It's all a myth

They say we get extra-terrestrial visitors out here in the desert. I haven't seen anything weird or unusual. Sure had a pretty sunset tonight though. That's enough for me.

Summer Rain

Taking photos with my family watching and saying "what are you doing? What are you photographing?" is just so much fun.

JPEG 1742 from holbrook, at the concrete wigwam

Click to see it larger. I was printing out another jpeg 1742 for my mom, and I found this one. Liked it. There's yet another jpeg 1742, it's a picture of a wood duck. Nice, but it only evokes wood duck type feelings. Trying to grow beyond that sort of thing.

The watcher

If you order a chicken sandwich at Darby's in Pinetop-- prepare to be scrutinized.

Cutest little mouse you ever did see.

Ok, so a Disney mouse is actually cuter, but this is the cutest real mouse I ever did see. We went out on the back porch to to take my mom's picture and for some reason I looked into a trash bin we had out there. Poor little guy had gotten himself in and couldn't get out. We had seen him a few days before, running wild and free, and commented on his gigantic ears and little triangular head. I wanted to get his picture, got my wish a few days later.

I don't know how long he'd been in there but it's a good thing we saw him when we did because he'd have died from dehydration otherwise. Hard to imagine how he must have felt, sitting down there at the bottom of the barrel, nothing to do but wait. I wonder what it takes to activate the mousy version of faith? . . . Faith in something larger than oneself.

At this point he's looking up at me pointing my camera down at him, and I guess he does not know what's going to happen. He didn't move, make a sound, nor try to hide. My mom took him out to the yard and let him go. Wow, what a reprieve. Back to the life he loves.

The Grand Old Flag, Memorial Day in Concho, Arizona

Smart balance.

I don't know, every time I look at this picture I hear John Mellencamp in my head.

Grand Old Flag.

"Every girl, everywhere."

Click the photos for a larger view.

Perspective

Another shot from the front porch outside of Snowflake, Arizona.

Front porch tempest

I always did like Southwest thunderstorms, they way they roll in so fast and the way that the light changes every few seconds. Click the photo for a larger view.

Not planning to be a twit anytime soon.

What are you doing right now?

This guy said it better than I think I could. Why? Grayson Davis is at least in the right age group to understand things that I don't. I don't understand how the cell phone became the constant companion of everybody born around the time I started college (or later). I actually find that to be very sad. It's a phone. A telephone. And even if your best friend is on the other end of it, you're still missing out on whatever is actually in front of your eyes, ears and other senses right now, or for that matter, what ISN'T constantly stimulating your senses. Maybe you'd like things to be a little quiet once in a while. You and the person on the other end of the phone aren't really talking, you're actually broadcasting this message on an ongoing basis "wherever we are right now, and whatever we're doing, does not merit our full attention."

I understand texting even less, and twittering is just an extension of that. "Monkey mind" is the enemy of meditation. Actually, it's the enemy of a lot of things. Now, supposedly if you give enough monkeys keyboards, and somehow entice them to type constantly, there is a mathematical equation by which a given number of monkeys over a finite time period will result in a Shakespearean sonnet being produced by a monkey. You need a lot of time, and a lot of monkeys. We're still waiting for the proof to come in. Oddly, you could probably fit a sonnet within 140 characters-- that's a "tweet", if you worked at it. But the monkeys would need way more time, and if they forgot to hit "send" they'd have to start all over again. Which reminds me; a lot of people in my age group want a cell phone to be just a phone, not a Dick Tracy wristwatch (look it up) and we want it to be so simple that a monkey could operate it with very little practice.

While Sheryl and I do occasionally blog about our cat, we aren't constantly updating you on her status every fifteen minutes. I do understand however, that on twitter there is a house-cat with half a million followers. I didn't know she could type. Must have learned it from a monkey. Apparently she says the normal things that a human being anthropomorphizing an animal thinks she would say, like, "I slept, then I ate, then I slept some more." I heard about this on NPR, a radio network which employs many top experts to broadcast things which they think we will find interesting. Often we do.

Meow.

Three photos that didn't make it to The White Chair

A California poppy, along with two others which didn't make it to the wall at The White Chair here in Snowflake, Arizona. There are several more flowers, some birds and even a Marine scene or two which did go up. Moli accepted about half of my available prints in her limited wallspace. You should go.

A johmmy Jump up flower which I had a hard time getting, but I got it.

One of my favorite California poppy photos featuring a bud beneath it, just about to burst open.
I've got these printed, and haven't figured out where to place them yet. There are a lot of galleries up in Show Low.

Bellingham Bay

An old shot from Bellingham, Washington.

I'll fly away

I always did like that old song.

Stay Rex, stay.

Train your tyrannosaurus.

Airplane

Got this photo today near "The Country Store" outside Snowflake on Concho Highway.

Yay ! We're going to Taylor tommorrow.

Sheryl and I are meeting with a fellow photographer, going to discuss teaching photography and exchange a little information.

Red winged blackbird, re-edit

Another re-edited photo from a previous post.

a different editing technique

Re-did this one in photoshop. Sheryl likes it better this way, I think I do too.

Teenager, free to good home.

Has had all shots. A little shy. Good breeding. Comes with puppy.

A day in Pinetop

yellow headed blackbird perched on a cat-tail.

Horned goose, looking thoughtful.

Osprey with a fish in his talons. I wish I had brought my longer lens.

Red winged blackbird on a cat-tail.

Another one on a branch. I tweaked around with the color just for fun. Probably should have left it alone.

I don't know the name of this flower.

Fisherman.

Some sort of dandelions I think.

And a shy one too. Click on any of the photos for a larger view.

Shadows

President Barack Obama recently gave a commencement speech at wherein he emphasized to the graduates that they should think about doing the work which they have passion for-- to be thinking about what they can contribute beyond that which they stand to gain for themselves, materially or otherwise. Good advice, I think. We all have the opportunity to touch the lives of others, and what we leave behind is an example of how we lived, and the memories in those who survive us. We all have different destinies to some extent, and different lessons that we collect as we live our lives. There is no cookie-cutter advice which will suffice for everyone at all times, that's why we are here for each other, why we are all similar and yet so different. Life is a continual revelation, so revel in it .

Fascinated with abandoned houses

I'm often fascinated with houses which nobody seems to want anymore.

Add to your faith, virtue. Add to your virtue, knowledge.

500 West

A scene I wanted to capture in Taylor, Arizona. Click the photo for a larger view.

We made it an interesting day

This is one of the critters out here which does not intimidate us. Well, OK, there was that one time but it was an exception.

Technically, we did spend the night in this tent. It was dark when we entered it, and light when we left it, around dawn. Sheryl had been claiming that we could sleep in a tent when we go on trips sometimes, after all, we slept in Esmeralda, our 15 foot trailer complete with 4 burner propane stove and oven, ice box, bed, little dinette area, microwave, 1500 watt electric heater, watching movies on the laptop. . . I was not convinced about our ability to rough it. However, I thought that a tent on the deck was overkill. It wasn't really, but the tent itself did not lend much to comfort. The weather was very mild, not a problem there. But it was the noise of all the local animals plus a very bright moon which made it hard to sleep. The local dogs are pretty distant, but they talked to Chloe, our cat, who was very worried that we weren't in the house after dark. Then there was the cow. He really wanted to talk. Sheryl claims there were coyotes, which I am not sure about but I thought I heard a dog much closer. The crack of dawn brought a few more sounds, and too much light. back to the house we went.

Mama Love (Sheryl) shown here being macho enough to build her own displays. She said to me, "Wow, it really is fun when you have the right tools." Which is something I have been trying to convince her of all along. Guys are not inherently better at building things than women. We take every advantage available to us: simple things like good clamps and a proper working surface, nice sharp drill bits (in this case a really good forstner bit) and a good variable speed reversible drill. I know it's intimidating and that there is some cultural bias against women doing it all with tools, but it's really rewarding and I hope that more women get encouraged to do the things that they want to do. One more tip; the vast majority of hardware store employees really want to help you out. They think it's cool that you want to do this stuff. they like your courage. If you have some boyfriend or other male helper with no patience for teaching you: do both of you a favor and take him out of the mix, find a better advisor, no harm, no foul.

I had to tell Sheryl to "come and see the pretty snake" under a Juniper, some time before bed. I mean, he is pretty, and he is not dangerous. But right about now I never expect Sheryl to put the tent on the actual ground near an actual juniper tree.

Chloe, our other cat, the one who is in good health and surviving has charms of her own. One of these charms is "draping". She wraps herself around things: shown here getting cozy with my laser printer. She was up most of the night crying at the open window for Sheryl and I to come back from wherever it was that we disappeared to. The dogs answered her. And the cow. The snakes, lizards and cottontails kept pretty quiet and the hummingbirds and Jays waited until dawn to get busy. We need an RV.

For the CSI fans, a close-up of a reflection

Our friend John pointed out the reflection in the photo in the previous post. Ever watch CSI ? They do amazing (impossible) things with photos. Anyway, that's Sheryl in the center with the light-post behind her with a bird on top, probably a seagull, and me to the right of her in extremely elongated form holding the camera. Looks to me like Sheryl may have turned her head at the instant I tripped the shutter, as she appears to have two side by side faces, or it's a tiny dent in the chrome. All this is reflected in the chrome bumper of the photo below in the previous post.

The mother's day gift: make it yourself

Haven't made a new card in awhile. We're adjusting to the dastardly deeds of cafepress and getting ready to close that shop, looking for new and better ways to print our designs. I took this photo of a classic car sometime last year in Santa Cruz. Just made it into a card for my mom for Mother's day and we printed it out (three times before the Epson 1280 and paper choice resulted in an acceptable print). So now it's out on the table with a couple of gifts, waiting for my mom to get back from Unity Church up in Show Low. The caption says "Mama, you are a red hot classic." At the bottom we wrote, "Tail fins and all..." etc.

Nibbled by baby goats

Happy Mother's Day! For mother's day we recommend being nibbled to death by baby goats.

Photos at The White Chair in Snowflake, Arizona

Some of the art photos above may be available at The White Chair very soon, in Snowflake, Arizona.

The White Chair
432 S Main St
Snowflake, AZ 85937
(928) 536-9666

Here is what Sheryl said about the place a while back:

"I'm happy to announce that my Mama Love flower essence aromatherapy healing perfumes are now available at The White Chair, 432 S. Main Street in Snowflake, AZ, near the White Mountains. The White Chair specializes in antiques and handcrafted creations with an antique or country feel. It's a really great shop, jam-packed with all kinds of wonderful stuff. I'm especially pleased to have my work there because the owner, Moli White, really loves aromatherapy, natural healing and the earth. She's also quite an artist and creative person herself and is a big supporter of women and their work. Her daughter just opened up a coffee shop in the space next to The White Chair. Come by and visit the next time you're in town! "

I'm not sure which ones the owner, Moli, will choose to display but we'll know within a day or two. They're all professionally printed and mounted to foam core, ready to hang, hooks included. The prices should be pretty reasonable. I'm glad to put them on display again. Two thirds of this collection are floral, then there are some birds, three scenes from a marine environment . . . I'm not sure what there's room for at The White Chair, because there are already a ton of antiques, Shabby Chic a fair amount of original paintings and some drop-dead-gorgeous hand made jewelry, so some of these photographs may get displayed at Snowflake Coffee which adjoins the establishment. We had a really good smoothie and an iced coffee there a couple days ago. Always like a breath of fresh air to go in and visit there.

Mama Love at Mama Bear restuarant in Pinetop

Some people are comfortable anywhere. Some aren't. Most folks around here are going "yay! it's getting warmer!" We were just fine with temperatures below 80 degrees. 90 degrees seems excessive. We hear it's going to get hotter. Actually it's not that bad yet, because the humidity is only 19%. Anyway we went up to Show Low Pinetop Lakeside today, three little towns which pretty much run together. Ate at a really nice diner called Mama Bear, which seemed fitting for Mama Love (Sheryl). Good food. We also like Darby's up there, and Mountain Thai. And it's a little cooler at that altitude.

Saying hello to the neighbors

Moth, with some texture.

Maple leaves.

Snake, crossing the road. He had to be about six feet long and did not want his picture taken.
Shooting the bull with some friends of ours. We bump into them once in a while. Luckily none have bumped into us.