Mighty always looks so dignified. Lets see if we can take care of that.
By catching her in mid-yawn…
Or in the middle of a good shake!
Well, she can’t help it if she’s naturally beautiful.
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Category: mighty
Good news, and a new lens!
I got good news on Friday! My boss said they’re going to hire me on permanently before the month is out 
This is awesome news, because I really like the place I’m working at, I like my co-workers, and I’ve been working my fanny off to absorb every bit of info they’ve thrown at me, hoping to prove myself worthy to step up from being a temp. I had a feeling I was a shoe-in all along, but it’s good to know it’s for sure now! I’m still getting used to having so much less time at home, but Dave is keeping after the household chores so I don’t have to, so that makes it all easier.
I do feel a bit like I’ve traded work for just about everything else I enjoy, so I decided to reward myself with a little treat. I felt there was a gap in my lens kit for my Nikon D50 DSLR. I have a nice Nikkor 28-80mm f3.3-3.5, which takes very sharp pictures in the ‘kit lens’ range. I have my Tamron 18-200mm 3.5-6.3 zoom which is a nice all around zoom. Not as sharp as the ‘kit’ lens, but very nice and it has a nice reach. But I wanted one more lens for portraits, one that would work well in low light, and one that would have a wide aperture to get that lovely blurry background that makes the subject pop out. After much research I chose the Nikkor 35mm f1.8 – and I have been watching them come and go on Craigslist for months. This morning I went and met a guy who had one for sale and handed over the cash.
I was not disappointed.
This was before I discovered I had a setting on my camera that had it stopped down two steps in Aperture Priority mode. Still, the sharpness is there.
I love the whispy hair and the detail around the eyes in this shot. It looks much better to get the nose at an angle in line with the eyes, compared to the next shot!
Because the focal depth is so shallow, I have to be careful to control where the camera focuses – or I’ll just get a sharp nose! (Which is kind of cute, in it’s own way…)
The eyes have it…
Not having a zoom takes a little getting used to – I had to get right in the animals’ faces to get the shot framed. Navi wasn’t willing to stand still for it – she hardly ever stands still anyway! Cats are good subjects for this though!
Mouse
Mighty
Mighty
I’m pretty blown away by the quality of shots I’m getting from this lens. It just goes to show, even with an older DSLR, lenses make all the difference. I think I’m going to be happy with this setup for quite a while.
One other thing, the guy who sold me the lens was really nice and recommended a photography book he thought was really good, The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby. I checked out the reviews and saw it was only $9 for the electronic format, and bought it. It’s full of good tips and tricks for getting the most out of your DSLR! Hey, for $9 – if it helps me get a few photos here and there I might have otherwise missed, it’s totally worth it.
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Dogs & Cats
Navi & Mighty, to be exact – my most co-operative models!
With my new understanding of exposure/aperture settings, I decided to set up the studio for a bit more practice. Navi was first up on the stool since she recalled getting lots of cookies there!
I WISH this shot had not been blurry – it would have been awesome!
Later I caught a few shots of Mighty on my desk. This gave me a chance to play with exposure, and since she doesn’t move much (unlike the dogs, who can’t hold still), I could do some longer exposures on her (since the room was dim) and still get sharp pictures.
I used f/4.2 on this one and focused on the eyes to make the face sharp and the paws and body soft.
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Barclay and the bird
This morning the dogs alerted us to something exciting going on outside, and we looked out in the backyard to see Mighty slinking past the back door with a freshly caught bird in her mouth – one of those little purple swallows. Bad cat! We thought she was taking it to go eat it, but a few minutes later Barclay went trotting by with the bird in HIS mouth! Apparently the cat had brought it into the dog run, and Barclay took it.
So now Mr B was running around the house with a bird sticking out of his mouth. We conered him after a short chase, and I took him to the bathroom where we could discuss this without the other dogs involved. Dave brought in the best treat we had to offer – sandwich meat.
He held a big wad of sandwich meat in front of Barclay and said ‘Ok, Barclay, drop it and you can have this. Who wants some lunchmeat?’ and as if to say ‘I do!’ Barclay snatched the meat out of his hand – WITHOUT DROPPING THE BIRD! So now Barclay had a mouth full of lunchmeat and bird (which he was pretty happy about) Dave was standing there shocked and lucky to still have all his fingers, and I was laughing so hard I about fell over! Luckily when Dave offered him the rest of the lunchmeat, Barclay went ahead and dropped the bird so he could eat, and we snatched it away. Poor bird! But I’ll never forget Barclay snapping away that lunchmeat without giving up the prize he already had in his mouth – what a determined pup!
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Lap dance
There, that title should get some hits 😉
Dave came in from mowing and sat down in the office, and immediately Mighty took up residence on his leg. Soon Navi jumped up in his lap, even though lap capacity is really only 1 max!
But that was ok, she just sat ON the cat!
So they re-arranged a bit (Dave looks thrilled)…
Hang on, we’ve almost got it…
Purrfect!
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Cold rainy spring day – with chickens
We had a beautiful day a couple days ago. We can sit around wistfully remembering the sun and the warmth, because now it’s all grey skies and rainstorms blowing through again! When is spring coming?! I spent a bit of time outside taking pictures of the chickens today, until the rain drove me (and the chickens) back indoors.
My ‘feed store’ chickies are off the heatlamp and have joined the rest of the flock. They can choose between hanging out in the shed or coming out to join the other birds, and they have been getting braver everyday about coming out.
The hens don’t seem to mind them at all, despite the difference in size. I haven’t seen anyone getting bullied.
Such a pretty bunch of birds!
Mama hen takes her six remaining chickies out on adventures in the tall grass of the chicken run.
Life is a big adventure for these guys
Mama points out a piece of squash!
Then she does a little digging…
And the chicks look for any goodies she may have kicked up.
When a breeze picks up and the rain starts sprinkling, Mam hen fluffs up and calls her chicks under her.
Like little kids, they can’t sit still, one pops out, then goes back under…
Then a different one peeks out
I guess it’s kind of crowded with six chicks under there.
When the rain really starts coming down, the whole flock heads for the coop. But hey, what’s that in the middle…
It’s orange, but it’s not a chicken!
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Fun with my new Camera
I’m starting out playing around with the ‘kit’ lens – a 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 G, which is supposed to be a pretty good lens. I’m still figuring out what all the settings on the camera do, but I’m hoping to have enough of a grip on it to try and take a shot of the sky tonight – if it’s clear.
For now I just practiced on whatever critters out in the yard would hold still for a minute:
Barclay
Navi
Mighty
And the evil 3 Musketeers – I just had to make sure they didn’t spit on my camera while I was concentrating on getting the shot.
These were all taken with a fence between me and them!
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Navi, settling in
Navi & Barclay cleaning up where the chicken tractor was
Today I moved the chicken tractors out in the field next to the garden. I did that because Navi has been running laps around the chick’s tractor, and I thought that was cruel for the chicks, because they are surprised to see her every lap around – it’s like ‘she’s gone’ immediately followed by ‘aargh, she’s back’ – over and over and over.
While moving them the little roo who looks like he was made of spare parts snuck out and ran away, and before I could catch him he found a hole to get into the big chicken area. That was bad news for him, because I couldn’t get him back in the tall grass, and the big chickens were going to kick his little feathered butt, so there wasn’t anything I could do about it. So I went on about my chores, and an hour later I was out there with the dogs when suddenly I heard a commotion and here’s that little rooster back out of the chicken yard, and racing across the backyard with three dogs after him! I caught up just as Barclay and Navi pinned him and picked him up and snuggled him high against my chest – high, because Navi will jump high, springing up to snap at and try and grab him! I kept blocking her with my leg until she gave up and sat, but she could barely control herself. I finally was able to walk him to the tractor and reunite him with his flock.
She is still getting the hang of the cats as well. Sometimes she pounces on them and chases them if they run, sometimes the other two start it. I’m keeping a close eye on all of them.
She’s quite athletic, and can jump up on the crates. I put a piece of plywood on top of her big crate so I can put her food up there when the crate is open and she can jump up there and eat.
She’s an absolute doll! What a cutie 🙂 Yesterday she had a vet visit and the vet gave her a vaccination that upset her stomach all night. Poor pup puked and puked, and then collapsed on our bed. She was so pitiful we let her sleep there all night instead of in her crate. This morning she was feeling much better.
It’s taking some getting used to for everyone. Barclay is being such a good boy. He’s really tired from all the playing, and I’ve been trying to give him special attention as well. I felt like Barclay and I had a special one-on-one relationship before Navi showed up, and I’d like to keep that as much as possible. She’s got so much training to work on, it’s easy to forget there’s still more work to do with Barclay too. I don’t want his training to stall just because I have a new student who needs more work!
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Just another morning
What a beautiful morning! The sun is shining..
The birds are singing…
The flowers are blooming!
The rain has made our backyard like a jungle. A jungle Barclay would love to explore, but I’m trying to teach him to stay on the other side of the fence, even though he is an expert at finding places he can fit through. Here he is looking at me through one of those spots. He can squeeze right through there, and probably would as soon as I turn my back!
The cats will sit for hours staring at a clump of grass, waiting to catch a field mouse. But once it’s dead they lose interest and leave it in the yard…
Ugh! Bad kitties…
It was such a beautiful morning I let mama hen bring her chicks out of the tractor to explore the yard. I’m confident she’ll take good care of them. She’s very watchful.
Chicks go exploring
This morning I took the front off the brooder box and let the chicks out to play.
Grass! Under my feet! What’s a bird to do?!
Since I’m going to keep some of these chicks, I decided to go ahead and introduce them to the rest of the flock by letting everyone out into the backyard, which is not anybody’s territory, so they could meet on even ground. It seems to have worked great.
Big chickens and little chickens, all pecking around and hunting for scratch. I didn’t see anyone getting picked on. The chicks stayed close to their shed while the adults wandered farther out into the back yard looking for bugs.
The cat was on guard for a while, but then she fell asleep. The rooster is not impressed with her work ethic!
Soon the dogs were sunbathing too, soaking up the warm sun 🙂
And the cat had to move to a shadier spot.
Just a beautiful day. One of those that makes me so happy to live in the country.
Steff Does Stuff! 