Taos

Well, since I left my camera behind in Taos and someone else is most likely using it, I have no personal photos to show.  However, the instructor (Jill Badonsky) did send some photos to the participant.  Here are a few to show you our surroundings.

This is the main house that Mabel Dodge Luhan built.  (Photo taken by Jill Badonsky)

At the top is the solarium.  It has a fabulous view, but you need to clamber up two sets of stairs, one of which was built to accommodate people under 5'2".  The second is perilously close to being a ladder.

This is the Juniper house, an annex that's about 100 yards from the main house.  (Photo taken by Jill Badonsky)

In the center is a large room that we used as our classroom.  My room was on the first floor on the left hand side.  That made it very handy if I forgot something.

One of a couple of fun features of the main house is the pigeon 'hotel' in the front courtyard. 

 

These have been in place since about the same time the house was built as can be seen in some of the old photos.  (Photo taken by Jill Badonsky)

 

Then there's this lovely old gate.

According to some information I read while there (and I hope I'm remembering it correctly), the pigeon hotel residents got so lazy, they wouldn't fly out of the way when vehicles drove in through the gate.  Mabel put up a sign telling people not to run over the pigeons.  Finally she just locked the gate to keep the vehicles out.  (Photo taken by Jill Badonsky)

All in all, it was a very lovely setting to be in while trying to jumpstart my creativity.

Papillon

 

Snow...

The last day of a very dry year, we got a small amount of moisture in the form of snow.

The weather forecasters had been saying we had a 30 percent chance of snow.  I went to bed and there was no snow.  This morning I got up and voila!

It must have started shortly before 5 AM because the newspaper gets delivered around then and there was snow under the paper.

We have a fairly active rabbit population in my neighborhood and they are obviously more active than I'd originally suspected.

You can't see it in this shot, but I did spot one line of tracks that I think belongs to one of the neighborhood cats.  It must have strolled through either pre or post bunnies because I don't see any evidence that bunnies were chased (or caught).

Have a great 2013!
Papillon