Photography

Well I didn’t get to decorating this morning.  After I got a few chores done it was time for photo group.  Ray wanted to get there early and we would have, but he forgot his camera.  We try to take them with us when we leave the house.  If we don’t, we miss something we want to photograph.  Well we had to turn around and go back to get it.  It’s probably a good thing because we forgot the cell phone too, my responsibility I guess!  We didn’t need it, but we did use the cameras.                                                           At Photo Group I learned a lot from Al.  I didn’t know that you get a much better picture if the horizon isn’t in the center of the photo and that if your taking a picture of the sky leave off as much land as you can.  The sky becomes the focal point of the picture.  I have to give Ray credit to I have learned a lot from him on photography and how to manipulate my pictures.  I now have four programs I use  and sometimes I use more then one on a photo.  I learned a little more about Picasa today from Al , he uses it all the time.  As Ray knows, Al’s going to be explaining it over and over a few times before I get it. I played with some with my photos I took today on our way to town and on the way back. When we got home Ray and I got three boxes with trees and one tub of decorations down.  I always say I'm going to mark the tubs, but when it’s time to put everything away I just want to get it done.  So I don’t know what's in them other then they are Christmas.  At first I thought it was a bunch of knick-knacks. But under a few, was my nativity.  I love putting it out, I collect a new piece or two to add every year.  Nothing matches except the first small group of figures, we have  all kinds of animals, a diverse group of people and a few angels.  I put up the knick-knacks today but the nativity will have to wait until tomorrow, after we get home from Benson.                                       Yes Al. Ray is getting out of yoga,again.  He convinced me we really need to go to the Bank and get kitty food.  But boy is he going to be busy decorating tomorrow afternoon :)

Have a good night.

And the Christmas Spirit Starts

Well today was a so so day.  We had a little wind and rain.  We can always use rain.  We might get snow tonight and tomorrow. 

Well I did get some Christmas things out and I put the outside wreath on the door.  It really takes a beating  every year, but I just add a few new doodads and it’s good for another year.

As you can see. I didn’t  get it out there until after dark.

When I was pulling down Christmas stuff I found  trees, lots of trees.  What a wonderful, forgotten, surprise.  You see I like to shop for decorations after Christmas.  Last year about two weeks into Jan., we were in Walmart, in the garden center/ pet food area.   This is where they put the Christmas clearance.  I have been wanting to have several trees outside to light up(we live in the desert ).   Well (poor Ray) they had  3ft. green plastic trees on clearance for $2 each.  This sure beats the ones made out of 3 metal poles with white lights wrapped around it for $15.  I think I bought 8.  that isn’t the end, I had to call two of my friends who love to decorate, and each of them wanted  me to buy 4.  So out we wheel with 16 boxes of trees.  We had to stuff them into our FJ along with what ever else we bought.  The ride home was with my seat all the way forward and no view out of the backseat Windows or  back window.  We were packed to the roof.   Well anyway my mind is running full speed ahead  trying to plan out how I’m going to use them in my decorating.

Wish me luck.           

Have a good night.

From The Front Door

We woke up today to overcast skies and windy weather.
        We live on the old Christianson Ranch in Gleeson.   It was subdivided into 40, 20, 10, and 5 acre parcels.  We have a hill  on our place that we call Angel  Hill.  It is a special place where  we go to remember our loved ones.  Today Ray and I went up Angel Hill to put flowers by the headstones and make sure the angels the Grandkids had put there were still in one piece.  You see we live on open range and the cows sometimes  knock thing around when they are grazing.  It is a very peaceful place and I love to sit up there and just soak it all in.  More people are starting to build on their property around us, but we are in a  small valley so we don’t see many of our neighbors.
After lunch we got to another project I wanted to do. We have a cattle guard that we have to drive over to get to our place.  I used to decorate it at Christmas every year.  I haven't for the last few years and I really wanted to do it this year.  Well, Ray and I dug out this garland that I bought at a yard sale earlier this year and put it up on the fence.   Now when everyone drives over the cattle guard they will be in the mood for decorating ( at least the wives will ) ….:)  I told Ray, I would like to get one box of Christmas decorations down every day from now until .. we get it all  put up.  Will have to wait to see if that happens, but it’s my plan.
If your reading this just remember Ray, is my editor and he’s asleep.
Have a good night.

The Day After

After a nice Thanksgiving at home, Ray and I took off this morning for Pearce, a ghost town to the North of the ranch. They  have always had a festival, the day after Thanksgiving(or for as long as I have lived on the ranch), and this year it was call Heritage Days.  We ran into Al and his beautiful wife, Kelly who I was happy to meet.  We had attended a yoga  class earlier this year in Elfrida, but I didn’t know that she was the famous Al’s wife.  Of course we didn’t know Al was famous then.  We visited with our friends Stan and Connie from Tucson.  Stan is a writer.  He authors books about lawmen of the old west and history of SE Arizona.  If your reading this, Stan, thanks for the CD it’s great.   Ray thinks it’s his. LOL  

The tractors are always a part of any festival in rural SE Arizona.

 

 

 

 

The also had a booth there that had scarves, sweaters, etc. made from alpaca wool.  The  wool is very soft.  These animals were very friendly.

 

 

  The band is a very   good country band that also plays at the Double Adobe Quilt Show in March every year.  Vicki , the blond in the red shirt is one of our quilters (Double Adobe Quilters).

I was fortunate to get to watch the potter from Old Pearce Pottery create a pitcher.  Here she is creating the handle, the finishing touch.

 

Inside the Old Pearce Store there are many, many different things to look at, all of them old.  Things that my Grandma used.  A few I still have in my kitchen.  This is a place I could spend hours looking through.  Poor Ray! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The south side wall of the store is covered in bottles.

Ray says I take too many pictures, so as he knows I wanted to stop  on the way home and get some more. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Century plant has finally seen the end of it’s days .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ghost Town Trail looking towards the Ch1ricahua Mtn’s.

New life starting to grow on an old cactus carcass.

Have a good night.

Gadsden Hotel

To night I thought i would show photographs  and write about  another interesting place to see in SE Arizona.

Ray and I won a one night stay in a suite at the Gadsden Hotel we decided to save it for our anniversary in June 09.

The brochure says," The Gadsden Hotel opened in 1907, the stately hotel contains a spacious two story lobby,

soaring marble columns, and Tiffany glass murals. This stained glass is  something amazing  to see.  I really enjoyed taking photos of it during the day and after dark. We had a wonderful dinner in the dining room.  Painted on the walls are beautiful murals of Spanish Conquistadores.  These were exciting to look at because I like to see art anywhere.( That’s why I love Bisbee’s walls. ).  But for some reason I can’t explain this was my favorite art to see at the Gadsden.  Well it was a good place to go visit the lobby and eat dinner but I would not recommend the rooms.  So if someone reads this and decides to stay the night don’t blame me.  Our suite was decorated in cheep 70’s furniture (maybe?).  It  was one large room made from two smaller ones and two bathrooms. The TV that had distorted sound was on a chest of drawers, and the microwave and fridge were on a dinning table.  We did have a comfortable couch.  We made the best of it and had fun but can’t recommend  the rooms.

Have a good night.

Playing in Picasa

Well I think with Al’s written directions I can now get the pink border around my photos. 
I was going through my photographs and found these that were taken Dec. 2007.   We do get snow here at least once a year sometimes in Dec.  or it might be as late as April.  When it does snow I love it and Ray hates it.  He grew up with snow and I grew up in  Tucson AZ. and  Orange County CA.  So I saw very little snow unless I went to it.  Tucson does get snow every few years but it doesn’t last all day.













I did use the I feel lucky  button with there photos and was surprised how nice they came out. It really brightened them up.  Thanks Al, I think it worked.













The Grandkids were lucky that it snowed during their Christmas break. 













We had enough snow that they could make a path to slide down the hill into the wash.  For us that takes a lot of snow :)













This is one of our old ladies ( she is 13 ) , Baby Girl .  All of our animals love playing in the snow with the exception of Miss Piggy.
Have a good night

Picasa

Today at our photo group I got some tips from Al on how to make better use of Live Writer and on how to use Picasa.  So Ray has been putting up with my questions of why and how for the last hour.  The photograph I  wanted to improve  was not helped by the “I feel lucky” button,  so that will have to wait for another time.  But I was able to make some changes using this program.  And the more I play with it,  I'll hopefully learn what else it can do.
Mountains looking towards Horseshoe Lake.

Well now to see if I get my pink borders around my photos, Sorry Al, didn’t find anything to click on to add them so put it on  none and hoping they will be added by the program.

Didn't get my pink borders so back in blog posting :)
 
Have a good night.

Cochise Stronghold

    Ray and I went to Benson today to do a little shopping.  On the way home we went by the Cochise Stronghold.  As we were checking out the campsites we followed the dirt roads that led though the unimproved ones and we found some neat places that I would love to camp, but not Ray he goes for the more improved ones. The land was very dry and they had had a fire in one area,  But it was still very beautiful.  Hopefully now that the weather has cooled off I can get him to take me camping,
              

                                          This is a rock that the Indians used to grind their corn.
                                          You can see the holes warn into the rock

Left: Steep rock wall one of the campsites is at the base of this wall.

Right:;  An interesting moss covered rock with a burnt yucca lying next to it, There were a lot of the burnt yucca and other burnt plants in this area,

This house is at the parking for the horse trailers for the people who want to trail ride during the day. It doesn't look like it is lived in.

 We also got some shot of the Corner Store in Elfrida for our assignment for the Elfrida Photo Group.

Have a good day.
                                                                                                                                                                       
                 
    

Roosevelt Lake

This cold has really got me.  Sorry I didn't get this done last night or earlier tonight but thought I should get something put in my site. So as I was working on getting my photographs into files and deleting duplicates, I came across these photographs of Roosevelt Bridge that I had taken in June on our long trip home from Phoenix AZ.  By the time  we got to Roosevelt it was getting dark so we were glad to get to a few photographs.  Ray had never been, and I wanted to show him that we do have a few large lakes in Arizona.

Have a good day.

Getting Motivated

There is nothing like being sick and having to stay home while the Boss gets to
go to town. Ray took off today for Sierra Vista and left me home.
So what did I do, went blog hopping, that's what. And I found a really cute
quilted table topper called Cookie Plate Crumb Catcher. I found it on a site
called Rosebud's Cottage. I got there following Sweet P Quilting and Creations.


This topper is 13"x 13" and looks like it
might be fun . I want to piece it using
Christmas colors. Out I went to the
storage shed in the back of our car port,
this is where I keep my stash of fabric.

Of course my fabric isn't organized like
I dream about it being. So I had a lot of
digging to do before I found just what
I wanted. By this time, (after I had put
everything put back) I'm pooped. So tonight
I'll just quilt on my cat wall hanging and get
started tomorrow on the topper:)

This is a photograph of our cat Milk, short for Got Milk.

Have a good night.

Working on the computer

Today as I’m staying home so as not to infect the world, I decided to download my pictures into Picasa 3.5. Well I’m not good at reading and understanding software instructions ( that’s what I have Ray for and I’m sure he gets sick of it). I have over 21,000 pictures on my computer and now I need to go in and delete all the duplicates. It seems there is always something I need to learn on this thing. And I am, slowwwwly.

This is a photograph of tonight's sunset We don’t get full sunsets like the people who live on the valley floor. We are nestled high in the Dragoon Mountains. So sun rises and sun sets are not as gripping as the one experienced in the valley.

If we do get out of here very early in the morning or come home in the evening and there are clouds, we usually get good photos.

Have a good night.

Not what I wanted today to be

Well ray and I were both going back to yoga today :) It’s been a while . First Ray was ill , then there was always something coming up. Yoga is very good for me (Ray also even if he doesn’t admit it). Well I woke up this morning with a head cold so no yoga :(

But I did want to keep up my plan to try to write every day.

Here is a photograph taken Jan. 2008.

Here is the same shot.

Have a good night.

Gleeson Jail then and now

Gleeson Jail March 2006

Gleeson Jail November 2008

This is not really now, the bottom set of pictures is of a work in progress. The jail has been finished and looks great. I need to get over there and take some new photographs. Inside the jail is a small museum, showing what it might have looked like when it was in use. Also there are photographs and news clipping about the people who lived in the area at that time.

Today at Photo Group in Elfrida, Al of The Bayfield Bunch showed us how to set up a free blog. He gave me some good tips to improve mine as you can see here. Thank you Al!

Well it;s a work in progress.

more

Building a marble tower.


















Planning the escape.






We had a great time with the kids, and we were glad to see mom load them in the car. Just have to recuperate for a few days. Went to see our BFFs just to talk to some grownups.

The afternoon weather was wonderful, Ray and I sat on the swing and enjoyed the quiet.