going sideways

The news lately has not been very promising. Suddenly I feel as though I've been jettisoned back into the COVID era and the horror of those 4 years.

I decided to stop looking at the news for now and just go do my own thing.

I donned a long sleeved shirt sprayed with Buggins, long lightweight pants, gloves with the fingers cut out, and a head net.

I was ready to get out to my happy place even if it meant dealing with T-Rex Skeeters and swarms of gnats.

I also needed to check in on the mules to see how the girls were doing since they were staying out in the woods.

They've been spending a lot of time in the Buckthorn Woods. Yes, they are invasive trees and are horrible to have. I'm going to leave them to the next person who wants to live here. For now, they provide a great shady area for the girls to hang out. It even feels cooler under the canopy.

The air was quite still, but still cool enough since it was only about 7AM. I made my way down the trails to the creek. I wanted to see how the new rains had affected the creek. 

Water! Slow moving beautiful sounding water. Once again the water flows gently through our rather messy creek bottom.

Over the past few years, so many trees have tumbled over crisscrossing the steep banks. Negotiating the bottom takes quite a bit of balance and determination. Sometimes it includes a bit of creative climbing and careful steps when the rocks are wet and mossy.

I brought Glenda, a Lego minifigure along and a couple of Lego creatures. I just knew that between the dappled light and the water, I'd find something that would tease my imagination.

My other favorite thing to do in the creek is look for iron concretions. While climbing around in the dry runs [which are wet] I spotted quite a few and felt like I'd hit the jackpot. These rocks always add textured interest to my succulent garden.

I stuck those in a sack I brought with and sat down on one of the wet rocks just to watch the sun shine through the trees onto the water. It felt so peaceful and comforting. Yes, the bugs were there and they buzzed my head net, but I was able to mostly ignore them.

I took a few shots of Glenda doing Glenda Things. She seems to be an expert at finding and rescuing creatures. Yes, you can actually see well enough through a No-Seeum Head net to take photos!

I'm sure she was as surprised as I was that she found an Iguana in Wisconsin. But since this is a Lego Imaginative play time. It could be anywhere, right?

She heard of a Dove that was lost and so she went searching and calling for it.

Imagine her joy at finding it!

The colors and light that come through the canopy of mixed hardwoods here is so beautiful. It takes an effort to get to and move around. But the journey is well worth it. It isn't grand or spectacular, but in its small way, it is stunning.

Here is a shot with Glenda in the middle of the stream. Yes, I had to build a place for her to stand on a flat rock in the water. Three or four times she tipped over and threatened to gently float away....

But that is the real fun of it all. A difficult hike with all sorts of challenges to get to a spot that feels like my private space in nature.

When things cool off, I'm going to have to bring a little saw to this spot and cut a path through the newly downed trees. With all the rain we've had the soil is saturated and trees on the banks are just letting go. Eventually the trees rot and break up and then are washed downstream in a large flash flood, but that hasn't happened in years.

I had fun and even though I got hot, I enjoyed myself. However, next time I need to spray some Buggins on my legs ... and rear end. Dang Skeeters bit me right on the Bum through my lightweight pants!

Oh well. It was a great place to get sidetracked and enjoy the beautiful outdoors despite the monster Insects...

Today is all about, hurry up and wait. The Home 02 People are going to come 'sometime after noon'. So maybe I'll go do something silly inside to entertain myself.

How about some space adventures???

👋

Rainy day fun with Still Life

 

Teddy Bear Garden Club
Meeting

With two days of darkness and dreariness filled with rain and well, gloom...I decided to mess around with --- toys of all things! Surprise!

I had to be quiet because the other half was Mr. Sleepy Head. I did chores of course along with transplanting Bee Balm plants that were emerging. They are so hardy and tough. I knew with the rain, it might be a good time to move things [in between showers].

I decided to clean up my old camera and hired a crew to do that while I swept the house for Charlie hair.

Kidding of course. I decided to take advantage of the low light coming in from the east and south windows. It wasn't harsh, but perfect for Still Life.

You don't need much room to 'make' a scene.

Clean up Crew

What it looked like before I put up a tea towel...

"Oh no Chuck, we need some eye drops! Can

you get the top off?"

These are HO Scale pieces and they don't like to stand up on their own very well. Viola! Some Elmer's Glue works very well. This wipes off easily and works wonders! It goes on purple and fades to clear.

It is amazing what happens to a creative person when she gets bored from being quiet around the house. 

I got out the kid blocks and a little light and set them up on my 'play' table.  For special effects I put the camera on a timer and simply used a face mister for fog and water in a spray bottle for rain.

With almost no edits, I got these photos of this little Lego figure:

Pre-edit. 

Upped the blacks and....decreased

the color...

I even tried making Frank the Trooper float, and that failed miserably. I used a fishing line to suspend him and tried the following. He kept swinging around and nothing worked out for me.

I went back to what worked before and added a filter to the light.

Original:

Final:

I added some contrast and a used brush that comes with ON1. It is supposed to be a comet, but I thought it looked like a blast from a blast. The 'rain' is from the spritzer.

Friday morning we had sunlight! It was cold and windy...but Charlie and I adventured down into the valley to the Big Spring.

More about that...

later.

Today it is snowing again.

thhhhppptttptptp...ffffttt.