Fall-inter

October 17, 2013

Due to the federal government doing federal government things I got to have the day off from work.  I am not complaining about the day off, I’m complaining about the f government.  I’ve been working the whole time so I am better off than a lot of people.  That morning I kept going back and forth ‘To hike’ or ‘Not to hike’.  I was leaning ‘Not to hike’ but at the last minute decided to go....

Rio San Antonio (part 3 of 3) the golden hour

Sept 28, 2013

Usually we start out early in the morning, 700, making it to our destination around 830 and hike from there.  Since we scouted out a couple other locations and made a number of photographic stops on the way up so our hiking schedule moved to later in the day.  It actually made for better photography at the end of the day considering we were still on the road as the sun was starting to set…

Rio San Antonio (part 2 of 3) Flora

Sept 28, 2013

 

This time we took the time to stop and photograph the flora.  I always bring my macro lens with me but I am usually having such a good time photographing the big picture I forget to look at the details...

Rio San Antonio (part 1 of 3)

Sept 28, 2013

We went back to a river (stream) hike this time.  The Rio San Antonio (RSA) goes through the Valles Caldera and emerges into the Santa Fe National Forest at the west boundary of the Valles Caldera.  We drove up through the Santa Fe National Forest and found a spot where we could hike down to the river…

Hamilton Mesa

Sept. 14, 2013

Out of a list of several hikes we have on our to-do list we decided on the Hamilton Mesa in the southern part of the Pecos Wilderness.  This is a different type of hike from what Byron and I have been doing lately.  As you may remember he pretty much lives to fly-fish and we usually hike along a stream of some type where Byron fishes and I photograph.  We are both happy.  As you may surmise from the title we are not hiking at the bottom of a canyon, instead we are on the top of a mesa…

San Pedro Parks Wilderness

Sept 15, 2013

The second weekend in September I drove to the western end of the Jemez Mountains, just east of Cuba, NM.  I read several descriptions of the San Pedro Parks Wilderness area and decided I had to see it.  I was hoping to see the start of the fall colors…

 

 

 

 

 

Valles Caldera hike

Penstemons

Earlier this year I wrote about the Valles Caldera, VC, and how I was going to get back for more hiking.  In late May we had several forest fires go through the area one of which went through a portion of the VC.  The VC closed around Memorial Day weekend and I wasn’t certain when it would open again.  Around mid July I looked at their calendar and saw they had just opened up and they were hosting their ‘Wildflowers’ guided hike.  I wanted to make this hike hoping to see many wildflowers in the VC so I made my reservation….

Bayfield, WI

I spent an afternoon in Bayfield walking around, seeing the town and looking for a sweatshirt for Sue.  Bayfield is small, around 600 people live here year round...

Apostle Islands

This is one of those places I never made it to when I lived in WI.  It was too far to go, besides I lived next to Lake Michigan what’s the big deal?...

Eagle River, WI

When I was growing up, many years ago, I remember going to the Eagle River area of the state, ‘up north’, to those people from Milwaukee.   It was quite an undertaking, Eagle River is 240 plus miles from Milwaukee most of it on two lane roads, pulling a trailer!  Google says it only takes 4 ½ hours for the trip now....

Shooting for the moon

I love the moon.  When I realized it was full this week I headed outside, dodging bats (flying ones) so they wouldn't fly in the door as I went out, to try and get a shot of the moon.

I swear I set the camera to a night setting, Mark.  Obviously that was not right, because...well.... look at my pic.  I don't really know what I was expecting to see, but I was hoping for more than a white blob in a sea of black.

When I saw what my effort had produced, I was disappointed, but not willing to brave going out the door again, and instead just whined to myself.

 I am happy with these other 2 pics though.  I like the colors of the flower petals and leaves looking up from the ground.

I need to further explore this view of things...

Sooo Mark, what's wrong with my moon?

Tell A Story

I hang around a lot of different photographer’s blogs and the main message I take away from each of them is to tell a story with your photos.  Layne Kennedy in particular says to tell your story in three photographs.

Northern Wisconsin

I’ve been away for a while but my plan has worked, at least once.  My plan was to have Pam start adding a few postings to the blog so it wouldn’t be so bad if I took a long time between postings.  She started this blog several years ago and has at least temporarily given up on her beading and other hobbies and has picked up a camera.  I convinced her to contribute some of her own images to this blog.  You can see some of her favorite shots on an earlier post.  I am the one she says inspires her, I don’t know about that, I just want her to enjoy her new found hobby.  While I was up in WI I went over the camera with her explaining what the different settings do.  Even though I have a digital camera myself I had to actually read the instructions for some of the settings so I understood what they do.

Inspired by Mark

I will never be the photographer that Mark is, but he sure does inspire me to pick up my camera.  I guess the point is if it makes me happy, then why not.  I’ve put all my beads aside and anything to do with beads, embroidery, etc.  A camera is just easier and I don’t have to thread a needle either which has gotten pretty close to impossible the older I get. 

AND Mark spent an afternoon trying to get me to understand the workings of my camera AND gave me a bunch of DVDs to watch and learn why I need to use my camera better…

Sooooooooooo

Some of my favorite things are flowers, leaves and trees, so that’s my focus before the snow flies…which will be all too soon…

This post should hopefully inspire Mark to post the pics he took while up here in northern Wisconsin for our dad’s 80th birthday.  Although in all fairness, I know he’s been busy since he’s been home. 

Did I do okay for my first official post??? 

Close to home

We still are waiting for rain.  We are still at about ¾” for the year.  Thankfully the local fires to the north are slowing and even stopping their growth.  Multiple fires to the south on the other hand are still growing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Found it!

Conophilos Mexicana

Who says surfing around on the web is a waste of time. (besides me)  I was visiting one of my photo sites reading about different techniques and guess what?  I saw a plant that looks very close to the one I shot in my June 2 posting.  The plant is a Conopholis alpine Liebman var. Mexicana, it’s also known as Squwaroot or Mexican cancer-root.  Basically it’s a parasite which lives on the roots of oak trees.  Go to Vascular Plants of the Gila Wilderness-- Conopholis alpina var. mexicana for photos and a brief description.

Now I will be able to sleep tonight.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark

More Jemez Mountains

A couple weeks after our trip to the East Fork of the Jemez River Byron and I decided to return to a different part of the mountains.  He wanted a different stream to fish and I wanted a different area to photograph.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Battleship Rock

(This is a continuation of the Jemez Mountains posting, May 24, 2013)

Battleship Rock is actually on the way back to Albuquerque.  The Jemez River flows along one side of the outcropping.  It is probably 5 – 6 miles further downstream from our hike earlier in the day.

 

 

Jemez Mountains

More specifically, the East Fork of the Jemez River.  For those of you that live almost anywhere other than the Southwest you have a different vision of rivers than we do.  I remember when we went over the Rio Grande the first time.  We went over the whole river and kept driving thinking that what we just went over was a tributary of the Rio Grande, nope, it WAS the Rio Grande, quite a disappointment.  This year New Mexico is in its third year of drought.  I believe we have received approximately 9” of precipitation over the last two years.  Our average precipitation to start with is only 9” a year so you can imagine what the rivers or former rivers are looking like.

More from the Ojito Wilderness

If you want to read my entire entry on Ojito Wilderness start with my post dated April 13.
Before I got there I thought I’d walk several miles in and around then be done with it,

Ojito Wilderness

Lately I have been looking around on the web and through books for other places to hike around in New Mexico. One of my coworkers mentioned the Bisti Badlands. I have seen images from the Bisti through other blogs and thought this may be a possibility. Upon further searching I found it is probably 3 hours from home, which is not bad, just not something I wanted to do this weekend.

Tent Rocks

This past January I decided I wanted to visit Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. It’s less than an hour from Albuquerque, on the way to Santa Fe. The cone-shaped tent rock formations are the products of volcanic eruptions which left pumice, ash and tuft deposits over 1,000’ thick. Mixtures of the materials along with erosion caused by wind and water has resulted in these formations.

The name Kasha-Katuwe means ‘white cliffs’ in the Keresan language, from one of the local pueblos.

There are two trails that go in and along the canyons that make up Tent Rocks. The Canyon trail actually goes into and eventually ends up on the top of the formation with overlooks all around. The climb is over 600’ to the top with the trail slightly over a mile in length.

Another stop you should make, the Veteran’s Memorial, is another 3 miles to the west by way of the same gravel road taken to Tent Rocks. It has a wheel-chair accessible 1 mile long path which provides many views of the Peralta Canyon and Jemez Mountain peaks. Picnic table and toilets are available.

I had a wonderful time on that Saturday. I got there relatively early, 1030, and while on the way up to the top ran into a half dozen other hikers. The way down was busy with hikers, coming upon 30 - 40 on the return trip. As you can see by one of my photos it gets kind of tight in a few spots so your hike may be slowed down by one-way traffic. It was very nice in January, snow in spots where the sun didn’t shine but the temperatures were very comfortable for hiking. I am not certain I would want to do this hike in the summer unless it is early in the day with lots of water and sunscreen.



Veteran's Memorial panorama



For more information go to http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/recreation/rio_puerco/kasha_katuwe_tent_rocks.html

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark

Da Bears

I’m assuming you remember the reference to the Chicago Bears by John Ratzenberger.

I have included images of my five bears, now four, with Roxy now living in AZ. Two of my needle felted pieces were also adopted. White must have been ‘in’ this year as all of the adopted bears were white, both mohair and needle felted.

Christopher - 15” tall, ¾” Buttercup, curly mohair

Patrick - 15” tall, 3/8” Honey, distressed mohair

Holly - 11”, 3/8” White, distressed mohair

Joey - 9” tall, Sandy beige, ¾” distressed and wavy mohair

 

Roxy (adopted) - 9” tall, 3/8” White, distressed mohair

Needle felted Fox Terrier (adopted, and happily living in AZ)

  

Dalmatian 3” tall and 4” long

If  you are interested in adopting any of these boys or girls feel free to email me.

Thank you for stopping by.

Mark

Bear trails

Those of you that read my January 12 posting saw all kinds of bear parts. I am happy to report that five of the six piles of parts are now finished bears and one of them was adopted at the Phoenix Teddy Bear Show on March 17.


I actually finished the bears the week before I had to leave but I was still busy getting paperwork together along with all the show stuff. I’m sure glad I was organized enough several years ago that I put together a checklist of all the stuff I need for a show.

My table

I did this show because it is the closest one to home. I have skipped all the recent shows in Albuquerque because they are mainly doll shows with only one or two bear artists. Some of the people attending the shows don’t seem to appreciate that my bears are one of a kind and handmade, they wanted to bargain for a lower price. Phoenix is a 7 hour drive from home. I found a good book at the library and listened to a 10 hour book for my 14 hours of driving. It was 60° or so when I left Albq., around noon and by the time I got to Phoenix it was 91. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Phoenix, when I got to the edge of town I thought ‘I should be downtown in about 20 minutes’. Well 30 minutes later I was still a good 10 minutes from downtown. Traffic was full speed ahead so the long time was not due to slow traffic.

My table, another view

There were 9 artists at the show. I knew a few of them from previous shows and I had the opportunity to meet a few of the others so we had a nice time visiting when the crowds slowed down. They all suggest that I get on Facebook and start promoting on the web. I am not a Facebook fan at this point. I joined so I could join a few other groups I am interested in but up until this point I go to my Facebook page once a month whether I need to or not.

Once the show was over I got packed up in about 20 minutes and was back on the road for my 7 hour trip to Albq. It was only upper 80’s when I got in the car but the temperature dropped nicely as I started to climb back into the high desert just south of Flagstaff, low 70’s, much better! I got home around midnight and was up and off to work at 800 on Monday.

I did fairly well at the show, and I am planning on going again next year. In the mean time I have to get my name out on FB and who knows where else. The artists I spoke with have offered to provide information on what they did and how it works so I believe I will be on this computer even more than normal getting my name outon the web. I hope to have some time left to make some more bears and needle felted animals.

Stay tuned for the latest bears.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark

On Comet, on Cupi....

Wrong Comet, sorry.

I work with a bunch of photographers and people that really enjoy being outside.  Living in NM makes it easy to be outside, especially in the colder part of the year.  I'm not a real go getter to be outside from late June through September.  I don't really get along with mid to upper 90's so I don't go out of my way to hike around in that weather.  Anyhow, a couple of the guys I work with got out to see Comet pan-STARRS earlier this week.  The photos were great so I went out the following night.  Earlier this year I had scouted out a parking lot on the east side of town at the foothills of the Sandia mountians that has a great view of the whole Rio Grande valley.  It was a great spot for viewing the comet.

I set up around sunset and learning from the guys that were out the previous night I knew to wait until it got dark.  After a while I felt like a tour guide with all the people stopping by asking "Where's the comet?"  I think they were expecting something a bit smaller than the one that went over Russia a few weeks ago.  I was afraid that the clouds would move in taking away any chance of seeing it.  You can see from the photo that there are clouds all around and at times we had to wait for the clouds to move out of the way.  The comet is in the upper quarter of the image just to the left of center.  You should be able to see it by double clicking on the image, expanding it.

Once we could see it, with binoculars, I had to point out which landmark to line up on to assist at least a half dozen people in finding it.  My binoculars were busy all night, but not with me.  That was okay, I had my camera to play with.  I made a number of different exposures experimenting with settings until I found a combination I liked, a huge advantage of digital over film.  I have several images but wanted to share this one because I like the coloring of the sky post sunset. Living at this altitude along with low humidiy make for great seeing conditions.  The farthest city lights are between 12 and 15 miles away and the mountain making up the lower right horizon is just over 60 miles away.

Enjoy.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark

On tour

Hello everyone.

I have been working on bears lately, so no updates to the blog.  Shortly after my last post I started sewing only to have the timing on my sewing machine go south.  So I have been hand stitching all the parts.  I have two bear heads together with several yet to go.  I have been told that I probably won't get my machine back for another few weeks.  In the mean time I am working the old fashion way, by hand.

Last week my friends at the Tony Hillerman library asked if I would like to display my bears for the few weeks before Valentines Day.  They want something cuddly, probably a subtle reminder for us guys to get something for our significant other.  Last Saturday I took a few of my bears up for display.

Thank you for stopping by,
Mark

There are bear parts everywhere!

First of all I want to apologize for not posting sooner.   Microsoft or Google or someone wouldn't let me upload the images no matter what I tried.  I got the Microsoft updates which automatically install whenever the want and after that no upload option for images.  Because I mainly use images in this blog I am screwed.  I downloaded Mozilla Firefox browser and I am now back in business.  Now back to my story...
 
I thought that would get your attention. I don’t know if you are really concerned about bears or are the morbid type that looks at car crashes as you drive by. I’ll let you decide…

First of all no bears were hurt in the writing of this posting. These are the parts of three of the next six on my adoption list. I have been making bears since around 2004 and I’m up to over 60 in my bear family. Most of them live in NM but they are scattered around the US; including TX, WI, AZ, VA and MI.

Some of you know from my previous postings from some time ago, mid 2009, that I was actively making bears quite regularly. The bottom fell out of the bear adoption market so I stopped a while, also I ran out of room in the house for the 18+ that lived with us at the time. I am hoping that the economy has improved enough that people may start adopting teddy bears again. I am preparing for a teddy bear show this coming March in Phoenix. The bear parts you see in the image are for that show. These six along with another five I have at home and a few at a doll and bear shop in Albuquerque will be making the trip to Phoenix. If you are interested go to http://www.toonaroona.com/store/index.htm to see bears at ToonaRoona, the local doll shop.

I will add photos of these bears as they come to life. Stay tuned…

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark

My favorite 12 (part 2)

As promised here's the remaining 6 images of my favorite 12 for 2012.

I have promised myself to get out more to use my camera to shoot more and different images.  So far I have been on a couple longer hikes in support of that promise.  This one is from a late Novemebr hike along the Rio Cebolla.  It was below freezing when we started warming up to the 50's by lunch.  Because it has been fairly warm this fall there was spotty ice along the stream banks.  I had to really crop the image so the ice becomes a small potion of the image.  There is a lot of unresolvable detail in the ice that detracts from the original image.  A tripod really helps with placing and keeping the camera still for this image.

This was taken in Vancouver BC in the area of English Bay looking west.  This is a fairly classic composition with the horizon placed at a 1/3 position horizontally and the couple at one of the 1/3 positions vertically.  The image is somewhat underexposed enhancing the feeling of the sunset.

I like the following two image because of the selective lighting on the leaves.



The last two images were taken on two different hikes.  The lake image was taken in the Pecos Wilderness this past fall.  The sunset-peak image was taken around the Gilman tunnels in the Jemez Mountains.

I hope you enjoyed my 12 favorite images of 2012.

Thank you for stopping by,
Mark