I’m starting to feel that my life (and this blog) are in slow rotation mode. It takes a while for me to come full circle, but here we are again, so if you have been following this blog for a while, and it seems like I’m starting to repeat myself, you’re correct! This came to my attention last week when I was chatting with another boarder at the stables. I mentioned I was heading off to get some photos at “working cowboy camp” at the Clearwater ranch and my friend remarked that he remembered that from last year’s blog photos. Right.
Ditto with my grandson Mark being off school and coming to “camp Grandma” for weekdays during the summer holidays. Been there before, done that (for a few years now) and here we go again. This year his mother seems to feel we need to spend at least the occasional moment in edifying pursuits, so she has given us an on-going set of photography and Photoshop assignments to apply ourselves to. Daily!! We have made it through day 1 but I can already sense that this may be challenging for us to accomplish, given that most summers we just kind of drift through our days, happily busy but not necessarily fruitfully occupied. We’ll see how it all pans out over time.
The theory here is that Mark will take a “theme” photo and do something with it in Photoshop every day that he is here (which in the end adds up to a fair number of days, even subtracting the ones where he is off adventuring and holidaying with his parents). I get to do the Photoshop instruction, which means it will be a learning experience for me as well, since I’ll have to think a bit harder about how to explain the process, rather than just poking away the way I do when I’m working on my own. Assuming we survive the process, I’m sure we’ll both be better individuals at the end of the summer. Right.
On to the photo collection from this past week. Shot number one is one that hasn’t been part of my summer rotation in the past, but that I hope will become one in the future. Mable Elliott wanted some shots of her horses and her place for promotional purposes, and I headed out there on Thursday morning, a nice sunny and quite breezy day, pretty well ideal for our purposes. I had only ever been to Mable’s when it was cold and not yet snowy, and really cold and snowy, so it was a wonderful treat to be able to spend time on the photos without worrying about the pain in my hands and my prospects of survival in general. She has a terrific collection of large willow trees all over the “core” area around the house and barns, and I liked this shot of a couple of the geldings pausing for a drink in the shade. This one has been enhanced with filters and various other Photoshop effects.
Shot two shows grandson Mark atop Mount Mulch, which is chopped tree prunings that can be purchased cheaply and in large amounts from a local tree trimming company. The only problem is I am the one (with a bit of help from Mark) who gets to distribute the pile all over the front yard. I’ve been toiling intermittently for several days now and while the pile is somewhat diminished, there’s still an awful lot of it in the driveway. To get an idea of the height of the pile, Mark is now a little taller than me, and I’m 5’5″. Sorry, I grew up here pre-metric so am not sure what that is in meters. Tall for a mulch pile, at any rate.
Shot three is one of the many lovely yellow roses in bloom in the front yard. I’ve always loved the yellow ones that I’ve seen all over the city for many years, and last year I finally figured out what they are and bought one. It got through the very tough winter in good style and is absolutely covered in blooms at the moment.
Shot four is a very typical one from any gathering of western-style horses. I got this at the Clearwater place, and sadly it is one of the few from that shoot. By the time I got down there in late morning on Saturday, it was chilly and very overcast, with a big wind blowing. In the interests of the instructors actually being heard by those who were there to learn, they had moved the remaining Saturday events into the indoor arena, where the lighting is not conducive to photography. This was a big disappointment for me as this is one of my favourite photo ops of the year. Of course Sunday was lovely and doubtless they were all having a heck of a good time working outside then, but it wasn’t a day that I could make it down there. Oh well, maybe next year!!
The final shot is from a series I did later on Saturday afternoon. I was moving mulch around and feeling generally that I had been short-changed in the photo department that day, when my friend who does wildlife rehabilitation phoned to see if I wanted to pop over to her place and get some shots of her current residents. This is something I love doing (and did last year too, around the same time of year, to stick to our theme of recurring events) so I was only too happy to grab the camera and get over to her place. By then the skies had cleared a bit as well and we had some sun, at least intermittently. She has the usual number of baby ducks (i.e. quite a few) at various ages and stages of development, plus a number of small mammals, including a *very* young skunk and tiny rabbit, which have to be bottle-fed every two hours night and day. People who take on this sort of responsibility are truly dedicated! The young raccoon featured in shot five was having a wonderful time exploring the possibilities of the back yard, which include this great water feature. She skittered all over the place, all the while vocalizing in a truly appealing fashion. I don’t look on the increasing local raccoon population with a lot of enthusiasm as I know how tough they can be on the domestic pet population once they get ensconced in the city, but darn it they are cute when they are little, and they also have their place in the larger scheme of things, so as with everything we all need to adapt and learn some tolerance. 

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.