Sidetracked Charley

BoBear  at the Pond's Edge   Smoke is blanketing my valley from the fires all around my state and just south in Santa Fe but it rained and I thought if I was quick I could get out on an early morning photography trek with my dog. You just had to be careful which way you pointed the camera. Avoid most shots with a sky line especially pointing south. The sky was white in that direction and all the hills in shades of gray. But pond reflections were blue. And toward that direction the colors were more true. It was also easier to breathe if you walked into the woods and away from the smoke filled valley. But the white sky offered a great backdrop to the dark forest. So in conclusion BoBear and I had a nice walk but I came home to my house in the Valley of the Little Coyotes with a cough and a headache, but some good photographs.  See my other Blog, Creative Journey for the black and white versions of the smokey hills. 

Smoke from Arizona Fires Last Monday, as my frequent readers know, it was on the eighth day or more of damp and sometimes rainy weather with heavy clouds. Here in the mountain southwest we all go a bit crazy if we don't see the sun every day. However, the rainy weather did a lot to give us a burst of green this week. Spring greens The air was so clear and so fresh it almost sparkled. And the Aspens did their best to add that wonderful spring green as they leafed out overnight it seemed. Eclipse behind clouds Clouds partly obscured the eclipse last night but the sky was so blue. Then this morning the air smelled like smoke. And what I thought might at first be fog did not clear when the sun came up. Smokey Mountains I have the New Mexico Wildfires site book marked on my browser so when the haze did not go away I looked at the fires currently burning in New Mexico. None were up wind from us. But the three in Arizona are. If you have been close to the fro...