I should have introduced our new social media and blog theme in the last post called ‘Life on the Peony Farm’. For those of you bloggers, this use to be called ‘peony farm jottings’. This new theme will be featured in our blog on a regular basis and on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Like and share us on our social media sites as we give you a taste of life on our peony farm.
For those of you new to our blog, Elvis Lee on the left, is our new herd sire (bull). Patriot on the right, is Elvis Lee’s first offspring. Though Elvis Lee is only 2 1/2-years old, he is very protective of his family. All our cows are like family to us as they play an integral part in our sustainable, chemical-free peonies operation. Patriot is just a love child! Not only is he a sprinter as he runs around the loafing area at full gait, but he will run to the gate to meet us as he loves to be petted and scratched under his chin. Even Elvis Lee is mellowing out and becoming more friendly by allowing us the scratch his back. Oh what a life!
Though the Purple Martin houses are down and shut for a couple more months, I had to bring out my new camera body for some pics today even though it was only 12 degrees outside. Yes photography friends it was time to move up to full frame. Sorry for the noticeable watermarks, but we’ve found some of our pictures on other sites and had to do something to stop this. All three of these pics were taken with my new Sony A99 mk2. WOW what a camera! Very easy to move up from my Sony A77 mk2 and oh my what joy to be able to see the full palate of colors! Since this body will shoot up to 42mb, had to turn it down to its lowest setting in order to upload our max on the blog of 8mb. The color saturation is amazing and can’t wait to run around our peony fields in bloom! The lens used on these pics is the Sony 70-400mm F4-5.6 G SSM. Takes quite a distance to shoot wide open but even at 250mm the colors just popped with diffused sun. Since this lens is very heavy, I always use a Monopod to stabilize the perfect shot. ALL the photos on our blog and website are shot through glass and never ran through Photoshop or Light Room in RAW. We want to provide the most true to natural colors of peonies and life on the peony farm pics as possible!