A smudge stick sky

This photo was taken at 11:20 am, so I'm not quite sure why it looks more like a sunrise or sunset capture. Not too inspiring a photo, but It seemed a shame to waste the colour. I added a "smudge stick" filter to liven up the image a little.

On 21 January 2015, my daughter and I spent the day together, out in nature. I know I needed to get out myself and the fact that my daughter asked if we could do that, told me that she, too, needed to get a break from all the sadness and reminders of her big sister/my older daughter for a few hours. Friends have been telling me how important it is to be outdoors with my camera, especially at a time like this, and I know they are right.

Much as it would have been great to have gone looking for Snowy Owls, I just didn't feel up to that long of a drive. Instead, I drove to a much more familiar, closer area, SE of the city. The day was a mix of sun and cloudiness, and though the sun was in the wrong position for some of our shots, we did OK.

As for birds, we saw a couple of Great Horned Owls, a raptor of some kind (either a Prairie Falcon or a Gyrfalcon), several Gray Partridge and what I think must have been Horned Larks.

The rest of the day, my daughter and I drove mostly roads that we had driven before, except for one short stretch where we found not just one beautiful, old barn, but two. This day was as much a barn day as a bird day, as there was one particular barn that I really wanted to see for the first time. We were lucky that the second barn was close by.

I think being out with our cameras, driving the backroads, was therapeutic - certainly for me as I could enjoy my daughter's company, and hopefully for her, too.