November 6, 2013 11:25 PM
by JHF
in
Earth
{ }
I waited for the pink flash but it didn’t happen. Do you know what that is?
This is just ridiculous. All I have to do is walk about a hundred yards, find a clear shot through the scrubby trees for my trusty Pentax with the telephoto lens, and there you go. I probably have three thousand photos like this, one of the benefits of living at the end of a muddy dirt road on the south side of town. One could do worse for vantage points, if not for keeping car and pride together.
But I saw something even better on my way to the mailbox today. I almost never meet any neighbors up there, but today I did—that in itself was notable. From a single-wide across the selfsame muddy road came a mother slowly with a baby in a blanket. She supported the infant’s head with one hand and held it firmly with the other. (For a moment she was walking barefoot along the Nile in Pharaoh’s Egypt.) The mother herself was small and slender, shy, and eighteen at the most. She glowed so much, she vibrated “mother”…
I said hello and gave her distance, feeling something like a guard. The mountain was right behind her, too.
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Tags:
Llano Quemado,
mothers,
Taos Mountain,
telephoto
November 6, 2013 4:33 PM
by JHF
in
Video
{ }
What we have here is a whole minute of herky-jerky handheld video from the cab of a woodcutter’s truck on its way across the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. The 4wD Mazda was loaded to the gills with what my friend tells me is over 1,500 pounds of piñon. The video is HD, so turn your YouTube player up to 720p for full effect. This will give you a taste for what it’s like out on the sagebrush plains west of the gorge. I think you’ll also understand why the driver keeps three days worth of food and water behind the seats!
Hoo, boy…
Tags:
mountains,
piñon,
Rio Grande,
Taos County
November 6, 2013 9:52 AM
by JHF
in
Taos
{ }
Telephoto from the back yard
What do I know, it just happens. This shot across the Talpa valley shows you where the snowline is. There’s a certain glory in this mess that’s helpful in a crunch, and am I not addicted to the drama, anyway? I spit on you, you ugly beast. (No, not this!) The days grow short but more intense. Less whine, more steel, the captain says, and kiss the girls on your way out.
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Tags:
snow,
Talpa,
winter,
writing life
November 6, 2013 1:52 AM
by JHF
in
Taos
{ }
Taos Mountain, late Tuesday afternoon
Beautiful and terrifying, yes? Thank God we had a wood delivery this afternoon, the very piñon you see here. Pointing to the mountain after we’d unloaded, my wood guy said, “This is going to scare a lot of people. My phone is ringing off the hook…” That’s because the place he cut my load is inaccessible today, rendered so by rain and snow. The thing is, all at once it’s “winter” now. Just look at that—and tonight it drops to sixteen cold degrees.
It is the season of the bitch. Best to get this out right now and let it be. I will soak my body in a hot bath and pretend to learn.
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Tags:
old Taos,
snow,
winter,
writing life
November 5, 2013 1:16 PM
by JHF
in
Taos
{ }
Just south of the John Dunn Bridge near Arroyo Hondo on the Rio Grande
Okay, sure, just what you’d expect to find at the bottom of a gorge. They’d actually just touched the water with the basket, but I didn’t get my camera out in time. A little farther up the road from where I shot this, I saw the flat place where they launch these things. You would not believe the road that takes you there. No way could a balloon ride be more scary! I figure by the time the customers reach the launching point, even the most acrophobic leap on board in gratitude.
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Tags:
acrophobia,
balloon,
John Dunn Bridge,
Rio Grande Gorge
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