Jamie Cheslock

Embracing the Rain

2010-05-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

I don't understand everyone's complaining about the rain. Seriously, we DO live in Oregon! Maybe I'm the last true Oregonian; I fully embrace the rain. Yes, I'll admit to voicing frustrations towards some of the hardships and inconveniences that constant rainfall can instigate but I feel that this is all a small sacrifice that I make in exchange for getting to live in the one of the greenest states in the union.

Warm rainy days like today are awesome. It is warm enough to be outside working yet the rain keeps everything fresh, clean and cool. On the other hand, it also offers me with an excellent excuse to just stay in the house to bake cookies or clean, or I could spend the entire day out in my arena messing with all of the horses while listening to the gentle fall of rain on the rooftop.

I especially enjoy it when God just completely cuts loose and sends down a short torrential rainfall. The sound of those storms on my barn roof are awe inspiring to say the least. I'll just stop whatever I'm doing and let the sound of the heavy rain drum through my body like the base at a concert, my heart beats faster and I feel a sense of exhilaration course through my veins. After the storm passes, the clouds inadvertently part, the sun appears along with a rainbow and all is well. It's fun to walk outside and see all of the little temporary runoff creeks that formed and quickly dissipate.

My absolute favorite is the first rain of summer. After a couple months of warm and sometimes hot, sunny days the grasses have all turned a monotonous brown and yellow and everything is covered in a layer of dust. The first rain washes all of the that away, replenishes the earth and makes everything smell so wonderful. Every year when the first rain arrives I always run outside and stand in it, I love to let the cool raindrops cover my body. It is as if I can feel all of my troubles, aches and pains being washed away by God. I'll stay out in the rain until my clothes are completely soaked through and I'm shivering with a shallow chill that is quickly warmed when I towel off. My husband always looks at me like I'm a crazy lady, (he never joins me in my rain ritual) and maybe I am but I don't care, I feel better and it smells great outside.

So, the next time you feel the need to complain about the rain, try to find a reason to enjoy and embrace it. It makes life so much more delightful. Remember, a positive attitude heals the soul and beats out evil and depression any day.

Encourage one another!

Summer Grilling

2010-05-16T18:47:00.003-07:00

Ahh spring. It’s finally here and with it come the birds, flowers, planting the garden and of course GRILLING WEATHER! Actually, I grill year round but the nice weather certainly makes grilling a lot more fun and provides more pleasant temperatures for getting creative on the bar-b-q.

I’ve been sick for the past several days so my cooking has been limited to thawing out the reserves I had stashed in the basement freezers or cold sandwiches but today I finally mustered up enough energy to cook on my new bar-b-q.

For starters, I make the hamburgers. Have you ever wondered how the restaurants get those perfect diamond shaped grill marks on your steaks and burgers? You try flipping them this way and that way and it never seems to work out just right. Well, let me share a little secret with you. Just before it’s time to flip your meat over, use your flipping tool to simply turn the meat 90 degrees, let it cook for a bit more and THEN flip it over. WALLA! You will have the perfect grill marks that I am 100% sure make your meat taste SO much better.

I like to have bacon with my hamburgers so I decided to break out this really cool veggie rack that I found at Wall Mart. It was working so perfectly for the bacon that I decided to be brave and throw on some asparagus that had been soaking in butter and garlic all night. YUM!

Of course you can’t have a great hamburger lunch without a fresh salad so I dug around in my fridge in search of something crunchy and fresh to serve as a side. The pickings were pretty slim so I had to get creative which seems to be something that comes naturally to me lately. I sliced up what was left of a cucumber, added a can of mandarin oranges, a sprinkle of coconut and topped it with a mixture of sour cream, milk and dill weed. It was WONDERFUL!

Encourage one another!

My Husband and I

2010-05-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

John and I have struggled through "for richer or poorer", we have lived through "in sickness and in health", we continue to embrace "in good times and in bad" We choose to live our lives to the fullest, make our mark on the world and leave behind a destiny our children and grandchildren will be proud of until "death ...do us part".

Mind your Own Business

2010-04-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

I think that Hank Williams says it all in his song titled "Mind Your Own Business" especially in the last lyric that goes

Mindin' other people's business seems to be high-toned
I got all that I can do just to mind my own
Why don't you mind your own business
If you mind your own business, you'll stay busy all the time.

Seriously. What is it about people these days that makes them think that what is going on in someone elses life is any of their business? If your name isn't on the deed, title, birth certificate, invoice or whatever, then it's really none of your business. Unless the life of a person or animal is in danger, you need to keep your nose, your opinions and your fingers to yourself. This includes of course what you say about people behind their backs.

Remember, it'll come back to you three times three so take Hank's advice and mind your own business! You'll get a lot more respect for it.

Click here to listen to the song

Poached Eggs

2010-04-27T11:48:00.000-07:00

I have never in my life had any desire or need to eat a poached egg. To be completely honest, just the thought of eating an egg that has been boiled without it's shell sounded completely gross and...well....boring. However, upon visiting one of my favorite websites for recipe, photo, craft and homeschooling ideas there, right smack on my computer screen, ergo - in my face - was the directions for property poaching an egg according to my dear friend the Pioneer Woman. Since I've been sick with the flue for the past couple of days my appetite hasn't quite been the same but for some reason, that poached egg, served as eggs Benedict actually looked yummy.The Pioneer Woman made it look easy, it actually sounded good to my poor sore stomach and I'm bored so I decided to give it a try. Why NOT?

According to the Pioneer Woman randomly when tossing a raw egg into a boiling cauldron of water that has been stirred to a near tornado state the egg will wrap around itself and hence you will have a wonderful oval shaped egg in two minutes. Well, either I'm not quite as good at creating a tornado as she is or she lied. Regardless, instead of having a poached egg, I learned out to create that yummy ribbon of egg that is in egg flour soup. FAIL.

In my second attempt I decided to fall back on old faithful for instruction - Julia Childs. The woman is a culinary genius and considering that she barely knew how to boil an egg or cook anything else for that matter until attending cooking school in France near the age of 40, her life's achievements are nothing short of a miracle and a major inspiration for people like me. Okay, back to the task at hand, poaching an egg. Julia suggests bringing the water to a very light boil or heavy simmer, add a touch of vinegar to help the egg stay together and use only very fresh eggs. Well I didn't have any very fresh eggs and considering the state of my uneasy stomach and unpredictable south end, going to town for fresh eggs was out of the question. Old eggs will have to do. What I really liked about Julia's method was there was no rapid stirring needed, just crack the egg into a small bowl and gently ease it into the water. Wow, that was easy! Much to my delight, the egg stayed together and turned out just like in the picture.

Of course eggs Benedict wouldn't really be eggs Benedict without toast, bacon and hollandaise sauce and fortunately I had bread and bacon (not canadian ~ sorry) on hand and making hollandaise sauce is a piece of cake. I put it all together and bravely sat down to a rerun of Sex in the City to taste my masterpiece and much to my surprise it was WONDERFULLY DELICIOUS! The bonus is my stomach didn't fight back with cramps and threats of evicting the food I had just consumed and enjoyed. I can't believe it, I'm so excited about it that I think I'll make it for dinner tonight too.

p.s. The photo is not mine, I copied it from a web site. Sorry, I didn't think about grabbing my camera for the event.

Lovely Foggy Fall Mornings are my Favorite Time for Pictures

2009-10-19T09:42:00.000-07:00

This morning the sun was just beginning it daily rise over the hilltops spreading warm rays across the pastures and onto the fog that was hanging over the mountains like a warm blanket. This is my favorite time to go out with my camera to see what I can capture. The lighting that the early sun and provides is absolutely wonderful and the fog provides unique photo effect opportunities. In this photo, I was thrilled to allow the fog to blur out the background that I would normally do by adjusting the aperture setting on my camera.

I know, it’s a boring photo but be patient I am going somewhere with this.

In this next photo, I wanted to capture the colors in the black walnut tree and allow the sun to have a part so I set my aperture wide open to catch a bit of the suns rays but I didn’t want the sky blown out so I used my spot metering and metered on the fog and yippee the blue sky came in just like I wanted it.

Then, if you put the fog, the sun, the fall colors all together and add an interesting subject matter you end up with a nice shot like this.

See? I told you I was going somewhere!

Cabin Fever

2009-08-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I broke my ankle. It was one of those stupid accidents that just happen no matter how careful you try to be. I have a water trough blocking a gap in the fence where there should be a small gate that was never installed. Rather then walk all the way to the other end of the barnyard, I climbed over the water trough to get quick access to the horses and put on their fly nets in the morning. When I climbed back out and jumped down I landed wrong, my ankle twisted and I heard a loud SNAP along with intense pain. I lay there awhile skirming around and moaning from the pain hoping it was like all of the other times I've twisted my ankle and it would just be okay after a minute or so. Unforunately that wasn't the case so I screamed for John to come help me. I yelled to him that I thought I had broken my ankle, he thought I said one of the horses had a broken ankle so he went back into the house and brought out a gun. I'm sure glad he didn't shoot me! He brought the car around so he could take me to the hospital, that is when poor Riley got scared. He screamed to his grandpa, "Don't run over my Grandma!!!" The poor little mushy boy. :)

At the hospital they did xrays and a CT scan, sure enough it was broken. They sent me home with a boot thingy and instructions to go see a surgeon about pinning me back together. Thank GOD the surgeon said I didn't have to have surgery and didn't put on a cast so here I sit with a 6 week sentence of no weight on the foot. I go back to the doctor Wednesday for new xrays and hope that my sentence will be shortened by a bit because I'm going start raving MAD being locked up in this house.

Here it is two days after the break. I really don't think it looks all that bad but what do I know.

That's it, my life is so boring and uneventful now that I have nother more to ad so I'll just end this post with a photo that I took BEFORE I broke my stupid ankle.

Photographing a Wedding

2009-06-22T09:06:00.000-07:00

My look a like niece got married this past Saturday and had asked me to be the photographer. I tried to talk her into hiring a professional but she insisted that I would do fine. I ran around like a crazy person for the entire ceremony and took almost 1100 photos. I'm exhausted but I think I got so good photos, I sure hope she likes them!

I got a couple of new pets to add to the menagerie

2009-05-21T08:35:00.001-07:00

Vanessa is a very freindly little Nigerian Dwarf with a silly personality

Bindi is a sweet little blue eye Nigerian Dwarf. She's a little shy but is comming around slowley.

These little goats like to follow me all around the ranch and look for trouble to get into.

The Building of a Box Culvert

2009-05-12T14:37:00.001-07:00

Last weekend Dad and I accompanied Ernie, Scott and Jeff up into the woods to pack in the supplies and construct a box culvert to provide a temporary creek crossing along the new trail being built for the Mule Skinner's Memorial Day Poke Ride.

Here, we are loading up Ernies miles with the supplies we needed to back in. In this photos, Cody is being loaded with the lumber.

Here, I provide a nice view of Coday all loaded up and ready to go

Whisky gets to pack in some of the additional supplies we need, chainsaw, buckets, lunch etc.

Chex waits patiently while the mules get all packed up.

The mules are all loaded up, we head out to a hillside to grab some rock

This is the area before we did any improvements. It doesn't look like much but we worry that after 500 horses cross, it'll be a muddy mess.

Scott was the lucky nail straightener guy. Remember, RECYCLE!

While Ernie works on preparing the creek bed, Scott and Jeff start assembling the box

Putting the final touches on the box

The box is set over the creek flow and tamped down into place

The creek flow is adjusted just a little more to make sure it flows through the box

Some large branches are placed on each side of the box to help stabelize it

Ernie has these handy paniers that open from the bottom, this made it really easy to unload the gravel right over the culvert

Ernie tromps around on the fished product to make sure it is solid

Finally we are finished with our project and head back to the trailers

Finally a moment for ME

2009-04-14T10:57:00.000-07:00

I never in my wildest dreams that my rescue would get so incredibly big and busy that I would no longer have the time to enjoy my photography hobby and keeping my personal blog updated. This morning however, I did take just a few minutes to grab my camera and head out for some photo opportunities.

Here are a couple of my roosters. They are really shy so getting a photo of them is difficult but this morning I was sneaking up on some elk and managed to surprise he roosters in the process!

By the time I got done photographing the roosters, the stupid horses had discovered the elk and chased them down to the bottom of the field near the road. I high tailed it to the house and screamed a Dad to GET IN THE CAR, NOW! The poor guy was in the middle of shaving and had no shoes on but I sounded serious so he scrambled and off we went to our lower field. I spotted the elk again and they were in my woods right next to the road all set up for a perfect photo opportunity. I stopped the car, rolled down the window, did the 4 point check on the camera (shutter speed, ISO, F-stop etc) and prepared to take the shot when Dad started talking. GAAAA!!!!! At that point it became very clear to me why my Dad was never much of a successful hunter instead of hand signals he screams out, “There’s the elk!”

They ran off, here is a photo of their retreat back across my hay field.

Oh well, it was fun anyway.

It's Been Very Busy Here

2009-03-05T09:16:00.000-08:00

I haven't had the time to post in here lately because my rescue has been taking up all of my time. Make sure you click on my rescue link and take a look at all of the new horses that we have in.

My Dad is moving back over to this side of the mountain and will be living with my sister Jill. This will give me lots of opportunity to spend quality time with him.

Fly me to the Moon

2009-02-01T08:47:00.000-08:00

Freezing cold weather and a brand new moon peaking out from behind the shadow of the earth drug me out into the night to get these shots. I took one at the proper exposure for a nice moon shot and the other is over exposed a bit so you can see the outline of the rest of the moon in the shadows. It was fun trying to figure out what settings to use on my camera to get just the right effects.

Today is Super Bowl Sunday!!!! We always have a big party and lots of fun with all of our friends. There is always way too much food, some drinking, a freindly bet and lots of visiting with our friends. It's a house full but it's danged FUN!

Now, on to something serious, if any of you are in need of a really nice, well broke, gentle horse let me know. I'm helping a neighbor find homes for some of his retired dude string horses.

Here We Go Again

2009-01-25T22:14:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes I know there are a lot of people who wish they could get just a glimpse of some of the wildlife that we see here nearly every day but it doesn't make having them here all of the time any easier to deal with.

Every year one or two large herds of elk show up around our place. Fortunately, they favor the new green grass on our neighbor's fields but that doesn't stop them from paying a visit to our fields and taking down our fences as they come and go.

There is always a lead cow that chooses where the herd goes.

Then comes the rest of the cows, last years calves and the small bulls

Then the larger bulls bring up the rear. It's the same story every day.

This particular day I was feeling rather frisky as this herd headed straight towards my lower field so I grabbed my camera and made a mad dash for the closest vantage point I could muster without being spotted. Sneaking up on elk isn't rocket science mind you but it is harder then most people think it is. On this particular forray into wildlife photography I sprung my crotch climbing over the fence, tore my pants on the blackberries, lost my rubber boot in the boot sucking mud and poked my boob on a wayward branch. None-the-less in spite of my lungs heaving for air and my hands shaking from exhaustion I managed to get a few shots.

BUT, yes there is always a BUT in wildlife photography; the elk were MOVING and the lighting was less then ideal for shooting a moving object with a 300 zoom lense and shaking hands. Oh well. None of the shots are worth framing but they are better then what I've gotten in the past. At least this time I didn't feel like spiking my camera off the floor after I downloaded the photos.

Good bye for today elk. That's a big darned herd!

I'm hoping for some inspiration

2009-01-19T15:39:00.000-08:00

I haven't been making very frequent entries lately for a couple of reasons. One is, I haven't been able to come up with a clever, entertaining topic. Another is, I haven't been out getting any wonderful photographs of anything. The good news is, I am only going to be working 1 day a week for the next month or two or three or four so I'll have a lot of time to go out searching for that perfect photo opportunity so stay tuned!

In the mean time, I'll entertain you with this cute picture of Mr. Piggelsworth and his buddy Doctor Doodle Duck.

Snow, EEKS!

2009-01-05T21:46:00.000-08:00

I don't think I'll ever wish for a white Christmas again. EVER. We got burried in the snow, nearly 4 feet of it. Our power went out and didn't come back on until a couple of days after Christmas, it was out for six days. I didn't get to work for 3 weeks but I sure stayed busy trying to keep up with this place and all of the animals here.

To give you an idea of just how deep it got here is a picture of one of my fences, just the tops are showing and that is not a drift, it's that deep everywhere.

You can't even see Marlboro Man's junkers! Okay, that can be a good thing!

Toby kept getting covered in this annoying snow balls!

Before it got too deep the horses enjoyed the snow too.

Barns all around us were caving in including 6 indoor arenas just in my area. Of course that really made me nervous but luckily we were smart and had our barn fully engineered rather then just putting up an ag building. That meant that the building was engineered to withstand a 4 foot snow load. At the time I thought that was crazy, we'd never get that kind of snow, YEAH RIGHT! We had to spend over $6000.00 upgrading the trusses, perlins and beams to meet the county standards and boy was I ever glad that we did, it sure paid off this winter.

I tried to photograph the snow but when I was faced with endless white everywhere I had a really rad time capturing anything worthwhile. So here are a few weak attempts at being creative.

I Love to Cook

2008-12-17T20:14:00.000-08:00

I love cooking, I'm constantly looking for new recipies to try and I have tons of cookbooks that I pour over looking for yummy stuff to make for dinner but most of the dishes I make don't have a written recipie, it's all in my head. I spend a lot of time thinking up different ways to make dishes, most of the time it turns out pretty good but sometimes they are a flop.

Since I haven't had much to say here on my blog these past few days I decided to tell you what was for dinner tonight. All of these items were very easy and great for a quick, good dinner after a long day at work.

First on the menu, fresh salmon cooked on the grill with lemon pepper

Mmmmm, you can see the steam wafting into the air. Wash and dry the salmon thoroughly, sprinkle it with lemmon pepper and let sit for several minutes. Pre heat the George Forman grill (George is one of my best freinds in the kitchen) spray a good coat of olive oil PAM all over the grill, place on the salmon and let that cook until done, usually about 10-15 minutes depending on how thick your salmon is.

Oven Roasted Asparagus

This is amazingling fast, easy and delicious. Just wash the asparagus, cut off the ends, dry with paper towell and place on a cookie sheet. Spray a generous coating of olive oil PAM, don't be shy, olive oil is good for you. Sprinkly on some kosher salt (don't use table salt, it's a sin) and fresh ground pepper, you can use the powered pepper if you want, I won't tell anyone. Place into preheated 450 oven and cook for 10 minutes. Dont try to cheat and put it in the oven before it's hot, it'll ruin this dish.

Texas Toast

You can use any kind of bread for this, tonight's was french bread. Just heat up a non stick frying pan, melt some butter into the pan, place the bread on top of the butter and cook until brown. If you want you can melt more butter, flip it over and cook both sides. If you're feeling frisky you can sprinkle on some kosher salt or grated cheese.

Baked potatoe, I'll spare you the details on this because honestly, who doesn't know how to make a baked potatoe?

Put this all together and you've got a quick, easy hearty meal. Enjoy.

Momma's Hands

2008-12-05T19:05:00.000-08:00

My poor mother must have been sleeping when they were handing (no pun intended) out hands. Her hands have been badly deformed from arthritis for the past several years. She finally decided it was time to have something done about this so she had surgery to repair a lot of the damage that was done by the hands (again, no pun intended) of time. The surgery went well and she's doing great but get a look at the contraption she has to wear around!

Never mind the mule or the horse in the background, they don't know how to mind their own business.

Happy Thanksgiving - the day after

2008-11-28T09:41:00.000-08:00

We had an awsome Thanksgiving dinner, it was nice and quiet with just John, Me, Luke Trish and Riley. Of course I still made a big dinner with all of the trimmimgs and we got to enjoy each others company.

Of course what would Thanksgiving be without PICTURES!

Yesterday (Thanksgiving) I learned that in order to take a good indoor portrait in low light with no flash I need to use a very high ISO (1600), a wide open aperature (1.8) and find the appropriate shutter speed to go with that combination. Unfortunately I didn't learn that until after they left.

But, not for the lack of trying, I did manage to get one or two decent shots.

Every Day I Shall Learn Somthing New

2008-11-25T22:14:00.000-08:00

I'm obsessed with learning about photography and Photoshop, sometimes I think there is no stopping me. Many times I lay awake at night thinking about all of the different angles I should shoot a portrait at, how I can achieve better light effects behind my subjects, different ways to enhance my photos in Photoshop and making a mental list of all of the photography accessories I'll buy if I ever win the lottery. I doubt I'll ever win the lottery or be rich enough to buy the lens of my dreams since it costs well over $8000.00 so at this point I'll just keep myself happy with learning all I can about photography and Photoshop because other than the electricity to run my laptop, it's free.

I did buy a new lens for my camera today but I swear, I NEEDED IT! I've gotten to the point where I'm just not happy with the quality of photos I get out of the kit lens, the portraits are too soft and the colors just are not as vibrant as I want them to be. This new lense was inexpensive but wow oh wow does it ever make my heart go pitter pat every time I view a photo I took with it, the quality is outstanding.

Here is an example:

Just compare the quality of this photo to the ones in yesterdays entry and you can see the difference, there is just no comparison.

And then of course I had to spend my allotted time for the day learning something new and the Pioneer Woman didn't post a new tutorial for me so I found the COOLEST website that has Photoshop effects step by step for FREE and learned out to do this:

When I was researching actions last week I found one that does this effect for sale for over $70.00!!!!! I wanted it BAD, but not that bad. Now I can do it myself, step by step anytime I want for free. I love that word, free free free free.

How to Make your Christmas Cactus Bloom

2008-11-24T18:11:00.000-08:00

First off I think I need to begin today's entry with a quick disclaimer. I love plants, really I do. I fully enjoy looking at and smelling flowers and appreciate their beauty just as much as the next person. The problem I have is simply taking care of them. I cannot be held responsible for any plant that is brought to this house.

Right now I have two house plants a jade and a Christmas cactus. Both of these plants were brought here and abandoned by my mother. I had no choice in the matter, she brought them to my house one at a time and insisted that I needed them, quite honestly I think she just wanted to be rid of them and I was the closest unsuspecting victim. This would be one of the hazards of having your mother living on your property. The fact that both of these plants have managed to stay alive is a miracle in itself but for some reason these two plants seem to love it here in my house. The jade actually BLOOMS, yes you read that right, it blooms, how or why....I have no idea. Not only has it survived my lack of plant care skills, but it also survived an attack from a crazy cat(Read the story here). Other then the one time the jade did bloom, it just sits there collecting dust, shedding leaves and begging for water every now and then. After it's leaves look shriveled and pathetic I'm guilted into giving it some water so it doesn't croak.

The Christmas cactus, now that is a different story. That plant and I have a very unique relationship. Since as I've mentioned already, I am not good at taking care of plants in fact you would safely assume that I seriously SUCK, this plant is just flat out lucky to be alive. The first couple of weeks that I had it I of course did not water it at all, the only attention I ever gave it was to grimace at it and complain about the mess it makes and the space it occupies. I finally was guilted into watering the danged thing by my husband who was complaining about all of the brown leaves on it. Of course since it hadn't been watered in several days I watered it a LOT, one week later the plant was completely covered with hundreds of blooms. Every year, about 4 times each year that plant puts out more blooms then the Oregon Rose Garden and I get thousands of compliments on the plant and praised for my flowering skills. Bwwahahahaha, little do they know! Anyway, they always ask me the same question - How do you get that plant to bloom so heavily so many times per year? My answer is simple; I have it on the shock and awe program. I shock it with water, it awes me with flowers. HA!

So, all of the photos in today's entry are courtesy of me (of course) and my Christmas Cactus that is currently in the awe stage. Actually, I was watching an educational DVD on my camera, photography and photoshop and picked on the plant while trying to learn how to get macro shots. Although the photos are nice, they are not at all what I was after, I was trying to focus solely on the stamen of the plant and have everything else blurred out. Obviously I still have a lot to learn about spot focusing and metering. **sigh**

Never fear though, I still learned some new tricks.

I think I'm Stuck in Black and White

2008-11-20T19:48:00.000-08:00

I never have been one to follow the crowd with anything that I do. These days it seems that everyone is putting out bright, colorful photographs and here I can barely resist the urge to desaturate or sepia almost every photo I take lately. I just love the depth that a black and white picture has and the way it makes me feel when I see one that really looks good.

Here's an example of one that I did recently.

This house is across the street from my Dad's place. It was a very bright, sunny day and I still didn't have a complete grip on what ISO setting was the best for each situation. I mistakingly thought that since I had plenty of light I could get away with the fastest ISO my camera offered - 1600. Most of the pictures were sadely overexposed, noisy and too soft. :( In reality, it was the perfect opportunity to use the slowest ISO setting - 100 and have a more crisp, clear photograph. Fortunately, I am definately someone who learns from my mistakes and I'm not always one to accept defeat easily.

I spent a lot of time in Photoshop trying to salvage this photo. I had to use several different layers and play with the opacity of each and every one of them until the picture finally had the effect I was looking for. I'm happy with the result, what I'm not happy with is the fact that I can't remember exactly how I did it.

F stops and F bombs and the Man in the Moon

2008-11-15T20:49:00.000-08:00

I've come to refer to F stops as F bombs. Why? Because they are beginning to drive me crazy so I occasionally drop several F bombs while trying to get that oh so perfect shot that always seems to be just out of my reach. Trying to master the perfect ISO, aperature value, white balance, distance, angle etc etc etc is begining to turn me into a mad woman. Of course I have a few select family members that are rolling their eyes saying to their computer screen, "I don't think you're a mad woman, I KNOW you're a mad woman!"

Anyway, I've been trying to shoot our full moon for 3 days now and today I finally figured out that I've been going about it all wrong. I've been setting my camera up to shoot night shots and the moon is a big fat bright light (reflection from the sun). Duh. First, I set my camera to single focus and took it out to infinety. What that means is whatever I focus the tiny dot in the center of the lense on and anything else that is exactly the same distance away is the only thing that focuses in the picture. Next, I set my 75x300 lense on the longest focal length it had, basically I got as close to the moon as I could. I could only see the moon, the whole moon and nothing but the moon. Now, since my hand is not as steady as it used to be I set my camera up on the tripot and set my timer to a 10 second delay. This way the camera isn't swaying around while I'm trying to hold it steady and when I push the shutter it won't take the picture until after the camera is stabelized. Brilliant right? Then, here is the tricky part, expose for the moon and not for the black sky. THIS is the main thing that has caused me so much grief lately. All this time I was using my widest aperture setting, the slowest possible shutter speed to let enough light in, and a high ISO setting. All of my shots looked overexposed and the moon was blurry, partely because I was letting way too much light in and partley because believe it or not, my shutter was open for so long that the moon actually MOOVED before it closed.

So, here's what I finally ended up with:

Imagine my sheer and utter delight when I dowloaded this shot, you can see all of the craters and I do believe the man in the moon is winking at me! This is what I had my camera set at shutter speed of 1/500, aperture setting of 4.0, and ISO setting of 800. I tried the ISO at 200, 400 and 600 but in each one the moon was either too dark or yellow any higher and it had the over exposed blur effect which although can sometimes be cool, but it just wasn't what I was after, 800 was the magic number. With just a little sharpening in Photoshop I finally jumped over the moon!

An Early Morning Attempt

2008-11-13T08:37:00.000-08:00

I decided to get up early this morning and take advantage of the morning light and how it plays on the landscapes. Once I got outside and saw the moon I was thrilled, I thought "Oh YEAH I can get some great shots of the full moon hanging just above the mountains playing peak-a-boo with the clouds!" After many failed attempts at figuring out what ISO, F stop etc. to use the moon disappeared behind the clouds just before it the "hanging just above the mountains part", yet another failed attempt at getting just what I was looking for, the story of my life.

Yeah great, thanks for nothing. I went back into the barn to finish feeding the horses that were waiting so patiently. Not to be one to accept defeat easily, I kept looking out the door to make sure I wasn't missing anything and spied upon this:

This is straight out of the camera so please excuse the dark foreground. I took a lot of pictures of this while playing with my nemesis, the polarizer filter. I swear some day I WILL conquer that thing! At this point the horses have stopped being patient and began banging on their stalls to let me know that picture time is OVER and food time is REQUIRED.....NOW! So, I got the horses all finished up and happy and shot this picture of Big Mare:

I took this shot in RAW, I've been reading about how wonderful RAW is and that if I start shooting in RAW I'll never go back to jpg. Well, I soon figured out that in order to fully enjoy RAW I need to learn a LOT more about Photoshop and buy Lightroom so I'm back to jpg for awhile. Anyway, I did make some adjustments to this photo, I lightened it up of course, boosted the color, did a glausean blur, and brought back the horse and the mud with the layer mask.

After playing around with all of that I took just one last look at all of the shots I got this morning before hitting the delete button and found THIS ONE!

I did have to do some work to this one too. I did some color matching with another photo I got later in the morning so the trees were greener, sharpened it up a bit, boosted, etc. I cloned the darker clouds from a corner I was going to crop off over next to the moon, did the cropping and sat back to enjoy the result. NICE! At least the morning wasn’t a total loss.

Time to Pick on ME!

2008-11-11T21:13:00.000-08:00

I am having so much fun with Photoshop I could just spit. For those of you who know me and I mean REALLY know me know that is a big statement for me to make! I don't spit, it makes my nauseous to see people spit, I've been known to bawl out strangers for spitting in front of me. Okay, back to Photoshop. Recently I have fallen in love with Actions. Actions are my new lover, (don't tell the old guy I said that.) For those of you who don't know what an action is, in a nutshell it is a command that does a bunch of commands for you to create an excellent final product. I have been spending WAY too much time researching and reviewing different actions on the web and have come up with some really fun ones. Tonight I downloaded a couple of fun actions that I just HAD to try out.

Okay here is the picture that I decided to pick on tonight, yes that's me. Like most women, I rarely see a picture of myself that I like but here is one I like.....well, mostely. HA!

There were some things I didn't like. The background had some things in it that were distracting, my skin has that 44 year old woman (did I just admit my age?) look about it and there are a couple of blemishes I'd like to be rid of. The first thing I did was run an action called "Perfect Skin" this action is wonderful, it does a very slight glausean blur on the photo, stops for you to make any adjustments in the opacity and smoothes out the skin. Okay, now I have smoother skin but it still needs more help. I created a new layer, did a manual glausean blur with a higher opacity that blurred out the background for me. It actually blurs out the entire picture but not to worry, that is what layer masks are for. I did a layer mask and painted over any part of the picture that I didn't want blurred, that of course would be me. :) Okay now I'm almost done but my teeth are a little yellow - that darned coffee that there is no way I'll give up. I dodged my teeth and while I was at it, the whites of my eyes to make them more white. Then I lassoed my eyes and sharped them up a lot to make them pop a bit. My eyes are squinted in the photo making them look small so they needed all the help they could get. Finally, I used the clone tool to get rid of that pesky red dot on my chin and erase that one white hare in my eyebrow. I really liked where this photo was going, it just need a leeeetle more work. I used the "Lovely and Etheral" action to make the colors pop out a bit and then I used the "Slightely Lighten" action because I thought it was a little to dark. Unfortunately, this lightened up my skin a litte more then I wanted, (I've always been proud of my dark skin tones)so luckily for me, before I used the slightely lighten action I had created a new layer (whew) so I did another layer mask and used the brush to bring my skin back to it's original color. Here is what I ended up with.

After adjustments

Before adjustments

At this point I sat back and thought, "Wow,I've done it!" Time to get some chocolate cake and blackberry ice cream.

Fall Colors and Other Silly Stuff

2008-11-10T09:08:00.001-08:00

I love fall. It is when I get to say goodbye to all of the dust on our road, the fields turn green again, I can BURN and all of the rain freshens the air up. My FAVORITE thing about fall is that I get to enjoy all of the wonderful colors that Mother Nature blasts into the leaves of the trees and shrubs.

I have a long drive to work every day and am one of the lucky few in that my drive is 95% out in the country. Every day I get to take in nature’s beauty with a few man made wonders tossed in for good measure, every once in awhile I’ll pull over and take a picture of something that catches my eye. I can’t let myself do this too often or else I would have 100’s of excellent photos but I would never get to work and the bills would not get paid.

Today’s photo is one of the opportunities for a picture that presented itself on my way to work last week. I have been eyeballing this old barn for quite awhile because, well….. I just love old barns and of course also because you just never know when the lighting and colors will be right for that oh so perfect photograph. Once I got home and downloaded the shots I thought they looked great but I did do a few adjustments in Photoshop to make the colors on the leaves pop out a little more and put some definition in the sky and on the barn. That together with a little creative cropping I ended up with a pretty good finished product.

Got to Play with Sophia for Awhile

2008-11-03T15:46:00.001-08:00

John jr. came out Sunday and brought Sophia with him. Sophia and I got to play with all of the toys and the horses while Grandpa and Dad went up into the woods to play with their guns. We don't get to see Sophia very much so I like to enjoy every minute that I have with her. Here is a fun shot I got of Sophia being silly!

John still hasn't found a job yet but not for the lack of looking. I think he looks to hard sometimes and have to kick him out of the house so he can get some fresh air and move around a bit.

Back From Vacation

2008-10-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

We are finally back from our vacation in Hawaii. John and I really enjoyed our trip but we were both very glad to get back home too. It felt so good to go out and visit with all of my critters, my poor dog missed me. Everything went pretty well here while we were gone with many thanks to all of the people that came out every day to feed, clean etc. we could not have enjoyed our trip without their help.

Today's picture is a cool sillouette that I got out at Wikiki Beach while waiting for the sunset

Having fun in Hawaii

2008-10-18T19:07:00.001-07:00

A mongoose at Hanauma Bay

A plover that visited while we sun bathed

Hanauma Bay, we spent all day out there snorkling and sun soaking. We saw millions of amazingly colorful fish and sea turtles

A good sunset we caught at Wikiki Beach

The surfer dudes (John and Tom) comming in

Yes, another bird.

Playing with the boogie boards

Theresa wipes out face first!

Tom Clowing around

The fire dancer

Germain's Luau

Before the Luau

Our first sunrise in Hawaii

Teresa braving the waves

A sea turtle swimming just below our room

A museum we visited, the name of it escapes me.

Looking down at a lighthouse from the top of Diamond Head

The view from the top of Diamond Head

A cute little bird that joined our picnic

An extreme zoom into the sand.

Sunset Friday night

A cute little red bird

Tom playing in the sunset

A little beach crab that visited

The funny things that kids say.

2008-10-15T14:03:00.000-07:00

Last week I had to go out on a follow up cruelty investigation with one of the local Sheriffs. I had to take Riley with me because I didn't have anyone to watch him for me. I tried to drop him off at my mom's but he started bawling and said he didn't want to go to Great Grandma's. When I asked him why not he said, "Because she's too old for me!" Dang it was hard to not fall over laughing!

So, off we go to meet up with the Sheriff and since I had a child in a car seat Riley and I just followed him out to the site. The poor Sheriff got confused on the road and had to turn around 3 different times on the way there. The third time he turned around Riley said, "Grandma, that crazy cop is yost again!" I laughed so hard I just about went off the road.

You've got to love those brutally honest little kids with speech impediments.

The Dog and Pony Show

2008-10-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

Fuzzy Horse "Hey, get away from my food"
Dog Twin - "I'm just trying to keep the barn clean, honest. Look, a camera!"
Cat in Background - "Everyone look, Dog Twin is getting in trouble!"

Fuzzy horse "Seriously, GET AWAY" ----
Dog Twin - "How about if I don't watch you eat? Then can I stay?"
Cat in Background, "Ha ha, stupid dog won't leave fuzzy horse alone."

Fuzzy Horse "Leave or I will bite you!"
Dog Twin - "Oh alright I'm LEAVING!"
Cat in Background - "snicker"

There is where doing rescue can be fun. I have this DARLING 4 month old mini colt and the dog likes to "help" him eat his breakfast and dinner. Stormy (the horse) will pin his ears and stomp his feet at Toby (the dog) but Toby doesn't care, she just sits there waiting for the occasional milk pellent to fall into the dirt so she can lap it up.

Sometimes I Feel Like the Luckiest Person in the World, Others, I'm the Bug on the Windshield

2008-10-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

Soemtimes I feel like the whole world is crashing down on me and I just can't take anymore. I try so hard to never let anything get me down too much and just stride with the punches. These past few weeks have kept me so busy that I really having had the time to feel sorry for myself and whever I do I just go out and hug on some of my rescues.

Our grandson Riley has a unique way of keeping my feet on the ground. He is so fun to play with and so full of energy and happiness that it's hard to be sad whever he is around. He REALLY loves his Grandpa and wants to be with him all of the time. Here he is all dressed up to go out into the woods with Grandpa to look for deer.

Yet ANOTHER New Horse in the Barn

2008-10-05T20:32:00.001-07:00

Yes it's true I have another new horse in the barn. This one isn't a rescue tho, it's a really nice Quarter Horse mare named Dun Struttin. She's a really pretty little mare who had been through a lot in the past couple of weeks. I had a nice ride on her yesterday but today when I got ready to ride I noticed that she has mastitis. She had a 5 month foal pulled off her about two weeks ago so her bag was full of milk. I imagine that with the stress of having her foal weaned and being shipped off to a new home it was just too much.

I'm going to give this girl some time off to let her udder heal up and then I'm going to work on getting her back in shape and ready for a very lucky 4-H kid to buy her and continue her show career.

I had an awsome ride on Kiwi today. As much fun as it was to have that foal here all summer I am so happy to have my mare back!

I'm Tired

2008-09-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

Today's picture is four generations of John Cheslock.

I'm tired of having to fight tooth and nail for every little thing that I've ever had or done my entire life. Every time John and I get to where we think we are comfortable something or someone comes along, pulls the rug out from under us and kicks dirt in our faces.

Just last night we found out that John is probably going to get layed off from work. With the current state of our economy we both feared that something like this would happen to one or the other of us and sure enough it did.

Luckily for us, we are hard working, determined indivduals and one way or another we WILL prevail.

On another note, our hard work around our place continues. John has been working on the firewood (finally) and works a lot in his shop fixing up cars. I'm constantly busy out in the barn taking care of all of the horses, riding and teaching lessons. I really love teaching lessons and hope to get more kids booked soon.

The Rescuing Never Ends

2008-09-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

I have been very busy pulling off a large rescue operation of miniature horses and ponies. Please click on Lightening's Blog to see pictures and descriptions of all of the horses that we were able to seize over the weekend. There are more horses than what fit on the front page of the blog so make sure you look and click on each and every one listed on the left side of the screen.

Rescuing and taking care of these horses costs a lot of money that I don't have laying around. If you would like to help these little guys, please send a check to:

Highway 47 Minis
c/o Carlton Veterinary Services
P.O. Box 18
Carlton, OR 97111

I don't get a dime of the money, it all goes to vet services and supplies. This vet gives me a bit of a discount on rescues and they are great vets so your money will be well spent.

I still have 20-30 more minis to get out of there and there are going to be a lot of vet bills to pay. If I can get their teeth and castration done it's a lot easier to find homes for them.

I want to extend a very special thank you to all of the people who helped me round up, haul and care for these little guys.

Molly St. Hillaire
Shelby St. Hillaire
Debbie Arguedas
Barbara Jacobson
Jamie West
Laura Welliver

Good Friends are Worth More Then Silver and Gold

2008-09-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

I treasure my friends, especially my best friends. John and I are lucky to have several couples living in our area that are very near and dear to us. As a group of friends, we are tight. We stick by each other’s side like stink sticks to skunks and we support each other through thick and thin. We have an informal group of us that we lovingly refer to as “The Oyster Club.” The women of the club are called the Mother Shuckers, the kidlets are called the Minnie Pearls and unfortunately we don’t have a cute name for the men. This little club was dubbed so because we all like to get together as often as possible to enjoy each other’s company, eat good food, drink beer, ride our horses and mules…..oh and let us not forget the OYSTERS! I always go to a quaint little seafood store in Hillsboro where all of the food is staring back at you and buy a bushel of large raw oysters that we cook on the bar b q and serve with melted butter and garlic. YUM YUM!

Recently, we suffered a devastating loss Micah Richmond was killed in a car accident leaving behind his young wife Courtney. This is a terrible loss for all of us because Micah is not only Courtney’s wife but also Caleb’s brother, Bobbi’s Brother in Law, Decker and Trey’s Uncle and to the rest of us a good friend and member of our little club. We will all miss Micah very much but most of all, we are all here for Courtney giving her a shoulder to lean and cry on, a safe haven to hang out and get away and mostly an ear to listen to her any time she feels the need to talk.

Micah’s funeral was this past Saturday at the Bethel Baptist Church in McMinnville, Oregon. Unfortunately John and I could not make it to the funeral but not for a lack of trying. We made the mistake of going to the church in Salem assuming that would be the one the services would be at because Micah’s family is from Salem. I wish we could have been there for Courtney but there is one good thing that came of our mistake. Everyone got a darned good laugh at our expense due to our blunder.

Today’s Photo if of one of my good friends Bobbi Richmond. Bobbi, I’m here for you and I’m ready to take you on soon drinking a few beers to honor Micah.

Get a Look at that Moon!

2008-09-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

I love fall. Well, it's not technically fall for a couple more days but it's close enough for me to start getting excited about it. Even though fall signifies the end of the long, warm summer days I still look forward to fall every year. The lighting in the early morning and evenings is a lot of fun, the leaves start to change color, the apples and blackberries are ripe, the rains come to knock down the dust, clean the air and green up the fields and everything cools off. All of this adds up to some outstanding shows presented by Mother Nature herself.

Have you ever heard anyone use the terms "The moon and the stars line up and everything falls into place?" This is what we have right now but it's not the moon and the stars that are lined up, it's the moon and the sun with earth shoved neatly in-between. This is the week of the full moon and the alignment of the planets is so perfect that the moon rises and sets a bright orange and it appears much larger then it normally does. One more month and it'll be the harvest moon so it will be even bigger and brighter then it is right now.

An Exhausting and Exciting Weekend

2008-09-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

Today’s photo is a nice black and white of a gal getting ready to go sign in for her first class of the day at the Pinto show in Western Washington.

This past weekend was defiantly an eventful one. As previously posted I drove a friend to a Pinto show in Western Washington and got to visit with some of my old show buddies for a couple of days. I really enjoyed seeing all of the people that I used to show with but probably one of the best things of the entire trip was Chelsea was there with my old show horse Blue. I swear when I saw her ride up on him my heart jumped into my throat and I cried like a baby because it was so good to see Blue again and see that he was so happy.

Saturday and Sunday I had the pleasure of giving riding lessons to several people. I’ve never been one to watch the clock to see when the lesson will be over and it has become obvious that I need to watch the clock because most of my lessons went over 2 hours when they are only supposed to be one hour each. I’m really excited about one of my new students, she is fun to work with and enjoys riding horses and her father is happy to support her desire to learn and grow in the horse world. I am looking forward to helping her to be an excellent rider and watching her grow. I sure hope that as she continues to take riding lessons from me she brings some of her friends so I can teach them too.

On with the subject of riding lessons. As much as I would like to concentrate on teaching young 4-H kids and helping them with their horses, I have several students right now that want to take lessons on my horses. I am very fortunate to have several excellent horses to choose from that are working out really well with the riding lessons. Using my horses to teach other people to ride is also forcing me to ride my own more so they will be safe for the program. I forgot how much I enjoy working with my horses in the arena because for the past few years I’ve only been riding them out on the trails.

Back at The Horse Show

2008-09-11T21:19:00.000-07:00

Today is a really good day for me. I haven't been able to show on the pinto circuit for a couple of years because I sold my show horse and I don't have the money to show pinto anymore. But, this weekend I got to drive Heidi Ebner to a pinto show up in Spanaway Washington. I've been spending my evening walking around the show grounds visiting with the people that I used to show with and taking pictures of everyone preparing for tomorrow's show. It's really been nice to visit with all of my old friends and have the opportunity to photograph the beutiful horses. Today's photo is a National Show Horse who is here for the competition.

Lightening Update

2008-09-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

Updated to add:

Lightening now has his own blogspot and can be found here:Lightening's Blog

Hint: - Just click on the words "Lightening's Blog" and it'll take you right to his page. Make sure to add this to your favorites so you can see how he progresses every day.

Last night the vet came out and did surgery to remove the growth on Lightening's foot. She is worried that the growth is a sarcoid rather then proud flesh and I am afraid that she is probably right. We will know more after the lab work is done on the specimine. He did make it through the surgery with no complications but he now has a huge gaping hole and his hoof is badly deformed. We will have to change his bandages every 3-4 days and I'm afraid that is not going to be an easy process. All of this is costing a lot of money, so far the vet bill is over $300.00. Thank you very much Barbara for your generous donation on the vet bill.

This morning Lightening looked bright eyed and alert although we had an unexpected light frost last night so was a bit cold. He quickly warmed up as he ate his morning grain and hay.

This photos were taking this morning.

Yet Another Neglected Horse Enters Our Gates

2008-09-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

Meet Lightening. He is a little almost 2 years old arabian gelding that was surrendered to us. He was living in a junk yard and had suffered a small injury just above his hoof that would have been no problem to heal up if his owners had taken the time to keep it clean and dressed. Unfortunately he is yet another victim of human ignorance and laziness pure and simple. Luckily for little Lightening he found his way into our sanctuary and he has a sponsor who is going to pay to have the proud flesh surgically removed from his foot and once he has recovered from that he will be up for adoption. I’ll replace this crappy photo with a better one once I get a chance to set him up for some more respectable poses.

And since we are on the subject of rescue. I am still working very hard on the all of the ponies out on Highway 47. I have a site meeting next week with the Deputy that is assigned to the case, a vet and a mini expert. We are hoping to be able to gather enough evidence to convince the deputy to press charges against the woman. The trial for the Cordie horses remains October 30th, I can’t wait to go to that!

Things remain to be constantly busy in our little corner of the woods. I still have two horses in full time training. I have a three children and three adults signed up for riding lessons. I am taking private Photoshop and photography lessons which I LOVE. I still work 3 days a week and try to squeeze in riding and shoeing all of my personal horses.

Long, Hard, Good Weekend.

2008-09-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of my extra long weekend, I really don't want to go back to work but I sure need the money.

Over the weekend I did a lot of riding. The two horses that are here in training got ridden every day. Socrates is finally moving out a lot better and I was finally able to get on Dusty. The first time I just sat on him for a minute or two but yesterday I actually had him walk around the arena a bit. He was excellent.

I was also able to take a couple nice trail rides up at the Flying M. Yesterday my freind Barbara and I rode all the way to the top of the mountain and back. Today, Don, Laura, John and I all took a couple hour ride on some of the lower trails then had a couple beers after. Both rides were wonderful and our horses, as ususal were awsome.

As far as working around here goes, I managed to get the house cleaned up though right now it doesn't look like it. I worked on the firewood for quite a bit and the pile doesn't look nearly as big as I'd like it too. Tricia and I also worked on the basement a bit. We got the two bedrooms textured and after I scrape the walls down both rooms will be ready for paint.

The dogs all enjoyed having me home for five days. I have 3 dogs here right now; Toby - my dog, Cindi - the old dalmation I'm watching, and Foxy - a little corgie looking thing I'm watching. All of these danged dogs makes for a lot of danged dog poop. peeeeuww!

Today's Photo is courtesy of the "Kiwi Cam". This is Kiwi and Stinki traveling down one of my favorite trails.

WE FINALLY DID IT!

2008-08-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it, the rescue horses were FINALLY relinquished to the Yamhill County Court and they are no longer in any danger of ever being retuned to the sick woman who beat and starved them nearly to death. This has been a long, time consuming and frustrating journey and it is finally beginning to come to an end.

After finding out this wonderful news I went out and gave both of those mares a big fat hug and told them they are safe now.

I have two new horses in for training; Socrates and Dusty. Socrates bucked me OFF last night. I don't know about you but I think that unscheduled dismounts SUCK! He wasn't trying to be naughty but rather got spooked when we walked past the mounting block and some sand got kicked up on it, the sound of that sent him sideways and knocked me off balance. Then he darted the other direction and took a couple hops which sent me into the air and off to the side and I accidentally harpooned him with my spur. He wasn't very fond of THAT so went off into the other direction and just when I thought I'd stick he took a big jump and sent me flying into the air. Unfortunately, this is when long legs do not work in my favor, I didn't clear the saddle and my spur hung up under the horn so I went down head first and became a human sled for a second. I didn't get hurt other then some sore spots on my body but my hair, mouth, nose, ears and underwear were full of sand. Take it from me, this is not a pleasant experience!

After I had a moment to gather my wits about me and shake the sand out of my hair, I noticed that poor Socky was standing there with a Steve Erkle “Did I Do That?” look on his face. He didn’t seem too rattled so I just lead him over to the mounting block and kicked sand on it a few times so he could see that the Booger Man wasn’t going to jump out and attack him, hopped back on and went back to work. The rest of our ride was uneventful THANK GOD! He did finally start responding to my voice whoa so I didn’t have to reinforce with the reins and I was able to work him into the corners that were pretty darned scary the night before. I’m hoping that soon I’ll be able to keep him moving smoothly forward and begin trotting.

Dusty got more ground work. His owner wants him to walk, trot, canter and whoa on voice command so I worked with that for quite a bit free lunging. It takes him quite a bit to whoa and transition from the trot to the walk so I might put a long line on him next time so I can reinforce with that a little. I’ve also been asked to work on his fear of plastic so the old tarp came out. I was able to drape it across his back and I got him to walk across it. He is still afraid of it when it’s just lying in a heap on the ground so tonight I’m going to heap up several tarps in the arena and work him around them for awhile. He’s a really smart horse and working with him is fun.

Both horses have a bad habit of trying to come out of the stall before I have them haltered so I make them both back up when I open the door and stand there quietly while I’m facing them. If they come into my space I twirl the lead rope right in front of me so they have the choice of backing off or being smacked with the twirling rope. I don’t hit them, they get themselves hit and it seems to be working well. I made them both spend the night in the stalls last night in the hopes that they will be more calm about staying in them to wait their turn to be worked each night.

Todays Photo is a warm and fuzzy. It's the neighbor kid petting Kiwi and Babs, this is one of those photos that just "has it all!"

Yet Another Day in Court

2008-08-21T07:17:00.000-07:00

I have two new horses in for training and as soon as I get home today I'm going to get started with both of them, I'm really looking forward to it. Is it weird that I love working with horses so much? Does my desire to train horses make me some kind of a dominatrix? I don't think so, I think that my desire to work with and train horses stems down to my desire to make sure that each and every one of them are somehow given a "get out of jail free card". I strongly feel that educating your horses will hopefully ensure that he will have a good home to live out his senior years and not be sold for slaughter.

Finally Got Some Rain

2008-08-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

We have finally been blessed with a measurable amount of rain. With it of course comes thunder and lightening but that's always fun too! This morning the rain was comming down so hard that it felt like ping pong balls hitting me but I really didn't care, it felt so good to have that wet stuff comming out of the sky and seeing the thirsty earth drink it up just as fast as it could come down.

The only downside of all this is that Cindi the old dalmation is scared to death of the thunder. The poor dog spent all night in our bedroom crying while the storm passed over our small ranch. I tried to comfort her as much as I could but I guess she just couldn't help being afraid.

Today's Photo of of an American Kestrel Falcon that was kind enought to let me photograph it. They are really pretty, very shy little birds of prey.

Dog Sitting Whether I Like it or Not.

2008-08-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

It seems that the word is out that I am a pretty good dog sitter. I am now watching an old Dalmatian for two months while her owners are on vacation in the Philippines, her name is Cini and she really is a sweet old girl. The downside of this dog is that she is a house dog and we are not house dog people. This hasn’t been to terribly difficult to deal with though, I just vacuum more often, brush her a lot with the Furminator and sweep the kitchen more regularly. Hmm, maybe this is a good thing, my house is finally cleaner!

I think that the dog’s owners will be very pleased when they return from vacation as they will find their dog happy and healthy, well groomed with shorter toenails and they’ll get some awesome photographs of her, all for free!

So in closing, today's photos are of Cindi, my new house dog for the next two months. The backdrop is one of the wonderful sunsets that our recent hot weather had been providing us.

Getting A New Puppy

2008-08-04T12:08:00.000-07:00

John and I are babysitting a mother dog and her 8 puppies for some friends while they are on vacation. Of course we've become quite attached to the lot of them and are thinking about keeping on for ourselves.

This is the one we are considering, we've already picked a name for her; Agnes.

On another note. The owner of the Big Red Horse came out Sunday and I took her on a long trail ride up at the Flying M; I rode the Big Red Horse, she rode Buster. We had an awesome ride together up the water fall trail to the top of the hill and on across the river and down the other side. The Big Red Horse was awesome for the entire ride, even when she got stung by a bee.

Sadly, the owner of the Big Red Horse has decided to take her home when my first 30 days is done. I'm sad because I'm having fun riding that horse and also because that will mean I won't have any horses book for August. I had someone bring a big thoroughbred in but I had to send him home because he was limping and coughing. Hopefully I'll get some more horses in soon, in the mean time though it will give me some more time to ride Kiwi and Stinky.

Are things starting to pick up?

2008-07-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

Are they? I sure hope so! Last night was definitely a busy one at our place.

I have washed river sand on top of a hard clay base, it gets dusty in there so I have to keep it watered and that of course with all of the riding I've been doing in there causes it to compact. I spent nearly an hour trying to break up the footing in my indoor arena with the tractor and box blade. Even with the fingers as low as they will go and the box blade angled downward it took several times around to get the footing broken up. Then I went over it with the harrow so now my arena looks great.

I had another horse dropped off for a month of training last night. This is a big beautiful Thoroughbred gelding named Norman. He seems to be pretty level headed and the guy just wants to use him for hunting and trail riding so I'm thinking this should be a pretty good gig for me. The owner of this horse is the same guy that ended up with a horse that I had rescued a couple of years ago. He brought that horse with him so I could see how he looked and dam that horse is NICE LOOKING! The guy just loves the horse to pieces.

The Big Red Horse did extremely well last night even with the drama of a new horse moving in. She is moving of my left leg very nicely but I'm having a dickens of a time getting her to move off my right. I really need to think this through and figure out what I need to do it get her going in that direction. She is just starting to neck reign a bit with leg aids.

We had to deliver a load of hay to one of the people that adopted one of the Gopher Valley horses from me. I'm really not fond of delivering hay but this is a nice way for me to keep tabs on the horse and make sure that all is going well. That horse is now living the life of pampered luxury and he deserves it. Seeing him last night made me realize that a checkup call on the two other Gopher Valley horses is overdue.

Today's photo is a funny one that I took of a friend’s horse while he was napping on my lawn. I carefully arranged the beer bottles and boxes around here for a nice effect. Luckily for me that horse is a sound sleeper so I was able to pull this one off! If that's not red neck enough for you, take a look on the deck in the background, there's an old toilet sitting there for all to see. HA!

A great weekend

2008-07-27T19:35:00.000-07:00

Wow this has really been a great weekend. I got to spend a lot of time with good friends, go on some awsome trail rides and eat fantastic food. I'm too tired to go into too much detail tonight to I leave you with a photograph of some interesting lighting effects during the beginning of yesterday's sunset.

Peppi La Pew

2008-07-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

Today's photo is my favorite mare Kiwi and her adopted orphan foal Babs.

We had a visitor of the skunk persuasion this morning. My lovely dog had it trapped under the deck when it decided to let loose it's lovey parfume' so now my entire house smells like a skunk party.

Yesterday I had to go over to a big training barn to try to help the trainer get some shoes on one of the reining horses there. Three different farriers have refused to work on her anymore and one of them got himself hurt pretty good trying to shoe her. I worked with her for over an hour and the only thing I managed to do was get the leftover nails from the old shoes pulled out of her feet. Other then that, every time I tried anything else she would kick hard and fast straight out. I'm supposed to go back today and work with her some more but I'm really starting to think that it's just not worth getting hurt over.

I saddled up the Big Red Horse and rode her in the arena today and had a friend riding one of my geldings in there at the same time. The Big Horse Horse did really well with that and all of the other distractions that presented themselves during our ride. I was really proud of her.

Shoeing

2008-07-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

Shoeing and hoof care, hmmm now this is one subject where I could probably go on for a very long time! As you begin reading today’s entry you will probably wonder, “What’s this got to do with shoeing?” but don’t worry, we’ll get to that.

Today's riding session on the Big Red Horse started out a bit rough. For some unknown reason there was a booger man in every corner, behind every wall and peaking out behind every crack in the wall. My previous plans of taking her outside for a ride quickly because a distant memory as I spent a good 20 or more minutes just trotting the extra piss and vinegar out of her. Most people are lazy and spend this time standing on the ground holding a lounge line and whip but NOT ME! I like to use this time like any other, teaching the horse while riding, besides, riding the extended trot is good exercise for the horse AND the rider. By the time I had her convinced that the little teeny black kitty wasn’t going to kill her and that spec of dust on the gate didn’t have a bear hiding behind it, I was plumb tired and so was she. GOOD, now we can get something done **insert deep sigh and eyes rolling**. After all of the bending, flexing, disengaging the hip, lifting the shoulder, blah blah blah blah I decided it was time to do the, “We have to try something new with this ride.” thing. Today it was working the arena gate and I have to say, she didn’t do too badly. I was hoping for more then she gave me but was quite pleased that I was able to open and close the gate and ride her through it and we both stayed in one piece. Bravo to the Big Red Horse!

After our ride I of course just HAVE to work with her feet. I mean really, what kind of trainer would I be if I didn’t train the horse to also stand nicely for the farrier. Well, I’ve mentioned before that this particular horse isn’t very fond of having her back feet worked with but I’ve managed to make quite a bit of progress with her over the past couple of weeks. I can now pick up all of her feet and cradle them with my legs with pounding on them with the shoeing implement of my choice. TODAY I managed to convince her to let me place both of her front feet up on the stand and let me file the flare off the side walls. Bravo AGAIN to the Big Red Horse!

Now, on to the subject line. I have never considered myself a professional farrier but I’ve been told by a few very good farriers that I shoe better then most of the self proclaimed professionals in the area. I take a lot of pride in my shoeing and have learned this difficult, back breaking work from a couple of excellent masters of the trade Steve Schmidt and Ben Fry. Steve is the one who initially talked me into shoeing my own horses and taught me a lot of what I now know. Sadly, he died of a heart attack a few years ago and I still miss the snot out of that old fart. Ben Fry took his place with my teachings and thanks to the both of them I can slap a shoe on just about anything.

Okay, okay how about some pictures of my work.

This is Elvis. He had a terrible run in with a fence as a youngster that cause permanent damage to his foot. Here are the before and afters.

And then Mooney, he was just way overdue, not real problems other than his an
gles sucked

And then, the proof is in the pudding, it's really me shoeing those horses, that's my tattoo!

In conclusion, have you ever noticed that when you have to start searching for a new farrier and you call around one of the first questions that they ask you is, "Is the horse good?" Well, he's not asking is it a GOOD HORSE, he's asking, does it stand and behave itself for the farrier!!!! Please people, take the time to train your horse to ride well but also do your farrier a favor and train it to allow it's feet to picked up, cradled between your legs and pounded on.

The Big Red Horse

2008-07-21T20:39:00.000-07:00

Today's picture is of Auda, the big red horse. Here, she is exchanging some grooming with the little mini horse, Gigi.

With money being so tight and all this spare time on my hands I decided to start training horses for people. The first one that was brought in for training is a big red draft cross mare that was rescued from a PMU farm in Canada. This big girl is wasn't very brave and so was afraid of everything. You couldn't get anywhere near her back feet and she semi rear back and run off when you took off her halter. Her owner/rescuer spent a lot of time and money to save this horse and she has done an excellent job but she needed a little help, that's where I came in.

I've been spending a lot of time with this girl every day and have come a long way with her. I can now pick up all of her feet and she is calm about it, she doesn't care aboout the halter going on and off and she lets me touch her ears and scratch her everywhere. Every day when I ride her she comes further and further along. I've already gotten her to where she stops dead in her tracks if I just set my seat and say whoa, she moves off my legs on the forhand and haunches and backs with only voice commands.

Today for the first time I took her outside and rode her around out in the pasture for a bit. She was reluctant to move forward but with just a little goading and coaxing I got her to move out a bit and wander around. What a great session it was! Tomorrow I'm going to see if she'll let me work the gate from her back.

This last weekend, the horse's owner came out to watch me ride her for a bit and was very pleased with the progress I've made with her. That really makes me feel good. I hope to get more horses in for taining soon, this is really fun!

Yamhill Derby Days

2008-07-19T21:51:00.000-07:00

Today was our small towns celebration days called Yamhill Derby Days. For the past few years we've taken our old Model A into town and run it through the parade. Usually it's just John, Riely and I but this year John jr came with Sophia and Will and we had my Dad along for the ride. We managed to cram 5 people into that car which in a modern car wouldn't be a problem but the 1930 Model A was not designed to be a family car, there is only room in the front seat for two people of small stature! We got everyone comfortably in the car and since there wasn't room for me, I got to watch the parade with little Will.

After the parade we took the car home and went back into town to enjoy the festivities at the park. We participated in the town fund raiser auction and watched the frog jumping contest. Yep, our town is small enough that the PETA people haven't found us yet so we can still have our frog jumping contest. It was so cute watching those little kids try to get their frogs to jump the farthest without touching them.

It's been a long time

2008-07-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

Since I've updated my blog. Right after my last update, my life got turned into a whirlwind of activities with horses, work, family etc.

Where oh where do I begin?

I took in 3 new rescues that were seized by the Sheriff's Office. Two of them were in critical condition and took a lot of time to rehabilitate and bring back to health.

A neighbors mare died after giving birth so we put the filly on my mare Kiwi and she has been doing really well.

My in laws had some health issues and were moved up into McMinville.

The list goes on and on. Right now John and I are struggling financially because of his new job and cut in pay and also my hours were cut. In an effort to make ends meet I finally decided to take the plung and start training horses and giving riding lessons. So far I have one horse here for training and I think one commitment for lessons, I hope it works out.

Today I have a pre trial hearing for the latest rescue horses and I've been told it should be the last one, this will be the 4th. If they don't reach an agreement today it will go to trial and the defense will very likely go to jail. I sometimes secretely hope that it does go to trial because that woman deserves to rot in jail for the pain and suffering that she put those horses through.

Today's photo if of the two remaining of the original 3 that were seized by the Sheriff and brought here for rehabilitation. Please pray that we will have some closure at the hearing this afternoon.

Rescue ROCKS!

2008-05-12T08:30:00.001-07:00

Today's photo is of Cassanova and his new Person. Cassanova is one of the Gopher Valley rescue horses that I got about a month ago. He sure turned out to be a nice little gelding and I wish his new owners the best of luck with him.

Life here on the ranch has been exahusting now that I'm working for the Sheriff's Office. There is a lot of comming and going and a LOT of work that has to be done all of the time. I am so grateful for all of the people who have come up and helped me out with my newest bunch of rescue horses. Without them, I'd be even more tired than I am now.

Kiwi is now a nursemare

2008-05-07T08:38:00.000-07:00

My time is very limited these days so I have to keep this one short and sweet. Hopefully I'll have the time soon to come in here and give you all the full story of my current rescues and daily activities. Now on to the subject of today's post.

I've always known that Kiwi was a very special mare. She and I quickly developed a bond with each other and I can say with confidence that I love her more then I have ever loved another horse.

Last Friday Kiwi got a new job, nursemare. A neighbor's mare died from complications of giving birth. She brought the orphaned foal over and Kiwi accepted it in seconds. There was no intruduction period, it was instant love.

Kiwi's milk never completely dried up from her first foal that was born 3 years ago. She then stole a foal from a rescue mare that I had last year and nursed it until I placed it in a new home.

We put Kiwi on a horse HRT paste to get her milk to come in heavier and it seems to be working. We still bucket feed the foal with Foal Lac just be make sure she is getting all of the nurishment that she needs. John and I call her BB; it's short for Bucket Baby.

They’re baaaack!

2008-04-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

Those danged elk are hanging around in our hay fields every day now and boy does that ever chap my khakis! The bulls look so cute now because their horns are starting to grow and they all have fuzzy nubs on the tops on their heads.

Yesterday was a big day at our ranch. The vet came out to castrate poor Casanova, the mustang stallion. Castrating aged horses is tricky and this one looked like it was going to be difficult. We had a hard time getting him down and he got up before we were finished and knocked the crusher off. I had to keep a close eye on him throughout the day because we were really afraid he would bleed. He did well and this morning was as happy and alert as can be expected. I was hoping to be able to deliver him to his new home this weekend but the vet recommended that I keep him at my place for at least two weeks to make sure that he is healed properly. The adopting family was okay with that as it will give them some more time to build some additional fences.

The person who is adopting the Arabian also came out to meet with the vet and talk about the rehabilitation program for him. They decided to name him Sultan and are really excited to get him home. I will be delivering him on Saturday.

I need to try to find a home for the filly. I have some contacts from when I had them advertised on Craigslist who are on a waiting list in case anything fell through so that will come in handy!

More visitors from the birds.

2008-04-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

It seems like nearly every day there is a new species visiting the bird feeders. This guy has been comming around for a few weeks but he is very shy so I haven't been able to get a good shot of him. Today he decided to grace me with his company while I just happened to be sitting out on the porch swing WITH my camera. What luck!

Haven't been in here for awhile

2008-04-25T19:42:00.000-07:00

Sorry about that! I've been so busy with the days being longer and whatnot. Things have been kind of hecktick around here lately. Last weekend I went out on a horse rescue and had to pick up 3 starving, neglected horses. This time I had to have two sherrif squad cars accompany me due to the circumstances but fortunately the people didn't give us any trouble and I was able to get all of the horses out of there safely.

Fortunately for these horses they weren't in too bad of shape and I was able to place them all in new homes withing just a couple of days. They are still here for at least another week because I won't deliver them until the stallion has been castrated and I am sure that he is stabelized.

So, my photo for today isn't of very high quality but it is of the three rescue horses. Two mustangs, one stallion, one filly who might be pregnant and one arabian.

Another one with the AWWWWWW factor

2008-04-14T17:37:00.001-07:00

We were so careful to pick just the perfect pony for our grandchildren. I spent countless hours looking at ponies that were offered for sale and even put out "pony wanted" ads to make sure that we got one that was safe and gentle for the kids. We ended up spending a lot more money then we wanted to on the one that we finally picked out but she was worth every dime. She is kind and gentle with the kids, broke to drive and really easy to look at.

Of course we couldn't just have ONE pony, we had to get another one to keep her company. That is how we ended up with Gigi. Now Gigi just magically came to us for free from some people that I used to show on the pinto circuit with.

Well it turns out that Riley likes the free pony MUCH BETTER then the one we spent $1500.00 on. He won't even pet Honey and yet loves all over Gigi and leads her all over the place with a piece of baling twine. I suppose the fact that Honey bucked him off last weekend might have something to so with that. OOPS!

We love our Grandchildren

2008-04-09T13:37:00.000-07:00

We have Riley every weekend and he never stops comming up with ways to make us laugh or just say awwwwww. That kids is extremely entertaining to us. In this photo, he had just gotten a hair cut and taken a bath and was spending some time acting like he was a muscle man. He had a blast giving me several posses for the camera.

Saturday, the weather wasn't too bad so we were able to spend some time outside picking flowers and petting the horses. I saddled Honey up so Riley could take a short ride and that didn't go too well. Honey decided to be a pill and Riley came off. It was his first time falling off a horse, poor little guy. But he was such a trooper and I managed to get him back on the poney and lead him around a bit more.

In the evening when it was time to bring all of the horses in for the night, he wanted to help me with the ponies. So I took Honey and he got Gigi and with just a piece of baling twine around her neck, Riley led Gigi all the way to the barn and into her stall. Gigi was so good for him! She walked nice and slow so he could keep up and she never tried to stop and eat or pull on him in any way.

'Tis the Season

2008-04-03T08:39:00.000-07:00

For wonderful sunrises! I was a little late getting on the road for this shot but I still thought it was really cool how the sun just seemed to be sitting there right next to the mountain.

I've really been enjoying the nice weather and so have all of the animals on our small ranch. The crazy horse seems to be settling in quite nicely, at least he hasn't done anything completely stupid just lately.

Rescue Anyone?

2008-03-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

I have rescued a few horses here and there. This is something that I've always enjoyed doing but it does come with a price. There have been times that we have had to sneak in the middle of the night and "steal" the horse. There have been times when I've had to pretend to be "friends" with the person and play nice just to get the horse out of there and at the same time John has had to hold me back so I don't physically assault the person. I've been known to cry over starving, skin and bones horses while I make every effort I can to make them comfortable in their new environment. There was also that one time that I was rewarded with a healthy newborn foal from a mare that I rescued that was not supposed to live because she was in such bad shape. Rescuing horses is physically, mentally and financially exhausting but when it all comes together and works out it can be very rewarding.

Why did I use this as my subject for today? Because today, I visited with a couple that spent thousands of dollars, several 24 hour round trips to Idaho and sacrificed their pastures to rescue 48 starving appaloosa horses from an evil, selfish woman who didn't seem to mind seeing her horses literally starve and freeze to death while she sat in her nice warm house and fed her FAT FACE.

We were planning on taking one of the rescued horses home with use but decided not to because his poor legs were more crooked then a politician. We did leave them with 2 ton of hay as a donation to help them in their efforts with these horses. I admire these people, what they did was truly amazing.

However.....On our way home we stopped in on some people who had offered their horse to us for free just because they didn't want him anymore. He was well taken care of and we could tell that the people were doing everything they could to make sure that he had all of his shots and farrier work he needed. He had good food and shelter and two goats for companionship. But, this horse is FULL of himself. He was scared to death in his own environment and I didn't know what would happen when we got him home. I can't say I rescued this HORSE, but I can probably say that I rescued the people from the horse. HA!

So, here's a picture of the new guy on the block at the Cheslock Ranch.

There is Hair in the Air

2008-03-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

Today’s photo is of Cajun showing off his dental work while being on the receiving end of some good scratching and rubbing.

The days are getting longer and it is triggering the horses to shed their heavy winter coats. Yesterday I spent a good long time and one shedding stone on the ponies and managed to get quite a load of hair off of them. They always enjoy their grooming sessions and show their appreciation with funny faces and lip movements.

The humming birds are starting to get very aggressive around the feeder so it's an excellent time to get some photos of them. Unfortunately, the lighting hasn't been quite right for high speed photography and those birds are so tiny and fast it's difficult to get a good shot of them. It's definitely a challenge and I am up to the task, it'll just take me awhile.

Happy Easter

2008-03-23T09:40:00.000-07:00

Today's Photo is Mt. Jefferson with a sunset. I've got plenty of photos of Mt. Jefferson with sunrises but this is a first for me with a sunset. It's not an incredible sunset but it was all Mother Nature had to offer at the time.

In honor of the Easter holiday I will share my Easter poem with you.

Red Neck Easter

You walk into the cabin with your drawers a saggin’
Your old hound looks up at you, his tail is waggin.
You hang up your coat, throw your hat in the chair,
Stretch out your back and pull in a long breath of air.

“What’s that smell?” You wrinkle your nose,
“Smells like your frying up a piece of garden hose!”
My hackles raise up and I stand with dismay,
“How dare you walk in here and talk to me that way!”

“For all I care, you can go sleep in the barn,
But I can see in your face, you don’t give a darn.”
Lookie here what I fixed for you honey,
A nice stew pot full of Eater bunny.

He was a hoppin around those old beer kegs,
Carrying this here basket full of Easter eggs.
Ad lookie here honey, isn’t his handy?
Under all them eggs was this Easter candy!

It took me awhile to get a clear shot,
So I could throw him into this old stew pot.
It wasn’t easy getting this here meat,
I wrestled the hound off and be bit me in the seat!

I stood up, howled and pointed the gun at the dog
And that stupid bunny ran into the pen with the hog!
The pursuit was on right through that slop,
He eluded me with a quick easy hop!

I chased him round the corner, and felt like a dork
‘Cuss that darn bunny knocked of the pitch fork!
I stepped on the tines, the handle knocked me in the head,
I fell to the floor thinking “That bunny’s dead!”

The rest of the story will have to go untold,
I can’t quite recollect, but that hound got quite bold!
I got him fair and square and I aint lying,
Now tell me honey, why are the danged kids crying?

Take a whiff of this stew and tell me you old fart.
Is it true what the kids say, I have no heart?

By Jamie Ceslock

An Unannounced Guest for Dinner

2008-03-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

I got home tonight to find a ring necked pheasent behind my gate. I've got one of those fancy schmancy automated gates so when I pushed the button to open it the stupid pheasent let that gate push him off my driveway. I figured if he was dumb enough to allow that he should be dumb enough to stand there and let me get a picture of him. Yeah right! As soon as I stepped out of my car the bastard flew off. Now a normal person who is just getting home from a long day at work would just get back in the car and give up but of course I've never been accused of being a normal person, I just HAD to chase that somebitch down and get a shot. Soo, look at what came for dinner (I wish)

Speaking of getting a shot. The bad barn cat that got into my house last week finally ran into one of John's bullets. Thank God!

Correcting a Mistake (everyone makes them)

2008-03-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

In my entry titled "Spring Colors Are Here and Not Just in the Flowers" I mistakingly identified the birds in the photo as Yellow Finches and in fact that is not what they are. They are called Pine Siskins.

If you see any errors, please feel free to comment, I always like to keep my mind open, you never know what will fall in. You may also feel free to comment on anything else if you'd like.

I have recently joined a birding watching forum and have used it as an excellent opportunity to identify the birds in my yard and share birding stories with other bird crazy people.

Today's photo is in honor of our spring flowers and weather.

Today I didn't get much of anything done other than entertaining Riley. John and Luke made a lot of progress in the basement. It's really looking good down there.

Tomorrow is John's first day on his new job and my first day back after my vacation.

Today, we decided to go on a trip to Hawaii with John's brother and sister in lay Tom and Pam and his sister Teresa. Wahoo!

It's all in the lighting.

2008-03-15T10:58:00.000-07:00

My photo for today is not a high quality one but it's the best I could get of this particular bird at this time. This is a Pine Grosbeak and the first one I've seen this year. Every time the bird showed up, the sun went behind a cloud. When the sun would pop back out, something would scare the bird away. It is definately another fitting tesimony of how frustrating photographing wild life can bee. (See post titlted "Those Pesky Elk" for another entertaining expose' on the joys and perils of outdoor photography.)

Okay, I can't stand it. I just can't do a post with a half assed photo, it's not in my blood. So, here is a nice shot of Riley and Grandpa finishing up the fertilizing for the year. Fertilizer is becomming so expensive that I think it is cheaper to not fertilize and take a cut in yeild.

No cats in the house!

2008-03-12T06:47:00.000-07:00

Today's photo is Bitten the Tiny Kitten. Of course he's not a tiny kitten anymore but he used to be!

Bitten's story

Several years ago a skinny cat showed up in my old barn. That’s not an uncommon occurrence and normally I just shoot them because they usually are wild and sick and are capable of either making kittens or having them. Well for some reason I took a shine to this cat. I could tell by the size of his head that he was a very large kitty; he had no tail, the huge feet with extra toes and was friendly. I fed him and let him fatten up before making the “appointment” with the vet for brain surgery.

A few weeks later, John was gone on one of his long hunting trips and I was out in the barn cleaning stalls. It was dark out as daylight savings had kicked in and I was just enjoying some quiet time out there messing with the horses. Here I am thinking I’m all alone and safe when the barn door starts slowly sliding open and in walks the biggest, dirtiest, ugliest man I’ve seen in a coons age. I give him the farmers wife face off with my pitch fork not saying a word, just glaring at him. He stops and says, “I hear you got my cat.” I knew instantly what cat he had to be talking about so I told him yes, I had cats but I doubt any of them were his thinking I just get him to leave and keep my cat. Well, this teeny, cute little girl with big sad eyes steps out from behind the guy and my heart just melts. “Okay, okay”, I say “he’s out in the other barn, let’s go have a look and see if he’s yours.”

We walked out to the old barn and as soon as that little girl (damm those cute kids!) spotted that cat she yelled out “Bobby” ran and picked him up. Crap. They guy was truly thankful to me for taking care of the cat and I told him that I really liked him. Well, they thanked me a whole bunch and left. End of story. Or, so I thought.

A few weeks later, here he comes down the driveway, walks right up to me, hands me this teeny tiny kitten and without a word turns around and leaves. This kitten looked just like mini version of the cat he had taken from my barn. He had to have been only a couple weeks old and couldn’t even poop by himself yet. He was so teeny we named him Bitty Little Kitty. I kept him in a bird cage and took him everywhere with me because he had to be hand fed and helped to poop.

Now I’m normally not one to get too attached to a cat, they are a renewable resource you know! But that cat, THAT CAT weaseled his way into my heart. He really is a cool cat.

NO CATS IN THE HOUSE!

So, last night I’m relaxing on the couch just enjoying the sound of John working in the basement, you know PROGRESS. All of a sudden, I hear this weird noise behind me, I ignore it. But it happens again and again. So, I get up and take a look and there is a CAT in my HOUSE throwing itself against my living room window tying to get out. I tried to shoo it out the door and it’s so frantic it keeps trying to leap out the window and with each failed leap it is landing right on my ancient jade plant and breaking it into pieces. At that point I have evil thoughts of opening the window and removing the screen. I say evil because it’s a second story window. HA! Anyway, I finally manage to shoo it into the kitchen and this is not before it has jumped up on every surface in my living room leaving a wake of broken memorabilia behind it. At this point I’m ready to chase it with a butcher knife. Anyway, I close all of the doors so it’s locked in the kitchen and oh so very nicely call to John that there is a CAT in my HOUSE and to come quick and get the dammed thing OUT before it causes any more damage than it already has. Of course he takes his time because he obviously assumes it’s no big deal and wasn’t he in for a surprise when he crests the stairs and sees the mayhem. I swear it might as well have been a dammed bobcat with how wild it was and the destruction it was causing. John opens the door to outside thinking the cat will just take the opportunity and LEAVE but NOOOO all of a sudden there are two dogs and one other cat at the door who decided they were going to help. At this point I have two cats and two dogs fighting under my kitchen table and I told John to get the gun and shoot the whole lot of them. With a lot of swats, kicks, thrown objects and a variety of swear words we were finally able to get them all outside and shut the door. After we were able to catch our breath and realize what had just happened we both walked around and took full stock of the damage. It wasn’t too bad considering what my house had just experienced. Of course it wasn’t until this morning that the bright idea came to me that we should have trapped the stupid cat in a box, took it outside and shot it because I’m SURE it is the one that is responsible for pissing in every barn, all over my front porch, on my tractor and in the dog room. I want that thing dead so badly I can taste it.

Another day in the beginning of spring.

2008-03-11T18:52:00.000-07:00

Today's photo is Buster. I bought this horse a few years ago because he was by the same sire as my old show horse Blue. I was hoping at the time to get another nice horse to start training for the show circuit.

Buster had ended up at the local horse trader's place with his mother and another mare and colt because his owner had run into some financial difficulties. The trader knew that I like "ugly paints" and I had a yearning for another Telluride horse so he called me when these came in. I went out to take a look at what he had that same day. It was pouring down rain and pitch black dark when I got there. Buster was about 5 years old and had never been away from his mother nor had he ever been in a horse trailer other then to be hauled to the horse trader's place. I could barely see him but it looked like all of his legs were still connected and his dam looked to be pretty well built so I bought him on the spot for $600.00, loaded him into my trailer and took him home.

When I got him home he was so scared that he was shaking like a leaf. I put him in a stall with some hay and water and decided to just leave him alone and let him settle. There were several other horses in the barn to keep him company. By the next morning, he was all settled and looked pretty good.

After a couple weeks of just letting him hang out I had the vet out to do his teeth and within a couple days after that started riding him. He had never had anything done to him but led around with a halter so I took my time and he was really good. It wasn't but a few rides and I had him moving off my leg and going along the wall pretty good, then we moved out to the trails and he was AWSOME!

I continued with a lot of rail work and he did really well but I could tell he just wasn't show horse material. Much to John's delight, Buster became HIS horse. He really is an awsome horse, kind and gentle and easy to ride.

Now on to current events of the day.

I saw my first hummingbird today at my feeder. WAHOO! I love those things.

I also shaved GiGi's face today so she doesn't look like a bearded goat anymore. Who is GiGi you ask? My little mini mare that I got to keep Honey company.

Spring Colors Are Here and Not Just in the Flowers

2008-03-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

Today's photo is of some American God Finches. As the days get longer the light reflects off the retna in their eyes and triggers the spring molting process. Their new feathers come in a bright yellow in preparation for mating season and the need to attract a female. If another male comes in to the feeder to eat, the ones already on the feeder spread their wings to say BACK OFF we were here first.

Copy and pasted from this website.
Goldfinches will nest in a wide variety of shrubs and small trees found in full sun. Their nest are usually found 8 or 10 feet above the ground. In August they frequently build in the crotches of tall sturdy weeds such as the bull thistle, Joe Pye Weed, wild lettuce and even golden rod. The female usually lays four, five or six bluish white eggs and, until they hatch, she is fed by the male. The nestlings are fed by both parents in the same manner, and it seems likely that the abundance of suitable seeds in July and August is responsible for the late nesting habit of this songster.

In another few weeks, the elk will be shedding their horns and I'll be running around their stomping grounds looking for the sheds.

Who Said Pit Bulls are Viscious Killers?

2008-03-04T20:55:00.000-08:00

Today's photo is of my son's two dogs Brutus and Joey. Now, a normal person would assume that Brutus was the pit bull and Joey was the little dog but actually it's the other way around. I'm not a big fan of pit bulls, but Joey really is a nice dog. He is a playing machine and in fact plays so much he wears all of the other dogs out. For a little dog, Brutus is pretty cool too. I like him other than he farts to much and it's those silent ones that catch you off gaurd. You don't know you've been hit until it's too late and your sinuses are full of dog fart. Peee ewww!

We had a guy fly all the way out from Minnesota to look at our old truck that we have for sale and he bought it right on the spot. He's a really nice guy and I do believe John and I have made ourelves a new friend. Good, honest hard working people are few and far between in this day and age and we are firm believers that if you run across one, you need to embrace and treasure them. He is still here and he and John and going through all of the barns admiring all of Johns cars, trucks and junkers. John does love to show people his junk.

Work has been busy and kind of stressful this week. Partly because it's invoicing week and payroll and I'm going to be off next week. That is a lot to get done and wrapped up before leaving on vacation. I guess it's par for the course, the more work you are responsible for, the more stressful the job can be. I do enjoy my job though and I consider myself lucky to have such a great job and to be working for such great people. It sure makes the days go by a lot faster and no matter how much I like my job, I like being home with my husband and my animals even better so the sooner I can get home to them the better.

My new harness that I bought off Ebay came today and it is wonderful. The seller was one of those honest people and he didn't do the harness justice in his description of it. It is made of very high quality, heavy leather and fits my pony almost perfectly. I'm so excited to get her hooked up to the cart and go for some drives.

Parting With an Old Friend.

2008-03-02T10:26:00.000-08:00

Today's photo is one my favorite trucks from our collection. I say ONE of my favorites because my all time favorite is the Model A of course. I choose this photo for today because John decided that he is going to sell this truck. I really don't want him to because I just love the paint job and all of the chrome on this one but it's his decision and I won't stand in his way.

Poor John is suffering from some kind of lower GI issue these past few days. I really think it's from stress with changing jobs and all but I made him promise that if he is not feeling better by tomorrow that he will go to the doctor.

We've made a lot of progress down in the basement. Riley's room and the hallway are about ready for paint and the main bedroom should be ready by the end of the day today. We still haven't figured out what colors to use but we do want them to be very bright so it is warm and welcoming down there.

For some reason I feel sad and depressed today. The sun is out, there is a clear blue sky, the horses are out on the grass and progress is being made downstairs but I just have this overwhelming sadness that I just can't shake. I think I'll go out for a walk and see if I can get over that.

I Don't Stink Anymore

2008-02-29T17:23:00.000-08:00

Today's photo is of one of my favorite horses Stinky. I bought him about 5 years ago. He was a rescue out of Newberg. The guy I got him from kept him in a stall, never let him out, never had his feet done and fed him very rich alfalfa. His stall was knee keep in horse poop and pee, his coat was stained yellow from the urine and he stank like urine, hence his name Stinky. In spite of his prior life he turned out to be a really great horse and I love him.

Today was a big day for John and I, he submitted his letter of resignation to his boss and is taking a new job. This is really exciting for both of us because now he won't be on call all of the time and won't have so much stress in his life.

We've had nearly 3 weeks of nice warm weather and today that all came to an abrupt end with wind and raing moving in.

John, Luke, Trishia and I have been busy remodeling the basement so they can move in by the end of March. Today Trishia and I got Riley's room all mudded to prep for painting.

Those Pesky Elk

2008-02-26T10:38:00.000-08:00

I hate elk.

No, I hate the fact that every time I get myself in a good spot to get some photos something happens.

I just spent over an hour, jumping creeks, climbing fences, pushing my way through some of the prickliest crap that the devil put on this planet, sneaking on my hands and knees and crawling flat on my stomach in the mud to get photos of some elk. I was all decked out in a camouflage outfit that John loaned me and froze in place every time they looked at me. John would have been proud of me. Of course during all of this, I’m trying to keep my expensive camera out of the mud, water and branches only to not be tempted to spike it off the floor when I get back to the house.

The danged elk SPOTTED me and took off so I put my camera on the sport setting because that's how you get ACTION shots and every danged one of them is BLURRY! The only thing I can figure is that in order to use the sport setting the lighting has to be really good. I had pretty good lighting but not full sun. What a bunch of baloney.

Well, I did manage to get a couple good ones of some STUPID cows. No bulls tho. SPIKES DON’T COUNT!

A Good Investment; A Boy and His Pony

2008-02-23T13:19:00.000-08:00

Today's photo is Riley and his pony Honey. It's been awhile since he's ridden her and they did awsome. We had fun just walking around the house for awhile.

The weather is awsome!

A Frown From a Happy (Normally) Boy

2008-02-22T17:18:00.000-08:00

Riley is here for the weekend, of course, we have him EVERY weekend so that's nothing new. But, in honor of him today's photo is one of him frowning at me for taking his picture.

I got up early this morning so I could sneak up on the elk and get some great shots of them. That didn't work out at all because the darned elk decided to not show up.

A Really Good Way to Start the Day

2008-02-21T17:54:00.001-08:00

Today's photo is a sunrise that I shot while visiting my Dad in Sisters, Oregon. I was there to help them with some chores and whatnot. It was really early in the morning (of course) and I hear my Dad come rushing into the house squawking for Marilyn to get the camera, quick quick. Well, there must have been something out there that was just too good to miss so I jumped out of bed, grabbed my camera and made a mad dash for the door. The three of us stood there each taking photos of the sunrise, for some reason my camera is the only one that captured the vibrant colors.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

2008-02-20T17:21:00.001-08:00

Today's photo if in honor of our upcomming spring. It is a flowering plum tree in full bloom.

I was able to go outside for a short time and trimmed Kiwi and Cajun's feet. They REALLY needed those trims. I am ebarrased that I allwed their feet to get that long.

I met Steve down at the tack shop this morning and we were finally able to get Jamie's new laptop connected to the wireless internet. WAHOO!

Tuesday February 19, 2008

2008-02-19T10:37:00.001-08:00

Today's photo is Mt. Jefferson taken Monday morning on my way to work.

There was 7 big branch antler bull elk out in the field below my house this morning. They were alternating between grazing and sparring with each other. I would have loved to get a photo of them but they were just too far away, even with my big zoom lense the image of them would have been small. I really want a bigger lense with a stabelizer for stuff like that.

Yesterday evening was exhausting but I managed to get a lot done with John's help. We burned 2 pickup loads of trash, it's so nice to see all that garbage that was once in my house go up in smoke.

I had to move all of the horses and mules back into the barns because they are predicting rain for Tuesday (today). Of course the rain is delayed a day but that's okay, my pasture really needs a break.

Well, the laptop I bought for Jamie didn't have the correct wireless card in it so of course it wouldn't connect down at the shop. I brought it here to the house to see if it would connect to my network and it only would if I had it in the room where my wireless router is. I'm going to meet Steve in the morning so he can take it back to his shop and fix it. In the mean time, I'm installing all of the software that she needs while I have it here tonight.

Monday, February 18, 2008

2008-02-18T12:04:00.000-08:00

Good morning everyone. Today's photo is one of my most favorite people in the world, my loving husband, John. He's so photogenic in all his ruggedness.  We had been up in the hills behind our house looking for elk and messing around in the snow when he decided to be silly and make this little petrography of Riley. Riley wouldn’t pose with him so he posed by himself while Riley pouted in the background.

The weather is clear and warm today. I actually wore a dress and open toed sandals to work much to the shock and disbelief of everyone that knows me. Of course my feet were still in their mid winter state so a pedicure was one of the first things on my list of things to do today, MUCH BETTER!

I got my laptop fixed today thank you Steve Nichols!!!! I also bought my best friend Jamie a laptop of her own from him so she can check her emails and put stuff on Criagslist without my help. This will make both hers and my lives a bit easier. She’s a dammed good friend and I feel good doing things for her. Friends like her a few and far in-between and I am very blessed to have many good friends like her.

Sunday February 17

2008-02-17T18:04:00.000-08:00

This is Mt. Hood, she was really sticking herself up for everyone to see today and what a show she put on for me. I get a lot of photos of this mountain with sunrises behind it but I've never taken the time to take one during the day. There was a little bit of a haze in the air but I still got a nice shot.

So, on with my day. What is it about cleaning a room in the house that makes the rest of the house such a big mess? I started working on cleaining MY room in the back of the house. This room is basically the main dumping ground for everything that doesn't have an assigned "spot". It's also the office, sewing room and waxing room amung other things. I didn't get done with cleaning but I made a darned big dent and now there is a huge pile of stuff in the kitchen that needs to be hauled out and burned.

I also decided that I needed to clean my fish tank that turned into a huge ugly job.

One nice thing I managed to do today is go down to Jamie's shop and get her an email acount and craigslist acount set up. I tried to get her computer onto the wiresless network for Laughlin Logging but I just don't know enough about it to do it on my own. I'm going to have to solicit some help from someone.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

2008-02-16T08:29:00.000-08:00

It's cold, clear and beautiful today. Yesterday, Tricia and I spent several hours cleaning out the basement and once Britt picks up the rest of her stuff (it's all in a neat pile now) we can start ripping out the carpet, tearing down walls and getting it all rebuilt.

I got up early and rushed to the top of the hill to get some photos of the sunrise this morning. Of course it wasn't nearly as spectacular as the one I missed yesterday. :(

I love getting Mount Hood with the sunrises but unfortunately, most of the color of the sunrise is South of its location so I have two photos. One with the mountain, and one where I panned just a bit South. This makes me want to invest in a wide angle lens.

Friday, February 15

2008-02-15T11:14:00.001-08:00

This little yearling has been hanging around a lot lately so I decided to get her picture this morning. She seemed to like having her picture taken as with each shot, she came closer and closer.

For this photo, I just liked the cloud formations and the way the light looked as it was comming through the trees. I had pulled off into a triangle of an intersection at the bottom of my hill to get this shot. Some dumb ass decided to drive circles around me I guess to try to figure out what I was doing there. What in the hell do they THINK I'm doing when I'm sitting there taking pictures? Duh.

Work was crazy and busy as usual but I love it that way. My boss is off to South Africa for three weeks so it'll be kind of quiet with him gone. I was thinking I'd spend some time out in the barn or maybe even take a nap after I got home but that didn't quite work out. Trishia brought Riley up and we got busy cleaning out the basement. What a dammed mess it is down there. I've cleaned it out really good before but it still gets gross with mouse crap, dust and spider webs. It's a never ending cycle of dirt doom. Anyway, we loaded up a truckload of stuff to go to the dump, moved all of the storage stuff into one room and got everything organized, it looks so much better.

Trishia just headed to town for beer and pizza and I can't waite!

My Ode to my husband on Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T19:56:00.000-08:00

The sun is up, the rooster is crowing,
I wake up this morning with something I’m knowing.
I hear the dogs barking, they’re wanting out,
“Shut up you hounds” I angrily shout.

You lay there next to me, you’re mouth is ajar,
Your snoring is louder than grandpa’s old car.
With love and affection, I lean close to your ear,
Scream at the top of my lungs, “WAKE UP DEAR!”

You jump out of bed, your long johns a sagging,
I fall on the floor and roll around laughing!
“What the hell is your problem?” you madly grumble,
I try to stand up and recover from my tumble.

“It’s Valentines Day,” I say with a smile,
“Now sit yourself down and rest for awhile.
I wrote you a poem, so now you see,
You’ll have to sit a spell and listen to me.”

You throw the cat off the chair, sit there and wait,
I sit down in front of you on an old milk crate.
I fumble around for that wrinkled up sheet,
You wonder why I’m not rubbing your feet.

I set up straight and clear my throat,
I pause for a second and shoe away the goat.
I chew on my lip until I’m afraid it’ll bleed,
Take a deep breath and slowly start to read.

“I love you for the real man that you are,
And the way that you cuss when fixing my car.
I love that when we’ve been out drinkin’
You don’t care what others are thinkin’.”

“I love it when you go shoot a bug buck,
You bring the thing home on the hood of your truck.
You’ve been with me so long; I’m starting to think,
We’ll stick together like skunks stick to stink.”

“I love seeing that missing tooth when you smile,
And the way you pat my butt every once in awhile.
But most of all dear, I love your attitude,
When Mom comes to visit and you’re never rude!”

“This next thing is difficult for me to say of course,
I even love you more than I love my horse!
“But here’s one thing that I can never out rule,
I can’t say I love you more than my mule.”

Now, I’m done with my poem, I site there and wait,
The sun is up and it’s getting kind of late.
“Honey,” I say “I can see you start to tear,
While getting your Kleenex, can you fetch me a beer?”

By Jamie Cheslock

Thursday February 14, 2008

2008-02-14T19:26:00.000-08:00

Valentines Day!

Today's photo is of a morning dove sitting in a bush in my front yard. I liked the way it's looking at it's wing wondering, "What the hell?"

This morning was clear and cold again. I let all of the horses out into the pastures today so they could run around and enjoy some time in the sun.

I started off my day with a phone call to my favorite oldest sister to wish her a happy birthday. She got to hear my ugly voice singing her her for a whole minute. HA!

John sent flowers to me at work and they are so pretty! It's a combination of pink and white flowers in a red vase. It looks very classey.

Mom is still house bound since the surgery on her foot. I decided to make a special diner for everyone for Valentines Day. I stopped at Safeway and bought lobster, scallops, mushrooms, french bread and blackberry wine, took it all down to Mom's house and cooked a big fat dinner. It was awsome!!!!!

I bought a new adjustafit blanket on Ebay that arrived today and it is really nice! Brand new and $50.00!!!!!

Lost is one tonight, I can't WAIT!

Wednesday February 13, 2007

2008-02-13T09:45:00.001-08:00

This morning the sky was clear of clouds and the birds were making a lot of noise. I must have 400 red winged blackbirds that hang out around my place and they are not known for singing, they just make noise. Never the less, I enjoy the birds. The weather man says it’s going to be a high of 50 degrees today so I went ahead and took the blankets off my horses. I’m sure they’ll all enjoy rolling around in their stalls and scratching their backs.

The photo I've posted is a sunset that I got on January 16th. I love the way the mountians look like layers and the cloudes are in a swirling pattern. It's one of my favorites. I was driving home and could see this one forming all the way. I drove as fast as I could so I could get a shot of it from home but came to realize that it was going to be gone before I made it to the top of the hill. I turned off right outside of Yamhill, climbed up to the top of the hill there and pulled off to get this shot. I sat there for about 10 minutes taking several photos of the sunset and didn't realize until I was leaving that the homeowner whose driveway I was parked in was standing there glaring at me. SORRY!

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

2008-02-12T11:03:00.001-08:00

Nothing new and exciting to report today. I'm just playing around trying to figure out everything here on this blog. This morning was kind of cold and clear at the house but of course once I start heading down the hill for work it gets completely fogged in. I passed on a couple of opportunities for photos on the way to work because I was in a hurry so here's one of my favorites of John, my husband and Riley, my grandson.

The basement dwellers are scheduled to come up and get 3 of their horses tomorrow night so I thought I’d be nice and move them all into the arena so they can roll around and enjoy a night of laying down in the sand instead of the mud pens they’ve been living in. It took all of 30 seconds for those bastards to bust through the gate and run off. *rolls eyes*.

My first day on the blog

2008-02-11T15:06:00.000-08:00

Well everyone has their own blog spot and I've decided to join the crowd and start my own. HERE I GO!