Playing around with Photoshop

It's saturday, snowing and the fridge is full so we don't have to go anywhere.

Time to play with some photographs that are great in content but not in quality...

Let me know if you like the result!

You are also welcome to try to upgrade this photograph yourself, you can download the original file "here" and then post your edited image on your blog...

Let me know if and when you do so, I am curious what you are making of it!

:))

The original wasn't too bad, the girls face was quite okay, the horses face was too dark though.

So I tried to lighten up the horse somewhat without getting the girls face too bright.

I played some with shadows, brightness, contrast, vibrance and sharpness...

I'm gonna play with some more images and eventually post them here and my other blog.

I have a lot to learn here and the time to do it now that the holidays are just around the corner!

:))

Stay warm you all!

Sunday evening rodeo

MONDAY MORNING, it's raining a bit.

Cleo looked out earlier and went right back in.

I turned out the boys, Midas looked very happy about the rain and started walking down to the pasture right away - Indigo stood there for a while, thinking of what to think about the rain...

I took Cleo for a walk yesterday morning, through the nearby nature reserve, along with my camera.

I came home with 249 photos on my memory card...

Those were taken along the road that passes our farm... why do people do that?

We brought in our new table last night, and the chairs.

Now I have to move the lamp so it sits over the center of the big table. :))

There is more furniture outside in the shop waiting to be cleaned and polished.

I had to rest my arms and shoulders though yesterday... I sure didn't do my body a favour by sanding off that table by hand! Or is it just that I am not 20 anymore?!

We had some horsy-time last night, took them to the roundpen.

Indigo got to try a western saddle for the first time..! YEEEEEHAAAAA!

He never seemed to care about the english saddle but this "thing" was just too big and too heavy...

As soon as we were outside the stable he started to buck!

He settled down again and I was able to lead him into the round corral and turn him loose.

That's when he started to buck again, BIG TIME.

I just asked him to go forward and pretty soon he calmed down again and kept moving, still with a quite arched back.

A couple more bucks and the whole thing was pretty much over.

After about 30 minutes of some groundwork, walk, trott, canter, the world was OK again and we called it quits for the day.

:))

He looked pretty handsome with that saddle on I must say.

Sorry, no pictures though...

Maybe next time. ;-)

MONDAY MORNING, duty calls! (WHATEVER THAT IS...)

Have a nice week everyone!

:))

Wordless Sunday Post

♥

Wordless Evening Post

Loosing track of TIME

Is it a good thing to loose track of TIME, or not?

I mean loosing track of the "human made TIME".

All our precious hours, minutes, seconds. That kinda time...

If we didn't have some appointments to follow up on, if we wouldn't have a weekly TV schedule to follow ( kiddin!)...

I would really loose track of time.

I do, I did yesterday, and days before. I couldn't remember what day it was.

I really had to think to figure out what day it was...

I wonder how life was like before people had worked out calenders and framed that "thing", that "space", that " ", and called it "TIME".

I wonder how life was like when people lived by natures schedule only, when they lived from full moon to full moon, from sunrise to sunset.

I like the feeling of loosing track of "TIME" the way we know it today.

I like it when you are able to find your own rythm, your own inner "TIME".

It's within all of us, that inner "TIME", it's a rythm that we should be able to follow. Not a stupid clock that tells us when it's time to do certain things.

That rythm is different for everyone of us.

I suppose most of us are moving too fast.

I noticed it the other day when I was pushing Edith's buggy walking away from the farm.

I was not walking, I was running!

I wanted Edith to be able to fall asleep, she was very tired but it was just so much going on and she didn't want to miss anything, so we put her in the buggy and hoped for the best...

She didn't want to settle at first, not at all.

She was pulling herself up all the time to be able to look around.

She turned her head and look at me like "are you serious? I can't sleep now!

Put the thing that supports my back up, so that I can SIT!

GRRRRR! "

;-)

I wanted her to relax and thought it might help if I would lower my own energy level.

So I started to ask my body, started to listen to my inner rythm and realized that my own movements were too fast.

I had to slow down in order to get closer to my inner, natural rythm.

I had to repeat this listening several times and every time I got a little bit slower.

It took at least 15 minutes until I had found a rythm in my walking

that felt really comfortable, that felt like it was "MINE".

I checked on Edith and her eyes were closed, she was asleep. Finally.

I turned around and pushed the trolly back home, enjoying the wind touching my skin, the singing birds up in the sky and piece and quiet within me.

This kind of "TIME" is very precious to me.

The other kind of "TIME" is only "necessary".

IS IT?

What is TIME for you?

***

Here a shot I took about a week ago...

Is that one horse or two..? ;-)

Have a great day everyone!!!

*

SIESTA

It's almost 10 pm.

We had 30 degrees Celsius on the porch today, in the shade!

I started to clean out the shed (to make room for hay) this morning after turning out the horses and mucking the boxes.

I had to move slowly and be careful not to wase too much engery. It was so warm!

Even though I was able to stay in the shade, it was windless and humid.

I took a break around 11:30, went in to drink lemon-water and cool off on the sofa...

Hasi was already done with laundry chores and vacuume cleaning.

The house is equipped with one of those fantastic "built in" systems where you only have to plug the (very long) hose into the outlets in the walls... It really works perfect! Amazing power!

:))

We both ended up resting on the sofa, thinking about what to eat for lunch.

We decided to warm up leftover chicken sweet sour and I made fresh Jasmin Rice.

After lunch we landed on the sofa again - after pulling down the blinds and closing the back door, trying everything to keep the hot air from coming into the house.

Soon after that, around 1 pm, I fell asleep.

When I woke up one hour later I realized that Hasi and Cleo were gone...

I spotted Cleo on the bed in the bedroom, the door was open. She wasn't alone in there, Hasi was also taking a nap. :))

I went up and to the bathroom, felt incredibly tired and decided to take another nap.

How cool is that!?!

S I E S T A ! ! !

It was 4:30 pm when we woke up again. I slepd so well!! :))

It felt so good to rest, not just the body also the mind was resting.

I turned the horses back out, luckily it was a bit more windy and the nasty horseflies were mostly gone.

We, Hasi and I, joined forces to get finished on the shed project, around 7pm it was accomplished.

Clouds started to show up on the western sky behind the "Fjälkinge Backe" Nature Reserve.

It has cooled off quite a bit but no rain so far.

I just looked, it's 19 Deg.Cel. now on the back porch. HEAVEN!

Hasi and Cleo are out on a evening walk. It's almost dark now and they should be back soon.

It's almost 11pm now.

It's quiet in the house, the only noise i hear is my fingers tippy-tapping on the keys AND the sprinkler just outside of our yard.

The farmers are very busy with watering their corn- and potatoe fields.

The sprinklers run 24/7.

It seems to pay off though, the plants are doing great, the harvest will be rich, some cornfields are starting to turn from green into gold, a beautiful sight!

I hear Cleo's little paws coming in...

Time to get ready for bed...

Good night World!

***

Green Green Green!!!

The sky did lighten up around 1pm..!

THE

chance to take the boys for a ride!!!

It was still quite windy and that's

why they seemed to have bugbears in their heads...

They were both full of energy and looking around with big eyes,

their ears where scanning the surroundings.

I could feel the tension in Midas' body.

It took a while until they were able to settle down

and enjoy the jaunt as much as I did.

We got quite a bit of rain during the last 24 hours, the water level in the creeks is high.

The trees are growing billions of leaves

(a welcome snack for Midas and Indigo along the way..!)

whose colors are so bright, so fresh, so bold!

We went up the hill where

we took a moment to look down to the farm.

Well, I was looking, Midas and Indigo

put their snouts to the ground immediately to grab some grass...

I know, I repeat myself when I say:

I love spring!!!

...but I just don't care!

I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring!I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring!I love spring! I love spring! I love spring! I love spring!.................

:))

It is raining

Finally, after about 4 weeks of sunshine, it is raining.

It started yesterday evening, as they (the weatherforecast) had predicted.

It is a perfect soft rain, perfect for nature I mean.

The dry soil is hungry for it, takes it in slowly.

:)

Looking over to the barn I see Midas eating out in the rain, he loves it!

Indigo is more of a sunshine "person", so he is eating inside.

Missy, our cat, wanted to go outside for a while this morning...

She was back inside quite fast!

;-)

I love rain like this!

The air is so clean, it smells great outside.

The birds are sitting on the electric highwire, taking a shower and cleaning their feathers.

And nature seems to take a

peaceful nap in the silence of the falling raindrops.

Fantastic Monday everyone!

:))

*

How do you see it?

I took this picture in 2002 in Austria, or maybe it was 2003...

It has always faszinated me since.

Of course, it is a footprint of a horseshoe, that is a fact.

The question is

HOW DO YOU SEE IT ?

WHAT DO YOU SEE ?

Do you see it "deep", meaning normal,

as an imprint in the dirt,

left by a horseshoe?

Or do you see it

if the "horseshoe" would lay

ON TOP of the dirt...?

Or can you even see it both ways???

I can.

;-)

Try it for yourself!

_

New Life Everywhere

What a wonderful time of the year!

Fresh greens everywhere.

Gorgeous colors everywhere.

And new babies...

:))

I saw them in a corner of their pasture and thought:

"Great! I can get some nice horse baby shots!"

But you can see what they did

when they saw me coming closer....

HEJ DÅ!

meaning

BYE BYE!

;-))

Picture in the header

"Ales stenar"

I took this one and the picture

in the header on the coast in south Sweden.

Ale's Stones (Ales stenar in Swedish) is a megalithic monument in Scania in southern Sweden, probably from circa 600 CE, that is, the end of the Nordic Iron Age. Scanian folklore ascribes the stones to King Ale's grave. This site is significant for Scandinavian heritage studies.

Ale's Stones consist of a 67 metre long stone ship formed by 59 large boulders of sandstone, weighing up to 1.8 tonnes each.

There are more sites like that throughout Skandinavia and Europe.

picture source internet...

:)

It is truely a magical place!

*

Pixel Clutter

Cleo: "Let's go and save those branches from drowning!!"

;-)

We had a fun day!

Especially because our animals had a fun day!

:))

I have updated my photo homepage.

For those who are interested please visit:

www.justamomentpixels.com

You'll find more Cleo-swimming pictures there...

Photography is a lot of fun,

especially working with digital equipment.

But you also end up with

thousands of photos

within a relatively short time.

So you depend on good software,

which I found in iPhoto.

Others may work with different applications.

It takes a lot of time to

organize all those pictures well,

so that you easily can find

that one specific picture you have in mind...

And you want to store them all in one place, right?!

Those external hard drives fill up so quickly, don't they.

Pixel clutter!

Well, time to cuddle the dogs and then bedtime!

:))

Ordinary Wednesday...

"Slow-worm" or "Blindworm" (Blindschleiche)

I didn't know that they can reach an age of 45 to 50 !! years... WOW!

Those wild flowers (we don't have many here..) are so pretty!!!

:)

Looking forward have this tonight:

KAISERSCHMARRN

with

Vanilla Ice Cream!

A truely Austrian desert/meal...

(Photo from alpinenblog.de)

Kaiserschmarrn is a light, caramelized pancake made from a sweet batter with flour, eggs, sugar, salt and milk, baked in butter. Kaiserschmarrn can be prepared in different ways. The batter has more than the usual number of eggs. When making Kaiserschmarrn the eggwhites usually are separated from the yolk and beaten until stiff, then the flour, the yolks mixed with sugar and the other ingredients are added (raisins for ex.) The pancake is split into pieces while frying, shredded after preparation and usually sprinkled with powdered sugar, served hot with apple or plum sauce or various fruit compotes, including plum, lingonberry, strawberry, apple or vanilla ice cream. Kaiserschmarrn is eaten like a dessert, or it can also be eaten for lunch at tourist places like mountainside restaurants and taverns in the Austrian alps, like a quite filling meal.

(Text from wikipedia.com)

*

Busy

The weather is great!

Temperatures start around 10˚ C in the morning, I think if we wouldn't have wind blowing, today's high would be above the 20˚.

Yesterday we loaded our little loader onto B.'s big loader again,

went over to his other stable and cleaned it out.

It's nice work,

and B. doesn't have to do it by hand as he used to.

It's a big ("open-") stable for about 10 or 12 yearlings (trotters),

they can go in and out as they like.

They stayed there all winter

after they got seperated from the mares last fall.

:)

Back to

TODAY

Our car is in the garage again,

this time they really try to find out why it isn't starting as it used to.

I hope they find the problem (this time!!),

it isn't ok and it needs to be fixed.

The horses are grazing outside,

right behind the house.

We fenced the yard around the big stables for them.

They are always happy for a change in scenery and some extra green grass.

It's nice to watch them and they seem to enjoy our company too.

We just sat outside for a while,

had nice grilled turky sandwiches with bacon!!!

:))

Perfect!

It's time for ice cream!!!!!!!!!!!!!

;-)

Just Monday

Spring, everyone loves Spring!

We went for a short drive today, no particular destination...

Just enjoying nature and landscape from the car seat...

making a few short stops just to capture this lakeview on memory card...

and this...

and this...

AND THIS!!!

Mr. "Wily" was nice enough to stop for a few seconds

before vanishing into the forest again.

:)