9th Annual Corrales Rose Society Dr. Huey Tour

We had our 9th Annual Corrales Rose Society Dr. Huey Tour this afternoon after I went to a “hanging” to help Susan Graham hang her photos at the NM Cancer Center for a Gallery with A Cause show titled “On the Rise – Artists in Early and Mid-Career.” I also helped another artist hang her paintings. She was by herself. Susan and I discovered it’s hard to hang the art and get it right as per the curator who didn’t give particularly clear instructions. When I came out of the restroom after washing my hands, I noticed the artist was starting to rearrange her paintings after the curator had set them where she wanted the paintings. I told the artist not to change the order of her paintings or she would have to rehang them. After Susan and I were done hanging Susan’s photographs, and Susan was waiting for final approval, I noticed the artist having a little trouble hanging her paintings. I went down and helped her. It’s a two-person job to hang artwork and get everything aligned and spaced properly.

I had been to the Cancer Center a week ago for my annual checkup, but it turned out to be my last checkup. My doctor said the scan was clear and my immune system was almost up to normal numbers, so he fired me as a patient. No more scans or checkups unless I get symptoms.

For new followers, Dr. Huey is the rootstock used to graft roses in the western United States. Corrales is a cold spot. A lot of roses freeze at the bud unions in the winter killing the rose grafted to the rootstock. Dr. Huey is cold hardy and drought tolerant. Once the bud union is dead Dr. Huey grows. Therefore, there are many Dr. Hueys growing in Corrales. Starting in 2014, we had done an annual tour of Dr. Hueys in Corrales or simply on our property since we have more Dr. Hueys every year.

We have a lot more Dr. Hueys this year because we had a cold and very dry winter. I was not able to water much during the winter because it never warmed up enough for the hoses to thaw. So we lost more roses over the winter.

Most rosarians don’t like Dr. Huey, but Laurie, Susan, and I love Dr. Huey. It only blooms once, but when Dr. Huey blooms it produces a lot of beautiful red roses with yellow centers. While many of our other roses are struggling due to the drought, Dr. Huey is thriving. Rosarians who live in other parts of the country that don’t have harsh climates like New Mexico can be snobs and hate rootstock roses, but Laurie, Susan, and I appreciate any rose that can thrive in New Mexico, and Dr. Huey is thriving.

A large Dr. Huey along Corrales Road.

Well Hung

Thirteen of sixteen photos Susan has in the show.

Paul flew over to the trees between the ditches leaving Mary behind. Daddy owl was keeping an eye on Mary. We didn’t see Peter in the trees between the ditches, so we presume he flew over to the Bosque. We’ll have to go over and see if we can find him in the Bosque. Given the rate of growth and flying, the owlets might have each hatched a week apart.

The wind blew clouds through for a decent sunset.

End Of Year PSA

With all the hoopla about Omicron, we must not forget about other diseases that run amok like Space Herpes (you can learn more about space herpes at https://news.sky.com/story/nasa-issues-space-herpes-warning-as-virus-reactivates-in-astronauts-11669335). I brought Space Herpes to the attention of OC&NE readers in March of 2020. While the video I put together in 2020 was decent, the parody, which I originally recorded in 2018, was really bloody awful. I completely redid the music and recorded new vocals between a dentist appointment at dawn and shopping for ingredients for New Year’s black-eyed peas in the afternoon. The parody is now a much better PSA. Lyrics are at the end of the post.

1st photo: Dawn from the dentist’s office. 2nd photo: Moon peeking through the clouds at the dentist’s office. 3rd photo: Sunrise through the bedroom window by Laurie.

Sasha showing us her belly. I don’t think your allergies are space herpes, Sasha.

Sunset from the grocery store parking lot. I thought I was going to miss sunset tonight, but the painter made sure we got a good showing from the store. She didn’t want to disappoint Marina. Marina doesn’t need withdrawals from her daily OD on New Mexico’s Naturaleza at the end of the year.

Space Herpes
Music: Deep Purple
Lyrics: Timothy Price

Well we lip-locked with the Vals on Venus
We were making out a lot on Mars
We’re smooching with the groovy aliens
Kissed across the universe afar

We messed around with Borealis
We got space herpes from the stars

Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes

Remember when we kissed the moon rocks
Swinging around the Milky Way
We found Uranus was a rude shock
Pluto doesn’t see the light of day

We’re messin’ round in the solar system
And got space herpes along the way

Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes

The Fireball we drank was burning
And now we have a new routine
Yeah yeah yeah yeah Marline said
They can kiss, but they cannot sing

We’re messin’ round in the solar system
Swinging around the Milky Way
We messed around with Borealis
Got space herpes every day

Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes

Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes

2 Score, 6 Gone By

THE WINDOW IN MY DREAMS

On this date 6 years ago, I posted the photo essay below on my T&L Photos website that was my final project for one of my photography classes at the university back in 1981. The introduction and concluding photos in the series were typeset on paper by a local typesetter, I photographed the pages with my 4X5 view camera and reversed processed the negatives into positives so when I printed the sheet film I got white letters on a black background. I made each photo with a combination of long exposures and manually triggered flashes to capture movement with some clarity in the images. I had to carefully calculate each exposure and plan the details of each shot to successfully execute each photograph because I could not preview each shot before I processed the negatives. Only one 4X5 negative was exposed for each print in this series. The project was a major undertaking.

I noticed the writing was not my best back then. I didn’t have a personal computer, so I didn’t write nearly as much as I do today. These days, I would never use “Sometimes I venture into the deepest shafts of my mind, into a room…” How clunky is that? I would change it to something like “Sometimes I wandered through the deepest recesses of my twisted mind, into a room…”

Click on the gallery to see the photos larger.

I would rewrite the conclusion, as well:

“As the images behind the window faded, I turned to find my way back to reality. Teetering on the edge of consciousness, I looked back to see my shadow hanging in the window, I was guilty of the execution of photography.”

Miss Mantis Models

Miss Mantis models
On a sunny sunflower
Sassy she can be

Miss Mantis hitched I ride on me as I made my way from the car to the house through our sunflower forest. I felt something walking around on the back of my arm giving me little love pinches. After I put down a load of books, my briefcase and some framed pictures I was taking inside, I looked at my arm, and there was Miss Mantis enjoying the ride. I put her on a plant on the deck until I got everything put away. I walked back out to the plant, and she was there waiting. I put out my hand, she hopped onto it and I took her out to a sunflower where she was a very good model. I didn’t want to leave her in the plants on the deck because the cats would get her. I had to rescue a praying mantis from the kittens few nights ago.

Barbara Price 1923 – 2021

My mom passed on today. She would have turned 98 in October. I saw her two weeks ago. She was lucid, but her body was failing her and her system was starting to shut down. She entered hospice last week, and she was more comfortable the last few days of her life.

I made the photo of her at her computer ten years ago and put it together with a photo of her when she was 20 years old working in a radio station. In those days most of the music was live, but she could record the performances by cutting records. She had a collection of 78 rpm records that were mostly commercial recordings, but among the collection were several records that she had cut during her years at the radio station. Most of the records she cut were glass platters, but she had some records that were vinyl on aluminum platters.

She had her Ham radio license when she and my dad started dating. My dad was really into radios, especially Ham radios, so while he was working on getting his Ham license he used her call. When they moved to New Mexico in the early 1950s they got consecutive call letters of W5ADX (dad) and W5ADY (mom). Dad was on his radios to the day he died. I don’t remember mom talking on the radios, but she kept her license active while my dad was alive.

I forget what her formal education was, but she was a good typist and worked as a secretary for the elementary school out here in the mid ’60s. Then she worked as a research tech for the Lovelace Foundation doing experiments on smokers, before she went to work for the YWCA in downtown Albuquerque in the late 1960s. She retired from the YWCA in the mid 1980s.

She volunteered at the Corrales Library after she retired. She read all books by all the local authors, and everyone who used the library knew her. She was active in church all her life, also. She took to computers like the radios of her youth, and had email and the web to keep in touch with friends and family.

Sunrise

Sunset