Sunup with Smoke

I took these of the sun as it was coming up at about 6am this morning. Really like the strange photos I am getting but would rather the smoke would go away.

Clouds and Smokey Sun

Took this one 2 evenings ago. The clouds give it a nice look even with all the smoke.

Smoke From Fires

These are photos I took this evening when the wind blew the smoke in again after almost a week of this. The smoke from the forest fires in Arizona is coming into New Mexico and causing a lot of air quality problems here. That is smoke in our skies here not clouds as it may look like in the photo. We haven't seen a blue sky in over a week. The machine that tests air quality normally reads about a 30 (what ever the scale may mean) and is reading about 200 when smoke is at it's worst right now. I have head that some of this smoke has been tracked all the way to Iowa. But at least we are not right on the edge of the fire as those that live near it are.

Smoke

With all the smoke we have had coming into the Rio Rancho/Albuquerque area I decided to take some photos of it this evening. The sun, (yes, that is the sun, and not the moon) could be looked at with the naked eye with so much smoke in front of it. But I couldn't get it to come out the red color it looked to me.

Sun in Smoke

I tried several different shutter speeds and setting trying to get a shot of the sun with all the smoke in front of it to come out the firey red that it looked like to me, but it just wouldn't come out.

Critters

Claret Cup Cactus

I took a series of photos of my claret cup cactus as it is the only thing in my dirty, windblown, dreary yard that is bright and cheerful.

Cottonwood Cotton

This photo may look funny but it is of a small cluster of seeds off of our cottonwood trees that are so common here in New Mexico. There are very tiny seeds in the 'cotton'. The cotton is so light it 'flies' everywhere after the trees have their almost un-noticeable flowers on the female trees. The male trees do have a sort of flower that is needed to pollinate the female flowers but they don't have the cotton with their flowers. Most of the hybrid cottonwood trees that are sold in plant nurseries and non-flowering as most people don't want the mess of the cotton in their yards.

Apache Plume

Desert bushs that we call Apache Plume were in bloom. The first photo is of the small white flower. The second photo is of the seed pod which gives the plant its name, Plume.

Out on the desert today we saw lots of lizards. We got photos of the first one, which are very common and we call them a blue tail lizard. They frequently loose their tails when you or a preditor trys to catch them. Then we say a different kind on a rock. Have no idea what kind it is.

USS Patricia

This old, long photo is of the Transport ship USS Patricia when it was in Boston Harbor, April 28, 1919. This is the ship that my grandpa, John Barnett, came home from WW1 on. There are a few problems, with a few tears in it. But if you look close in the 2nd photo you can see the ancker, in the 3rd photo is the American flag on the front. and if you look close in some others you can see what looks like clothes drying on some of the lines.

Photo of Camp Greene

This is the longest of these weird old photos that I have. This one was found in a house that we lived in for 2 years when I was in highschool in Sandpoint, Idaho. It says it is of the 41st Division, Camp Greene but no date. The cars and clothes make me think it was about WW1 time.

This is a very long, skinny photo that was taken of the 131st Machine Gun Company in Sarthe, France in 1919 during World War 1. My grandpa, John Riley Barnett is in this group in the 3rd photo in center of the photo. I took a photo of the entire picture and then took it in sections so there were closeups of each area. the 2nd photo is of the far right hand side which looks like a store with French people outside watching the army picture taking. 4th photo is of the church behind the men St Aubin des

Coudrais. I am glad the photographer added this information to the picture. Last photo is of the left side, again what looks like a shop with French people in front of it. There was a torn corner on left side.
I found a photo taken in 2007 of the church at this site
http://panoramic.com/photo/2469015. my thanks to the photographer.

My other granddad, Boyd Green was also in France during WW1, but the two men never knew each other that we know about.

Bad Horses

I had the farrier out to trim hooves on my horses yesterday and what bad horses they were. I have never had them be this bad before. I may not do much else with my horses but I do insist that they lead nicely, let me groom them, which includes brushing, combing manes and tails, and giving them a bath. Most important of all is that they stand and let the farrier trim their hooves without raising a fuss. I have a wonderful farrier who gives them a horse cookie after he does each hoof. This time all they thought they should have was the treats. I expected my mini cross to do this but he was worse than I expected. He has been getting really bad about demanding a constant stream of treats every time someone wants to groom or pet him. I have been working with him a lot to stop this and it he had seemed to be getting better, but yesterday he was worse than ever.
My old horse, Sunny was doing OK until he saw the farrier drop a cookie while he was doing the forth hoof. Sunny decided that he should get the cookie instead of standing still so that the forth hoof could be finished. Then there was Star, my blind mare. Now she has had her hooves done several times since she went blind and has done OK. NOT this day. I really think she got confussed as to where she was. Two hooves were done and she got all upset. Finally we let her smell noses with Sunny and Nita and as long as she was where she could 'smell' that they were right there with her she would let him do the other two hooves.
All in all it was a rough experence and I was so embarassed. Never have they do so bad. But it was windy. Mine and lots of other horses are never as well behaved when it is windy. It wasn't that windy. Not for here. But still it was windy. Gusts up to about 15 mph, which is considered a breeze here. I keep hoping that was really the problem.