wintertime

Alpacas in the Snow!

Posted by Ivy

I’ve been wanting to photograph alpacas in the snow since I first started my part-time job at the farm, and on Sunday, after we got 7 inches of snow here, I got my chance. I spent most of my shift shoveling the parking lot and making a pathway to the far barn, and…when I finally made it to the far barn, the herd of alpacas who live there decided that would be a great time to go explore their other pasture. And then they started frolicking around in the snow. Photo magic. I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried.

These were all shot with my 50mm.

Frolicking! Felix (the one in the middle) is such a little hambone.

Sledding in the First Snow

Posted by Ivy

If you’re a little kid (heck, even if you’re a big kid), it must be the greatest feeling in the world to have the first snow day of the year come on a weekend. Especially if it’s a snow day that really does last all day—not just some measly little flurry that barely covers the ground.

When it first started snowing, I knew I would be out feature hunting at some point, but I had no idea where the good sledding hills were. As it happened, I drove right by this one on the way to another assignment, and when that shoot was over, came back right away.

I need to get a pair of better gloves; the fingerless ones I’ve been wearing all year are fine when it’s not windy and snowing, but…I had to cut this short because my fingertips were turning purple. Oops.


I’m working at the farm tomorrow, so am hoping to have an alpacas-in-the-snow post up then!

Even More Snow!

Posted by Ivy

I know New England winters are far crazier than Missouri ones, but I haven’t been here through the entire season in six years and so forgot just how bonkers they can get. I’ve already blogged about the post-Christmas storm that messed up my friends’ travel plans, but December was, apparently, just a warm-up for the main event.

This January has been the snowiest month in Connecticut history. Not the snowiest January…the snowiest month. Ever. I haven’t been to the gym in months, but am nonetheless staying in shape because of my regular snow-shoveling regimen.

Last night the weathermen predicted 9-12 inches of snow overnight. My parents and I woke up at 6:45 this morning to find…eighteen inches of fluff (and fortunately, it was fluff, not the icy kind of snow) piled all around our house like a lumpy comforter.

Good morning!

There are a couple of problems posed by 18 inches of snow. The first one is that my parents had to go to work, forty minutes away in Hartford…but the car can’t get out of the garage with, well, *that* in the way. We’re also running out of places to put the snow- those piles off to the right in the above picture are the result of every other snowfall this month.

The second is that our dog O’Lio, while he is a pretty tall dog (he’s a greyhound), couldn’t ford his way through the piles on the back porch to get to our backyard and do his morning thing.

Fortunately, my parents’ office called to let everybody know they didn’t have to come in until noon, which gave us time to clear the driveway and free the car from the garage. Meanwhile, I tackled the back porch. Once I got to the bottom of the steps and the backyard, I dug out paths for O’Lio to use…it’s like his own private maze out there now. He’s happy.

I should point out that all of this shoveling was done before 9 a.m. After finishing, I immediately went back and curled up in bed for a few hours…until I had to go back out again in the afternoon to take care of the other side of the driveway.

Northeast Roamings: Let’s Hear It For New York

Posted by Ivy

David, Halley and I finished our tour of the Northeast in New York City, where we met up with some other friends from college for New Year’s Eve. Most of the day was actually spent going back and forth between our hotel, Manhattan, and Laguardia Airport in search of David’s suitcase, which the airline had lost a few days earlier. We still managed to fit in a short trip to the Met and Central Park, though.

Northeast Roamings: On the Freedom Trail

Posted by Ivy

It’s no big secret that I love Boston. David and Halley, my friends who came up to visit from Texas (and got delayed by the snow), already knew this, but had never actually been to the city with me; it was a ton of fun exploring all over with them. We kept ending up on the Freedom Trail, but then again, that’s not all that hard to do in Boston.

Kiddos going sledding in the Boston Common [cropped; I liked the panorama-style composition better even when taking it].

George Washington statue in the Public Garden.


Northeast Roamings: Snowy Rhode Island

Posted by Ivy

Last week, New England and New York got shellacked by a blizzard (this week, we again got ten inches of snow, with another few expected tomorrow. Hello, winter!). Normally this would not be a serious problem, and I would just hole up inside and read books and do nothing (and, indeed, I actually did do that)….but two of my friends from Texas were planning to come up and visit right about when all of the snow came, and they had to delay their flights by two days because of it. Argh. C’est la vie.

However, the blizzard did make for some good photo ops!

My cousin Lucy shoveling off her front porch in Pawtucket, R.I.

Aftermath the next morning.

Mainescapes

Posted by Ivy

I meant to post this first one when I took it just before Thanksgiving. The others were taken when I went back up to Maine a couple weeks ago for Christmas at my grandmother’s house.

Taken through the window at 6:20 a.m….when I had to wake up to take the dog outside. The blue light was great, though.

(6) Where Mud Becomes Slush

Posted by Ivy

Today I learned that photographers are loonier people than runners. I wanted to go for a walk on the MKT trail, and was hoping that there would be bikers and joggers along the trail…as there have been every other time I’ve walked it. But today the MKT was empty- not a person to be seen. This is probably because it was overcast and kind of rainy, but that didn’t stop me from going to take pictures! I’m thinking the running population of Columbia needs to step it up a little. (:

The focus on this picture is all weird, which is unfortunate (I am still working on perfecting the art of taking low-angled pictures while wearing a knee brace.

(2) Baby, It's Cold Outside

Posted by Ivy

Didn’t want to leave my house this morning to go up to campus…so I lazed around till the afternoon. I walked outside to find that most of my neighbors had had the same thought I did; half the cars in the lot still had snow covering them and icicles dripping down off their fronts. In related news, I wonder how many different pictures I can make of things I find within 100 feet of my apartment.