Sidetracked Charley

On December 29th, 2006 it started to snow. It snowed on the 30th and the 31st. On January 2007 we had six feet of snow in parts of the Moreno Valley and all of the four routes in and out of the valley were closed. They were closed for five days. My neighbor's husband was in crisis because of his just diagnosed cancer and could not be gotten to the hospital in Taos until January 2nd. The continual snow made even life flight impossible. It started to snow again, a friend reminded me, on January 3rd. Some areas of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico received a total of nine feet of snow over a week long period. When the weather was clear the National Guard dropped hay to stranded herds of cattle on the eastern plains of New Mexico. That made the national news. But the plight of our valley did not. It was the height of holiday season tourist and the visitors were trapped in the valley with us locals. That means 10,000 more people than normally live here in the towns of...

Christmas Morning Elk 2011 When my sister lived in New Mexico she would come up to my house for the holidays and we would almost always have several photo exhibitions. The Christmas Day photography trip was a tradition. Snowshoeing Christmas Day 2012 Last year we had snow but we have had some warm Christmases in the past few years which allowed for more playing around. In 2010 we even had a picnic on Christmas Day.  Crystal and Debbie Looking for Picnic spot 2010 Ponil Creek 2011 2011 was a bit chillier but in the sun it was definitely warmer than expected. We took tons of photos and had great laughs. But 2010 was exceptionally warm as the picture below indicates. Off road in Ocate 2010 There was always animals and great photos to be had and memories to be made. Everyone else was at home in front of the television and we were able to have the wilderness and off roads to ourselves. Nobody to spook the buffalo which were sunning themselves. It was b...

Ornaments on the tree Tomorrow is Christmas Eve? Really? Already? Physically I am ready. The tree is up and decorated. I have had my studio open for those looking for (and finding last minute gifts), and I know with whom I am spending tomorrow even with my sister having moved back to Texas. But 2013 from July until now has moved at such a pace I am exhausted. I feel as if I have run the entire time. And yet my body does not look that slim and trim. My 365 day photography challenge appearing on my other blog certainly has told me daily how soon 2013 is destined to end but denial is a God given survival skill. I have not even reviewed my wish list for 2013 let alone made out one for 2014. Did one of those silly games on Facebook where you post in comments the first word you see on a box of jumbled letters. It was wealth. I will go with that. I usually put that one down and hope for peace or love or some such. But I am going to stick with wealth for 2013. Wealth and fame. Some ...

It is that time of year again. I swear the absolute worst comes out in everyone. Maybe it is all the expectations of peace and love and goodwill. Or that we look back at all the times we have prayed for peace and it has never been delivered. And there seems no hope that it will. Read some where that out of the entire history of the United States we have only been not at war 35 years. Not any of my 35 years. In fact I no longer can say Vietnam is my war like WWII was Dad's. There has been Korea which Dad and I shared and then Iraq one and Iraq two and Afghanistan. Peace on earth is just a laugh. And unless you can put it in a computer program and sell it as an app for your smart phone there is no good will to man or woman either. Angry Birds sort of says it all. But the sun keeps moving on through its cycles and this morning brought the Winter Solstice (Summer Solstice for my southern friends). The days will be growing a bit lighter every day and that is good. And that Wik...

There is this debate on this other blog I post to sometimes weekly. The Mag is a weekly post by Tess Kincaid in which she challenges us to write a poem or vignette in response to a visual prompt. I like the group of people and their poems. I like the challenge of having to come up with the right words in a set time frame. I like thinking out of my comfortable box. Even when I do not post a poem I will read the poems of others linked to The Mag. I do not always comment. How many times can you say "nice imagery" and sound authentic. I do comment, however, when a particular offering really hits a nerve or it is a friend of mine or someone who has just posted a particularly nice comment on my offering. Hey, they are not always gems. The debate this morning on The Mag was down in comments and about the difficulty of posting comments. Not there but on the blogs of some contributing poets. It is those damnable "prove you are not a robot" puzzles you have to get thr...

The Time of Long Shadows I definitely think I am behind in my weekly blogs here. Too quickly we seem to be into the time of the long shadows. And the too short days. I seem to have gone into longer sleeps and more things to accomplish when awake. And less of those things done perhaps. My neighbor has been gone and when she left that seemed like a really good thing because I was going to gain all that time I had been spending on morning coffee of late. Best Laid Plans*, etc. She left me with a list of tasks I could work on and get paid for while she was gone and I fully felt I could easily get them all done. BLP* again. And this week she will be home. I blame all the things I had to do at my house like clean up the studio, get the holiday tree cut down and decorated, etc. But there is a whole list of what I was suppose to do here that did not get done. BLP again. Studio open for visitors  But the Yule tree did get selected and erected and decorated. And the studio cl...