big air photography

Finally!!

May 29, 2017 By The Food Lady 9 Comments

I found a use for Winter!

Chuck him in the swimming hole and he makes excellent funny faces when he comes tearing out!

To be fair to me, I didn’t just chuck him in the swimming hole to be a jerk and get funny photos of the aftermath…I chucked him in there because it was HOT and he looked like he was on fire.

Now Fae … Fae I chucked in because it was funny.

She gets the zoomies afterward, makes for great action shots.

I’m kidding, I’m kidding! I tossed everyone who didn’t voluntarily swim into the water because we were walking on a hot, dry, dusty gravel path and everyone had their tongues down to their ankles, so they needed to be wet.

I did NOT, however, toss Gotham in, because Auntie Fiona is a Helicopter Mommy and would’ve beaten ten kinds of holy hell outta me.

He went in on his own. I did not nudge him in with my foot. I swear.

Isn’t he the cutest though?

Almost as cute as my puppy Dexter (who gracelessly splooshes into any available body of water all of his own volition)

Poor Dexter, he is so deaf now. He can barely hear anything at all, unless I’m right up close to him and speak in a certain register (IOW, I sound like I’m practicing my “man voice” when I speak to him). In talking to some of his siblings’ owners, I have learned that several of them are quite deaf as well. It’s called “Adult Onset Deafness” and it’s genetic in border collies. I can tell it’s frustrating for him because he peers very sternly at my mouth, trying to lip read, and then runs through a variety of behaviours in case one of them is what I was asking for. I have misplaced him a couple of times while hiking because he runs off to poop (another family trait – the need for extreme distance and privacy whilst pooping!) and then can’t find us again, nor hear me calling him. Once upon a time we had a vibrating collar floating around my rescue … if I can’t locate it, I’m going to have to look into getting him one I think. I don’t want to lose my baby boy!!

Being nearly stone deaf does not stop him from having fun though. Unfortunately, he has fun with Peetie, so I’m stuck with her. The things I do for love.

We went out to the dykes in Pitt Meadows today because it’s closer and uses less gas, and because I didn’t have any client dogs to walk today. I’m very sad, because my full time client is moving out of an area that I service and I am going to miss him :( If you know a fantastic dog walker in East Van, let me know so I can refer her to someone good.

It also means a good portion of my monthly income goes down the drain. Poop. I need some ideas for marketing me – but the catch is, they have to be pretty much free. I know you gotta spend money to make money, but I can’t spend money I don’t have! Any brilliant ideas to share with me? I have some great clients and they are all super happy with what I do, but I need to acquire several more of them to make a go of this. I just picked up a couple new clients, but I want to pick them up (not to chuck them in the watering hole, I swear!) faster and in greater numbers. So hit me with your best free or cheap marketing ideas please!! You are smart peoples, you must have some hidden gems you’re willing to share.

I shall reward you with photos of my foster puppies at the ripe old age of two weeks. Their eyes all opened on the same day, about day 13, and now they all stare at me like I’m a Bigfoot sighting when I get into the xpen. They aren’t very interactive yet, just eyeball-y.

Sable male remains my favourite because I think he’s the cutest, but all of them are pretty damned adorable. When do you think we should start the naming contest? Like, when they have more personality or sooner than that?

This puppy already has a name; he goes by Warren and he’s the same age as my puppies!

His mom said “Your foster is going to have the puppies on the ASCBC trial weekend” and I was all “Shut up! No she isn’t! You’re gonna have YOUR puppy on the trial weekend!” and she was all “Nuh uh! I refuse to have a baby on Mother’s Day!” And so Mini Mama had her puppies on the trial weekend Saturday, and Hailey had Warren on Mother’s Day. Karma is so cruel.

However, it worked out awesome because then we could get photos of them being adorbz together and being all the same age and stuff.

Maybe I should get into baby photography…I hear that (and weddings) is where the money is! Sadly, I do not have a constant supply of puppies to increase the level of awesome.

It was a good excuse to practice compositing though. Still need a lot more practice, but it’s super fun!

I got some other baby things this weekend too! Handsome Terrence made me some more baby turkeys. I hope they all turn out like him!

And the ducks made me some more ducks.

The dogs have settled into the new farm very well. I can now leave them outside by themselves for short periods of time without worrying about them getting into trouble. They know the boundaries now and they no longer fence fight with the neighbours’ dogs. I still have to pick up all the eggs before I let the dogs out, otherwise they go egg hunting and eat them, but otherwise they just hang out, nap in the shade, steal apples from the chickens, stuff like that. They really are settling in nicely. They still bark at/chase horses along the fence, but not as often and not for as long. They are starting to get used to the idea of horses I think.

Now the Littles have to wear their Coyote Vests again though … not because coyotes, but because Bald Eagles! I learned the eagles have been stealing my ducks and last week I was making dog dinners, saw a huge shadow go past the window and heard a chicken freaking out … I ran outside (with the bag of frozen peas still in my hand) and saw a bald eagle with one of my hens in its grasp. Utterly without thinking I ran across the yard and KICKED the eagle square in the chest!! Who does that?? It let go of my hen and flew off though. Scared the crap outta me. But now I know where my ducks went for sure. So Coyote Vests it is, because my dogs are NOT going to be some stupid bald eagle’s afternoon snack!

Life in the sticks is always interesting, if nothing else!

The weather is supposed to turn tonight and all of our hot sunny days will skulk back into rainy drizzle. It would be great if it didn’t do that thing on Saturday though, as I have a day of mini sessions booked. And the weekend after that is Regionals, also known as “Springs Annual Ring Pooping Event.” BTW, I hear they are looking for volunteers for Regionals still … you get a stipend of I think $50 a day or something. If you’re interested in volunteering, check out their website.

Gotham will be there, so you could meet him!

“But I’m an Italian Greyhound!”

May 22, 2017 By The Food Lady 2 Comments

“And I’m deathly allergic to water!”

… unless it’s in the wading pool. And you had your face in it and then someone cycled by so you had to yodel at them and make water droplets fly everywhere.

Or The Food Lady dumped the water out of the duck pool to refill it with clean water, and the water made mud, and you felt it necessary to put on Mud Boots.

Or The Food Lady put goldfish in the duck pond for the ducks and chickens, and you hopped in there and caught all the goldfish yourself, because you’re just that much of a jerk.

Believe nothing Addy says! It’s all lies, damnable lies!

(I’m also not boring, never you mind what she says to the contrary!)

Don’t believe Fae either. I am NOT mean, just because I made her pose on the swing. And made her look like she has no neck (now you now why I don’t photograph people!).

“Mean.”

It’s SO HOT this weekend, finally! It’s so hot that we go out to play in like 20 minute increments, and then come back inside where it’s nice and cool. Otherwise, some dogs are prone to stealing the fetch toy and hiding in the grass with it instead of bringing it back to be thrown again.

Even games of tug-o-war were on the lackluster side today.

(And is it considered anti-social if you play tug with a blackberry plant rather than another dog? Wootie is asking for a friend.)

I haven’t taken too many photos this week, because my arms and shoulders hurt. Last weekend I photographed the ASC of BC trial for two days, and then spent basically all my free time before and after my jobs editing them. It’s a lot of work! For some reason I got the idea in my head to work out what I make hourly, on average, from event photo sales when I factor in shooting time and editing time, and let’s just say I don’t recommend that particular activity, as it’s very depressing. Don’t get me wrong; I do a healthy amount of photo sales from events like this, and I enjoy doing it, but it just doesn’t really offer the kind of fiscal reward that people seem to assume it does. I recently joined a photo group on facebook and there are these CRAZY talented photographers on there (not dog photographers) and when discussions of pricing come up, I find myself kinda wishing I had gotten into wedding photography or baby photography instead. Also, they are CRAZY talented, did I mention that? Harumph. It makes me feel old and sore and broke.

BUT, despite my aching neck and arms, and copious consumption of liver-killing Advil, I had to break out my friend the camera on Friday because HAM.

HAM!!!!!!

Got Ham? Auntie Fiona’s Got Ham. Got ham. Gotham. Meet Fiona’s new puppy, Gotham!

Holy f*ckballs, is he ever cute!! Ever see something so adorable that you kinda wanna pick it up and squeeze it until it explodes? That’s what Gotham does to me, so Fiona says I’m not allowed to touch him until I get myself under control. (Also, apparently talking to Fiona’s puppy and accidentally calling Fiona “Auntie” instead of “Mommy” means you’re about to steal him and she no longer trusts you. Some people’s paranoia.)

Gotham is a purpose bred sport mix, designed to be fast, drivey, athletic and win all the Regionals that Fiona’s other dog Rogue has, up until now, won.

That’s because Fiona is mean and selfish, and it’s not fair that she wins all the Regionals. I mean, we go to Regionals and we almost never win. Spring is going this year.

“Oh hai, I’m Spring, and Ima poop in your Steeplechase. Hee hee”

Considering we don’t have class to go to anymore, since the Sadist stopped teaching, I’m not exactly shooting for the moon with her this year as the only agility we do these days is chasing-squirrels agility, and it apparently does not require my input. At all.

Incidentally, Spring is a dead ringer for Gotham’s mom, which is weird to see in photos. And Gotham is really frickin’ adorable. Have I mentioned that?

I am glad we found her a puppy. She deserves a nice well adjusted dog, now that the Devil has called Tempus home to reign as his side.

BUT I AM JEALOUS AS F*CK. She has Gotham and I have STUPID PEETIE.

“I heard that.”

Oh noes! You heard that! What are going to do, IRRITATE ME TO DEATH??

It’s not fair. I want a puppy.

You know, I mean, besides the four puppies I currently have. Because these puppies, while very very cute, and very very fat, are already obstinate little brats. I TOLD them not to be born on the ASCBC trial weekend, and they did it anyway! And then I tried to photograph them for you all today, because I keep promising to do that, and they wouldn’t all look at the camera at the same time. Yeah yeah, their eyes aren’t open yet or anything, but that’s no excuse! They wouldn’t even all face the camera at the same time! They’re really, really disagreeable little shits.

Of course, they’re really f*cking cute little shits.

This was the best photo I managed to get and it took like 8 million tries and a full hour of turning puppies around only to have them crawl around in a circle and face the wall again by the time I got to my camera. And to make matters more frustrating, I got the idea in my head to shoot with my 50mm, because my 70-200mm is so long that by the time I get far enough away from them to get the shot, they’d all wandered off (which is all kinds of amazing for gibbled peanut shaped rodents THAT CAN’T EVEN WALK).

I HATE my 50mm. I know some photographers love theirs and they do amazing things with it, but I just cannot make friends with it. And it’s like childbirth – once it’s over, you forget how bad it was. So about once a year I bust out the 50mm with optimism and rainbows, and end the session with rage and tears.

Also, I was shooting on the floor, because I was afraid to put them on a little stage in case they fell off. My knees and elbows are still angry at me.

I think I need an assistant the next time I try photographing them, to corral them while I shoot. I tried to get individual photos of them, but they were too damn squirmy and only this little guy obliged me by slumbering on while I lifted him in the air. Therefore, he is my now officially my favourite.

Mini Mama is a very good mama, if a tad overprotective. Yesterday Corey and Ghillie came to visit and Corey held a baby, and Mini politely took it back from her and said “No, not you. Only The Food Lady.” And today when I brought the babies in studio, she said I was allowed to photograph them and mess with them all I want, but she was going to Sit Right Here In the Cat Litterbox and keep a close eye on my while I did. Which I did not photograph, because the cat boxes need cleaning and I don’t want anyone judging me. My self esteem is already fragile enough thanks to the 50mm, TYVM.

Mini Mama is very devoted to her puplets. She comes outside about once a day to burn around the acreage at top speed for about 9 minutes, then she wants to go back inside to sit with them again.

Also, all of my dogs are terrified of her because if they poke their noses in the dog room she shoots out of the xpen like a shark and bites them. And this morning she came into my bedroom and woke me up to let me know she had peed and pooped on the bathroom floor because I was a lazy slugabed who had the nerve to sleep in past 8AM.

I thought it might be kind of fun to having a naming contest for the puppies, and raise some money for the rescue in doing so (I am fostering Mini Mama and her boob parasites for another rescue organization). Would you guys be into that? I thought maybe people could pick a name and donate like $5.00 via paypal to put the name in the contest. Then after a period of time, we could put all the entries to a vote and the 4 most popular names would win. Would you guys be interested in doing that? You can’t play if you name one Boaty McBoatface though.

There are two males and two females. My favourite non-squirmy sable is a male, as is one of the black and tan ones. The other black and tan one, and the one marked like mama are both females.

Part of me is really looking forward to them becoming something other than giant, colourful maggots and start interacting and being mobile and stuff. And part of me is afraid of how much work 4 puppies are going to be.

Here’s a photo of Terrence and two of his wives. People in the neighbourhood know Terrence BY NAME now and they greet him as they pass my yard, BY NAME. Seriously, my turkey is more popular than me. That’s actually why I offered to foster the litter of puppies; so I can one-up my turkey ;-)

I have some of his sons and daughters for sale, incidentally. If you’re in the market for a turkey or two.

Look Ma, No Hands!

May 10, 2017 By The Food Lady 4 Comments

(or at least the doggie versions of hands, which can also be called “feet.”)

I guess it’s been so long since we’ve been to the beach that they were literally walking (running) on air?

Because Miles didn’t touch the ground.

And Addy didn’t touch the ground.

And Hollie Smallz didn’t touch the ground.

And Spring REALLY didn’t touch the ground.

Winter may have touched the ground a little bit, but I think he mostly touched water. Also, I think this is the nicest photo of Winter I have ever managed to take, because Winter is just not very photogenic.

Miles touched Piper, which could have gone badly for him, but fortunately in her old age Piper’s reaction times are slow ;-)

TWooie, who is just not a fan of the beach (unless he’s catching Things From The Sea), made sure to touch the ground thoroughly. This is about the deepest water he can handle, poor weirdo.

Unlike his brother, who likes the beach a lot. Although Wootie’s leg is very sore, so he hasn’t been enjoying much of anything lately. I can’t remember which cruciate he tore so I don’t know if it’s finally gone or if the other one went. I still haven’t quite finished unpacking so the vet records are around here somewhere, but not sure where. Poor old man. Why are all my dogs getting old? I wish that wouldn’t keep happening. Fortunately, his ears remain absolutely fabulous.

It really was a glorious day to spend at the beach – not too hot. Although Heather complained about it not being hot enough for no-shoes. I forgot the Chuck-It (I remembered to check if I had a BALL, but not the stupid ball throwing implement, so the ball was useless … which anyone trying to throw a ball with their hand and then putting that sandy hand on their expensive camera equipment will know) so the dogs just had to run around willy nilly for 1.5 hours. Which they did gleefully.

This is Miles, one of my client dogs. His mum is super pregnant, so sometimes she FB messages me and says “Come take them away before I murder them!” and I rush to oblige ;-) Miles has CEA which is a genetic disorder that causes blindness in collie type breeds, because his breeder didn’t do any genetic testing and believes either that CEA is “rare” in border collies (it is when you test for it, and don’t breed carrier to carrier, or anything to affected!) and/or that his owner “caused” the blindness and/or is “lying” about him having considerably limited vision in order to discredit her. And is still breeding from the same lines. This is shameful. Miles compensates pretty well for his vision loss, and I am always surprised how well he can navigate, even at top speed. Although he doesn’t always see my legs, and I’m not entirely sure that’s unintentional.

This is Ammo, Miles’ brother. Ammo is a very nice dog who can see perfectly well (because he comes from a different breeder who tests for things like genetic disorders that commonly affect the breed) but unfortunately for Ammo, his handsomeness does not translate on camera. In virtually every photo I have taken of him, he appears extremely dorkish. Sorry Ammo.

This is not unlike another handsome black and white border collie, whose completely embrace of The Derp ruins an otherwise perfectly lovely shot of athletic dogs racing each other into the waves.

Here’s Peetie, in a rare instance where she is not annoying the crap out of me.

Some of you on Facebook have already met Minnie, my very pregnant foster dog! Minnie is my solution to puppyitis (her radiographs suggest she will give me FOUR puppies to fawn over) and also to feeling like I’m not doing very much in the way of rescue since I no longer work in a shelter and my rescue is no longer busy, ever. So I offered to foster this little lady for another rescue, because I have the time, and I have the space, and I really like puppies! She’s been with me almost a week and now thinks her name is “Mini Mama.” She’s a sweet little thing who is a bit shy, but when she gets comfortable she starts showing some personality. Today I got her to play biteyface with my hands for the first time, and got her excited about the Bum Pinching game … which was a mistake because then she got all excited and started bouncing around and bit me in the back and in the face before I could stand up (I was sitting on the grass chucking the ball for the big dogs)! Little imp. I’m not sure when her puppies are due, but I swear her belly gets bigger by the hour!

She doesn’t share well though. She doesn’t share food, she would rather not share my lap and she really, really didn’t want to share this empty crab shell that she found and rolled on to forever mark it as Hers.

I’m going to need lots of socializing volunteers when the puppies arrive, so I hope lots of you are up for visiting Casa de Food Lady in coming weeks! I will work on getting more photos of her too. Until recently, she has simply glued herself to my heels wherever I walk, but she’s starting to relax and explore the farm now when we are out.

Mini Mama came at a good time, because it feels like EVERYONE except me is getting a puppy! I keep getting these FB messages from friends who are like “I’m getting a puppy, but don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret still” and it’s a good thing I can’t punch anyone through the computer screen because I am SO JEALOUS. *I’m* not getting a puppy, I only got Peetie, she sucks donkey balls.

Like, my friend Christine told me a while back that she was getting a puppy, and then sure enough, she shows up at my house on the weekend with this SUPER F*CKING ADORABLE PUPPY.

Gah!! His name is Pip, and he is a purpose bred border collie X whippet (I think they’re the new borderjack). His big brother is Skye, whom you may remember from many years ago when he had The Whole World In His Mouth. Yes Skye turned out enormous, and yes Pip is still quite teeny (he’s just 12 weeks old) and pair of them are just SO FREAKIN’ AWESOME.

I have coveted other people’s border collie/whippets for a long time now, and Pip only made me want one even more! Until I introduced him to Addy, and the two of them WERE EXACTLY THE SAME. The started speaking “sighthound” to one another right away, and got the simultaneous ‘craze’hounds.

And then I remembered that although Addy is one of my most favouritest dogs ever, she is also REALLY REALLY NAUGHTY and she only gets away with it because she’s a whopping 11 lbs. If she were 40 lbs, there’s a good chance I’d drop kick her into the next solar system.

Still though … so much cute in a whippety looking package. It’s very hard to resist.

If you like, you can see more photos of Pip and his Combo Session on my photography website, under “client galleries” (and yes, I redesigned the site again. It’s a compulsion, I can’t help it!)

Here’s a photo of Fae, because I totally omitted her snotty little self from the blog today.

And here’s a photo of Piper, because she’s awesome, and who knows how many beach trips she has left in her anyway?

She found a lady at the beach who had NOT stupidly forgotten her Chuck It, and she decided she liked her better than me and was never coming home. It took quite a lot of convincing to get her to leave the stranger and head back with the rest of us! That’s gratitude for you – 14 years of life I give her, and I forget the Chuck It ONE time, and I’m dead to her. Harumph.

This weekend I am at my annual gig shooting the ASC of BC trial in Tsawwassen. If you’re of a mind, come out and visit! If you want me to like you the nanosecond I meet you, come bearing a Frappucino. Or this Tweedlet. Either one is cool ;-)

WARNING: Guard Dog On Duty

May 4, 2017 By The Food Lady 7 Comments

There she is; the fiercest of FaeFaes to ever nap in the driveway. Beware all ye who enter through Food Lady’s gate!

Especially if you’re a HAWK. Or a PIGEON. Or a SPARROW. If you have wings of any kind, Addy bids you UNwelcome. This is her ferocious battle-the-birds pose.

I kinda wish she wasn’t so bad ass. She’s roughly the same size as my ducks, and three of those got eaten by hawks and eagles!

But what can you do. She’s a junkyard dog, after all.

Today was the first really warm day of the year. Like t-shirt warm. I’ve taken a bit of a break from interior house stuff to work on exterior stuff. Last weekend I spent a day putting up fencing along the orchard to separate the orchard from the yard, and by extension, separate the dogs from the outer perimeter fence and thus from joggers, cyclists, horseback riders and John Q Public, all of whom the dogs have taken to barking at and rushing at. The following morning Winter forgot I spent all those blistered-hands and backbreaking hours stretching and u-nail hammering and ran full tilt into the fence when he tried to chase a cyclist going up the path. HA HA HA. WINNER!

(OTOH, today my landlord’s lovely dog Mia chased a cyclist along that very same path, so I’m relieved to know that my dogs aren’t the only morons in the neighbourhood).

The next day Michelle came to visit and I put her to work, as I usually do (she’s a good sport) and we finished fencing off my North pasture to separate *it* from my yard, so the goats can move in. And so that the dogs cannot get into the pasture and eat my goats. Because while I have nothing against the practice of eating goats, Harvey and Nibbles are not on the menu!

We also put landscape cloth up all along the front fence, so the dogs don’t see everything going by and bark at it, and it’s worked very well! Only Addy is sneaky and pigheaded enough to get flat and peer under the gate for a glimpse of shoes or hooves or wheels, but when she sees them and barks, the other dogs have stopped joining her in her noise-making because they haven’t figured out her peeping tom trick and think she’s just being an idiot (and she is!). It’s really super cut down on the decibel levels when the dogs are outside.

Naughty though she be, she remains one of my favouritest dogs.

The landscape cloth barrier has not stopped the entire neighbourhood from admiring Terrence though. The dog room window looks out onto the walnut orchard and almost every evening while I’m preparing dog meals, I see at least one person strolling or cycling by stop to stare at Terrence. A couple of days ago a neighbour I had not yet met came up to my gate when I was outside with the dogs, and explained that his niece and nephew who were here visiting from Alberta have wanted to meet Terrence for DAYS and were too shy to ask, so he brought them over. They came on in, admired Terrence, held baby turkeys and just generally figured my yard was a petting zoo, which I find both hilarious and kind of accurate. (They came back today for round two, and were lucky enough to get to go visit goats with the landlord). And I guess Terrence’s destiny is to be famous. Which is pretty impressive when you figure that his original destiny was to become Thanksgiving Dinner. Instead, he has thus far given me 10 little Terrences to pass on the family line, with more potential little Terrences in the incubator right now!

I ALSO spent quite a bit of time last weekend building a stall in the chicken barn for the goats to sleep in at night, but my landlord said it might be a pain in the ass to convince them to go in the barn at night, and figured he would put a goat house in the pasture for me. My experience with farm landlords for the last 8 years can be summed up with the sentence: “I have a really good idea and I’m going to get on it never!” So you can imagine my surprise when 20 minutes after suggesting he would do this, he rolled up on his tractor with an old livestock trailer hitched on the back and said “Here’s your goat house!”

And of course, me being me, I made him stop the tractor so I could compose a photo of the dogs in the trailer in the right light before he put it in the goat pasture.

Piper is conspicuously absent from this photo, because in her old age she has developed a phobia of vehicles. She seems to enjoy hiking with us every day, but does not enjoy getting in the van, nor her time in it. So when she saw me asking dogs to hop in the trailer, she scuttled away and vanished. And because she’s going on fifteen, she’s allowed to get away with shit like that; it’s a privilege of old age.

“Can’t sleep; cars’ll eat me!”

My landlord also brought me 4 raised garden beds and put them in my yard so I can grow things! Things like Dexters, which are already coming up nicely.

Things like food, and NOT like Japanese knotweed which has appeared everywhere, as Gracie so kindly demonstrates:

Gracie and her brother and sister came to stay with me for a week while their mom was away. I took advantage of them living here to test drive my studio on not-my-dogs.

Gracie is the master of the Aussie head tilt! I miss that head tilt – Tweed got the gene for it with his Aussie half. None of my other dogs do it.

She’s also very photogenic!

Her, umm, “portly” siblings are slightly less photogenic, poor things. They are old, and Gracie’s mom adopted them a couple of months ago, so they came to her really, umm, FAT. They are losing weight slowly, but they are definitely not trim creatures, so it was a challenge to capture them without showcasing all their extra, err, fur ;-)

This is Cyan

And his sister Millie.

They lucked out with their new home for sure! There were, I think, 6 of them in total, left in “boarding” at a local rescue and then never collected (and the rescue got stiffed on the bill, of course), by a breeder of border collies. Le f*cking sigh.

This weekend I get to photograph my friend Christine’s new puppy, a border collie/whippet mix. I am bouncing up and down excited about that, Peetie-style. (I love this photo. It almost makes me like Peetie. Almost.)

She may not be graceful. Or obedient. Or smart. But she is funny.

I have another surprise coming this weekend too, but I’m not going to tell you about it yet. I will photograph it, and spring it on you unsuspecting-like!

Don’t be suspicious. DON’T BE LIKE THE WOOTWOO!

Next weekend I am at the ASC of BC annual trial as their official photographer, which I am excited about. The trial is always fun to photograph, and they always feed me food. And I’m a fan of food, especially free food.

Because it’s a relatively small trial with mostly the same competitors every year, I figure most of the Elite level people already have a kajillion photos of their dogs playing agility taken by me, so I’m going to concentrate on the Novice and Open rings mostly. Last year I had entered Spring in Novice and photographed the trial at the same time, which means I didn’t get many Novice level photos as I was running in those classes. So this year I’ll spend most of my time photographing the up-and-comers, and leave some free time for mini-sessions at the event. If you’re interested, check out my newly designed website for information and pricing. Hope to see some of you there!

I am going to leave you with this photo of Dexter, which looks like basically all other photos of Dexter, as he only has one facial expression, apparently.

And also with the word HAM. Which is ANOTHER surprise I can’t tell you about yet, but should be able to spring on you in a few weeks :)

I, TWooie, Do Solemnly Swear

April 9, 2017 By The Food Lady 8 Comments

That I will beat up The Food Lady’s landlord’s dog again at the first opportunity to do so.

Naughty TWooie!! My landlord has a very sweet and amiable yellow Lab named Mia. Sometimes Mia comes along when the landlord visits to do repairs or whatever. Last week he and Mia stopped by to bring the pressure washer to try and clean up the DOGAWFUL MESS a turkey made when she got on my porch and managed to open a can of white ceiling paint, knock it over, and then tread through it all over the porch. Although TWooie has been doing *surprisingly* well on our hikes and hasn’t objected to any of the client dogs who come along, he has a different view of dogs on HIS turf, and he Does Not Want Mia on his lawn. He was actually doing okay – some growling and air snapping at her from a respectable and safe distance behind my knees – but when Mia and the landlord went to leave through the gate, TWooie must have figured all his bluff and noise had worked, because he went in for the hair pull (in a previous life, TWooie was an 11 year old girl) and Mia objected, and the dog fight was on!

As neither of them really had their heart in it (after all, TWooie is 98% posturing and only 2% malice) nobody got hurt, but it was quite the epic battle. We* (*I) felt bad, so we* (*I) went to the doggie bakery and bought Mia a little heart shaped cake that said “sorry” on it to give to Mia when we got back from our hike. And it was very easy to give to Mia, since she and the landlord were once again on our lawn doing stuff when we returned, so I assume the landlord wasn’t too upset about the whole thing.

But can we talk for a moment about my turkey with superturkey strength? How does a turkey open a can of paint? And WHY? I really don’t get turkeys. I have two lady turkeys right now sitting on a dozen eggs between them, but will they nest inside the barn? No no, they must lay their eggs and sit on them outside, behind the barn, under some old dead blackberry thornies, where they are guaranteed to get pissed on when the weather is bad, all night long. Last night I went out in the pitch black and downpour with a piece of plywood and made them a shelter so they didn’t drown. And then at first light they promptly abandon their eggs to run around squawking and eating all day. I don’t have high hopes for those eggs hatching.

But I do have high hopes for the ones in my incubator hatching! They are due in one week, and I candled them two days ago and found 13 turkey embryos bouncing around in their shells like teenage gymnasts. Very exciting stuff!

I spent last weekend, about 10 hours a day, painting. I painted until my arms felt like they were going to fall off, and I could no longer feel my hands. I took care of the hideous, no good, very bad psychedelic room, which required two coats of primer and two coats of paint (and I swear, in the right light, I can STILL see the outlines of the hideous pattern!). But now it’s done, as is the dog room (kinda).

The dog room needed a new floor, so I bought and and laid lino against pee errors (also known around here as “Gemma, Piper and Addy piss wherever they want to”) and painted, and installed new baseboards.

And psychedelic room is now a nice relaxing shade of pale blue-grey, and not an assault on the visual and aesthetic senses!

I also painted my bedroom, and I still don’t care if you hate pink or not; I like it, and I like how it turned out. Especially as the bedroom used to be a horrible colour that looked like a cross between pea soup and cat vomit.

As I had repainted the bathroom a couple of weekends before that:

This leaves me with just three rooms to go; living room, office and kitchen. Starting to see the light at the end of the renovation tunnel! The living room will be an aubergine shade, if I can find a paint store that carries it and/or can replicate it:

and will also need white baseboards installed. The kitchen is going to be a nice shade of apple green, and I haven’t decided what do with my office yet. It also needs flooring, as it’s just subfloor at the moment (don’t ask me why, I really could not tell you the mysteries of Which Rooms Deserved Real Floors And Which Did Not according to the previous tenant). I also picked up an extremely inexpensive table and chairs for the dining room. The table top needs to be refinished, so that’s also on my list of things to do.

But as I say, I took this weekend off from painting. Although it is sunny today, and I am itching to start fencing, because a couple days ago we arrived home to find two cows in the yard. I did not see them initially. This may seem weird to you, that I would not notice cattle on my lawn, and I admit it’s weird to me too, but that’s what happened. And I let the dogs out of the van, and they DID see the cows, and exactly what you think would happen when dogs see cows for the first time happened, and it was CHAOS. So I really need to make sure that cows and goats are one side of the fence and my acorn-brained dogs are on the other at all times. Because Fae thinks she can *take* a longhorn cow protecting her 500lb calf, and I don’t think that’s how I want Fae to depart this mortal coil.

Anyway, since the photo studio room was painted, I was eager to try it out. So yesterday I limited myself to just a couple of errands (I took garbage to the dump, since we don’t have garbage pick up out here in the middle of nowhere, and I picked up two lady ducks for my new Pekin drake Howard – Howard was a stray duck rescued by a friend who then passed him on to me. And apparently ducks are racist, because my India Runners staunchly refused to make friends with Howard, and Howard was sad. But I found a nearby duck farmer who provided me with two Lady Howards, so now he has his own little harem and everyone is happy again) and then I rigged up holders for my backdrops, set up my lights, and gave the studio a test run!

(for those of you who saw the original of this on Facebook yesterday – yes, Photoshop and I fixed “Winter’s Wonderland” that was advertising its presence very PINKLY!)

I’m lucky that the vast majority of my dogs like being photographed in studio and fall all over themselves volunteering to be the model.

Even Addy, who basically does NOTHING I ask her to do, ever, likes posing for the camera. I suspect it’s just a combination of her loving being the center of attention, and cookies. But whatever her motivation, she is simply adorable to photograph under studio lights.

Look at her adorable face!

And see all those tiny little white hairs sticking up on top of her head? They are “sticking up” because the rest of the top of her head is bald! Totally naked! She suffers from Dilute Colour Alopecia, so she loses patches of her blue hairs on random spots on her body. Usually it grows back in with coat change, but this time her head remains bald. So when photographing Addy, it’s all about angles. Otherwise, her naked head is very obvious. See? (btw, this is her checking to see if Wootie ate her modeling paycheque and if there’s any chance of getting it back before it slides down his gullet. Wootie, OTOH, just views this as an opportunity to make out with a hot, slender woman … even if she is balding).

Head shots are kinda my favourite, and I think Fae Fae won the session with this one:

It’s those big, big, round brown eyes and the wispy ears combination that does it, I think.

Although Dexter can give her a run for her money when it comes to, erm, “unique” head shots.

I messed with Piper’s photo a little too much in post, but I’m sharing it anyway because her expression kills me. It’s so classically Old “Who Am I? What’s Happening? Yay Anyway!” Dog.

She’s doing pretty good, my old lady dog is. She has more cognitive issues than Tweed did at her age, but I kind of expected that because she was always a “live hard” kind of dog, whereas Tweed was a lot more laid back. She is mostly deaf now, and I have to really keep an eye on her during hikes because it’s easy for her to march off in the wrong direction – she is very determined, and if I lose sight of her she can’t hear me calling her. She has trouble with some of the paths if they are steep, or there are logs in her way, so she will head off to find a way around the obstacles, which sometimes leads to her just going somewhere else altogether, and then me running all over the forest trying to find her! Sometimes, when she thinks she has had enough, she will simply turn around and start matching back in the direction of the car. She’s tough as nails, bad knees and all.

And Wootie. How can anyone not love The Woo? I still can’t believe he’s almost 12. He is such a perpetual puppy.

Whereas TWooie is just a perpetual weirdo.

And Peetie remains a perpetual PEST. I have never had such an irritating dog. Miss “No Drive” has no off switch and frequently has to be put in her crate to give everyone some down time, otherwise she’s hitting napping dogs with rope toys to make them mad, or bothering the cats, or standing on the arm of my chair and barking in my ear. I don’t know what I did to transform her so completely, but I wish I could undo it!!

However, I will give her this – yesterday afternoon the landlord’s goats were grazing in the field right behind my yard, so I couldn’t take the dogs out to play ( I could only imagine the Cow Scenario played out again, but this time X 35) so instead I took them out for short walks two at a time to property meet the horses next door through the fence. There was only one in the paddock, and he really wants to meet my dogs. But Every Single One of my dogs was an asshole to the horse – Mad Teeth(tm), growling, lunging and barking … except Peetie, who was super keen to make friends and poked her head through the page wire and sniffed noses with the horse and licked his nostrils.

She’s very friendly, so I haven’t throttled her with my bare hands. Yet.

So anyway, now I have a fully functioning in-house studio and I can start taking clients! It’s super exciting, I have dreamed of this opportunity for a long time :)

Now it’s time to get out there and start working on the fence while the good weather holds, and prevent the Great Goat Slaughter of 2017. Also, I want to get the fencing up so I can rearrange the poultry’s living quarters, so I can then bring MY goats home. GOATS! Also so excited :)

Hello, My Name Is The Food Lady

March 18, 2017 By The Food Lady 10 Comments

And I inhale paint fumes.

No, not because this is THE SCANDAL you’ve all been waiting for these past 11 years of blogging, but because I spent the day starting to finally fix up this old new house o’mine. I’ve been here nearly three weeks, but as I work, like, 10 or more hours a day, there’s not been a lot of time to do stuff. And also, first it needed to be cleaned. If ever I meet the old tenant of this house, I am going to offer her my condolences on being allergic to cleaning products, sponges, cloths and scrubbing implements, because there is NO other reason for a house to be this gross. I have found dirt caked into places I did not know dirt could even find. It’s almost remarkable. I am the first to admit that my fastidiousness only extends to things I can see and I cannot guarantee that anything is sparkling behind furniture or appliances I can’t move easily, like my stove (actually I can guarantee that it ISN’T), but dear doG in heaven, how do you get dirt INSIDE your medicine cabinet?

We are on well water here too, and the water is hard, and very high in iron. My landlord installed a very expensive filtration system on both houses when he bought the place, but former tenant failed to maintain her system (it’s, umm, super easy to maintain incidentally) so it no longer works. The water smells like it tastes when you bite your lip. It also stains everything it sits in. The other morning I was waiting for my toast and *idly* took an SOS pad to the kitchen sink because the entire thing was stained orange. I assumed I was fighting a losing battle but guess what – 5 minutes later I had a stainless steel coloured sink again. The bathtub is another story – it’s coming off, slowly, but I am using SOS pads at an alarming rate (and WTF does CLR even do? Not clean rust off your bathtub, that’s for sure!). Seriously – had she taken 5 minutes even once a week to give it a quick pass with an SOS pad, it would not be taking me days and days to try and make the bathtub not look like someone murdered pennies in it. Ugh.

So I woke up this morning and had a lie-in because I was feeling sorry for myself. I knew starting a new business would be tough, but I guess I didn’t know how tough. Once I land a client they absolutely love me and their dogs do as well, but I need more of them; I’m not making enough money to survive yet. I work from 7AM – noonish for my other job, which I can fortunately do from home, but it doesn’t pay very well. Then I leave around 12:30 and walk dogs, and get home around 5:30PM, if traffic and such favours me. The nice part of not having many clients yet is that all or almost all of my dogs can come with me, so I don’t need to then exercise dogs when I get home, but the downside is that between gas and bridge tolls, I’m earning almost nothing. I know it will come – I have a full time client, and one part time client that is going full time soon, and one sporadic part time client. Not enough yet. I advertise online wherever I can, and I know it will take time, but at the end of the day, it’s just not enough yet.

My landlord is great and basically will pay for anything I want to do, as long as he himself doesn’t have to do the work as he has own very large farm to run and take care of. So that’s fine, I buy what I need and take it off the rent. But my morning job covers my rent, car insurance and car payments and that’s it, so if I spend too much money on stuff before the end of the month, one of those car payments or whatever will bounce. So that’s frustrating. I also still have not gotten my security deposit back from my previous landlord, which is supposed to be my hydro payment because I have no other spare money. I’m living on tomato soup and toast at the moment and I count every penny before I spend it. It’s kinda of exhausting. Nope, it’s super exhausting actually, and sometimes it’s so scary I can’t sleep at night.

So anyway, I lay in bed this morning feeling sad, and decided that laying around feeling sad wasn’t going to change anything, so I got out of bed and went for a short drive and dropped business cards off at all the local pet related businesses in the area. And I picked up some primer and got to work in the bathroom. Because the bathroom was green. And I don’t mean a happy apple green, I mean an institutional green like it’s the 1940s and my house is a hospital for mental patients and the nation is at war and there’s no money for nice coloured paint for a class of society we want to pretend is invisible anyway. It was mental hospital green and DIRTY. And for some reason, full of nail holes and screw holes. So I filled them all in, and primed the hell out of it. Note: “Second coat in just 1 hour!” is LIES DAMN LIES. It’s bed time and it’s still wet. But now that the bathroom is white(ish) it looks about 3 times bigger than it did this morning. It’s going to look pretty okay when it’s painted a) white and b) not with flat paint. And I am just going to assume that all of the other rooms are going to look bigger when painted too, because most them are ALSO green of some kind, or else some really depressing bargain-bin beige, or – like the room that is going to become my photo studio – an acid trip of insane psychedelic swirls (not.even.kidding). Oh primer, we are going to become very good friends for a long time, I think.

Whilst waiting (futilely as it turned out) for the primer to dry in the bathroom so I could apply a second coat, I decided to paint the dog room. But first I had to prime the door, because all the doors in the place are ALSO filthy. And the dog room walls were covered in what looks suspiciously like snot, so they needed to be cleaned. And then I started painting with a can of orange paint that is supposed to be terracotta with a kick, but looked alarmingly like a pumpkin on ecstasy at a rave when I first slapped it on. I’m hoping it calms the fuck down when it dries! I did two walls and then decided I was just plain old done with painting for the day, because it was almost dinner time. And I grabbed my camera and took the dogs outside in the sun. And this is where you come in :)

“Look Simba, everything the light touches is our kingdom.”

(and yes, I recycled that from my personal facebook page, so here’s my preemptive shut UP to my FB friends)

We started out playing ball in my front field, but that field is ringed with old blackberry bushes (although they are not bushy, just huge tangles of dead and thorniness) but RABBITS hang out in the thorny and RABBITS cause Spring to go berserk. Even the thought, hint or suspicion of RABBITS cause her to go berserk.

And when Springs goes berserk, all the other bastardogs lose their collective minds and then this happens:

And when that happens, it cannot happen quietly. It has to be accompanied by as much barking as possible, as well as the ungodly sounds of Wootie barkscreaming. And since we live next door to, and share a fence with lots of these:

And those are guarded by a couple of – okay I don’t have a photo of them, but let’s just say REALLY BIG DOGS. And I don’t want my new neighbours to hate me right out of the gate. So I have to put a stop to the RABBIT insanity as soon as it starts. So we moved to the pasture between my house and my landlord’s house to play. Because the turkey won’t let us play in my actual yard. Ever since we moved here, the turkey and the roosters have become crazy territorial. They don’t f*ck with me, because I schooled them from the get go (with a shovel), but last weekend Tyrone the rooster attacked my friend Michelle! It was a cheap ass sneak attack from behind too, the asshole.

Anyway, Terrence the turkey scares the little dogs, and also Dexter. Because Dexter’s body is large, but his brain is little.

So we just decided to play in the field. It has a couple of little ponds that my ducks were not using at the moment, and kindly let the dogs splash around in it.

And they raced up and down the hill, because the pasture is … well, pastoral and full of gently rolling hills and other The Sound Of Music shit.

(last weekend my landlord took me and Michelle on a tour of the rest of the 18 acres. Dudes, there’s a LAKE at the back, like a trout lake. where my dogs can swim! And there are cows. And I met my baby goats. This one many of you have seen already; I named him Harvey. He thought my coffee cup was his milk bottle and he was REAL happy to meet me as a result. So I named him Harvey Milk)

harvey

Anyhoo. There was much gallumping and gleeful running around after frisbees and toys to be done, border collie style.

Look at this ole lady dog! 14.5, still tough as nails. She comes hiking almost every day, and though she has to be lifted over logs, and she goes up hills sideways because neither her front end nor her back end has the power to propel her up an incline, she’s determined to do it!

And still the non-border collies found tangles of thorniness to hunt RABBITS in.

They didn’t find any RABBITS though, so at least they came back when I called them.

I really have to get on the fencing and keep them from reaching that side of the field though, because it borders a path that lots of horse riders use, and as my dogs are both OBNOXIOUS and not used to horses, they tend to race over en masses and scare the bejesus out of the horses and riders both. I really don’t want to inadvertently kill some horse rider when it gets chucked off its 1000 lb mount, so I am double fencing, so they can’t reach that fence. Also, I want the poultry to live between those two fences, as when they are in my yard they take disgusting liberties like pooping in my porch. And a while ago I had my kitchen door open while I was doing stuff and came into the house to get something and found like 7 chickens IN MY LIVING ROOM. Impertinent assholes.

Anyway, that was our first real playtime on the property and I think everyone had fun, because they are all now passed out cold, about 80% of them in my office here with me now. Piper favours the closet, while Dexter and Gemma argue over the bed under my desk (Gemma usually wins because she can’t hear or see Dexter’s ugly faces and sounds, and he’s all teeth and no trousers that one).

I think I like it here. I think the dogs do too :)

I will like it just a teensy bit better when the wood stove finally goes in though, because when it’s cold outside, it’s COLD in here. When the temperature drops, I can see my breath in my house.

I will also like it a little better when I can afford it. So please, be sure to tell your friends about The Walking Dog so I can round up some more clients to walk. We walk in some really amazing places with tons of stuff to explore, rivers to splash through, logs to leap over and stuff. The dogs are so pooped when they get home. It’s really awesome! They just love it, and so do I … and I really want to keep doing it! Even if some weirdo sent me a huge long email in response to one of CL ads that accused me and all dogwalkers of destroying wildlife habitat (I don’t EVER take dogs to areas where there is wildlife habitat risk!) and wrapped up her insane rant by suggesting I should want to kill myself for being such a horrible person. Like, wow. Whacko.

Also, you can really help me out by booking a photo shoot, or purchasing a print or two from me. I have a few 18X24 prints ready to go already – if you’re interested in seeing them, contact me and I’ll send photos. if there’s anything I’ve photographed that you’d like to have a print of, please let me know and I can make that happen too. Soon I hope to have my photo studio IN MY HOUSE ready to roll, and can do studio sessions right here at home, which saves you the cost of me renting studio space.

Hopefully tomorrow that blasted primer will be dry enough to apply the second coat, and I can finish painting the dog room, and then get rid of the acid trip in the photo studio room. *shudder*

Then Monday it’s back to work. I have all three clients to walk on Monday, so TWooie gets to stay home because otherwise he beats up the 100lb Lab. Because TWooie is small, but his ego is enormous.

Much love to you all from our slowly-being-improved stixier house in the stix (now with RABBITS)

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