A Face Only a Mother Could Love

Isn't she lovely? This little girl was hanging on the side of my garage late this afternoon (the black outlined object behind her is one of the coach lamps), so she's hanging precariously (although you would never know it). I had to hold the camera at a vertical angle to get a good shot of her, and the lens was about 1" away from her. However, she was a very willing subject and posed nicely for me. I tried repeatedly to get her face in focus (hmmm, do bugs have faces?), but after about a dozen tries, I settled with this photo. She'll show up again, so I know I'll have another opportunity before too long.

Crepuscular Rays - Say that 5 times fast!!

Purty, aren't they? I looked up the definition on Wikipedia: Crepuscular rays, are rays of sunlight that appear to radiate from a single point in the sky. These rays, which stream through gaps in clouds or between other objects, are diverging columns of sunlit air separated by darker cloud-shadowed regions. The name comes from their frequent occurrences during crepuscular hours (those being dawn and dusk), when the contrasts between light and dark are the most obvious. Various airborne compounds scatter the sunlight and make these rays visible, due to diffraction, reflection, and scattering.
When I was growing up, I thought Angels rode the rays from heaven down to Earth and back. This image was taken looking West down my street during the early evening (5:40 PM).

Arrrr, Matie!

Avast, ye! It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Don't be caught with yer knickers down, or ye be thrown in the brig!

Another Weekend Getaway

This past weekend, I was treated to a weekend at a friend's cabin, which is located 15 miles north of Payson. The cabin is located in a secluded area surrounded by National Forest land. Early Saturday morning I ventured out to take a few pictures. The first thing that caught my attention wasn't anything I saw, but what I heard. While looking around I heard this really high pitched squeaky, screamy sound. It took me a moment to realize that what I was hearing was the rutting call of a bull Elk! I've only heard them while watching a documentary on TV and it was really something to hear one in real life. I didn't get to see him, but captured a nice dewey, misty image of the forest he was walking around in.
Shortly after arriving at the cabin, we realized that the phone there wasn't getting a dial tone. My friend was able to contact Qwest using her cell phone and they promised a technician would be out no later than 3:00 PM the next day. Well, true to their word, he showed up at about 1:30 and proceeded to diagnose the problem. It turned out to be a connector that had been blown out by lightning. At least that is what the tech surmised. I'm sure he's seen a lot of that in his day-to-day work. He completed his work and left, but returned in about 5 minutes. At first I thought he had left something behind, but it turned out that someone had locked the gate, so I followed him back and let him out. Just as I was closing it, something scurried by. It was a tiny, baby horned lizard or "horny toad" as I called them when I was a kid. I was able to pick him up and brought him back to the cabin. To provide the proper scale, I photographed him in a rubbermaid container next to a quarter. Cute isn't he? And yes, I did put him back in the wild.
Here's to bugling Elk, baby horny toads, dewey mornings, and friends with mountain cabins. I hope to be able to do it all again soon.