Hallowe'en ghost town

This was a reasonably busy week for me in a photo gathering sense. Mid-week I was asked to head out to Ebon for indoor shots (in the usual challenging lighting) to get the first "under saddle" photos of one of the many nice home-bred youngsters that is starting her education as a riding horse. I don't dread these requests the way I used to, as I have finally figured out which camera/lens/settings combination will allow me to get shots that I'm not completely ashamed of. Outdoors, no problem. Indoors, a challenge, at least the indoors that I have access to. Those shots turned out well enough, so then management decided to up the anxiety ante for me by requesting a return visit to get some chute jumping shots on Friday morning. Normally indoors chute jumping is my most dreaded assignment of any given year, but this one went strangely well all round. I stayed calm, didn't make too many technical errors, have noted the one I did make so I can avoid it next time, and the whole thing was actually a reasonably pleasant experience. Quite unaccountable. Who knows, a bit more practice and I might actually start looking forward to it. Even a tough photo shoot is better than no photo shoot in my world, and it is satisfying to feel that I have learned enough along the way to be able to do this type of shot adequately.

We (daughter Margaret, grandson Mark and I) had made tentative plans to go shoot the twisted trees of the Hafford area on Saturday, but it being Hallowe'en day, it seemed to me much more in keeping to make another attempt at the ghost town that we failed to locate on our August attempt (see my August 3rd blog post for details) . Unlike the last time, we had a map that actually had roads on it (not the large blank area with a place name in the middle of nowhere of the last map), we had gas in the van (were running on empty in addition to being lost last trip), and we had a GPS. Perhaps most importantly, two out of three of us were women, who are actually willing to *consult* the maps and pay attention to the GPS, although I have to confess that Mark was the one who noticed when the GPS had useful information to impart. Margaret and I were going on intuition and forgot to check it. The short version of all this is that this time we actually got there.

Not to say our trip was uneventful. It was (as usual) cold, overcast, dark, and chilly when we headed out of town. By the time we were a few kilometers beyond the city limits, it was snowing quite heavily and a strong wind had come up. Then we went through several combinations of snow, rain, and freezing rain, all the while making hopeful comments that "maybe we would drive out of it", and "so far the roads don't seem *too* bad", followed by "well, we can always turn back if we have to". We stopped once by a large slough which had a large gathering of corvids (couldn't tell from a distance whether they were crows or ravens) for me to get a couple of shots of their rapidly retreating forms, and I was encouraged to see that the camera was picking up a lot more light than actually seemed to be around. That made me want to carry on, as I'll put up with a lot of bad weather as long as the light is remotely adequate for shooting.

Eventually, following the twists and turns of the map on ever smaller roads that remained surprisingly good for navigation, we came to our ghost town. I had found some photos of it online as part of my research, so I knew it had a grain elevator, which was a great help in spotting it from a distance. It was well worth the time and effort we had invested (both times) to see this place. For someone in love with photographing ruin and decay, as I am, it holds endless potential.

Today's shots are primarily from the Saturday outing. Shot one shows the grain elevator with Mark leaning into the wind on the path up to it. Shot two was taken inside the elevator, and shows some of the working mechanisms. There is still grain sitting inside on the floor, and the odd thing that I noticed, both in the elevator and in the other buildings, is that there was no evidence of mice, rats, or any other living creatures. I would have expected that, at least in the elevator, and for the grain to be gone or disturbed, but no. Very strange.

Shot three is the broken north window on one of the houses. Windows on three sides of the house were damaged, but intact on a fourth side. Again, odd.

Shot four is taken from the front door of an abandoned farm-house south of the ghost town. I loved the colours and textures of the surfaces in this house and want to go back again when there are better light conditions and it isn't pouring rain. That said, I'm impressed with the job my lens did with no flash and available light. I'm a sucker for crackle texture and this staircase had it in spades. I took this shot from the front door jamb. There are safety issues involved in entering old ruins, with the potential of falling through the floor, having the upstairs floor fall on me, or breathing in who-knows-what in the old dusty and moldy surroundings (hantavirus, anyone?). Then there is the respect issue. I tend to feel fairly strongly about making minimal impact, not touching or moving things, and generally taking only my photographic images away with me. After all, these buildings still belong to someone and I don't want to get on the wrong side of the owner if he happens to come along while I'm in the midst of my shoot.

So, all in all, a very satisfactory way to spend part of a Saturday, despite the weather handicaps. I'm already planning a return trip before the snows make getting there too difficult, but Hallowe'en day was the perfect time for our first visit. I'm thinking it might need to become an annual pilgrimage on that day.

The final shot is one that I have been working on in the computer. It features one of the North Fork gypsy cob stallions, overlaid onto a page from the Book of Kells. This is one of several variations on the same theme that I am developing.

Big tree

Another week of busyness and scurrying around, which seems to be my lot in life of late. I'm almost looking forward to the weather totally shutting down so that I can hunker down in my studio and actually do something interesting with my photo collection. I did generate a few new photomontages this past week, but no room here to post them so they will have to be viewed another time. Of course the charm of being trapped indoors due to severe ongoing winter cold tends to pall after the first few months, but for the moment I can see that it might have some attractions.

One of the points of interest of the past week was my stint as a judge (one of three) for the photo part of the Saskatchewan Wildlife Art Association's annual fall show. I did this for the first time last year, and felt that being invited again this year meant that I must have done at least an adequate job. The photo part of this show seems very complex in the categories and divisions, but we had a number of experienced and knowledgeable herders/assistants who made the big job as easy as possible under the circumstances. Grandson Mark was off school that day so he came along as an observer and, ultimately, a show helper. Likely it was just as educational an experience for him in its way as a day of conventional schooling would have been. There were a number of works of sufficiently good quality that coming up with placings was often a challenge, although ultimately we managed to achieve a consensus without too much debate.

Now that winter is almost upon us, several of us camera-oriented family members have perversely decided that "destination" photo shoots would be a good idea, these being ones to a specific place that we have not previously visited, within a reasonable (up to a couple hours drive) distance from the city. Don't know how many we'll actually get to before the weather makes it too dodgy, but we made a good start on Saturday by visiting the "big tree" that is about 45 minutes north of Saskatoon. Today's shots all relate to the tree outing.

Daughter Margaret, grandson Mark and I (accompanied by Arrow the wonder dog) were the itinerant photographers. She had actually been to the big tree before so more or less knew how to get there (it wouldn't be easy the first time unless you knew what to look for) plus she has a four-wheel drive Jeep in which to do it, which as it turned out was a good thing as some of the roads were pretty questionable from all the wetness we've experienced most of this month.

Once you get to a certain point on the highway, you are supposed to start looking for the "tree" signs at the side of the road, which indicate that you should turn down that road and drive for an indeterminate distance until you see another "tree" sign pointing down another road. Generally the farther you go the less hopeful the roads look, although luckily for us the ultimate road to the tree, which is fairly steep and winding, was in surprisingly good shape. Shot number one today shows the penultimate "tree" sign. The dim light and low cloud cover is sadly typical of the weather we have endured this month, and indeed much of the year to date. Sigh.

Photo number two is fairly self-explanatory. I have some concerns about the comma placement in the first sentence, but we'll let that pass. Shot three shows the tree itself, a rather sad and battered remnant of past glory, but certainly impressive in reach, if not boasting its original height. You can see Margaret standing at the lower mid-left of the picture to get a feeling of the scale. I've seen truly big trees in other parts of the world, but for around here, this is pretty big. I don't know to what extent it would still leaf out in summer, but there did seem to be some remnant leaves on at least some of the branches. This tree and the surrounding trees and bushes are located in the river valley and quite close to the river itself, which would provide the water needed for growth.

We stopped at a gas station/diner/antique store along the road on the return trip. I had noted various items of interest for photography at this location and hoped to check out the antiques as well. Turns out there hasn't been an antique store there for several years, but no-one has yet gotten around to taking the sign down. No matter. This was a very entertaining stop due to the wonderful mother cat and her family that we met there. Shot four shows Mark in his role as a "cat whisperer" with the friendly and curious felines grouped around him. There were another couple that weren't on camera. I don't get to see kittens very often, or even outdoor cats, for that matter (city bylaw here against cats being at large) so this was a fun event for me and I indulged myself with the camera. Shot five is also from this stop, showing a truck emerging from the ground (or sinking into it, depending on how you interpret it) , one of two like this, in what I like to think of as a "Truckhenge" in progress. I'm already pondering the Photoshop potential.

Today was herd health at Ebon, when Alpac got his various annual and semi-annual shots and medications, so he should be good to go for a while now. He's no spring chicken but unlike my poor retired Thoroughbred of last week's post, Alpac is in seriously good shape, fit, and full of vigor. I hope to keep him that way for many years yet to come, with the assistance of the resources of the university veterinary college professionals that we are lucky to have on hand here.

Next weekend's projected outing is to the twisted forest of Hafford, weather permitting. I think I'm starting to detect a tree theme happening here! A reminder to readers in the Saskatoon area that my show in the Amber gallery at the Mall at Circle and 8th continues to November 21st. Check it out if you are in the area.

Carrying on---

Another week of not much to report, or quite a bit that has happened, depending on how one chooses to view it. No big events but many of the small happenings that keep the days full and busy, which is overall how I prefer things to be.

The weather continued dismal and dreary for much of last week, although the snow did eventually go, to leave everything rather drippy and soggy. One thing the early and unexpected cold and snow did was to spook me into dealing with a few things that I needed to get sorted out, such as booking an appointment to get my snow tires on. Turns out this can't happen until November 18th by which time I will likely need them, so it's good that I got the booking made. I've also got a game plan for getting the various weights of filthy and disgusting winter horse blankets cleaned and repaired, which will happen later this week. Hope they won't be required for a while yet, but I'll be ready when the time comes.

Saturday was the one nice day of the week, and it was absolutely lovely, certainly by recent standards. Any other fall and it would have been just another day, but this year it stood out as one of the few nice ones. I wisely opted to get as much yard work done as possible, despite running right up against a deadline for an art show which I was hanging on Sunday. Good thing I did this, as Sunday was another really bad weather day (very dark, cold, windy and raining) so my outdoors work wouldn't have been possible then. And I got all my images printed, framed and hung in time anyway. Just had to hustle a little harder to get it all accomplished. I'm not sure why I was spending the evening before the show went up doing my framing, given that I've had almost two years advance notice for this one, but there you have it. In my world deadlines are always met, but usually just barely. Keeps things interesting. If any of my Saskatoon readers want to check it out, it's in the Amber gallery at the Mall at Circle and 8th (right by the movie theatre entrances) and will be up until November 21st.

When I got up this morning I was a bit concerned about what images I would find to post this evening (ones from the show were going to be my fall-back if all else failed) but the day provided me with a number of photo ops, being quite bright and dry, if not overly warm.

This morning was the herd health vet appointment at my friend Donna's place. She runs the "old boys club" for my retired Thoroughbred gelding, her own Appy gelding, and another Thoroughbred. My Native at age 29 is the youngest of the group!! He's been retired for almost ten years now and Donna has done a spectacular job of keeping him and the other old guys in excellent condition. Sadly, things are starting to go less well for poor Native and I think if he sees another summer he'll have done well. He's lost weight, and if anything we always want to see them a bit on the round side heading into a harsh prairie winter. The vets couldn't check his teeth during the spring herd health visit as he was in a panic that day (for reasons totally unknown) and was almost unmanageable, so this was the first look they'd had in a year. Turns out he has almost no teeth left, which would certainly go a long way to explaining the drop in weight. In the spring they determined that he has cataracts and is virtually blind now, although he manages well enough in the pasture that no-one had actually noticed this. All this said, he seems in good spirits and is enjoying a decent quality of life, so until something major goes wrong, he'll carry on as usual. We have worked a plan for getting more calories into him and Donna will modify his feeding regime to optimize weight gain, but other than that there's not a heck of a lot we can do. It's my dearest hope that he will just fall over dead one day, but that's not an option many old horses get to exercise. For the moment, though, he's doing fine.

Shot one shows the lovely patterns of the frost on my windshield when I went out to start the car to head off to Donna's. It was so pretty I had to get the camera out to take some shots, although the front windscreen (the one with the best patterns) is rather steeply slanted and was difficult to shoot. I'm thinking of getting Jim to leave his van out of the garage one of these nights so I can get more of this type of shot. It has a bigger window that is more vertical and would potentially be easier to photograph.

Shot two shows the frost outlining the fallen leaves in the front yard on the wood-bark mulch. We took our front lawn out some years back and are very happy without it, as are the hundreds of lady-bugs that burrow into the wood-chip mulch every fall to overwinter.

Shot three shows Native in the pasture this morning, just before he got led into the barn for his medical. He still looks pretty reasonable for a 29 year old horse from a distance, as he has kept in shape and his top-line is still good, but up close you can see the toll the years are starting to take on him, and it's a bit sad to see.

Shot four is a favourite clump of trees that I often photograph in various seasons en route to and from Donna's.

Shot five comes from this evening's event, which was a reading (at a local bookstore) by author Ted Barris who is touring in promotion of his newest book "Breaking the Silence". The man in the photo is my great-uncle Gavin McDonald, who is featured in the World War I section of Ted's book, and who was one of the "stars" of tonight's reading. It's a long story how we got Ted and Uncle Gavin's (he fought in the trenches in France and Belgium throughout the whole of the first World War) war memoirs together, but suffice it to say that it's another example for me of how everything and everyone of interest can be accessed either at the barn or through my riding acquaintances. Ted is an engaging speaker and both knowledgeable and passionate about his subject matter, and we were glad to have had the chance to attend his talk.

I'm not ready for this yet----

I can't fake a whole lot of enthusiasm for the week we've just had, and indeed are continuing to have. It started snowing on Thursday and has continued cold and snowy in small but steady increments since then. I usually quite enjoy the first few months of winter and I like the visuals of the snow, but I was hoping to wander around in nice fall weather for a month or so yet before having to dig out all the winter garments. Guess all the poor bulbs and garden produce I haven't yet dealt with are pretty much toast as well--although toast is a poor choice of terms. More like ice-cubes.

At least the garden-devouring zucchini have been stopped in their tracks. I did my best to collect the zucchini when they were a manageable size, but a few got away on me so I decided just to let them "run" and see how big they would get. A friend of my sister's actually *wanted* a big zucchini (she's English, that's the only explanation I can come up with for this) so I did harvest one of them to send along to her. First I emailed a photo of me struggling to hold it just so she'd be warned, and she wanted it anyway, so off it went to meet its destiny. Jim weighed it as a matter of curiosity and that sucker was 20 lbs (8 or so kgs). I was going to post the photo here but it has gone astray somewhere in the elaborate and variable system I have for image storage.

Photo number one was taken four days before the rest of the shots in this series. Quite a difference from the beginning of the week to the later part. There aren't many shots of me riding, but every year or so I drag grandson Mark out to the barn to take a few for me--he's *my* photographer. I can see lots of ways both horse and rider could be functioning better, but it's a nice reminder of a lovely fall day, possibly one of the last for this year, although I do hold out hope that the snow will melt and we will enjoy a few more weeks of warm weather that is conducive to short-sleeve outdoor activity. I tend to be of the optimistic type. Not only is the glass generally half-full in my world, but I'm also darn happy just to have a glass at all! So I feel that it's entirely possible that things will shape up in the next week or so.

That said, the rest of the shots are more accurate for where we are at now. Shot two shows the snow falling and accumulating on some of the bushes by the front yard bird-feeding area. These were some of the ones that had actually undergone some change in colour. A lot of the trees and bushes in and around here are still quite green, unusual in itself for this late in the fall.

Shot three shows part of the back yard. You can see how green things still were back there. That poor lady by the fishpond is likely feeling pretty chilly as she's not well dressed for the weather. I took this shot the first day of snow. Since then the water has frozen over and the ice is about an inch thick. I got one goldfish out just before the snow, and had to keep trying to locate the second one who had been MIA for several days. I thought he had burrowed into the mud at the bottom of the pond for warmth, but he had apparently got himself wedged under a rock and was trapped, as I discovered when I moved the rock and his body floated up. I'm always distressed at these things but since they had babies this year (a state of affairs that I *do not* want to deal with) I'm a little less upset than I would otherwise have been, and hopeful that one of these years I'll get lucky and have two fish of the same gender. I realize it is just a matter of chance as to what sex I will get when I buy a new companion for the one remaining fish, but surely the odds will work in my favour at some point.

Shot four features a few of the grackle flock who returned after the snow fell in hopes of getting a good feed, which they did. I love the iridescent colours on the males. This is another of the "through the window/across the deck/in poor light" shots, but you work with what you're offered for these photos. When they are in close quarters to each other they do this weird skyward point with their beaks quite consistently, which seems to be a self-effacing posture to diffuse possible aggression from others. "Who, me? No, I'm not looking at you!!"

Shot five shows a collection of jump poles at Ebon, stacked up and ready to be trundled off for winter storage. Usually they are tucked away safely before the snow flies, but not this year. The far riding ring in the background is the one I was riding in for shot number one. Notice that no-one is making use of that ring in this shot!

Birds of a feather

Well, I guess we here in Saskatchewan have been allotted one good month this year for weather, and it was September. Almost as soon as the calendar flipped over into October the winds blew up, it clouded over, and got cold and wet. Really wet. Several of the turnouts at the barn were under water (again) and it takes a fair amount to do that.

Today we had a small amount of sun for a bit, but the rest of the week looks fairly gloomy. I've already logged a couple of cancellations of planned photo shoots, one for a client and what was to be our second attempt to find the ghost town that eluded us last time. We did get enough of an idea of the terrain and lack of roads in the general area to know that we don't want to try this on anything less than perfectly dry surfaces, so that hoped-for outing on Saturday didn't happen. Maybe next weekend, although someone today mentioned the "s" word (that would be snow) as something that might occur on Saturday, so maybe we'll be out of luck again. Too early in the week to believe forecasts for the weekend to come.

I thought for a while there I'd have to post more Nelson photos since with the cold and wet I certainly wasn't generating any new ones, but things got quite active on the photo front yesterday and today so as usual I had to pick and choose which ones to cram into my limited space here. I will try to sprinkle some of the Nelson ones in here and there as time goes by.

First shot is one that I created last week when the weather was too rotten for outdoors activity. I think I started out editing summer horse show shots for clients (a seemingly endless task that I have been pegging away at for quite a while) but I got distracted while wandering around in the computer and ended up with this as an end product. I got the horses and chariot photo a couple of years ago at Spruce Meadows, and blended it with one of my beloved night sky visuals and a photo of Stonehenge supplied by my daughter. Sadly, her camera (formerly my camera) was misbehaving for the entirety of their trip to England and northern Europe this time last year, so I have to be creative in my use of the shots she has shared with me.

We have two family birthdays a few days apart at the end of September and beginning of October, and for the last few years have had a combined birthday outdoors breakfast at a nearby small lake and provincial park. It was a bit chilly and soggy on Sunday morning when we set off for our destination, but not actively raining, so we carried on with the plan. A group of us met out there and a good time and good meal was enjoyed by all. We are gradually evolving our strategy for this outing and may eventually, given enough time, actually have everything we require in the way of foodstuffs and equipment. I've gone so far as to start a list so there is some hope, assuming I can find the list when the time comes.

Shots two and three were taken during the course of this outing. In shot two, Arrow the grand-dog is demonstrating her tree-climbing style. If Bill, her owner, asks her to do something, Arrow will always try her best to comply and usually gives it a darn good shot, even if, as in this case, it's not something that dogs were designed to do. She actually got fairly far up the trunk a couple of times before gravity and lack of momentum brought her back to earth. She's a dog with a lot of "try" in her.

The annual breakfast area is also the home of the chickadees that have been habituated to hand feeding by the local birders, so one of the things we try to remember to bring is bird seed. We got all the way through our fire-building, cooking, and eating of breakfast without seeing or hearing a single chickadee, when towards the end of our stay finally a couple appeared. Mark (grandson whose hand is featured in shot four) barely got his seed-laden hand up to horizontal when the first chickadee was right there. After that we had lots of them, some happy to hand feed, others who preferred the piles we had put elsewhere on the site. This is always a fun feature of the breakfast morning, and I'm pretty sure the chickadees are happy with it too.

Shot four is Sandhill cranes feeding off the post-harvest grain left in the fields. We saw field after field of them all the way out to Pike Lake on Sunday morning. Usually it's huge numbers of Canada geese in these fields (we did see a few of them as well) but this year was striking for the crane population in evidence. Most years I only ever see a few each spring and fall, generally when I am at the stables, and they are always passing over very high up in the sky. I was thrilled to see so many, although it would have been nice to have been able to get closer (not really a realistic hope since these are wary wild birds that get shot at) and to have had a bit more light. Many were doing the "crane dance" as you can see in this photo. A pair will suddenly leap straight up in the air with wings unfurled, a fascinating thing to observe.

Final shot is one of many I took in our yard today, as we were inundated with large quantities of grackles. Again, lighting wasn't the best and for many shots I was shooting through the living room window (which at least I cleaned a while back specifically to optimize my "through the window" bird photography) so they aren't the best quality. I did sneak out onto the back deck a few times for more direct shots, but as with most other birds, they are too wary to get very close to. Thank goodness for the bold ones like the bluejays, chickadees and nuthatches that will tolerate a photographer in fairly close proximity.

I was very interested to observe the group behavior of these grackles, who seem to be quite a combative lot. The big fellow who was planted in the feeding dish (which I had to refill about three times over the course of the day) was defending it against all comers. The female to the left was allowed to get relatively close, as was the youngster on the right, so I think they were a family unit. Certainly no-one else was allowed on the table while he was feeding, and even these two had to be very submissive or they got chased off as well. One interesting thing with the grackles was that while they were very aggressive with each other, they tolerated the sparrows without any comment at all, and conversely, the sparrows, who usually flee at the drop of a hat, were quite OK with moving amongst the large grackle flock. Strange.

And now for someplace completely different

Seems like a long time since my last post here, although it was only two weeks ago. In the intervening time, Jim and I headed west to the Nelson, BC area, visiting family. Things started out a bit uncertainly when we were heading into the security clearance area at the airport. I suddenly had a vague recollection of having a small Swiss Army knife attached to my purse, a trade show gift from Spruce Meadows of many years ago, and forgotten until this moment which was just a bit too late for comfort. Indeed it was there and picked up by the x-ray machine. Just as Jim was rolling his eyes at my gaffe, his little pocket belt showed something on the x-ray, and lo and behold, there in an obscure pocket that I don't think we even remembered, was a Leatherman multi- tool. By this time the security lady was calling us "Bonnie and Clyde" and herding us over to be dealt with by the appropriate person. Luckily it was a slow day at the airport, and the people we were dealing with had a good sense of humor. Once all our weapons were confiscated, we were off to our flight and to enjoy some time in the mountains.

Our daughter Jennifer and her family have a riverfront property on the South Slocan river, about halfway between Nelson and Castlegar and that was our headquarters for the visit. Jen is also a keen photographer, so she was very accommodating about driving us hither and yon on daily nature and photo outings, some of which ended up being eight-hour days on the road. Driving the mountain roads is nothing at all like prairie driving. At home, some of the stretches of road are so long and straight that the main danger is of falling asleep at the wheel and ending up in a farmer's field. In the mountains, the roads can be few and far between (no just going over a mile to another grid road like in the prairies if there's a blockage on the main road), and there is always the possibility of trees and rocks falling onto you from the uphill side, or inadvertently plummeting off the edge (usually way too close and with no guard rails) on the downhill side. Add in a lot of blind corners, ups and downs, and hairpin turns, and I was very glad not to be the one doing the driving.

We were fortunate to have lovely weather the whole while, a nice change from previous visits where it pelted rain virtually the entirety of our stay. Not conducive to the happy outdoor experiences we hope for on these trips. The Kokanee salmon spawning was nearing its end in the Nelson area, so we went to a nearby provincial park to witness this event. You can read about the life-cycle of the Kokanee, a land-locked salmon, in the link above. These poor things were in pretty rough shape when we went to see them, most of them living out their last moments in a weakened state and prey to the local bear and bird populations. We didn't see any bears (fine by me) but there were many ravens taking advantage of the plentiful food source, and while it's not possible for me ever to get enough raven shots, I did get a lot more than I've previously logged.

Today's first shot is taken looking east towards Nelson from the highway into town from Jen's place. We were taking the kids into town to school before heading out on a photo shoot of the mist on the river. Hard to believe looking at this shot of the town, but a few miles west, where we had come from, there was heavy fog all over the river valley. The mountainside with the cloud jammed into its middle is on the north shore. Nelson proper is on the south shore, to the right of the photo but not visible from this angle. One of the abiding frustrations of trying to do photos in the mountains is that there are endless wonderful visuals to be seen from the highway, but there are no shoulders to pull onto, and darn few safe spots to stop for a picture or even to slow down in without endangering life and limb. Most of my good landscape shots this trip were ones that got away. Then there are all those trees in the way!! Not generally a problem in southern or central Saskatchewan.

Shot two is a visual I've been waiting to come back to for two years now. This is the east side of the liquor board store in New Denver, with its richly coloured and textured vine covering. I first saw this wall two years ago when we were last in New Denver, when I of course had the wrong lens with me to get the shots I wanted, and I've been pining after it ever since. This time I had two cameras with varying lenses and was able to do more justice to it, although we were there later in the fall last time and there was a lot more colour then. I'll keep that in mind when we plan our next trip. Still a most satisfactory visual for me. I would like to point out that this is *not* one of my "art" shots of this vine, just a general "tourist" type snap to show the overall effect. New Denver also has a wonderful pebble beach with really interesting weathered driftwood stumps that are also are a photographer's dream (well, *this* photographer's at any rate).

Shot three was taken from the front lawn of a house where we were visiting near Meadow Creek. This is their view to the north, and the views to the east and south were equally spectacular, although lacking the glacier that is seen here. Not much of a view to the west of the house, as the remainder of the mountainside continues straight up behind them, heavily forested. This was a beautiful spot and we felt privileged to be there.

Shot four shows the Kokanee spawning run near Meadow Creek. It was a lot more active and heavily populated with fish than the one we saw nearer to Nelson. Sadly there weren't any ravens to be seen here, although I did hear some in the distance. Kokanee are quite small for salmon, and many in this shot had already died. There were areas of the creek where the water was almost solidly packed with fish from shore to shore, but we weren't able to stop the car at those spots. Not sure I would have wanted to, as the smell was quite overpowering from the dead and decaying fish bodies.

Shot five is one of my raven shots. I was a bit disappointed in many of the ones I got where the birds were deeper in the woods at the side of the creek, as they were a bit underexposed, but I should be able to massage them in Photoshop and get an acceptable product out of them. I'd be happier if they were all more like this one. Since the salmon run had been underway for quite a while by the time we were visiting, the feeding predator species were pretty well literally "fed up" on salmon. There was a family of ravens perched on the fence by the walking path that were so full of fish they could barely waddle out of the way. Feast or famine is often the way of nature, and for the ravens, this was definitely feast time.

So all in all we had a grand time, got to catch up with the BC arm of the family, saw a lot of interesting stuff and I took a lot of photos. It was a nice way to finish off the season. We got home to record-breaking high temperatures for the time of year here (September's average temperature in Saskatchewan has been *higher* than that of June, July and August, which shows how out of whack our summer and fall have been), but now the hot spell (our only one of the year) has broken and we are into more seasonal weather, which means I am dragging my sweaters, light jackets and gloves out of storage one more time. It *could* snow any time, but with luck it will hold off for a couple more months. Time will tell.

Year two for Art at Ebon is history

Well, the art show of Saturday at Ebon Stables has come and gone and would have to be counted a success. We were very fortunate with the weather, which apart from a few breezes that wouldn't have mattered at all if my tent had been oriented a little differently (and which only lasted a brief while anyway) was an absolutely lovely day to spend in the outdoors. All but one of the artists actually appeared and got themselves set up with no fuss or bother, and in general all was very well. We had a steady stream of visitors who, once they got on site, didn't seem at all inclined to rush off, and who lingered to spend time with the art and artists, to visit, to sample the food and drink, check out the stables, and generally kick back and relax. That's exactly as I hoped it would be.

About the only thing lacking was horse action in the outdoor rings. Last year there were jump lessons happening, but this year the rings are very dry and Elaine ( owner/manager and instructor) decided against the outdoor lessons for fear of sending clouds of dust over the art area. I don't think that would have been too much of a concern so next year we'll have to get on the same page on this. Eventually (after me nabbing the first unfortunate person to wander by wearing riding clothes) a couple of riders went out to school their horses in the dressage ring, which I greatly appreciated. Apparently the horses are a draw as well as the art, as several customers had asked me where they were.

Many of my artists have already indicated that they are willing to join in again next year, so I think we're going to be on track for year three. I'm making notes on what went right, what needs improving, and what else we can offer, so it will be onward and upward for this little show.

I had a nice email earlier in the week from a website owner in France (originally from Canada) who was kind enough to invite me to be one of the equine artists he features on his site. In addition to the equine art area, he has a number of good informative articles on many aspects of horse ownership and maintenance, which are updated weekly. You can check out his site, WOW Horses-An Independent Guide to Horse Care, here. The door is still open for more equine artists to be listed, so if you do horse art, check the artist's area of this site.

On to today's photos. Shot number one shows the pole bean set-up in my back yard. After a very slow start due to our extended cold and wet spring, my beans eventually got themselves sorted out and are producing quite abundantly. I like vertical elements in the yard and in previous years have done the traditional "teepee" structure made from bamboo poles. This year I had the idea to purchase three decorative flat trellises and attach them together to make a "bean screen" for the garden. It's a bit hard to make out the metal structure under the bean leaves, but if you look carefully you should be able to see it. I'm beyond pleased with how this looks and works, so this will be my standard approach in future. The height is in the vicinity of 7-8 feet. I've only ever grown and eaten pole beans, of which I am very fond, but have learned via my friends who used to grow bush beans and have now "bean" converted, pole beans are much tastier than the bush ones. Just be careful to get the "stringless" varieties.

Shot two is another back-yard shot. This is my grand-dog Arrow who spends quite a bit of time here with grandson Mark. Arrow loves the pinecones that fall onto our deck in excessive numbers at this time of year, and when she can convince someone to throw one for her she is more than happy to chase it. I liked this shot for the stop-action on the pinecone and also for Arrow's cute turned-up toes and intense focus.

Friday evening I went out to Ebon to set up my tent and stands up for the art show. This was the view from the hill as grandson Mark (my show roadie and all-purpose assistant) and I were heading back to the city. We both whipped our cameras out to capture the wonderful colour of the last bit of this prairie sunset. Speaking of which, it's really happening earlier and earlier these days. Kind of alarming the rate at which the daylight hours are getting shorter.

The last two shots show aspects of the art show, taken by Mark, as I was too busy dealing with customers and visitors to be able to get any shots. You can see what a nice day we had. Shot four is facing west. The area on the far left of the photo is the entry to the "Zebra Cantina" where food and beverages were available for purchase. One of the art areas is in the little niche behind the round table in the photo, and the larger roofed area extending off into the distance beyond held five more artists.

The remainder of the artists (six more) were in canopy tents, as shown in the last shot. That's my set-up in the tent towards the middle of the photo, with actual customers browsing!

One final note--don't be concerned (well, *someone* might be!) if I don't appear in my usual time slot next week. It's unlikely I'll be able to post so watch for me as per usual the following week.