Day: November 26, 2006

Pets, Photography

Sunday Dogblogging

Shelly

100_2850

Harriet crashed out on the couch, with her ears up. She’s all about The Comfy, so she’s lying on top of a fleece blanket, with an afghan on top of her. It was a gelid 70F inside, poor baby. (I love the way the fur on her chin turned out in this photo. If you’ve ever petted a horse’s muzzle, that’s what a Boxer muzzle feels like. Soft and velvety, like moleskin.)

100_2855

Since becoming an only dog, Harriet’s style of play has changed a bit. She plays more by herself, and when she does, she engages in more fetch-chase-kill!kill!kill! games. She’s even begun growling and vocalizing while “killing” toys, which cracks me up. Tennis balls are often the victims of these games. She tosses them around, chases them, grabs them, then shake-shake-shakes them dead, all the while snarling and growling and basically telling them what she thinks of them. This time, after playing on her own for awhile, she spit out the ball and play bowed at me, inviting me to play with her. Meanypants that I am, I took her picture instead. It’s not a very good photo, because I had to act quickly.

Photography

Trees in Spring

Shelly

100_1856
Apple Tree in Spring

100_1857
Redbud Tree

We’ve had a week of gorgeous weather here in southern Indiana. It’s been so warm and sunny that it’s been hard to believe that it’s November–and the end of November, no less. It won’t be long before it the cold and snow start, so I thought I’d share a couple of springtime photos.

These are the redbud and 5-in-1 apple trees at my mom’s house, taken last April. It’s weird to see how big they’ve gotten. There was only one tree on the property when we moved there in 1985. It’s long since died, but we planted a bunch of others: peach, two apple, cherry, pear, redbud, oak, and maple. The peach was planted too close to the garage and had to be cut down, and the cherry was lost in an ice storm. The rest are huge, now, though. Proper trees instead of spindly saplings.

Photo note: These photos are a good illustration of just how super-saturated colors become when the sky is overcast. It might seem like bright sunlight would be better for outdoor photography, but it tends to wash out colors. The shadows and reflections created by strong sunlight can also be problematic. If I had my way, I’d much rather photograph artwork outdoors on a cloudy day.

Also, studio update: I’ve finally got most of the furniture arranged. I still have to set up half of the workbench (there are two 4′ long sections) and unpack my supplies, but it’s getting there. There are also a couple of utility shelving units that I’m trying to decide where to put. They’ll probably end up in the closet, for tool storage, which means the closet will have to be emptied and sorted/unpacked. I think I should be able to finish that up by the end of the day. I could actually have a working studio by tomorrow!

I can’t believe how long it’s taken me to unpack. Lordy! The problem is that I work 10 hour days, and I don’t have much time to work on stuff in the evenings. And, since moving, most of my weekends have been spent helping a friend pack and move (large house, crammed to the rafters with stuff), so I really haven’t had much in the way of free time. She’s nearly finished packing, though, and should be entirely moved by the end of the month. I’ll finally have some time to myself to do real, live arting.