Camera-happy-daze :P

Globes are fun. Really, they are. But then, maybe homeschoolers are easily entertained. I can remember growing up, my brothers and I could spend hours playing with a globe. Such fun! I always thought maybe we got it from Grandpa N cuz he always had a collection of globes. But maybe it's a combination of that and whatever the common factors may be that seem to cause a lot of homeschoolers to have an obsession with globes and maps and such. At any rate, the time has come that our family needs a new globe. The last one we got was about 5 or 6 years ago now... It's completely dismantled, leaving only the actual globe itself intact. Which makes for some fun times of another variety :D Yesterday was Brian's birthday, so I took some birthday pictures of him with the globe. Of course, that sparked some imaginary flames so Aaron and I got in on the fun. We passed the globe and the camera, and here is the result. Most of the pictures are by me, including one of me, but all the other ones of me were taken by Brian. Enjoy. This is the first one we took... Inspired by me :P ...and it just got crazy from there. Happy 22nd Brian. I give you... the world. Heh :P

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from here on out they're probably not in order, cuz it's no importa... Anyway, this pose was Brian's idea :P

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Not sure what he was thinking here, but I guess he was feeling some sort of power over the world, holding it in his hands and all :P

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Now here, IDK what Aaron was doing... being goofy? Wonder where he got that from? :P Anyway I just kinda pointed-and-shot and this is how it came out :P

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something similar to this had been the original intent...
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Totally semi-random shot :P Michael had come outside to mess up our photoshoot :roll: and Aaron was showing him something on the globe :P
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For some reason this shot reminds me of that song, AFRICA... wonder why? :P
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Here's one for my cousins... see?! Bolivia! :D Someday I will go to S America :D
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Ok, I'll admit... this was another one of my semi-brilliant ideas... It's supposed to be like a mock-up of those soccer pics the kids get sometimes :P hee hee

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Brian's interpretation of the same pose. At least I got a pic of him smiling ;) :P
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Soccer globe!

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Now this one my JRA peeps should get. I Love America. If you don't get it, that's ok. I'll forgive you :) and no, I didn't really kiss the globe. BLAH! I don't love globes THAT much :P
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Tree-hugging gone terribly wrong o_O note: the globe is made of cardboard :P
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This is the one I took of myself. I'm just bummed it came out a little fuzzy :-/ the edited version came out pretty cool, too, if I may say so B-)
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K so I was listening to Aaron tell me something... I'm sure it was brilliant :P
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I think he was playing keep-away from Michael... I just pointed-and snapped. Schweet, no?
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And there you have it. I think we're grounded from playing with globes and cameras now :P j/k ;) BTW, sorry if some of these are kinda distorted... I had an awful time loading them today! mebbe it's the computer I'm using :P Oh well... hopefully you'll find it in your heart to forgive me :D G'day!
~Linnae

Fall is Falling, Falling, Falling... part 2

READ PART 1 FIRST IF YOU HAVEN'T YET
So I continued on toward the pasture. I heard a little meow and turned to see my little black kitty, begging me to pet her and carry her off. Ha! She may be cute, but my camera by itself was much more useful at the moment than trying to carry her around, keep her face petted, and snap shots :P So I snapped one of her. Which, BTW, she is very difficult to photograph :P

But I think it turned out well this time, though I had to lighten it up a bit :P
So then... finally into the pasture, and the first shot jumped out at me. Across the ravine I could see the sassafrass tree which I had taken a picture of last year... it was orange then. Now? Red and Yellow. Now, it is technically two Sassafrass trees within about 6 inches of each other. But at any rate, it provies for quite the spectacular colors! Another score for the Sassafrass tree :)
As I headed down the ravine toward the pond, I looked back up the hill and decided to catch Happy's silhouette. And Pepper's too. Unfortunately the basketball hoop kinda messes up the coolness of the shot :P
Looking to the west from the previous shot, down into the ravine. Notice the dark purple Dogwood, the slightly yellow Sycamore, and the bright red "Paw Paws" LOLz :) and, of course, a few multi-colored sassafrass, hickory, and cedar thrown in there.
Just south, at the bottom of the ravine, I found a really cool shot
More to the west, another sassafrass. This one must've felt Christmasy with that red and green.
The thistle are still blooming, too. **groans** Wicked wicked thistle...
Another spider web, but this one with fall colors! :D
More of the bright colors, with some white flowers splashed in there too.
And a better shot of the awesomeness of the two-tone Sassafrass tree.

Finally at the pond, I chased a few frogs and squeakers into the water as I walked along the edge, looking for something else to capture. I took a few shots that I won't post cuz they're kinda boring for a blog IMHO :P I heard the slow hoofbeats of one of the old men coming up the path, but I couldn't see who it was because the Cedars on the NE side of the pond have grown up too tall. So I waited. Then I saw the fuzzy little head poke out. Cash was surprised to find me down at the pond. I was glad he showed up to add some tremendous cuteness to my blog ;) Seriously... what good is an autumn blog without fuzzy horses? ;PDuring the wait, some of the brave little frogs crept up out of the pond. This little guy got used to me pretty quick so I took a few pics of him, but I won't post them all :P again, don't wanna get boring ;)
But I will post this one, too, because I rather liked how it turned out. I didn't use the zoom on either of these pictures. I just got up in the frog's face with the camera :P I think he was hopeful that the camera would kiss him and he would turn back into a prince ^_^ Turns out he once was a prince, but some chick shoved him into a pool and he became a frog :-/ LOLz :P
After a minute, while Cash was still drinking his water, Happy showed up, followed closely by Pepper. Again, Happy wasn't expecting anybody to be at the pond, so he stopped to check things out...
Pepper was thirsty too, so he joined Cash. But apparantly Happy wasn't thirsty enough to associate with the old men :P But I managed to get three of my boys together in one shot :)

After Oakley and Polish showed up, Happy decided he could go ahead and drink...And Oakley and Polish took a swig, too.
I found another frog, taking a bath o_O Sorry, perhaps I should've warned you a little sooner to avert your eyes :P
Then I had this brilliant idea that brightly colored leaves in a green pond would be a pretty cool shot. So here you have two variety of oak and blackberry leaves all floating in the pond :)
Another boring picture I took on the way back up... It didn't turn out quite right though :-/
And a lovely Morning Glory growing next to the corral

And since Samson got left out of my last horse blog, I figured I'd include him in this one :) Poor guy gets left out on a lot, bein by himself ;)
And there you have it! That's what fall looks like in the Ozarks. At least, that's what fall looks like halfway through October :P Just wait till the Oaks start turning...
Until then, my friends! God bless
~Linnae

Fall is Falling, Falling, Falling... part 1

October 16, 2008. The day dawns misty with a distinct autumn chill. The air is still and filled with the pleasant odors of fresh dew and slowly lifting fog after a night of light rain. While I was out tending to my little equine herd, something caught my eye. A dew-laden spider web hung between the top two wires of the fence. The photographer in me felt a twinge of excitement as my brain suddenly thought of a thousand perfect angles to capture this jewel. Now please understand, I had attempted the same shot before, but had some **ahem** serious camera issues. I was determined that this time I would succeed. So I rushed back to the "tack room" to put away the halter, did a quick mental check to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything, and trotted off to find where someone left the camera. As I traversed to the place where the camera is usually kept, I looked across the yard and the fields beyond. As I had mentioned before in a previous blog, the spiders are thick this year. So when I gazed across the yard my eyes met with hundreds of little sparkling webs strewn hither and thither, looking for everything like one of those silly fairytale movies I used to watch when I was little. So excited I was as I grabbed the camera, checked the batteries, and headed out the door for one of my infamous photo shoots ^_^

My first stop was at the peach tree just behind the house and slightly to the north of the school building. It looked like a creepy neighborhood, with so many webs spun in it.
After the peach tree, I headed toward my originally-intended shot. At which time another perfect shot presented itself. I love it when that happens :)
Boppy and Rocky had been sitting on the Suburban tire. Rock looked just at the right moment, then Bop looked afterwards, but the camera didn't reset before she jumped down. Darn. LOL
So I got over to where the original web I had spotted was. I was contemplating the best angle when Cash spotted me and came over to see if I had any candy. (that's what I get for spoiling my horses so :P ) He wouldn't go away. So I went down-fence a little and shot another web....
Then I went back and managed to get Cash to step out of the way of the first web (I guess I was determined to capture THAT web :P ), but right as I took it, Pepper got his nose in the way! :P But it turned out kinda cool anyway ;)

So after that, I decided to roam a bit and get some more webby pictures... Might as well, since there were so many awesome wet webs :) This one was simply amazing. You notice, it is woven within one hole on the chicken wire?! Yet it is so perfectly, intricately woven just like a big spider web... just on a much smaller scale.This web was hanging from the eave of the hen house. It ended up with a good background and a nice focus on the water droplets. I can't quite decide which one is my favorite though :P
I went into the roundpen next, since there were a lot of webs around it, and potential for decent backgrounds. I found one spider who wasn't afraid of me. It was really cool cuz he had a drop of water hanging off one of his front feet. IDK if you can see that from here or not though...
So I took a ton more spider web shots, but I don't wanna bore you to death :P so we'll move on to some fall colors. I headed back over toward the northwest pasture where the horses are, to get some pictures of the leaves. These were on the south side of the basketball court. I boosted the saturation a little :)
And here's some more leaves. You notice how green the grass is? Yeah... We're still mowing the grass... in October. There's a little jab at my "northern" buddies :P :P :P
AND I can't seem to post any more pictures on this particular post, so I guess I'll move on to part 2...