Look What We Found ~ A childhood story

"Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot little puppies."
- Gene Hill


It was the last night of our summer. We went horseback riding with my two cousins John and Aaron.
It was near dusk, summer's end, nearly the end of August.
I know I was dreading going back to the 'city' where we lived and went to school.
Our summers were spent 'up North'.
I hated summer's end.

My Grandfather had a dog named Spot who was probably part Terrier. She'd died over winter of old age. I missed the little dog who was more like a cat. She'd bring you dead animals and allowed you to pet her when she'd see fit.
Grandpa and Grandma hadn't said much, we didn't ask if they were going to get another dog...perhaps they'd even hinted that 'nope, they didn't need another dog'.

For some reason my two cousins picked a different route for our ride, we took a 'shortcut' along the blacktop as we didn't have the whole night to ride.

Ahead of us a van swerved over to the side of the road.
A door opened and to our complete disbelief, dogs were dumped out. Puppies and young dogs that were half starved.
Some ran off into the forest and others staggered into traffic.
The van took off spitting gravel.

Horrified we cantered up to where the van had stopped.
Shadows of dogs ran off into the night.
Oncoming traffic stopped.
We ended up catching a puppy that was bright red and white, some sort of Spaniel mix.
We may have had a conversation that went something like this...

"My mom would kill us if we brought home another stray..."
or
"We already have two, our mom would...yeah...kill us if we brought home a puppy."
And we decided.
We couldn't leave it.
I tucked the half starved pup in my shirt and mounted up. We discussed our options all the way back home to my cousins' house.

"What about Grandpa?"
What indeed?
We decide Grandpa might want the puppy. Now to convince our moms.

Mom drove us back to our place. My sister and I took turns holding the puppy we'd nicknamed 'Bones' because she was nothing but a bag of ... well, bones.
When we got home, we walked to Grandma and Grandpa's house through the wet dewy grass and the dark.

The puppy moaned in my hands.
I know I was hoping against hope that Grandpa would say yes.
We knocked on the door.

Grandpa opened it up and turned the kitchen light on, motioning us in.

Somehow we managed to stammer out the story of riding down the blacktop and how we saw the van.
Then we placed 'Bones' in his big gnarled hands.
By that time Grandma had come into the kitchen.

Grandpa sat down on a kitchen chair, the puppy was staring up into his face.
Grandpa couldn't take his eyes off from her.
"Ma," he said, "git me some warm milk and bread. Looks like we gotta feed Freckles."

We looked at each other and then back at Grandpa. He was holding the puppy close and stroking her.
He smiled.
"I'm gonna call her Freckles," he said holding up the pup so we could see the spots he pointed to on her nose, "See? She's got lots of them!"

[Freckles lived a long and prosperous life with my Grandparents. She was the apple of Grandpa's eye who loved to tell the story of how his grandchildren rescued her from the side of the road.
In those days, there were no 'Rescues' for dogs to go to. Adopting a stray was not even heard of.
What happened to the other dogs? I never found out.]

Today? A bit of Random-ness?

"Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear."
-- Dave Barry"




Chickory Chickory Dock...

...The Spider Ran Up the Clock
...The Clock Struck Two
...The Cow Said Moo
...Chickory Chickory Dock

Not really the childhood poem...but one made up as a kid...we thought it was so much more interesting than the real nursery rhyme,
Hickory Dickory Dock...

Small miracles

I'm sure you recall me discussing Opal, the impossible to catch mule.
If she is in a paddock, she will trot away from you and even if she is tied out on a ring for grazing, she will walk away to the end of her rope.

She will run like the dickens if she has an open meadow, and thinks you are coming for her...
She will hide in berry briers and play hard to get...

Once caught and saddled though, she is a awesome mule.
Although she did hate to have her face touched or her ears touched...was picky about who picked up her feet or saddled her.

With all of her 'holes' she is still a fabulous ride.
When it was evident that I could no longer ride Badger I started a campaign with Opal, the mule that could never change.

I kept her in a sandy pen, isolated from the other animals.
Each day I caught her and groomed her.
Each day I picked up her feet.
After about 6 weeks, she stopped running from me when I approached with the lead rope.

I also used a 'cheater'. I found that she liked 'horse cookies'.
I'd found a secret weapon.
I'd let her smell it in my hand and then I'd drop it and walk away. She'd eat it up and then follow to see if I had more.
I did not bring a treat each time, so she never knew when to expect one.
But at least she was now beginning to walk up to me when I came into the paddock.

The heat wave came.
We moved her to a larger shaded area with Badger as company.
The first day she was stand offish.
After a week, I could walk up to her and scratch her neck. This area was bigger, and she'd try to stand behind Badger.
So I began to catch her and groom her again, along with Badger of course.

That area became barren, and we had to turn them out in the Donkey Meadow.

I was sure that everything that had been accomplished would be 'out the window' now. Opal had a good 10 acres to roam and run in.

Last night at dusk I went out to check on Badger.
Opal was the last animal to come up. She was sly and circled me, curious. I tossed a green apple out for her to munch on.
She ate it and then followed the donkeys back out into the meadow.

This morning I came 'armed' with my secret weapon.
Cookies.

Opal was up with Badger, Eddie, and Sundance, near the water tank. They had made their own small 'herd' separate from the jennets.

I stood for a bit hands loose at my sides.
Opal came near.
I handed Badger a cookie.
Opal's ears flicked.
I tossed a cookie at her feet and then stepped back.

She ate it, then pushed Badger aside.
I reached out and rubbed her forehead.
I reached out and scratched her neck and withers. I ran my hand along her neck and rubbed her ears.

She stood quietly.
This in itself is a miracle of sorts.

I turned and walked away.
She followed me to the fence.

I hid a grin on my face.
I had hoped that I'd now found a secret to Opal's heart.
I felt something profound and deep...
and satisfying...
as a tears of joy and sorrow ran down my face.

I'd found Opal's heart.

Yet I was still losing the battle for Badger's life.

Irony or miracle?

Am I Coming or Going?

So when you think you have run out of things to do, you can always set up a 'fun shot' using a tripod and any old camera that has a 10 second delay.

Mark a spot so that you can find it before the shutter goes off, and take some photos of yourself rapidly [so the sunlight doesn't change on you and screw up the exposure].

Put all of your shots into some form of editing program. I used Photoshop 7.0.
I stacked the photos and used Topaz ReMask 3.2 to cut myself out of the stacked photos.

I just did a quick edit:
I used the blue brush to quickly outline myself.


Then hit compute...it looked good so I clicked on 'OK' and I was isolated from the background.
I did that for 2 of the poses and then had my 'multiple exposure' shot.
Quick and simple, looks like magic, but it isn't.

The bonus was the shot with Morris standing there. It was not planned as I cannot really figure out what this dog has on his mind.
I think it just added to the fun of the over all shot.

Now that I've tried this, I might be ready to try a more interesting type of 'collage'!

Written also for Press the Shutter, A Photography Forum and posted under the Image Editing Section for discussion.

Heaven on Earth

Yesterday I took a walk between storm fronts. The morning rain accompanied by fierce lightening had brought over an inch of rainfall.
So I decided to shoulder my backpack filled with plastic bags to protect my cameras and head through the neighbor's pasture down towards the creek.

I followed a cow path that had rain beaten evidence that cattle had moved through recently. No cow chip throwing today, it was rain soaked cow mush-pie.
I suppose I grinned when I thought of that.
Tossing mushy cow pies would be fun when you were 10 years old.
In fact, I recall my cousins using little fire crackers to blow up juicy cow pies...
ohhh, but that is another story entirely.

I first heard the sounds of water tumbling down.

The water was deeper than usual and muddy.
The moss was enchanting.
The trees dripped water droplets and rustled.
A pine warbler sang a sweet song, and the water eased my soul.

Heaven on earth in my own 'backyard'.

How could I be so lucky to have my own place of 'Zen' within a few minutes hike.

I sat down at this place and felt the dampness of the rain on the moss soak through my pants.
It didn't bother me.
I placed my tripod in the creek's brown muddy water and began to 'shoot'.

Truthfully?
If it hadn't started raining again, and I hadn't had a watch?

Would I have wanted to come back?
Heck no.

The creek holds secrets, the creek bottom is a place to sit and think, if so inclined.
By simply observing the creek, you learn life's important lessons.

You learn to relax.

You learn to simply be.

Making a Hot Rod Skid Steer

Let me say that this was taken with a very cheep - cheap - cheap - 'fugly' pink point and shoot camera.

Just an ordinary shot of an ordinary skid steer with a rather ugly backround.

So I used Topaz ReMask to pull out the skid steer and used Topaz Adjust to jazz it up a bit, along with some color adjustments in Photoshop 7.0.

Here is the original:
Boring!
So I selected part of the clouds from this storm shot and then layered it over the 'cut out' skid steer.

I used Overlay as the layer type and it looked like smoke!

I used a second layer of the clouds and put it in front of the cut out skid steer and moved it around a bit...plus reduced its opacity ...
Viola..
One pretty crappy photo turned into fun...




VROOM!

Thistle Thistle How Pretty Are You?

I plan on doing some shots of some not so very well liked wild flowers.

This is one of them.
Really quite a beauty isn't it?

[Added text and layering along with multiple frames.]

I promise, more after I get to wander in the woods!