ups.
My father called them the Happy Flower. He said they looked like little smiling faces.

So I brought these home. Some will go in containers and some will go in the East Garden and ... well, I haven't thought it out yet, but the flowers will all find homes.
And I will smile at them.

I thought the porch could use a freshening up, so while waiting for a shower to pass, I washed it and scrubbed it with a barn broom.

Then I while hubby took a nap, I went out and decided to do something about the troublesome area on the north side of the Big Shed.
Bob's Pen had turned into muck so I thought Bob could do me a favor and clean up the grassy/weedy area I had thought I could keep under control with a weed wacker. And I thought "Why waste the gas on a mechanical tool, when a donkey could do the job?"

This is a poor shot from my cell phone, but you can see that Bob is quietly working on cleaning things up for me.

Next week I have some summer pasture work to do. I need to clean the brush off the electric lines.

And I have to fix Lil' Richard's tie out line. He has some work to do also.

Last but not least, I must include my Supervisor.
Mr. Morris.

Still Life on the Cheap

I just started a class in Still Life and this is week two.  At first I thought I was an idiot for trying something out of my comfort zone.

I like hiking, I like nature, I like outdoors so that is usually what my subjects are. I learned something from my father, as long as you had some light coming in from the outside, you could take photos on the inside of the house.

So I decided I'd go ahead and try 'Still Life'.  What could it hurt?  I could learn something and it is never bad to learn something new.

First here is my really expensive set up for my 'table top' shot I wanted to do last week.

Please note the helper in the photo.  Hedgehogs are common missiles when I am sometimes working this close to the floor.

However it was an overcast day and I was trying to make the best use of the light. I set up a white foam board behind the basket, which Morris promptly nosed down.
But eventually we worked it out and I came up with this.

I used an old lace curtain on top of a box.  I tossed in some carnations along with a card someone had given me. I put some coffee in the coffee cup and gave Morris a very stern look.  I set the camera to manual and used a tripod and remote to get the shot.  
I did use Topaz Glow to pretty it up a bit.

Not satisfied with just that as a shot, I set some other things up.  Barbed wire, a rusted clip and some brass bells on a ribbon.

I used more of a limited color in this shot and a narrow depth of focus.

Week two asks that we shoot a photo with negative space and the rule of thirds.

Here is how I set this week's shots up.  

Yes, a dresser, a white sheet, and a white board next to a window.

And I decided to go with a Valentine's Day theme so I added candy.

Oh darn.  That funny stuffed donkey just wouldn't leave my thoughts.  So I decided to photograph it too.

However the donkey turned out okay but the photo really seemed quite lacking. I wasn't that impressed at all, even if the idea was fun.
Well, simply put.  It had too much empty space!

Exactly what it was supposed to have.
So I changed it like this:

It sort of has a vintage feel to it yet doesn't feel so empty.

I stopped right here.  Too much messing around would probably ruin this.

So you can do some pretty impressive Still Life work without a whole lot of investment.
I just did and found out that I really enjoyed it.

Just make sure your photography assistant isn't going to grab your toy Donkey and run off with it.  Or decide that tossing a hedgehog into the works would make it look so much better.


I used AfterShotPro by Corel for the RAW files, I used Topaz Adjust for making the donkey look 'vintage', and PSPX7 [PaintShopPro] for the editing. CS2 for any additional work.

Texture added to the first shot from mercurycode at deviantart.