Looking over the Year

The last day of the year. I have many things to be thankful for up here. Good friends in the community and good friends still in the old community back in San Diego. We are constantly in touch via chat.

I'm am closer to God up here. There is nothing quite like the mountains to humble one and make me realize how small and insignificant I am compared to the glorious universe I see every clear night. I live at elevation 7,500 feet, so the skies are clear, no smog, no atmosphere interference of any kind except the occasional snow storm. The last storm was a good one and left us with about a foot of snow. This is great for the coming dry seasons. The more snow, the better the ground water and the pines love it. The snow was heavy and wet so has mostly dropped off the trees. I have to be careful where I walk, since it's still falling off the heavy laden branches.

More pictures on www.rten.org


Looking forward into the new year, I hope everyone's New Year is prosperous, safe and happy.

Merry Christmas from the NM mountains!

Well, another year has gone by and the Christmas season is upon us again. I hope you all have safe and happy holidays! Best wishes for a healthy and prosperous New Year!

1st Day of Winter

Today at 17:20 MST we traverse the winter solstice to officially be in the winter season. With all the recent snows, we figured we got winter a bit early. :)
Today the first storm has passed to the east and the sun is out and everything glistens with the fresh snows. We only have about 8-10 inches here but more is on the way.

The roads got plowed this am early - sort of, that is. See the picture from inside the SUV as I drove into town this morning. The main street of Mora was well plowed and salted but the secondary roads get a lick and a promise most of the time. The dirt roads depend on the people that live on them to plow or drive enough to have tracks. Not many of those are plowed. I watched the truck with the plow on front go by early this morning but he forgot to put the scooper to the ground. ;)

More pictures on http://www.rten.org

Winter Wonderland

The forecast is for snow through tomorrow (Wednesday, the 20th). We have about 3 inches now and it's coming down very lightly now, but earlier when I was out there, it was much heavier. Our earlier footprints are almost filled up.

This shot is of the upper areas at 10 am and you can see it's still not sunny and it's still snowing lightly.

I've posted the rest of this morning's photos up on this site: http://www.rten.org/ The top link is today's shots.

Beauty and the Beast

During the summer months I was constantly assailed by the beauty of the wild flowers that all seem to come up at different times. We have a continuing run of eye candy during the summer months in the high mountains. Every week there was somenew kind of wildflower just in my yard area.

But there are also things around that are not so nice. I shot this snake late one night with a .22 pistol. He was at the dogs water dish and I had just broken my toe a couple days before so was hobbling out there at 11pm in my sock feet to see what the dogs were so excited about. They instinctively don't like snakes. Well, they didn't like this rattle snake at all. He was a relatively young one, with 6 rattles so he was only about 3 years old. They get a lot bigger up here though. So he was all coiled up with that little rattle going a mile a minute. It was loud enough to hear over the dogs barks. I hobbled back in and got my Ruger Mark III Hunter that was handy to the door and got back out there and shot him.

Let's do Fall again

Around the Mora Valley area, we have fall colors in all their glory. The summers are full of wild flowers in the fields but fall is full of changing trees. The aspens and the cottonwoods are usually resplendent in bright golds. It makes driving to town even more of a treat.

On the road down the mountain to the town of Mora, I have some wonderful views of the valley and the mountains to the west.