Red Chili Pepper Under Ice

Walked out this morning and it appears we had heavy cloud cover roll through overnight that left a variety of whorls and swirls on Mini. Overall, things are defintely starting warm up as the balance of the week looks rather sunny.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

In the beginning it was just the two of us......


Then the first of many power naps....

Learning the ropes.....


And then over the top......


From all of us to you...Happy Mother's Day!!!!!!!!

A View From Above

While other passengers were busy waiting on the beverage cart a certain Florida boy had his nose and cell phone camera plastered to the window. Flying in a newer 737-800 with satellite TV screens embedded in every headrest, the altitude and speed were easily captured. I have noted the more interesting geographical features.

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View from the Great White North

Strategically sitting on the south facing side of the 737,  Mt. Baker rises near the U.S. and Canadian border just north of Seattle, Washington.  Very hazy in this photo is Mt. Ranier raises its peak up in the background and well over 100 miles away.

Backyard of Spirit Ridge

Looking over one of the vineyards at Spirit Ridge in Osoyoos, British Columbia, Canada. Osoyoos is located just north of the Canadian border with the U.S. along the northeastern edge of Washington state. The area is richly irrigated by the river and man-made lakes allowing vineyards and fruit orchards to grow on what was once fairly sparse vegetation.

Oh Canada....eh?

Sitting in Vancouver getting ready to take puddle jumper over to Kamloops, BC for a conference. Typical Pacific Northwest...cool, cloudy and wet.

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Lagging Behind

A recent morning caught a cloud bank far behind its brethren from the previous night as the sun breaks over the valley.

Another one of those mornings....

It snowed overnight (again) to the tune of about an inch....fortunately everything was below freezing so the snow was a "light fluffy" powder and not melted on things like my windshield.

Blustery Day

Another blustery spring day here in the valley. The photo shows the dust being picked up in the flats next to the mine community by the wind that gusted to ~50 mph. The flats pictured are at least 1 mile in the distance just to put a perspective on things. The winds pretty much roared until the wee hours of the night and by sunrise all was calm once again.

Pet Sematary

While tooling along a path over this past weekend I can across a small grave of what appears to be a deceased pet. Others readers have mentioned Pony Express riders that had disappeared while in the line of duty. I'm sure that there are countless grave sites across the seemingly endless high plains from amongst the many visitors over the last 12,000 years---both Asian and European with most lost to time.

Laying Low

A young cactus (I'm assuming it will grow up one day) lies close to the ground amongst the rocks on the valley floor. There are no "grown-ups" that I have seen so they either all stay down low or this little guy is a long way from home. That being said, he is now located on a kitchen window sill.....

Typical High Plains Foilage

This is fairly typical of the edges of the valley floor nearer the mountains....more grass like vegetation closer to the center of the valley. The rocks laying around also start getting bigger the higher in elevation you go. The natural geologic cycle has the mountains wearing down over millions of years. The actual "floor" of the valley is buried under several thousand feet of these rocks. As a collective, the loose rocks are called "alluvial" by the mining folks here.

Automatic Camera Panorama Photo

The Kodak has a setting that will stitch (or attempt to stitch) three consecutively taken photos. During my first extended bike ride of the season today, up to the toe of the mountains directly to the west, I took these photos about halfway up the slopes where there are two water tanks that provide the community with our drinking water. That being said, the tanks provide the same purpose as water towers back in Florida---storage and pressure (pressure being the key word as I had to bike the height of a water tower to take the photo). I continued further uphill turned and back once I got close to the mountains as the grade was getting steep. Note the community in between the towers and Mt. Jefferson in the background.

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Raindrops Falling on my....Feet

Some low hanging rain clouds floated through the valley early this morning. In the photo they are passing through and over the mine site with the sun just popping over the top. Earlier, rain was actually falling as the clouds passed through the neighborhood--I assume from the tops of the clouds.

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Digital PIracy--End of an Era

Never thought I would see the day, but I'm finally going straight and stop being a drag on a capitalistic society---at least with my operating system. I'll continue to work valiantly on the rest of my many "issues" but my hopes are dim :)

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No gardens here yet.....

While Tennessee may be about to start harvesting some of their spring garden, here in the high country the temperatures are a bit cooler. Tomatoes typically do not get put out until Memorial day nearly 6 weeks from now.....

Spring gardening in the Volunteer State

The little woman has got her herbs doing the wild thing in their pots on the back deck and over by the near "swim temperature" pool, two circular elevated gardens are showing their first bounty of the season--radishes and a little red leaf lettuce.

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Favorite "Cat in the Hat"

An avid reader, the littlest Princess wore out a path to the school library along with the paradigm of a few teachers whose criteria of reading materials and time were challenged by her voracious appetite of the written word. Of course the fever is still unabated and the young woman is a discount card-carrying member of Books-a-Million though I believe she still wears the Hat when now one is around :)

The Tale of Two Cameras

WARNING: The following is for camera geeks only :)

I have been taking photos over the most of the past year with either a Sony or a Panasonic digital camera. Either perform very nicely but when the Sony couldn't remember the photo it just took I purchased a Kodak M341. Posted in the photo above are identical shots from both the Kodak and the Panasonic in their respective "Point and Shoot" modes. Take note, the Panasonic was in a lower resolution mode but I do not believe it would effect the actual taking of the photo. I also include in the Exif data of each shot.

More side by side needs to be done but for right now the Kodak appears to have that Kodachrome edge, you know "...give us those nice bright colors...those greens of summer...all the world's a sunny day..." even though my camera was a Pentax and not a Nikon, I still remember the song well.  

And on a side note for those of you who shot rolls and rolls of Kodachrome film, Kodak stopped production of the film last year: Kodachrome 1935-2009 RIP and thanks for all the memories :)

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Old Mill

I noticed a structure off to the southeast of the mine property and drove over to inspect. It is an old ball mill complete with tailings (the crushed and ground rock from the mill) and small rusted steel balls in the dirt surrounding the remains.

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Early Weekend Morning

A bit before sunrise this morning in the valley. Looks to be a great day with temperatures heading into the 70s.

Backside of the Dust Storm

Early morning revealed the end of the weekend long high winds (gusting to 50+ mph) and what started off as a great day until more clouds along with rain, hail, sleet and snow--repeating and mixing as needed.

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A Few Blustery Daze

The weekend looked pretty much like the photo for the most part with the worst gusts about midday Sunday....very windy and dusty overall but relatively warm.

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First Signs of Spring in the High Plains

Springtime normally brings notions of birds singing, warm sun and flowers blooming. Here in the slowly greening yard the first of the many "flower signs" are the oft bad-mouthed dandelions---of the low growing, under the mower blade genus that brings about the rebirth of the eternal struggle between civilized man versus mother nature!  This particular early blooming variety has found its niche in the well watered faux ecosystem and I personally let them do their thing as long as they do not get overly numerous--"It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature" :)  

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First Photo

My trusty old Sony finally couldn't remember how to read or write to it's little mini-CD (I believe it ages in dog years) and I had to put on the shelf next to my venerable Pentax K1000. I've been using my camera phone that touts itself as a 2 megapixel, picture taking machine but it's little plastic lens and limited ISO levels leaves much to be desired.  The young upstart replacement, whose results are shown in the photo above, is a Kodak M341 touting 12 megapixels that offers a decent variety of manual features and fits into a pocket with ease. The proof is in the pudding so I'll see in the months to come how it stands up to the "classics"---the results are promising so far :)

Spring 2.0

 

After getting a little more than 4" of the cold white stuff yesterday, Spring will try again today.

Colored Candles

Hey, its Easter so I Resurrected some candles and colored them :)

Almost an Emergency

A defective wine bottle opener almost caused a crisis. Fortunately a back-up opener was secured and the evening then proceeded uneventfully :)

Raising the Big Top

Looks like the circus has come to the master bedroom! Either that or it is the camp of a Horde raiding party.....all of course due to the littlest princess's creative imagination.

A Eureka Moment

Just ouside of Eureka, NV after a few inches of snow overnight.