"What Catches My Eye" exhibit

post #267
            Well, I am biting the bullet, so to speak, and doing a photo exhibit all of February. Making a public display. Sharing what I see with whomever braves the weather and has time to stop by.  No snow photos, but a little bit of ice (one of the photos from last week's blog post).  My biggest sized images, a few from digital, a few from when I was using slides. In advance I thank my neighbors for letting me hang them on a wall, and I thank my artist friends, like Taral, Jennifer, Wayland and Ash, who these next two weeks will help me pull it all together.          
         There will be a poster, a postcard and some local news information. However, I am writing about this today because my blog has always been about photography and Appalachia, and showing one's art in a local public forum is about both those things.
         LOCATION: Rowan County Arts Center (which used to be the old Courthouse) on Main Street in Morehead, Kentucky
         DATES: February 1, 2016, through leap year, until March 4, 2016
         RECEPTION: Friday, February 26, 5 - 7, probably with some words spoken by the photographer...and questions, by anyone who comes, answered or at least discussed.
         HOURS OPEN: 10 - 4, Monday through Friday, and by appointment on the weekends.

        In the meantime, here are a few more photos from last weekend's adventure in southern Kentucky -- besides the pond images I shared last week. Enjoy!

porch decor

VIEWS FROM THE HOUSE, with signs of recent weirdly warm weather:

VIEWS FROM WITHIN THE WOODS, on the way to the pond, travel by the "mule".


 

This is really how it looked.

ENTRANCE SIGNS: 

Pretty good sample of photos for the middle of January! Thank you, Peg, for your hospitality and your great talent driving that mule. (Sorry not to have made a good photo of it.)  Next time....

a hemp preview

post #236
        A friend with a farm, in McCreary County, applied to be one of Kentucky's 100 farmers approved this year for growing hemp. It is a new program, long overdue.  
       She has dogs living with her, and a horse, a donkey, a goat -- these three returned here after life experiences other places -- and some chickens, two cats, and some cattle. 
       She also runs a B and B there, Farm House Inn Bed and Breakfast, which does well, even though the place is not the easiest to find! Hint: It is near Cumberland Falls State Park. I visited her Monday, which I don't often get to do since she lives four hours away, in the southern part of the state.
       Here are some of the photos I took connected to the hemp project:

extra hemp seeds, after the field was planted

 

trying to be very clear that this is 1) legal, 2) really hemp, and 3) new to the agricultural scene

early plants, waiting for the cultivator to be fixed and up and running

another attempt to be clear about what is going on and what they are hoping to learn this year

These parts are to show what the plant will offer after growing fully instead of how they look today.

 

Peg kindly models her HEMP HAT, all made from hemp, including the woven band.

         Now here are some photos of the dogs, cats, chickens, and cattle who live with her.  The legs at the top of this first photo belong to the goat in the second....

the rooster, ruler of the roost....

   

        I might as well go whole hog here, despite there not being any hogs, and show portraits of each of four dogs, one of the cats, and the donkey with his horse mentor.  Very apparent is the fact that life is pretty good down on this farm!

 

       Thanks, Peg, for your hospitality and friendship and your stewardship. So many of us in Kentucky hope this hemp undertaking will prove successful for our state!  It once was good for Kentucky, and it could be good once again. 

more England, from earlier non-winter visits

lovely England!

post #231

       Someone asked me if I would be posting some snow photos this week.  I answered that if I did, I thought no one would look at them!!  They would most likely cry out "NO MORE SNOW." So that is why I feel I have a good excuse to dig back in my photo files for some favorites of mine, from England, not always during wintertime.

       This is what the butcher shop in the last post USED TO look like, before new European Union regulations and before new owners.  I am very glad I managed to make this photo, in Mickleton, before it was too late.

      The next photo shows where I was sitting when I made last week's photo of the fireplace in the old house.  Bill and his wife, June, own the house, parts of which may be 400 years old, and their grandson, Charlie, was visiting.

         I love the hanging baskets on the outside of their home. 

         I have a fascination with the milk bottles deliveries, so here are two more photos, including the truck that was stopped on the street in front of where my stepmother lives.

Dogs are popular in town, with their own "parking" places outside the shops.

Popular, too, with tourists and towns people is the ATM machine, in an ancient wall belonging these days to the bank.

       As for gardens, they are everywhere!! The first photo I call "winter sunshine."  The birches on the right are featured in the second photo, taken in a different season, early in the morning.

asters, in Peggy's garden

oilseed rape blossoms, used for making cooking oils, huge fields of them in the spring

 I was in a top floor bedroom, hanging out the window, for these two early morning photos.

            This third town photo was made a few hours later, as the day warms up.

outside the green grocer

overnight in the coffee house

Mary, outside her deli shop, catching some rays

I love these old steps and the whole look of this passageway.

   I apologize for those of you who checked this post on Sunday, March 1, when I had trouble uploading the photos, for some still unknown reason.  But here they are, more than I usually impose on viewers on a single day, but I hope, as always, that they are of interest!