The Sunset from a different vantage!

The windows caught the sun's reflection almost perfectly!

Frost Bow

These only happen when it's cold and it's foggy!  I dislike fog intensely.  It makes me ache and a hibernating bear would be better company.  Still, it's almost worth it when you get one of these.  Just  amazingly beautiful, and very, very cold!

Louise's Icicle!

I'm out playing in the ice again.  But while sitting at my computer I noticed this monster on the house next door.  Off I went, camera in hand.  I think being a desert creature most of my life has given me an ungodly fascination with anything that has to do with water!  I just had to have this photo!!

Ice Window!

When it gets very cold, sometimes, ice happens in unusual ways.   This is one of them.  My garden window caught just enough water for this.  The sun just topped the Sonomas.  Groggily, it was early for me, I went for my camera.  This is the morning of  the -27.

Oh yes, the plants all survived!

Sun looks warmer than it is!

It's so cold that getting shots is more than uncomfortable, it's downright painful.  But when the sun is this glorious, you just have to do it.  (Then spend the next several hours unthawing!)   Since this was taken, we've had snow and it's much colder.  We'll see if I'm crazy enough to go out for more photos!

Weeds! Again!

I tried to get the sun glistening off these seed heads.  I didn't quite get it, but I did get a beautiful picture os the seed heads themselves.  I have an excuse for leaving these.  A friend told me to leave some so the bees that winter over have something to eat.  That makes my laziness altruistic!  I love it!

Another one! I missed posting this!

I run outside and back and sometimes forget to download and post these.  So, to see if I can get Google's system to work, here's another one!

The Only Fire...

The only fire we've had lately is in the sky and my wood stove!  It is cold in Winnemucca!  Not as cold as Isabella gets, but cold for me.  Makes me more bearlike every day.  The critters are smarter than we are, they know when it's time to hibernate!

For Isabella

This is for Isabella.  She loves sunsets so much, and, it was cold outside with a wind blowing straight down from Canada.  It put me in mind of the very cold temperatures she has.  So, Isabella, here's your very own sunset straight from the Nevada desert!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Sis!  (And everybody else born on this day!)  This is your day's sunset, painted by the master painter for your birthday card!!!

Desert Moon November 10, 13

   
     

We had a clear night, the moon was up, and I have a handy point and shoot camera!  So we got this!  Pretty nice for a simple point and shoot.   You can actually see the craters.  Somewhere I read that you can get great shadows when the moon is at this stage! I tried it and I did!  Click on the photo, full size shows those craters much better.  (Clear weather helped too!)     

Almost Perfect Light!

Sometimes the light, the clouds, the shadows and the butte line up in an almost perfect composition.  This is one of those times!

Midas, Nevada Mrs. Brown's Place

This is what is left of Mrs. Brown's place.  It was thoroughly fenced when I was kid.  She was a ferocious old thing and deaf in the bargain.  Not open to having drop in visitors  be they kids or adults.  Perhaps a left over from the years, during prohibition, when she was reputed to be one of the better brewers of various forms of white lightning.  There is a tunnel, probably caved in now,  that leads from her place to just a bit up Midas Canyon.  Also supposedly used in her whiskey transactions. 

This cluster of old buildings is perhaps the most authentic of all the buildings in the old town since the Midas School burned down.  Photo thanks to Helen Moore, my friend, who was up in the area hunting.

Changing Light

Sometimes the sunset touches the mountains with red and gold.  Shadows add contrast to the color.  This play of light and shadow continues all day and even, with a cooperating moon, at night.

A Hint of Winter

Snow on the mountain.  A good time to have coffee and think of good reasons to stay inside.

Blue Mountain Skies Turn Red

Not much blue on Blue Mountain!
I love these sunsets.  They are never the same.  Each is incredible.  Each is different.   Even more amazing.  I don't color edit these photos.  This is the color that banded the sky last evening.  Not for long, but long enough for this!

Rainy Day Sunset

A Bit of Glory

It's been cold and nasty all day.  Spitting rain.  Then at sunset this happened.  Very quickly too.  It was there for just a few brief minutes.  It started to rain and blow harder.  A cloud covered the sun and it was all over.  Lucky for me or I'd have been soaked!

Sneaky Snow!

I'm just  not ready for the white stuff!  There it is, sneaking in.  Only made it to the top of the Sonomas, but enough that it's stayed up there all afternoon.  We got a little cold rain down in the valley.  It's windy and cold enough that I've got the wood monster going.  A good day to stay inside!

Desert Light Show!

We've had amazing desert light shows most evenings.  They don't last long but they are spectacular while they do.  This is one when the sky threatened, but did not carry out the threat, of a thunderstorm.  A splatter of rain through the dusty haze is all we got.   But what a light show it created!
 
This is another picture of the same storm.  It just got better and brighter.   Finally a combination of wind, dust, and just a bit of rain, drove me inside.  But I came away with these pictures to share.
  I have an interesting observation to make about the humans in my town.  Only a handful, in all the years I've taken these photos, are curious about what I'm photographing.  It's almost like they literally cannot see the beauty.  A handful of special people do.  If they see me, they'll come out an comment and sometimes rate the sunset.  Most of the time, they, and me, simple watch the desert light show unable to critique it at all.  Too lost in all that beauty and light to comment!

Thunderstorm coming!

We have a thunderstorm coming directly from the west.  It may pass us by.  They often do.  But this one challenged the sun.  It made a colored photo look grayscale.  I actually hope it comes and dumps water on my poor dusty town!

More weed pictures!

This is a weed.  It was living by my back fence.   Parentage and genealogy unknown.  A nasty thorny thing, it produces a beautiful bloom.  Even more amazing, the flowers open all at the same time.  Beauty in an unlikely place.

Fire on Blue Mountain!

This is the result of years of drought.  The land is tinder dry.  Now when a lightening storm comes along we can watch these things spring up across the valley.  This one is on the east side of Blue Mountain.  A beautiful place.  It'll take years for the beauty to be restored.  It is being fought, but the winds are high.  We won't know until morning. 

The second photo is of the leading edge of the storm that sparked the fire.  Beautiful, but very, very scary!!!!

This may seem a strange selection for a blog based on the desert, but it is such an evocative photo I had to publish it.  It was taken by my mother when she attended the San Francisco Exposition in 1939.  In a few short years, if that ship survived Pearl Harbor, it would have been in the heat  of the War in the Pacific.  I'm hopeful that someone will be able to identify the ship.  Or at least the class of vessel it belonged to, I cannot.  The image was not in an album, I found it when I developed old negatives.  So I haven't any other information about it.  Hope someone out there knows more than I do!!!

Water Drops!

Maybe because I am a desert creature, water drops on plants fascinate me.  Here are a couple of photos of just that.  Warning!  I may become boring with this!!!!

This is the sad state of the Humboldt River right now.  Usually this time of year, the river is flooding.  This year it looks like it does in mid summer in a dry year.  It is almost not there.  And, when the river is this low, it's dangerous for the animals who rely on it for water.  It's close to toxic.  Very, very little flow and close to stagnant.  In another month, unless it really, really storms a lot, it will be dry.  I've been putting a water bucket outside.  I keep it full of fresh clean water.  I hate to think of all the creatures that are dying of thirst.  And the evidence of fire you see?  It happened almost two months ago.  The willows along the river were so dry that they caught on fire from an electrical spark from the transmission lines.  Where this was taken was along the wagon route the 49ers took.  Good thing they aren't trying their crossing now!  

Sunset over Blue Mountain!

This time of year, the sun sets directly over Blue Mountain

Of course, I had to get it closer.  All of that beautiful color.

And finally, this.  The sunsets we have are amazing!

This was tonight's sunset.  Enjoy it, Ed!

Blue Mountain in the distance.

I attended a meeting at our local museum.  The first picture is of clouds curling down the valley.  Amazing!  Second is after we came out.  Sunset.

More March Fire

The sun hit the mountain.  At first, too many clouds, then finally, this!

Cold Sunset!

This was tonight's sunset.  The colors held for just a moment then faded.  I'm lucky!  I have a west facing window.  Each time one of these comes along, I grab my camera, race into the street, and start taking photos.  It's given me a deep respect for the Master Painter.  I've also put some of these up on nevadasdesertlegends.com

Feb. 9, 2012, Sunset

Snowy Night