My Creek

In my last post I promised to show you a little bit more of my property this time. This time I'm going to share a few pictures of the creek that lies right on the southern edge of my land. This small creek divides my land from the farm down the road.

I'm not sure you can see from the pictures just how deep the creek lies at the bottom of this gully. I guess it would be called a gully. It's really deep whatever it's called. The sides are very steep so I don't go down there to the water very often.

My neighbor and I shared a garden at the back end of my property a few years ago. He did most of the work. I supplied the land. We decided to put a small pump in the water down there that would supply water to the garden. I sent him down there to place the pump in the water. He had a devil of a time trying to climb back out. I'm not sure he's been back down there ever since.

I've been down there a few times. I took better routes to get back out of there, but it's never been easy so I generally stay out. The other side is even steeper so the creek is basically just mine. There aren't any houses nearby the other side anyway.

There is only a small amount of water running through my creek. That's actually not too bad. Most creeks around this area have dried up years ago. I see old creek beds like this just about everywhere I go around here.

Rivers and creeks here work a bit different than they do back in Michigan where I used to live. There the waterways sat in gentle dips in the surrounding land. Here the running water cuts out the land straight down from where it began. Most creeks and rivers here sit at the far bottom of steep gulleys like this one.

I took these pictures right before another big snowstorm here. Winter doesn't want to give up. The snow is mostly melted again after that, but we'll see what happens in the upcoming days. I do think spring might be finally here all the way this time.

I've been out walking my property to see which trees I need to cut down. I love trees but some of them are in the wrong places. I try to leave most of these near the creek up because they keep some of the wind from getting too bad here. It also helps that I'm surrounded by mountainous hills on two other sides.

I'm going to try to get back out to the nature parks for my next post. I'm feeling a little better, so it's time to get out and start moving more. Between time for clearing trees I'll hopefully be exploring a few nature trails looking for good pictures to share. Maybe I'll find something fun to show you. I'll talk to you later.

Out Back

I sometimes forget that there is a lot of nature very close to me, so after remembering this, I decided to get a little more local with my pictures this time. These pictures today are from the very back end of my property.

One year my dad planted the whole field back here with potatoes. He had a nearby neighbor help with that. The neighbor had no idea what to do with so many potatoes because he is from a country that doesn't really eat potatoes very much. Being Irish, and from around here, my dad loved potatoes more than any other food. He ate them all.

I've been letting things grow a bit back there because that's the way I like it.Most of the junk is left over from my dad. He loved junk. He always found creative ways to make just about anything useful.

A couple of years before I got here my dad had cows back here. He eventually herded them all to a farm he had in South Dakota, so I never saw them. They were probably all turned into steaks by the time I got here.

I don't do much with the land out here. That's mostly because I grew up in the city. I'm used to a lot less land. I don't want to try to be a farmer so I let the land go kind of wild. I do cut a lot of wood though. There aren't lots of trees in this part of the country, but there are plenty for what I need.

I mentioned my dad a couple of times because I can't help but think of him whenever I walk around the far ends of this property. This was his place. I don't know that he particularly loved this property more than any other he had, but it was his. It was where he chose to live his last days. So it will always make me think of him.

I'm still not posting much because I injured myself right after my last post. All I was doing was moving furniture around in my living room and I hurt something in my back. The pain made me sleep for two straight days. Now I don't feel it unless I move too quickly. So I'm staying kind of close to home until I feel just a little better. I'm almost there.

I've only shown you a little bit of this place out here. Since I can really only get around close to home right now, I'll show you more of this place in my next post or two. I try not to reveal too much about my own stuff because that's kind of boring, but I have some cool nature stuff out here. I'll share more of it when I talk to you later.

A Snowy New Adventure

I finally have some new pictures from a brand new everyday adventure. It was only a little difficult walking through the deep snow, and only because I'm not used to doing it. But I had such a great time.

When I got out there I remembered how much I love going to the nature parks. Some of them are still closed around here until spring, but they'll be opening up very soon. It's warming up fast, and I think the snow will not last much longer.

I also have the interesting experiment in photo editing for you that I've been doing lately. I decided to take these snowy photos and put them through the editor and see if I can improve them a bit. Let's see how I did.

The top photo is the one I changed a little with some small edits. The second one above is the unedited photo. I brought out the detail in the whole picture, especially the snow. Now you can see all of the footprints and other details in the snow. And I also brought out a lot of detail and some color in the trees and other vegetation.

I think overall the newer edited picture is easier to look at. I saw the detail while I was out there. Now you can see it too.

So, what do you think? Do you like the first or second picture more, and why?

I did the same exact thing here with these next two pictures. I saved my exact editing process from the first photo and used it on this one as well. So you can see the results in the picture above. The last picture is the unedited version.

You might be able to appreciate these last ones more after clicking on them to see the larger versions. I like the detail I made with this one, but I'm not sure about the deeper shadows. Maybe I should have turned those shadows down a bit. They look nice on the original full-size unbloggerized photos that I can't share though.

I won't torture you with the details of my photo edits every time. I just thought it might be interesting this time to do this with some new pictures. So enjoy this type of post while it's here. I may do it again when it's appropriate, but I'll go back to regular stuff next.

And I'm not quite ready for my incredible stunt that I hinted at in my last post. I thought about doing it on this last outing, but in the end, I decided to wait until some of the snow melts. I think that won't be much longer. I hope you'll like this stunt as well as I think I will. Maybe some of you will try to duplicate it once I do it. I hope so. I wish I could tell you what it is! Soon...

 I'll talk to you later.