Hot Christmas Morning

"There's nothing like a cold beer on a hot Christmas morning." -Home Simpson

Merry Christmas, Everyone!!

Mount Elden At Sunset

Mount Elden (right) and some of the San Francisco Peaks (left) as seen from our front bedroom after a storm that dumped 2 ft of snow on Flagstaff.

As is probably pretty obvious, it is the new header for the photoblog, too.

Curry By The Tree

Our Irish Setter, Curry, sleeping near the Christmas tree. She's grown since last year....check out this photo:

Curry Last Year

She must have been really deep in sleep since this photo is a 30 sec exposure and she didn't move at all during it!

Curry watching birds

Curry watching birds 6909, originally uploaded by dustinjblodgett.

Our Irish Setter, Curry, watching the birds at the feeder during an early winter snowstorm

Courtesy of the Little Woman

Hi Everyone. Even though I didn't take this photo, I had to post it. My wife took it a few weeks ago from our backyard. One of Arizona's famous sunsets. Unfortunately, I was at work at the time and missed the whole thing. Thankfully, she snapped several photos to share with me later.

Watching

Our Irish Setter, Curry, scoping out the backyard from the newly constructed steps on our deck. My wife watches in the background.

Sunflower

Sorry folks. Just had to include a shot of the ubiquitous wild sunflower. Enjoy.

Hops

As some of you may know I brew my own beer. And since store-bought hops are so expensive, I thought I would try my hand at growing my own. This photo is of my hops plant. The small, green cones are the hops flowers and are what are added to beer to give it it's bitter taste and floral aroma. My hops plant is of the Cascade variety.

View

This photo was taken during a hike on Humphreys Peak Trail. We were taking a break in this open area where you could practically see the Grand Canyon. I believe the peak in the distance is Kendrick Peak. The red blob next to my wife is our dog Curry, an Irish Setter.

Good Measure

OK, so here is one more macro wildflower shot, just for good measure. I'm about 95% sure it is a California Poppy, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

My Equipment

Just for those other photographers who may be curious, all of these macro shots were shot with my Canon Digital Rebel XTi with a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 prime lens and a Canon Extension Tube EF12 II. I love the lens, it makes extremely clear photos and the extension tube really allows me to get close up.

Black & Yellow

Here's another wildflower from my yard. The contrast of the black center and yellow petals really caught my eye.

Wildflower

Sorry for the flood of macro photos of flowers lately, but it is "wildflower season" in Northern Arizona right now, so I'm gettin' out while the gettin's good. Here's another wildflower macro that I took in my yard. I'm not sure what kind it is, so if anyone knows please let me know. Thanks and Happy Summer to everyone!


EDIT: I was searching the website for a local nursery (Flagstaff Native Plants and Seeds) and I just happened upon the name of this flower.I'm pretty sure it's called a Firewheel (Gaillardia pulchella).

New Mexican Vervain

I went backpacking recently and found this little guy on my way down the trail. Not sure the kind of flower, but the purple really caught my eye.

EDIT: I was searching the website for a local nursery (Flagstaff Native Plants and Seeds) and I just happened upon the name of this flower. It's called New Mexican Vervain.

Beautiful Weed

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted last. Sorry about that, everyone. It's been a busy summer, but that's no excuse. Here's a macro shot I took recently of a thistle in our backyard. Weeds can be beautiful at times.

Give Me a Hug

Backyard Prickly Pear6127a, originally uploaded by dustinjblodgett.

A macro shot of a prickly pear cactus in our backyard.

Ice plant 6109a

Ice plant 6109a, originally uploaded by dustinjblodgett.

The blooming pink flowers from our Ice Plant in our front garden.

Red Hot Poker 6087a

Red Hot Poker 6087a, originally uploaded by dustinjblodgett.

A newly planted Red Hot Poker plant (a.k.a. Torch Lilly) from our garden

Hunt n' Peck

A bee hunts for pollen on a lupine flower near Veit Springs Trail.

Just Starting

A fern stem just starting to unfurl. Photo taken on Veit Springs Trail near Flagstaff, AZ.

On The Trail

My Irish Setter, Curry, on Veit Springs Trail near Flagstaff.

Elements of Life

Some elements of a relaxing evening in Flagstaff. ;-)


FYI: the beer in the background is the superb Fat Tire Amber Ale produced by the New Belgium Brewing Company.

Ice Plant

I love how this macro shot turned out. It is a close-up of an Ice Plant, which we transplanted from a friend's house. They fell in love with this little, unassuming plant during a trip to Mexico.

It is a succulent that thrives in hot, dry areas and works well in landscaping as a groundncover. Ours is starting to bloom with small, magenta colored flowers. I love the texture of the "leaves" in this photo, as well as the swirl of the flower bud just starting to grow.

Landscaping

My wife and I have made it our mission to do some major landscaping this summer. One of our smaller projects is putting in a "border" along the side of the driveway. We wanted plants that were low maintenance, required little water once established, and could handle having 4+ feet of snow piled on them during the winter. And it sounds like these three types of plants fit the bill perfectly.

From bottom to top they are: bronze carpet stonecrop, variegated stonecrop and Elijah Blue grass.

A Rose By Any Other Name.......

A macro shot of a pink rose.

Little One

An HDR image of a little cactus I found when we pulled over off of Schnebly Hill Road.

Over the Hill

The San Francisco Peaks seen from Schnebly Hill Road, south of Flagstaff.

April's Arizona Theme Day

The 15th of every month is Arizona Theme Day, and this month's theme is "Doors". So this is my contribution. I guess technically it's not a door, per se, but rather where a door used to be, but I think it will work. It was taken in an alley in historic downtown Flagstaff. I upped the contrast on this one to get the texture from the rock. I hope you all like it and happy theme day.

Check out the photography of the other Arizona photobloggers who take part in theme day:

Julie (Scottsdale) - http://www.scottsdaledailyphoto.com/
Pat (Chandler) - http://chandlerarizonausa.blogspot.com/
Angie (Tempe) – http://tempearizonadailyphoto.blogspot.com/
Sharon (Phoenix) – http://phxdp.blogspot.com/
Melinda (Chandler) – http://chandlerdailyphoto.blogspot.com/
Judy (Prescott) - http://prescottareadailyphoto.blogspot.com/

Just When You Think......

Just when you think that Winter is over and Summer is quickly approaching, you get 2 inches of the white stuff. D'oh!! This was the view out of master bedroom on the morning of April 3rd.

The temperatures had been pretty consistently warm for the last few weeks and then BAM! Mother Nature gets in one last uppercut. Gee, thanks.

Oh well, it had all melted by the end of the day.

Lag Time

I'm sorry for the recent lack of posts here. I've been pretty busy with outside projects, homebrewing beer and having a nasty head cold (right now). But just to make everyone feel that their life isn't really that bad, here is a photo of what I woke up to this morning:

a whole roll of paper towels

the jade plant is no more.

It took our puppy, Curry, no more than 45 minutes to do that, from the time my wife left for work to the time I got up. Very efficient animal...I just wish she would be efficient at NOT destroying my house for a change.

Pink Sunset

I love Arizona sunsets. I may be a little biased, but I think they are some of the most beautiful in the world. We are lucky enough to have a backyard that faces almost due west, which makes for some great sunset viewing. I captured this photo a few days ago, which the sky had a great pink hue to it. The silhouette of the tree on the right helped to balance the photo's composition.

Growing Up

Our Irish Setter puppy named Curry, while hiking on the trail with me. She just had her 6 month birthday and she is on the way to saying goodbye to her "puppyhood".

Here's what she looked like the day we got her at 11 weeks old.

Wupatki Ruins with Moon

This months theme for Arizona Daily Photo is "Old Arizona", so I thought this photo of a reconstructed wall at Wupatki National Monument would be a good example.

Once consisting of about 100 rooms, Wupatki Pueblo was probably home to 85-100 people, one of the largest settlements in the area. Today evidence of ball courts and ceremonial structures can still be found here.

Photographically speaking, I really like the composition and the angle of light, but I think I went a little crazy with the color saturation in trying to bring out the red of the rock and the blue of the sky. I still like it thought. Check out the photos by these other Arizona Blogger who take part in theme day with me:

Julie(Scottsdale) - http://www.scottsdaledailyphoto.com/
Pat(Chandler) - http://chandlerarizonausa.blogspot.com/
Angie(Tempe) – http://tempearizonadailyphoto.blogspot.com/
Sharon(Phoenix) – http://phxdp.blogspot.com/
Melinda(Chandler) – http://chandlerdailyphoto.blogspot.com/
Judy(Prescott) - http://prescottareadailyphoto.blogspot.com/
Stephanie(Scottsdale) - http://seeingscottsdale.blogspot.com/

Out of Rock

During a hike on McMillan Mesa the other day, I found this cactus growing out of the rock. Although a couple kinds of cactus do grow in Flagstaff, they usually don't do very well. However, this little guy seems to be thriving.

Morning

Matthew Dutile, a fellow photographer that I have as a contact on Flickr.com, has gotten me interested in doing HDR photography again. This is one of my recent ones. It's a little subtle and not so tonemapped as this example, but I like it. It definitely represents a very important part of my life......coffee! :-) Yum!!

Here's a link to some of my other HDR photography.

Favorite

I found this olive oil at World Market the other day and it is great on a salad with a little bit of salt. They have 2 other kinds, one from Greece and one from Italy. I plan on doing a little side-by-side taste test to see which I like best. My friend Cesar, from Spain, would be happy I chose this one to try first.

Better Days

I think this prickly pear cactus has seen better days. I found it on Oldham Trail, just off of Buffalo Park. Hopefully, a little water and a little summer heat will bring it back to life.

Trotting

Our Irish Setter, Curry, on Oldham Trail near Buffalo Park in Flagstaff. Though the snow hadn't completely melted, the trail was mostly clear, and good enough to get a nice hike in. Mount Elden
can be seen in the background.

Spring

Spring is in the air.....and coming out of the ground! It's been in the high 60's the last week or so, and I have been enjoying every second of it. Did some yard work and began the first steps of building a veggie garden. I see vegetable macros in my future.

Ubiquitous

I know I have posted photos of the San Francisco Peaks about a million times, but I just never get tire of their beauty. Besides they are pretty much synonymous with Flagstaff! I hope you enjoy this simple photo I took from the end of our driveway last week after a heavy winter snowstorm.

Arizona Theme Day - Feb 15th Arizona Sunsets

So I've gotten together with some of the other folks who have Arizona daily photoblogs and we have decided that we will all post a themed photo each month on the 15th. I was lucky enough to be chosen to decide what the first theme would be and I chose Arizona Sunsets. I would wager that Arizona has some of the most beautiful sunsets anywhere in the world, so I figured it might be a nice theme to kick this project off.

Anyway, above is my contribution. It was taken from my backyard here in Flagstaff. The sun sets almost directly behind my house and most nights we are treated to a beautifully colorful sky as the sun goes to bed. Please take a moment and visit the other Arizona daily photoblogs participating in this project. They are all very skill photographers in their own right.

Julie(Scottsdale) - http://www.scottsdaledailyphoto.com/

Pat(Chandler) - http://chandlerarizonausa.blogspot.com/

Angie(Tempe) – http://tempearizonadailyphoto.blogspot.com/

Sharon(Phoenix) – http://phxdp.blogspot.com/

Melinda(Chandler) – http://chandlerdailyphoto.blogspot.com/

Judy(Prescott) - http://prescottareadailyphoto.blogspot.com/

Stephanie(Scottsdale) - http://seeingscottsdale.blogspot.com/

Wind's Work

We are new to our house, so we are still getting to know its little quirks. Something that seems to happen everyone time we get a heavy snow fall is that a huge snow drift forms over one of the front bedrooms. The wind whips over the house from the backyard to the front and blows the snow over the front edge of the house forming the drift. Here is a picture of the phenomenon after the last storm.

Mount Elden

This is a view of Mount Elden from one of the front bedrooms in our house after a snowstorm that dropped over 20 inches of snow on us. I think the mountains around here are the most beautiful when covered in snow.

Sculpted.....kinda.

Over the last three to four days we received somewhere around 20 inches of snow. Today the sun is out and some of the snow is melting off our roof and forming icicles. Notice how they are slightly bent to the left......that is from the wind that perpetually blows along that side of the house.

From the Bridge

A view of the San Francisco Peaks and I-17 from a bridge south of Flagstaff.

San Fran Peaks

I took this photo near the Museum of Northern Arizona last year. Unfortunately, they have since developed the open area in the foreground of this photo.

Scheurman Mnt Trail 5342a

Scheurman Mnt Trail 5342a, originally uploaded by dustinjblodgett.

Here's another shot from our hike on Scheurman Mnt Trail in Sedona. The cactus in the foreground is a prickly pear cactus which produces a red fruit that can be made into preserves or a sweet syrup. My wife likes the Prickley Pear Martini from a local restaurant called Buster's.

Northface Nut Brown hops 5402

A new hobby of mine is homebrewing beer. This photo is of the hop pellets I used to flavor my second batch of homebrew called Northface Nutbrown.

Mailbox 5407a

Mailbox 5407a, originally uploaded by dustinjblodgett.

We got a couple of inches of snow last night here in Flagstaff. When I went to put our netflix movie in the mailbox there was still a small layer of snow on the box. Happy Winter!

Scheurman Mnt Trail 5331a

Scheurman Mnt Trail 5331a, originally uploaded by dustinjblodgett.

Just a 40-minute drive from Flagstaff is a town called Sedona. Since it is almost 3,000 feet lower than Flagstaff, the environment is very different as you can see from this photo. It is a high desert landscape with drought-resistant, succulent plants with a gorgeous red sandstone background. On the right is the ubiquitous prickly pear cactus; on the left is a fibrous yucca plant; and just peaking around the corner in the upper left side is a juniper tree.

This photo was taken at the top of Scheurman Mountain on Scheurman Mountain Trail.