I went for a walk in the bosque at 7:00 this morning. The sky was grey, the light was flat, and not much was happening other than a duck mooned me, a coyote kept his distance, and mallard took flight. Cranes and geese were flying to and fro, but it’s getting where all my crane and geese photos look the same. This is the first time I’ve gotten close enough to photograph a coyote, it was still a long shot, and it’s not everyday I get mooned by a duck.

We are going to have a cold night tonight. The temperature is down to 20 degrees F, already below the forecasted low for tonight, and  it’s only 6:00 pm. My weather widget is predicting snow and a high of only 33 degrees F for tomorrow.

BTW, several people have inquired about the time on my posts. WordPress’ server is set to GMT, which is 7 hours ahead of MST. I like it because I can get tomorrow’s post done early in the evening.

The half inch or so of snow we got last night melted quickly, leaving a wet sheen on the plants and mulch that covers most of the yard by mid-morning. Birds where hopping around on the fence, and scavenging the trumpet vine pods soon after the snow melted giving me the opportunity to photograph them through the windows, some in serious need of cleaning. I’m not much of an ornithologist, but I believe the birds in order are a thoughtful Dark-eyed Junco, a melancholy Lesser Goldfinch and a rather intense looking Spotted Towhee.

 

Today has been cool, cloudy and kind of depressing. At least this photo of the clouds has a bright spot in it.

My weather widget shows rain and snow tonight through Saturday, sunny on Sunday, and snow again on Monday. My new outdoor thermometer  on the fence showed 10 degrees F with frost this morning. We’ll see how the forecast holds. According to Erik P. DeBenedictis of Sandia National Laboratories it will probably take supercomputers running in the range of zettaFLOPS to accurately model weather for a two week peariod. Since the most powerful supercomputers running today are barely scratching the petaFLOPS range, it’s no wonder my weather widget is never very accurate. FLOPS stands for floating point operations per second. One zettaFLOPS is 10 to the power of 21 or a whole lotta FLOPS. You can read all about them on the FLOPS Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS.

I repaired the canopies on our car ports on Sunday, but the fierce winds we had today ripped out all the repairs I made, and left the canopies hanging sadly from the  few places where they are still attached to the frames.

The reflection of the Bank of America on the New Mexico Bank & Trust building seemed a good representation of the general state of banks these days.

Puck was working on his flight training this morning. His goal is to fly from the roof into the house, making a 90 degree turn in the process.

This is the first year anniversary of this blog. I published my first blog on photoofthedayetc.blogspot.com on 12-01-10, then switched to WordPress in May of this year. Today will by my 366th post for Photo of the Day, Etc.

We were reflecting on art this afternoon in the windows of a downtown art space. A squiggly vase and composite skulls caught our attention as we walked down Gold Ave returning from lunch.

Stretch was “snaking” me on a package we found covered with frost by the catio door this morning. The package was delivered sometime in the late afternoon yesterday, but I missed it in the darkness when I got home last night. The sun goes down much too early this time of year.

 

My last mo-pho, as Movember draws to a close, includes Rosencrantz who wanted to be in the parting shot. I believe my mustache made pretty good progress over the month.  As a reminder, my Mo Bro site is http://mobro.co/Elcheo.

A few more petroglyphs and a view of the Sandias from on top of the escarpment below the volcanoes. These petroglyphs look recent to me, but what do I really know. It’s interesting how the holes in the rock are used to form the mouth. I assume the bird represents a turkey.

The forecast for Friday is for snow. UNM’s hanging of the greens is scheduled for Friday. If the forecast holds, the hanging of the greens will be interesting.

Two things that are guaranteed to ruin your day are 1) reading about the latest idiotic rules the BTAF has imposed, and 2) repairing plumbing.

I had one of those visions of water leaking, so I went down to the old pump house and found a brass shutoff had cracked and was spraying water.  I shut off the water at the pump, strained and struggled to loosen connections that are at least as old as, and possible even more crusty than I am. After finally getting all the pipes apart and the main water line capped in the old pump house, I turned the water back on and all seemed well.  Later this afternoon Laurie said she could hear water dripping under the sink in the bathroom, but could not see or feel any water. I checked, and way back under the middle shelf a T-connector had cracked at the connection. I ran out to Lowe’s, bought a new T-connection, and after much trouble sawing pipe in tight quarters, I got the second leak of the day fixed.

Late this afternoon I got an email about some of the stupid rules the BATF have imposed over the past few years. If you have enough steel wool or copper cleaning pads in your pantry to make a silencer, then you are in violation of federal law (see sound/gas absorbing materials defined in 18 U.S.C 921(a)(24)). The problem is since few people know how many shredded metal cleaning pads it takes to make a silencer, I’m guessing only a few packages, and federal agents are able to pretty much decide on the spot how many it takes, then most Americans who have any variation of steel wool or copper cleaning pads in their kitchens are most likely criminals by BATF rules. If you want to come clean, you can register your stockpile of brillo pads with the BATF for $200. You will also have to submit a “no markings” variance since they don’t have serial numbers, which may cost you an additional $200.  BTW If you have any misdemeanor or felony convictions — go straight to jail.

Have you ever had a need to cut a shoestring to 14 inches? Don’t do it. You will have a machine gun by BATF rules. Never mind that you may not even own a gun, because the BATF classifies any single part used in a machine gun, or anything that can be used to make a weapon fire like a machine gun, a machine gun (see 26 U.S.C. 5845(b)). Isn’t it nice to know that you can be arrested for gun violations even if you don’t own a gun!

And doesn’t it make you feel wooly all over, and sleep better knowing the BATF is getting all those dangerous brillo pads and shortened shoe laces off the streets and out of the kitchens of we irresponsible Americans? Remember, this is the same agency that runs guns to Mexico!

The photos today are of blooms on our Christmas cactus and a backlit fading rose.

Pepik has very green eyes and looks like a crazy Russian to me. He was playing for my camera, poking his head out from under the coffee table just long enough for me to snap a photo before disappearing under the table again. Our cat and camera game was fun, but when Pepik got tired of it he simply laid on the floor and stared at me.

Among some of the petroglyphs that looked more recent to me, was a kitty. Indians did not have domestic cats before the Spanish arrived, and the petroglyph looks more like a kitty than a puma or bobcat. I would guess the kitty petroglyph was done sometime in the last 500 years.

I’ve never paid close attention to petroglyphs, but while hiking around in the Petroglyph National Monument I came across several in different places. The problem is many looked modern and faked to me, but, since I’m not an expert, I can’t really say. The petroglyphs in the first photo I suspect are old because of the the patina. They are on an almost flat, high surface so they were pretty subtle. I found the petroglyphs in the second photo just plain interesting and included the view to the south to give them a sense of place. The last photo is a yucca seed pod still on the stem.

My cold was worse this morning, and I really had to work to drag myself up to take Stretch in for his monthly blood work. They said his BUN and creatinine are the same, but he’s looking really good, otherwise. We will continue on the same regimen, and take him in again next month.