Tag Archives: Fall

Falling Leaves

November 8th, 2008 | By Alecia Underhill

Cheerio, my English Shepherd, is going to turn two years old this coming Thursday, and I thought I would celebrate her birthday by posting a recent picture here. We have a wonderful old maple tree in the side yard. I don’t know exactly what kind of maple it is, but it has smaller leaves than some of the others, and they make a particularly lovely carpet around the trunk when they fall off the tree. The color just sets off Cheerio’s coat beautifully.

Although she is nearly two and her “off switch” is much closer to being fully functioning, she still just loves to play, and our favorite game is to throw the jolly ball into the middle of a pile of leaves and watch her dive into the middle of the pile. She would emerge, leaves sticking out of the sides of her mouth with the jolly ball, reminding me of Linus jumping into the leaves with a wet sucker.

I’ve been spending all my painting time working on a large commissioned portrait, that I won’t be able to post here until it’s finished, and other studio time is being occupied by computer work. However, today was for more leaf raking. And what a day it was for working outside. It is so warm, I can’t believe it’s November. There is a small window of time to get the leaves raked before it snows. And I would rather not have to clean them all up in the spring. Growing up at my parents’ house, on their small wooded lot, the leaves would be ankle deep, and you could easily accumulate a pile four feet high from raking a small area. We would haul the leaves on a big piece of plastic sheeting and dump them at the curb and wait for the city truck to come and suck them all up. Our yard now, with it’s scattered mature trees, means I have a much bigger area to cover, and we tend to rake it in sections, depending on which trees drop their leaves first. At least our hauling method is the same, except there is no city truck to collect them. We just compost them ourselves along with the horse manure.

The big excitement of the day? Bluebirds! I saw a flock of five or six Eastern bluebirds in the yard this morning. I sure wish they would use the house I built for them, but I’m happy just to see them around once in a while.

And this last picture is my Morgan mare, Unique, looking cute wearing her fall “jewelry”. I found someone selling these at Equine Affaire last year, and I thought it was a wonderful alternative to the big, clunky hunter-beware bell that clips onto the saddle (that is, if your saddle has d-rings, which mine doesn’t, and those leather ties just don’t hold it securely.) So now Unique is fashionable on her fall trail rides.

©Copyright 2008 by Alecia Underhill. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Alecia Underhill’s website.

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What you plan….

October 27th, 2008 | By Judy Wood

…and what you end up doing sometimes just wave at each other as they whiz by in opposite directions. This was totally the case for me today. The morning was set aside for getting a flu shot and doing several errands on this side of the city. Got stuck into my endless playing with Photoshopping  new images for my upcoming shows, and the time just vanished. I did manage to get a flu shot but that was it for extras.

The afternoon was to involve a trip with a couple of friends to the Devic centre to check out the labyrinth and do some shopping. They’d never been before and we were all looking forward to the outing. Got home to a message that one of them was sick, so that outing was going to be postponed. No problem, I have a friend on a farm west of the city who has a new puppy I want to photograph. I could run out there with the “extra” time I now had, get the photos and do the errands I needed to do on that side of the city. I try to optimize my driving outings to encompass as many errands as possible, in the interests of time and fuel efficiency.
Phoned her to make arrangements, to discover that she had just made a commitment to visit with relatives in town and wouldn’t be home. OK, no problem, still needed to buy some art supplies and do a library run, plus the leftover stuff from the morning, so that would be my afternoon. Mondays are my only “non barn” days so I schedule running-around type chores for Mondays. But, before I could get out the door for the afternoon (having yet again been temporarily sucked into the depths of Photoshop), the phone rang, and it was my horse vet friend Sue, summoning me to the barn where Alpac could get his semi-annual health update (shots, worming, teeth checked, whatever needs attention) today rather than Wednesday as scheduled, since they were at the barn and had done all their other business early.
OK, I’m flexible, so off to the barn I go. Guess I can do all that other stuff later in the week sometime. I get to the barn where Sue says she has given him a pre-exam mild sedative (needed as he is very large and doesn’t much like most vet processes) and I can bring him into the designated examination stall in a few minutes. I brought him in and got him into the right stall to await developments. Things started to go sideways at this point. One of the vets noted a trickle of blood coming out of his right nostril. Sue didn’t recall seeing that when she gave him his shot a few minutes earlier, and quizzed me on any history of this happening before. Since she is head of field services at the vet college, and there are always students on the calls with her as part of their practical  learning, she asked the students what this might  indicate. Turns out one of the things it *could* suggest is a fungal infection of the gutteral pouch which in turn could eat its way through the carotid artery and cause sudden death by a massive bleedout. Often the first indication that this is the case is the owner finding the horse dead in a huge pool of blood. Not exactly what I wanted to hear.
Having had this suggested as one of several scenarios, I was pretty adamant that we had to do whatever it took *right now* to rule this out as a possibility. They would need to put a scope up his nostril on the affected side and do a visual check to see where the bleeding was coming from, and of course all the scopes were at the clinic back in town. As luck would have it, one of the experts at doing this procedure and evaluating the results happened to be at the clinic and not too busy to come out (a rare occurence) so he hustled out to the stable to do further investigation. We still don’t know what caused it, but thank goodness it *isn’t* the fungal infection, so now I will be able to sleep tonight, although I’m still pretty strung out a number of hours later by the thought of the bullet dodged. They plan to do a head x-ray to check one more possibility, but Sue assures me that the life-threatening options have been ruled out, and whatever it is will be something we can handle. Or maybe we’ll never know, which is always one of the options as well. So none of this was on the agenda when I got out of bed this morning to contemplate my carefully planned day, and I’ll be happy never to have a repeat performance of the anxiety-inducing parts that I had to endure.
I’ve been doing a few “fall light” shots of various sorts in the past week, which I am featuring today. No horse vet shots. I had the wrong lens on for that at the barn and was too distraught to do that type of shot, although I did take the camera out to the outside horses to distract myself with some “photo therapy” while we were waiting for the scope to arrive. Better than chewing my nails, but somehow my heart wasn’t in it.
Shot number one is one I took of my friend’s horse who is in a west end stall where the light creates interesting shadows in the mid to late afternoon if the big door is open, as it was today. I love shadows and reflections and will play with them whenever the opportunity arises.
Second shot is one I took on the way home from the barn yesterday, of the lowering sun backlighting the fall reeds and grasses of the prairies.
Shot three is one of a series I am working on of two stumps in a ditch. I found them by accident earlier in the summer on a side road between the barn and the city, and I pass by every now and then to add to my collection of photos of them in different light and at different seasons. Somehow they make me think of the bones of prehistoric creatures.
We had a “three day blow” here on the weekend, with huge winds night and day, and wind warnings issued for much of the province. Shot four shows the leaves piled up against the fence of the public swimming pool down the street from us. The fence is about ten feet (3 M) tall.
Shot five is of my hops vine on the trellis near the driveway, with the colourful leaves of the bush whose name I can’t remember in back. I liked the combination of colours and textures in this one.

©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Judy Wood’s website.

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Quiet Garden

September 22nd, 2008 | By Heather Anderson

Don’t you just love Autumn? The air is crisp, with a coolness under the warmth of the sun, and there is a sort of quiet, leashed energy gathering, just waiting to burst out in another week or so with blazing colors and star-flecked frosty nights. We have been busy taking the faded summer annuals out of the garden and replacing them with pots of bright Mums for that necessary Autumn zing, and of course the Shelties have been helping by carrying garden gloves and other light things.
My painting “Quiet Garden” celebrates this wonderful time of the year. This pair of Shih Tzus are having a moment to soak up some sun while they admire a pot of bronze Mums. “Quiet Garden” is a Colored Pencil painting and is available for purchase.

©Copyright 2008 by Heather Anderson. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Heather Anderson’s website.

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It’s official

September 22nd, 2008 | By Judy Wood

It’s officially fall now, no going back to the summer no matter how much we whine and snivel. Actually fall is a favourite season for me, so other than hoping it will  last a good while, I don’t have much in the way of complaints. I like the cooler days where you can be comfortable in jeans and a light shirt, the welcome visuals with all the outrageous and improbable colours that briefly replace the relentless green of summer, and the bittersweet appreciation that comes with knowing winter will soon be shutting us indoors for the most part of the next five or so months. Luckily I like winter too, or I could be getting a tad discouraged at the prospect.

I’ve been scurrying about with the camera trying to make the most of it all, with some success. I went to the zoo last week as there are generally good “colourful trees reflected in water shots” to be had most falls, with the added touch of various forms of waterfowl (including the swans I am so enamored with) on said water. I did get some nice shots, but will have to try again later this week or early the following one, as there was surprisingly little in the way of colour change on the big trees last week.

Saturday we went back to the site of the wood-firing at the potters place down the road from Ebon to witness the unloading of the kiln. There was a *lot* of stuff in there! We hadn’t seen the inside before so didn’t realize what the capacity was. Suffice it to say that at one point after the pots were all off-loaded, there were three potters totally inside the kiln doing I’m not sure what. The point here being, this kiln is pretty big inside! Sounds like they are planning another firing towards the end of October, so we will try to get back for that one as well. It’s an odd form of entertainment, but we seem to be hooked on it.

Sunday morning we had grandson Mark and his dad here for breakfast, his mother being off to the lake cabin for a “ladies only” event. I’ve been meaning to get some shots of Mark running with  our Oscar, so we went to the park down the road for a mini photo shoot. Oscar and Mark have pretty well grown up together (Mark was two or three when we got Oscar as a tiny puppy) and they have a special relationship. One of Oscar’s greatest joys in life is to get to go “galumphing” across the grass of the park with Mark when we are on our neighbourhood walks. Oscar leaps and bounds along, joyous and proud to be with his boy, and never misusing his considerable strength to pull Mark over, which he could easily do.

Today I wanted to head out to my friend Pearl’s place (see post of Jan 25) where she and her partner Denis have a wonderful assortment of creatures of many species. The original plan was for late afternoon, but I rethought that this morning as I have extra horse duties at Ebon while my friend Elsie is away for the week. Her gelding needs special tending, so I decided to do the shoot this morning in order to be at the barn at the time JJ is used to getting his goodies and attention. This worked out perfectly as by the time noon came along and I was finishing my shoot, the clouds had thickened, the temperature was dropping, and we had rain. Another good example of things working out for the best in the long run even when they run counter to what we originally hoped to do.

The animal theme in my life of this past week seems to have been kittens. I can go years without ever seeing a kitten, then suddenly they seem to be wherever I go. There were the beautiful tri-colour girls at the B and B when we went to Spruce Meadows early in the month. There were various kittens in evidence on the farm where the potters are located, including one very bold (and heedless) little one who marched right into the kiln when it was opened. Then there was a very cute and bratty little guy at Pearl’s place today as well. He was very like a young male version of our one remaining cat, Scout. Scoutie is eighteen now and quite enjoying her life as the only household cat since we lost Bud in the spring, and tempted though I am by all these cute little guys, I don’t think I’d be doing her a kindness by bringing another feline into the household at this stage. Especially a kitten. I’m not sure I have another kitten in me, for that matter. When the time comes, a nice “used” adult cat that needs a good home will be just fine. Preferably a Siamese.

I’ve got a couple more shoots in the planning stages for later in the week, so I hope we get through this rainy bit fairly quickly. I can work around lowish light, cold, and wind, but rain and/or moisture is the dealbreaker when it comes to my camera. We just don’t go there.

One of the shoots is a cattle/horse/cowboy one, set for Wednesday morning. I haven’t been to a working cowboy shoot since July so I’m greatly looking forward to this one.

At the end of the week, I hope to get out to a horse facility that I just learned about, with a considerable number of horses in what looks to be a very picturesque riverside setting. If the weather, the light, the fall colours and the horses all work with me, it could be a spectacular shoot. No telling until the time comes, though!

Top shot today (a tad out of synch with my narrative) is of the kiln with the pots waiting to be offloaded.

Shot number two is of some of the ducks on the pond at the zoo. I almost opted for a swan shot here but this one was more colourful and in the “fall theme” mode.

Shot three shows Mark struggling manfully to keep up with a bounding Oscar.

Shot four is a totally silly one of the young tom at Pearl’s this morning. This is one of those shots that is crying out for a caption. My take it that it’s either the “invisible motorcycle” or that he’s just been caught in the process of beaming down from the mother ship. Either way, it’s pretty funny.

The final shot is also one from this morning at Pearl and Denis’. This is the Hackney stallion having a bit of a discussion with his young son. Sonny was feeling pretty cocky and marched right up into his Dad’s face while I was observing them. Dad was pretty tolerant until junior pushed one too many buttons, then he had to pull rank and remind the kid just what the pecking order is in their small family unit. No actual touching happened, just some good plain body language on the part of the stallion. I love to see a stallion that is allowed to be with mares and foals and not isolated and treated like a dangerous animal. Of course they have to have manners and a good sense of how to treat their herd, but this fellow has that in spades. Next time I go Pearl has offered to get them moving for me as I didn’t get anything in the way of action shots today. This stallion being a Hackney, I know he’s got some fancy action and I’d love to be able to get shots of it.

©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Judy Wood’s website.

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