August skies
August 12, 2019
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5 Comments
After nourishing rains over the weekend, a deep and broad fog rolled in, covering the land. I saw a patch of brown to the south that normally wasn't there, and I waited for it to move, suspecting an elk was grazing. It was a buck mule deer with antlers taking a morning stroll through the sagebrush. All of nature seemed pleased with the rain. Anyone...
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in your face gold
August 05, 2019
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August is a great month in the southern Rocky Mountains. The monsoons rains have arrived to moisturize the landscape, and the color of wildflowers expands to include yellow and gold, along with the purples, blues, and browns. The wild sunflowers that dot the highways come into their own, but the ones that are cultivated in the rich bottomland are a...
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it's all about the wings
July 26, 2019
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Given the fact that the first men landed on the moon on 20 July of 1969 as part of the Apollo 11 mission, I thought flight might be an appropriate topic for this week's blog. It was a Sunday, and I was a counselor at Rancho del Chaparral Girl Scout Camp in the New Mexico mountains. Usually, there would be a hike or arts and crafts activity schedule...
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gifts of elevation
July 20, 2019
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This blog finds life in the northern hemisphere just a month beyond the summer solstice, and adjustments are being made throughout the natural world. Many of the migratory birds living here during the summer have already had chicks that have fledged and gone on their way. Others are in the process of creating another brood. The color in the garden...
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intersection of art and climate change
July 14, 2019
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Currently standing tall in the Railyard Park in Santa Fe is the Longview Polar Bear. Made of steel and recycled sheet metal by artist Don Kennell, it is one of those art pieces that, from afar, makes a huge statement. You know it is a polar bear. Close-up it gives the onlooker a very clear idea of the vision needed to put it together. Although inco...
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anniversary month
July 07, 2019
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During July of 2010, I began putting together a blog on blogspot.com., as recommended to me by several photographers and web designers who had been using it. I chose Photo Bucket as the home for photographs I planned to use in each blog, and began work on the layout, background, and other formatting elements. My inaugural blog was published on 30 A...
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the process
July 01, 2019
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During a most delightful brunch this week with friends, they asked how I come up with a blog every Monday. That was, indeed, a great compliment because I consider myself neither a great writer nor photographer. I am passionate about both because I feel obligated to observe, note, and share the world around me in any way I can, and a blog is a great...
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dancing among the iris
June 22, 2019
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Taking a cue from many friends who have gone for hikes in the mountains lately, I knew it was time for an early summer pilgrimage on Highway 64. Those hints, combined with temperature, the angle of the sun, time of year, and time of day called out in an odd but familiar and comfortable way. As a photographer, I must answer the call. The wild iris a...
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minor obsession
June 15, 2019
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When nature provides ample moisture in the western United States and the Rocky Mountain region, I admit I become obsessed with photographing flowers. The paintbrush continue to amaze me. Thus, you are being subjected to yet another paintbrush-studded blog. My apologies, but it can't be helped! The good thing about indulging in this photographic obs...
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off-grid geekdom
June 10, 2019
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Most of you know that we have been living in off-grid bliss for the past 18 years. Our previous off-grid sequence in western New Mexico, which began in 1977, makes it almost 22 years that we have been living this way. That first adventure did not include electricity of any sort. We cooked on a small Atlanta Stove Works wood burning stove, and a win...
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in every position
June 03, 2019
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3 Comments
Spring is stubbornly giving way to summer in northern New Mexico, and every day, the landscapes shares it surprises. Despite the cooler temperatures, wind, rain, and hail, the sun shines through enough to catch a photographer's eye. During the past week, when the sun made its presence known in the morning, and if the wind was not howling in the aft...
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remembrance
May 26, 2019
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The Santa Fe National Cemetery was busier than normal on the Sunday before Memorial Day in the United States, with family and friends, locating graves of their loved ones under grey skies and windy conditions that brought leaves and branches sailing down upon the grass surrounding the rows of headstones. I found myself wandering in an older part of...
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spring chaos
May 19, 2019
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Capricious winds and bouts of winter weather and snow signal springtime in the Rocky Mountains. In spite of the conditions, the whole of nature is emerging from relative stasis. On the piñon-juniper high mesa, more birds than at any time during the year regale us with their presence. Year-round residents are joined by migratory birds who arrive to...
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from outer space?
May 12, 2019
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Although there may have been more writers of science fiction who are not known to us, Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, is credited with creating the genre of science fiction in the very early 1800s. Novelists who choose science fiction as their platform have always had amazing imaginations, creating objects and worlds of the strange, bizarre,...
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hidden in plain sight
May 06, 2019
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6 Comments
By now, many of you have seen unbelievably beautiful photographs of the desert "bloom" this year in Arizona and California. Although the landscapes, and thus the flowers are not the same in New Mexico, there is a slow motion bloom happening right now in northern New Mexico. It presents itself to those lucky enough to hike on the right trail at the...
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© Daryl A. Black