Lambs Grow Up

Lambs will be here at the end of February and I have been thinking about how fast they grow. Here are some of the 2013 favorite lambs as they grew up.  This is Marilyn with her mom, Hot Lips. 2 1/2 weeks old. First in her class at Black Sheep Gathering, 4 months old. Marilyn at 8 months old. Isn't she pretty?  Santana at 10 days old.  About a month old. Not quite two months old.  5 1/2 months old with a great horn spread. Santana with his ewes 7 1/2 months old. That's Alex on the right at about 10 days old. Not much color on that side. Fortunately he has more on the other. About 4 months old. About 8 months old.Alex after shearing, 9 months.This is Cascade at 10 days old.Two months old. Here she is at 7 1/2 months. 

Across the Road at Sunset

I took these photos with my i-phone last week. As I was looking into the phone I didn't think that the phone's camera was catching the brilliance of the sunset. I snapped them anyway, but then forgot about it. It was only when I saw the photos on my computer that I realized how amazing that camera is.

Across the Road Close-up

I just wrote a post using photos that I took Across the Road from our mailbox. I started that to document the changes in the field that we see from our house everyday. The photos themselves are kind of boring and not all that attractive. Here is some of what I see when I walk Across the Road. (And here is Rusty's version.) Last year the main crop was sunflowers but there is a corner of land owned by someone else. Last summer's crop on that parcel was corn. Hot dog. Irrigating the sunflower field. Pollenating the sunflowers. Stickers in someone's fur. Sometimes our road seems like an alfalfa highway. Swarm of bugs. Another hot dog.  Irrigation water. This sure looks appealing when it is 100+ degrees.  Signs that I'm not the only one Across the Road.   Hope of the next harvest.

Early Morning Sheep Portraits

I usually have my i-phone (camera) with me but was glad I took the real camera to the barn this morning.That is Celeste in the doorway. AlisonSummerRoxiVentura and SonataLaura is the third oldest ewe here. She is not really that old at almost 7 years.Phyllis is an 8 year old lilac ewe.This is Ears, the second BFL-cross that I have kept.Here is Faulkner, the BFL ram. He gets to be "clean-up" ram and is out with all the breeding flock now.    I used red the first two weeks of breeding (starting October 1) and green the second two weeks. Almost all the sheep are marked with red and maybe a 6 or 8 with green. Faulkner has been with them for about 5 days and there are 3 yellow marks so far.    Marilyn is my favorite of the lambs I'm keeping this year.Amaryllis  

Wish I Was There

It was 107 degrees today and the weather people are predicting 6 days of 105 degrees or over. After a few days of this already I am thinking about a hike we took a few weeks ago. This is a trail in the El Dorado National Forest from Wright's Lake to Twin Lakes in Desolation Wilderness. We went with my son, Matt, my brother and nephew (who were going to continue into Desolation for a backpacking trip) and, of course, the four dogs. With my 40 mm lens I get views both ...... grand and ... ...close.  It's dry in the valley and foothills now, but at 6000+ feet there are still plenty of wildflowers.

I love the granite boulders and huge views in the Sierras. That distant mountain is Big Hill, where there is a fire lookout and where Matt sometimes works.Dave and Jack were to continue hiking and discussed the options with Matt who knows this area well. It's not always easy to get a group photo of all four dogs. We are so fortunate to live in an area where we can get to the mountains in just a couple of hours and that we are able to enjoy it by hiking.

But this is what I'm thinking about today as the temperature soared.Silver Creek cascades over granite and forms beautiful waterfalls and refreshing pools along its length.      That's Matt with Sam and Kirin. I took a dip too and I would relish that now. Rusty and Maggie like their water a little more shallow.We hiked about 8 miles I think. Toward the end Maggie didn't want to leave the pools. I think the water felt good on her feet.This is one of Twin Lakes in Desolation Wilderness.

Weekly Photo Challenge-Round

Remember the cloud photos? The next photo challenge is Round. This was my first choice that I found when I hunted through my photos. Then I went to the barn with my camera and the new lens.   

There are a lot of versions of Round.

Photography Fun--A Weekly Challenge

Not that I need a another thing to add to the to-do list...but I saw a blog that has a weekly photo challenge and I thought it might be fun to participate. This might only last a week--we'll see. This week's challenge by A Word in Your Ear is Clouds.  Without working very hard I could go back just a couple of weeks to find these photos that I took the day after I got my new lens from Santa.This is the field across the road from my house and the next one was taken just up the road.What is a sunset without clouds?  Notice the fog rolling over the hills--fog is just clouds on the ground, right? These sunset photos are taken from my barn looking to the west. The last photo, below, is another that I took from the field across the road.  

Snowshoeing for the first time

I love the mountains, but not in the winter. I am not a snow person--I have a hard enough time staying warm without any snow. My son and daughter-in-law live in the mountains and spend a lot of time enjoying the outdoors in all seasons. We joined them for snowshoeing the other day. It was a beautiful day. I realized that, because I avoid the mountains in the winter, I never see this beauty in real life. All the views looked like calendar photos.This is Union Valley Reservoir in the El Dorado National Forest. No one else had been there since the last snowfall. There were huge expanses of untouched snow. Gorgeous.The snow had a sparkly crystalline surface which even Matt and Kaleena, who spend a lot of time here, said was unusual.    We had one experience which, fortunately, turned out OK, but could have been tragic.  Sam, one of M & K's dogs, bounding ahead of us, fell through the ice into a creek. When he couldn't get back on the surface he panicked and Matt had to rescue him. (You can see the photos in Rusty's blog.)  Fortunately, among all of us we had spare socks and pants.  Also, fortunately, Sam wasn't in the lake, but in a stream (although it was still waist high water).    This was my first experience with snowshoes and it was Rusty's first experience walking through the snow. He finally figured out that the snow was fluffy enough that he could sort of plow through and didn't have to lift his feet all the way out of it. He was also obsessed by the sparkles in the snow. Look back at the other photos of him and you'll see that he is just staring at the snow. (That's a Border Collie thing--not staring at the snow, but obsessing over sparkles or shadows.)  I took a lot of photos with my new lens but there is a lot to learn about photographing snow.  I have a hard time seeing the meter through the lens when I'm wearing sunglasses, and without the glasses I can't make out what I am sort of seeing. So there was a lot of trial and error. Some were over-exposed, but there are enough decent photos for me to enjoy.

Abstract Art with the Camera

  Just having fun with the camera.

A New Toy

A few weeks ago I said something about wanting a macro lens and Santa heard me. Here is a sampling of what this lens can do. I need to learn a lot more though. It's not that easy when you are working with extremely shallow depth of field.

It seems that this lens does pretty well for landscape too...

...and portraits.