This is a roundup of images made over the past week. The kite pictures are from my daughter’s kindergarten class. I had meant to take more shots, but as it turned out, I was the only parent present who had an inkling of what Bernoulli’s Principle was. I spent most of my time reassembling kites that were improperly constructed and helping five year olds recover from crashes.
It didn’t help that most of the parents were too ambitious and bought the fanciest kites they could find at Costco. The kites were too large and required a fairly sustained wind to stay aloft. Ironically, last Wednesday was probably the only day last week where we didn’t have our usual wind storm. That meant that my daughter’s el-cheapo delta-wing Canada kite was the only one to consistently stay aloft for pretty much the entire hour.
These bales were found at the side of the highway in a pasture Thursday morning. We were hoping for rain, but as it turned out the clouds were just teasing us. They moved off to bother people in Saskatchewan instead. The center-line highway shot was made an hour or so later.
There is a slough just outside of Altario, between the town and Highway 12 on the West side of the road. I’ve been trying to do justice to it for almost two years, but I can never seem to catch it in the right light. Even when I do, what I see in person is never accurately represented by my camera.
Sloughs and fence lines are definitely recurring themes in my work. This is cattle country after all, and fences are a big part of life out here. Many of the sloughs that appear in my images this year and last were completely dry back in 2004 during the worst of the drought. The moisture situation improved drastically in 2005, but that was mainly because we needed it to stop raining so we could move our trailer into our yard site.
A new camera may be arriving in the next week or so, and if it does, there will probably be an explosion of new image posts. Cross your fingers.
Why do rural folks wear rubber boots damn near everywhere? Because we need to, that’s why:
Now get off my back you buncha @$%#in’ clueless townies.
I ordered a Tranzeo TR-CPQ-19F for a customer this week. The company notified me by e-mail that they had sent the item by Canada Post, expedited, on Wednesday afternoon. Two days later, Friday afternoon, I find myself in possession of said equipment.
Was my package lost or stolen by a Canada Post employee or contractor? No. Did Canada Post need to bounce the package back and forth between Edmonton and Calgary almost a dozen times? No. Did Canada Post need to let a herd of elephants trample on my package prior to delivery? No.
It’s amazing how much better my business runs without UPS around.
There are two sure signs that spring is here: Crocuses and Pussy Willows. The crocuses won’t grow thick enough out here so that I can get a picture of a field of purple, and I have to content myself with working over individual specimens or small clusters instead.
And, of course, the pussy willows:
I wouldn’t go so far as to call the following copse of trees evil, but I found myself feeling unsettled when I looked at them. Kind of like standing at the end of the sidewalk by the scary, abandoned house on your block as a kid. Not a place I’d want to set foot in, especially if I could get a grown-up (one that I wouldn’t mind being eaten) to go in my place. The trees creeped me out for some reason.
The following sunset photos are basically the same image from two slightly different vantage points. I couldn’t decide which one I liked better, so I uploaded both.
Finally, here are two leftover images from last weekend. Ashlyn was in heaven because she got to help bottle feed a newborn lamb.
That’s all, folks.
The system on the right is mine. The two on the left belong to the teenage children of one of my customers, and both are riddled with virii, spyware, malware, and at least one rootkit. I’m using my notebook to research the multitude of filenames and errors that I’m running across.
And how did you spend your weekend?
Wrasslin’ with dad — and losing badly.
Say hello to my new (to me, that is) camper, or as I’ve been jokingly calling it, my future Divorce Condo. I purchased it last year, but the delivery didn’t happen until this spring. That’s not a huge problem as I’m still working on getting a truck to put under it. My father-in-law has graciously offered the use of one of his farm trucks in the meantime.
I had hoped to swamp it out a bit today (and also to catch up on some paperwork for the PC biz), but a trip down the road to pick up the deposit book and fix a problem with the parents’ VCR somehow turned into an all day affair that involved herding and trucking cattle around. Ashlyn got to pet and then help bottle feed a new calf, so it was all cool with her.
Ah, well, I’ll get the camper done by next weekend, hopefully in time to take it out for an inaugural journey. I realize that it’s still April, but I’m sure there’s a nearby campground that’s worth a family outing (something I never got to do as a kid).
Now if only I could figure out how to get the propane burner in the camper’s refrigerator to stay lit…
