Twelve week photography course

This week's assignment was to shoot some pictures indoors, making use of natural lighting as much as possible. These pictures are straight out of the camera, with no editing.

I actually set up a large white paperboard on the other side of my animals, which helped a lot in increasing the light. It reflected a lot of the natural light back at my subjects, lighting up their darker sides nicely.

Also, by making sure my focus was on my subjects, my camera adjusted the light for them, rather than for the bright window they were next to.

It helped that it was a very sunny day, with a lot of natural light coming inside. Also, my windows have white tissue paper over them (otherwise everyone could see right inside), which I think helped both increase the amount of good, clear light and also prevented sun glares.

I even had enough light to get a decent moving picture. Normally, this is one of the hardest things to do inside, because movement will blur without enough light. I'm sure I couldn't get this decent of a picture of the dogs wrestling inside, but for a good bit of minor movement, it worked.

For more photography tips, to check out other participants, or to try out this photo course yourself, go check out Twenty-Six to Life.

Wordless Wednesday: Fall

Menu Planning Monday, and Lure Coursing photos

Another week, another menu plan. I find that I am getting better about eating planned meals rather than staring at the cupboards wondering what there is to eat, or lamenting that there is no food (despite the totally full cupboard). Not every meal I plan on gets made every week, and sometimes I change it up and make something different, either because of time, cravings, or not having the ingredients I thought I had.

This week's meal plans:

Breakfast: Cream cheese squares (made with Pumpkin Cream Cheese), That same pumpkin cream cheese on some English Muffins, Apple cinnamon muffins, apple cinnamon pancakes (trick is it is the same exact mix, only one gets baked in a muffin tin while the other gets poured in a pan), Toast w/ apple butter (because I am still not sick of it)

Cream cheese squares:

Dinner: Rice w/ peas and Parmesan cheese (it rhymes, and is super cheap and easy to make), Cheesy Zucchini bake, Apple Butter Meatballs, Grilled cheese and baked beans

As per usual, lunch is normally dinner or breakfast leftovers, or I'll make a dinner dish at lunch time and have leftovers for dinner.

A few lure coursing pictures

Getting ready to let Pallo loose

Pallo loves lure coursing

Koira loves it too, but is so fast she is super hard to get pictures of her

This is after her run. She went to the lure, ripped the bag off, then ran back to me with it.

The Week's Menu of Raw Feeding for the Dogs and Cat:

Monday: Deer bones, beef scrap (to meat out the otherwise bone-heavy meal)
Tuesday: Pork kidney, spleen
Wednesday: Beef scrap (frozen in a Kong to make it more difficult and stimulating to eat)
Thursday: Chicken quarters
Friday: Pork roast
Saturday: Beef scrap
Sunday: Deer bones, beef scrap (or organs)

I got a bag of deer bones for free this week, from a person who knows a person who butchers deer for his friends. The bones still have a bit of meat on them, tendons, connective tissues, and more, all of which is great mental and physical workouts to eat and is a great natural source of glucosamine for the dogs. However, I need to add beef scrap and feed boneless meals before and afterwards, otherwise it is way too much bone. Even so, I only have about two weeks worth of deer bones at the most, so hoping I'll be able to get some more, maybe even some meatier ones like necks!


As usual, for more recipe and meal planning ideas, please visit I'm an Organizing Junkie and StoneGable.