Views at Terlingua Ranch Retreat

In my Graboid post you saw some of the lovely desert-y locale I was talking about. Let me show you the whole place. Welcome to the Terlingua Ranch Retreat.

You might remember, or know, that my husband and I really love the Big Bend National Park area of Texas. We went last year at in the spring, at Thanksgiving, and at Christmas. Well we didn't go this spring, and were itching to get back, so we rented another small property in the same group of houses as LTM Ranch from Big Bend Vacation Rentals. These houses are all managed as a group and it is now part of my bucket list to try out each and every one.

Downstairs from the front door. Stairs upstairs to the far right. Kitchen to the left. Bathroom behind the fridge wall.

This house was pretty small but very charming. Perfect for two people and a dog. I'd say the whole place was maybe 1000 square feet. It faces so that the one of the two porches on each end of the main living area is always in shade. It has a small downstairs containing the kitchen, small eating area, a living room and bathroom.

front porch views

Right inside the front door is the stairs to the bedroom which is the same size as the whole downstairs, so you can get an idea of how small the place is.

Upstairs is pretty roomy, queen bed, two closets. You can see the swamp cooler in the wall to the left.

Being there in the summer might not have been the best idea as it runs off the grid. Power to the house is generated from a wind turbine, a solar array and a small gas generator. The trick was balancing the power consumption with keeping the house cool. By the last night we had it down to a science, running the window AC units in the morning off the generator, shutting the house down and letting the batteries charge during the hottest part of the day while we went out, and then using the swamp (evaporative) cooler through the night.

View from the upstairs windows.

The days got up to about 101 degrees by 2pm and the nights only cooled off to about 88 after midnight. We brought a huge 5 gallon igloo cooler for ice water and it made the whole trip so much better. Keeping us and the dog hydrated with COLD water was the best.

Simple is the best.

The other way to keep cool was to use the outdoor shower. Let me tell you this simple amenity made all the difference after a long day. As there is no one for miles, it was lovely to look out on such a view.

View from the shower 

I would wait till just before sunset so that most of the heat of the day had passed and I could watch the colors change. And what sunsets there are!

You can see the wind turbine and solar battery shed to the left, back porch to the right.

seriously.

stunning.

Even Gingko had a great time I think. We kept her close but let her roam around and was sure to have plenty of water for her too, while keeping her paws off the hot ground too much.

on the back porch

We for sure want to go back, but maybe in the Fall, as we'd love to just stay at the house all day with the windows open, chilling on the porches and relaxing.

Home for now but that view is gonna stick with us for a while. #wideopensky #texas

A photo posted by Anthos (@anthos_root) on Jul 6, 2016 at 10:35pm PDT

And I have yet to mention the real reason we went... the Stars! This fourth of July had no moon out and had Sagittarius high in the sky which is the direction of the center of the Milky Way. So my husband and I spent every night up till about 2 am watching and photographing the sky. Check him out as JohnnySideways on Flicker to see more.



It's no wonder every time we go that we think about buying a place out here to retire in.

SH3: Anthos Root

While I am travelling around this summer you might also take a gander at my new side instagram feed for my new little mandrake root named Anthos, made by The Beast Peddler (etsy, tumblr).
Follow them at @anthos_root.

Made a cozy burrow to hide from the winds today!

A photo posted by Anthos (@anthos_root) on Jun 9, 2016 at 7:48am PDT

It's just a nice silly way to get me to learn to take more photos, use my camera and be a little creative. It's not a terribly revolutionary idea, as there a quite a few feeds of people taking pictures of things like small totoros in places too... but I'm having fun. Although I am a little worried that the first picture above is also the best one I will ever take...

Stop and smell the peonies.

A photo posted by Anthos (@anthos_root) on Jun 10, 2016 at 4:04pm PDT

We just got back from a trip to New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, but we have plenty more travels planned this summer. Hope you are having a good one.

Update: There are now over 80 images of Anthos doing silly things and I'm contemplating making a book.

Big Girl Camera

My hubby got me a belated christmas birthday present recently... an Olympus OM-D.

Not gonna lie, this camera is intimidating. As an art history student and graphic designer, I like to think I can tell a good photo from a bad one pretty quick. I've skirted the edges of photography, by studying composition, lighting and subjects from art sources. Sure, I've had several cameras before, but I used them on auto, and none have ever had interchangeable lenses.

Since he has become the photo teacher at our school, our interest in Photography with a capital P, has only increased. He's always been a photographer, but was limited to the iPhone. Photography is an excellent hobby, super fun, creative, portable, but terribly expensive if you want to get serious. But like my time making prints in college, it is a challenge that is time consuming to get right and much harder than it looks.

Anyway, instagram is a good place to get inspired and I love to see the travels of Momo and Andrew Knapp.

Hello! Big news: I just released a class I created for you on @skillshare. I'm so stoked and it was so much fun and such a challenge to create. It’s a self-paced online video class, a journey for you to create a photo series using a common theme. Mine, as you may have guessed, is Momo, and here’s the first of the three photos I created for the class; my #makeporchraits series. Enroll here: skl.sh/andrewknapp (link in bio). We worked so hard on creating this class with the amazing @skillshare team and I’d be thrilled if you’d give it a shot, and please let me know what you think of it! I’m making it FREE just for you, this week only.

A photo posted by Andrew Knapp (@andrewknapp) on Mar 1, 2016 at 8:22am PST

His class was free only for the week it was posted, so of course I signed up and watched the 40 minute class, took a few notes and went into the back yard with my own muse of a mutt, Gingko, my 5 year old husky mix. She's not much for posing, but loves to explore the back part of our yard which is a bamboo jungle.

I tried to follow the advice of a theme and trait, while also providing a wide, medium and close shot, as well as take some baby steps moving off of auto and into manual mode! Scary.
Theme: Gingko. Trait: Her exploratory nature

into the unknown of the bamboo

skirting the edges of the forest

target locked

I had a lot of fun with this, and getting up and out for even a little bit at lunch helped combat the constant couch sitting that is my day job. With this camera being so compact, I plan to just keep it on me at all times now. The trips we are planning in the future have just one more thing to look forward to... learning to take some great photos.

Yeah for trying new things! I've started a Flickr page for myself to try to motivate me to share, grow, and keep at it. Check it out if you like.

Views at LTM Ranch

Taking a short breather this week, but I thought I would share a few images from my Christmas trip to west Texas during December 2015.

My husband and I often help chaperone the Big Bend trip that Ecology students take in the spring at our high school, so we are quite familiar with the area around the National Park. We love it. This year, we went in the spring as usual, in November during the thanksgiving break, and again, during the Christmas break. Each time we go, the park seems just a little different.

For Christmas, we rented a house north of Terlingua, the LTM Ranch. Although it does take a good hour and a half to get to Alpine, the nearest real town, and the same amount of time to get down into the park itself, the house was a stunning and comfortable place to get away.

The view from the back porch and living room looks out over many different mesas and mountains. Each day we were there, the weather was so different that I started taking panoramas each morning.

We arrived just before dusk the first night and sat on the porch watching the sunset. As we snacked in the 60 degree dusk the wind kicked up like nothing I have heard and quickly sent us scurrying inside for the evening.

The next morning we awoke to snow. Snow. In the desert. Amazing.

The day after it was cloudy and still very cold, but the snow had started to melt.

Further melting happened and the weather gave way to high 50s and low 60s for two lovely days of hiking in the park.

We even went down and sat in the hot springs. The evenings were still quite chilly.

The next few days it seemed to lapse back into gray skies.

It misted a bit.

The last day on our way it out rained.

Driving home was an experience itself as we drove out of the mud, into the chilly air, through snow covered areas, back into warmer sunny spots, again into chilly areas and finally back to the crisp weather at home.

I loved this trip. Seeing so many sides of the weather from the comfort of a couch and blanket was fascinating.

I would happily visit LTM again, and can't wait for the next time I visit Big Bend.

Holiday Weekends and Stuff

Yes, Yes I know. I was supposed to update Monday and Yesterday too. But I haven't. No excuses... Ok.... a few excuses. Memorial day weekend was exhausting; between helping people move, visiting relatives, having people over to the house, working on the lawn, fixing the pool, taking the dog to the vet and getting my hair dyed, I had almost no time to think, let alone doodle.

A hold over for now since the rest of this week promises to be super busy with work as well...

The gimpy puppy to be taken to a specialist.

The blue hair in question.

A new crochet project to work on.

The crochet project will get its own post once the 4 are done.

Thanks for your patience.

Happy Howl-o-ween!

Halloween is here and costumes are a must in my opinion. Why should our puppy be left out?

She is going as Krypto the Superdog! Her cape and collar were made from a couple of child's size t-shirts from your craft store. The studs on the collar and S logo were drawn on with a gold fabric paint pen. Finally her custom Superdog-tag is hand-drawn by me on shrinky plastic. The cape is safety pinned to the collar which fits like a tube over her real collar.

With the perfect costume and pose, our little Gingko is ready to save the day!
Just for reference, you can see how she has grown from the last post she was in: Tilt Shift

Trying Tilt Shift Photoshopping

A job, a move and a new puppy can suck up your life. Saw a cool tutorial online today about turning your ordinary photographs into faux tilt-shift photographs with photoshop. Naturally I tried with whatever was on my desktop... that being a photo of my little pup, Gingko.

Before:

After:

Not sure if the photo is quite right to use; it isn't really an aerial shot or far enough away. With that said, I still like it a lot.

Photoshop Fun

So my fiance is off on vacation, but sends me photos of his hotel and a note which says that the place reminds him of the bath house from Spirited Away. After a suggestion or two, I found a few images I could work with and added some characters into his images. The result: Awesome.

Creative Easter Fun

Coloring Easter eggs doesn't have to be boring or traditional... with a little imagination, and some help from the internet, cute Easter eggs are just a few markers away from reality. In case you don't know, the Pokemon eggs are Pikachu, Togepei and Charmander. The third images is EVE from Wall-e. And fun like this is always better with friends. :)
Happy Easter Everyone.

My Vacation

So we just got back from a trip. We went to somewhere near Queens NY for a 50th anniversary for one of my dad's aunt and uncle which basically turned into a family reunion of people I haven't seen since I was 3 months old. Then we went to Atlantic City. Then to Colonial Williamsburg. Then to Virginia Beach. All in all a very nice trip to places I wouldn't think to go on my own. Here are just a few photos there are a lot more on Facebook.

Cool Pics I felt like putting up

Its fishhead Johnny! From when we went to the aquarium... totally happened by accident.









One of the orange roses johnny gave me for valentine's day which looked awesome with my blue walls... Too bad I'm still an amateur at photography.










Last but not least... My new awesomely Cute Foo Dog!!!!

Pisa Cathedral

Here's another where my theme of angels creeps in. The fantastic architecture is overwhelming, but in this perspective it is the human relation to the space, and the immense feeling of space that is created by the building, that takes center stage.

Angel

Here's a photo from the Bridge of Angels in Rome. Taken during my semester there for school, it is the theme that I picked for myself. Aside from angels being my namesake, their serenity and beauty is what I aspire to. I have a series of drawings after more photos I took around Rome, which I hope to have up soon. Stay Tuned.

Delphi

I also love to travel and in Spring of 2005 I went with my school, the University of Dallas, to Rome for a semester. By far one of the best parts was visiting Greece and the ancient ruins at Delphi. I love photography as another art form, so here is my favorite.

Before and After Photos

Photo Editing also done by me... 2005