Sunday Photo - 11/11/2012

I went to the fall Festival of the Arts at the Holy Trinity Monastery in St. David, Arizona today with some of the girls, including my blogging friend Marie at A Colorful World! It's always so nice to get to spend time with just the girls! :)
We had a great time, there were a lot of neat craft vendors, we spent money, had lunch, wandered the beautiful grounds of the monastery and spent some reflective time in Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. This lovely statue was in the church. I was really moved by her Hispanic/Native American style and I just couldn't resist taking her picture to share with you all.
Linking to Weekly Top Shot and Your Sunday Best.

Sunday Photo - 11/04/2012

This beautiful, antique thread box was in one of the museums in Lincoln, New Mexico. Wouldn't you just love to have this to store your thread or other treasures in? Things like this just speak to my soul. :)
Linking to Weekly Top Shot and Your Sunday Best.

Sunday Photo - Old Church

This is the old church at Fort Stanton in Lincoln County, New Mexico. I like the stonework on this old building but I really, really like the door!

Check out those hinges!! :)
Linking up with Weekly Top Shot and Your Sunday Best.

Sunday Photos - Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium

One of the reasons we took our trip to New Mexico last week was to attend the Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium held at the Ruidoso Downs race track. What a fun event!! :)
There were vendors galore and almost constant live entertainment in the grandstand area and the big tent but my favorite things were all outside.
One of these was the Chuck Wagon Cookoff, named "Best Chuck Wagon Contest" for 2012 by True West Magazine. It was VERY a little cold and windy the day we were there but the wagons were awesome and these hardy men and women were cookin' up some mighty fine-lookin' grub!

This barrel was identified as a butter churn. You could make a LOT of butter with this!!

Don't you just love this guy?!? He was so friendly too, lots of kids (and adults too) were lined up to pet him!

A big thrill for us was getting to attend a Craig Cameron demonstration. What a neat guy, he is one of our favorite horse trainers!

We really enjoyed the Symposium and look forward to going back sometime! :)
Linking up with Orange You Glad It's Friday, Weekly Top Shot and Your Sunday Best.

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!

Flower Art Friday - 08/24/2012

This is the last gladiolus from the garden with some caryopteris and catnip thrown in. I love the combination of yellow and purple flowers.

Edited in Pixlr using Vintage Craquelure, a free texture from Bonnie at Pixel Dust Photo Art. (Layer Multiply 75%, duplicate layer Overlay 51%, flatten image, lighten image, add border, add watermark.) Jeez, I hope that makes sense! LOL!!
I want to thank everyone who puts that kind of info on their photo art, it is really helping me start to figure out how to do some of this stuff! :)

Linking with Flower Art Friday, Floral Friday Fotos, Weekly Top Shot and Your Sunday Best.

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 - Mack Truck

Probably not the Mack truck you were expecting, huh? ;-) This beauty was in the Benson, AZ 4th of July parade and dates from the 1950s. Edited with Pixlr-O-Matic.
Linking up with Weekly Top Shot 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 - 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 - Gladiolus

My girlfriend brought me some cut gladioluses?/gladioli?/glads? from her garden the other day. The colors were just so beautiful that I wanted to share them with all of you!
This picture was edited with Nancy's free Spring Fever texture. Thanks Nancy! :)
Sharing with Madge for Weekly Top Shot 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.