Red Canyon Snowstorm

It snowed all day yesterday, giant clumpy snowflakes that looked like feathers falling out of the sky. Even though I'm officially on vacation, I had to go into one of the facilities to participate in a fact-finding meeting. The wind wasn't blowing but the snow was accumulating rapidly. I barely made it up the hill from Arrowhead to the main road out of the complex. When I got home the power started fritzing - going off periodically for a minute or longer. I shut down the computer so I wouldn't lose any pictures. We had ten or more outages during the evening, so I never did get to upload a posting yesterday.

Today, the snow continued, although the flakes were much smaller. We decided to go for a walk in Red Canyon Park, a couple of miles north of my home. The roads into the park had not been plowed, but my husband decided we could make it through anyway and we did, of course. Red Canyon is a beautiful place any time of year but especially in the snow. We have had a foot or so, so far, with more expected tonight. The clouds were hanging very low today, so it was one of those leaden skies, snowy days that was not too cold and windy - perfect for walking in the snow. I took a couple of hundred pictures, but will only post a couple here and some more on various stock sites.

Chaco and Bear - December 27, 2006

Took the dogs out for a run this afternoon. It was fairly warm. Storms will be coming in tonight and could drop a lot of snow. Ugh. I have to go to a meeting tomorrow. We'll manage.

Practice with the Tripod - December 26, 2006

I am home from work most of this week, and as a step in my "improving my photography" project, I decided to practice using the tripod. I was thrilled that I could make decent pictures at fairly long exposures. I even managed an entry into DPChallenge so am on my way to my goal of participating at least twice a week. My exposure on the first one was 1/6 second at f/1.8 and on the second one was 1 second at f8. ISO was 200 on both images. I can't decide which one I like better. I like the bokah on the first one, and the clarity on the 2nd. I also like that I can have these pictures of the ornament. I cast it and painted it ten years or so ago, and I'm always afraid it won't survive until the next Christmas. This entry is being posted a bit late as I am staying up waiting for my youngest son to get back home after a night out with the boys. He doesn't drink or anything like that, but I worry about other people on the road and just worry about him. I think it's a mom thing.

Starting Over

o.k., so I have this blog and I am starting over from last year. It won't take much to do better than last year - looks like I only managed to upload 2 images. This new languages thingy makes me crazy, but I'm going to try. My goal is to try to upload a photo a day most days and to also work on a weekly theme that will make me work outside my comfort zone.

Today is Christmas 2006 and I was privileged to have all four of my children home for a little over 24 hours. It's a riot when the kids are home and I hardly ever stop laughing because they are just so much fun. They have grown into wonderful adults and I love them so much I feel my heart will just burst when we are all together. They don't particularly like to have their pictures taken and they particularly don't like to pose for pictures, so it is a real challenge to get my "all of us together" pictures at these special times. Always there is one "special" picture which expresses their true feelings about the process.