Our Little Bit of Heaven

Well, folks, what do you think? We believe it has potential. Sure, there is a lot of work to be done, but it's a great location.

Only kidding. This is the real McCoy. This is where we will soon be hanging our hats.

You do know the camera can lie like crazy, don’t you? I feel compelled to admit that just beyond the garage (on the left side of the picture) there is a fence; and right over that fence, you would see our neighbor’s house, barn, and horses in their pastures. Furthermore, if I had stood on our front porch and taken a picture facing that way, you would see, all the neighbors’ places on the other side of the road. But, our place looks so wonderfully idyllic, so private and “country” this way. After all, I didn’t add anything to the photograph, and I didn’t delete anything after the fact. It’s just what I chose to leave out of the frame. Tricky, I know, but photographers do this sort of thing.

Even with the confession of framing the scene to best advantage, can you see why we call it our Big Sky country? At last, we have a place where The Husband can finally play at being gentleman rancher. Meanwhile, The Wife can chronicle the stories of “A Man and his Bush Hog” (that's the tractor, in case you know as little about tractors as I do), “The Gentleman Rancher and the Arabian Steeds”, and “The City Slickers Go Country—Sort Of”.

The SoFoBoMo Challenge

A couple of weeks ago, obviously in the dark of night, someone impersonating me went to one of my favorite blogs, Paul Butzi’s site (http://photomusings.wordpress.com/) and signed me up for a gigantic challenge. I know it was an imposter who did this dirty deed because I have better sense than to sign myself up for the SoFoBoMo challenge. I would have known better because the prospect of shooting and processing thirty-five images, laying out those images in the form of a photo book, transferring everything to a PDF file, and posting the entire thing on the web all in the space of thirty days is something only a really savvy or really foolish person would attempt, even in the best of circumstances. To begin with, I don’t fancy myself in either of those categories. But, more importantly, I am too shrewd to take on that sort of challenge while adjusting to retirement from my life’s work, packing and cleaning a household where stuff has accumulated over a period of twenty years, getting said house on the market, then unpacking and moving into a strange house about which I know little. I mean I have done some silly things in my life, but this is over the top. Still, here I am. My name is on that fool list—right there on the Internet for all the world to see. To make things worse, another favorite Photoblogger, Doug Stockdale (http://singularimages.wordpress.com/) has also signed up and knows my name is on that list. I suppose I will have to give it a go.