Musings

I just stepped out to get a moon shot, well, the photo kind, but I wasn’t terribly stable, so the moon is blown-out.

Posted at 8:46 PM | Comments Off on Photo tale

Crystals are…seductive? Otherworldly? [This image is presented approximately life-sized, if memory serves….]

Our word crystal derives ultimately from the Greek word for both “rock crystal” and “ice.” Very parallel.

Posted at 9:51 PM | Comments Off on Crystallographic tale

These plants, decorative in this area, mystified me (with my northern mental database) until I found them labelled somewhere. Now, I know them to be relatives of artichokes…sporting rather elegant dagger-leaves-of-green.

Posted at 10:13 PM | Comments Off on Relatives

Our view through the garden to the rising sun…sooooo changed. Indeed, we might even be able to grow grass (!!!). For now, we’re just trying to get used to the increased light. [Guess that’s the same for the vegetation?] [Am I repeating myself?]

Posted at 9:28 PM | Comments Off on Looking back/forward

The dangerous trees (in the insurance world) are off the property, gone or in pieces stacked in the street. However, serious compaction is left behind. Who are the next specialists we need to counteract this problem? Rrrr. Aerator consultants, perhaps?

Posted at 8:30 PM | Comments Off on Trax, then…

Meet the stubborn stob (which I wanted to spell as staub, but I don’t think that’s a real word in English, although this posting program is accepting it—hmm, while it tries to change stob to stop—rrrr). The crew de-branched the stob yesterday, and they’re coming back tomorrow to take it down. Waah. But it has to go. We had a good run with these trees, and now a no-name storm has taken them from us (with the help of tree-removal teams).

Posted at 8:55 PM | Comments Off on Last one standing

Clearly, our morning view is…clearer. I calculate five trees removed in the last few years.

Posted at 9:40 PM | Comments Off on Viewshed

It really doesn’t look like it, but this is a night shot, from a few minutes ago. My guess is that the unbroken drippy cloudcover is reflecting the light back and back again, so the sky isn’t dark? Goodnight, squirrels.

Posted at 8:52 PM | 1 Comment »

This is maybe the third time we’ve seen a stand of these silver-barked trees. Dunno what they are…mystery arboles.

I’ve confirmed that this is Moncayo.

Wind turbine alignments. I’m trying to get my photographic fascination with them out of my system. Round hay bales can grab your eye this way, too.

We’ve seen plenty of large and small irrigation ditches, but rarely the valves. Here’s a split, where the flow is being directed two ways.

One of our goals today was to get a look at a large eroded area, or badlands, that is a park called Bardenas Reales.

We did find one place with a road we could safely try to get into (or towards) the heart of this sculpted landscape. You can see we didn’t get far, as farmed fields remain.

We partly circled Moncayo yesterday, and completed the loop today.

One more eroded landform.

I finally got a shot of the Ebro when we crossed it. I think this is normal spring elevated levels.

We cut through a “corner” of the lower slopes of the Moncayo massif, and found what must be a relatively warmer area, as many orchards flaunted blooming trees. My guess was peaches or apples, but I couldn’t parse the tree shapes and figure out the species.

We went through/by many little towns. Amazingly, most had parked cars and evidence of active residents. I cannot figure out the economic support for these scattered villages.

Later in the day, I became fascinated with the variations in soil color…this is rather brick red, and the trees are not yet blooming (February, remember…snow on elevations, remember?).

Castle ruins above larger small town…note the white lenses in the far distance behind the jagged walls…Moncayo massif, again.

I counted one man and one dog with this substantial sheep herd. As we continued up the road, it was evident that they’d come down it for at least a mile. Transhumance underway? Earlier in the day, we saw a smaller herd, controlled by a man with a loaded mule and four dogs. Spring is springing for shepherds.

This is the second fox we’ve spotted. Neither was much concerned with our presence.

I just encountered a description of wheeling clouds of birds as resembling the billowing robes of a genie. As shown….

Posted at 3:30 PM | Comments Off on Circumnavigation, etc.

Wind turbines on horizon. Strange color balance (through windshield).

Frost patterns…one shady place we saw frost as late as 11:30am.

Flags, bell tower.

Storks, backlit.

Horses, also backlit, with frost, tracks.

Medieval rock graves, Revenga.

Medieval rock graves, Regumiel. They antedate the 12th C church built partially atop them.

Medieval rock graves with ice skim, Duruelo. Some sources say this trend in this area, the Upper Arlanza Basin, say these graves are 7th/8th C. Others say 8th–10th C.

Stand-alone snow-capped mountain, perhaps Moncayo.

Wind turbine array, with Pyrennees in far distance and Ebro basin between.

Rioja territory grapevines.

This is the part of the Roman city of Graccurris, founded 179 BC, that has been “reconstructed.” I could make little architectural sense of what seemed to me to be mostly a wasteland. Of course, there was significant Medieval occupation here, too….

Largest church in Alfaro, essentially modern Graccurris.

Smaller Alfaro church.

Fuzzy moon out our hotel window, a few minutes ago.

Posted at 1:57 PM | 2 Comments »