Foovay’s Cauldron

Posts Tagged ‘Photography’

Indeed, spring has sprung. I offer as evidence the ground squirrel we saw on the ranch yesterday. They are so small and so fast that to get a photo to share with you I’m going to have to spend a sunny day lurking near a burrow. This is also probably true about getting a photo of one of our fascinating little rock squirrels that have begun scampering around the rocks near the lake. Certain populations of these Rock Squirrels have a genetic anomaly that, once they shed into the summer coat, causes them to be half black, and half the silvery gold agouti that is the normal color. They look as if their head and shoulders have been dipped into an inkwell! I heard a Red-winged Blackbird in town just yesterday. They don’t usually visit us at the ranch – not enough water here – but we may be treated to a fly-by visit from their cousins the Yellow-headed Blackbird. Earlier this week a huge flock of Sandhill Cranes flew over, circled a while, and left. I suspect they had hoped to stop at Jornada Lake for a snack and a rest. However, thanks to the road building and spaceport crews, this year we have no lake, even though we have had some rain and even snow.

My friend the juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawk has posed for some more photos – this time sitting on top of the brush pile waiting for something small enough to eat to dash out. Now THAT’s lurking! I’ll share the full photo first so you can see how thoroughly he blends into his background when he is being still. He’s right on top of the brush pile.

And now cropped just to show the hawk:

He really outdid himself yesterday though. I went out to feed the chickens for the evening. My eyes were on the rooster – who is feeling rather crabby as I don’t let them out to free range on cloudy days so they haven’t been out for a day or two. So I didn’t even notice the young hawk was on top of the chicken pen until he took off from right above my head. I was about to say something to him about not eating my chickens when another visitor flew up from under my feet. A cottontop (Texas Scaled) Quail had been inside with the chickens. When I came in, the quail flushed out through the side of the pen – and the hawk was instantly in hot pursuit. Great – now not only does he think we are pals, he thinks I’m going to flush game for him! Glad to be of use

Speaking of cloudy days, which means a bit of spring rain now and then out here on the high desert – hubby got lucky and caught a picture of this magnificent double rainbow that arched over the far end of our ranch this week. It was a perfect complete arch, both ends touching the ground on the inner rainbow, right at sunset. It was so pretty when I went outside the horses and mule had even turned to look at it. Probably watching the fairies dancing around the end of the rainbow.

Of course, traditionally there should be a leprechaun and a pot of gold down there. Maybe I should have hopped on Moses and galloped down to see!We could use a pot of gold around here!

Dover sent me their sample this week and it was all about the Irish – irish folklore and fairy tales and leprechauns and celtic coloring stuff. Drool. I was so inspired I did a new Squidoo lens about Irish Fairy Tales and Folklore, and updated the St. Patricks Day Coloring Pages and Coloring Books, Leprechauns, and Fairy Tales.

I’ve been taking pictures of our beautiful storms and sunsets, trying to get a nice collection to chose from for my Squidoo lens devoted to the New Mexico Sky, and also Maxfield Parrish. Now they aren’t done, so those links probably don’t work right this minute – but try them later today, okay? LOL. Here’s one of the photos though:

The hubby had his surgery Thursday to install the fistula in his arm for dialysis. Everything went just great and we were even home early. They did tell him not to use the arm until it heals – and of course when it heals they’ll begin dialysis. So it is quite unlikely he is going to be able to return to work as a cook. Despite the fact he cannot work, Disability says he isn’t disabled, call AFTER he starts dialysis. *rolling eyes*

Luckily, I had already started job hunting and have gotten a call from one job already which would be only two days a week – the weekend. Actually, that is ideal since I have to drive hubby to Dr.s appointments and so forth and they’re all during the week. I also took the test to work for the Census and did well, so they are supposed to call me Monday. Until he begins dialysis I can work both – and will. We need every penny we can get.

Up until I am working, I will do my best to hang in there with the Get Cracking Lens a Day Challenge – so even if I don’t get here to the blog, you might want to check in on my New Lenses for the Get Cracking Challenge list.

Yesterday we had to drive to town for a errand, and did we luck out on the way home! A small herd of mule deer were grazing right next to the road. We got some great photos. Here’s my favorite:

When we got home and got them on the computer, we saw a deer BEHIND that mesquite bush that we had not even noticed while taking the photos – LOL!

You can click on any of these BTW and go to the Flickr page and see the bigger ones – this new camera takes huge photos. When I get time I’m going to mosey through, tag things better and license them for use.

It’s been a good week since I added any new coloring pages. Job hunting, Doctors, stress… but all things considered we are doing well. I will do my best to keep my little online empire going and growing, but it doesn’t earn enough to support us and I can no longer depend on the husbands income.

Oh! I was so gobsmacked – someone sent me a donation for the artist for use of my free public domain clipart! Not only did it make me jump up and down with joy, it made it possible for me to pay for another month of the downloadable digital coloring book shop. Thank you!!

I also updated my homepage/business card at Summer Fey Foovay.com and added a new binder at my Zazzle store. Don’t forget that the Pagan holiday ecards I used to have up at fre-ecards.com are now at my Zazzle store as paper greeting cards and stamps. Ostara is coming!

And I wanted to share my hubby’s idea of a day of “take it easy, don’t use that arm for anything” – he fixed the kitchen faucet, did the dishes, cooked dinner, trimmed some mesquite bushes that had grown into the driveway, and took those photos of the deer. All one-handed. He’s a pretty great guy, huh?

Thanks for hanging in with me. I have a lot I hope to get done today so I gotta go.

Summer Fey Foovay

The hubby has been busy this week getting some great photos like this one of a house finch. What I love about this is if you look, you can see how those streaky breast feathers blend right in with the brushy mess on the ground to provide the perfect camoflage.

He also got our best photo yet of that pretty pale Eurasian Ring-Necked Dove. I’ve begun to feel quite sorry for her as the rest of the flock clearly ostracizes her. Of course, she may as well have a target painted on her as be this pale color here in the desert. We have at least two hawks who pay daily visits to the ranch. I wonder how long she will last?

And our best photo yet of the buffalo. We always consider it a sign of good luck when we see them on the way to town.

Speaking of luck, in the last few weeks I have won five times in a row on the Lottery. Only a dollar each time – just enough to buy the next ticket – but I’m feeling pretty special! I’ve concluded that I probably ought to spend more time and effort playing the lottery since my chances of winning a big jackpot are somewhat better than the odds of getting a book published that actually makes any money! (No, really, look at the figures someday – it’s pretty unlikely that even a GOOD novel will make anything)

Never mind the odds of making money on the Internet. I had to laugh the other day at a comment on a money making article about “why isn’t my article making money?” and the writer said “Oh, you have to let them mature”. Yeah. I’ve got articles that have been maturing for almost 10 years and they are up to a few pennies a month now! LOL.

Yeah, playing the lottery is looking good.

But until I win “the big one” I’m working on some Squidoo lenses for the Get Cracking with Robin and Bonnie Challenge. The idea is to do a lens a day for…however long you can take it, I guess. Although their main thing seems to be giving prompts for ideas – and the last thing I need is more ideas since I have half a notebook full of them – I’m using it as a motivation to get all those Work In Progress lenses I have finished up and published. So far, so good – I’m four for four. Here’s my list of the new additions – everything from “I love my iPod shuffle” to “Dragonfly Watching”. Keep your eye on this space, folks!

Yesterday I got a nice surprise check from the sponsors of one of my adult sites. It’s even nicer when you think that I don’t even have a link up to them right now! Gotta love the adult biz – repeat customers rule. So I have put that on my todo list – really got to get a real website up there again someday! Besides, it’s fun. I guess you’d have to say it’s MATURED. *snicker*

Blessedbe

Summer

These photos are the sunset of a few days ago as a storm blew in. We got our first sprinkle of snow the next day, our first freeze, too.

For some reason I love being able to actually see the rain (or in this case, maybe it was snow) falling from the clouds miles away. Sometimes you can stand in the sun and see it raining all around us on the mountains. After this storm, there were white caps on the surrounding mountains – so they got more snow than we did.

I love being able to actually watch a storm move – here it is coming in from the south. It seems odd, but then remember that many of our storms (including this one) are the last remnants of hurricanes coming to land south of us in Mexico.

This one is my favorite though. The colors in the sky here never cease to amaze me.

There is a Traditional Navaho prayer that suits this place perfectly:

Today I will walk out, today everything evil will leave me,
I will be as I was before, I will have a cool breeze over my body.
I will have a light body, I will be happy forever,
nothing will hinder me.
I walk with beauty before me. I walk with beauty behind me.
I walk with beauty below me. I walk with beauty above me.
I walk with beauty around me. My words will be beautiful.

In beauty all day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons, may I walk.
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With dew about my feet, may I walk.

With beauty before me may I walk.
With beauty behind me may I walk.
With beauty below me may I walk.
With beauty above me may I walk.
With beauty all around me may I walk.

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty,
lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty,
living again, may I walk.
My words will be beautiful.

Blessedbe

Summer Fey Foovay

The last two days we have had a very sick cow dog having seizures every few hours. Totally scary. As of this morning, Klyde seems to be just fine. It’s been quite an experience – and no sleep for me or Third for two days. (We think he’s been poisoned)

I will say, I paid a big $5 from Paypal to  ask the vet a question here and Dr. Marie was very nice, very helpful, very kind and did not do any of the guilt tripping over us not being able to take him to a vet. I can’t say enough good about her. She replied within half an hour, too. So – if you ever have a question you really need a veterinarian for – she’s the one. She’s on Twitter, too. @AskAVetQuestion.

That said – I had to share a typical sleepless morning on the ranch. Klyde was pacing and whining and whining and pacing and pacing and whining. Then Thirds phone rings. And rings. And rings. He mumbles something about “I am not going to town today.” It stops. It starts again. Klyde paces and whines and paces and whines.

So although it was early (I try to keep morning feed at 10 am here, but since I was up the last two days it’s been 7 am) I went out to feed. Both dogs go with me which is great because Klyde has not felt up to going out to feed for a couple of days. I’m tired but trying very very hard to be patient.

First thing I notice is the mule is gone. GONE. Nowhere to be seen. The mare is hung up in the fence. The old cowpony is upset and pacing and whinnying.

I go on into the barn to get their hay (the mare has a tendency to extricate herself when food is in the offing without any help) and notice I am down to one upset barn cat (I have two..). Klyde, whose seperation anxiety is now off the scale after his illness, tries to follow me into the barn and I raise my voice and tell him “no”. He vanishes.

I get the hay and go toss it. By the time I’ve walked down the fence to drop the second pile, I hear my other cat. I walk around trying to find her. She is up a power pole, standing on the transformer of a power line. There is nothing, NOTHING on this ranch that will reach that high.

I turn to go back to the barn and the mule has traded off his invisibility cloak – he is now in my back pocket (Klyde took the cloak, more on that in a minute). Follows me to the first gate. This mooseheaded mule bashes gates with his head to knock them down and he’s got this one so bent up I cannot get it open to let him in. I go to the second gate – same thing. I cuss him. Told him he’ll have to wait, I’m going to go get the mare out of the fence.

I step over the fence in a spot I usually go through and dipshit mule tries to follow.

I am 5 feet tall and weight about 130. The mule is about 18 hands high (six feet at the shoulder) and weights about a half ton. He doesn’t fit through where I do. He gets caught. He tears the entire section of fence down behind me. The good news is he is now in the pen.

Meanwhile, I’ve discovered the mare has literally woven one hind leg through the field wire and is well and truly caught. I mash and push the wire down to her ankle and she lifts her foot and starts jerking. I take the foot to try and help her unweave herself and she twists around and crushes my hand and damn near kicks me in the head. I get my hand loose and back up a step and cuss her.

Well! She says. Then casually unweaves herself and walks over to eat…

So I go back to the barn, get the chickens breakfast and thank goodness they, at least, are all present, accounted for, and doing what chickens do.

I walk back up to the house and – no dogs. I call and call and here comes Harry full tilt boogie and goes in the house – but no Klyde. I walk around the barns and house looking for him. I’m afraid now he flopped over and had a seizure and I cannot see him because he is down.

So I go in, tell hubby my tale of woe. He gets dressed, gets his boots on, I get my boots on as I now expect to be walking knee deep in brush in snake country searching for a down dog.

Open the door.

Klyde is on the porch.

But runs off because he is now 3x more spooky than he has been for a year. Both of us eventually have to get off the porch and leave the door open and herd the herding dog inside.

I am having a beer for breakfast, anyone else want one?

I love living on the ranch. I love our animals. Really.

The cat is still on the pole.

Update at Noon:

I’m on my second beer.

Hubby looks out the window and the cat is not on the pole.

THIS is on the pole:

Hubby goes out to get some good photos of this Very Large Hawk.

Fortunately:

The pole sitting cat is in the barn.

I check the number of beers left in the refrigerator.

“My sister is an idiot”

Yeah, okay, I took a break and went outside where I lucked into a flock of mixed blackbirds in the horse pen.

Mostly they are Brewers blackbirds. Like the yellow-headed blackbird you see in this flock, we started out with just one or two visiting during migration and now have a whole flock dropping by.

This is the best photo I’ve ever gotten of one of these guys. Love those glowing yellow eyes. Very halloween!

More of the flock of Brewers blackbirds – I seemed to be ruffling some feathers with my photo taking…

Alright, alright, I’ll go pay attention to some other blogs now

Summer Fey Foovay

I went to visit I and the Bird blog carnival at Madras Ramblings this afternoon. The carnival is well worth a visit. Ambika did a beautiful job with poetry and photographs to grace the carnival.

However, one of the first blogs I chose to visit is Walk the Wilderness who was featured with some photos of the Streaked Weaver. From there it was off to see the photos of the Dholes, and then the Leopards, and then…and I’ve said “WOW” at least three or four times. I’ve bookmarked some pages to use to draw some coloring pages and clip art of the amazing animals he has captured. I’ve followed it, even though it is a blogspot blog and I don’t usually bother with them since I can’t get them into my Google reader where I can see them daily. Walk the Wilderness is one stunning nature photography blog. Very much worth your time to go visit – and give yourself some time because you’ll find one post after another that you just have to read and see the photos!

We got a mention in the carnival – thank you Amika – and don’t forget I get to host it on October 1st. That will be fun.

It started raining here yesterday evening and hasn’t stopped since. The weather report says half an inch – but they measure in town and not infrequently the weather out here on the Jornada is completely different. I’ll be we have had AT LEAST one inch. AT LEAST. Back before the road was paved we would have been rained in. Never mind getting over Ash Canyon. Now we have pavement out front and a spiffy new bridge over Ash Canyon. So everyone is at work and I have all kinds of peace and quiet – for another hour or so.

Yesterday I managed to procrastinate about putting the Bella Sara cards on eBay by putting up a new lens at Squidoo – Free Printable Halloween Coloring Pages and updating the Free Coloring Pages Blog a bit while I was at it.

Today I went to list the Bella Sara cards and my computer swore up and down that I don’t have a scanner attached. So I’m working on putting my Halloween and Samhain clip art back online, and from there will get to work on some Halloween coloring pages, and updating my other Halloween Squidoo lens, I love Halloween – Samhain.

Oh yeah, I updated Living with a deaf cat to add a couple of links to some new articles I found on the subject.

I am up to 50 Squidoo lenses again! So I’ll probably be doing a lot of updating there for the next couple of weeks. Yes, I’ve applied to be a Giant Squid again. Wish me luck!

Which means I have lots of work I really ought to be doing – along with a good bit of housework, too. We do seem to have resolved Mr. Wee Wee Mouses’ forays into the kitchen cabinet and towel cabinet – but I need to wash the towels one last time. BTW if you got that email that said that Bounce dryer sheets will repel mice – I’ve got to say that in our experience, the mouse laughed as he pooped on them, too.

Laters!

Summer