snippets from a winter weekend
March 02, 2015
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When an event like the Taos Wedding Expo has been planned for months, organizations and vendors are not likely to cancel because of weather. That was precisely the case on Saturday when northern New Mexico was in the midst of the most inclement weather sequence in years. The highways and roads were snow-packed, and a combination of snow, fog, and w...
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Winter companions
February 23, 2015
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The temperature is 15 degrees fahrenheit right now, and a north breeze is blowing the snow into drifts around the house. After the delicious spring tease, we are having a serious week of winter. Wolf Creek Ski Area has received 30 inches of snow and at Taos Ski Valley, the snow keeps coming - 17 inches in the past two days, bringing their base to 5...
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dreams in stucco
February 16, 2015
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Fans of every conceivable thing on this earth and in our society exist in odd and wonderful forms. I am a fan of many, but as a photographer, I am very fond of stucco or plaster. This ancient finishing coat has been used around the world in both artistic and architectural applications, and has the added bonus of being less susceptible to fire. It u...
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Why not love?
February 08, 2015
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This coming Saturday is Valentine's Day. It can be a day overflowing with joy and fun, but also a day that strikes fear, guilt, and/or sadness in the hearts of many who don't enjoy or are insecure about gift giving and receiving. 14 February also conjures childhood memories of creating, buying, and receiving cards. It has become quite the commercia...
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Hello, Winter!
February 04, 2015
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After what was a relatively warm January, Winter said "hello" this week, leaving a foot of snow on the high mesa to nourish the earth. As I write, snow is sliding off the metal roof. But because it had been so warm, very interesting things have been happening. Our friend and Navajo Churro Sheep registrar Connie Taylor said the snow was like concret...
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Teasing us
January 26, 2015
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While the United States eastern seaboard is preparing for a winter storm of epic proportions, we are experiencing a January thaw - the second in as many weeks. Nature teases us. Four days ago, our low temperature was -7, and the high yesterday was 47. The predicted high temperature today is 52, so we seem to be in a storm, snow, cold, thaw cycle fo...
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It was, after all, a river cruise
January 18, 2015
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During the last four months and a bit, photographs from the river cruise my sister and took on the Danube, Main, and Rhine Rivers have graced this blog. Most of the photographs, however, have shown cathedrals, monuments, architecture, people, and food. Since it was a river cruise, I thought it might be good to do a final trip blog featuring some ri...
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Windmill dreams
January 12, 2015
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Windmills are a symbol of the wide open spaces of the American west. In May 1977, on the day the Aeromotor windmill was installed at our first off-grid home in western New Mexico, I was smitten. Here was a mammoth metal giant with gears at its head, growling as it picked up speed, pumping clear, clean water into a stock tank below. Mind you, my dis...
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Reflections - Kinderdijk and a bridge too far
January 05, 2015
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Before the cruise, my sister had told me about Kinderdijk and the windmills that make this enchanting part of Holland famous, but I was unprepared for my reaction. By now, you know I am partial to reflections, and in Kinderdijk, it was of epic "kid in a candy shop" proportions. I will get to the photographic reflections in a moment but first, a ref...
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The fragrant city
December 28, 2014
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Although writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge had little good to say about the city of Cologne or Köln of years past, the modern city is packed with a million people and all the culture that accompanies such a diverse metropolitan area. It is Germany's fourth largest, famous for, among other things, fragrances worn by wealthy women who bathed twice a yea...
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Along the Rhine
December 21, 2014
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On the afternoon of the eleventh day and during the dark of that night on our river journey, we departed Wertheim, sailing past Miltenberg and Aschaffenburg and Frankfurt, before leaving the lovely Main River and merging onto the Rhine near Wiesbaden and Mainz the next morning. It was chilly and foggy, but the skies opened up enough to see ruins, c...
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At the corner of Main and Tauber: Wertheim
December 15, 2014
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One stanza from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge reads 'Water, water, every where, and all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink." This was in reference to a long and stormy sea voyage, but it might have referred to Wertheim. Water is literally the circulatory system of this beautiful me...
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On the River Main in Würzburg
December 07, 2014
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There was a feel about Würzburg that is difficult to explain. I was enchanted by it. This Franconian city on the River Main oozes confidence, and many of its buildings, opulence.
One example is the Würzburg Residence. Commissioned in 1720 and completed in 1744, the residence was designed in the German baroque style by architect Balthasar Neumann....
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Center of the Holy Roman Empire
December 01, 2014
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I did not know nor would have guessed that Bamberg - that lovely, northerly starting point of the Main-Danube canal - was once dubbed the center of the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Heinrich II. It is one of the few German cities that escaped destruction during World War II, retaining many of its medieval structures. The Roman influence is clearly e...
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Nuremberg
November 22, 2014
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Nuremberg is a city of contradictions. Known as the center of Nazi activities during World War II and home to the Nazi Rallying Grounds, it was also the location of the Nuremberg Trials. Much of the city was destroyed toward the end of the war by allied bombers but great care has been taken to restore the buildings and the history, lest future gene...
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© Daryl A. Black