Last Trip to the Ranch...

On September 17th and 18th we made what will likely be our last trip of the season to the TL Bar Ranch.  The girls wanted to go riding "one last time".  This time around my parents came along with us, and stayed in the Rustic Cabin.  I've since been told that the camping area is now closed for the season.  So if the nice fall weather stays with us a little longer, and we have one more chance for a trail ride, it will have to end up being just a day trip.  The first day Margarit, the girls and my Mom went out for a trail ride.  My mother had never been on a horse before and decided that she wanted to give it a try.  They went for a nice trail ride across the river and out into the badlands.  All summer long Helena had been nagging us about wanting to ride the ponies.  We thought that she was still too young, even for a buddie saddle, so we kept holding her back.  Finally we decided that this would be the weekend that we would let her give it a try.  But, when she was finally presented with the option of actually going out for a ride, she got scared and decided she didn't want to go after all.  Go figure...  Later that afternoon when the breeze kicked up a little the girls took out their kite and tried to get it airborne.  That kite has ridden around in the trailer with us all year, through many a windy weekend and finally at the end of the season the girls decided to break it in.

It was a very warm and pleasant weekend.  We had a nice barbecue by the cabin, enjoyed an evening campfire, and watched the stars come up.  We also celebrated Anna's sixth birthday, belatedly and again.  It got quite cool over night and in fact when our propane tank in the trailer ran out, and I had to step out at 5:00AM to switch to a fresh tank, the grass in the pasture was all crunchy with a heavy frost.  It took quite a while for the furnace to kick in and knock the chill out of the trailer.  My parents fared a lot better in the cabin.  Although there was no heat, it retained the day's warmth much better than the trailer and they were quite comfortable.  The next day my parents stayed behind at the cabin with Helena and the rest of us went out for a two hour trail ride up to the prairie above the valley.  It was a wonderful day for a ride and we really enjoyed it.  At one point the lead horse was startled and threw our trail guide Kim off into some brush.  Annelise had finally given in to riding on her own without being ponied with a lead rope.  Her horse reared and bolted as it was right behind Kim.  Hailey's mount followed suite and did the same.  But both girls managed to hang on and the horses were brought under control without incident.  Kim was unhurt and we continued on our ride only to have almost the same thing happen later, when the horses were startled by a deer.  Eventually the ride had to come to an end and we packed up the trailer for what turned out to be the last time, and headed for home.

Winter Hockey - Game 3

The Renegades had a late game on Friday night.  We faced off against the 1st place Papa Johns Pizza Team.  The game started at 11:00PM.  A number of our players bailed out and were unable to play.  We had too many defense and not enough forwards.  A couple defensemen, myself included, ended up playing as forwards.  Our lines were all mixed up and disorganized.  We were tired.  Now I'm finished making excuses.  We just didn't play well and lost the game by a score of 7-1.  The first six games of the winter season are like a pre-season.  The league evaluates all the teams and then undertakes a divisional re-alignment.  To get a game like this out of our system, at this point in the season, is not a bad thing.

Final Batch

The last batch of my favorite film is now washed and dried.  These were also given extended development in PMK Pyro for increased contrast.  I'm anxious to get my darkroom organized and start some print sessions.

More Favorite Film...

This week I processed two more batches of my new favorite film...  Kodak Tri-X Pan 320 in PMK Developer.  This time around I gave increased development to pump up the contrast a little bit.  One batch has dried and I was able to scan a few of the best images tonight.  Some of these date back to 2009, while others are relatively current.  The final batch has just come out of the wash and is presently being dried.  The best of these will be scanned and posted in the coming days.  Now I need to get ready to go play a late hockey game, Game 3 of the Renegades Winter Season, at 11:00PM on the other side of the city...

Winter Hockey - Game 2

The Renegades played hockey on Saturday night, September 17th.  I missed the game as I was away camping with my girls.  The team faced off against Ballers United, a new team in the league.  We totally destroyed them by a score of 17-6.  If we keep winning like this we are likely to get moved up to Division 11.  But, so far we have played against and defeated the two weakest teams in the division.  This week we will play a game against Papa Johns Pizza.  These guys are tied with us for first place in the division.  We played against them last summer and were pretty evenly matched.  I look forward to returning to the ice later in the week.

Favorite Film.....

When I started out with Zone System photography 20 years ago, and then moved up to large format over 15 years ago, I experimented with a lot of different films.  After all these years I am beginning to discover which are my favorites.  It's taken a long time to learn the characteristics of all these different emulsions as I was working with at least a dozen of them.  It took even longer to test them in different developers and gain an understanding of what I liked.  Now I've discovered, mostly be accident, that many of my best images, that have yielded my best exhibition prints, were taken on three or four of the films.  One of the best has been Kodak Tri-X processed in Pyro staining developer..., Gordon Hutchings PMK formula to be specific.  I think I will focus on this as one of my standard film/developer combinations.  There are two or three others that have worked really well for me too.  The rest, I will give up on as I deplete my current inventory.  That said, I have a large freezer full of film and paper, and have overflowed that into a second one.  So it will be a while before I run out of stock.  In fact, I probably have enough film in stock to keep me shooting until I'm too old to carry my big cameras.  Here are a handful of images shot on Tri-X, processed in PMK, that I just developed a couple of days ago.  I really like a couple of these and as fall is nearly upon us, it won't be long before I have time to get into the darkroom and get serious about printing again...

September Camping

I really like this time of year.  Most people give up on camping once the kids go back to school.  I figure we have another month or more of great camping, and all of our favorite places are much quieter.  Margarit didn't feel like going this weekend so I took the two older girls back to the TL Bar Ranch.  The weather was exceptionally nice for the 10th of September, with daytime highs up around +30C.  There were only six other trailers in the entire campsite.  We went out for a couple of trail rides and there were only a couple other riders joining us each day.  On Saturday we went for a two hour ride upstream on the west side of the Red Deer River.  The horses managed to scramble up a rather steep 200 foot slope to the top of the valley.  We rode along there for a couple of miles and then eventually made our way back down to the river.  We followed the flats at the bottom back to the ranch.  The next morning we set out again.  This time we crossed the river on horseback over to the east side.  The river is really low and I only got my heels slightly wet as we rode the horses across.  We had a pleasant ride upstream through the badlands, crossed back over the river in a slightly deeper spot, and then followed the flats back again.  In all of our rides so far this year Annelise has always insisted the her horse be ponied by one of the guides.  Finally this time she agreed to give it a go on her own.  She rode the last half mile or so back to the ranch on Saturday.  Then on the Sunday ride, after the first river crossing, she rode on her own again.  She was all on her own as we bush-whacked to find the right trail, crossed back over the river, and then did a little up and down riding through some small coulees as we made our way back.  Even a few horse steps and some rougher terrain did not intimidate her.  By Sunday afternoon the wind really picked up and it was obvious that a front was moving in.  When we got back home it was very overcast and much cooler.  We learned that it had rained off and on most of the day Sunday back at home.  What luck that we had such a beautiful trail ride before the weather turned and we packed up for home.

6th Birthday

Annelise turned 6 on September 6th.  She had a birthday party for all of her friends at our house a few days after her actual birthday.  Margarit was run off her feet getting everything organized and riding herd on all the kids.  By the time I got home from work the party was well under way and the place was pretty much torn apart.  We finally managed to chase all the kids out the door and tidy up a bit after the hurricane.

Labor Day Long Weekend

On the Labor Day Long Weekend we once again packed up our trailer and headed out camping.  This is the last kick at the can for most people.  For me, this is the last busy weekend of the summer, after which we get into the really quiet times.  This time around we headed west into the foothills again.  Originally we were hoping to head over into Saskatchewan to photograph some ghost towns.  But, we got a late start and decided to stay a little closer to home.  We headed out to Nordegg and then turned off onto the Forestry Trunk Road.  Usually we head south into the Ram Falls area, but this time we turned north.  I hadn't been out this way since the late 1990's and Margarit had never been out this way at all.  We turned off the Trunk Road onto the Chungo Creek Road.  Eventually we came to a crossing over the Blackstone River and a Provincial Recreation Area.  We pulled off the road and set up camp.  It was a very nice area, but we soon discovered that it was much too popular with ATV riders.  There were quads and ATV's ripping around all over the place.  I'm at least a little tolerant, and could probably live with this if these guys had hit the trails.  But most of them just ripped around the campsite and we found it very busy, very dusty, and very noisy.  The first evening we went for a walk down to the river and it was really nice.  By morning we decided it was just too busy and we packed up and moved on.  We headed back to the Trunk Road and turned north.  Eventually we came to another crossing over the Blackstone River.  This site was much quieter.  There was one small group of ATV riders camped here, but they hit the trails in the morning, and we didin't see or hear them again until the end of the day.  Other than that there was no one around but a few fly fisherman.  I can understand the appeal of fly fishing, and would love to give it a try some day, but this entire area is all "catch-and-release".  It seems to me that there is not much point fishing if you can't keep what you catch.  We spent Sunday afternoon and evening and most of holiday Monday at this campsite.  It was really a beautiful spot and the girls enjoyed exploring and collecting rocks.  Eventually we had to pack up and make our way back home.  It was quite a long drive as the road took us quite a distance to the northwest, before eventually angling off to the northeast and meeting up with the Yellowhead highway at Edson.  From there it was still a two hour drive back home.

Winter Hockey - Game 1

Not much rest for the wicked....   My sprained knee and sprained ankle are mostly healed and now winter hockey is underway.  The Renegades played our first game of the winter season tonight at the Clare Drake Arena at the University of Alberta.  It was great to play in such a great facility with such good ice.  We faced off against the Phantoms who struggled through the summer season with a futile record.  This winter the have added some new players and a better goaltender so will be a better team.  But, we outshot them 44 to 22 and managed to win the game by a 15-3 margin.  A nice way for the Renegades to start the season.  I'm certain that our other opponents will offer much stiffer competition.