A Patriotic Sunset

I couldn't help but notice the colors of the flag in the beautiful sunset that I captured last night from our front porch, so I named it, "A Patriotic Sunset."  Thank you to all who have served the military in any capacity and fought for the freedom that we enjoy!

Spoiled pets and a dramatic sunset!

Our horse and miniature donkeys are downright SPOILED!!!  Every morning my husband gives them a treat so you can be sure they are waiting every morning for him at the fence looking towards our house!  So when I go out to spend some time with them; as at this time with my camera, the donkeys are expecting a treat from me too and could care less about anything else, but my horse Ace is satisfied with any attention that I give him.  He's such a sweet horse!  The images below show how they looked during my visit with them on a nice evening at The Ranch.  The last image of Emmy Lou shows her ears laid back.  I noticed she would lay her ears back while the camera made a clicking sound.  I also included a dramatic sunset image that I recently noticed one evening then quickly grabbed the camera and took a picture from my porch before it was gone.  Enjoy!

Friendly horses

During my nature photo excursion the other day I first stopped by to visit my horse friends who were eager to see me. If you've noticed, I've been somewhat enamored with getting closeup horse eye images, and this time was not an exception.  The following images of my horse friends are shown below for your viewing pleasure.  Enjoy!

The beauty of autumn and an awesome sunset!

It was one of those times I needed a break from several projects I was working on to treat myself to a nature photo session. I grabbed the camera, jumped in the truck and drove around our property capturing the beauty of autumn. I was so excited that I failed to check my camera battery and before the sun started to set, the battery died.  I knew there was going to be a beautiful sunset so I drove as fast as I could to get another battery.  I have included images of the sunset along with a winding road photo, images of smooth sumac and dried goldenrod. By the way, the sunset images have not been altered--the images are exactly how the sunset looked. Enjoy God's beautiful handiwork!

Crazy horse faces!

When you see a horse-laughing image like the one below, do you wonder how I was able to get the shot?  I know, you suspect the horses think that I am so funny looking that when I show up with a camera they start laughing! Well, not quite!  My intent during this session was to get a nice shot of horses lined up along a fence looking into the sunset!  Though that image was not obtained I was happy with the images I got of all of the funny horse faces.  See image captions below...

As soon as the horses saw me they come quickly.  The Palomino below is the head of the herd.

This quarter horse must be second in command as he stayed close to the Palomino shown above.

Ever see a horse scratch an itch?  These hedge posts that my husband built make a nice scratching post!

This is the last image I took during this session and the two leaders of the herd really do hate to see me go!

I made a storyboard of the crazy horse faces from the last two sessions with my horse buddies!  Enjoy!!! :)

Purple wildflowers, a Palomino horse, and signs of autumn in God's country!

These purple wildflowers called false purple thistle appeared in our pasture for the first time since we moved here over 6 years ago.  I discovered them during an outside client session and came back a few days later to photograph them at sunset.  I had to be careful when getting down low to photograph these wildflowers as they are prickly and I got pricked on my Bahamas! :)

I can never have enough photos of my horse Ace and he looked especially stunning among the yellow broomweed and against a deep blue sky!

I very much welcome autumn this year along with the plants that decorate the pasture with their autumn colors.

This last image of the day taken captures a beautiful sunset in the Flint hills of Kansas, better known as God's country!

Blue sage, yellow wildflowers, and a stormy sky

On an overcast and rainy day I was delighted to discover blue sage growing just a short distance from our home.  The yellow wildflowers and stormy sky made a complimentary background to these pretty blue wildflowers.

There are several types of goldenrod in this area and the image below is called Rigid goldenrod. These were growing out of a rock!

Some folks believe that Goldenrod is a main cause of  seasonal allergies.  The reason this myth came about was because Goldenrod's peak blooming period coincides with the peak of ragweed season. Another important point is that Goldenrods are bee pollinated, where ragweeds are wind pollinated. This means allergy suffers are especially affected on windy days as a result of ragweed’s win pollination and not Goldenrod’s bee pollination.

This broomweed is sometimes found in overgrazed pastures.  Very pretty!

My photo session was cut short by rain as you can see by the stormy clouds image shown below.

A laughing horse and four beautiful horses on a stormy night!

Our six neighbor's horses were reduced to four.  It may be because two of them got our of the neighbor's fence recently and had to go back to where they came from. Who knows! When I saw the four horses close to our fence, my plans were to get this image I envisioned of four beautiful horses lined up behind the fence, but that's not what I got!  Because the weather forecast was stormy, the clouds were awesome!  It was windy and the sun was setting quickly.  I grabbed some horse treats and quickly went to work!  I have included my favorites from this horse photo session in hopes that you will enjoy them also!

Ace and his donkey pals

Ace is starting to get used to me photographing him closeup.  He used to be leery of my camera.  I used the Canon 85mm f1.2L lens wide open for the closeup up images taken at sunset which produced a pretty blue sky background.  The remaining images were taken in the morning before the sun became harsh.  The morning sun made the colors vibrant as the hint of autumn shows in the pasture.  Emmy Lou appears bigger than her Maw and Paw in the image below but she's not.  It was tempting to use Photoshop to slim up Ozark who appears so fat!  Our cute and spoiled pet images are included here for your viewing pleasure....