My first writing gig

I spent the day on a farm with kids and horses. My new writing gig is to produce a monthly newsletter for the school I worked for last year. I've been on this field trip many times, but this time I didn't need to do anything except shoot photographs and listen for good tidbits to use in the newsletter. I took a total of 372 pictures, dumped about a third of them, and then honed it down to 9 from which I must choose 2, maybe 3.

It's hard to decide. The words aren't coming very easily either, but I trust those more than I trust my choice of photographs. I'd post them all on this blog and let YOU decide, but since some of them show the girls' faces, I doesn't feel ethical. Hence, the two photos without faces that I did post.

I used someone else's camera, too. I liked it, but I'm still unfamiliar with it and some of the pictures turned out blurry and weird. Ann and I each have a camera and we can even take pictures with our video camera, but today's camera made me have the "wants" for something different and yes, more expensive. I forgot how much I like to shoot pictures and that, in fact, my Bachelor's degree is in radio and television communications, which required quite a few photography courses. While I was unfamiliar with the camera, it was fun to play around and have tons of memory to shoot picture after picture knowing I'd dump most of them.

Meanwhile, Rubin is exhausted. He went with me today and while he was wound up and nervous about the horses in the morning, he mellowed by the afternoon and is now laid flat out on his bed in the office. It was mentally and emotionally draining...and he never got a nap.

I didn't either. I'm tired from all the kid energy, from the focused attention I needed to sustain the whole day, and standing in the elements of the great outdoors. But we were lucky today...no rain, no wind, no chilly temperatures, which were the predictions for today. Instead, blue skies, warm sun, and the most interesting clouds stretched along the horizon.