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.
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.
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.
Alison
Summer
Roxi
Ventura and Sonata
Laura 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
I am fortunate that I if I wanted a guided tour somewhere in the El Dorado National Forest and surrounding area I only need to ask my son and daughter-in-law (as long as fire season hasn't started). They live in Pollock Pines, work for the Forest Service, and spend a lot of their off-time enjoying the mountains so they know all the best places. Last week we took a short hike to Bassi Falls. This is an easy hike to take with dogs because you are never far from water. I took my 44 mm lens--and I have to get used to it again when I switch. 
This is Sam and Kirin, my grand-puppies.
Here they are with Matt & Kaleena.
Sam and Kirin pose better than Rusty and Maggie. By the way, Maggie did so well on this hike. It was only a couple of months ago when I got her that I wondered if I'd ever be able to take her somewhere off leash. This is probably the first time that she has ever had a chance to go for a walk in the mountains. She got along well with Sam and Kirin, who each tower over her.
Here is the only photo I got of all four dogs--like herding cats. Sam and Kirin go for the water, Maggie still tries to move away from the camera and Rusty comes towards the camera to watch shadows and sparkles.
Sitting in a tree?
On the way home we drove to Big Hill, where there is a heli-spot and fire lookout. That light spot surrounded by shadows in the middle of this photo is Bassi Falls.
A day in the mountains and a day with my kids. I need to do this more often.
How does the Fibershed Marketplace get all those great photos? It takes a lot of work from everyone who is involved in the photoshoot but the photos are a credit to the skill of our wonderful photographer, Paige Green. I hosted the spring photoshoot and my friend, Jackie, organized everything. Here are some of my photos from the day.
We arranged items that were to be photographed. These are my Jacob shawls and scarves.
Jackie's hot pads and bangles.
Katharine Jolda's felted jacket
We turned one of my stalls into a dressing room. Shelby is a Farm Club member who consented to be one of our models.
First photos of the day were Sally Fox's sheepskins. There is a lot going on behind the scenes to create these photos. 
Alisa is Jackie's daughter and she became one of the models. Her boyfriend, Mark, was indispensable in assisting Paige with her equipment all day.
This is Brooklyn, our youngest model. She wore a hooded jacket and wool socks.
Meryl is being fitted by Marlie.
Paige used a variety of settings during the day. In this scene Allie modes her rabbit-skin vest.
Rusty was involved in the activity all day. He will write his own blog post about his involvement. 
We used the sheep in the photos of my handwoven pieces.
Meryl and Shelby modeled four shawls.
Give us a few weeks and you'll see all of these items and more available on the Fibershed Marketplace website.
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.
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.
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.
Just having fun with the camera.
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.
Who lives here?
How about here?
What a beautiful day, though cold. Good Morning.
At Meridian Jacobs farm we raise Jacob sheep and sell locally grown wool fiber, yarn, and handwoven goods. We teach fiber classes and sell Ashford, Clemes & Clemes, and Schacht spinning and weaving equipment. We encourage farm visits with field trips and our unique Farm Club.
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