Now that I have my lovely phone with its excellent camera, I often take photos just because I like them. Sometimes I think I'll share them with you, sometimes they just take my fancy. I often look through the roll of film (hah..roll of film, how old am I?) and remember where we were when they were taken. I guess that's the point of photos.
Join me, while I walk around with you?
All of the above photos were taken by me at our favourite river spot, when we get the boat out. We are lucky enough to have friends who own the property (technically they own the dirt past the bank, the river is government owned and therefore anyone can pull up on the riverbank with their boat) and they let us use it whenever we like, which is so lovely of them. Whilst the riverbank is owned by everyone, the road to the riverbank and the boat ramp is private, so to get the car in means you need to know the owner. Which thankfully we do.
Our girls got a kneeboard for Christmas, which is designed to be towed behind the dinghy. I don't know if kneeboards (or hydraslides) are purely Australian? Let me know. I used to try and try to get upright on a kneeboard when I was a child. My uncle and auntie used to take me and try and teach me, and my uncle was a particularly crabby man back then who didn't 'do' children much, so that was all rather traumatic for me. I was not a brave kid.
But my brave kids got up immediately and loved it, and now keep nagging us to go out each weekend. Which is awesome.
One of my daughters has decided to take photos of sunsets, and I found these above on my phone. The fires have caused smoke to float all through our area, and a consequence is some wonderful sunsets.
The photos above - well you can see what they are. Dustfilled and horrible. That's been our summer. Dustfilled and horrible. We are in a world class drought right now and whilst we are surrounded closely by fruit orchards, the outer areas are all fields of red dust right now. Usually they are filled with wonderful wheat, but there's been so little rain that some people didn't even seed this year. So grab a hot day, add a strong wind and this is what you get. Too dangerous to drive on a day like this one. I stayed inside apart from when I took these photos.
I had my lovely niece come and stay with me during the holidays, and I took her and the children to find where my gran had grown up, in the aforementioned wheatfields. I knew roughly what road to be on, and I had once taken Nan for a drive and she showed me where she lived - we had to stand to the right of the water tower that her father helped build, and see the clump of trees in the middle of the dirt. I completely forgot where the water tower was located, and my husband swore blind that no such water tower existed (Hah! Showed him!).
So we drove blindly off down a road I vaguely remembered, and guess what? I found it!
These show either side of the water tower, where she grew up. Miles from anywhere, and the only way to any place was by horse and cart. No running water, until the water tower was built and even then, it was only bore water. Which you can't drink. I can't imagine. It's bad enough now, with all or mod cons.
Another photo from a clever daughter. I love the way the kids see things differently to us.
Speaking of lovely photos, I took the above ones and I'm really rather pleased with them. I went out to our quilting group, and had to open up the club rooms. This was taken about 6.30 pm, and the light was perfect, and I was really pleased to see how they turned out. I know 'real' photographers always talk about the golden hour with light, I do understand that.
And I'll leave you with a few more sunsets from my clever daughter. The best thing, the only good thing about the dust and the fires is the awesome sunsets you get almost every night.
Take care!
