Winter Wonderland

Lots of photos, you have been warned!!

We had a big snow last night and the beauty of the snow combined with my new camera equaled tons of photos. I really like the new camera and have high hopes that as I learn more of it's capabilities, I'll be getting even better pictures.

Remember to click on any photo for a larger image.

The snow was so dense, yet light, it stayed on absolutely every surface.

For some reason I was particularly taken with this image. In fact, I liked it so much, I'm including four different versions.

This is the original, SOOC (straight out of the camera).

With some correction . . .

Sepia . . .

Black and White

All four in one.
Behold the power of Photoshop!

One of the things I love about the snow
is how even the most subtle colors
spring to life against the stark white.

This little spot is in the center of a stand of pinon trees.
Have you seen the film Camelot?
Not a great film, but truly beautiful
This reminds me of when Guinevere
is praying to St. Genevieve
A quiet and beautiful spot.

No matter how cold, life continues to push

Again, the subtleties of color against snow.

Last night these bushes were completely free of snow

A tiny cave in the bushes

The green needles wont be contained by the snow.

My Hunny Bunny

A bit of bragging about the new camera.
If you enlarge this
and look carefully over Terry's shoulder,
you'll see some mountains in the distance.
On the right is the same scene
shot from the same spot with the camera at full zoom

Our Christmas lights seem to have collected a bit of ice

I can't seem to stop shooting closeups

Later in the day,
the sky turned this beautiful shade of blue

No matter how cold it gets, the birds are still active

One more zoom shot.
The left is the original shot and the right
is a full zoom pretty much in the center.

This is our view where we're staying.

More close ups.

The patterns of snow on the trees
continues to amaze me.

I love the close up ability of this camera.

And I was intrigued
by the detail of the ice
sitting on this tiny flower

Every crystal is unique and sharp.
What a marvel.

I love these doors

Here's the other side of the same doors

Doesn't this shot look like spring
is just around the corner?

The shapes and angles of adobe

One more closeup of the crystallized ice

Remember several blogs ago
when I said we had a Christmas tree in the yard?
Here it is, all dressed in snow.
It wasn't till I looked at the photo
that I saw all the birds in the tree

This is now my favorite Christmas shot

So Happy Holidays to you and yours . .

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

We've had lovely weather here for the last week or so . . .

When I say lovely, I mean it hasn't snowed in over a week, and while it gets really cold at night, we've been able to go out and do a bit of Christmasy sight seeing.

We went down to the Plaza the other night and they were lighting luminarias all around the square. There was even a group singing Christmas Carols. I love the feel of this season!

That said, it seems that our good fortune has ended (weather wise that is),

But that's OK, we've done our Christmas shopping and are getting everything ready to go in case we get snowed in again.

So of course I started looking through my Christmas music, because for me, it just isn't Christmas without my favorite music.

Now a lot of people say they don't like Christmas music. While I admit that some of it is a bit stale, there is such variety out there that if you just look and listen hard, I'm sure you can find some for almost every taste (and if you don't, then FINE!).

But I love Christmas music.

So this afternoon, we sat down to enjoy our good fortune. The Christmas lights are up, our tiny tree is all decorated, we have heat and we have each other, what more could we want?


Then I take a look at my Christmas music selection, and I am SHOCKED, I mean really flabbergasted. Somehow I have omitted Johnny Mathis from my Christmas repertoire!

Now if you have a spot in your heart at all for music of the season, I'm sure you'll agree, the Merry Christmas by Johnny Mathis album is THE Christmas album of all time. For me, it just isn't Christmas without the honeyed tones of Johnny,

What to do?

Well, silly me, I'm on the computer most of my life and I've never bought any music online! I start looking around and realize that Amazon is selling MP3s at a pretty reasonable price and I can have them in just the time it takes me to click a mouse . . .

So for the quite reasonable cost of $7.00, Terry and I are sitting inside, watching just the lightest hint of snow start to fall. The rig is toasty, we have groceries, our Christmas tree is just beautiful and WE'RE LISTENING TO THIS

I hope all of you have the Happiest of Holidays and are looking forward to 2009.

Cholula Red in the Snow...

There's been a lot of talk over on the Life With a Lazy Daze RV group about staying in an RV in freezing weather. As some of you know, these rigs are very well insulated, but, being made in California, they're not REALLY made for freezing weather.

Regular readers know that we're currently in Santa Fe and if you follow the weather, you won't be surprised to see what I stepped out of my door and found.

And this

And this.
I liked the curve of the drift
by the front door

One more shot of snow patterns

OK, enough snow (at least for a few seconds)
I had to include this shot of Tipper
When we leave, we may have to take her with us

I took a look at the hockey table
Now I guess we could use it for Ice Hockey

Terry, taking care of the birds

I decided to try a few black and white shots

One more

A silhouette of our birds

It was snowing
so some of the telephoto shots
are kind of fuzzy

A close up of one of the birds,
I love the new telephoto lens.
I was about twenty feet away

I decided to include this shot
to illustrate the wonders of Photoshop
This is straight out of the camera

After cropping and a bit of work . . .
Remember to click to enlarge

We've decided that even though this is outside,
we will call it our Christmas tree

Oh yeah, I was going to talk about living in Cholula Red in the snow . . .

As you can see, it's pretty darned cold here, but we're doing fine. We ARE hooked up to electricity and decided the best way to handle the cold was to run two extension cords (connected to two separate circuits) and we're running two small electric heaters. This allows us to not have to use our furnace (noisy and wasteful of our propane) and seems to keep the rig at a toasty 70 degrees. We have also turned on the electric valve heaters that Terry installed a few years ago.

So, while this isn't my idea of ideal weather, we're quite comfy.