Back in action

 I have been rather busy this last week with a family affair, so my apologies for not getting around to reading and commenting on your blogs. 

On Sunday, I finalized the agreement on the red mare, I will be buying her outright and sending her to that lovely palomino stallion. She will be headed there the last week of May to spend 2 months and I get her back mid August. So over the next 3 weeks or so, I will be going down to help work with her on trailer loading and picking up her feet. 

Gussie's leg seems to be much improved, I unwrapped it today and am giving her the rest of the day without it to see if she is still tender and if the joint has stopped clunking. She will stay on the antibiotics until the bottle is finished. 

I think those nicks are just from when they clipped her leg for the ultrasound. 

I finally figured out how to access the photos from my Nikon, thanks to help from my brother in law. Yay! Here is a moon shot I took the day after the full Strawberry moon.

The actual day of the full moon we were clouded in

So now that I have all that figured out, I will get back to using the Nikon instead of relying on cell phone shots. 

That Theo

 I had to get a new phone (Galaxy FE 23) and I have been trying out its camera . Photos are for the most part acceptable, but the stop action isn't the greatest. 

This was a shot where I was panning as he frolicked, it was the most clear of the action photos of Mr. Theo. He was having a lot of fun being a hooligan this morning , even doing a sliding stop- check out the tracks!

He is at that pesky stage- investigating everything and anything. 

He sure is getting blacker!

That patch of yellow baby fuzz on his nose is quite persistent, but he is letting me scrub it a little bit every day with the soft rubber brush. 

I had my big camera with me yesterday  when I watched the Canada's Greatest Horseman show, and stupid me I dropped it and jammed it a bit. The auto focus wasn't working correctly, but I managed a few shots worth posting on the Diamond Lazy H facebook page. I will post some on here tomorrow. Today I will play around with it and see if I can get it working better. 

I has a happy

 First of all, because it is officially spring!  Although this morning it wasn't very spring-y with temps of -18 C . There was a herd of mule deer does munching near my bales this morning and I paused for a while to watch them- they sure are graceful jumpers as they hopped over the fence to go down across the still frozen river. 

The day warmed up nicely though- all the way to plus 3 C- woohoo.... but it was nice enough to head out with the other thing that I am happy about- I finally got batteries for my Nikon with the telephoto lens! So of course it was time finally for some action shots of the mares. 

They were pretty lazy in the warm sun, so I led them to the far end of  their pasture, and turned them loose. Sure'nuff that woke them up and it was tails up and go time!

Power take off

Old pregnant mares can still give 'er!

Who you callin' old? 

One toe balance

Didya get all that?

Deep snow is hard work! Yes we do still have 2 ft. of snow.

Powering through!

Nothing like a good roll!

Love how uphill this mare runs

She's gonna be fun to ride!

The mares are wintering really well. I did the math and all 3 horses are getting about 30 pounds of hay a day; a 1300 lb. round bale lasts me 15 days; I fork feed, not free choice. They are fed twice a day and usually have just a few scraps left between feedings. Beamer gets a half a scoop of oats so I can give him his 2 oz. of camelina oil, and Velvet gets a pint of senior feed with a pint of oats. Hopefully we will start getting some meltdown so that they can slowly get back to grazing; I do continue to feed hay for the first month of grazing so they aren't eating too much spring grass. It's a little different here than the last 14 years where they lived on a dry lot and had minimal pasture- here, it's all pasture so it will be a learning curve on managing them. 

The saddle hunt is still on... 

Oh look, sun!

 Yesterday was a taste of the warmer weather coming; almost to the above freezing mark! Beautiful and sunny was good enough for a visit to Shayla while Ted visited his dad. 

It was mostly a visit about photography, as she has a new camera to figure out- Canon TR7. So off we went to see the horses!

Lots of straw bedding for the mares whose date is the closest to foaling. Jayne is in with Concho and Daphne, who are both beyond safe foaling date and will probably go another couple of weeks. 

Concho (MY Buckskin Concho)

Mama Belle is having trouble with an arthritic knee so she is in a different pen as she is now having a bit of trouble getting around while we wait for the knee to fuse. 

She is, as usual, hugely in foal, and we got to see her baby bouncing around! She is at least a month away from foaling; knowing her history, probably another 6 weeks. 

Then we headed to the big pasture where the Percheron mares are, along with Gussie and Shayla's palomino mare who are both in foal to her black stallion, although Gussie isn't due until later in July. 

 Enjoying the sunshine!

Gussie recognized my voice and came over to visit me and get her scratches. 

Dolly looks more like a sorrel than palomino at this time of year! She is due end of April.

Dolly (DF Sunfrosted Te)

I'm getting to know the draft mares by name now. This one is Kate:

She has the longest mane of them all! There is one mare I like the most, a 3 yr. old that looks like a blue roan but may go grey. Eva! She is so friendly and huge!

We have matching hair!😆

Afterwards we spent some time exploring photo editing; Lightroom. It was interesting! Can sure do a lot to clean up a photo. 

What programs do you, my photographer friends, use and what would you recommend? Ease of use, efficacy and budget are the needs. 

I love my telephoto lens, as I shoot mostly outdoors, but what lens do you think is best for, say, outdoor wedding portraits, horse photos both action and still, for Shayla's Canon TR7? She already has the 50 mm portrait lens and is exploring how to use it; the above photo was taken with it. 

The new camera

It finally arrived.... and it's going to be a bit of a learning curve for me so bear with me. 

The first couple of photos I took were of Tess.

I used the automatic settings for this. It didn't require much for post processing, just upped the clarity a little.

Outside, I used the same setting and found I had to do a lot of post processing to get rid of the glare, with only moderate success.

Tess is doing quite well, she can still jump in the truck, and is mostly steady on her feet. She has recovered from an abscess on her elbow but still limps on the left front. I started her on Protandim today. 

Today is the fourth anniversary of  her mama's death. Reba was 15 and a half, Tess is about 14 and a half. She is much more mobile than Reba was at that age.

Next- on to the barnyard. These 2 photos were taken using the setting that allows the camera to choose the scene. The light was really strong and the horses looked washed out in the photos so I had to do a lot of post processing. 

That's her "Quit playing with the camera and bring me my grain! " look.

This one was really washed out. To be fair, the sun was really strong on the background and he is so dark and most of him in the shade, as you can see by the over exposed background the camera was probably confused!

It will take me a while to figure out the metering and the settings. 

Next photo was taken in the house, with a bit more success but I wasn't really happy with the focus. I was expecting it to be sharper.

So today I will have some fun playing with the settings and see what happens.

Camera woes

Lately I can't get the battery on my big camera (Nikon 3100) to hold a charge for more than 6 photos, plus I can only use the zoom lens on it which restricts what I can use it for. I started looking online for a replacement camera that has a good zoom and the only affordable ones for me are the fixed lens cameras. The Nikon B500 looks like it might work for me. I tried to buy it online from London Drugs but all my info disappeared which totally freaked me out! So I may try a camera shop in a nearby city and get them to bring it in for me.

Yesterday, I only managed 3 photos before the battery cratered. Yes I know I can buy another battery but this camera is so limited it's time for a new one. 

Yesterday's photo was the lovely Jayne!

She is the sweetest mare I have ever owned. Very quiet, not a pocket pony at all. She fit into the herd so smoothly just by being respectful of the other horses. I think a large part of that is from her being in a large broodmare band for 6 years but I'm betting it is mostly just her innate personality. I am so looking forward to her foal; I hope it has that same attitude.

I got a Drifter update too! 

This was his first saddling since the fall, and she said he was like an ole broke horse. They are ready to put him in training. Another happy customer!

 

Fun with Drifter

I had a little fun with my camera at feeding time yesterday. I told Drifter he had to work for his breakfast.....

In all 3 of these photos he is completely airborne. Can you tell what lead he is on in each of them?

Power take off

Full speed

Pretty boy!

Yes Drifter, you earned your breakfast

I has a happy

Because my husband fixed my Nikon camera!Not sure what he did but he got it working again. Big grin!
Now I can take artsy photos...

and kitty photos....

and muddy horse photos....

(yes that's Shayla, back in town for a week)

And of course.... Beamer photos!

It was warm enough on this second day of winter that I took his blanket off. It has been raining a whole bunch but was only drizzly today. We are supposed to have some snow tomorrow, hope so because I want to do a Christmas photo shoot with the horses.

Fun time

Tess has a date today with Moss, the same dog who sired her first litter. From that litter, all the follow up reports I have are from happy owners, including Jenn who owns Abby, and has competed with her in rally obedience and agility. Abby has won many ribbons and has the distinction of getting perfect scores in obedience. I've been trying for two years for this litter, and this is the first time Tess has come into heat since last December. This will be her second and final litter.

I have been playing around with my camera, it'a a little bulky for packing around but yesterday on my way to work the morning light was so beautiful that I had to take it when I went to work. I think this photo will be a future submission in the local calendar contest.

These big boys were hanging out on the fenceline, looking like they needed a portrait:

Shooting with a telephoto is new to me, the depth of field is interesting, like how the bull at the back isn't in focus. I might play around with some of the settings to see how many different ways I can take the same photo.

I also discovered that in my Windows photo manager photo editing that I could do this- all these years of using it and I had never found this! What fun!
It's in the Rotate and Flip button, I clicked on the "by degree" aid and this is what it does.

Anyway, I'll be packing the camera with me today as I head up to Kimberley area with Shayla; she will be working on Janice's horse again, and I'll be dropping Tess off with her mate. Some lovely scenery up there, and it promises to be another sunny day.

Playing with the new camea

I finally got my new camera, a Nikon D3100, and I got a telephoto lens to go with it. Now to figure it all out! It'll take me a few days, I think.  Of course, I had plenty of subjects to practice on!

 *Ahem * did you notice it's green here? Not white? *

Then it was off to the pasture.... where Josie was happy to do some streaking for me after a few days of rain and being cooped up.

She really got fuzzy!  She is turning into my little buddy. Every time I go out to the pen she whinnies to me- in a very raspy, unfeminine voice, I might add. and she is nice to handle. She was even pretty good for her first trim with Shayla a little while ago. 

And then there's Rio... he had just taken a drink of water, and if you all remember this little idiosyncrasy he has of sticking his tongue out during and after drinking, you can see that he is sticking his tongue out in this photo.

 Beamer was way too muddy to take photos of, maybe I'll clean him up for a photo shoot this weekend. I put the telephoto lens on and zoomed in on the town in the distance, with the grain elevators catching the late afternoon light.

One thing I learned was to make sure I use the viewfinder for the burst shots, not the monitor, so that I can follow what I'm shooting. There's lots of bells'n'whistles for me to learn.