CATastrophe

Today's photographic focus is cats! Here are a few of Barney-one of our barn cats, Lefty is very shy and doesn't hang around for the camera much. I just thought these were nice-they are only slightly altered.

Icy posed so nicely for this photo but she blended into all the objects a little so I turned the background black and white. I thought also leaving the window area in color added a nice effect.

Here is a "painting" of Jelly. She rarely poses so well but she has such rich colors she's makes a great subject. I managed to get the background frame accidentally but liked the way it looked so used it instead of what I was planning.

In other news-be careful how you sleep! I must have slept in a terribly awkward position two nights ago because yesterday morning I woke up with so much neck pain I couldn't move at all without causing more pain. There was virtually no way to get comfortable. I'm still really stiff but mobile and able to do stuff. You wouldn't think that could happen just sleeping! It's also warming up some here, which is nice for doing chores and playing with dogs but so nice from the mud standpoint.

Frost

We had a beautiful heavy, filigree-like frost on everything this morning. So naturally, I took the opportunity to take some photos while I was out feeding the horses.

This one actually has a fence removed, so although it does not look too fancy it was actually quite a bit of work. But there is just something about chain link that detracts from a landscape! Don't get me wrong, we have a nice fence-it's just the greatest photographic backdrop!

Mostly we are just hanging out today watching football and playing on the computer. I should probably get some training done too!

Just for fun

Since it's still too cold to spend more than 5 minutes outside (which Legend insists that we do) I have been playing with Photoshop a lot. Here are some things I've done in the last few days. Click on them to view larger-they're better that way. I guess if I was really ambitious I'd start taking down my bathroom wallpaper so I can get ready for the new paint job. But I'm not that ambitious yet.

My little angel?

Don't let this face fool you!This is what she was really doing...

She's normally not too destructive but yesterday she systematically sought out and destroyed several small squeaky balls. Just couldn't resist I guess.

Thanks for all the comments on the new header-if you will notice Lyric refused to actually sit or down in the snow-too cold for a princess I suppose!

Vacation is over

For them, not me! I'm still enjoying some time off but the dogs went back to work today. Zodiac worked on Utility exercises which went pretty well considering our long break. Even articles went fairly well once he realized he couldn't just keep choosing leather every time.

Legend worked on Open exercises and did quite well. Of course the things we really the most work on are the jumping exercises but we can't go outside and practice those right now! Lyric worked on sit, down, stay, and come and did quite well for the limited training she had had. We also worked on targeting and did some basic ground work.

We got about another inch of snow last night which wasn't as much at they at first predicted. But it's stupid cold here. I mean it's like 9. With a wind chill of -10. I know it gets a lot colder in other parts of the world but I have specifically chosen not to live in those places. It gets more than cold enough here in a regular winter-this kind of weather is just unacceptable!

Anyway, I made this just for fun but with I had adjusted all the photos so the lighting was similar-the one in the corner, although I like it, is too blue to match the rest. And I forgot to save the original copy so now I can't use that photo again. Live and learn I guess.

Progression

It started out looking like this...
Then I removed Moses, the fence and the barn and faded away the edges. I really wanted to blur the background but couldn't figure out how.

So in the meantime I experimented with black and white.

Finally I figured out how to do what I wanted and this is what I got! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

At least it's low fat!

Evidently Lyric decided if we must play outside in the cold and snow she would make the best of it. Here she is..........eating snow. What can I say-the girl loves her snacks!

Mmm...delish!

I got this one of her running-isn't she just so cute. Once she gets snowballs stuck in her feet she's ready to go in but for a little while she's happy to play.

Here's Legend and one of her footballs

And finally Zodiac without a football!

We are supposed to get more snow here but I'm not sure how much we will really get at out house. Looks like a lot of it may miss us. It's still supposed to be terribly cold-with wind chills up to 20 below zero. Don't the weather gods know it's not supposed to be that cold here. If I wanted to be that cold I'd move north. Brrr.

If at first you don't succeed...

...try, try, again. I like this much better than the previous version.

Snow Shoot

I got home today in time to take the kids out for some playing and picture taking in the snow. After all I needed some new photos to play around with and practice on. Most of these don't have anything too fancy done-mostly just cropping and basic adjustments on. But I was pretty happy to learn how to remove unwanted objects. Now I don't have any ugly chain link fence in the backgrounds! Enjoy and stay warm!

Weekend

This weekend I headed to my parents for my sister's birthday party. The party went well even though it was not the surprise it was supposed to be. I stayed over again last night so I wouldn't have to rush home. Of course overnight and this morning it snowed at home and the highways were listed as covered so I decided to wait until tomorrow to head back home. My dad is loaning me one of his Photshop books and I was excited to get home and use it but in the meantime I've been playing with Photoshop and other programs on my phone...









Lyric accompanied me on the trip since the other dogs have trials coming up. I figured she migt like a turn to go on a car ride. She has gotten very spoiled with all the extra lap time she's been getting, not mention sleeping on my coat!