Sunday Photo - 10/07/2012

I got to go on a farm tour yesterday to Sleeping Frog Farms, an intensive 75-acre farm nestled in the Cascabel corridor of the San Pedro River Valley, founded on permaculture design and biodynamic growing principles. What an amazing place this dedicated quartet of young people have created here in the high desert!
This Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly thinks the zinnias they have planted are pretty amazing too! :)
Sharing with Orange You Glad It's Friday, Weekly Top Shot, Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday, Your Sunday Best and Mandarin Orange Monday.

Sunday Photo - Chickens

These probably weren't the chickens you were expecting! :) Living down here close to the Mexican border, we have lots of Mexican pottery items available to purchase. I have several pieces in this style, I love the colors! This pair sits in my kitchen window, normally, keeping me company while I'm working.
Sharing with these fine linky parties: Orange You Glad It's Friday, Weekly Top Shot, Your Sunday Best, Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday and Mandarin Orange Monday.

Sunday Photo - Peppers

The peppers I was given the other day were just so pretty that I wanted to share a couple of more pictures of them. Above is a fun effect from Pixlr Express called Yin.

Here is the same shot SOOC. :)

Linking up with Weekly Top Shot, Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday, Your Sunday Best and Mandarin Orange Monday.

Sunday Photo - Red Bird of Paradise

Also known as Caesalpinia pulcherrima. All of these shots are SOOC, the colors really are this vibrant! All I did was add the watermark and a little frame. :)

Linking up with Orange You Glad It's Friday, Flower Art Friday, Floral Friday Fotos, Weekly Top Shot, Your Sunday Best, Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday, Mandarin Orange Monday and Macro Monday. Check out all of these fun memes for some awesome photography!

Sunday Photo - Melon

I had two of my Athena Cantaloupe plants grow to maturity and I ended up with exactly two beautiful cantaloupes. At least they are both nice and big, with firm flesh and really great flavor! :)
Linking up with the new Orange You Glad It's Friday, Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday, Mandarin Orange Monday and The Country Garden Showcase.

Sunday Photo - Field of Flowers

I stopped beside the road on the way home from the Farmers' Market today to take a picture of these beautiful flowers. They are planted along the fence at a local pick-your-own mini farm. This shot has been edited in Pixlr-o-matic with the HDR-type "Hagrid" effect. Linking up with Weekly Top Shot, Your Sunday Best, Floral Friday Fotos, Flower Art Friday and Orange You Glad It's Friday, a new meme at Hood Photo Blog. :)

This is the SOOC shot which has a little softer feel to it. I have been admiring the wild, happy display these flowers present for a couple of weeks now and finally remembered to take my camera with me! :) Linking up with Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday.

Sunday Photo - Sunflower

On our way up to Flagstaff last week, we pulled off the interstate so I could take some pictures of an older homestead and some horses. This wild sunflower was growing in the ditch alongside the country road.

Linking up with Weekly Top Shot, Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday, Your Sunday Best and Floral Friday Fotos.

Sunday Photo - Pretty Kitty

We took a quick trip up to Flagstaff over the weekend to visit Jerry's son. This mountain lion sculpture is part of the Coconino Coalition for Children and Youth PAWS project and represents Family Support. He is in one of the little shopping malls and I couldn't resist taking a few pictures! :)

There is a little paint chipped off here and there but I still think he is a very pretty kitty!

Linking up with Weekly Top Shot, Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday and Your Sunday Best.

Sunday Photo - Corn Maiden

Corn is to Pueblo people what the buffalo has always been to the Plains Indians, the very symbol of LIFE. In Zuni mythology, the Corn Maidens brought this gift and many of the carvings of women, especially those with a criss-cross pattern on the body, are carved to pay homage to the Corn Maidens.

The Zuni people have a story about eight corn maidens. The young women are invisible but their beautiful dancing movements can be seen when they dance with the growing corn as it waves in the wind. One day, the young god Paiyatemu fell in love with the maidens and they fled from him. While they were gone, a terrible famine spread across the land. Paiyatemu begged the maidens to turn back and they returned to the Zuni and resumed their dance. As a result, the corn started to grow again.

These are my Corn Maidens. The one on the left is coral and she is 2 1/2 inches tall. The one on the right is shell and she is 1 3/4 inches tall. Since it is getting to be corn harvesting time, I thought I would share them and their story with you! :)

Linking up with Madge for Weekly Top Shot, Nancy for Your Sunday Best and Jan for Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday.

Information from Myth Encyclopedia and Zuni Art websites.

Sunday Photo - July 08, 2012

The water lily in the Cowboy Fish Pond is sending up more flowers, this one bloomed Saturday. So, did you know that the flowers close up at night? I never did! LOL!! Linking up with Weekly Top Shot and Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday.

Nancy, at A Rural Journal, alerted a lot of her blogging buddies to the plight of Feral Woman who recently escaped with her life during the Ash Creek wildfires occurring in Montana. The fire changed direction so quickly that some of her horses and pets were left to fend for themselves, as were those belonging to many of the members of her small community. I had no idea this was even happening, it has not been on the news here.

Nancy has started a campaign to collect donations for the American Red Cross of Montana to help all of the victims of these wildfires. I have added the ChipIn! widget to my sidebar so that any of you who feel that you can will be able to make a donation and if you can't contribute, please visit Go West Feral Woman's blog and give her a hug or a few words of comfort. Her recent posts are absolutely terrifying and heartbreaking. If you feel so inclined, please post the ChipIn! widget to your own sidebar so that we can get the word out.

Sunday Photo - Cactus Flowers

I took these pictures a couple of weeks ago. All the flowers are gone from the cactus now and the fruit are starting to ripen. If I have the time, and the javelina don't get them all, I will make some prickly pear jam this year from the prickly pear fruit. :)


Cholla



Prickly Pear



Cholla


I had a little fun editing this next one. I have been practicing the spot color technique in Pixlr. I lightened the desaturate overlay to 75%.

Linking up with Madge for Weekly Top Shot Jan for Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday and Nancy for Your Sunday Best.

Sunday Photo - Hollyhocks

My friend gave me two little hollyhock plants earlier this year. She called them "black" but it kind of depends on the light. As you can see, in the morning sunlight, they are a deep reddish-purple.

 In the afternoon sunlight, they do look darker.

My hollyhocks are planted in one of the barrels in the back yard. One of the plants is almost finished blooming but the other, on the right, is just getting ready. I'm going to try to save seeds as I have read that hollyhocks are a biennial or a short-lived perennial. I have enjoyed these so much that I want to grow them again! :)
Joining Madge for Weekly Top Shot, Jan for Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday and Nancy for Your Sunday Best.

Sunday Photo - Oxen

Meet Fluffy and Cuddles...yep, that is really their names! These guys came to the Farmer's Market yesterday to offer free wagon rides to anyone interested.

Their owner, one of our local doctors, is a big supporter of our Farmer's Market and really believes in eating locally grown foods. In fact, he raised these two behemoths from calves and trained them to the yoke so that he could use them to plow and plant wheat...and he does!! His family also harvests, cleans and grinds the wheat into flour for baking. I bought some flour from them a couple of years ago and really liked it!

Here is their "dad," Dr. Andy, standing next to them. To give you some perspective, he is 6'3'' tall. He walks beside and drives them with the whip. It's always fun when Fluffly and Cuddles come to visit, they hang out by the road and we get a lot of people stopping in just to see them and they usually come visit the vendors at the Farmer's Market too! ;-)

Linking up with Madge for Weekly Top Shot, Jan for Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday and Nancy for Your Sunday Best.

Sunday Photo - 5/27/2012

I hate to admit it, but I don't remember what this bush is called. It is deciduous and comes back nicely every spring. It's looks to me to belong to the mint family. Anyone know what it is?

I like the way the flowers make a whorl and the bees like it very much! :)

Linking up with Madge for Weekly Top Shot, Jan for Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday and Nancy for Your Sunday Best.

Sunday Photo - Little House In The Desert

I love this little house on the edge of the Mescal movie set. I love the style, the color, the porch, the shingled roof, the chimney. Wait a minute, the chimney looks kind of strange up near the top...

Dang movie props anyway!! Seeing as how it's made out of OSB board with styrofoam "rocks" glued on, I guess it wouldn't be a very good idea to use the fireplace, eh?!? Oh well, it's still a cute little dream house, from a distance! ;-)

Linking up with Madge for Weekly Top Shot, Jan for Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday, and Nancy for Your Sunday Best.

Sunday Photo - Cactus Flower

We had just enough winter rain to produce a bumper crop of cactus flowers! :) I can't believe how many buds are on the prickly pear and cholla in our area this year! In the lower elevations, the cactus are already in full flower but we are a bit behind here. The prickly pear in our pasture just started blooming this week. It's funny how you don't really notice things right under your nose sometimes. I went out to take pictures of the flowers this morning but they weren't open yet! Duh, I never really paid attention before that they close up overnight! LOL!!

I just love the cheerful yellow color and delicate appearance of the prickly pear flowers. This particular smallish prickly pear has well over 60 buds on it. I hope to get a picture when most of the flowers are open. :)

Linking up with Madge for Weekly Top Shot, Nancy for Your Sunday Best and Jan for Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday. Check them out for some beautiful photography!

Sunday Photo - Western Femininity

The edited version is being shared at Weekly Top Shot with Madge and at Your Sunday Best with Nancy.

The equally nice unedited version is being shared at Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday with Jan.

Sunday Photo - Faded Love

Dried flower arrangement that sits on the fireplace mantle. Linking up with Madge for Weekly Top Shot and Nancy for Your Sunday Best.

Linking up with Jan for Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday.

Sunday Photo - Iris

Finally, I have an iris bloom to share! :) Just one so far but there are more buds yet to open. Linking up with Madge for Weekly Top Shot, Jan for Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday and Nancy for Your Sunday Best.

Sunday Photo - Butterfly and Daffodils

Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly visiting the Spanish lavender. Linking up with Jan for Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday.

I bought myself some cut daffodils for Easter and they were so pretty that I couldn't pass up taking a picture! This photo was edited with Pixlr-O-Matic. Linking up with Nancy for Your Sunday Best and Madge for Weekly Top Shot.