the real picture

This is the unaltered picture of one of the trees twisted off by the wind.

Back to the mountains

When we head up to the mountains each spring, we always wonder what we will find at the cabin. Everything with the cabin was OK, but 4 lodgepole pines up the hill,were twisted off all about five feet high, probably by a microburst of wind. It is a strange site, I took a picture straight down into the still standing base where a pinecone had blown after the damage. I'm not sure you can tell from the pie-pieces of the mandala, but there are ragged edges all around and a cavity in the middle where the pinecone lodged. I cannot image the force that is required to cause this damage. The trees were at least 12" in diameter. In the 1980's - the area straight south from the cabin was a blow down site also. The trees are all blown uphill. A wilderness site north east of Steamboat Springs had a many acre area involved in a blowdown about 10 years ago. It made the news.

Rain and more rain

This is an interesting image. The original photo had rain dripping from a patio uubrella. The top of the umbrella and the sky were all white, so when the pie piece was taken for the kaleidoscope all it left was a little tuft of green from a nearby tree. So I backfilled with black and the image above is the result. The grey area above is the edge of the umbrella, if you look close you may be able to see the rain drops. We had two days of rain this week. Here in semi arid Colorado any moisture is appreciated, but this was a bit much. The red in the middle is a Japanese maple.

new catalpa leaves

Growing up with a full grown catalpa tree in the backyard was interesting. I especially liked the blooms. Beside being fragrant, they made fine finger puppets and when the blossoms fell they created a carpet of flowers on the ground. It was a big tall strong tree with hugh leaves that could be used as fans and then came the long beans that hung down like decorations. I just have a 5 foot start in my backyard now, the above picture is from some tip growth. I was pleasantly surprised when we took a geneology trip to Illinois we found lots of catalpa trees in the wild and we were there for the blooms.

to celebrate rain

We had a good soaking rain today. So in honor of the rain a mandala with water droplets. I had fun with this one last year as a droplet formed on a tendril of a pumpkin plant.

iceland poppies

The iceland poppies were just starting to bloom in the court yard of the Central City Opera House. I took 2 juried pieces of my mandalas to the art gallery across from the Central City Opera house yesterday. The gallery gets the intermission crowd from the Opera House.

View of Mount Evans from Cherry Creek

This is a landscape shot of the horizon in February, with lots of snow on Mt. Evans, the bare branckes of the cottonwoods and willows and the bright blue sky. Trees and branches always make interesting patterns. The pie piece I chose makes the mountain snow appear to be icing on the star shape.