Just Kidding Around

As I have discussed before, I grew up on a farm. The memories of the experiences I had growing up in that lifestyle are greatly cherished. I yearn to share this with my Sugar Bear. I want her to absorb all that growing up country has to offer. A "city girl" cousin recently described life on our family farm as "the simple life." She meant it in the most respectful, and admirable way. None the less, I think my dad took a bit of offense. What he does to keep our Century Farm running, is far from simple. He works hard....very hard, as does my mother. As difficult, and time consuming as it can be, I know they find great joy in it.

One of those joys includes sharing it all with their grand children. Their door is always open to "the girls." In fact, sometimes it is hard getting Sugar BACK once she has been there for a few days. They'd gladly keep her FOREVER. As the seasons change, there are revolving reasons for Sugar to pay visits to the farm. The baby cows, hay season, planting the garden, gathering the veggies, strawberry picking, grape ripening, picking out a pumpkin....the list goes on. I am always anxious to make sure nothing is missed, and Sugar Bear gets a chance to live the "simple life."



Here at home, we are quite lucky ourselves. We live on our own 5 acre piece of land surrounded by forest, and fields. We have some wonderful neighbors, and enjoy the country type of life on a daily basis. Recently, I began gearing up for what I knew was coming....the delivering of the KIDS! Yes....my wonderful neighbor, Johnny, had 29 pregnant goats. It didn't take long to figure out that soon we'd have a bunch of sweet baby goats running around. A quick call to Johnny a few weekends ago, and Sugar Bear and I had a hot, early morning date. Just us, Johnny, and some 34 kids....oh and their mamas too. As of that morning, 7 expecting goats were still...ummm...expecting.



Bright and early, Sugar Bear and I donned our rubber boots, coats, and hats. We headed on over to Johnny's barn to experience one of the most time consuming, yet full filling chores of a farmer.....bottle feeding. You see, many of these mama goats had twins, and several even had triplets. Often there just isn't enough milk to go around. Johnny offers bottle to any baby kid that is interested twice a day. Sugar was over the top excited to be a substitute goat mama. We had a blast, and Johnny, a fairly recent widower, was grateful to have some company. It was a blessing all around.



We started the feeding inside the barn. If you have been reading my blog for long a day or so....you know that I have a pretty intense interest in photography. In fact, I have been writing a simple series of photography tutorials lately as well. (You can find them off to the right on my side bar.) This barn provided me with a forced challenge to use my flash. You see....I am NOT a fan of flash photography. Well....let's just say "on-board flash". There are some nice external flashes that produce nice results, but the flash system that comes built into your camera, in my opinion, stinks. I have trouble getting nice natural looking photos using the on-board flash. I like my photos to accurately depict what I am seeing in real life. You'll see what I mean here. The next photo, I snapped while Sugar Bear was feeding her first baby goat the bottle. I framed her sweet face, and moved in close. I found the result to be quite startling.



Sugars face is washed out, and her eyes are simply NOT normal. I have never seen her look like this in real life, so why would I want a photo like this? Now, if I had a choice, I would have moved her outside, so there would be enough light to avoid using the flash all together, but....I had to work with what I had. I took a few steps back and snapped again. I think you'll find that this made a significant difference.



Now, I cropped it so that we'd have the nice framing, and up close more personal feel I was wanting. As you can see, this photo is far superior to the first. It isn't totally natural, but acceptable.



It is my advice that if you HAVE to use the flash, step BACK, and crop in your editing software. I think you'll experience better results. Try it out and let me know. In the mean time you'll find me always searching out the moments I can avoid the flash. I once heard a blogger recommend to her readers that they use the flash ALL the time whether they needed it or not. She felt that it would fill in shadows, and increase the quality of ANY photo in ANY situation. I was shocked. In my opinion, real life has shadows, and getting rid of them in photos takes away the depth of the scene, and presents a flat image. So, I recommend the opposite....use flash as a LAST resort. Here is another example I took as we headed out into the covered shed area to feed more kids. This one is taken with flash:



It isn't BAD really, but the baby goat's eyes are glowing, and Sugar is a tad washed out. So I switched to NO flash, and got a few more natural ones. I find that they accurately represent what it is like to be in an overhead covered shed. Isn't that the point?





Sugar Bear and I couldn't have had a better time. It cracked me up how Sugar was insistent on wanting to pet the few kids that just didn't want anything to do with her, but the ones begging for attention she ignored. I guess she likes "hard to get!" All in all though, she got quite a kick out of the bottle feeding process. This one was taken inside the barn, so as you'll see, the baby goat's eyes are un-natural, but the photos is still passable.



However, this one taken outside (without flash), in my opinion, beats it by a mile. Seriously....look at this darling little honey! Can you resist the cuteness?



This little one, was a real friendly little fella. Just before we headed back home, Sugar finally found interest in him. He was a curious little guy who if given the chance, might have taken a few bites out of my camera.



As for Johnny, we are grateful to him for sharing his kids with us. It warms my heart knowing that each and every one of us got something out of that morning together. I walked away feeling a sense of community, and wishing that we could help our neighbor out several mornings a week. If only my having to work didn't get in the way of life.....REAL LIFE, because as you know.........let's say it together......you know what's coming, right.........



LIFE IS GOOD!!!