Class 2: Shutter and Aperture

Some of you bloggers out there seemed interested in knowing what I learn in my photography class. So I am going to post the notes that I take each week. I hope they are not too confusing. And maybe it will help with your picture taking.

This week was shutter, aperture and ISO settings. Click here to view the notes.

If you have any questions, you can ask. Doesn't mean I will have the slightest idea how to answer but you can ask! Or if you don't want me to post the class info, tell me that too.

This week's assignment: Illustrate hot.

The Effects of a Crippled Horse.....

Everyone knows both my horses are crippled. So I don't ride unless I borrow someone else's fine steed. I'm lucky enough to have a wonderful friend that allows me to use his horse for the ranch rodeos. I rode 'ol Pete at both. We get along okay but it's not like riding your own horse. Plus the effects of a crippled horse are SORE BUTT! I haven't rode in 4 months and the 5+ hours of riding I did on Sunday are being felt in places I would have never imagined! I tried explaining it to the husband last night. It went something like this......

The Wife: "Man, my butt bones sure are sore!"

The Husband: "Butt bones? You only have one butt bone and it's called a tailbone."

The Wife: "Duh, I know what a tailbone is, but this is different. It's where you sit that hurts."

The Husband: "What, cheek bones?"

The Wife: "Here, let me show you!" Bend over and point!

The Husband: "Guess you need to start doing squats."

The Wife: "NO! It's not muscle sore, it's bruise sore. I don't need to do any squats!"

The Husband: "Huh."

So I make my way thru the day gingerly sitting on my chair, thank goodness it is cushioned!

But I wouldn't mind one of those donuts to sit on!

Busy Weekend

Sunday, my ranch rodeo team participated in our second event. We didn't come home with buckles but we did win purses! Yeah, how cool is that! I was proud of the girls and their hardwork. We had a great time and enjoyed ourselves. I want to thank KDW over at Blackjack Land & Cattle Co.. Her church put the rodeo on and they were great hosts. She made us feel very welcomed. Loved meeting a blogger buddy in person. She's so sweet.

Tonight I have photography class. The assignment was to take a picture like you normally do. So this is what I am submitting......

A picture of Sally. The husband keeps asking me why I am fascinated with taking eyeball pictures. He doesn't understand it. I told him I was trying to be artistic. You can imagine the look I got after that statement.

Now that I have to take pictures for class, I never find anything to shoot. It is very frustrating. I was cleaning the saddle Saturday and took this picture. I like the pattern of the seat.

And I have a thing for sepia right now. Just like the effect it has on the photo. But what do I know, really. But hopefully, I will be more knowledgeable after this class. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

**Don't forget to sign up for the giveaway if you haven't had the chance. Everyone needs a tiara!**

Not Deserving but Grateful (Giveaway!)

Sweet Miss Lacey Jo over at Calamity Lace gave me an award. I enjoy reading her blog. She's in college and it reminds me of the good 'ol days! If you want to relive your young adult days without the actual homework and hangovers, go over and check her out.

As the title states, I don't know that I deserve any awards for my ramblings but I am very grateful for the acknowledgement. I think all of y'all deserve something for reading this sucker.

So I crown each of you princesses!

Wear your tiara proud!

UPDATE! I was laying awake in bed this morning and had a brilliant idea. That doesn't happen too often so I thought I better run with it. I believe y'all should get something tangible for your dedication to my blog. Since this princess does not have a bulging bank account, I can only manage one prize. So I want each of you to enter for a chance to win............your very own tiara. That's right, now you too can wear it around your house!

To enter, post a comment stating why you are a princess. If there are any men out there who would like to enter, comment why the person you would give this to is a princess or why you are, whatever floats your boat! The deadline for posts will be Monday, Sept. 29 at 11:59 pm. After a random draw, the winner will be announced on Tuesday.

Oh, I'm so excited. My very first giveaway!

Hello, People! I'm Royalty!

Here's the thing. I'm a princess. As you saw in the last post, I wear my tiara around the house. It's just a little reminder to the husband. So I thought maybe the peeps at work should be aware of my royalty status as well.

I have explained it to them and here are a few things I have in my office (all given to me by coworkers)....

The tiara on top of my computer screen.

A coin purse and bear.

A cat of some sort.

And lastly, my baseball cap.

So my first instinct would be that they realize the fact that I am a princess and should be treated as such. And yet, this week I receive this in an email from one of 'em....

Oh the lack of respect for the crown.

Our Favorite Things

Bekah, over at The Country Mouse, inspired us to write about our favorite things. I had to think about mine for a minute but came up with the following list:

I love Pastafina's Restaurant! It is located in the town the husband and I consider home, which is not where we currently live. Everytime we get a chance to return, we go eat there. Lucky us, we ate there last weekend! I love the shrimp scampi and the husband loves the ribeye marsala. Yummo!

Next, I have my Best of Chris LeDoux CD. Reminds me of my college days. Love him! Sorry he's gone.....

Also, my favorite pair of shoes. The soles are cracked so I can't wear them when it rains. And the insides are falling apart but I just love them. The husband has tried to find me replacements, but none are the same.

I love my Dreamer Candle. It smells great and fills the entire house. I'm pretty much a candle nut but this one is my favorite.

Last on my favorite list is......being treated like a princess! Yes, that is my favorite. The husband does a great job spoiling me. Didn't know I was royalty did ya?

I asked the husband to give me his favorites list. Of course after all the "man-like" remarks, which I insisted I could not put on the blog, he came up with these.

Dublin Dr. Pepper. It is made close to our hometown. The difference between Dublin DP and regular DP.....pure cane sugar. So the husband is not allowed to drink them after about 8pm cause he gets a sugar high and drives me nuts!

He also loves snickerdoodles. When we receive cookies at work, I always take a few of the snickerdoodles out and take them home for him.

He loves to get haircuts. He says they just make him feel better.

Well, that's our favorite things. What is your favorite thing in the whole wide world?

Wordless Wednesday

The husband couldn't believe I took a picture of weeds. I told him that was the only thing blooming around the house so weeds or not, the picture was taken.

Photography Class

A coworker and I have enrolled in a digital photography class at the local community college. We started last night and I'm extremely excited. The only bad thing about it is that is lasts until 9pm and that is usually my bedtime! It also puts the chores on the husband for the evening and he has to fend for himself when it comes to supper. But I think we will both manage.

Each week the instructor gives us an assignment. Then we have to bring back a picture for critique. Plus we are only allowed to use the manual settings on the camera. SCARY!!!

I hope the class will improve my quality of picture taking. I was so impressed with the class last night, on the way home I called the husband. I informed him that for Christmas I want everyone to chip in and help buy me a new camera cause after this class I will be a professional! Well that's probably overstating my potential but I was excited!

So what do y'all think.....for my classroom assignments, how about a wrangler theme.

Busy Buckin' Weekend!

We bucked our calves this weekend. It started out with us driving 4 hours round trip to pick up panels on Friday. We needed them to set up an alley and loading area for the lil stinkers. They are pretty wild when you get them contained and bounce off everything.

Here's the load we came home with...40 heavy duty bull panels. And believe me, they are heavy. The husband and I unloaded all of them. He did most of the work, I helped all I could.

Saturday morning we got the alley and holding pen set up. We managed to get all the calves in the pen with a little feed. Feed is always the magical component when wrangling our cattle. After they settled, we loaded them up and headed for our favorite town to buck em.

This a.m. was the big moment. It was their time to shine. We bucked the little heifers first, than the bulls. Here are a few them in action.......

This is a little heifer out of one of our longhorns. She really tried. We didn't get it on film but when the husband was trying to get her out of the arena, she went after him. I didn't know he had those moves in him.

This little girl is out of our broke leg cow. Well, her leg isn't broke anymore, she is doing awesome. Her baby tried real hard.

I saved the best for last. I want to introduce you to Tadpole. He's out of another one of my longhorns. We didn't have any intentions on weaning Tadpole this go around cause he is so small. But he just wouldn't cooperate and leave the pen. We were worried the bigger calves would bully him off feed but Tadpole holds his own. He gets right in there and makes em move over. Tadpole seems to cause problems. He never wants to go the way you need him to, kinda runs blindly in a scared state! The husband has cussed him on numerous occasions and was hoping to take him to the sale barn. But after the try he showed today, I think he's staying with us. Sorry husband!

Back Home

I returned home this afternoon to all my animals. They seemed so happy to see me. Pets and hugs for all of em. Then I thought I would get on Priss' good side and finally let her out into the pasture. She had been stalled since her barbwire incident and was going stir crazy. She is all but healed up. Plus I would be home to watch her. So I released her from her dungeon.



She was so excited. She snorted and smelled all around. Then made her way out into the pasture. I watched her and Sally for a bit then went inside the house. I kept looking out the window to check on her. She was content and grazing.

Soon her nice leisurely attitude turned into this.........

A thank the Lord I'm outta that stinkin' stall buckin'!

You can still see the gashes on her back leg that are healing. But it appears she's going to be just fine! Who needs an intact back tendon....Not Miss Priss!

Fun Quiz

Found this fun little quiz on the Horseshoeing Housewife's blog. See what kind of shoe you are!

You Are Clogs

You are a solid and down to earth person. You seek – and almost always achieve – a really sound balance in your life. You are stylish yet comfortable. Mellow but driven. Excited yet calm. You are the perfect mesh of contradictions. No matter what happens, you have the ability to stay well grounded in your life. People know that they can truly depend on you. You should live: In Europe You should work: At a company dedicated to helping the world

What Kind of Shoe Are You?

Wordless Wednesday

My Out of Town Man

I want to introduce you to the man I spend my time with when I'm out of town for work. His name is Bob.

He's not the most talkative guy which is appreciated at times. And he doesn't smile very much, seems to be pretty moody. But look at those abs. He's cut! Reminds me of the husband. That's what he looks like when he takes his shirt off! Love you Hubby!

Going to eat Mexican food tonight. That's U.S. Mexican food. They say the food is better across the border but that's okay, I'll settle for mediocre mexican food. I'm good with that.

Out of Town Update

I'm still free in the state of Texas....no Mexican jail. Had several co-workers say we could go across the border but I informed them I could not. They asked why and I said, "Cause the husband said so!" So in the US I remain.

Got an update from the husband today regarding how everything is going at home. He said Miss Priss tried to escape her stall this morning when he was haying. He saw her make a dash for the door and he ran in front of her. Luckily, she stopped! I think she likes messin' with him cause she has never tried that with me. But he did doctor her leg last night and she did very well for him. I had a talk with her before I left about being good. Explained to her that the husband does not have the patience that I do and she really needed to be a good girl for him. I guess she listened. But she has to get her gigs in when she can!

And the husband is sick. Seems like the last few trips I've taken, he comes down with something while I'm gone. He's all sniffly and snotty. I told him some different medicines to take. Hopefully, he'll start feeling better soon. Poor guy.

Last thing, I have to brag on my 15 year old niece. She called me last night so excited. She won the barrel racing at the high school rodeo this weekend. She's been winning junior associations for years but this was her first high school rodeo win. So congrats to my little cowgirl!

The Husband's Home Alone

I traveled to South Texas today for work. Will be down here until Thursday. The husband was not at all looking forward to me leaving. Before Ike, he kept saying I would have to stay due to the storm. I told him I was going the opposite direction from Ike. There should be no problem with the weather. Then he made me show him on the map where I was going and how I was getting there. Now he's freakin' out that I might cross the border into Mexico. I reassured him that I had no intentions to cross the border.

He's afraid some bandito is going to get me!

I'm not going across the border cause I would be the one that gets put in the Mexican jail for reasons unbeknownst to me. That's just my luck and I'm not going to press it here.

I think he really wanted me to stay because while I'm gone, he has to feed all the animals. He made several comments about having to feed everything. So I'm thinking that was more of a reason to keep me around then the mexican bandito fear!

Hurricane Ike

I never thought living in Central Texas, I would experience a hurricane. But today, we did. Luckily, it went more to the east then origanally expected. The weather peeps had thought the eye would come pretty much over our place but that didn't happen. We just caught part of the outer bands. We've only had tropical force winds instead of category 1 hurricane winds.



Even with tropical winds, our power went out about 9am this morning. We were out trying to make a shelter for the calves in the pen. We managed to get some tarps up along the fence to cut the wind and rain. Got soakin' wet in the process. And the little turds aren't even using the shelter! Here's what they look like right now......

Now, if they would go to the other side of the pen, the wind and the rain would be blocked, but nooooo, they can't do that.

We also had to go to town this morning to pick up a cow and calf at the sale barn. By the time we reached the sale barn, the tarp on the top of our stock trailer was shredded. It was flapping down the side. So once we got there, we had to cut the remaining shreds off.

But back to the cow and calf we picked up. This is a strange story. We sold the cow back in March. The guy that bought her brought her back with a bull calf. Some guys at the sale barn recognized our cow and called the husband. Said the cow had a nice little bull calf on her side and thought we would want to know. The husband asked them to bid on her and buy her back if the price was right. He figured that it was so weird how she and the bull calf came back to us, we'd better buy them back. The cow didn't have our brand on her and the husband cut her ear tag out before we sold her. So it was just odd that she made it back to us. The bull calf is out of a bucking bull we had bred with earlier this year. The husband plans on bucking the calf towards the end of the year and see what he does. If he bucks, we'll keep him, if not, it will go back to the sale. Me, I think he'll buck. Why else would he have been brought back into our life?

Wordless Wednesday

Random-ness

The husband and I decided to have the electric company take down the security light out back. It was right in the way of where I wanted to put the round pen. We didn't anticipate how much light was actually produced! The husband called me the other morning and asked if it is still dark when I leave for work. I said yeah, but there is enough light for me to see. He said, "Well, there's not for me. I fell in a hole and ran into the whiskey barrel at the end of the sidewalk." I asked why he didn't turn the porch light on and he said he'd make sure to do that from now on!

Miss Priss is feeling much better. She is getting antsy in her stall. So over the weekend I let her out to graze in the yard. She really enjoyed it. Enjoyed it so much that she started trotting around, bucking and snortin'! I guess her back leg is healing up nicely!

Her patience is growing thin as well. She tells ya when it's feeding time and lets you know when you're too slow! Yesterday I went out to feed her and Sally. I leaned down and was dumpin' the shavings out of Sally's feed bucket and felt a splash of water hit me. Priss decided I was taking too long and pawed her water trough, splashing me with water!

This is not Priss, but she's been acting like one!

The Dangers of Grilling

I take pride in my grilling abilities. I was a Campfire girl for goodness sake! We dug holes and cooked in the ground. I love the orange glow of perfect coals. It's just my thing.

Saturday evening, I was preparing the grill to cook Boss Hog steaks. An hour prior to the husband getting home, I started the coals. Just enough time to get them nice and ready. I built my little pyramid of briquets and sprayed a little lighter fluid on the pile, lit it and let it be. I went about my business outside, burning trash, letting the horse out in the yard to graze, etc. About 30 minutes later, I checked the progress of my coals. They were not up to par, so I decided to light them up again.

I sprayed a good bit of fluid over them and lit them up again. HOLY MOTHER OF FLAME, the fireball that erupted towards my face was nothing like I'd ever seen before.

WHAT IS THAT? Singed hair drifting down into my face?? I slap my hands to my eyebrows. Please let my eyebrows be there. Yeah, eyebrows. OH CRAP, BANGS! Slapping the top of my head begins. Yep, it was the bangs! I slowly walk over to the truck and look at the after effect. I was wondering if I was going to have to wear a cap for awhile but it wasn't too horrible.

The husband got home and we ate our yummy steaks. I finally decided to tell him the story of the massive fireball that I managed to live through. I explained it like Backdraft. You don't open that door! He couldn't believe it. Then he looked closely at my hair and said "Yep, you burned it! Your hair dresser is going to be mad at you."

I managed to fix it for church this morning so it looked like nothing happened. All's well that ends well. GRILL ON! But use caution! Trust me!

Meat, Meat and More Meat!

Picked up Boss Hog today from the packers. Man, there was a lot of meat. I started to worry I was not going to have room in all the freezers!




Boss Hog sucked as a bucking bull, I hope he excels at being a good steak! Can you guess what we're having for supper?

High Water Rescue

Okay, maybe not quite a high water rescue.....more like a low tank recovery! An empty protein tub was out in the tank. I had attempted to get in a week or so back but it was too far out. This time, I was able to wrangle it in.

Alright....so these were re-enactment photos. The husband was putting out minerals when I got the tub out of the tank. He happen to see me as I was calf high in mud reeeeeaaaaaching for the tub. When I brought it back to the truck, he told he to go back to the tank and do it again. So I did but I didn't go nearly as far out the second time. You can see the mud up the side of my leg from the original attempt.

Having a blog has really changed the way we do things. I seem to always have the camera with me just in case. And I am always tellin' the husband to "hold on cause I gotta get this photo!"

Lotta Mooin' Goin' On

We've got some upset mommas and babies. They sit at the fence and cry to each other. Such a pitiful sight.

I thought I would share with ya what it's been like at my house. Take a listen..........

Yesterday evening, I got home to find two renegade mothers out of the pasture. Think they were planning a prison break for the little ones. But I caught them in the nick of time.

This morning was a lot quieter. I think they are settlin' down. We'll see what I come home to this evening. They may have been plotting this morning. Lullin' me into a false belief that they are truly coming to grips with their current situation. Hmmmmm.....sneaky suckers!

Sortin' Cattle

Early this morning, we finished the fence in the calf pen and revamped our trailer loading area. Then it was time to sort the cattle. Sorry, there are no cattle working photos. Since the husband and I are the only ones here, no time for picture taking. One of us is working the gate, while the other is pushin' the cattle.

It started off pretty well in the beginning. We managed to cut out a lot of the cows and a few calves that needed to stay together. Then we started sortin' the neighbor's cows off so we could move them back to his place. A few of them were being turds and not wanting to work for us. They had us running from one side to the other. During one "chase", I looked up and the husband was face down in the dirt. I asked if he was okay before I burst out laughing. I fell the day before walking across the backyard. Didn't see a hole and fell smooth over. The husband dogged me pretty good for it so this was just payback! Then he cornered a couple calves and one decided that was not the place to be and kicked the crap out of him. He should have known better than that and now he has a nice bruise on the back of his calf to serve as a reminder!

So now we have a pen full of crying babies and a pasture full of upset mothers. We've got some loud bellerin' days ahead of us.