el Norte

FrontierLand Update

trail at Taos Valley Overlook

Two hours on this trail. I met one other person.

The glorious false (?) mid-April weather continues! We’re running fifteen to twenty degrees above average and have been for some time. There are stirrings in the natural world. Ravens are building nests. The big black carpenter ants have awakened from their winter slumber in the rotten vigas and sent scouts into the kitchen. I heard [...]

San Cristobal, New Mexico (2000)

San Cristobal scene, bumper used as fencepost

Early spring, 2000

Iconic, isn’t it? To me, this says it all. When we moved from our comfortable old farmhouse on the Eastern Shore of Maryland to the mountain village of San Cristobal north of Taos in 1999, the shock was overwhelming. No, we hadn’t been there before—just to Taos, and only very briefly—nor had we actually investigated [...]

Old Aspen Song

winter dawn s. of Taos

Tight shot from same day as before, 7:00 a.m.

This used to be a barren hillside. Around 1961 or ’62—think proto-hippie, hard-core, early lefty-artsy-sure-I’ll-try-some days when you could almost buy an old adobe with the money on your hip—a tiny enclave did arise. At one time or another, neighborhood residents included a well-known photographer, Krishnamurti’s ex-girfriend, a couple of jazz musicians, Jerry Garcia’s ex-girlfriend, [...]

mountain bluebird

Mountain bluebird, first week of December, 2010

Sometimes when I don’t have a fresh photo to post with a story, I’ll check the archives for something nifty on the same date a few years back. This one is five years old almost exactly, off by just three days! Yes, we have western and mountain bluebirds all year round in northern New Mexico [...]

Seven Degrees at the Edge of Town

snowy backyard in Taos, New Mexico

More fun with polarizing filter and RAW mode

The sun here in the winter is a saving grace. It melts the snow, dries the mud, and feels damn good against the skin at seven thousand feet, even as you’ve been living on the edge so long, it’s flat, and the air is cold enough to kill you. The temperature dropped to 7 degrees [...]

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