Sunday Stills Challenge: Tri-color

I'm a little disappointed in myself with this challenge, as I did not venture far to get my tri-color photos. This week's challenge was to capture a shot that had at least three colors in it. I tried to keep my eyes peeled during the week for some interesting subjects, but kept going back to the planters on my porch.

I'm addicted to coleus and each year I have to include it in at least one container. Well, this year, I have included it in four. I can't help it! I'm drawn to it like a moth to a flame...like a mouse to cheese...like Caleb and Cabela to a steamin' pile of horse...never mind. You get the picture.

I just love the texture that coleus adds. They don't flower (well, at least you don't want them to if you want 'em nice and bushy) but this is one plant that doesn't need to flower in order to stand out!

Of course, I still do have to include some flowers and for hanging baskets, I just love begonias. My next favorite thing is this chartreuse green sweet potato vine...also a must for my summer containers. It has a spot in eight of my containers this year! Hey, when I like something, I stick with it! :)

Periwinkle blue lobelia adds a nice contrast against the green and white and peeking through in the back are some fuschias.

Hopefully I'll venture farther than my front porch for next week's challenge! ;) We'll see!

Wacky Weimy Wednesday: Life's Rough

Another tough, tough day in the life of a Weimaraner...

It must be exhausting. ;)

I HAVE AN ARENA!!

YESSSSS!!!!! Finally, my dream has come to fruition! Actually, it really hasn't been that long that I've been waiting for this, since I just got Caspian less than a year ago, but you know when you have a project that's just totally nagging at you? Well, this is just one on my list of many, but having this done (for the most part) is such a huge thing checked off my list!

May I now present...the evolution of my "mini arena".

When I had the opportunity to adopt Caspian last September, I had to immediately start planning out how I was going to contain him (at least temporarily). Then I had to execute this plan quickly...I certainly didn't want anyone else to snatch this guy up! At the time, we didn't have any fencing up. As I mulled over different ideas in my head, I eventually decided that I would build an enclosure on the flattest part of our property to contain him, with the thought being that I could add onto it (which I did) and that eventually when all of our fencing was installed, I could turn this enclosure into a riding area. It's about 60'x80'...not as big as a standard arena, but definitely big enough to get some good exercise in.

I worked my bootie off for two weeks straight getting posts set and preparing the area for the arrival of my dream horse. Unfortunately, the compost mulch that had been dumped in this area for my yard projects had to stay, as I wasn't quite ready to put it to use yet. I would have been, but my motivation to finish my yard projects got a bit interrupted when this guy came into the picture. Go figure. ;) Still, I knew that by spring I would be ready to use it (which I now am, thank you very much). It was a pain to have in there, though, because it was pretty much smack dab in the middle and the other side of the arena was completely uneven...not the best terrain for working with a green horse!

I knew I just had to be patient, though...the potential was there. In March, I started working on attaching treated lumber to the posts so that we would have somthing to bring the fill up to. This lumber will also help contain the footing. The plan was to have an excavator get started on it in April, along with some other work around our house.

Kritter Keeper, you're gonna feel my pain on this one...

We needed quite a bit of excavating work, as we wanted to remove some scraggly trees and extend our usable property a little bit, providing for more pasture space. We also needed to get our yard leveled out so that we could start installing sprinklers and our lawn (finally...now that we're in the third summer of living here!).

I ended up contracting a guy (who was licensed and bonded) to get started on the work. Well, it turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. The only thing that he was able to do was the tree removal, because THIS is the only machine that the ding dong brought to do the job:

Turns out that contrary to what he initially alluded to, this is the only machine he owns. Um yeah...perfect for demolition; removing trees, stumps, piling brush, etc. BUT HOW IN THE WORLD DID HE THINK HE COULD GROOM A RIDING ARENA AND FUTURE LAWN AREA WITH THIS THING?! Seriously?! The tracks left huge marks all over our pasture. The area that he cleared that he was supposed to get all nice and smooth is totally uneven and torn up. Not to mention there are huge brush piles left over because he could not figure out that he should pile them loosely along the bank and burn them. Instead he tried to start them on fire in huge piles full of dirt...amazingly, he didn't have much luck. Gee, I wonder why. Although, he did manage to singe one of my cedar trees in the process. Nice.

On top of all that, it was supposed to be him and another guy working for the rate I agreed to. Well, apparently, the "other guy" happened to be sick that week. Then he didn't understand why I didn't feel right about paying him the same rate. Argh...he was so dishonest. Whatever. Ugh...I can't even stand to think about this anymore.

The GOOD thing that came out of this is that my awesome friend Patches came to my rescue and offered up the services of her dirt workin' boyfriend, who just happens to have a nice, big tractor that was perfect for the work that needed to be done in the yard and arena.

Here's another "before picture" to give you an idea of what the area looked like, prior to being leveled out. And to give you an idea of the resourcefulness of my chow-hound. ;)

Another "before" picture.

Here's a "before" of the back of the arena, where the ground also needed to be built up in order to "flow". Here, I had started tractoring dirt over with our small tractor, but as you can see, there was still a lot to build up!

Here it is after the "rock star dirt workin' boyfriend" tractored over buckets and buckets of dirt that came off of our yard when he was leveling it. Kinda hard to tell in this picture, but it made a HUGE difference!

Here it is, starting to look like an arena.

Now, are you ready for the finished product? Can you handle it?

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

TA DA!!!!!!!!!! Woo hoo!!!!!!! Yipee!!!!!!

HOLY MOLY!! Can you believe how amazing this looks? It even got the approval from Kuntry Boy who was in town for a whole day yesterday. And that's a tough one...he's a picky guy! I totally can't stop looking at it...I check it out in the morning on my way to feed Caspian, check it out after work...I'm SO stoked.
I will still need to bring in footing, which probably won't happen until next year. In the meantime, I'm going to get a drag harrow so I can keep the area groomed. Thankfully, the native dirt in this area is virtually rock free and actually provides a pretty good surface, so this will definitely be a great area for getting some good training time in with Caspian.

This coming Tuesday, I have a trainer coming up to get started with us and I can't wait! I'm sure Caspian will have plenty to say about this on his blog...stay tuned! ;)

Wacky Weimy Wednesday:Thunderstorm!

Well, today I finally got my thunderstorm....and it came in with a bang! Ha, ha, ha...pun totally intended there! ;) Being in the foothills, we can really get some doozies and today did not disappoint! It started out pretty harmless, with low rumblings off in the distance...but pretty soon after, the sky totally opened up and Mother Nature unleashed one whoppin' storm. She must've heard me complaining lately about the lack of summer thunderstorms 'cause she made up for it today! With our elevation, it's not uncommon for us to be at the center of the storm, which means lightening striking very close and huge claps of thunder rattling the windowpanes. You know when you were younger and counted one onethousand after you saw lightening to determine how close the storm was? Well, there was no counting today. It was simultaneous. Lightening and thunder cracking and crashing all around us. Although I do get a little nervous with lightening, I was still enjoying the crazy weather for a little bit. Especially since these storms usually pass over us fairly quickly...but not today! This one stuck around for awhile and the severity of it didn't let up much the whole time. I could feel the thunder cracks in my chest. Sometimes during a storm like this, my throat will feel constricted, I guess maybe from the static electricity, but that didn't happen today (which was good). ;)

One person (or canine) not digging this storm was Cabela. It's funny, she's usually not affected by thunder, but today she was not a happy camper. We were hanging out watching the storm from the windows when I suddenly noticed she wasn't with us. I found the poor little gal huddled in our closet shaking like a leaf! :( I couldn't coax her out, even with offers of treats! (Please excuse the laundry on the floor...my washer's been broken for the last two weeks! Finally got fixed today, thank goodness! Not that I don't ever have laundry on the floor when it's working...but at least right now I have an excuse!)

Anyway, I finally was able to get her out, but it called for drastic measures. I followed typical protocol for Weimy manipulation and went to the pantry and rustled a chip bag. Pretty soon, her little head was poking out of the bedroom...gotcha! She definitely was not the same dog though until the storm had completely passed. You know something's wrong when Cabela refuses treats!

Here are a few more pics from our crazy weather afternoon/evening...

The trenches that we've been working on for our sprinkler system are now filled with water and silt run-off...perfect!

Downspout drains were overflowing...
Our front yard water feature was "flash flooded"!
Here's a closer look...the flagstone at the bottom of the waterfall was completely submerged within 10 minutes!

Our (once) nice, smooth front yard now has rivers running through it, leaving behind ribbons of silt where it was covered with nice compost.

Caspian was unfazed by the storm, staying cozy in his newly painted "mini barn".

This storm left a little bit of an aftermath, but I was actually glad to get this dousing of rain...after all, it's how we stay so green around here! I've always said that there's no sprinkler system on Earth that's any match for God's! I love how everything just seems so revived after a good, soaking rain like this. But now I'm ready for more sun! :)

Singin' in the rain,

Sunday Stills: Silhouettes

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was silhouettes. I had a bit of a hard time with this one! I thought it would be really fun, but this is the only picture that I took specifially for it that I thought turned out okay.

Hay bales in a field (one of my favorite sights).

I had a lot of ideas for shots I wanted to take, but my schedule and the weather conditions didn't cooperate with me this week! I had planned to go out and take a lot of pics tonight, but instead of sun to work with I had rain! Shoot! ;)

So, I went back to the archives for these next photos. I'm actually excited to get the opportunity to share them, though, becuase I really do love the way a lot of them turned out. I feel like I'm cheating a little though...these were all taken in Hawaii and I don't think it's possible to take a bad photo there!

In this one, I like how the palm trunks and frond are silhouetted, but also I think the cloud silhouette is the coolest part...someone nearby mentioned that it looked like a cruise ship...totally!

Rocks silhouetted and if you look close in the lower left hand area...a tourist's head silhouetted! ;)

More tourists.

More rock and tree silhouettes.

Okay, so I know this one and the one above look really similar, but I couldn't decide which one I liked better...so you get both.

Here we have Kuntry Boy making an appearance on my blog! I really loved these cool trees and was trying to get some silhouette shots of them...he just got in the way. ;) But then I liked the way it looked with him looking out over the water.

Like I said, is it possible to get a bad pic in Hawaii? I mean, you could run around with your eyes closed, randomly pointing your camera in various directions and end up with a memory card full of money shots. Seriously.

Man...is anyone else feelin' ready for a vacation now? ;) I sure am!

Skywatch Friday No. 47: Stormin' Norman

Tell ya what, us Washington folk sure do get excited for a good summer storm. And I'm no exception. In fact, for the last few weeks, I've been hoping for a good thunderstorm. Or even just an electrical storm (at a safe distance...I'm a little afraid of lightening). Or at least some kind of funky summery storm. Preferably one without rain...we get enough of that. So far, though, I've been outta luck.

That is, until yesterday evening. The day started out pretty normal, but you could definitely feel the pressure building throughout the day. It was hot, hot, hot (at least for around here)...I think the bank sign I saw said 95 degrees. Pretty unusual for this time of year. Actually, pretty unusual period. We generally have a pretty temperate climate and in my opinion, our summer weather is pretty perfect. Usually 70s & 80s.

In addition to being so hot, it was hu-mid! I was certainly not complaining though. You will never hear me complain about hot weather. Not after the kind of winters we've been having!

As the early evening approached and the sky started looking like this, I thought for certain that I was gonna get my storm. Well, I didn't get any thunder, but we did get some major "weirdness". It began around 7, I believe. I was outside finishing up some chores when all of a sudden something changed. You know when you can just feel it in your guts? In the pit of your stomach and the hollows of your chest? When the air even smells different all of a sudden? That's what it was like. And I was totally diggin' it.

Pretty soon, the wind was a whippin' and the dust was a flyin'! It's kinda hard to really tell in these pictures, but the trees were being blown everywhere! In the woods behind us, I could hear limbs snapping and trunks creaking. My horse was running around and the dogs were whining. I stood outside with the hot wind swirling around me, soaking it all in (and taking pictures, of course). Total craziness...at least for Washington! ;)

Pretty soon though, it was all over. And no thunder. Darn it! ;) Maybe next time.

Here's the moon poking out after things settled down.

Check out Skywatch Friday for more awesome sky pics from all over the world...I'm gonna go see if I can find some other people's storm pics!

'Till next time!