Thirty-three Years
We fit right in with the "slow pedestrians".
We celebrated out 33rd wedding anniversary on Friday by riding the Sandia Peak Tram to the top of the Sandias, hiking on the south peak trail and having a picnic overlooking the Manzanos to the south and Albuquerque to the southwest from our vantage points. We are really lucky to have the Tram. It's a 15 minute drive from our house to the Tram house at the base of the mountains, and then another 30 minutes or so to get to the top of the Sandias at 10,678 feet (3,255 m) above sea level.
The Tram car we rode up to the top of the Sandias and then back down.
View looking south toward the Manzanos.
View looking southwest. Downtown Albuquerque is under the rainstorm in the the center of the photo.
Another view of Albuquerque looking between the rocks.
This is the room where they have the counterweights that stretch the cables the tram cars run on and keep them tight.
Here are the stats on the cables, wheels and counterweights.
Iron Grid
A lot of progress has been made on the construction project behind the office since last week.
Another One Biting In The Dust
The neighbor's horses watching, playing and biting each other while our neighbor was raising dust dragging the arena with his tractor.
The 2nd Annual Corrales Rose Society Dr. Huey Tour
Dr. Huey in a yard on Corrales Road with a Western Tanager in the foreground
Driving through Corrales in the springtime, everything is green and teaming with life. Grasses and alfalfa carpet pastures, corn and green chiles poke new leaves through the loam of the plowed fields, while cottonwoods and elms shimmer in the breeze. Squirrels and bunnies scamper about teasing dogs barred by fences. Coyotes yip, dart across the road, and disappear over walls; swarms of gnats and mosquitos stick to your windshield. Iris, daffodil and an occasional lily will show off their colorful blooms in yards along Corrales Road.
Finally there are the roses: large, gangly bushes sporting redish-purple petals with a yellow center. They are everywhere; spilling over railings, peeking over walls, and crawling under fences. These roses bushes are so prevalent in Corrales that people who drive out to visit in the springtime almost always ask what they are. I tell them it’s Dr. Huey, the patron rose of Corrales.
You would think that in a village well-known for produce available each summer at Wagner’s Farm and the Grower’s Market, you would see a large variety of roses lining its main road, sporting a kaleidoscope of color for visitors and residents alike to enjoy; and that would be the case if it were not for the harsh micro-climate in Corrales. Although, only a few miles north of Albuquerque, the low temperatures in Corrales run 10 to 20 degrees colder than Albuquerque, and the high temperatures are often 5 degrees hotter. While the cooler night time temperatures are welcome during the summer months, the cold winters and hard frosts as late as the end of May and as early as the end of September have killed many roses in Corrales, leaving the root stock, the venerable Dr. Huey, to thrive and show off his multitude of blooms in the springtime.
While the temperature extremes take their toll on roses in Corrales, the cooler nights help to preserve blooms during the summer months — we rarely have bushes without blooms from the end of May to the end of October. Even our large Dr. Huey has bloomed multiple times on new canes he sent one after another long after other Dr. Hueys on the property had dropped their petals.
He stands out by himself, bowing like a lonely ascetic, praying to San Ysidro, who grants him the miracle of life, and the ability to bloom more than once. San Ysidro, the patron saint of Corrales, looks favorably on the patron Rose of Corrales, as shown by the predominance of yellow buttons encircled by redish-purple petals lining Corrales Road in springtime.
A Dr. Huey on our property that thrives without us watering it. Dr. Huey is very drought tolerant.
A hedge of Dr. Huey along Corrales Road.
Another bloom from a neglected Dr. Huey on our property.
Our large Dr. Huey that blooms more than once. This one is irrigated.
Macro Monday
While I got all kinds of interesting macro shots of critters like lizards, grasshoppers, black widows, jumping spiders and a fly killing and eating another fly on Sunday, I decided the colorful macros of a green bee and a fly on salvia, and a tiny lacewing on a blade of grass were good macros for Memorial Day.
Fourth of July on a Morning in May
Fourth of July came out pink backlit with the sun in the background
Still backlit and still pink
Fourth of July closer to its correct color in the full morning sun
Selfie in gazing globe with Rosencrantz beside me and Laurie in the background
Bee on Ballerina
Ladybug
Cinnamon Twist
Through the Catnip Brightly
Guildenstern looking through the catnip brightly
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were out enjoying the fresh catnip while Laurie was working in the rose garden in the late afternoon sunshine.
Guildenstern in deep kitty thought
Laurie and Guildenstern at work in the rose garden
Rosencrantz reflecting in the catnip
Rosencrantz even enjoys catnip shadows
Rosencrantz making rounds while Laurie waters in fertilizer.
Nothing like a bed of catnip for Guildenstern
Drivers on the Storm
The clouds were spilling over the Sandias again on my way to the dentist at 8:00 am. On the way home at 7:00 pm, the clouds were still spilling over the mountains, but it was raining with the overcast sky changing the light and colors with the intensity of the rain.
On the Edge of Catnip
Rosencrantz stands on the edge of the raised bed waiting expectantly for me to put down my camera and start rolling in the catnip with him.
Another bullfrog watching me from the mossy edge of the clear water ditch.
A butterfly sampling a salvia bloom.
Stormy Monday Tuesday
Stormy Monday
Tuesday's sight
Wind blown Roses
Soft edges white
Peonies shimmer
In twilight
Flying With The Cars
A Yellow-Bellied Flycatcher was flying with the cars catching flies. I also finally got photos of a Hepatic Tanager, a red bird that I usually only see high in the trees out of range of my lens. I also got photos of a Western Tanager — I don't recall see them around much before, be we have several of them this year.
Yellow-Bellied Flycatcher making a hard right by the truck.
Hepatic Tanager just finishing up an insect it caught. Normally these birds fly off the minute they see me, but this one let me get fairly close.
Hepatic Tanager flying off after I got too close.
Western Tanager checking me out.
Western Tanager checking me out from a safer spot above me in a cottonwood.
Yellow-Bellied Flycatcher stretching on a power line.
"Is that a fly I see buzzing around?"
Yellow-Bellied Flycatcher flies off to catch the fly.
Maximum Strength Sensitive
Spunk was having too much fun playing with the box from the "Maximum Strength Sensitive" toothpaste.
Although the instructions said to call if we had questions or concerns, we decided not to call tech support about having a wildcat in the box our new rice cooker came in.
Gophers in the Night
It's 3:00 AM. Do you know where your gopher holes are? I certainly do when I irrigate. I find them bubbling up water and get myself all wet and muddy in the process of trying to collapse the holes with a trenching shovel to stop them from flooding areas I don't want to water.
Ditch water at dawn.
The gate on the main canal.
Until the Conservency put in these gates about 10 years ago, we had to put in up to six 2X6 planks to back up the water. Pulling the planks was always a challenge and one would usually get away and I would have to chase it down the ditch trying to fish it out. I usually retrieved the escaped plank from the bank, but sometimes I would have to jump into the ditch to retrieve the plank. Once in the ditch it was easy enough to throw the plank up onto the ditch bank, but getting myself up the steep bank without slipping back into the fast moving current presented another challenge. Sometimes it was easiest to float down to the next crossing.