Katie here. HEY! Did you know it’s NATIONAL DOG DAY? It’s been on the news and everything!
Hey! It’s another opportunity to celebrate ME!
Honestly, here at my house every day is National Dog Day, but don’t tell anyone how spoiled I am. Oh. You’re fully aware of that? ALL of you are fully aware? Hmmmm….I think mama discloses too much information. A review of the nondisclosure clause in her contract with me might be in order.
But I digress.
This is my garden. Mama should make a boquet to decorate the house in celebration, don’t you think?
So as soon as I woke mama up this morning I told her we needed to do something special to celebrate. But so far, nothing.
OK, maybe she wasn’t in the planning mode at 3:30 in the morning when we went outside to explore the yard, umm, pee. But surely when she was making my breakfast #1 she should have been thinking about what we could do that was fun.
Or when she made my breakfast #2 a couple hours later.
I’m waiting, mother.
But no. Mama says she’s going to book us for a camping trip but I haven’t heard anything about where or when yet. She keeps saying it’s too hot for shelties to camp.
One of my favorite things to do is sleep in my tent.
She might have a point about that. I’m thinking early November would be the perfect time to sleep out in a tent. Don’t you agree?
I thought so. Mama is a wuss. She even bought an electric blanket to use when we camp later in the season. I think she should book that November campsite right away! Oh- you say the campgrounds up here aren’t open in November? Well, that’s just silly.
I’m sure if mama was motivated to make me happy she’d find somewhere to camp. I’ll add it to her ‘to-do’ list.
You weren’t doing anything anyway, right mama?
Anyway, if all you doggies out there haven’t gotten anything for National Dog Day yet either, we should band up and form a doggie union. Sometimes the only way to make change is to make some noise.
And you all know Sheltie’s can make some noise!
I usually get what I want when I really put my all into asking.
I hope you all have a wonderful National Dog Day! Even if you’re not lucky enough to be a dog.
I got a couple of tips (thanks DailyMusing!) about how to maneuver through WordPress’ blockhead editing system, particularly with images.
So here goes….I should be able to delete a photo. Guess I should insert a photo first:
Then I’ll see if I can remove it….one moment please…
OH!!!!! That worked!
But wait….now there’s nothing there, and you can’t see the image…because…I REMOVED IT! 🙂 🙂 🙂
So here it is again…
It’s just a barn taken on my trip home from the night sky camping trip I took a week or more ago. In fact I have a few other barn images from that drive home. It was prime farm country, after all.
She gave me a tip on how to do a gallery too, let’s see if I can do that:
More barns!
Well, THAT was interesting! I don’t know if there’s a way to decide what goes where, but at least it’s a gallery!
The trick now will be for me to remember what I did.
Always something.
Edit: I just figured out you can click on any of the pictures in the gallery and see them bigger. They’re really better bigger.
Katie and I are sitting on the deck. I’m indulging her, letting her nap in a puddle of sun before the day gets so hot neither of us can sit out here.
I think the sun makes her old joints feel better.
I’ve filled the bird feeders and now listen intently as the sound of wings begins to overshadow the sound of a far away lawn mower.
The birds are used to us sitting out here, and they take the calculated risk of coming in for a bit of seed, even though it’s only a few feet from the dog and me.
My two nuthatches are the first to arrive. I hear their soft whining before I find them high up in the trees. Each ventures, headfirst, down a trunk, scurrying in a race to reach the seed first.
Under the deck a chipmunk causes a ruckus running into the roof gutter drain. I guess he’s not as brave as the little birds.
The chickadees have shown up, a whole flock of them this year. As youngsters they were shy, but now they’re old hands at stealing a seed and whirring up into the tree to eat it. There are so many I can’t keep track.
A cardinal has risked landing on the flat feeder, several feet away. If we sit still he will sit there and eat until something bothers him. He has the flat feeder all to himself for the moment, just the way he likes it.
The titmouse is late this morning. Usually she’s the first to come in when they hear the seed can being opened. She flies so fast, through the limbs of the honeysuckle to grab her share.
And there’s a little downy woodpecker, hanging upside down on the tube feeder. I haven’t seen him in awhile, it’s nice to see him here this morning.
Katie gets anxious, wanting a treat for herself, but I can’t leave yet — the hairy woodpecker has arrived. And now the hummingbirds, the male and female ruby throated, are chasing each other among the pink leaves of the beach tree.
But she’s barking now. A princess isn’t required to be patient.
So we go in and let the birds have their breakfast buffet in peace.
Let’s see. The last I knew you were all looking at barns because barns are so much easier to photograph than stars. I don’t suppose I can ply you with more of them?
Look! It’s a barn! (From my drive home on Friday.)
No? I understand–you’re wondering how I could have been at a dark sky park for three days and three nights and not produce something worthy of all that time.
Packing up my campsite Friday.
All three evenings we had nice sunsets, and I hoped that the skies might be clear enough to see some stars. But clouds rolled in after the sun went down and we had two nights of torrential rain and wind.
This little guy had to be presuaded not to hitch a ride home with me.
Definitely no star shooting those nights! Though I did see a couple meteorites each night before the weather turned really wicked.
Wednesday night’s sunset.
But I really wanted to spend a few hours on a warm summer night watching the sky, and behind those clouds I just knew there were hundreds of meteorites flying. It was frustrating.
Thursday night’s sunset.
Finally it was Thursday night, my last night at the park. Weather predictions were that Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights would be clear. But there wasn’t a campsite or a hotel room to be had over the weekend, so all my chips were on the table for Thursday night.
The stars from the campground beach about 10:30 p.m.
I walked down to the beach after dark to see if there were stars or clouds. Turned out there was a bit of both. I took a few pictures, but it wasn’t really dark, so I decided to drive to the dark sky park one last time.
And I’m so glad I did.
No that’s not a meteorite. It’s just a plane.
I arrived shortly before 11:00 p.m. and the parking lot was very full. You could feel the excitement, all those cars, headlights off, dark shadows of people scurying around with tripods and red headlamps.
Light from town interferes with the Milky Way.
I finally found a block of three empty parking spots and I quickly pulled into the middle one. Just as I was turning in I realized there was a person in a chair in the first empty spot. That shook me as I could have run right over them!
So many stars.
I got out of the car, intent on apologizing for almost mowing him or her down when I heard snoring. There was a very large man in a reclining beach chair full on asleep. I made a lot of noise, not intentionally, getting my gear out of the car and he never woke up.
The other end of the Milky Way.
I decided there were too many noisy people, including what appeared to be a whole group of school kids at the other end of the parking lot. I was already seeing metorites overhead, so I headed back into the dunes to see what I could see.
Most of the Milky Way was directly overhead.
Lots of people out there too, red headlights bobbing around, but the people were quiet, more respectful of the wonderful show going on overhead.
As the sky got darker and darker the number of meteorites bursting overhead increased. I was standing at an intersection of two paths and several people stopped by to chat about what a wonderful night it was.
There were a few clouds but they just added to the interest.
One young man in particular asked me right away what appeture I was using, and we ended up in a long conversation about lenses and iso speeds. He had a camera in the car, shooting film. We debated if it would work, and he went to get it.
Turns out it was color, with a speed of 200 (I can’t remember how we phrased that back in the film days) but he did have a really low f-stop. So I set my camera for 200 iso and shot 20 seconds to see what he might get…which ended up being a big, totally black rectangle.
It was such a beautiful night.
So he took one picture anyway, just for fun, but didn’t waste the rest of his roll of film. Then we talked about him going to the University of Michigan, and me having done that many years ago, and his road trip to NYC and my roadtrip to Baltimore, and his granparents (who aren’t much older than me), and photography composition, and today’s real estate values skyrocketing, and my dad’s truck crash, and his planned kayak trip the next morning. Then he headed back to his campsite, and I stayed out there and shot the sky for another hour at least.
Just after 1 a.m. the sky lit up with metorites. And I was lucky (and it’s all pure luck) that one appeared to dance right through the frame of one of my shots. I squealed as I am want to do in situations like this, then impatiently waited for the 15 seconds to elapse, and then the long wait for the noise reduction to work itself out before I could check to see if what I thought had happened had.
I still can’t believe I got this curly que meteorite!
And yes it did! HOW COOL IS THAT?
I could have stayed out there staring at the sky all night. But by 1:45 I thought I had captured all the angles of the few trees out there. And I had that drive home in the morning. So I started walking back to the parking lot. But then there’d be something else that was pretty so I’d have to stop.
There were lots of other people still out there, too, though some were also packing it up for the night.
This is what it looks like when a whole group of people with flashlights and headlamps walks through your 15 second exposure.
I’m sure there were several dozen back in the dunes still gazing up at the sky when I finally left, I hope they weren’t asleep like the three young ladies I found on the grassy berm in front of my car. I woke them up when I used the remote to unlock the back and my headlights turned on. I hadn’t seen them there asleep on a big blanket. At least they weren’t snoring.
It was such a wonderful night I’m having trouble deciding which images to show you. There was still quite a bit of light coming from town, but I guess that just adds to the effect.
I don’t know what planet that is on the left, but it was soooo bright!
I wish you all could have been standing right there with me. It’s really kind of hard to express how awe inspiring it is to be under those stars hanging so bright in the sky with metorites flitting through them which evoked oohs and ahs from people all over the park. It was better than the 4th of July fireworks.
I sweated through three days of heat and humidity and held my tent to the ground by sheer determination in two monsoons in a campground with no bathrooms for that one perfect night, and every bit of all that discomfort disappeared as soon as I was in the dark on the warm sand looking up on a clear night.
Hard to describe.
I heartily recommend this kind of experience for anything that ails you. And it’s OK if you bring your beach chair.
Just don’t snore.
PS: I recommend you look at the night images on something bigger than your phone, and probably turn up the brightness of your screen.
I feel as if summer is sliding away from me, days turning into minutes, weeks into moments. Yet it’s only the beginning of August, there’s plenty of summer left, especially for a retiree. Right? Being retired is enough to make me smile, but my walk on a midsummer’s morning made me absolutely grin.
The dreaded first sighting of goldenrod.
I was out at my favorite park this past Thursday, while it was still July, while I could still consider it mid-summer, and yet I felt fall encroaching.
Beautiful, but I’m not ready for leaves turning yet.
I went with my biggest lens, the better to see birds in their natural space versus standing on my outstretched palm.
But of course I did have a few birds in my hand. Can’t not do that.
But what I found instead was a whole forest filled with youngsters. And I don’t mean the busses of preschoolers that arrived as I was leaving. Thank goodness.
I don’t know what this is, but it was pretty.
I have so much to show you from my walk in the woods, I don’t know if I should break it up into two posts, or if you’ll have the patience to read one long post.
Joe Pye is beginning to bloom.
I don’t even know if I have the patience to write one long post.
The grasses are maturing.
You can always scroll through and just look at the pictures. I have a feeling the words will be minimal anyway.
Wild grapes are beginning to pink.
I got to the nature center early in the morning, but on the drive through the park I noticed my favorite willow tree island had a beautiful swan. So after I parked I walked back along the bikepath to capture her as she preened.
Was she using the water as her mirror?
Notice the grey pile of fluff off to the right? That is her baby, or maybe more than one, I couldn’t really tell. Her partner is swimming behind the island, couldn’t see him well either.
Her little one (or more) are well hidden in the shade.
But she (I’ve decided it’s a she, I really don’t know) sure was taking her time getting beautiful that morning.
Looking stunning that morning.
Then I walked back to the parking lot at the nature center to get the rest of my gear, and found this exhausted and hungry mama, right beside the bike rack.
Eating at the parking lot salad bar.
With my long lens I was able to get quite close without interrupting her breakfast.
And beside her, on the other side of the bike rack, were the normal crane parking lot greeters, getting spruced up for their shift of collecting the lot fee from everyone arriving to enjoy the trails.
Hurry up Henry, we’re going to be late for work!
Lucky for me I got there before they clocked in.
So I headed into the woods…
The bridge to the woods.
…and met this guy right away. He already had breakfast so I didn’t offer him anything more.
You’re not going INTO THE WOODS, are you?!
It was right about then that I noticed a sense of fall seeping into air. I shook it off and ventured further into the dark cool green, and interrupted two moms and their little ones having some breakfast of their own.
Family brunch interrupted.
I stood there a long time watching them watching me.
Mama and her mini-me.
This little one was intensly curious about me.
Should I run or should I stay?
And then I heard a titmouse, just over my right shoulder, angrly asking why I wasn’t providing a snack. So I handed off a peanut and moved on.
Hey Lady! Fork over the peanut! I know you have one!!
I only saw one other person my entire walk in the woods, and that was another photographer.
I see something right over there…
As soon as he got down from the bench and moved on this mama came out of the brush.
Is he gone yet?
I took a different trail and moved deeper into the woods. The long lens wasn’t really the right choice with so little light. But I didn’t want to stop to change it because you just never know what you’ll see.
Oops, thought it was another deer!
Or how far away it might be.
Way over there on that ridge is another exhausted mama, chewing her cud and watching me.
But the mosquitos were beginning to follow me. I pictured myself running out of the woods with a swarm of bugs trailing me, sort of like a Bernstein Bear cartoon. I moved faster.
After clambering over a downed tree that crossed the trail I was shooting an image of a tree damaged in the recent storms where the fresh wood had a similar color to deer, confusing me for a moment…
Kind of the same color as the deer roaming these woods.
…when out of the corner of my eye I saw more of that reddish brown.
Another mama and her baby hoping to have an undisturbed meal.
These two didn’t seem to realize I was there. Until mama did.
Lady, you need to move along now.
The baby didn’t seem too bothered by me at all, but I went on down the trail so they could enjoy mama/baby time alone. Plus I was beginning to get hungry myself, it had been a long time since my own breakfast, and I was still deep in the woods with a long walk back.
See you later, lady!
I tried not to stop anymore as I booked it out of the deep woods. Except when I saw something interesting. Or fun. Or both.
This says late summer to me for sure.
But mostly I was trying to get back into the open where the breeze would keep the bugs from swarming around my head. Yes, I had applied bug spray before I left the car, but not on my hands, because I knew I’d be feeding birds. I guess that made me fair game for the mosquitos.
Bet you didn’t know crocodiles lived in the woods!
Back out in the open I had a nuthatch and a chickadee makeing big noises about getting a treat, but they wouldn’t come down to my hand. I finally figured out that maybe they were this year’s young, and not quite confident about the whole process of coming in for a snack.
Tell me how this works again, lady?
But eventually they both came down, after doing a fly over or two to check me out.
This peanut is almost as big as me!
The sky was getting dark and I figured it would soon rain, so I headed back to the car. Climbing the stairs to the parking lot I could hear people, cars and busses.
Change of shift for the swallows.
I was glad I’d gotten my walk in the woods finished before the masses arrived. Time to head back home to the princess who would just be getting up from her morning nap.
Earlier in the morning there were deer and cranes.Now bikes rest while their people explore.
Nothing better on a nice breezy afternoon than a snooze on the deck.
Don’t I look cute? Yes? Well you know what? That’s not me!
This isn’t me either!
Surprise!!! I have a half sister and she lives kinda near me too! She and I share the same dad. She’s twelve years old, and she and her mom have done obedience together, just like me and my mom. Well, not just like, Payton and her mom were much better at it than we ever were!
Both of us hanging out while the folks talked.
Payton’s mom found us when we were listed in the catalog for one of our obedience trials. She contacted mama right away, but for some reason we’ve just never made the time to get together.
Here we are! Surprise!
But, as you know, time keeps marching on and the moms decided if we were going to meet we better hurry up and make a date. So on Saturday mama and daddy and I went over to Payton’s house!
The moms set us up together and than my mama motioned us to come so she could take a picture, but Payton didn’t get released by her mom so she sat still like a good girl. I am smiling because I think I won the race!
I was sort of scared, cause I thought we were going to the vet. The vet is pretty much the only place I go these days, and it’s never good news for me when mama and daddy are both up early and moving quickly through the house.
It’s like I have a mini-me!
I shook and panted the whole way over there (which took about a gazillion hours in dog time) but when we got there and daddy got me out of the car I could tell right away that we weren’t at the vet! It didn’t smell like vet at all!
Who’s got the treats people?
And then these nice people came out to pet me and I liked them both right away, and then we went around to the deck and there was this little sheltie girl. My goodness she is beautiful! (Of course she is, she looks like me!)
Payton got to run her own race for a treat. I told her I’d sit this one out.
She’s smaller than me, but she has a big personality. We touched noses and then sort of sniffed each other and then we pretty much ignored each other. That’s how shelties roll you know.
Isn’t she beautiful?
So the parents sat and talked for awhile and Payton and I mostly napped. Then we all decided to go for a walk on their land. Payton is so lucky! She has lots of acres to explore right there at her house! We walked on a beautiful mowed loop, most of it was in the shade so I liked it a lot!
It’s hard to tell us apart from behind too.
Of course mama had her camera. She kept making Payton and me sit for photos. I told Payton about my one shot one treat contract with mama. Payton doesn’t have any such contract with her folks, but I definitely think she should. She sits still way too long if you ask me. Personally I won’t stand for too much of mama’s photography foolishness, it gets in the way of me smelling all the good stuff.
Payton’s yard is just wonderful! I’d love to walk there every day!
Anyway, after we went for a walk we sat on the deck a bit longer, and then Payton’s mom went and got Payton’s little sister who had been waiting in the house all this time. Her name is Tally, and though she’s younger than Payton she’s a whole lot bigger!
I thought Payton’s mom was bringing out treats, so I went to the door to wait. Boy, I was surprised!
She’s a beautiful Gordon Setter and she’s as tall as the table! It must be fun to be her, she can help herself to her own treats! Personally I think shelties are height-challenged, but obviously we make up for it in cuteness.
Tally has the most beautiful eyes.
Anyway, it was getting time to go, so I went over to Payton’s dad and jumped on him to say goodbye. And to check if he had any treats of course.
Thanks for the great morning, Payton’s dad!
Then Payton and I both checked in with my dad.
We both need a treat before I hit the road, daddy!
It was the best day ever! I haven’t had fun like this since the whole covid thing happened to you humans! Visiting Payton was way more fun then vet visits or the groomer, and certainly better than camp!
Yep, we had a great time together. Especially when there were treats.
Who knew I had a sister? And Payton’s mom says today is National Sister Day, so I knew I needed to tell you guys all about mine! She’s sweet and beautiful and smart, just like me.
Mama sometimes got us confused when we wandered by her. Hee hee!
I sure am glad the moms organized the playdate, it would have been very sad if I never got to meet my sister. I hope I get to go on another walk with her later in the fall.
I think the moms love us very much.
Until then, sister, you keep your folks in line and I’ll do the same with mine. I hope I see you again soon!
I’m telling you Payton, one picture, one treat. You gotta let your folks know who’s in charge!
We had some bad weather Saturday night, with rain blowing sideways for a time. I was sure that my tent, up in the backyard, would be flooded but it wasn’t. There was, however, a tornado that touched down not many miles from us during the storm, and a tree across the street from us split, falling across the road and into our yard.
What did make me smile was a couple hours of paddling on a lake with one of my college roommates. We don’t see each other very often, but it’s always a good time when we do.
We caught up with each other’s lives, her kids, my dog.
And we enjoyed a sweet after the storm breeze, bright blue skies and sunshine as we floated across the water.
You just can’t beat being on the water for giving yourself a pick-me-up.
So that’s my smile for this week. What made you smile?
The county fair is back. The fairground is in my tiny town, a little over a mile from the house. When Katie and I camp in the backyard during fair week we can hear the monster trucks, the announcer, the fireworks, the roar of the crowd.
What do you think is the best part about a fair…the food? Or the rides?
The noise doesn’t bother me, it’s only for one week and it’s the epitome of summer in the midwest. I have so many memories of the county fair, not this one, but the one we used to go to when we were kids.
Food? Or rides?
Which pretty much is exactly like the one I wandered this week. Big barns full of rabbits, goats, chickens, cows, and sheep waiting with their young person for their turn in the ring to be judged. Another barn full of sewing, knitting, canning, flower arrangements, and artwork, each a project of some young person, some with ribbons already attached.
Maybe the best thing is the games, though nobody really wins anything. Do they?
I was a 4-H kid in the 60s. I knit, mostly because I hated sewing which seemed to be my other option. Each year I entered a misshappen sweater at the fair. I think sometimes I won a ribbon, but I don’t remember.
The excitment that only the young can experience on these things.
I also don’t remember riding the midway rides, though I’m sure we did. We probably had some number of rides budgeted. We sure didn’t have free reign to ride as many and as often as we wanted.
I bet their hearts were beating fast while they swung in the darkness.
This year I noticed that there were bracelets available that let you into everything at the fair. All the rides, the shows, and who knows what else. They were $25.00 each.
How many funnel cakes can you buy with $25?
I don’t think I’d be able to ride enough to make that purchase worthwhile. Not without throwing up at least once. And there’s no way my folks would have sprung for a wrist band, even if there had been such a thing back then, for all four of us kids.
The Sizzler sizzled into the night.
Nope, I’m sure we could pick out one ride that we wanted to do and that was probably it.
Maybe the best part of a fair is just spending time with your friends.
But I do remember a booth where you could drop paint onto a spinning canvas, then you got to take your creation home. I had that painting for years. That was probably 50 years ago and it’s the most vivid memory I have of the county fair growing up. It still makes me smile.
I think I could ride this one.
We don’t go to the county fair every year these days, even though it is right in our town. And of course last year there was no fair.
Or maybe not.
So it’s been a long time since I’ve gone. But this year it seemed like a celebration of the return of something fundamental, and I looked forward to going back for a walk around.
There’s no calories in cotten candy. Right?
Wednesday evening turned out to be the moment, and I arrived just as the sun was going down on a hot afternoon.
This ride might be safe for me.
Most of the families with little kids looked exhausted. Many of them were leaving, but the young people were just arriving. I was there to mess around with the camera once it got dark and the midway lit up.
At least you could get your vegetables.
It’s not a big fair, it takes only minutes to see everything. But with each round I made I saw different images. I should have had a tripod, but I didn’t want to haul anything extra.
Ride this one before you eat any of the fair food.
All of these shots were handheld, most of the time letting the camera choose the ISO. Sometimes I delibertaly made the exposure longer to blur the lights. That was the most fun, just to see what came through.
Add the moon and it was a pretty special night.
Mostly I was there to have some fun, just like all the rest of the folks standing in lines for rides and food. It’s just my idea of fun involves more about the camera and less hanging upside down from a midway attraction.
Round and around they go.
But if I was 50 years younger I might just have tried those flying swings. I think even my stomach could have handled that.
Change Is Hard 