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.

Over the Town

This photo was taken from Mars Hill Road on the way up to the Lowell Observatory. The city of Flagstaff can be seen on the right and Mount Elden on the left.