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This may look like ordinary playground equipment. However, if you are in Lithia Park at just the right moment you will get to see that it is actually a moon launching apparatus. After particularly successful launches a bunch of snow sprays out as a sort of afterbirth. It’s very beautiful to watch. I was about 5 seconds too late with this picture for you to see the actual moment of launching. Sorry.
After dark I decided to try my first ever night photography in the snow. The snow was just barely coming down. I was trying to set my camera to take multiple shots with different exposure lengths. The above and bottom photos are the results of one of those attempts–two identical photos taken in immediate succession. My settings were incorrect so both actually fired with the shutter open for 15 seconds each (I think, the bottom photo looks like it got a couple extra seconds but I’m not sure if that is really the case).
What happened in the above photo to render the wavy line of light that didn’t show up on the photograph below? I don’t know for sure.
My guess is that a snowflake wandered through the viewing area in the top photograph. That doesn’t explain why it begins at the light source though. Perhaps the wandering flake just happened to be in that position when the shutter initially opened. Or maybe the snowflake came off the tree and not the light. I don’t know. The light doesn’t really look like what I’d expect a snowflake to look like should one have stopped by to have its picture taken. Let me know if you have any theories.
School is going to start at least 2 hours late today. Have any guesses as to why?
The above picture is of Lincoln Elementary School. It isn’t in use by the school district anymore anyway. It closed back in 2004 if I remember correctly.
It’s actually snowing pretty good right now as I write this at 7 a.m. so I wouldn’t be surprised if school is canceled for the whole day. Click here to check.
I was thinking I may wake up to the above scene this morning. Instead we only got a trace of snow although I’m sure the mountains are well covered by now. I can’t see them through the clouds.
So I dipped into last winter to pluck out the above picture. It is the same view as a prior entry, out my dining room window so that I could take the photograph without getting cold. 😉
The forecast is for more snow today and tomorrow so maybe we will look like today’s photo later today or tomorrow.
I’ve been showing some pictures of Mexico on my other blog this week. Most are of Ashland’s sister city, Guanajuato. By searching for those pictures, I’ve discovered some others of Southern Oregon like the last two days’ photos.
Today’s picture is of a hike I took with my kids several years ago in May. Snow was still on some of the local mountains even though everything had turned green. The hike was to Wagner Butte, a place that can be seen from Ashland. We didn’t make it all the way there, but I went back a month later without my kids to complete the trip. (Wagner Butte Hike is over 10 miles round trip with an elevation gain of 2,200 feet.) This photograph was taken after just a mile (which is actually the steepest part of the whole hike).
We would have hit snow long before we reached Wagner Butte anyway so the intent on that day wasn’t to do the whole thing. To get to the trailhead you go through Talent, the town just north of Ashland. Best time to do it is late spring or summer as there can be tons of wildflowers.
A couple weeks ago we had a few cold days which resulted in a bit of snow on the nearby peaks. If the trees on the top of Grizzly Peak, pictured above, look a bit strange to you it is because of a fire that charred them six years ago. The contrast of the black and white is kind of cool. In spring, with late snow dustings like the above you can see a nice mixture of black, white, green (from grass), yellow, and purple (from wild flowers).
I’ll have to post some pictures of the valley from up on Grizzly Peak from prior hikes I have taken one of these days. It’s a great hike, just not this time of year as the back road is in the shade and likely covered in snow even if the front side looks dry.
It’s hot in Ashland now (at over 90 degrees for the past few days) so I thought I’d start things off with a picture from this past winter to help cool things down.
