Time for Some Fun!

With the stress of the past 12 days, it seems like a good time to share some fun we had recently.  After seeing a drone photo that someone posted of their farm, I got a great idea for a birthday present for Herb, who is always very difficult to shop for.  I went online and found . . . Dan Reynolds, aerial photographer!  Dan does about one or two helicopter shoots a year, and he was waiting for a clear day to do one he had scheduled.  I was able to tag along for a discounted price.  I planned it as a surprise for Herb, but things turned out differently.  Herb happened to be home on the day it was clear enough to shoot, so I decided he'd just have to be in on the fun.  I called Kara so she could get in on it, too.

Herb knew something was going to happen in the afternoon, but we wouldn't tell him what.  While he worked in the study, we both kept our ears peeled.  Suddenly I whispered, "Kara, we've got incoming!"  "Quick, Dad, come outside!" she called, and we rushed Herb outside.  The distant sound of a helicopter came closer and closer.

Pretty soon it appeared over the trees and zoomed in close to the house.  To say Herb was surprised is an understatement!  I was jumping up and down in excitement, explaining his birthday "surprise."  (I've only let him see one or two photos because I plan to make them into a photo book for his birthday, so there's still a surprise to come.)

Dan had been worried that the helicopter would scare the animals, although I didn't think so.  As far as they were concerned, it was a big, fat NON event!  We were the excited ones!

Here are a few of the photos Dan took.  Another aerial photographer told me he doesn't shoot in winter because it's prettier when things are green.   I'll grant you that, but so many more details showed up through the bare trees that we would have missed if the trees had been leafed out.  And the late afternoon timing was perfect, because the light made the colors pop.

I had some fun with Preview drawing our property lines in.  The arrow at the right shows where the property line should go because of the perspective from where the helicopter was.  I had to add the 8 acres of woods up the hillside with a separate rectangle.

Here's a shot from the rear of the property, showing just a corner of the pond.  This one gives a bit more of a feel for how hilly the Back Pasture is.

The helicopter zoomed all over getting shots from all angles.  There's Lookout Mountain in the distance, so long that we can actually see it from the back porch.

You can see the little fences around the trees in the orchard at center left in this photo.  Herb was glad to see that he had lined them up pretty straight--not that he was planning to move them if they were crooked!

Dan even got a shot of the two of us standing in the driveway waving.  Fortunately, the old stove sitting on the front porch waiting for Habitat for Humanity doesn't show up, or we would have looked like real rednecks!  Dan actually called me after the shoot to be sure he'd gotten the right place.  I assured him he had, and he said, "But there was a man there."  (He knew it was supposed to be a surprise for Herb.)  "That was my boyfriend," I replied.  Then, of course, I quickly told him the truth--that the day the weather cooperated happened to be one that Herb was home, but that we were both happy he'd gotten to be in on the fun.

Like I'd asked, he zoomed in for a closer look at the buildings.  An interesting extra in this photo is that you can see at the top of the photo that we only have two nearby neighbors.

This comes close to being a direct overhead shot of the whole farm.  It's WAY better than trying to look at it on Google satellite!

I used a copy of one of the photos to make a "map" of our pastures and main structures.  Hopefully it's pretty self-explanatory.  The names of the pastures are:  Home Pasture, Kara's Pasture, Middle Pasture, Back Pasture and Lower Pasture.  I couldn't figure out how to make the font smaller, so I kept my notations to one word.

The whole exciting event lasted less than 10 minutes, and then the helicopter disappeared over the trees the way it had come, its distinctive chopper sound growing fainter and fainter till we could no longer hear it.  Peace had returned to our little valley, but we were left with the glow of an exciting afternoon and the anticipation of the photos to come.