Burros in the barn

I may have just told them about the puppy.

Lucy leaves her turn signal on

Lucy's turn to watch for cows

 

 

Do you hear what I hear?

Saturday encore ~ To know her is to love her

Dreaming of a place in the sun

Another storm moved in late yesterday afternoon.
These pictures are as dreary as my mood.

Spring clouds

I'm often asked if I ever get lonely out here in the middle of nowhere –
by you, by my family, by just about every person who has come to visit the 7MSN.

"Nope. Never. Not once," I say, which usually evokes a raised eyebrow

and the follow-up question, "Why not?" "Because. I just don't." 

I'm not an introspective, deep-thinking soul searcher who needs to understand the why of things.

But then I read this explanation by Jon Katz, and I think he nailed it:

People often confuse loneliness with aloneness... Loneliness is a lacking,

a feeling that something important is missing, a pain or sadness,

a need, an incompleteness or an absence.

Aloneness is the opposite. It is the embodiment of presence, fullness, of being alive,

of the joy of being. You are complete. You are whole, you are enough.

  I may have to embroider that on a pillow.

To know her is to love her

The end of Smooch's exhausting day

 It's not often that I'm gone all day, but Smooch is always exhausted by the time I arrive home.

She stays in the house whenever I'm away. 

Maybe I should get a nanny cam to find out what keeps her so busy.

Smooch: Uh-oh. She's going to find out about the parties.

Smooch: Serves her right for leaving me.

Obsessive compulsive cat behavior

Every time I walk out to the pasture to muzzle on/muzzle off, 

JohnnyCashCat comes along for part of the way.

I follow the same path along the back of the barn, and so does he...except for three peculiar detours.

He walks on the path until he reaches a stall door, then he zigs over 

to walk the length of the concrete threshold, then he zags back to the path,

 

then he zigs over to the threshold of the next stall.

Three stalls, three zigzag detours. And he does this every time he walks behind the barn.

He follows me to the edge of his self-imposed safety zone, where he sits and waits for me to return.

Then we walk back to the barn together and he zigs and zags in the opposite direction.

Door number one...

...door number two...

...door number three.

If we had a sidewalk, he'd probably step over every crack.

New Mexico shades of gray

On those days when the New Mexico sky isn't crystal clear blue, my mood turns a little gray... 

 ...and so do my pictures.

I always shoot in color, but there are a million ways to turn an image into black and white in Photoshop.

Non-Photoshop nerds can skip this part.
My workflow on this set went like this:
1. From the Image menu, I selected Adjustments > Black and White > Preset = Red Filter
2. Then again from the Image menu, I selected Grayscale
3. Then again from the Image menu, I selected Duotone > Preset = Bl 404 WmGray 401 WmGray
4. Then again from the Image menu, I selected RGB. Saved it as a .jpg and done.

I could play around in Photoshop all day.

Obviously. 

These animated .gifs are really easy to make in Photoshop. 

Here is a link to the tutorial I followed to learn the technique.

Remember those mouse-rollover photos I used to make? 

Turns out those don't work if you're viewing this blog on a smartphone and some tablets,

so out with the rollover and in with the animated .gif.

Down the road with Smooch ~ February 2014

Every day after I'm done working, Smooch and I go for a walk. It's as much a part of the daily routine as brushing my teeth. 

I wouldn't know what to do between 5 and 6 p.m. if I didn't take Smooch for a walk. I look forward it, she looks forward to it, 

it's what we do. I listen to an audiobook or a podcast on my iPod while Smooch listens for coyotes.

Yesterday I was finishing up "The Wisdom of Donkeys" – a very good book but the worst narrator ever. 

If I ever meet him in person, I will wring his flat, monotone, unemotional neck. Now I will buy the print version 

and really read it so I can underline stuff and dog-ear pages. Such is the downside of audiobooks.

I really like this new photo I took of Smooch, but the color doesn't add much to it at all.

Some pictures, like some books, are just better in black and white.

Smooch's thoughts regarding birthdays

 Smooch turns 8 years old today.

She seems ageless to me, behaving and looking the same today as she did when she was 2,
although she does seem much wiser.

 Me: Smooch, it's your birthday! 

Smooch: Say it isn't so. I don't want to get old.

Smooch: F*ck birthdays.

Another failed family photo

The herd was on its way home for lunch. I could see a family photo developing 

as they all made their way over to the beaten path, so I ran to head them off.
I knew if I could stop George in his tracks, the others would pile up behind him and I might have the shot I wanted.

 Now picture an out-of-breath madwoman with a camera in one hand, doing a one-sided jumping jack

with the other, shouting, "Wait! Wait!" That is how one gets a burro to stop in his tracks.

George: What in the hell are you doing?

Me: Trying to line up this shot. Alan, move your left ear a teensy bit to the right.

Me: Perfect. Now, George, put your ears back up so we can see Lucy's other eye.

George: Where's Hank? He has to be in this, too.

Me: Here he comes. Just hold still for a few more seconds.

*sigh*