SHEEP. (20/04/14)

We are enjoying our third consecutive day of dawn till dusk sunshine. Brilliant it is and my sister is wandering around her garden muttering about needing rain. Daft bat.

Yesterdays supper was spot on and worth the effort. Shredded lamb with mint, pomegranate, feta cheese and olives all served warm on a bed of wild rocket. I had enough lamb left over for a couple of small shepherd’s pies and a Lancashire Hotpot.

  Lancashire Hotpot. This one is lamb, black pudding, lamb’s kidneys and in this case a couple of carrots I had lying around. The top is sliced potato with a bit of butter dotted on it.

Today I’ve been time lapsing. I was trying for one of the Swallows nest building. Those that know me will have already guessed that it was a total failure. The Swallows ignore the strobe but the horses don’t. I assumed the horses were out for the day but Carole brings one back and takes another out, then brings it back. It’s bloody Sunday hasn’t she heard of a day of rest? Apparently not. She is walking one with a swollen fetlock and another with a bruised inlock.

She still has to do Horse box loading with Brav. Horses that don’t like a drive out are a real pain. They have to be learned to walk into a truck and turn sideways. It’s a mind puzzling exercise for a horse. It’s good for a laugh. He takes really dainty steps up the ramp and then when his front feet hit the flat of the truck he backs off at a hundred miles an hour. The dogs think it is highly entertaining. Carole is good she does get airbourne but lands on her feet and goes back for another round. I then turned my attention to the lambs or as I prefer to think of them; next Easters dinner.

I made this from about 270 frames taken at 2s intervals. I think at last it’s about right for sheep. I went to get a thousand frames as I’ve sorted the workflow now. The sheep are all lying down sunbathing. Idle wee woolly beasts.

I’m currently shooting small Raw files but to get a minutes video I’m going to have to shoot JPEG, have a longer interval or tether the camera to the laptop. I only have a 16GB card. I do have a spare laptop with some letters missing where Alf jumped on it, he said: “It woz an aksidently.” Alf is prone to accidents with expensive things. I’ll try and sort it for the job as then I could bore folk to death and big time.

I like shooting RAW as it it easy to batch process and save to a folder on my desktop where I have an evens chance of finding it again when I need it for Photoshop. If anyone can help I’d be interested to know what dimensions work best. I’m using 720 pixels but could go much bigger I could go to 2784x1856 but then wouldn’t be able to pan and zoom which is the next thing I want to learn, swear at and muddle through.

Tomorrow I’ll have another go. Tuesday I’m having a day trip to Falkirk to see the Wheel and the hundred foot high Horses Heads. They are called The Kelties and look great in the pictures I’ve seen. Little Bertha should arrive on Wednesday. I haven’t planned further ahead than that. Big bertha is all packed away and ready for collection on Tuesday. I had a bit of a sniffle. She is a beauty of a lens but I told her she was just too big for me to handle.

Enjoy your holiday Monday.