Looking at Puerto Vallarta Jalisco maybe five miles south.

On this blogger site one can click on all pictures except for the header above two times each time making them larger which is a feature I like because it gives you the ability to really look very close at all kinds of things not readily seen.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

A Dinosaur Picture Song

An attempt to capture images with music of a place of wonder. Video's like this are fun too.
 

Cross Posted @ OTC

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Nice Kitty

This cat showed up two five pound bags of cat food ago. I think it may be neutered as before it got here I would think there would be a pregnancy involved. It's not real young. It gets named in the video and can live here as long as it wants and get fed.

It's possible this could have been a young feral cat as it took some time to become acquainted. An unusual thing is that this cat does not play. At the end of the video she pounces and that's the first time I've seen that. It's also a good hunter which isn't all that great as already there is one less rabbit but they're trouble for the garden as well.

This cat is very gentle but still spooks easily at times and no way would it approach others unless it was real hungry like it was when it showed up.

We'll see soon enough what grows outta this. This is a pretty cool cat and it 100% grey.  

Monday, December 12, 2011

On Hurt

Driving the other day I wanted to follow up on the post below where Curtis actually did hurt himself and I chuckled too. I refuse to watch video of people getting hurt. This post is about something else with only three pictures.

I take pictures of just about anything that catches my eye. One of my folders is hurt pictures where two of these came from. In my former life a fact of life was that hurt was around and certainly never became a stranger for long. Just the nature of the game. There is no attempt here to gross anyone out and I don't see a time that I would use any of the others. Let's get on with it. I made these small except for the pretty one.

This happened just about three years ago. It doesn't look like much and specifics aren't important. Two of us made mistakes. We three learned from incidences such as this and I know we all reevaluated how we did things after this particular one each in his own way. My boss saw it happen and expected the worst. I was knocked out and was very lucky to walk away. Believe me the hurt was not all that bad except for an hour or so.

One of my favorite places to fish. Given the right conditions it's surreal because it is so beautiful. It was on Trout Creek that the third picture was taken coming up on six years ago.  


It's not as bad as it looks. Sometimes when you fish places like this you are not always in the water. The grasses and obstacles along the bank can be deceiving and numerous. Was along the bank and the tall grass hid a depression that I slid gently into coming to rest softly with my back against dirt. I remember and had said then that was a soft landing.

Felt a tingle and looked and saw of all things a small piece of crappy wood that was in my arm. It went in then under for a bit then out again. What the hell.

In a matter of a couple seconds I grabbed it looked away and as quick as I could flicked it out. It bled just a little bit and stung maybe for 5 minutes or so. Washed it out in the creek and did a better job when I got home a few hours later as we went on fishing and had a great time YES!

Now to the meat of this. And understand this is not about me but about the whole thing being something other than what one might think. The Queen of Egypt could tell this story and I would find it interesting. It's probably boring as hell but it's what makes things go round for me.

Nothing like this ever happened and what I find soooo interesting is this - from the initial sting I never knew I owned anything like this. It never had a bandage and apparently was in a pretty safe spot on the inside of the arm. How could something like this not hurt I just don't know but it didn't. Seriously it was like it never happened.  

Tara said more than once her's didn't hurt. She was lying.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

A Chuckle From Before

As in the past life of working and the chuckles are at the expense of a friend. We both laugh hard about this. My regret is that the conservative side of me said for the longest time said no to this technique and what a huge mistake that was - huge! It's like many things - use it in moderation and it's fine. We worked so much harder than we had to. This is for problem tires only.

And a sacrifice was made.

So just how hot was it? I don't think the small explosion made the valve stem that hot but the air in the tire was and it happened when the air was escaping that it got real hot quickly. You need to stop the air or else the tire will come back off the rim which was the problem in the first place. I do not miss this at all!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Geode Central

A couple weeks ago went for a hike to the east three miles to the top of this mesa. Crossed the Huerferno River where you see cottonwoods.


We're on the river bottom and you can see there is not much water that flows. At one time water flowed around here a hundred years or less ago.


A while back a six mile stretch of pcv was run to get water to where it was needed from a well that produced enough to make it worthwhile. Our well is 22ft deep and is hand dug.

Quite a bit of fossil activity going on.
 A small drainage on the way out to the mesa. We were talking last evening and it seems like one cottonwood tree can consume as much as 300 gallons of water a day. Years ago most trees were cut down in place like this just for that reason is my understanding.


Here is a concentration of geodes along the way but not the mother load.

This is on top now and looking to the north and the Hueferno River. There are some petroglyphs here and appears to be fairly  deep.

The center of these is certainly crystalline in nature but not as pristine as you associate generally with geodes as a whole.  Some do have color. What I find so interesting about these that people can not comprehend for some reason is the size and how close to round many are as you'll see.

Everything you see here is a geode.

These things are huge.



I thought we had quite a few around our place but it's nothing like this and have never seen so many hanging on the side of a drainage like this.

On the way back and the peak looking west and a bit south is Mt. Mestas

This is Greenhorn mountain a landmark for the area and lies at the very end of the Wet Mountain range.

This was quite a way from where the other geodes were. This one was ready to fallout of the bank and I one handed it slightly and it did.

Back at home and by gosh there's geodes here too.





I think this video does a better job show how many there really are. Turn the sound down because there's wind noise and me breathing, This is illustrative only and not very long.


Saturday, October 29, 2011

On Pinwheels And Roundheads

We've been here a bit before but not quite like this. A conversation with a newbie astronomer  for the park service in Hovenweep this month prompted this post. He had not seen many petroglyphs and was unaware of these. I attempted to explain what is below in the pictures. I must be a terrible communicator or something as I could not get this across.

He said to me that pinwheels are very common in nature. One of the few things I was any good at in school was biology and pinwheels did not ring a bell. Go search yourself and there's not much there and certainly nothing that would have been seen in my opinion anyway a 1000 years or so ago when these these drawings were done in this part of the country.

Remember about clicking on the pictures twice to make them bigger each time for a real good look.





Here is another at the same place (McKee Springs) in Dinosaur National Monument. A bit different  but a pinwheel none the less. The was a huge exhibit of petroglph pictures at the Anasazi Heritage Center including the figures above but not this one. No picture in that exhibit included another pinwheel and they were from all over. 





What these do resemble very closely are these.



Just to the west lies the McConkie Ranch where the roundheads are found. Nowhere in that picture exhibit was there a roundhead anywhere close to these and there are three examples here one of which is very dramatic in my humble opinion which since no one knows for sure has as much merit as the big boys and more than some astronomers. A couple different vantage points for these.




This is the third.


It is these that I think are telling.




Exactly 23 miles.


To me this means whoever made the pinwheels saw that design some how in the heavens and drew what he saw. They looked through a telescope/got a ride or maybe it was a hologram but they drew what they saw for sure.

The same with the two roundheads with the one slit. These people in this case again drew what they saw. The fact these places are so close together is interesting as well. I have not seen roundheads like these anywhere else and if any one has please tell me about them.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Visitors And Change

Didn't get out of my lounge clothes yesterday and I'm just fine with that. It snowed and was down in the teens but no more coming anytime soon and time to get outside. These are some shots from this morning. It will be very nice for a period. We really needed this as so many do.





Sunday, October 23, 2011

The Hunted And The Hopeful

I have been lax in posting but there are some things lined up. This picture from just awhile ago. It's a beautiful late October Day.

This is the first coyote I've seen in a bit over three weeks here. Antelope all the time. While bopp'in on the bike came over a hill pretty close to 15 or 20. They took off pretty fast and I made them pick it up a bit. They weren't  doing 60 but they were cruising for sure.


And some others from about the same time. Nothing special. Took a huge hike yesterday which will be a post soon and it's just plain quiet out there.  Probably 8-10 miles worth and didn't kick anything up. But what I did find was geodes and plenty of them.

A Washington Hawthorne. It's very hard to get trees to grow here.

                                                               
The Hueferno River drainage.


Was waiting for a train/trains but no. There are plenty but as yet there have been only a couple decent train pictures.  It will happen. The are a bunch of places to get good ones.

That's me behind the windows.

What's left of Lascar. It's just over the hill behind our place. Don't know much about it but I believe at one time there was a post office here. ( There goes a train)


Sunday, October 9, 2011

Grotto of the Redemption

This is a unique place. It happens to be where I grew up although I define myself as a Rodman boy rather than from West Bend,Iowa.  The 7 min video describes better than what I can much of what is going on here. It's approaching a 100 year  birthday but was started ten years before that.

Some of the pictures have been around before but not all. There has not been a time hardly at all when visiting that I did not stop at the Grotto. Lived two blocks away and the town is 850 or so. It doesn't get old and is a great place to take pictures as well.

The stories that can be told I tell you. This was a play ground for this kid. The video is really good and I bet there were a few offended by a couple things in it. The pictures help bring it to life.






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