Tag: nature

June. The month when many of my favorite things collide

This June has been a hard month for me, and we are only 2 1/2 weeks into it. Usually for me June slides in quietly, I know that planting sensitive plants before Rodeo Weekend is going to lead to a late frost failure and frustration. I know that the hardier plants are blooming like mad and I must photograph them. I know that setting up my extensive watering system could lead to frozen pipes and so I should wait…. We usually have a cool damp spring and I can afford to wait.
But this year is different. it has been much warmer. I took the panels that wrap my backyard deck for the winter, off in late May. I have been able to sit on my backyard deck and enjoy the quietness, listening to the birds singing and not the neighbor’s over loud stereo bass booming. Planning my next gardening adventure, I have pulled out some of my favorite garden books or barrowed more books from our local library. Photography, Gardening, Flower arranging, and home decor….I have bought more plants and planters. I have expanded my flowerbeds and created a mess with my garden watering system.

I found that I had to start watering early before I had my sprinkler timers ready. I currently have 6 different timers and all dependent on one timer. usually I have a couple days of the system not working and then I managed to get it all coordinated. It is not usually a problem because the temps for June are in the mid 70’s. Not so much this year, this year we have had temps in the 80’s and topping at the 90’s. I finally broke down and got the sprinkler timers going only to find one had quit and had to be replaced. A planned power outage for our local power company resulted in a request from the water guy to not water during that period of time. We are facing another drought year and I try to make my watering go further by watering at night, so I don’t catch that the system doesn’t work until the next morning when I have to manually water, during the morning before it gets too hot. All the while all the plants I have recently purchased are drying out because it is hot and they have not been watered. I have pushed myself to get some of the plants planted and only

had an occasional melt down because my sprinkler system wasn’t working as I want it too…
Finally, I have every plant I bought planted in the ground or the new pots I bought.

I have dahlia tubers planted and some are starting to come up. I am so ready to enjoy my gardens this summer but had to come up with a new watering plan because the garden ideas keep getting bigger…. Another order from Amazon should solve the watering problem, by splitting up the sprinkler timers….making each one individual and not dependent on the others.
I love gardening and I love photography. I love doing them in the early morning before the day heats up…. I love reading and I love shopping at thrift stores. Which leads me to the next installment of my story. The books bring me the ideas the garden provides me the flowers and the photography of the flowers in the vases I find give me the joy.
Except…

The studio Needs Work. Which is my next project now that the plants are planted. Assuming the watering system works right….

Hector the Great Garden Gnome has Arrived….

He settled right in and found himself a home….


George and Jeramiah quickly rushed out to greet him, and they grabbed the Gnome mobile for a quick tour before the rainstorms began.

Todays project was to get the new flowerbed set up with a sprinkler system.

Hector was very impressed that George and Jeramiah got so much done with the trolls., who can be a bit unruly.
The troll kids showed him the lilacs that were planted earlier in the season and how they made sure each lilac got a water sprinkler.

They are hoping that this planting of lilacs will be able to bloom without the deer eating them and will provide a nice visual screen from the neighbors in the back. They are after all a hardy plant old fashion bush surviving years of neglect and deer trimming…. Time for them to get a nice new home of their own…. There was talk of planting petunias around the rock edge since the middle of the flowerbed is still rough and won’t support much in the way of plantings.

Pinks, Pinky and Gemma are wanting pink petunias to go with the heart rock they found

But the other trolls said maybe purple to go with the lilacs. I had to explain to them that it is way too early in the season to be planting them. Hector concurred. Besides I like red petunias.
Before long the clouds darkened, and it started to rain lightly. Everyone started loading up in the Gnome mobile

Except for Lime who was really enjoying playing with the dirt and planning the next planting….
He did finally head in when Mother nature unleashed the biggest thunder and lightning storm of the season with rain the felt like a waterfall from the sky.
Tune in for more gardening adventures from Hector George and Jeramiah, Poppa T, Pinx, Aqua, pumpkin, Lime, Blue, Gemma, and whomever they rope in for their gardening adventures….

Spring cleaning one of my Bearded Iris beds

It is April and this year things are growing early for Central Oregon. Todays project was to get the old Bearded Iris leaves cleaned out of this flowerbed…. Because the location of this Iris bed gets more sunlight than the other 5 locations it starts blooming earlier. I have also noticed that my peonies are coming up, so not only do I have to remove the old iris leaves but the old peony leaves and the various different seed heads from last years flowers… Some are still standing in this photo in the background.

It all started out as planned, reach out grab a handful of old leaves and toss them into a pile for the compost pile. But… that only lasted a few minutes. When I put in the raised beds for the Peonies and the Virginnia Creepers, I made the fenceline side of those beds with cinder blocks, after replacing and changing the location of the new fence last year, I decided to remove part of the old fence. This year I decided those cinder blocks were ugly and pulled them. (back left side of photo) My plan was to replace them with more large rocks… Central Oregon has a lot of those, and I don’t have to go far to get the new rocks for this project since I have a lot of rocks close by. I have a couple of other rock borders that I want removed and it is a perfect use for those rocks.

Now that I have placed the new rocks in the area between the peony flowerbed and the Bearded Iris flowerbed, it is time to finish cleaning up the old leaves. Wait I haven’t photographed my work yet…. And while I am at it I need to include the gnomes and the trolls.

I wonder why it takes me so long to finish a project……

Revisiting my 20234 Aurora Borealis photos Dee Wright Observatory

I first posted some photos of this trip up highway 242 to the Dee Wright observatory, to capture the Aurora Borealis, in October of 2024. That was before I purchased this new Luminar Neo Photo processing program. I didn’t like the quality of the photos and couldn’t wait to see if I could make them better with this new program and the Digital Neutral RAW files. They came out much better than I expected, but the files were huge, and I could not download them onto my Facebook page. Time to learn how to lower the size of the photos, without losing the quality. In other words how to make a photo that is 20 mbs into one that is 6 mbs or 3 mbs…
This photo just happened to be the smallest of the photos I picked to share. I liked the look of the moon rising over the main structure of the observatory, with North and Middle Sister mountains on the left side. It was about 9 in the evening and everything was dark except for the moon. I was packing that sort of fixed tripod, that had broken, and hoping I didn’t run into anybody since the legs were extended. My housemate Susan and I climbed to the top and got set up before the larger crowd of people showed up.

I loved the look of the cars coming up to the parking lot and the reflection onto the blue coats of the two people coming up the lower steps.

The light show started of gently with a light blush of color and you really couldn’t see it unless you had a camera.

Then the color took off.

I loved that I could see the stars behind the light show and even headlights coming up Highway 242 from the east and passing Black crater.

Within an hour of arriving at the observatory the light show was pretty much over and the moonlight was again reflecting off of the clouds with North and Middle Sisters silhouette at the horizon.
I hope I can see the Auroras again and maybe next time I will have new tripod legs.

Is it spring or winter, a good time to learn about my new photo processing program

Winter has finally decided to arrive. We have awakened to fresh snow on the ground, several mornings, the most we have seen all season. Cloudy breezy days, clear crisp warm afternoons, then the snow is gone by evening only to return the next morning. it feels like late winter and early spring here.

I think I have mentioned that my favorite laptop is dying. In anticipation of this a year ago, I bought a computer tower to replace the laptop. I hated the new windows 11 program and had it removed. So, the tower sat for a year+ unused. Now, things have gotten so bad with the laptop that I finally decided it was time to switch my photos and processing programs to the new tower. It has not been easy. The tower refused to recognize my external hard drive and everything I use. The final straw was that my favorite photo processing program that I used daily would not transfer over. I then found myself downloading my photos onto the laptop and processing them then transferring them to a flash drive and uploading them to the computer tower. The laptop crashed several times during this process; I then decided to download the photos onto the tower and then pick the ones I wanted to process and transfer them to the flash drive and ultimately to the laptop process them and then transfer them back to the tower. That worked ok but if I had another idea and went out to photograph it the whole process had to be started over again. Photos were getting lost or left behind. The computer tower program was different, photos were getting lost, files were getting lost. The computer has a different idea of how I should organize my photos, and I couldn’t find them by their date. In order to get the photo processing program, I had been using onto the computer tower I would have to buy the program again. The thing is, the program I was using was limited, it did what I wanted with the photos I had, I knew that there was more that could be done with my photos. I had been photographing with the basic JPG photo program and with the RAW digital neutral program. That means I could go deeper with my photographs but only if I had a program that could work in the RAW and then convert the photo to the JPG program for showing. I decided that if I was going to have to use the new computer for my photo processing it was time to upgrade my processing program. I had an idea of what program I wanted to purchase but I could not remember the name, So I asked my friend Neil Schmottlach, a fellow photo enthusiast what program he was using. He said he was using Luminar Neo. I checked it out found that it was indeed the program I wanted and purchased it. I Love IT !!!! So much easier and faster than my old program.
Now to start practicing using it. What to start with ?…. I am so ready for spring, I decided to go back to last year’s April photographs. There were spring flowers on the west side of the mountains and I had photographed them. The waterfalls were flowing at full force and I had photographed them…. On this gray day where the skies are threatening snow but not actually delivering, I will enjoy last year’s spring flowers.

I will admit these photos are from two different weeks last April, but I just wanted to enjoy them and am putting them in one post.

Sahalie Falls on the McKenzie falls is one of my favorite falls and in the morning, you can photograph a rainbow. This was early in April. I headed down towards the valley and stopped off at my favorite resting spot where I can get out stretch my legs walk down to the river.


because it was early in the spring there were few leaves on the maple trees. I took this shot with the plan to process it from the RAW file. Otherwise the shot is impossible to get a good photo, too much light too much shadow….

This shot was the same idea the only thing lit up were these leaves against the dark Douglas fir tree.

On my return trip home a few hours later I stopped off at Sahalie falls again. The sun had moved further west, and this area is in shadow. It would have been harder to see in those shadows with the regular program, and I am always trying to capture the turquoise color that seems to move through the water as it falls down to the base. Success. after this shot I backtracked about a mile or so and stopped at Koosah Falls which is below Sahalie.

Again the late afternoon light was not the best but did enrich the turquoise of the water. I have shot this in the mornings as well and sometimes the sun blows out the details of the falling water. I ended that day’s photo shoot with a shot of this little sword fern in growing in the moss.


It was kind of dark for photos but I always try to get the shot…. with the new program another success.
The next group of photos were taken about two weeks later when I knew there would be my favorite calypso orchids.

This trillium was just past its prime, when the white petals change to magenta. The trail down to the river was very shady, perfect for trilliums orchids and wood violets

Because it was April and we were in the shade of the Maple and Douglas fir trees, a warm spot in the sunlight was a good reason to stop and enjoy. Which my housemate did.

It wasn’t long before she had her sweatshirt on though.
I admit I am having a lot of fun with this new processing program and well I did go back into my files two years ago to 2024 and the Aurora Borealis shots I took in the spring and fall.
Tomorrows post.

Attending the church of the Juniper and Sagebrush

This morning a friend and I both shared a post on Facebook about mother earth being a church. I have always thought of the forest as a church and a place to rejuvenate. A place to talk to the trees work through issues and in general calm my restless soul. Plus, the trees never tell your secrets. When I came to Central Oregon, I lived near a place I could hike in the pines. And those pines heard a lot. A few years later I moved a few miles east and my hiking place was in the Junipers. Honestly it took me a few years to find the right place that calmed my soul.

This area is big an open it has canyons and buttes I can climb up or go down. I hike the area so much I am not likely to get lost because I have many visual landmarks that guide me. I call this area Sage Ranch rd. butte and canyon, I also refer to it as my church of the Junipers and sagebrush.

This area has ancient history, it holds secrets since the beginning of time in Central Oregon.

Today’s hike was not to calm my soul or to vanquish things that anger me. It was simply a good winters day to get out and enjoy the old beings that have lived here for 500 -1000 years or more. My original plan was to hike down into the canyon climb up the canyon wall close to where the Sage Ranch canyon, Deep canyon, and Fryrear canyon seem to meet. Those plans changed when I noticed someone parked in the parking area for the main trail. I drove a few yards further and parked across from the butte, deciding to climb it instead. It doesn’t matter to me which direction I go in this area it is so big we can all enjoy it. I can let my German Shepherds run without bothering anybody.

You will notice in most of these photos large piles of cut juniper. For many years we have let this land go natural except that we put out all the fires. So natural wasn’t natural and the area is overgrown with dead sagebrush, tall bitterbrush, and young flammable juniper trees. At one time I had found a plan for this area that BLM had been working on. It involved making a new trail head closer to Fryrear road and adding more horse trails. It wasn’t specific enough for me to determine but I had hoped that it included this area. Because lets face it My Church of the Junipers really needed a make over. A rejuvenation. This year is the year for that to start, and I hope next year these piles are burned.

in the mean time I am enjoying all of the views opening up that I couldn’t enjoy because there was a tree in the way…

After an hour up on the butte it was time to work my way down into the lower area and the main trail.

Time to go back to my car feeling refreshed by a good hike in the Junipers

My Original Plan for this Blog…

The purpose of this blog is to share my work. It is a many pronged process where I plan on sharing my hiking adventures, my photography visions while out and about, my creations in my little photo studio, and the notecards I had made several years back when I was planning on retiring from retail. It is a way to keep my photography going and to keep me going. And hopefully a way to sell my notecards, on eBay.

It starts with the camera a simple tool used to record things around me in this world. I started with a simple to use manual camera, as my experience grew, I went up to the much larger and clunky 6×7 camera to supplement the much smaller 35mm SLR camera. Then I quit for 20 + years. I got too busy.
My photo journey started again when I got a simple digital SLR 35mm camera, and on my days off from work going hiking with my German Shephard.

That simple digital camera only survived 2 hikes. It was too simple, I couldn’t use my many, much loved vintage lenses, and I accidently spilled some Gatorade on it, short circuiting the electronics. But I was hooked on photography again. I bought another used digital camera that was more advanced. I photographed anything and everything to share on Facebook. A power outage was an opportunity to get out and take photos of my dilemma

After a couple years I decided to step up my game and I had some notecards of my favorite shots made. I knew that I would be retiring from retail soon and wanted to have an avenue to support myself.

I had a website created and hoped to blog and sell my photo notecards maybe even my photographs. I left my retail job a couple of years earlier than I had planned. It opened me up to explore and enjoy. Everything was paid for, and I didn’t owe anybody for my work. It was freeing…. but my cards were not selling on eBay, or Etsy, or even on my website. I heard from many people Why should I buy notecards when I can use e-mail or Facebook? My website got hacked and I was constantly removing scams, I had pulled my notecards from eBay and Etsy. Tried relisting them again and nothing was selling. I became frustrated and angry, and the blog was reflecting that. Then Covid hit. I let the blog go because I didn’t feel it was doing what I needed.
I was following a photographer whose books I had read, and in one of his articles he mentioned another photographer that was a local to Oregon. I soon started following her and at the end of covid she offered to Do a 52 week photo challenge. I jumped on it and did some of my best most creative work over the next 4 years… I also wore out 5 cameras. Pretty easy to do when you are trying to come up with new ideas for the weekly challenge, and there are no limits… taking 100 photos a day was not unusual. I put together a small photo studio on my back deck where it was protected from the weather in the winter. If I had an idea, I grabbed the camera and started putting it together…. It didn’t matter that it was 25 degrees outside or 85 degrees outside…. While working on the challenge I ran across this troll doll with pink hair and he became a major influence on my photographs and the challenges.

Meet Pinx whom I have mentioned in the earlier blogs as my alter ego.

After a while there were 3 Trolls

and a few plastic dinosaurs they called lizards.
And Now

there are 8 of them and a whole bunch of dinosaur lizards

My whimsical side has evolved and maybe, new plans for notecards. But first I need to sell the older note cards, and the two new notecards I had printed this last summer.

So if you are interested in my notecards you can find them on eBay at deannedementphotography

And Thank You for taking the time to read my post.
Deanne

The End of 2025 Making plans for 2026

For the last three days the Troll family tribe has been on exploring trips. Poppa T, Pinx, and Aqua have been taking Lime, Pumpkin, Gemma, Blew and Pinky on tours of a couple of their favorite places to hike.
Monday it was Reilly Ranch Preserve.

They enjoyed the views towards the mountains over the meadow.

The different views from the overlook.

and the lizards wanted to see the views too


There were views of the Deschutes river below,

Pinky and Blew were assigned to make sure Aqua didn’t decide to go swimming again.
After their tour of Reily Ranch they decided to explore the area closer to home. So Tuesday it was Sage Ranch Canyon and Butte. they decided to warm up with a little rock climbing in the parking area.

Soon we were on our way down into the canyon a bit so we could do some more rock climbing up

Poppa T chose this route because he likes the view of the mountains as they climb the rocks to the top of the canyon. Because this area has coyotes, he also hired a couple of guards…

Well truth is that Nova and Aurora insisted that we were not going hiking without them.
After we got to the top of the canyon we headed south up to the top of Sage Ranch Butte.

There were a lot of trees to climb, and every snarly snag had to be checked out, soon though we were at the top of the butte.

After they climbed some rocks and checked out the flat areas it was time to head home. We chose the path that took us down the easy slope and overlooked the canyon wall we climbed up earlier.

For today Wednesday, Poppa T wanted to go to the mountains…. Yeah Right…. I simply explained that I had other plans and was going to the pool…. They thought that would be a good trip, but I said that they didn’t have swim passes and couldn’t go… Plus we had to clean up the photo area so we could start the new year with a fresh blank slate…..

So Good Bye 20….
Hey wait What are you all doing???

What do you mean we are not done photographing???

All right one last portrait session for 2025
Good by 2025…. Time to make photo plans for 2026

Aqua Troll is back home from his adventure.

For those of you who read my post a couple weeks ago, and those of you who didn’t, this story is Aqua’s big adventure story. For some reason Aqua decided to jump off the bridge at lower bridge campground across the Metolius River. He very quickly floated down river and out of sight around the corner.

Now he is back safe and sound.

Nobody is happier to see him then Poppa T. Except maybe me.
And what an adventure story he has to tell.

It all started with a handwritten note.

and a delivery from Fed Ex.

Apparently Aqua is the sibling finder and Blew had come from Texas with a message…

On the day Blew arrived we had a trip planned for the Metolius and just before we left for our hiking trip, he whispered the message to Aqua. There were more siblings lost in Florida…. and they too were trying to come back home.
So Aqua dove into the river in hopes of finding them.

I don’t know how he thought he would make it to Florida from Oregon, but he did.

According to his story he hopped a ride on a swan, that took him down river to lake Billy Chinook. He was ever so grateful for the swan coming along because that water in the Metolius was freezing cold.

At Lake Billy Chinook he managed to catch a ride on the Canada Goose Express heading south. He said it was quite a ride across the United States and was glad that the geese had charted a course south through Texas and Louisiana.
They had heard that there were some lost trolls in Florida, it would be no problem to find them.

and there they were hiding in the ferns.

They were so glad to see Aqua that they came running out to surround him. He told them that his plan was to book them all on a one-way flight through Fed Ex and that they would all be back home with Poppa T soon.

So, Poppa T’s Tribe is growing and while he knows there are other kids out there, he can be patient because they will find their way home.
Meet our new cast of Troll kids

Aqua with formally introduced Blew (on the left.)

Pinky (Pinx twin) And Lime

Pumpkin or Kin for short and Gema.
Looking forward to what adventures we can all get into this next year.

A trip to the Metolius River area and Robins challenge.

Last week my Friend Robin asked me to go with her and another friend to collect greenery for wreaths. I did my last blog on that trip the with her and her husband. It inspired me to think about going out and picking some greenery for photographs. I don’t need much and don’t want to get too much because I would not be able to use it before it faded. Plus, I would not be able to go out again to another place and get something different. As life goes though thinking about an idea and going out and doing that idea, doesn’t always happen.
So Monday, Robin asked me if I liked challenges. I love photo challenges…. Her challenge was for me to go out with the dogs and take 5 photos. I modified it to taking the trolls and the dogs. Especially since the German Shepherds are too busy checking things out to be good photo subjects. Then she said “Oh and no Juniper.” Well Shoot…. I guess I have to go back to Camp Sherman / Metolius river Area. I decided that we would start as far out as we could go at Candle Ck Campground. Normally we cannot get there this time of year because of snow. This year no problem good dry road all the way…
I love worn out picnic tables in the national forest and this table had a lot of character.
So Robin…. Challenge photo #1


Poppa T, Pinx, Aqua and their little brother Blew brought several of their pet lizards to play in the forest. We wandered around the campground a bit then headed back towards the main road. Collecting nature and greenery on the way back.

We stopped at Abbot Ck bridge because the kids wanted to check things out.

And then we hear a squawk from the car…. Thomas Turkey thought this might be a good place to find some of his family

Challenge photo #2
We did a search but didn’t find anything not even a feather. So, we continued back to the main road and lower bridge campground Bridge 99. Where there was this beautiful reflection on the river.

The trolls wanted to get out and take photos of the river from the bridge

Challenge photo #3
It wasn’t long before they moved along the bridge railing to a better view

Challenge shot #4
Just after this shot was taken Aqua, (on the right) decided that he wanted to go swimming and dove off the bridge into the freezing Metolius river. I hoped that he would catch the swirl and end up against the shore at the campground but no he went for the rapids and around the bend. After that the photo session was over for the day. I do hope that if he decides to swim with the fishies he has a good time.
However we still have Poppa T, Pinx, and little Blew. I convinced them that we needed to set up the photo area and use the greenery and branches we collected.

Challenge shot #5

And so, another personal challenge begins, Making floral arrangements with Christmas in mind.
We love a good challenge….. and maybe Aqua will figure out how to join us again….