Fathers & Fiddles

The year is 1982 ~ the Blacksmith holds a brand new Fiddler boy.
(applied Kim Klassen Love & Mayzee textures)

The year 2000, following Fiddler’s high school graduation ceremonies. 3 generations of “John” ~
(yes, it does get confusing. thankfully, the Blacksmith goes by his middle name)

Me and my Daddy – 1961
(applied Kim Klassen pourvous texture)

I’ll close by sharing a short fiddle tune for all the dads. “Happy Jack” as performed by the Fiddler (in his summer haircut) at the Bethel, Missouri Fiddle Festival yesterday.

**blogger did not cooperate when I edited this post to add the Texture Tuesdays link - it removed the video, but you can view the Fiddler's performance here**

(By the way, if you have an aspiring young fiddler or guitarist, please read this link about the Bethel Youth Fiddle Camp here. I also found some great photos here of last year’s camp. The Fiddler attended this camp for as many years as possible, and taught at least one year there in the past. Highly recommended!Or, if you just enjoy fiddle music and are in the area, plan to attend the Bethel Fiddle Festival next year.)

Happy Fathers’ Day ~ Enjoy your day, Dads!

linking to Texture Tuesday

Texture Tuesdays – a first for me

I discovered the fabulous Kim Klassen Cafe several weeks or months ago. I was then reminded about it when my friend (and fellow Bee Girl) Andrea began participating in Texture Tuesdays not long after that. (By the way,  Andrea has some amazing photography with textures ~ please visit! I love them all and look forward to seeing what she’s up to each week.)

So recently I revisited Kim and did her amazingly quick and simple Textures in Ten tutorial (free – and Kim also generously offers some free textures to get you started. Just sign up on her site!). Although I’d tried some textures in the past, I never really “got it” until Kim’s tute. Thanks, Kim! I have more to learn, but it will be fun practicing. Here is my first real shot at this. I started with a photo I took at our local Amish friends’ farm back in 2009. 

I used Kim’s “Luminous” texture and kept it simple, mainly using her Textures in Ten tips. So easy, and so addictive, I must say. I look forward to learning more, and will try to participate in TT’s on a regular basis.

Check it out!

Have a wonderful Tuesday, friends!

Thursday Walkabout: Yep! More Snow…

It’s been a daily job to keep the feathered friends happy, but they’re more than worth it.

We’ve had two snowstorms in a week’s time, with more predicted for the weekend. I know we’re not alone in our winter weather, but sheesh, bring on Spring already!

I stepped out of my color comfort zone here and transformed everything to sepia tones with Pioneer Woman’s Soft and Faded action. (Photoshop Actions are so much fun!). We have snowy scenes and some of our frozen fog from this morning.

Enjoy your day! I hope to be back with a Valentine’s post and an update to our 2010 mini-journal  later this week. But if not…

♥ Happy Valentine’s Day, Friends! ♥

It’s Wednesday, so it must be…

Project Day!! Yep, that’s right. We checked a few things off the list:

*Recycled (tore apart) pallets into kick boards for the donkey stall (actually, to give credit where due - the hubs did most of the manual labor on this one).

*Manure from the "A$$" pen was scooped to the garden.

*Laundry was hung out on the clothesline today, thereby saving electricity and $$$. Go me :)

*Garden seed ordered! Yay!

Here are two pictures to end the day with:

Sunset tonight in the front yard. I used the telephoto because I was actually stalking cardinals to photograph. I added a Photoshop texture.

here is the only cardinal I managed to snap. He is contemplating which sunflower seed looks the most delectable.

Artistic Donkeys

Just a little brush fun in Photoshop. Stress relief!