Home Sick

I've been home with a cold for 2 days. It's played havoc with my work schedule, although I've had work to do at home. The fitness program is so far in the hole I don't know if it's retrievable. And I'm waiting for word from a new farrier about when, if ever, he is going to show up. Supposedly tomorrow or over the weekend, but it would be a lot easier to re-schedule those missed client appointments if I had some idea!

Colds make me grumpy (okay, what doesn't, you don't have to say it!)

I haven't played much with the new camera because of bad weather, hairy muddy horses, etc. Finally figured out that I'm still in 35mm mode, where messing around means wasting film, and you don't know the results until the film is developed. But I can play with this camera, see the results immediately, and then hit the wastebasket button and get rid of the evidence if it's a failure. Yes, I knew this, but it hadn't really sunk in. So I took the camera with me this evening when it was time for the horses to come in from pasture, being pretty certain that I could get some action shots while they were avoiding capture. I put it on "Automatic" mode and, just like the point'n'shoot, it wanted to use flash. That's the first pic of Dexter, where Dex is lit up but the background isn't. Interestingly, the picture also seems to have some weird lines drawn in. I'll have to research that one. Might be shadow from the flash. Then I set it on Aperture priority mode and opened up the aperture all the way, and that's the next shot, which is also a fun panning shot.

So I'm having fun with it although I have a lot to learn. It does most of what my film SLR does but the controls are quite a bit different so I have to get much more familiar with them.
This is just a pic of Dex from the other night that I cropped to highlight his blue eye.

Speaking of horse pics, while I was slumped in front of daytime TV yesterday watching RFDTV, I saw an interview on The Horse Show with an animal photographer named Tim Flach (I think) who has a book out called Equus with some of the most spectacular horse photos I've ever seen. Try googling it to see some of his work. Something to aspire to. He was describing the story behind some of his shots, which involved going to Iceland to shoot (photographically) the Icelandic horses in their native habitat, and photographing an Arab, in Arabia that belonged to the Shah (or Sheik, or whatever the correct term is), who took time out of his schedule to attend the shoot in the morning before heading off to rule the country. Sounded a lot more exciting than what I do, but you gotta start somewhere! I'll go hobnob with leaders of state and their equines later. I did bump into Joe Montana, literally, at a fundraiser once so it' not like I've never hobnobbed before.

As I've been feeling overwhelmed by a million fragmented items on my "to-do" list (which I can't even find most of the time), it occurred to me that kayaking or canoeing are like a metaphor for life--you have to paddle faster than the current if you want to stay in control of where you're going. Lately it feels like the current is winning (metaphorically speaking, although a couple weeks ago during the torrential rains it felt more literal). So I'm trying to keep up with the "must-do" tasks each day and also get a couple of the stragglers on the list as well. Today I managed to cut up some branches that I had trimmed from an apple tree a while back and get them in the yard waste bin, and also took down the Christmas lights. If you don't think that's a big deal, you don't spend much time around here! Baby steps.