Flowers & Phantasms

January 10, 2013 Timothy Price1 Comment

Laurie distributed the flowers and roses from Reyes around the house adding extra color, beauty and cheerfulness to each room. I got up in the wee hours of the morning to find one of the ghosts lying on the floor under Laurie’s robe. I thought Laurie was laying on the floor in the darkness, but I could see she was still in bed with cats on her as they were light the moonlight streaming through the window. I grabbed my camera and set it to high ISO, ghost mode and snapped some photos. The phantasm filled out the body of the robe, but it had no head, arms or feet. When I pushed on the robe, there was nothing solid under it to fill it out, but it was filled out, and the robe would pop back into shape when I took my hand off — I thought I heard a faint giggle each time I poked it, but I would not swear by it. When I got up in the morning the robe was laying flat on the floor — I guess the spirit, warm and comforted by the robe, had gone off to wherever it hangs out during the day.

Epiphany

January 7, 2013January 7, 2013 Timothy Price7 Comments

On the 12th day of Christmas we made Spanish Chocolate, almond biscotti, and Spanish tortillas, put out queso Manchego, got lots of flowers, and then we partied like it was 1699. People brought wine, guacamole, chips, pastries, cheese balls and bread and we had a great celebration of Reyes / Epiphany. We made about 2 gallons of Spanish Chocolate and we ate almost all of it. Now that’s what I call the good life!

Freeze-Dried Monday

November 13, 2012 Timothy Price1 Comment

It was a “real” Monday Monday. First of all, my weather widget on my computer said the low in Corrales would be 25 F, so I figured 15 F or so. When I got up the thermometer on the fence showed 5 F, which means it was near zero in other parts of the garden. The roses and flowers that were holding up against lows in the high teens and low twenties under the protection of the canopy are now freeze-dried, and my water filter, which I forgot to disconnect, was busted into pieces by the hard freeze. The weather widget says the low tonight will be 29 F — Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! The temperature is already down to 20 F. We are definitely doing our part to fight global warming.

But the Monday Monday didn’t stop at near zero temperatures. After I got the work one of the modules in the phone system went on the blitz, I had to restart a server and it didn’t want to reboot, clients upgraded their computers and their browsers were not reading javascript properly, so our web apps were acting up — just one thing after another.

Although one bright spot for a Monday is our Christmas Cactus bloomed (3rd photo). I think this is the sixth year in a row that it has bloomed for us.

Love & Manx

November 7, 2012 Timothy Price3 Comments

Between nights in the low 20’s and day time temps reaching into the 70’s, the rose bushes have a variety of fresh to freeze dried blooms. Mama Manx was looking in the window hoping one of us would let her in. Laurie made note of how cute she looked, while I photographed her. The kitty was very patient staring through the glass and screen until we finally let her in.

We headed out early this morning, in sub-freezing temperatures, all bundled up, with coffee and Kindles in hand, prepared to brave the line and elements to exercise out right to vote — but there was no line. The poll workers outnumbered the voters, so we ended up spending about as much time saying hi to an old friend attending the vote scanner as we did voting.

A Rose, Rose & Stretch

October 8, 2012November 3, 2012 Timothy Price5 Comments

I had the first three photos of the rose, Rosencrantz and Stretch prepared for the blog, but I couldn’t remember the name of the rose. I went out to look at the label in the twilight, and there were two gas balloons floating by — lit up by the glow from the sun that had set some minutes before. I got the name of the rose, Cabana, then sat down on the bench in the middle of the circle garden and watched the balloons disappear behind the trees. Then I sat on the bench for several minutes and reflected on the sunset in the gazing ball.

All Eyes Are On You

October 2, 2012November 3, 2012 Timothy Price1 Comment

A little jumping spider was sitting on a blanket between me and Guildenstern on the couch. It didn’t seem to mind me shining my flashlight in its eyes to get enough light to get really close shots with my macro lens. It was also nice enough to hold very still for me. The depth of field is almost nil, but I got a clear shot of its eyes and pedipalps. Jumping spiders look very black to the naked eye, but as you can see they are quite colorful up lose and personal. It also has eyelashes, which you might not expect to see on a spider.

Spider & Roses

September 26, 2011April 8, 2016 Timothy Price1 Comment

We had light frost this morning. I noticed it was 36º F on the deck just before sunrise, then coming back from lifting the gate on the ditch, I noticed light frost on the morning glories laying close to the ground.

I went out at 3:30 this morning and put down the gate on the ditch to irrigate. A spider had built another nice web off the post and wheel and the spider was hanging out in the middle of the web. I destroyed it again putting the gate down, and it turned out to be all for nothing as the water never built up enough to irrigate.

As I was going back into the house, I noticed the zipper spider was rebuilding it’s web, so I got some photos of it as it moved up and down the threads spinning a new web.

Ro and I rode out to San Felipe Pueblo and back this morning — 50 mile round-trip form our driveway. Everything was really beautiful, and I saw so many photos that I decided I’m going to get a mounting system that will allow me to strap two cameras securely on my chest and side and start riding with my cameras. That way I can get exercise and photos in the process.