I was stopped by a train while leaving our valley yesterday, so I had the chance to take this photo which is typical of Colorado in the spring. Click on the photo to see it at a much higher resolution.
Category: Photos
Google Satellite
I had heard about the satellite imagery that had been added to Google Maps but didn’t play with it until this morning, when I found this aerial map of our place, the L-shaped house inside the curve of the road. I called Jack in to look at it, and he said “What does that tell you?” “That there is no privacy?”
We spent some time looking at the map, and decided, based on the available clues, that the photos were taken last fall.
I am amazed that I can identify our round pen, stock trailer and propane tank. I was also amused to see that our driveway is in the wrong place according to their algorithm.
April 2005 Blizzard Aftermath
This is the mud room door which I used when I was feeding the horses during the storm. Good thing it opens inward. The stockade fence to the side of the photo is five feet high. The dog door is buried beneath the drift beside the door. Lody, our Smooth Collie, always uses the dog door, and it took me a while to convince her that there was no way she was going to be able to burrow her way out and that she had to use the regular door. She is one of the sweetest dogs I’ve ever known, but not necessarily the brightest.
I dug around the barn enough to let Lily and Rags out of their stalls. Smoke was already out of the barn, since one of this little eccentricities is that he cannot be shut in a stall. He will batter his way out in what is apparently a panic attack. He doesn’t mind being in a small area like the hay aisle where he spent the storm, as long as he has a way out. Fortunately, the winds were blowing from the north and west, so the hay aisle door which faces east was sheltered.
I had to open Rags’ stall first, and Lily became sufficiently frantic to get out that I decided it would be safest to lead her out through the hay aisle since it took me about thirty minutes to clear the outside gate to her stall. Both horses celebrated by galloping around and then rolling in the fresh snow before settling to eat some hay.
Three Robins
This morning, three robins sought shelter from blizzard conditions in the tree outside our kitchen window. These spring storms bring much needed moisture, but I feel sorry for the wildlife. I also feel sorry for myself when I think about putting on lots of winter gear to go feed the horses.
First Wildflowers
These wildflowers that I found in Black Forest Regional Park were about the size of a nickle.
Front Range
I took Lody for a walk to the small valley yesterday evening, and took this photo of the Front Range.
Tranquil Evening
We woke up yesterday to near blizzard conditions, but it was tranquil and still by the time I took this photo of the hills to the west of us in the evening. I tend to determine the strength of storms by how many of our neighbors’ houses we can see from our windows, and yesterday was occasionally a “no house” storm. Once, it was almost a “no barn” storm, when I couldn’t see our horse barn. As I fed the horses in the morning, I wished I could tell them it was supposed to be a fast moving storm. They didn’t seem too peeved, so maybe they knew it.
It is hard to tell how much snow we received because of the drifting: probably about six inches.
Carved Crow
I carved this crow image based on the photo I took a few weeks ago. I used The Gimp to turn the photo into an image I could carve. I’ve always wanted a turn-photo-into-soft-block-carving filter, and the new photocopy filter provided with Gimp 2.2 comes close.
Morning branches
PD Photo – Public Domain Photos
I found this great photo resource, PD Photo – Public Domain Photos, via Aisling’s Creative Adventures. The photographer, Jon Sullivan, provides high resolution versions of his photos, which increases the ways you can use them. I am using his photo of the Zion Narrows as a desktop background.