Atomic City is an interesting little community for a number of different reasons, not the least of which are the eclectic, expected and sometimes unexpected items I have found tossed haphazardly around the few streets that make up Tiny Town.
A beautiful, small cast iron horses' head lays unnoticed under a bush in a yard. A bright orange 80's scooter leans unnoticed against an old barn. A garden of green hoses lay haphazardly inside an over sized tractor tire in another yard. A tiny red rooster wind chime hides among the trees in one more yard. And so it goes.
I snapped this picture of a swing that hangs from a tree early on in winter. Maybe early November.
As with all of the other random things that were once part of people's lives but are now simply yard trash, I find them interesting.
Interesting in that they are consistently run-down-artistic in form, and each has a story (ranging from the mundane to the wildly entertaining).
This blog and the next contains wholly random pictures. Some I have posted before, but also some not.
Because life has been quiet, there have been no grand adventures recently, and as I watch American Idol (in Detroit tonight) I downloaded these pictures that are already in my ever growing picture files...................
I bought this painted barrel lid at a yard sale in Tennessee long before I met LC.
It is beautiful, colorful folk art - hand done, not too perfectly, and it spoke to me as soon as I saw it.
As with so many other random things strewn from one end of the house to the other, it has traveled way more than I ever would have imagined when I originally picked it up.
It still has the handle and sometimes I wonder what the lid covered in its former life, before someone took it and provided it with color.
It is so Tennessee and I like it very much............
They all play music and they snow when turned upside down.
The zebras on the right play the song It's A Small World, and Chris bought it for me as a Christmas present when he was about 12.
When I look at it now I think about my youngest boy and when I impulsively turn it upside down and wind it up, as I often seem to do when I pass it, I hear the song as it is snowing on the momma and baby zebra and I think about Chris............
I took this picture sometime in mid-November and only a week or so after LC and I drove to the airport in Boise to pick up our new dog.
During this walk we were still strangers.
Just getting to know each other, we spent the first month of our lives together walking.
Lots of walking.
Alone with each other as LC struggled with a back injury that left him in constant pain, we walked a lot.
On this walk we headed to the outskirts of town and wandered close to the four silos that sit silently at the edge of the desert.
Kory was on leash and as we walked along the edge of one of the silos she surprised me by sprinting half way up the roof of the rickety structure.
If she hadn't run out of leash she would have continued to run higher.
Caught off balance she pulled me part way up the roof as well, and as I stood on top of the hay that insulates the roof my immediate reaction was to cajole her back down.
She ignored me for a few minutes and I consciously let her, realizing as I watched her that my new dog was enjoying the view from her elevated position.
I watched her for a few minutes, enjoying the sight of her, as she stood in place and just looked out over her new world.
It must have been a scary new world for her. Florida to Idaho. Warmth and palm trees to desert and cold. Such changes for an animal that doesn't understand about changes.
After a few minutes I called her name, she turned to look at me, and we climbed down from the roof of the silo.............
Tumbleweeds are everywhere in Atomic City.
Caught up in fences. Caught up in trees and bushes and in the corners of lots and stuck under the wheels of trucks in driveways.
Not long after Kory arrived in Idaho we walked on a very windy day.
As we walked down one quiet road Kory jumped the ditch and began investigating an empty piece of property, sniffing everything as she tried to process her new world.
I had seen it coming and stood watching, curious to see how Kory would react.
The large tumbleweed tumbled over and over across the empty field on the wind and eventually tumbled right into Kory, hitting her broadside.
She had seen its approach but had no idea what it was and when it touched her side she jumped back three feet.
My Florida dog new nothing about tumble weeds at that point. After it banged into her and she jumped back she quickly recovered, and moved towards it wanting to investigate this strange prickly thing.
Only the tumble weed had places to go and things to do, and the wind picked it up and continued it on its journey to........somewhere........................
This little three sided structure is located on the back side of a large piece of property.
Surprisingly somebody actually lives on this property, which is more unusual than usual.
It's just a little nothing wooden structure that holds the odds and ends that typically get tossed carelessly into such places, and I like it.
Without even thinking about it I find myself taking pictures of the structure often because it looks different every time I see it, depending on the weather and time of day................
We live in the Snake River Plain and at an elevation of 5000 feet.
High plains desert, and in the summer the days are relentlessly hot and the sky is relentlessly blue.
Not so in winter.
So far this winter we have had everything from sunshine and warm to sunshine and freezing cold, snow, ice, dense and freezing mist that lays a cover of ice crystals over everything in sight, rain..
The sun.
Without any hint of warmth and trying valiantly to break through the overwhelmingly grey and icy mist during a morning walk...............
I like this picture very much.
It had snowed the day before, and as I walked with LC and Kory late in the day the sky was all the shades of red and pink and purple and yellow that you could imagine, and we watched as the sun set over Cedar Butte and Big Butte to our west.
After watching the sky for a long time and enjoying the sight of it changing in appearance literally every minute in front of our eyes, we turned down this side street and started to meander our way home.
As we got to the end of the road I turned to look at the sky one last time and that is when I saw our foot prints.
And then I smiled.
Well over a day since it had snowed, ours were the first prints on this road....................
Karin takes pictures of anything and everything that catches her eye.
Even snow caught in the multiple squares of a large section of rolled up fence, that was leaning against a barn..............
Some kind of weird bead/wire/twirling thing that I hung in a tree in the back yard not long after we moved into the house................
The three sided structured at sunset............
I had been to this lady's house a handful of times over the past six months and then one day I saw this.
It was hanging from a tree close to the front door, and after wondering how I could not have seen it before (and feeling guilty because I did not ask her permission before hand) I snapped this quick picture of this weird and wonderful thing.
I haven't even taken a good look at it yet in truth because I haven't been back since, but next time I have an excuse to stop by I will ask to take a better picture of this weird and wonderful thing.
I think that the main portion of the face is wood but I don't know about the rest. Bushy eye brows, heavy lids, bright yellow eyes, spectacles sitting low on a long nose.
I LOVE this crazy face................
Bird houses. Everywhere in town.
Beautiful, large, colorful, store bought ones and tiny little hand made ones.
Hanging from trees, attached to fences and posts, sitting on poles among rock gardens.
We have blue birds, doves, robins, crows and others that I can't identify in town.
And twice now we have seen a bald eagle on our way to Blackfoot.
A bald eagle. In the desert.
I would never have predicted that..............
Sun breaking through the icy mist............
Icy crystals covering the world.............
Yes........my little three sided shelter again.
This time with Big Butte in the background..............
I had taken a very long evening walk on every street in town with my dog and we were headed home.
Not far from the house is a gravel county road that leads all the way to the highway.
The county road actually crosses over the highway and continues all the way to the Twin Buttes.
I have heard varying stories re: whether or not we can go to these buttes. Some say yes and others say no - that land all belongs to INL (the secret squirrel lab that does nuclear research and training and that incorporates 800 square miles of land in SE Idaho).
Regardless, we were heading towards the house and as we got close to this quiet road I saw the sky.
It was purple.
The twins were purple, the sky was purple, the world was purple, and the moon was low.
My dog and I wandered down that road a short way just before we lost the last of the light and I snapped this picture.............
Sunset on BLM land as seen between the V of an old tree.............
An icy, misty morning..............
She has "unfortunate ears" and over sized paws and LC and I joke that there must be a "hound dog in the wood pile".
A joyous, athletic, sweet heart of a dog who quickly became devoted to us.
And we to her...............
Kory and two very heavy basset hounds in a staring match...............
Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face............Victor Hugo
No comments:
Post a Comment