8/05/2012

Birds and Bees Weekend

There's not much story to tell, other than riding around hoping to take pictures of smaller things this weekend.

The first part was Friday afternoon south of town at a local state park, where I was continually watching for rattlesnakes.  Thinking (maybe my imagination was going wild)  I heard a light rattle, I changed directions and in doing so, a large Jackrabbit hopped across the trail and scared me.  I believe I've seen deer that size in south Texas.  Anyway, the only slinking thing I positively saw was a couple of lizards.



In a small cluster of flowers, there were quite a bit of honey bees gathering pollen.

Saturday afternoon, I rode up into the mountains east of town near Sunspot.  Way out in the boondocks, I was attracted to a small waterfall near where a group of ATV enthusiasts were camping.  This time, I figured if I fell off the side of the thing, somebody might be able to rescue me.


The best part of the whole thing was a patch of gypsum weeds and thistles growing in the delta of the falls.  Dozens hummingbirds of a couple of different varieties battled for the choice flowers.  I was totally absorbed it it and shot birds until it was really too dark to be doing so.

All of these pictures were taken with a Nikon D7000 with a Tamron 60mm prime lens.  As for the bird pictures, I was not able to get very close so most of the pictures have been cropped from a larger shot, as much as 400%.



Here's a few.




I am not sure what this was.  It was much larger than the Hummers 
and looked quite a bit like a parakeet.




 This is not a bird but some kind of huge insect.

As I mentioned before, dark came much earlier than I wanted, so I left and drove slowly, being careful not to hit any of the several deer that stood on the edge of the road.

Beautiful sundowns as usual.
 





7/28/2012

Allons Danser

Still a little displaced because of a certain lending institution dragging it's feet in processing a loan for our home buyers, I took a little break this morning and spent a little time at the downtown Baton Rouge Redstick Market.

It's somewhat of a farmers' market where local growers sell fresh garden items as well as a few artisans presenting their work.


Aside from the jellies, cucumbers and tomatoes, there were other good eats as well.  Music filled the air with the regular zydeco musician playing for tips near the entrance.













Some of the natives seemed to be peaceful enough, even dancing at times.

 







This afternoon, we mowed and trimmed the lawn of the new one.  I would take a picture but I just don't want to jinx the progress. Complete carpet cleaning tomorrow.

Hopefully, we will be able to close on both the selling of our old house as well as the one we are buying within the next week.


7/21/2012

Beautiful day in the neighborhood

OK, I'm gonna have to 'fess up here.  A couple of weeks ago, I may have overdone it a bit climbing around in the canyons, causing an old knee injury to reappear.  That with the added stress of moving this past weekend rendered me down to virtually incapable of getting around without the aid of a cane.  However, with the aid of some nice meds from my doctor back in Baton Rouge, the swelling has significantly dropped but there is a little pain left.

That being said, sitting around in the hotel room is pretty boring.   Looking out the window and seeing the mountains to the east, I thought maybe I could ride up to Sunspot and perhaps see some wildlife along the way.

I did just that but larger animals were elusive today and saw only flowers, birds, bees and the occasional squirrel along some of the small roads.

Today, I decided to be amazed at God's creations in macro mode.

Bigger is not always better, especially looking up close at some of the flora.


7/16/2012

Moving

For whatever reasons, good, bad or just for the desire to change neighborhood, we are on the move again.

It's pretty much a lateral move, being in the same area of Ascension Parish.  Even though it's probably a higher quality home and just a few square feet larger, I still consider it a lateral move.

We put a lot of work in the one we're moving from and it may be a while before the new digs measure up in appearance to the old one.

Nevertheless, I can't help but have the feeling of being detached.  We have not completely closed on the home we are selling and do not have an exact date for the closing for the new one.  The person who we plan on buying from (as soon as we can close on the deal) has generously offered to let us store our belongings in the carport of the new home, so we have mountains of boxes stacked on furniture at the new address waiting on the call from the title company to tell us when we can close.  Since I am working away all the time, the burden of packing up has been on the shoulders of my wife.

So, with a slight feeling of detachment, we are temporarily housed at our daughter and son-in-law in Baton Rouge and hope we can get everything settled very soon.

7/08/2012

My Secret Is Out....

...I'm not 21 anymore. 

It looks like my tenure in New Mexico may be coming to an end and this could be my last weekend here for a while.  No promises but there are elements out there that are pointing in that direction.

So, to take in the a few more sights, I drove up toward Ruidoso Saturday just to see anything that might spark my interests.


About half way up, passing through the Indian Village of Mescalero, I happened up on a local parade celebrating something of what I know not.  I stopped for a while to look but unfortunately, wasn't able to get close enough before the parade was over.

Sunday afternoon found me out scouting for sights again when I remembered someone telling me about some waterfalls in the canyon going up to Cloudcroft.

With a backpack full of extra water, some emergency supplies and my camera, I gingerly made my way down the edge of the canyon.  The canyon was about 250 feet deep and 300 feet wide with sharp cliffs  along the way.  On the side next to the road, there was more of an opportunity to crawl down and many people had done so.

I emailed (GPS enabled) a cell phone photo of the back of my rental car to my brother, telling him to send the calvary if I didn't call or text him back in 2 or 3 hours, then started descending.  I won't say this was mountain climbing but the grade was loose small rocks that slipped from under my feet, making me grab larger boulders and small trees on the way down and use my tripod as a walking staff.

Getting to the bottom a small stream flowed over the rocks causing several little waterfalls.  It was cool there and gave quite a relief from the 100° temperatures down in the basin.  I snapped a few photos and talked to a few young people who came down as well.

Within 30 minutes, I felt a few drops of rain and noticed the clouds darkening and thought being in a narrow canyon might not be the best place to be. 

The trip up was entirely different than coming down.   Now, the backpack seemed twice as heavy and the rock that I had slid on coming down, now required crawling up on all fours.  It had taken me 20 minutes to get down but now, I was stopping every 5 minutes to catch a breath in the 6,000 ft altitude.

Others had started coming up too and teenage boys scrambled past me trying to get to their cars before the rain and lightening became worse.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped to let my pounding heart catch up, catch a breath and ponder what in the world made me think going down there was a good idea.  At one point, I sat and pondered what I would do if I could not continue and no one else came along.  The cell phone showed no signal available and the ground was not flat enough to sleep on.

Finally, I mustered up enough energy to get to the top where I sat in the car for a good 10 minutes with the air conditioner blowing hard while I recovered.

I confess, the reason it was hard on me was,
  •  I'm not in shape, 
  • the altitude was 6,000+ and........
  •  I'm just not 21 years old anymore.

7/05/2012

Beer!

There probably is no difference in the taste but I found that the names of some of the beer found in the grocery store, reflected the local lore in the names.

Something for everyone.


A wink and nod at Alamogordo (Spanish for Fat or Big Cottonwood).


Here's one for Roswell and it's alien reference.

One for the guys at the state penitentiary

and we can't forget the Mormon influence.  Why just have one?


7/04/2012

Fourth of July in a small town

One of the great things I like about Alamogordo is the lack of pretentiousness.  It's somewhat eclectic and the home of just about any kind of philosophy under the sun.  One might think that would be a problem but for some reason, it's just a live and let live place.

It's a quasi military town, being next to Holloman Air Force Base, so it stands to reason that the 4th of July is taken pretty seriously here.

This morning, the parade started with the usual color guard, fire trucks, police cars, motorcycles (no Hondas), Mustang car club (no Hondas), horses in trailers, horses pulling trailers and young women on horses.

There were old trucks (no Hondas), old cars (no Hondas) and hot and cold running politicians in convertibles...again, no Hondas.

People brought their folding chairs, some stood and some sat in parked cars next to the parade route.


The small parade lasted about 30 minutes with the end coming with a line of fire trucks and some more motorcycles.  This time, two Hondas.

The Space Center planned a fireworks display and exploded a lot of pyrotechnics  next to the cliffs for 30 minutes just as a rare blowing rain appeared.

Quite impressive.  I loved it.

6/23/2012

Florida

Gary, my brother-in-law just bought a new (to him) Harley Street Bob and according to research, got more than a fair deal on it.  "JimBob" is not very experienced, mileage wise, so we thought an initiation run to Florida would be appropriate.

Early Wednesday, we headed east with intentions of meeting up with my wife, sister-in-law, grand kids and nieces and nephews in Destin for a brief visit.  We thought it would an amazing trip to cruise down the beach roads, wind in our beards, sun on our faces and feel the spirit of the open road.  All that seems nice until you run into summer beach traffic and feel the heat as you stop at every other traffic signal from Waveland, Mississippi to Destin, Florida riding along US Highway 98 even through Gulf Shores, Alabama.

After a few hours of stopping and starting we agreed we should have only ridden a portion of the beach road and taken I-10 a part of the way.  Oh well, we will just have to chalk that one up to experience.

Destin was really nice but there were lots of people and traffic.  Heck, we even saw a beach wedding.  We had no clue as to who they were.

The next morning, we arose early and hit the road toward St Joseph Peninsula State Park, near St Joe, Florida.  We probably chose that location because it looked interesting on the map but I can honestly say, were it not for the ocean, it would not come close to competing with the State Parks of Louisiana.  Nevertheless, we pitched our tents for the afternoon and a night under the stars.

As you can imagine, the peninsula was the home of a lot of wildlife, including noisy Crackles (a type of blackbird), coons, pigmy rattlers, salamanders and mice.  Mice were everywhere.  I was told that the Oldfield Beach Mouse is on the endangered list and is protected by the government so we dare not lay a malicious hand on one.  I say one man's beach mouse is another man's baby rat.  Rats!...but they nor the snakes didn't bother us.  Perhaps they afford Harley riders, professional courtesy.


One redeeming thing was amazing sunsets for which many campers came out to witness.

Young and old, they brought their boards and chairs.  That was great and worth the mosquitoes!

Hearing news of nasty weather brewing in the gulf, Gary and I struck our tents early Friday morning and came home in one day.

The trip was a thousand miles.