Hybrid Cat

I took this photo a while back. I like it, pretty much, except that all the iron parked under the porch railing bothers me.

It might have taken less time to actually move the iron than it did to edit it out of the photo. But would the cat keep her seat on the railing while I dug for keys and rearranged the parking lot? Maybe not. So I cleaned up the yard with Photoshop Elements instead.

Isn't that better? But then, because it's fun and because Photoshop Elements is somewhat addicting, I decided I wanted to turn my photo into a painting. So I applied the "Paint Daubs" filter. Here is the result:

Oops! That might be just a little too artsy for me. I like the background, but the cat just about got daubed away into meaningless, especially around the tail. So I had to back up a step and remove the daubs. Click click click, and I was back to the original, minus the used car lot. Don't you wish it were that easy when you drip latex on the rug?

And now the beauty of Photoshop shines. The next step is to copy just the cat and porch into a separate layer. I can keep this foreground material in its original condition, or maybe just daub it a wee bit, while using the full Paint Daub on the background layer behind it.

After I've daubed the background, I lay the unedited foreground cat and railing on top of the blurred background.

Compare the original to the final product, which is something of a painting/photograph hybrid.

Isn't Photoshop fun?

Quack Fatner

One time a friend of a friend in Denver asked the girls about growing up on a farm. "Are there nail salons out in the country?" she asked. "Does your little town have a Bath & Body Works?"

Our little town has four hundred residents, one convenience store, and no stop lights. Nope, no Bath & Body Works.

The next nearest town doesn't have a Bath & Body Works either, nor the next, nor the one after that.

But I like the small towns around me. Towns where the feed store sells

and

and

Towns where, when you drive by a snowman, you probably know who made it.

Nice work, Lydia and Laurel :)


So yeah, it's pretty hard to get by without a nail salon in the next block.

But at least, if I need some I know where to get it!

Spiderman

A few days ago, the girls persuaded me to watch Spiderman, the movie.

Then the real Spiderman showed up across the road.

This guy may have destroyed the Green Goblin, but he's imaginary.

I like this superhero better. He's real, and he turned the power back on!

The Trend is My Friend

My yard on Monday.

My yard on Wednesday.

Homegrown

Steal a couple of eggs from under Broody,

and a couple of last summer's onions from the bin.

Pluck a handful of spinach out of a snowbank

and voila'........
Homegrown quiche!

Platitudes

"April showers bring May flowers."

"March comes in like a lion, but goes out like a lamb."

Whoever wrote that probably didn't live in Nebraska.

Two power generators.

Acute Angle

What is this?

It may look like a mess to you, but that's not what I see.

I see a victory.

It is the skeleton of a hot frame I constructed last fall, built to test my friend Gordon's claim that spinach could live through Nebraska's cold winter and be ready for the table before most folks have even planted a spring seed.

Gordon was right. Garden fresh ready-to-eat spinach on April first. Who woulda' thunk it?

Sunshine Rooster

Someone gave me this blown glass rooster.

March apparently didn't get the "go out like a lamb" memo from on high. This rooster is covering for the outdoor grey by splashing spring colors around my living room. I like his attitude.

Milking Time :( Again.

How to Buy a Bull

Buying a bull is easy.

1. Pore over the catalog.

2. Pore over the cattle.

3. Nod to the auctioneer.

4. Write a check.

We used to haul our daughters with us to bull sales. They held our hands and sat on our laps, thinking more about the free lemonade and sandwiches than the actual proceedings. One time I came in late to a very large and crowded sale, one that we were just watching with no intention of buying a bull. I stood scanning the seats to try and locate the rest of my family. A young daughter saw me searching, and waved. Glimpsing her flapping arm in the sea of bidders, the auctioneer mistook it for a $2000 bid. Fortunately, a real buyer wanted the bull more, sparing us an awkward situation in front of a very large crowd.

Times have changed. The girls know not to wave at auctions, and we talk with them about genetics, about how high we're going to bid and about which heifer they should buy to build up their own small herds. They're there because they want to be. That's fun.

Happy 50th

No, these Belgians haven't turned 50, although I learned yesterday that the longest-lived Belgian horse on record made it to fifty-two. This pair is just six years old.

With a nod to the current green trend, we are recycling a mylar balloon left from someone's birthday. (If you're wondering who the someone is, it's not one of the household females. You'll have to figure it out from there.)

Horses are spooky. When confronted with anything new or suprising, their natural instinct is to take off at breakneck speed in any direction away from the threat. If you want to take draft horses to a parade, where they might just encounter a stray mylar balloon, you need to help them overcome this tendency. That's why I tied the balloon to their fence, right above the feed trough, where there's no avoiding it.

After a bit of initial skepticism, Kandy and Jess decided to risk the mylar for another bite of hay. Pretty soon, when the balloon didn't bite them, things were back to status quo.

John once told me he works draft horses for relaxation. But I work them for adrenaline, theirs or mine, I don't care. I get bored with same-old-same-old, so the next time I passed the horse pen, I grabbed the balloon and wadded it a few times. Y'know, a kid at a parade might rattle his balloon, and we can't have horses spooking. Tweaking the balloon for Kandy and Jess produced the expected result--two tons of horseflesh thundering across the pen.

They'll thank me in the long run. And if they don't, the kids at the parade certainly will.

Photographer Begets Photographer

My dad, shooting the sunset

Silence

In silence, we watched these Florida manatees, vacationing, as we were, in San Diego. Manatees are also loosely called "sea cows," and they weigh as much as any of our land cattle. But their grace in the water is a far cry from anything related to the clumsy, clattering movements of a beef cow as it jumps from a stock trailer or lashes out at you with a powerful hoof.

Silent was the best way to watch.



Earlier, we'd slipped onto a whale watching boat with a load of other tourists. Natural history volunteers in bright yellow slickers chattered on about the habits of migrating California grey whales, holding up maps and bones and posters to illustrate their points. The captain made jokes over the ship's loudspeaker; children moaned at the puns while others moaned with seasickness.

Then a whale spouted. A prolonged and total hush settled instantly over the whole entourage.

Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.

--Dionysius the Elder

In Search of Spring