From Sunrise to Sunset, Nothing But Dogs!

I recently finished up a marathon stretch of dog-sitting gigs. As of Monday, I had been looking after either Sweetheart or Mr. Gorgeous for 17 out of the last 22 days. That's a lot of dog-sitting! And of course, that means a lot of dog photos.

Happy-go-lucky Sweetheart!

She continues to practice the philosophy that two toys are better than one. Here she experiments with the idea that three toys played with together are even better than two!

She was in the mood to chew, so I got her this rope bone to work on. She went at it with gusto, as is her approach to all things!

Sweetheart is a very handsome German Shepherd!

I transitioned straight from Sweetheart's house to Mr. Gorgeous', so I took Sweetheart along with me when I transferred some of my belongings and fed Mr. Gorgeous his dinner before finishing up at Sweetheart's house. Dusk was falling and I only took along my point-and-shoot, so this is the only picture of their meeting that turned out. Of course, this IS how dogs get to know each other!

The collie introduces himself to the German Shepherd in traditional canine fashion.

I spent a few days with Mr. Gorgeous and then went back to my house for a quick breather...

Mr. Gorgeous, resplendent in all his fur, indulges in a bit of sport.

...and then it was back to the collie's house again!

This is why I have given him the pseudonym "Mr. Gorgeous."

Pensive collie.

Action collie!

It was while I was at Mr. Gorgeous' lakefront house that I had a great view of all the weather. The first few days, the view looked a lot like this:

Rain obscures the opposite shore of the lake.

But then cold, clear weather moved in. I already highlighted one exceptionally beautiful morning in my previous post, but there were many more wonderful sunrises and sunsets. Unfortunately, part of the beauty of the sunsets is caused by poor air quality, as the high pressure system sits unmoving atop the pollution produced by people burning wood. But that aside, it was wonderful to watch the skies over the glassy lake!

Delicately tinted clouds at dawn.

On this evening, skies were clear over downtown Seattle while dark clouds brooded low over Mr. Gorgeous' house.

Those dark clouds soon produced a torrent of hail that was lit gold by the setting sun.

A low bank of purply clouds provided the perfect canvas for a sunset of radiant pinks touched with orange.

An utterly still day on the lake.

Another intense sunset, which morphed from orange to pink to this smoldering red, provides a dramatic backdrop for a bare tree.

While I was out and about with Sweetheart and Mr. Gorgeous, I also encountered some other great dogs. I didn't have my camera along (it was already too dark for taking pictures) on the evening when Mr. Gorgeous encountered a 10-month-old Rhodesian Ridgeback girl and engaged in a lovely bit of flirtatious play, but I managed to snap a few pictures of other dogs.

I was utterly delighted with this bulldog; Sweetheart was less delighted with this bulldog's companion, who used her dense bulldog bulk to say hello with a body slam!

This fellow is a regular at the park where I often take Mr. Gorgeous for a walk.

And where was my own dog all this time? At home, feeling rather stressed. She usually waits patiently in a resigned fashion for me to return when I'm off dog-sitting, but the length of my stay away, coupled with the fact that I'd been sick in bed for two months prior AND that she had a yellow dog to look after proved to be a bit much. Her yellow dog is a squeaky toy that she received for Christmas that she has taken to treating like a puppy. Unfortunately, she finds caring for a puppy, especially when I'm away, a worrisome burden. When I came home to visit, she would restlessly carry the yellow dog around in her mouth while softly crying. In the end, we had to put the yellow dog away in the cupboard so she wouldn't have to worry about it so much.

Abbey and her "puppy."

She didn't want to chew up her rawhide stick, either, carrying it around and whimpering during one of my visits.

I'm glad to report that now that I'm back home, Abbey has returned to her relaxed and playful self. As I write this, she is sleeping soundly on the pillow here in my study. While I'm excited to meet with a new client next week, I'm glad to be back home with only my own dog (and some dog art) to contend with for the time being!

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Winter Morning on the Lake

The view of the lake from Mr. Gorgeous' house is lovely in any weather, but the world I saw when I rose this morning was the most beautiful I've ever witnessed there.

The temperature had dropped below freezing overnight and thick frost covered the grass and trees. 

As the early morning sun touched the lake, fog began to rise off the water.

As the fog rose in the frigid air, it froze and fell again as tiny flakes of snow.

I fumbled for my camera--too late--to photograph a trumpeter swan winging through the mist.

It was a sight so exquisite that I kept vigil at the window for two hours, camera at the ready, should the swan see fit to fly by again.

A flock of crows rent the morning with their caws...

...goldeneyes took flight...

...mergansers tipped their crested heads below the water...

...and Canada geese came ashore to feed upon the frozen grass, but nary a swan passed through the morning mist. 

Rather abruptly at 11:00 the frost began to thaw, so I took my camera out into the chilly air to capture images of the ephemeral frozen world while they still lasted.

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Blue Skies, A Beautiful Collie & Blooming Trees

Mr. Gorgeous greets me at my car door when I arrive.

This week finds me recovering from a busy and beautiful three days with my collie buddy. We finally--FINALLY--had some sunny weather and it even got into the 60's on Saturday!

Sugar, an expert wader who hasn't learned to
swim yet, ponders the watery gulf that lies
between her and her stick.

First off, we must of course talk about dogs. Mr. Gorgeous was his usual good-looking and ever-so-slightly stubborn self, insisting on laying in the wet new bark as well as wading straight into the water at the park despite promising that he only wanted off-leash to play with another dog. To be fair, that other dog, a young cutie named Sugar, had been fetching sticks in the water, but she would have happily played with him on dry land if he'd been cooperative!

Frolicking Finley.

Sugar may have been sweet, but she had nothing on Finley, a hilarious Havanese we met at another park. Finley was the embodiment of joy in canine form: jolly, frisky, light-hearted, and playful. I don't often stand around and laugh and laugh with delight while watching a dog frolic in the park, but that was the magic of merry little Finley!

A few photo of His Handsomeness in action...

Mr. Gorgeous goes wading.

Enjoying the rawhide stick I gave him on a sunny afternoon.

Dogs weren't the only animals on the agenda. There's a resident pair of bald eagles that live at the park where we met Finley, which is just down the road from Mr. Gorgeous' house. I sometimes see them and rather more frequently hear them when we're at his place, but it's never worked out for me to photograph them. When an eagle started making a ruckus (they have a sort of stuttering shriek that's a little like the sound of a persistently crying seagull) and I spied it in a tree in the yard next door, I grabbed my camera and went outside. The eagle was gone, but I waited to see if it would return, and was rewarded by the sight of a pair of adolescent bald eagles (they have dark, mottled plumage without the signature white heads and tails) circling and calling to each other over the house. I was thrilled to get both of them in a single photo!

Juvenile bald eagles!

On the other end of the size spectrum, I also had a good time photographing ants. I must confess to having a considerable fondness for them and I'd been idly watching them scurry over the stone-slab bridge where I was sitting enjoying the sunshine when I realized that my macro lens had the magnification to make ant photography possible. The hard part is that the ants move so darn fast, making it difficult to focus on them! This one turned out rather nice.

Hello, ant.

There were also some lovely sky photos to be had during my stay with Mr. Gorgeous. Overall, the weather was sunny, but there were scattered showers and the scattered clouds from which they fell, and the vistas afforded by the lakeside house and neighboring parks are perfect for snapping sky shots, especially when tinged with the colors of sunset!

A rare thunderstorm builds up behind the towers of Seattle.

Delicate pastel layers at sundown.

But from a photographic standpoint, the highlight of my three-day stay with Mr. Gorgeous was the opportunity to get pictures of the blooming spring trees in the sunshine! The cherries and saucer, star, and Kobus magnolias are all in bloom at last! The photos below are just a taste; the full macro feast will be visible on my c.creativity Facebook page in the next few days once I get my images sorted!

A large flowering cherry tree at sunset.

Looking up through a kobus magnolia.

Blue skies and saucer magnolia flowers!

I'm pretty worn out, so it will take a little while, but I'm really hoping to have lots of beautiful spring photos available to view online very soon and some new listings on Etsy to follow!

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My Weekend with Animals

Mr. Gorgeous was one of many beasts on my agenda!

I just wrapped up a busy four-day weekend that resulted in lots of animal photos! It started with my final horsemanship class and a photo-tour of the other animals that live at the park and ended with several sunny days at the home of my collie friend, Mr. Gorgeous. I took more than four hundred "artistic" photos during those four days that I have yet to go through, but here are the ones from my weekend involving animals!

There's something very nice about horse eyes.

Lacey preferred her friend to me.

So Thursday found me once again trying to convince Lacey to do things that she did not want to do. This started right from the moment I went to get her from the paddock where she had just finished lunch and was standing in the sunshine with another horse. They were affectionately nibbling on each other's necks and Lacey found this activity much more to her liking than the one I suggested when I showed up and put her halter on. She voted with her feet, as they say: in this case, she planted them and wouldn't move. It took me a while to figure out how to get her going! I was rather surprised, then, when she showed an inclination to trot when we experimented with an increased tempo toward the end of class! Walk? Not so much. Turn? Only if the horse in front of me is turning. Trot? Yes! I must confess to be rather eager to ride a different horse. Lacey really tested my skills in the realm of equine persuasion (and my ability to not become frustrated when she resisted my efforts) and I would like a chance to get on a horse that walks and turns willingly! However, before any more trotting goes on, I will need to build up a great deal more knee-clenching ability. After Thursday's class, I have an good idea where each and every one of those muscles are!

Despite Lacey being a bit of a disappointment in the forward motion department, I still had a wonderful time in Horsemanship 101. She may not have wanted to walk, but she wasn't mean and she clearly enjoyed her grooming sessions nearly as much as I did! I am definitely going to keep hanging out with and learning more about horses. I'm currently in the process of lining up my next set of lessons and hopefully it won't be long before I have more horse news and horse photos! (Click here to read more about my experiment with equine therapy.)

Happy on horseback!

Pig snout!

The city park where Lacey lives also has a number of other farm animals, so after my lesson, I did a tour of the enclosures to photograph the inhabitants. I was quite taken by the snouts of both the mini pig and the big pig. They are truly strange and amazing things, far different in person than one's mental notion of a pig snout, so much more moist and flexible and hairy! I took quite a few pictures trying to perfectly capture the mini pig's schnoz. I also enjoyed photographing the chickens. I'm not into chickens. They're a big thing now, of course, but they don't do anything for me as pets/livestock. If I were to have any urban farm animals, I'd go with pygmy goats. I find goats tremendously charming. Chickens? Not so much. But taking pictures of the chickens was fun, especially since they had some of the showier breeds in the flock, and the rooster was downright handsome.

Golden Polish chicken.

A silkie, I think, though lacking the typical bushy topknot.

Silver-Laced Wyandotte rooster

Speaking of handsome...

So good-looking!

Spring sunshine at last!

Once I was done photographing the farm animals, it was back to Mr. Gorgeous' house, where I was engaged through Sunday. After weeks and weeks of abysmal weather, the wind died down and the sun finally came out. In between photographing practically every square inch of my canine host's yard (okay, that's an exaggeration, but I took full advantage of the sunlight illuminating the interesting landscaping!), I also took His Handsomeness on after-dinner walks at various nearby parks and collected a number of pretty evening sky photos. Oh, and I took 38 pictures of Mr. Gorgeous himself. It was quite the camera-happy weekend!

Beautiful sunny days at Mr. Gorgeous' house...

...were followed by beautiful sunsets.

A coot convention that assembled near the dock.

Mr. Gorgeous, his silken tresses spread out on the grass around him,
keeps me company while I take pictures on his property.

A sliver of moon hanging over the sunset, as seen from the back deck.

Mr. Gorgeous, who turns ten next month, has started to slow down a bit.
He spent much more time sleeping this weekend than he has on visits past,
though you might argue that a dog this large and this handsome would
need a great deal of beauty sleep to keep up the good looks!

My exertions have left me quite exhausted, so it will be several more days before the many macro photos I took are fully sorted. Hopefully, they'll be finding their way into albums on my c.creativity Facebook page and into listings soon! Also, there's more to come on the mental health front in this blog this week (I hope). I always intend to do work when I'm at Mr. Gorgeous' house, but I end up just relaxing, taking pictures, admiring the view, watching animal shows on TV, and, of course, looking after my favorite collie. It's good to have a break from one's routine and usual responsibilities ever now and then!

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