Weather Wednesday: woolly faces and faraway places

I have a delightful little lot of photos from Pony Club last weekend that I want to share... before it becomes next weekend and gymkhana time already! But seeing how today is WEDNESDAY (it is in Australia anyway) when I normally call on readers to report their WEATHER from around the world, I am taking the chance to segue ...

from weather to ponies

with this amazing creature...

...spotted at the showgrounds carting a happy little jillaroo

around the jumps and barrels with the utmost confidence....

This pony never once hesitated or stumbled or pulled ...

Always willing and responsive and smiling

(yes, those ears are smiling ears!)

What a happy, woolly little face...

I think I may have just fallen in Pony Love!

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WHERE is the segue (I hear you complain)...

It's here:

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WEATHER OUTLOOK FOR WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 9

Current temp at Granite Glen: 11 degrees Celsius (kitchen)

Conditions: Southerly winds (brrrr)

Minimum: 6 degrees (4 degrees below average for this time of year)

Maximum predicted: 28 degrees C (waiting, waiting, waiting)

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And yes, I am wearing my hot pink ugh boots and Mr Incredible's shabby blue flanny coat AND avoiding the outside jobs for as long as possible...

And yes, if I had that pony nearby,

I'd be cuddling right up to it's fuzzy little face!

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Late edition: completely forgot to report that we had RAIN here at Granite Glen during the week - two falls tallying 39mm (about 1 1/2 inches old money). Amazing, fabulous, renewing rain... am hoping to show pics of some green grass sometime soon!!!

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Enough about me... your turn... weather reports please!

Favourite Things: Marriage moments in monotone

I am finally getting around to working through the gazillion images shot at my cousin's wedding a few weekends ago. And I thought, while I have my ever-growing butt parked in front of the computer, I'd share a couple with you here.

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One thing you should note before I go on (and on and on) is that I am NOT a professional wedding photographer.
I repeat, I am not a Professional Wedding Photographer.

So please go easy on me.

What I am is an ex-regional news photographer.

So what I enjoy is spontaneity.

Not so good at perfect lighting.

Not too bad at getting the moment.

Sometimes.

Oh.

And I adore black-and-white.

Especially for weddings...

I think it's timeless,

it freezes the moment,

(and it's fab for uneven skin tones).

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Not that THIS bride needed to worry about that.

Shall we begin reliving a couple of her

moments in monotone?

Alrighty then...

This is one of my favourite shots - as the bride and her friend hugged outside the church.

The friend was not supposed to be there - being heavily pregnant with twins - but she had snuck in. And when the bride stood to sign the register she spotted her friend hidden in congregation... and despite being the coolest bride I have ever been around, she completely lost it. (And yes, so did I... hopeless!)

I love that you can see the delight plastered all over their faces!

(NB Identical twin boys have since safely arrived...)

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Or this Betty Boo look...

As the bridesmaid 'adjusted' something underskirt,

our playful bride hammed it up...

to the bemusement of her Dad and new husband.

(and the amusement of my cousin, and fab photo assistant at left)

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How about this split second

as the bride watched her new hubby disappear back into the limo?

I could never, ever have posed this shot...

it just happened.

And I happened to almost get it in focus!!

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OK ...

This one was set up...

In what is now a traditional family wedding pose...

we are women, hear us roar (or groan!)
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My cousin loves his cricket...

so it was only natural to include a quick game in the wedding photo shoot!

Ain't love grand?

(With a cricket bat in hand!)

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Of course...

...SOME things need to be in colour really.

I guess I'll do some of those up soon too...

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In the meantime, what are your favourite wedding moments?

Were they caught on film (or megapixel?)

Are you a colour or black-and-white fan?

This happy snapper wants to know...

First Sunday in September...

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY...

To my bloke who makes me skip a little like my daughter...

...and to the 'Old Fella'

...who should be skipping again soon!

(Hope that foot is better soon Dad!)

To my hard-workin' guys - thanks for everything!

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Hope your guys had a great day too!

Rugged, unforgiving.

We had a long, fun, exhausting Saturday (yesterday) with the kids attending Pony Club and riding their little hearts out. I will post some cute images from that later on.

But not today.

We were lucky enough to get a little rain on Friday night...

blessed, welcome rain.

Only 12 mm (almost half an inch) but still nice.

Enough to settle the dust.

And maybe keep the lawn a little green.

And allow me a slightly longer shower and day off shifting sprinklers.

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But the rain made it tough for one group of people that same night.

This is a helicopter which flew over our little town

as the kids rode round the show ring,

preparing for next weekend's gymkhana.

We all stopped to look and wonder about it.

It arrived from the west of town

landed at the hospital for a few minutes

before taking off and heading back towards the coast.

Then we realised.

A man had been missing since Thursday in some heavily timbered and rough countryside near here. As with all country areas, he was someone we knew (or knew of) - a government worker who lived here and knew the area well, walking in rugged bush to the north of our place.

We only found out hours before this photo was taken that he was missing.

He was last seen a few kilometres from my uncle's boundary and - according to news - reports he was carrying a mobile phone, hand-held radio, a GPS unit and a compass.
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And this chopper had been in the search party,

flying over looking the rough terrain looking for a sign of life.

It was confirmed last night.

The missing man was found not long before we saw that helicopter yesterday afternoon.

He did not make it.

Our conversations today are sombre,

the reality of the dangers of this place hitting home.

My thoughts and heartfelt condolences are with his family.
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This country we call home:

she can be beautiful, but she is also rugged.

Unforgiving.

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Puts whinging about sprinkler shifting right into perspective, doesn't it?

Spring-time wake-up call...

Mikey has been posting some amazing images of reptiles

and their behaviour at her place lately...

now I cannot match the snake-eating-snake series,

but this big fella did stop us in our tracks this week.

It is a black-headed python.

He's around 7 feet in length (a bit over 2 metres) lazily stretching out in the sunshine on one of our paddock roads. As winter flees the scene here at Granite Glen, and Summer tramples all over Spring with soaring temperatures, our reptiles are waking up fast and sunning themselves on every available bit of bare ground...

As our friend Steve Irwin would have said...
Isn't he a BEAUTY?

There is something utterly mesmerising about snakes.

Sinuous and smooth and glossy...

Of course a snake is a snake is a snake...

And to be honest, I'm not so much a fan of getting up close and personal with 'em

especially when they do the tongue flicker...

*shudder*

Gotta love a zoom lense though!

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We have quite a lot of the deadly variety (browns, taipans , death adders etc) around here too, of which we have already seen a number in the last couple of weeks. These guys are to be avoided at all costs. The last one - a big brown almost 5-and-a-half feet long - was spotted right near the house a few days ago... not exactly a formula for letting the kids play out of Mummy's line of sight!

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But these pythons are supposed to be the 'good guys' and actually eat the venomous versions of their species. Now I'd like to see THAT!!

And as this guy did a u-turn away from the ute, and headed back into the bush, I did admire his incredible lithe form and intricate patterning.

Bye-bye Mr 'Joe Blake'.

I am sooooo brave with a few inches of metal between me and Mother Nature's finest...

I am SUCH a city girl sometimes!!!

Spurs and friendship...

My friend Debby sent me these amazing spurs last year.

We both adore old, weathered things,

things chock-full of history,

with stories, with life written all over them.

I have never met Debby - well not in person anyway.

It's a funny old world we live in these days...

when someone you have never laid eyes on can be considered a real friend.

A part of your life.

But she is.

And her news today rocked me.

My main reaction is that I want to do something to help.

It's hard when I live all the way here,

and she lives all the way in Pennsylvania USA.

I can't drop by.

Well, except to her blog.

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If for some reason,

you have never been to Life's Funny Like That,

please do yourself a favour.

Drop by and trawl a while.

She's brave, strong, funny, smart and real.

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I haven't worked out how I am gonna be a

real friend for her yet.

But I will.

I will.

And I'll do something I don't do too often,

I'll pray.

She'd like that,

God-fearin' woman that she is.

It's a start...
♥

BB

Dusty linings to invisible clouds...

World weather watch in disguise today!

I have looked back over my weather watch posts and seen a scary thread of 'dry crying' throughout. And while we continue to be quite keen on getting a little H2O in this neck of the woods, I'd hate y'all to think I had lost my sense of humour, or even that the romance of this place is fading.

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I have to say it IS harder for me to find the beauty in the parched landscape we find ourselves in at the moment, than documenting the lush vistas we get after some rain (like this lot of posts)... and it explains why I have focussed a little more on faces and irrigated corners of the garden lately...but it IS still do-able. I think.

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While driving home from our Small Town this week - firstly in our truck after Pony Club on the weekend, and then after Violet's Kindy pickup and grocery shop today - I decided to take a deep breath, grab the Nikon, and attempt to get some shots of the dry scenery. To remind myself of the (harsher) beauty of the real Australia.

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Ready?

Truck pics first...

OK this is kinda cheating... some irrigation on the left.

It's a lucerne farm and my eyes drink in this patch of verde every time I drive by.

Hey, aren't you impressed that I got a shot at all while driving a truck?

(No officer, the vehicle was not moving whilst this image was taken!)

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How 'bout this then?

Red dust and sepia baby...

Yar... not really feeling the romance here, gotta say.

You?

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Alrighty then... how about some REAL dust?

Got your bandanas on?

Facemasks at the ready?

These were taken today...

I stopped the Prado when I realised a big truck was on the gravel road going over the range ahead of me. Swallowing the dust of other vehicles is a daily hazard (I have given up washing it unless I am in the Big Smoke with a drive-through carwash... figure I am saving our water!).

Then I saw somethin'...

And I did what I do...

Whoa... how cool is that?

Not sure if the shots really do the scene justice...

But it was kind of surreal...

the reddish 'fog' providing a little halleluja moment amongst the spotted gum trees.

And it didn't even lose it's impact in the open country...

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Granite Glen forecast

for Wednesday September 2, 2009

In other words...

A snowflakes chance in hell of our views greening up anytime soon.

(Can someone tell me why they bother with the <1mm?)

*sigh*

Apparently there is a 90% chance of 1-5mm on Thursday.

Maybe that will settle the dust for an hour?

I'd be happy for Mother Nature to prove that it can still rain though...

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Enough about me... how 'bout you?