Fall colors of the red chokeberry bushes

These bushes really are beautiful in the fall. The multitude of leaf colors makes them very interesting to go and look at. The berries will be eaten by the birds later in the winter, or else just wither and fade away. 100mm macro in the late afternoon sunlight.

ABs of steel

I think this bird does pilates.

Early morning black & white

Unless he has a better reason, K-9 goes back to bed after he eats in the morning. It is sure nice to have the sparkle back in his eye after a long illness. By the looks of this picture, he's staying put for a long time. 50mm + flash with Lightsphere

Treat in our room

Deb and I arrived to a bottle of wine in our room. How delightful. I hope everyone that reads my blog has the pleasure of being a guest at the ranch in their life. They are just starting to ramp up photography/branding. I had a tabletop tripod along and took a few "sample" shots. I'm hoping that I could be one of those photographers.

Ranch Creek Panarama

This is the Ranch Creek area where the Interpretive Hike is. I'll post that video another day. This was taken with my P&S at 105mm with the stitching mode.

Horses at the Ranch

This was a very fun part of our day at Devil's Thumb Ranch. When you go hiking, you go right through vast areas where there are horses. You just open the gate and close it behind you. You can walk right up to them and give them a pat.

Last viola in my back yard

This is it....the last blooming flower in my back yard. I bought a Gary Fong PJ diffuser and used it on this shot with my 100mm macro. It actually worked really, really well.

Deb the Artist

This is the view from the upper pond. It was a "bring your own bench" and sit a draw sort of place. Doesn't her jacket look good with the fall colors?

Between Laramie & Tabernash

Deb & I weren't in too big of a hurry to get to Devil's Thumb on Sunday, so we stopped a few times to admire the colors. I really wasn't expecting the colors that were in the valleys. Oranges, purples, reds & whites. First shot taken with 10-22mm at 20mm, 2nd & 3rd pictures with the 70-200mm lens.

Vedauwoo (vee-da-voo) Wyoming

Deb, Cait & I went here on Saturday. It's about 15 miles east of Laramie. We hiked a 3 mile trail that was wild. The granite formations are beautiful. I only took 2 lenses on this trip, my 10-22 & 70-200. That worked really well. Take a look at the pictures closely. You'll see giant's toes, a dog's nose, a guy with a hat, etc. I can't wait to go back here with Darwin.

Nightime feeding in the garden

So I let the dogs out before bed tonight and saw there were 2 shiny things on this plant. I looked a little closer and saw it was a slug. Hmmm....something else to try and take a picture of. It was pretty interesting watching them eat the dried up flowers. 100mm macro, manual mode, flash + stofen

Cosmos

How's this for natural lighting in my backyard? 100mm macro. This is not photoshopped....it is what the light was painting. I think it is dramatic and incredibly beautiful.

When are you going to turn on the heat?

We haven't turned on the heat in the house yet. It's 64 degrees inside tonight. The dogs love to be covered up and will stay there for hours....as long as their nose is out. Kind of reminds me of having to stick one leg out of the covers at night. Maybe my nose is really located in my big toe.

Playing in the backyard

65 degrees....a glorious day in Lincoln!

Fall & the sugar maple

Yesterday I received a call from the university about our maple tree that has damaged roots. He said that if it wasn't going to do a great deal of damage if it fell, that he'd leave it in the ground. He said that it is young enough that it might be able to stabalize its root system again! Oh, we hope so. Since we haven't had a freeze, the leaves aren't that brilliant orange that they were last year. Funny thing, it still is the prettiest tree in the neighborhood!

Zephyr the Hunter & K-9 the Sage

K-9 is now medicine free after a 6 month illness. He is looking more and more like himself, plus acting like it too. He is a nice dog to look at. Zephyr has finally settled in her purpose in life....patrol and protect us from the evil squirrels of the world. She can stand and look up a tree for hours.

Woody is back today

Same time today! Much better light though. I had just taken my finger off the focus when it started to fly. Too bad. I thought the pattern from the top view down on its wings was beautiful so I still wanted to share.

Finally, some fun birds.

I've been trying to not feed the house sparrows any more. That is a bit of a trick. You can see that there is a metal wire running through the feeder ports. That really cuts about 95% of their feeding down. As a result, other birds are now stopping by. You can see what I think is a woodpecker - obviously telling the house sparrow to take a hike, a black & white warbler & a black capped chickadee. It is totally overcast today and the light is low. I opened my office window and used my 400mm lens for these shots.