Walking the kids...

What can I say?
Play time with Sven and Charlie.
Always fun.

The usual suspects...

Siera, the dark bay mule with the funky brand on her shoulder.

I told my grand daughter that Siera was bi polar. Not mean bi polar. Just sometimes she was happy and sometimes she was not happy. Her attitude can go from ho-hum to giving you cranky looks.
Here she stands off to the side looking a bit ugly at her pasture mates. She is consistent in this manner.
Hay is coming, time to stand off and look ugly!

The red heads and Fred. Poor Fred or is it lucky Fred? He is stuck in a pasture with all females.
Poor Fred.

The red headed sisters are their own little clique. They as a rule don't hang with the bay mules, Fred and Siera. They are usually paired off together. They will even lay down and sleep side by side.
I can take Sunshine out and go riding and Sunshine never pays attention to her screaming half sister. She walks away as if Sundance didn't exist.

Mica.
It must be awful to be the only grey flea bit mule.

She truly is shunned by the other mules. She hangs out just near enough to the other mules but it seems as if the other mules are prejudice against her color. Odd isn't it?

Fred cries and fusses for all of the other 'gals' when I remove them from the pasture, but remains mum when Mica comes out with me.

We'll see how this new herd dynamic works out come next spring. I wonder if it will be the same?
Fifteen will be joining them soon so things should get interesting.

School will be back in session for 15 and Sundance once the weather cools down.

Just Picture it!

OH I know ... I know!
I ranted about editing just a bit ago, saying take that shot, make it perfect, be...a true perfectionist.

However.
Here is a sample of a before [above] and after editing [below]. I used a graduated filter in PaintShopProX7 to give the sky a bit more of a punch and the water a bit more blue.
The shot below is what is looked like to me in my mind's eye.

I like to change things up and sometimes when I take a fall or winter photo all the colors just seem wrong.
What I see in my eyes is not what the camera shows me no matter how hard I work at it.

For example, I was out in the pasture the two days ago and the lighting was subdued but the colors were absolutely brilliant.

There is not much difference between the Original here and the edit. Just enough added warmth added in Viveza 2, from the Nik Collection. [The Nik Collection is free for download now as they are not developing it any further.]

More of a difference here. The yellows are more defined without the saturation becoming too offensive. This is more how my 'eyes' saw it. However, my camera is set to 'natural' and doesn't 'up' the saturation. There are settings on most cameras that allow you to take jpegs on a more colorful setting.

Here is two of our elderly donkeys. On the left is Princess and on the right is Emma.

I took this shot into ON1, a program that is now my favorite.
I took a bit of liberty with how I wanted this image to brighten up.

And then there was Julie...she was kind enough to pose again.

I thought the clouds and the skies were fantastic and needed to be brought out in the photo.

For this edit, I used PaintShopProX7 and Topaz Adjust 5. I edited the sky and the foreground separately.

And then one more edit. Julie's colors seem dim in this shot now. So I went back and did a bit of dodging on her body...

I do edit. I like to keep it somewhat realistic unless I am going for something completely odd and fun.

There you go. Fall color edits with donkeys as my star models.

Welcome Stormy & Stella

Our weekend was a busy one.  Friday was a long day heading to Madison for a follow up appointment.
The follow up went well and things are moving along as expected and a PET scan is scheduled for September.

During our last storm we of course had a calf.  Annie finally had her calf and the next morning as we were checking fences and picking up branches we were delighted to see 'Stormy' up and about.

Speedy who was born in around June 1st was checking him out.

Speedy likes to think of himself as the tough kid on the block.  Well he is as he is fully almost 8 weeks older than the others!

Then Speedy had another adjustment to make.

Stella was born during the hottest spell we've had this summer.  The heat and humidity were incredible and nasty.  Yet Stella was born.

She is our only heifer this year, but she is Dun colored and seems to be polled.

I have to admit, she is a knock out. 

Speedy and Stormy will become future meat projects and Stella will become one of the 'girls' eventually.  She and Bunny are both polled heifers.  Bunny is about 15 months old and is pure black like her father Black Bart.

It is a delight to see healthy calves in the pasture.

I imagine when the youngest calves get a bit of age on them, there will be plenty of running and chasing in the pasture.