Snap Happy

The best thing about beginning the 365project.org is that I am finally taking photos daily.  I had started with just an everyday snapshot album to basically journal my everyday life.

I then added an infertility album because I felt like journaling this part of my life, which will be fixed forever during this year.

Then today, after checking out a few other albums, I decided to add an actual photographic album so I actually concentrate and work on getting a good shot everyday, rather than just documenting my life.

So here five of the 47 shots I took today.  Just the ones I liked, kind of random, which is totally me.

 Max a'Million - kind of my new favourite subject.  Makes me feel guilty about Stella-D.  Must make more of an effort to photograph her.  Not that she cares if I take more of Max than her, she is just a dog.

 Here he is again, posing on the hillside before he got onto the scent of a Pukeko, and ignoring my calls to 'COME MAX'.

 Lunch!  Bacon, mushroom and cheese omelet.  Twas good, real good!

Sun setting behind the oil rig that is just up the road from us, ie I essentially took this shot from the end of our driveway.

Moon rising, over clouds lit by setting sun.

I am actually beginning to get back into my photography again.  Fan-flippin-tastic!

Milkings sorted

It's taken a LONG time, but TJL finally said that he would like to do the morning milkings, and I am to do the majority of the afternoon milkings.  I am so glad that he has FINALLY made a decision, as I HATE, HATE, HATE not knowing what is happening with my day, ie: in the 'old days' TJL would let me know at 1pm that he wanted me to milk at 3pm.  I don't do well on short notice, so very rarely milked.

This new routine is great at 5.00am when I am merrily sound asleep, and continue to be that way for another hour or two.  This new routine is not so great when I am in the shed at 3pm and it is STINKING hot and I'm sweating my ass off.  Of course sweating my ass off is a good thing as my ass (and a lot of other parts of me) needs to disappear somewhat.

Last night I did a bit of a internet search in regards to training Max a'Million, and one thing really clicked with me, and that is he needs to burn off some energy before being put on a leash, or getting a bit of training.  Fortunately, at the moment, the paddocks behind the house are empty of stock, so I walked the dogs there before we got anywhere near the cows.  It seemed to work a bit, but I need to exercise him a bit longer.

 Max a'Million enjoying a bit of speed work

Maple, one of our most gorgeous cows.  TJL calls her Mabel, and she can be a right numpty PITA, as all things beautiful can be.

Periwinkle, out of Destiny.  Possum, out of Monkey.  Gemma, named after a niece

Stella-D hunting the hills for dem pesky rabbits

This is our oldest chicken Red.  Red is about 12 years old, or possibly more, and at the moment I think she is only 1 of 2 out of 5 chickens laying us an egg every other day.  GO  RED!!  Our chickens are let out of their coop between the hours of about 6.30am to 7.30pm, so the other chickens may be laying elsewhere that I have not discovered yet.

Gorgeous day here today

Well it's a Taranaki stunner here today.  The girls are up grazing on one of the hill paddocks, a paddock that I HATE due to it being quite easy for an accident to happen to one of them.

As you can see by the picture above, it will only take a slight bunt and cow 130 will be down over the bank.  Why, why, why they are happy to eat down there I will never know.  If I was a cow, I'd be up the top of the hill, or around on the safe side.

The sensible cows eating on the sensible side.

I have also had the fun job of paying the bills today.  My word there were a lot, and they were LARGE.   The good thing with me paying the bills is that I am starting to take a LOT more care as to where I spend my money.  Horrible, frightening stuff.

And on my walk back from the shed this morning I stumbled across this tiny egg, randomly on the side of the tanker track.

How it got there is a complete mystery to me, and I did nearly keep on walking by, but I'm glad I did decide to go back and take a quick snap of it.  It is just a tiny, plain white egg, so have no clue as to what bird even laid it in the first place.

Today, I'm just feeling random, including this post.

Ba ha ha ha ha

The last three blog posts I wrote have the word 'back' in them.  

And whaddayaknow, I'm back for the forth time in a row.

Nothing exciting to report, but I do feel like it may be time to get back into writing again.  I wonder if that is the forth time in a row that I have said that??!!

So I have just started doing the 365 Project.  I am a couple of weeks behind so only have three photos up so far.  The best thing about it is that I am encouraged to take my camera with me everywhere to document my life.  Feels good to be photographing anything other than horses for a change.  It also means that I am redeveloping my 'how to use my camera in certain situations' skills.  Skills so long forgotten since cameras are now so automatic.  Automatic in ways that I don't like in that it has dumbed down the user, aka me!  Automatic in ways that I do like, self adjusting during an event where I don't have time to monitor light changes all. the. time.  But it does make me LAZY, and I really don't need much encouragement to be LAZY.

It got me to thinking this morning, while hosing out the milking shed for T, that I might do a second 365 project about infertility and moving on in childlessness.  If I can.  I was really thinking 'I wish I had done 365 last year, documenting two IVF treatments etc', would have been FANTASTIC!  But was I really in the right headspace last year to do that?  Probably not.  It almost tempts me to want to do IVF again, just so I can document it photographically.  ALMOST.  But I am too old, and it is too expensive just for me to do a photo essay on it.  So yeah, I might do it.  We do have one embryo to go of course, so it is going to be a year of changes whatever the outcome.  Complete childlessness, or miracle of miracles.  That said, yes, yes I will do it!

Link to 365 Project, Inconceivable

And while on the topic of infertility and childlessness, there are more and more days where I am appreciating our childless state.  This is more a reflection on my age now than anything else.  If I was younger I would still be pursuing children in whatever way I could, but being 41 I'm getting a bit set in my was.  Case in point, yesterday was T's 38th birthday.  His entire family invited themselves over for afternoon tea.  His sister has 4 kids.  The noise was INCREDIBLE.  Just constant yelling.  There are no quiet voices in that lot.  And never have I been more enthusiastic about heading out to do an afternoon milk than I was yesterday.  They had only been here 30 odd minutes and I was OUT  THE  DOOR to the sanctuary of our quiet cows.

Got home to chocolate cake crumbs all over, and mushed into the carpet.

Childlessness APPRECIATED in its fullest, right there!

And in other news, we got a new dog for Christmas.  His name is Max, and is from the SPCA.  HuntawayX, needing a lot of training, but very cool.

Getting back into the swing of life

I've have a bit of a funk on over the last few days.  Chances are it is because I am back out photographing horse events and was just completely SWAMPED.  It seems that when I get swamped I get really lethargic and tired and end up feeling like I am achieving nothing.

Swamped.

5 events of photos to edit and upload.

Leads to washing not getting folded.  Floors not getting vacuumed.  Garden not getting weeded.

And so I end up feeling like I am getting further and further behind, and it wears me out.

And so my reaction was to then get, ever so briefly, down about 

here comes Christmas, childless, AGAIN.

I don't fit in.

EVERYONE but me has children.

Blah, blah, blah.

It didn't help that my computer screen had somehow dimmed down and I thought my photos were heavily underexposed, making editing a nightmare!  Since discovering my computer (and lets face it, me too) was dim, it then meant all the photos I did edit are now a bit over exposed.  Ah, well, they got uploaded regardless.

But it is also good that my photos are not underexposed.

I am uploading this MONTHS after I wrote it.

What a dork!