Just enough water left in the river for Roxie to get her feet wet.
"...This is the third time in four years the river has run dry. It was unheard of for decades before 2022. But this year seems to be the earliest we’ve seen it happen in recent memory. For anyone who drives, or walks by, it’s a grim sign of climate change for New Mexico.
Data from the EPA shows the snowpack that feeds the Rio Grande has been steadily dropping since the 1950s... " - KOB Ch.4
The street past our house is being repaved. The work starts at 6AM.
The early start to the workday is understandable with temperatures reaching 100 degrees.
The work is half done at three weeks.
When I did an image search of just these large seed pods I got results which showed a variety of possibilities for identification including sycamores and oaks. A search using an image of the contained component yielded no better results.
I went back to the park to take a better look and saw that a number of the pods had opened to reveal what appears to be a cap on an acorn.
Another image search seemed to narrow the choice to some kind of oak, possibly a Bur Oak. I believe there are around five hundred types of oaks, so I'll await the judgment of someone with real expertise on the subject.
------------------------------------
( I am told by a trusted source that the correct answer is "Bur Oak".)
I found this pretty little bleached bone while walking the dog and slipped it in a coat pocket.
By the time I got home, the bone had broken in half.
I'm assuming because of the hollowness that the bone originally belonged to a bird. A quick look at the Wikipedia bird anatomy articles suggests the bone is part of the wing, the Humerus, as shown in this diagrammatic representation.
 |
The birds we see at our feeders are mostly sparrows, finches and a few pigeons, and doves. And, lately, some suet has attracted the attention of a Curve-billed Thrasher.
The size of the bone looks about right for a pigeon.
On the way back I was met by the flashing lights of a sheriff's car. The sheriff said someone had called in a report of an old guy hobbling across the bridge. I hadn't seen anyone like that, and I thanked the sheriff for his concern.
A quiet morning in Old Town as preparations were being completed for the final day of Day of the Dead celebrations.
The Nash Metropolitan is an American automobile assembled in England and marketed from 1953 until 1962.
Everything to be known about the little Metropolitan is in the Wikipedia page.
We spent five days in Boston, staying in this old house in Newton Center. The place was nicely maintained and provided a good idea of what was likely considered elegant living in the early 20th Century. The heating and plumbing were a bit deficient by today's standards, though probably easy to get used to in a short time.
(Click on a picture to view full size.)
We
enjoyed visiting with a few old friends. Aside from that I only had
the time and energy to make a few shots of the neighborhood architecture
on our morning walks to breakfast.
Many yards were ready for Halloween. There were only Harris-Walz signs on view.
 |
| On the way to the election |
Boston is a very civilized looking place with wonderful light just about any time of the day. It would be a good place to be an architectural or real estate photographer; the multi-million house prices would enable a good living for an ambitious photographer.
We only spent time in a couple high-end neighborhoods and were not surprised by the absence of homeless encampments even though the city has one of the highest rates of unhoused people in the country.
Crystal Lake was just a block away from where we stayed. Margaret biked there as a kid to swim in the summer and iceskate in the winter. A friend said it was unlikely now that the lake would freeze solid enough to support skaters.
Temperatures had not yet dropped past freezing and there were quite a few flowers beside the walkways.
Boston seemed to me almost like another planet after our decades in the Southwest. I was sorry we did not get to visit the many places Margaret would have liked to show me. It would have been nice to have spent a significant amount of time there to really get to know the place, though I don't know how that would ever have been possible.
-------------------
Update:
It seems I may have picked up Covid on the way home. I'm not surprised if that is the case as we spent a lot of time in three airports, including some long security lines. I'll test to make sure. In the meantime I don't think reading this blog will endanger health.
We stationed ourselves about a mile south of the launch site to get a view of the mass ascension.
On a quiet Thursday morning we visited our favorite outdoor Albuquerque eatery, Bike in Coffee at Old Time Farm. Margaret and her brother went for the massive breakfast burrito. I opted for coffee and carrot cake.
There is always some music to go with your coffee and, on weekends, crafts and books for sale.
I am mostly happy with the picture quality from my little yard-sale 10 mega pixel Panasonic Lumix.
Not so much, though, on bright, sunny days -- when the sun hits your eye like a big pizza pie that's (not) amore.
One way around the screen blanking reflections is to use a magnifying viewfinder that also shades the screen. I just need to do a little work on the mounting system.
During Balloon Fiesta week I have been carrying around my Nikon FE mounted with a long zoom for shooting balloons. The little Panasonic rides along in a pocket and lets me get color images during the noontime events in the tree-shaded Plaza Vieja.
