Aurora

The aurora was visible right over our house last night!

I had received a text with a photo just taken of the aurora visible from Colorado. I didn’t have any real hope of getting a photo, because last time we drove all over Prescott trying to see it without any luck at all. I knew that it might not be visible to the naked eye and that people here had seen it before by taking iPhone photos. I went out to the driveway and just aimed my iPhone at the sky in a northeast direction and there was the purple! I did not see streaks or dancing lights or any green at all, but the color was definitely there. I used night mode on my iPhone for most of the shots so that I would see the stars against the dark background and increased the exposure slightly to get the color. My hands shake, so the focus on the stars isn’t perfect.

Below is another view looking out across the street from our driveway.

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Tern in the Rain

When we were in Alaska, we managed to get out as often as we could despite the rainy weather. We strolled along the wooden walkways at Potter Marsh and were thrilled to see this Arctic Tern perched above the water. From time to time it would fly down to fish, but was mostly hunkered down on this stump, as the rain grew more intense. I had only seen one in the air, never on land, so it was a thrill to be able to get a photo, even this far away. I was also amazed that you can see the rain in this shot; the rain was intense!

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Rainy Day on the Turnagain Arm

We have just returned from a trip to Alaska to visit our daughter’s beautiful family. Like on our first trip eight years ago, it rained most of the time. My husband and I love the views of the Turnagain Arm along the Seward highway, so did not let the rains stop us from driving on the beautiful stretch of highway between Anchorage and Girdwood. We stopped at Beluga Point and Bird Point as usual, but the rain started getting more intense and it became more and more difficult to get good photos and keep my camera dry. I ended up using the Slow Shutter app on my iPhone to capture a series of ICM images through the car window as we drove along. The raindrops on the window added interesting patterns, and I ended up being very happy with the resulting impressionistic images. This one is one of the least abstract and is one of my favorites.

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Solar Eclipse 2024

When one doesn’t have the high tech gear or knowledge, you make do with what you have- in this case a colander! I heard about this in my photo group today- and evidently it’s a very well known technique- so I gave it a try. I took many shots of the shadow of the moon over the sun as projected through the colander (also a saltine!) on our driveway. Then I tried other places and found it made a pretty good shadow on iris leaves. They look like little hearts, don’t they?

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Where is Spring?

Where is Spring (sung to the tune of Where is Love? from Oliver!)? We just keep getting snow- and some rain. And then it melts- and then we get more. Today it is sunny- and cold (it snowed last night). Our plants just don’t know what to do! We have blossoms and buds and leaves and a nest with finch eggs attached to our wreath on the front door, but we still get snow. Can you tell I’m getting impatient?

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Happy (Snowy) Easter!

Happy Easter! It has been a rainy and snowy Spring, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that we woke up to snow today. But it’s the first time since we moved here in 2013 that we have had snow on Easter. Our plum blossoms have endured several snowfalls this year and are so far surviving. Nature is amazing!

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Winter White 2

Our snow has melted after hanging around for a week. Today’s photo was taken in January on our trip up to Snow Bowl in Flagstaff. It was snowing lightly, and fog obscured some of the trees in the distance- creating another winter white image.

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Winter White

My mother, who was definitely a fashion plate, emphasized the rules of dressing properly during my formative years. For example, she never wore jeans, but did find a pair of stylish “frontier pants” that she wore to events where the other women wore jeans. She allowed me to wear my beloved cut off jeans during my teen years, because she knew it was important for me to fit in, but her own style remained elegant. One of the rules that stuck with me, was the one we all know- Don’t wear white after Labor Day! But she also taught me the great exception to the rule- winter white. Think of soft white angora or cashmere sweaters- not white cotton pedal pushers or white patent leather heels.

I thought of my mother’s use of the term winter white, when trying to come up with a title for this post. I think she would be pleased.

Below is a different crop of the same image- just to test out the reliability of using the “Large” setting for blog photos. Fingers crossed that we can see both images on our phones!

As always- click here to go to your browser if you can’t see both images correctly.

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Dressed in White

Fog and snow shrouded this scene up at Flagstaff’s Snow Bowl.

I do realize that this is the second blog post of the day, BUT I am trying to solve my image size problem on my own (WordPress still maintains it is an Apple problem). I changed the image size in my post earlier today to the default setting of Large (I have been using the Full Size setting for several years), and this morning’s image showed up correctly in emails. I’m trying again with a square image to see if it will work! You may see more posts in the next week as I test this out, so bear with me!

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Details of Winter

Head over to my blog if the image does not show up in your mail program- click here.

We had our first snow this week, just a couple inches, which has melted away- at least at our house. Yesterday we went up to Flagstaff for a doctor appointment and drove up to Snow Bowl for a bit of photography. I think the smaller details of the snowy trees were more compelling to me than the larger scene.

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