Getting Dusted

After leaving the Sacramento Wildlife Refuge last Friday I spotted a low flying crop duster making some passes over a field off in the distance. I pulled over to watch and realized that they were landing to reload right next to a public road. I drove down the road and parked right next to them and sat and watched. They had a rudimentary but perfectly flat runway cut into the dirt twenty feet off of the county road. The crop duster was a Gruman AG Cat. It came in landed and powered itself around to get ready for take off. The truck with the hopper loader came forward and loaded the crop duster with fertilizer. The crop duster powered up to take off. I thought there would a be a little dust. Oh how wrong I was! I snapped off a quick couple of images and then was completely overcome and enveloped in a cloud of dust so thick I couldn't see. For the next take off I made sure I was well past the end of the runway. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Sacramento Valley crop dusters or aerial applicators are used quite heavily in the growing of rice. After fields are prepared and flooded they are seeded and fertilized from the air. Insecticides are also applied in a similar fashion. May you have a blessed day, chris These images created with a Canon 7D, a Tamron 150-600 and a Canon 17-85 mm lens.

Julie's Clogs

I spent a very busy weekend in Sacramento California watching Jay and the Willits High School Academic Decathalon team compete at the state finals. There were sixty five teams competing and the competition was intense. I'm guessing that we finished somewhere in the the lower middle of the pack which is pretty good for a small school. What do you know about the "Age of Imperialism"?

We stayed at our friend's house in their backyard studio. In the morning I spotted Julie's clogs on the door mat and I really like how they looked in the early morning light.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

Trip Report Mad for Mallards

Yesterday I spent a great morning at a photography blind on Delevan Wildlife Refuge northeast of Williams California. The blind had the easiest access of any blind I have photographed from in the refuge system. It was located on a medium sized pond that was tinged with tules making it the perfect habitat for Mallards and other dabbling ducks.I arrived at the blind at five forty giving the ducks plenty of time to adjust or forget that I was there. Within an hour I had Mallards starting to use the logs placed near the blind for the ducks to use.I photographed Mallard for almost two hours before I scared the ducks accidentally when my lens bumped against the side of the blind when I was repositioning it. After that the photography dropped to almost nothing.To be continued..

God's blessings to all,

chris