John at Las Vegas Photo Blog posted a video of church bells ringing in Banff, Canada, which reminded me that I had recorded the bells ringing while on the bell towers at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, in 2018. I found the video and decided it was boring by itself because the bells at Notre Dame were very loud standing in the bell tower, and they didn’t have any variation other than a bunch of bells ringing at once. Therefore, I wrote a piece of music to go with the bells and put together a rather strange music video called Non-Tubular Bells. I include photos from Notre Dame in 2018 before the fire, pictures of Paris taken from the bell towers, video of the American Flag at our neighbor’s house, video of our neighbor’s dogs playing in the Rio Grande, and video of the Owlets flapping their wings and flying a little.
Category: Rio Grande
Beauties and the Trees
Resa posted Art Gowns ~ Femme Finale at https://wp.me/p3qQOA-2qQ yesterday. She has used her tree, Holly’s tree, and Marina’s tree in her Princess Blue Holly (PDH) series set in Paris, France. PBH battles Evilomlap to save the Art Gown models from his dastardly evil plans. Resa’s drawings are delightful, and her stories lots of fun. Her Art Gowns are fabulous works of art. The celebrates Resa, Princess Blue Holly, and all the Art Gown models, I’ve posted an aerial photograph that shows where all the trees all the women bloggers have claimed are on our property and the surrounding area. I also included the location of the tree that both owlets are in. Big Baby Owl flew over last night and the two owlets where so happy to be reunited after being apart for almost two weeks.
The mosaic below shows all the trees that are in the above aerial image. Mouse over the photos of the trees to match them to the aerial map:
1) Resa’s Tree
2) Holly’s Tangle Heart Tree
3) Marina’s Incognito Pear Tree behind Dr Huey
4) Dale’s Peach Tree & Nancy’s Nectarine to the right.
5) Owlets hugging after getting back together in the bosque.
6, 7, 8) Right to left: Lavinia’s, Susan’s and Teagan’s Trees
6, 7, 8) Left to right: Lavinia’s, Susan’s and Teagan’s Trees
9) Gabriela’s Tree
10) Tiffany’s Tree
11) Robin’s Tree
12) Lyn’s Tree
13) Gloria’s Tree
14) Mia’s Tree
Below are a series of roses from our garden. I did not identify the roses.
Landscapes and Art Gown Trees
You can visit Dale’s blog at https://adelectablelife.com/
You can visit Marina’s blog at https://marinakanavaki.com/
You can visit Resa’s blog at https://graffitiluxandmurals.com/
You can visit Holly’s blog at https://houseofheartweb.wordpress.com/
Beaver Dam Breaker
The Conservancy has been at it again, breaking up and pulling the beaver dams out of the clearwater ditch with their evil Beaver Dam Breaker.
Below is a short video a did last night of a beaver sliding into the Rio Grande after cutting some willows to snack on along the river bank. We saw four beavers last night and six beavers the night before last.
Halestorm on the Rio Grande
Cottonwood Catkins. Red or Green?
In keeping with the official New Mexican question, “Red or Green?”, cottonwood trees show their sex in red or green. Although New Mexico is a southwestern state, we have Eastern Cottonwood Trees. The catkins that form in early spring on Eastern Cottonwoods are red on male trees and green on female trees. The red catkins on male trees shrivel up and fall off as the male trees leaf out. Not much else happens to the male trees other than being tall, handsome, natural air-conditioners, and going through their normal seasonal cycles of sporting green leaves in summer, yellow leaves that turn brown in fall, and standing bare for a few months in winter before putting on catkins again in early spring.
The green catkins on the female trees turn into what we call “tatones”, shells where the cotton-like seeds forms. Around the end of June, into July, the green seedpods burst open and cottony seeds float off in search of a place to start new cottonwood trees. With the millions of cottony seeds floating around, like snowstorms in summertime, one would think we would be overrun with cottonwood trees. Cottonwoods need special conditions and flooding to propagate. With the levees and flood control dams built on the Rio Grande over the years, the conditions are not right for cottonwoods to easily propagate, so young cottonwoods are rare.
We have four males and four females on the property. Resa, Tiffany and Teagan have female trees and the one unclaimed cottonwood is female. Robin, Susan, Teagan, and Lavinia have male trees.
Owl by Day, Beavers by Night
Pink Moon… Not!
I waited on the banks of the Rio Grande for the super pink moon to rise over the Sandias. In an otherwise clear sky, clouds lingered over the Sandias blocking the moon rise. The moon was able to make a brief appearance in a break between the clouds. The clouds persisted in hiding the moon long after darkness set in, and beavers splashed in the shadows of the river bank.
Orange, Yellow, Red
Turn, Turn, Turn
We had a warm, sunny, slightly windy afternoon. The foliage along the Rio Grande is preparing for spring, creating beautiful layers of intense colors.
