In Her Heart

Paint Girl has been very sad that her "angel" cat, Domino, has been missing.

As I drove through Paint Girl's neighborhood today, I scanned every yard and ditch, hoping I'd see that white and tiger-striped spotted cat sitting in someone else's yard. I would stop, call him, he would walk up to me, I'd pick him up, put him in my car, and take him home to her.

As I groomed My Boy, let him graze in the field, picked rocks from his pasture, and cleaned his shed, I kept looking around the property for some sign of the white cat. I wanted to find him.

It didn't happen.

But I did find this heart-shaped rock in My Boy's pasture. A rare find. And oddly symbolic considering the circumstances.

Paint Girl, don't give up hope that Domino will come home. Stranger things have happened in the world of felines.

But no matter what the outcome, although it feels broken now, know that in time, your heart will stop aching.

And it will be there, in your heart, that your angel kitty will forever hold a place.

Fences at Twilight

These are some photos I took at my mom's stable this summer.



The late evening, just before the sun sets and everything is glowing amber, is one of my favorite times to take pictures. It is a good challenge to try to capture the golden bronze light. Often, the sun during the middle of the day can just be too harsh to get good photos.

Everything just looks amazing under this lighting. It was kind of funny. On this particular evening, half of my family was off on a trail ride. The other half were sitting in lawn chairs, "tail-gaiting" at the barn if you will, drinking coffee and chatting, waiting for the others to get back. And I? I was standing in a recently cow-manure sprayed field photographing this old barbed wire fence. No surprise.



I loved playing with my macro (setting, not a macro lens) and the barbed wire.



My camera just wasn't focusing the way I wanted it to, but I got some neat shots anyway.



I adore the sky at twilight.




What I love best about my Nikon is the amazing wide-angle lens, it is so different from that of my point-and-shoot. It really makes the sky open up in the pictures.

It almost looks better in the photos than it did by my real eyes.



Lastly, a photo of My Boy in the late afternoon light.



This time of day is earlier, and it glows differently on the farm, where everything is green, as opposed to my mom's stable, where there are acres of yellowed, dry pastures.

I longed out My Boy today, he was feeling lazy in the late summer sun, and coughing a little from the dust. I power-sprayed (with the hose) one of his turnout halters, and conditioned some of the tangled hairs of his mane, which he's been rubbing on a pitch-covered tree. Next weekend, he gets new shoes on. We have not trail-ridden since we got back from our family trip, but hopefully there are many days of sunshine left to hit the trails. I'm going to make Paint Girl put on her fleece and get out and do some fall riding with me!