Tag Archives: Shadows

Shadowy Gold Panning in the Mountains

R to L, my wife Heather, Me, and son Logan. Photo by tour guide with my phone.

I have been AWOL from blogging for the last week or so. Sorry about that, we went on vacation to the mountains of northern New Mexico. One day we went on a jeep tour that included a stop at a played out gold mine and went into the mine a little bit as the guide explained the multilayered history of mining in the area starting with the Native Americans to the conquering Spaniards, to the depression era when white collar types would try their hand at it. Then he handed out mining pans and a shovel and we tried our hand at it. Talk about dreary work for nothing much. Turns out if there are kids on the outing the guide salts the tailings with gold painted pebbles. We were too old for that. But it was fun to find out how the work was done.

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Here is the old mine, sitting about maybe ten feet above the road and the opening is tall enough to stand in. We climbed in and went in maybe fifteen feet. The guide went further in and showed us the other shafts that took off. Most of them collapsed but a few still open. Some of them were only big enough for a person to crawl through on their belly. (That thought chills me.) He said they tied ropes to the miner’s feet so they could pull them out at the end of their shift.

As my late grandmother told me once. “You can have the good old days, there was nothing good about them.”

I am linking with Shadow Shot Sunday

Backyard Trail Camera Shadows

I got a trail camera that I use just for the backyard. Mostly I train it on our bird feeders or baths and occasionally on the ground to see what kind of critters are lurking there. It is motion activated and during windy times tree and shrub branches can set it off. It’s a numbers game. I’ll literally get 1000 to 2000 shots and I get maybe two to four that are worth anything. I don’t do video any longer because screening and editing video just takes too long.

This time though I captured a couple of bird shadows.

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I love the grackle shadow on the fence. The grackle is above and to the left of the shadow. Grackles are just noisy riotous birds. I wish they would go away. They do make cool shadows though. There is another bird to the left of the feeder and at the same angle. We don’t see his shadow though.

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I think I finally figured out this photo. The Shadow shows a long bird. Who knows though because at nearly noon, the sun is pretty high. I’m thinking that is from the bird up above and to the left of the shadow. It looks like a hawk or something. Maybe a small sharp shinned hawk. We have lots of prey for them. I’ve seen the hawks land on the ground and walk into shrubs and come out with baby rabbits. We also have squirrels and lots of birds.

I am linking up with Lisa’s Shadows Shot Sunday

Shadow Shot Sunday

Searching for Northern Lights

Here’s me trying to get a shot of the northern lights and failing miserably. I think I was the only one I know who did not get a shot of them.

I even launched my drone. I got some decent sky photos but no Nothern Lights. And I got some shadows on our back patio when I turned downward.

Here’s shady part of the trails on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain.

And these day lillies are casting a shadow on a tree trunk.

Get see other shadows at Shadow Shot Sunday.

Aerial Shadows of Tulsa

A drone shot at about 50 meters over the back yard showing the shadows from the fence and trees and on the west side of roofs. The orange square is my takeoff and landing pad. So I am somewhere on the patio next to the landing pad.

View looking west where from the same spot. Maybe 10 meters lower. Showing my neighbors shadows from their trees and fence lines.

And from another day a droneselfie of the drone pilot sporting his brand new Dallas Cowboys hat.

I’m linking with Shadow Shot Sunday