Picture of the Week

This project is gonna get a whole lot easier! I'm part of a 365 group on flickr now called 365friends, it's a group of JW's who are supposed to post a picture a day for the whole year. Well, it actually started last year and maybe the majority of members did all their posting last year because since I've been on I've seen maybe 10 out of 68 current members posting!  Oh well, I'm the newbie and it's fun, I get comments and critiquing on my stuff (the compliments are the most fun though!)  And I'm meeting other witnesses all over the world.  One member who contributes some interesting stuff is in Japan and submits regular day-to-day type stuff, but that's regular day-to-day type stuff in Japan!  So it's not regular day-to-day type stuff that we see everyday.

Anyway, so I have a batch of cool stuff that I shot this week to choose from and I choose the one that got the most comments and compliments:

This is my akebia vine, I'm always anxious for this to bloom because it has the most interesting, delicate, and unusually photogenic flowers.  But doesn't smell one iota - I asked the super-sniffer to go test it out, nada.

K, tried to put the rest of last week's stuff up in little thumbnails - too much trouble to try to get them to line up nicely like I'd like.  So click on the 365 friends link above, find one of my pix (I'm suzierwilliams) and you can go to my photostream and look at the rest of my stuff.

My - OUR Kitty, Cookie!

Yeah, I know, "Idontcollectcats".  (and to your left you see a perfect example of why I don't!)  Well, I don't!  I have a few and have had a few.  That is, I have a few in decorative form and have had a few in live form.  My current pet kitty is Cookie, or "the cat formerly known as Socks".  When she was originally adopted by my daughter's best friend in 9/97 she was named Socks, for her 4 white paws.  She was adopted along with her sister whom Havalah named Gucci.  They were so tiny they both fit in one hand.

Havalah was leading a seedy life, in and out of apartments and the cats tagged along for a while.  This time, though, I believe she had no place to move to, she was being evicted and the cats would be left to fend for themselves.  Poor "Socks" was pregnant and had already lost a litter, due probably to neglect, I think she was living mostly out with a gang of kitties in the apartment complex.

"OK, I'll take the poor pregnant kitty".  So now I had 3 cats.  And a half, a neighbor cat who thought he owned our place as well as the place across the street.  Rachyl was living with me and had her 2 cats.  Then a week after I took in this poor kitty she was pregnant no more - there were 6 new kitties in the house!  And all had mommy's 4 white paws!

That makes 11 1/2 cats!

My brother had a tabby similar to Socks named Casey (or KC - "Killer Cat") and I found myself lapsing into that name, so the "K" sound got pulled into her new name, "Cookie".  Cookie was not a very friendly cat, she'd just as soon rip yer face off if you got too close.  She was a very good mother though and in spite of being an average looking tabby her 6 babies were all beautiful and easily placed when they were weaned.

As a young cat she loved to chase (and catch one daily!) birds. NO!  Bad kitty!  She also loved to chase (and as far as I know she never caught any) leaves - or bugs - or something, we couldn't always figure it out.  She just looked drunk, jumping about after nothing!  She got the nickname "Drunk Kitty" after her antics.  And when she sees a camera she always manages to pose.  Good thing, she's very photogenic.  She still occasionally brings in a mouse to play with until it finds a way down a hole in the kitchen floor into the crawl space below the house.

She was always just one of the cats, not one of the special ones since she wasn't very loving.  But when the other cats were gone and she became the alpha cat she began to enjoy the attention more.  Dane was her person more than anyone else.  She began to sleep with me and my Lucy cat when Lucy was sick and I didn't know it yet, apparently Cookie knew it.  She slept with us and when Lucy was gone she continued to sleep with me.

Enter now Rick.  Fortunate for me, Rick is also a cat lover.  And Cookie knows it.  So now, even though I'm the one who feeds her she only has eyes for Rick. 

She has done an about face over the past few years, mostly since Lucy died.  She has become very affectionate and we can even kiss her cute little kitty-haid.  She's about 12 now, moving slower, needing her nails clipped and her teeth done.

But she's learned to love.

Picture of the Week

We didn't get to go shoot anything special this week but I had so much from last weekend that I'll just put up another one of those from our Roslyn and Ronald visit.  This is a nice shot of a very obedient, patient doggy waiting for her mommy at the Brick tavern, the oldest continuously functioning tavern in Washington state.  It was featured on the TV show "Northern Exposure" in the '90's.

This coming weekend we have plans so I'll be sure to have something fresh to share next week. Seeya then!

Picture of the Week

This weekend, the first of spring, began with a bang! Saturday was an in-your-face gorgeous day. We didn't let it go to waste. We went to the mountains and went cemetery visiting! Woo hoo!

Well, we saw a lot more than the cemeteries, which I will blog later in the week. Here's a sample of another item we saw in a large degree in the small towns of Roslyn and nearby Ronald, 2 old coal mining towns just over the Snoqualmie Pass, about 80 miles east of here.

These gray, bare wood old homesteads were everywhere and are another of our favorite things to photograph.  This one I call "Set a Spell", you know "take yer shoes off - y'all come back now, y' hear?"

I have more of my shots from this weekend in our smugmug gallery already, check it out here!

Visiting Chehalis Again

Well, we went to see Rick's cousin, Melinda, last weekend and had a blast. We went to the hay farm that I put up last week's picture of the week from. They had a quite a few old barns, one was 100 years old, give or take. Unfortunately it had a lot of white plastic covering areas needing repair so we had to shoot around all that. Another barn we went to see the owls in (to no avail) was circa 1940's. They also had an interesting bridge that they had to have rebuilt that was very photographic (do you say it was photogenic if it's an inanimate object?). And horses, fields, trees, the bull, etc.

On the drive to Boistfort, though, Rick and I were chomping at the bit. There were so many interesting falling barns, silos, fences, hardware, ponds, creeks, etc. Truly a photographers' dream. We're definitely going back there a little later in the spring to get shots of some of that other stuff when we have the time and control of the vehicle so that we can "STOP!!" when we wanna!

Back at Melinda's it was the usual chaos. The little heehaws all gathered 'round Rick as he stooped down to their eye (and mouth) level. The dogs ran, herded the heehaws and chased the ball and frisbees when thrown. Sarah hasn't been out there for years and seemed to enjoy all the critter activity.

Dinner was, as usual, again, FANTASTIC. Teriyaki marinated salmon Danny caught and brought back from Alaska (I believe), a yummy salad w raspberry vinaigrette dressing and asparagus grilled on the barby beside the salmon. We ate, talked, messed with the cameras and computers and just had fun.

I was just losing my voice and headed for a pretty nasty cold that I'm just now finally over enough that I think I'll be going to meeting tomorrow.

Today we had another fun day out taking pix. We headed for Roslyn, Wa, where the 90's TV show "Northern Exposure" was filmed. One of it's main attractions is it's cemeteries. That's right - plural! There's about 8 cemeteries all packed in, one right after another!

But that's another blog.

Picture of the Week

I'm gonna have to blog this trip to Chehalis but in the meantime here's a shot from that fun day.

Rick, Sarah and I all took tons of neat stuff at Melinda's and their friends' big hay farm in a neighboring area called Boisfort. This is a bull that Rick was actually in the pen with. I kept the bull distracted while he got shots of whatever it was he was after. Turns out he LOVES the attention! He was just sucking it up. Rick, of course, had to pet him and got licked by him! Eww! Bull spit!

Picture of the Week

Last Sunday Rick found a neat history site and was reading a story about a mine fire where 37 men lost their lives. When he looked to see where this place was he discovered that it was a ghost town named Franklin that was right nearby here, at the Green River Gorge! It turned out to be a spectacular day so we grabbed our sloshing boots and headed out.

The "town" which was supposed to be only foundations at this point was even less than that. The cemetery was interesting, some of the graves were of those men (and boys) killed in that fire on August 24, 1894.  There were a few concrete structures, lots of cabling, some track for their little mine carts and some ducting for the ventilation of the mine left .  Not the most exciting artifacts but it was such a great day for a walk.

So here is a shot that I got of the trail, since that ended up being one of the most photographic parts of the whole trip:

I did some touch up work in the same program that I fixed the tree picture last week, I think it looks more artsy-fartsy, what do you think?  Oh, and most of you didn't comment on my last picture - COME ON!!! It's not that difficult, just do it!  (that would be mostly you kids o' mine!)

This coming weekend we have plans to go to Rick's cousin's place in Chehalis, the miniature donkey farm to take shots of the donkeys and border collies.  Melinda also knows of a nearby hay farm with a very picturesque 100 year old barn complete with resident barn owls that photographers visit regularly that we'll go visit as well.  So I'll definitely have new stuff to post next week - check back then!