Oh Gawd Not Another Blog Kinsey Starts Liberated Photographer Blog

About three weeks ago Kinsey got the bright idea to start another of these blogs theliberatedphotographer.com. Woe is me. When she starts one of these new projects she's like a woman possessed and I get dispossessed.

This time she's decided to go with something called WordPress which means she's got a ton of new stuff to figure out. The thing that's really got her in a tizzy is something called SEO. Supposedly SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. I think it really stands for Sanity Exits Office.

I heard her talking to a guy yesterday about keywords. I don't know exactly what those are but I thought Kinsey was going to blow a gasket when the guy told her she needed to put like 40 of them in a 1,000 word article. See, Kinsey really puts a lot of effort into writing good articles and now this guy was telling her that in order for anyone to find them and read them she had to bastardize her writing by inserting words that serve no other purpose than to make search engines happy.

To add insult to injury she's having a heck of a time even figuring out relevant keywords to describe the blog. I'm thinking the internet isn't geared for unique. I'm afraid Kinsey will drive herself nuts trying to figure out how to put her square peg self into a round hole internet. It won't make my life any bed of roses either.

She wrote her own article this week about some of the frustrations she's been experiencing Adventures in Blogging.

The sad thing is the old girl has a lot of interesting stuff to share about her life and photography but I'm afraid very few people are ever going to get to read it because she isn't going to wreck her writing so that it can be found. If no one reads the blog, because they never find it, I'm not sure how long she'll be able to keep it up. What a conundrum. Pretty slick I even know that word right? But, please do remember Australian Shepherds are the most intelligent dogs on the planet.

Anyway, dear readers, you'd be doing me a great favor if you would check out her new blog The Liberated Photographer and if you agree it's pretty good stuff share it with others you think might like it too. It's the only way the blog will ever find an audience. Kinsey will never sell out her standards.

In other news something funny happened this week. I thought it was funny anyway. While large parts of the country struggle with drought (that's not the funny part) we are drowning in the stuff. So much water is bubbling out of our springs we're having trouble with the pond drain getting clogged up. The only way for Kinsey to clear it is to go out in a kayak.

The pond in the fall

The other afternoon she was out on the pond when a mountain squall developed. These things come real fast. There was thunder and lightening to beat the band. Then it started to hail the size of marbles. There was Kinsey out in the middle of the pond just getting hammered. Me I ran and jumped in the Ranger. Nice and cozy I watched developments. When Kinsey got to shore she looked like a drowned rat. OK, maybe you had to be there. I thought it was hilarious.

Sorry, no fun pictures of me this time.

Don't forget to check out The Liberated Photographer.

Ya think I got The liberated Photographer in this article enough times for those engines to notice?

Ciao for now,
Molly Montana

©Kinsey Barnard

The Woodswomen Kinsey Barnard Is slashing and Burning

It's that time of year again when Kinsey goes into the woods and works like a madwoman, slashing and burning. She takes managing her forest very seriously. Some people may just let their land go au natural but not Kinsey. She is a firm believer that one needs to lend Nature a hand if they want Nature to return the favor. She also believes "To be worn out is to be renewed." ~ Lao Tzu

Open burning starts in March and by May it is permit season. This year it was so wet during open burn it was all Kinsey could do to start a fire. One day she just flat threw in the towel. First time that's happened in 12 years.

Don't like to get too close to those fires

Kinsey is out there for four to five hours at a whack. It's all hot fires and chainsaws. I'm not really crazy about the chainsaw especially since Kinsey one time forgot to holler "Timber!" when she cut down a tree and it nearly beaned me. It was a small tree but I was a puppy so it looked plenty big to me. I'm very slowly getting over it.

Now, I'm all for looking after the health of the forest but what is a little girl supposed to do for entertainment? I mean golly gee whiz. But, I came up with a great idea ..... frisbee! I love to play frisbee!

Please. Please. Please. Toss me the frisbee.

Kinsey is constantly mumbling about how nice it would be if I could put all my pent up energy into something productive like helping with the slashing and burning. But, that is not what Nature intended for me. Now, if she'd get me something to heard I could shine.

I have to hand it to Kinsey hard as she works she still takes time to toss me the frisbee and finds time to try and take a picture or two of me. I hate having my picture taken but I have to admit I am a lovely creature.

Sitting on a blow down tree trunk

After she's done I must also admit things do look so much nicer with the added benefit that the fire fuels have been reduced.

Cleaned up area

So, as you can see not much has been going on as far as I'm concerned. I'm looking forward to June. There won't be anymore marathon days of burning. Maybe we can get out and have some fun. I'm hoping to get to take my first road trip one day soon.

Be sure and check out Kinsey's new blog The Liberated Photographer.

©Kinsey Barnard

Picture Perfect Day in Montana Frolicking in Lake Koocanusa Photos

Yesterday was a picture perfect day here in NW Montana and here's a picture to prove it.

Lake Koocanusa

That's Lake Koocanusa and those are the snow capped Canadian Rockies in the background. You can see that the lake has been drained to a very low level. They do that every spring to make room for the kajillions of gallons of water that will soon coming flowing out of the mountains. Kinsey says this may be the lowest she's ever seen it. The lowest before she captured in "HEAVENLY EYE" Click on it to see what you think. Looks like a toss up to me.

Anyway, it was a beautiful day to be sure. Kinsey had finally decided to try and capture my athletic abilities with the Frisbee. Well, it's not really a Frisbee it's a flying disk made by the Chuckit! people and it's called a Paraflight. I really love that thing. Sometimes it kind of hangs in the air and changes direction. You really have to keep your eye on the ball, I mean disk. I like it!

Kinsey collected her pal Faith to act as disk thrower whilst she tried to catch me with her camera. Let me just say I don't think Kinsey has much of a future in action photography but God bless her she tries and beggars can't be choosers, right?

Look at me I can fly!

What Form. What Style. Such grace!

Cooling my jets

Another cooling technique I invented

Would you get a load of that tongue!

After they wore me out with the Chuckit! we had a picnic there beside the lake. It was very, very nice.

While we were eating we heard helicopters circling overhead. We figured it had something to do with the control burning that was going on in the area. Sure enough a Forest Service truck stopped by to let us know about the burn and the helicopter. The helicopter wasn't just observing, as Kinsey had thought, but it was actually starting the fires. News to us they were doing it by dropping incendiary ping pong balls on the forest. Get outta here!

Warning Sign

There you have it another day in wonderland doing the most outrageously fun stuff.

Be sure and checkout Kinsey's new blog The Liberated Photographer.

©Kinsey Barnard