Sneaky Doodling on a mule.

It started simply.  I got the boots on ... my riding 'half chaps' [yeah it looks silly over cowboy boots, but they protect my legs from the brush].

Then there was Opal, who was ready, willing, and very able to take me on an Adventure.

We decided to take the ridge road.  The woods were so thick with berry briers and other nasty sharp things.  Here Opal is relaxed and just enjoying herself.  Note the ears are very relaxed in the second picture.

When we found our usual trail blocked by corn we decided to find a way around it.  This lead us to going along another field road.  The sky at times threatened to rain.  We didn't care.  

We were going to go sneaky doodling.  

Sneaky Doodling is the art of riding through an area and not leaving a trace....the art of Sneaky Doodling was started many years ago when I used to ride with some of my younger and braver friends... We 'sneaked' through field roads to get from one farm area to another.

We followed the trail under some magnificent oak trees
 

UH oh.  Opal and I found the 'blind' for deer hunting.  I assured her that NO hunters were around.  She seemed content with that.

We 'sneaky doodled' through ... on the field road.  Nary a soul saw us except for perhaps a squirrel and a few turkeys.

When we got home it was time to change out of the cowboy boots pull off the saddle and then sit in the yard and enjoy being on the other end of the lead line.
Opal was content to munch.  I was content to lean back and watch.
I'd forgotten how much fun it was to 'Sneaky Doodle'.

 

Dog Days

Yup.  Morris. 

Just having a grand old time.

He really is a camera 'hound'.

Ping Pong Game of Healthcare for Veterans

This is sort of the never ending saga of our state of health care for Veterans.

My hubby was in pain yesterday, the medical people call it 'idiopathic' pain as it doesn't have a source that they can pinpoint it to.  His B/P went from way high to now... way low.  

As low as 103/77, which sounds okay and good, but when you are dizzy, nauseated, and unable to concentrate...it becomes a bit concerning. 
[Yes, they put him on a new B/P med which makes his blood pressure dip wildly, and it also fluctuates wildly.]

The phone call to the VA hospital triage nurse was made.  She insisted we go to Vernon Memorial...the hospital that we had such a bad experience with before.  
Hubby said no!  She warned him that he could 'die' in transit in the car.  He said 'SO?'
So off we went with a great sense of urgency.   
[Two stops for barfing...ewww, thank goodness none IN my Jeep!] 

At the Urgent care, after 5 hours they decided to keep him for observation and then a stress test the next morning.  

Good.  I had to work a midnight shift and I felt this would be a great option.

Then the substitute psych doctor came in and told him that he saw no psychiatric signs of distress and that my hubby really wasn't in distress and that high blood pressure and headaches were not caused by stress. 

[HMMM?  Where did this guy get his license to practice?  Out of a magazine? He had some way off the wall things he said to my husband and instantly his BP went from 130/88 to 187/90.  Stress nor emotion effect B/P?]

The attending doctor said he could go home and she wanted him back in the morning for a stress test but no change in meds.  
I looked at her and said *Do you have any idea how far we have to travel?  I work until 8am and I am in no way going to be able to bring him.*

She looked at hubby and he gave her the 'stink eye' and told her he hasn't been able to drive in over 3 weeks because of this...much less function.  

OH.

Well, they had beds, but he wasn't 'bad' enough to be kept and they had beds, but they needed to save them in case... so ... yeah it was a long way but could we come?  This needed to be done right away!  OH and by the way, if symptoms persist or he doesn't feel better, please come back.  But, he was to stay on the meds that were making him sick, no change, no plan other than the stress test.

Roll of the eyes.  I said so ... 'I can bring him back every day?'  No answer.  The A.M. Stress Test was out of the question for Friday morning.  No way I could work a midnight shift and have him there in time.  

The VA hospital is a good care facility, I will give them that.  What stinks is that they don't have the capabilities to actually take care of all the veterans who need help.  So the system works on the triage system.  Worst ones first.

I get that.  

Today?  He is feeling just as crappy as ever.  Two nurses have called.  One to schedule his stress test for Monday and the other to see how he was doing.  

Any changes?  Nope.

Better? Nope.

He told her not even to suggest the drive.  

I'm sure that my husband is not the only Veteran who feels like he is getting the run around for health care.  It is a sad state when these men and women give everything to protect our rights and then get shuffled around like numbers.

One person even patted my hubby's hand and said, 'Honey there is a light at the end of the tunnel.'

She meant to be nice, but I wondered if she was talking about a freakin' freight train or a 'near death experience'?

And the beat goes on.  [We hope]

A bit more on the FujiFilm FinePix HS 30 EXR

First let me begin with some more 'likes' about this camera.

One very nifty and cool feature I found that I really love a lot is the Auto Panoramic Mode.

Really?  Gosh, it should not be so easy!  Put the camera in Panoramic mode, follow the instructions, and simply hand hold the camera and slowly turn until the camera stops and processes the shot.

Here are 2 shots I did as experiments in the Pano mode at 120 degrees.

Clouds and pasture:

River sunset:

The flip screen.  Some other cameras like the Canon version of this same camera, the Canon SX40 HS 12.1MP Digital Camera has a flip and rotating screen to use.  Nifty, but I wasn't impressed by some of the reviews.

However the FujiFilm camera will flip up to 90 degrees like so [this one was edited for an artistic value]:

And you can tilt it to shoot up.  I like that feature as I can take shots with the camera literally laying on the ground if I want to.

Example of the flip screen in use:

Note the Gorilla Pod underneath, I was doing a 3 exposure shot of the rocks and let the self timer of 10 seconds open the shutter so that I wouldn't 'shake' it in low light.

You can also see the dial on top of the camera.  You have Manual, Aperature, Shutter, Program.  EXR allows some more type of shooting, Full Auto, and two Advanced, Sp1, Sp2, Panoramic, and C.  C lets you customize the settings.  That can be a good feature if you want to set the camera up for a particular kind of shoot.

I'm not going to go through each of the menus as I am still exploring them. 

These are the HDR shots I took in this setting in Manual Mode, Fine JPEG, ISO 100, Auto Bracketing Exposure of 1 step.  I used Photomatix 3 to put the exposures together.

 

Video is one touch.  I haven't tried the video yet, but expect to do it soon.

I used the continuous mode to 'shoot' my dog ... it takes multiple frames and then you can pick the best one.

This feature doesn't impress me.  The time to record data takes way too long.  My Olympus E-420 can rapid fire and save much faster.  However, I expect I can work with this feature.

The zoom.  Well a good zoom lens costs a lot of $.  These two shots should speak for themselves.

Lastly...to be able to go from Zoom to macro is a real bonus.

No swapping of lenses.

Cons.

The processor takes to long in Continous Mode, AEB Mode, and it seems forever to pull data while shooting an AEB series with RAW + JPEG.

That said, I really can learn to be patient.  But if I am going to do some real hard action, I'll grab either my Nikon D40 [yes old!] or my Olympus E-420.

All around this camera so far is fun and inspiring.

Not having to lug around extra lenses and being able to take bracketed photos while handheld really makes me a happy person.

HDR from the river with zoom ... hand held.  Processed in Photomatix and touched up with Topaz plug-ins.

Happy Shooting!

Frosty the Lost Cow

Things were pretty quiet, morning coffee...the sound of birds chirping, a donkey braying out in the woods.

Then it got rather noisy.

The hound dogs starting braying like crazy.  Opal and Fred snorted and trotted back and forth in their small pasture.

We heard the bellering of a cow.  I mean not just the moo moo sort of thing either.  A long mournful all out gosh awful noise of a cow looking for something.

Down our driveway came a black angus type cow.  She was on the move.  Our coffee sat on the table as my husband moved outside to see what was going on.

The cow had orange insecticide tags in her ears, but no numbers or other markings.

I began with the phone calls.

We ruled out the immediate neighbors and our 'phone tree' kept working until someone recalled some fellas looking for a black cow driving up and down one of the gravel roads.

One neighbor tracked down the fellas looking for the 'lost' cow and gave him our phone number and directions to our place.

Meanwhile the cow 'Frosty' [named as such because her ears had been badly frost bitten at some point in her life], settled down next to our little Dexter heifers and began to eat.

Frosty, as it turns out, had come from another town about 15 miles away and had been taken to a farm about 3 miles away as the crow flies.  Over night she escaped the farm where she was to be bred...then was found by the sheriff's department on the highway.  She was then put in a corral for safekeeping at a horse farm about 2 miles away.

Frosty escaped the horse farm and made her way I suppose either by road or through fields and the woods to our place.

The owner was extremely relieved to have found his  'cow'. 

I guess this is just an example of how hard rural folk will work to find out who owns an animal.  Everyone on my ridge and surrounding area worked hard on the phones and by vehicle to track down Frosty's owner.

It was a fine day.

Sky of Mind

Well not really.

We've had some awesome skies the last couple of days.

Just thought I'd share.

That's it.
Have a great week!

First impression FujiFilm FinePix HS 30 EXR

FujiFilm Finepix camera [all in one none DSLR].
Many folks don't believe you can take very good shots with anything but a DSLR.

I agree a DSLR is great.  But my one drawback I have found while hiking is that I either choose to bring only one lens and have often chosen the wrong one to use. 

I'd sold my FujiFilm FinePix S1500 a while ago [very cheaply to a friend so his daughter could experiment].  Frankly, I missed that camera which allowed me to go from one 'lens' to zoom lens with a flick of the finger.

It was one of the first digital cameras that was made this way.  I figured that improvements had been made in the past 6 yrs.
I was correct. 

This camera at first glance looks and feels like any DSLR.  It has heft to it and seems to be built quite sturdy.
Never having to change the lens and yet having the 24-720 zoom range is, to me, a huge plus!

I don't get caught without the wrong lens in the woods, or have to drag more than one lens along and try to change them in a hurry.

I can do super macro and lay the camera on the ground and use the tilt screen to capture my image.
Yeah, that it super cool!
Macro:

Colors:
Shot in Auto mode zoomed into the bush...

Morris:

B&W mode of the ridge where we walked:

Landscape mode using the tilt screen while laying on the ground:

 

Conclusion:

This camera has a lot of potential that I have not even tried yet.

It also has a one touch button to record movies.

I'll be trying this out in more ways.  One of the features I do like about it, is that you can take hand held 3 exposures without a tripod and do a fairly good HDR.

Most of the shots taken, though could use a tad bit of post processing.  But the average user can get along fine in the auto mode.

There are many functions to use.

It'll take time for me to get through them, but getting around the menus are not too bad. 

Just takes time to get used to them.