bluekat's Journeys

Went for a mid-morning run at Cheadle Lake. Stopped for a few pics on the last lap. It was so pretty with all the wild flowers and baby ducks and geese. Only the flowers lingered for the photo op. All photos from the iphone. I posted them to Facebook and Instagram earlier, but these were processed in lightroom, so hopefully a little better. This evening Ron and I returned for a walk with the dog. This time I brought the Sony. I read an article earlier this week about hand-held HDR photos, so I decided to give it a try. I've done very few HDR images, so it's all rather new to me. Single image processed in Lightroom. My somewhat garish attempt at HDR. Photoshop and Lightroom. I must say I prefer the single image, processed photo.

"Sunshine come on back another day I promise you I'll be singing This old world, she's gonna turn around Brand new bells'll be ringing" Lyrics by Jonathon Edwards (Go Away Today) Seriously. It's time for the sunshine to come back. I hear rain falling again while I type. Fine, it just better be gone tomorrow. 

We pay another visit to Cheadle Lake today. It's good to get outside for a walk and not have freezing weather. There is ice, not on the trail, but on the still frozen lake. And few birds.   We find a number of white feathers on the ground. I hope it's not what's left of the egret I saw a week ago. Except for a Basset hound out walking his owner we have the place to ourselves. Have a good week.

We took Cookie for an evening walk along Cheadle lake. The water level is way down; typical for late summer, but still it was a lovely walk. The BLT and volunteers have been busy this summer. The blackberry briars have been removed from between the trail and the canal, new informational signs are up, and a rustic bench has been added on the peninsula. It looks like they've been working on the back portion of the trail. The grass has been graded under, but no rocks or barkdust has been laid down. Nice sunset over the mill and watertower.

Finally got a chance to explore Cheadle Lake. It was an awesome explore! Someplace I've never been right in my own back yard. Lebanon has a real jewel in the rough with Cheadle Lake. View across a portion of the lake from the road the connects to the peninsula/island. Three arms, undeveloped now, but with much potential. Some of the flowers blooming along the trail. Across the water are two great blue herons on the far bank. Daisies everywhere. They'll never be rid of these! Across the water from one of the docks

After a beautiful ride on Saturday, and a lovely ride this morning on the Suzi's we decided to take another short ride on the bicycles. We picked our favorite loop along the South Santiam River. Train trestle crossing the Santiam. We stopped at the diversion dam for a few pics and just to hang out for a bit. The artsy, textural, ooh look at the pretty rocks pic! Fish ladder I don't know how people take this kind of self portrait and come out looking good, but it seems this type of portraiture is required these days. More artsy, funky, knarly root stuff...better known as sweepers or strainers. It really belongs on the outside curve of the river so my kayak can rush right in to its waiting limbs. One more shot of the dam, this time from the opporsite shore. We stopped on the other side to rest after trying to out ride a fellow on a cruiser. Turns out he had a little electric motor - cheater! Really, we were just cheered that he was getting out and riding as much as he co...