Arist-in-Residence Easter Sunday at Hubbell and Canyon de Chelly.

Verizon only gives you one bar if you climb to the roof of the old barn and hold your mouth just right.  I got up there to check in with Katie and text Jackson.  MAJOR complaint is not being able to keep up with home in real time.  I have a phone that surfs the web and takes pictures....but you have to climb on top of a 140 year old barn to make it work.  I COULD climb Hubbell Hill and stand on a gravestone, but would have to cross the wash.

  Supposed to be a windy day but it was dead calm.  From the barn roof with a scoped 10/22 I could have solved the local Prairie Dog problem.  Weather looked so good I decided to make a run to Canyon de Chelly.  Texted Arizona Canyon Tours and got set with Tulley.  Hadley, from yesterday,
was....hunting Easter Eggs.

 Tulley Yazzie and I took a suburban up Canyon de Chelly.  The park service is cutting the salt cedar and Russian Olive out, so big areas of the canyon that were closed are now open.  Some of the burn piles were still smoking.

Tourists at White House ruin.  The only place in the canyon that you can walk down unsupervised.

 Cleared ground in front of a big wall just up the canyon from White House Ruin.

There are cathedrals that aren't this intricately carved.

Road up through the canyon.

iphone notes.

Walls are like huge paintings done on god-like scale.

Shot this.  Had high hopes but there was quite a glare around the corner and I was using an old Ektar.

Tulley.

Coffeepot wired in a fence.

Sheep corral.  Hard to tell but the bottom of the corral is a layer of sheep dung, solid, about a foot thick.  Bees had a hive UNDER the dung-pad.  Careful walking.

  

Day Two of Canyon del Muerto.

My poor guide must be roasted.  He was a stand-in driving a Jeep station wagon that he had been warned not to turn off.  So it ran for six hours plus up in the canyon.  To his credit, it never quit.  Nice guy.

  Back in the dark.  I started to eat at the Thunderbird cafeteria but instead ate a steak/fry break sandwich that I bought on the way up.  Someone's horse died hard.

  Holders reloaded and I'm fed and watered and ready to collapse.  More on today tomorrow.

Home at the Hubbell.  I tour folks all day when I am here- just leave the door open and invite folks through.

Front door of the Guest Hogan.

Indian tracks!

iphone notes.

Guide said the stick was holding up the wall.

Trusty Jeep station wagon....that never quit.

Camera on the road.

Rock.  This country has a lotta rocks.

Cottonwood in the big opening above Blue Bull cave.

Canyon Water.

The washes are all running with a few inches of water.  The De Chelly side has more.  It's probably snowmelt.  When we came out there were families with kids playing in the sand and water as the sun went down.  It was like being on a beach.

  Before we left- up at the visitor center, I filled an empty bottle out of the faucet.  The water was lightly tinged with yellow.  I though perhaps I had hit a faucet with non-potable water, though there wasn't a warning.  Dumped it.
  Inside I found a drinking fountain and filled up.  Still yellow.  I guess that's the bottom line.  I'm drinking that canyon water.

Camera notes.

iphone, Nikon digital and Deardorff with several lenses.  I've blacked out the bathroom enough to load film holders at night.  With a little more blackout I could have run film...I think.  I stuff a pillow in the shower window and use a black piece of 3040 foamcore on the window.  

  Deardorff running great.  I've been light on the filtration.  Boxing film and labeling it.  The wall stripes always need a little more development.

  Two meters.  Ones a backup.  Carbon fiber Gitzo tripod with a huge head to hold the camera.  I've got a little single bubble level element I use to make sure I am not slanting off to one side or the front.

Deardorff on wet sand in Canyon del Muerto.

Deardorff with 190mm Wide Field Ektar bought in Albuquerque at Kurt's Camera Corral in the 90s and used ever since.

Friday: Home with the Hubbells.

Stayed on post today and worked on interiors of the main house.  First time I had been in this trip.  I shot a few quick digital files for last sessions AIR writer Nancy Mattina and the set up the Deardorff.

These are just iphone notes.  I put a spacer behind the wood box lid to get a better shadow and pulled a couple other tricks as well.

Got the back room propped and lit before I shot this on film.

Same here.  Interested in the mix of old and new.

The big wooden contraption is used to bag wool.  I shot a variation of this and then switched to the short ladder that was used to dump wool in the top of this guy.  It sits over a hole in the floor....guess that's the Hubbell sipapu.

  Hubbell sits in a Verizon wireless dead zone.  They can't hear you now, nor can you get on the web or text.  I mentioned it at lunch and one of the maintenence guys asked me if I had tried from the roof of the barn.  I climbed the ladder and got one bar.  If you want something done, ask a maintenence guy.

  Drove up to Verizon Mountain where you get two bars, sometimes three if the wind is blowing right and checked in with folks, including booking Tulley Yazzie for tomorrow afternoon.

  Wind howling outside so I'm in for the evening.  

In CdMuerto today. With Tulley Yazzie.

Too beat to post much.  Just finished changing out film holders and the bed is calling.  Short version is that today was predicted to be such a great no-wind day that I went to Canyon de Chelly National Monument, got a guide and went in for six hours up the del Muerto side.

Cat Rock.  I think it's unlucky to stand right where it is looking.

Wash was lightly flooded and full of wet sand.  Could have driven a Prius in.

Tulley Yazzie of Arizona Canyon Tours.

Turned this into a vertical.

So I am standing in the middle of the wash setting up a shot with the Deardorff and Tulley's clan uncle rolls by with a Suburban full of tourists.  Uncle leans out the window as he passes and says, "Nice 5X7."  I nearly fell over in the mud.  I guess they DO get some photographers in there.

Hogan Sitting.

It's buggy in here- some little beetle is dying in record numbers.  Whatever it is they need they aren't getting it.  They just seem to crawl into the open and die.  This is a lean nice comfortable guest house, no dark corners but I did have a juvenile Brown Recluse crawl out of the hinge of the laptop yesterday. That's kind of a shock.  Never had ANYTHING crawl out of the macbook before.  Nothing to be done except sweep up the bodies and shake your clothes before dressing.

  This Artist-in-residence thing can be tricky, I guess.

  I haven't left the property since I got here.  Going to today.  The forecast calls for no wind so I am about to get geared up to go to Canyon de Chelly for the afternoon.

  Yesterday evening I broke out the 5X7 and shot windows and doors.  Shot through all my holders.  I had shot the moonset and a couple other things, plus plenty of digital and iphone, but that was the first real sustained work.

The guest hogan.  It's not as isolated as it seems.  That's Hubbell Hill where everyone is buried behind it.

Kid field day yesterday here on the grounds.  Like any field day, the kids had a great time.

Moonset yesterday morning.

Brown Recluse.  Dang.

Staff is fine, mostly Dine.  I got here just at the start of a two-day meeting and training session hosted by the Western National Parks Association.  Back to routine today for them.  Wonderful flow of people coming through the trading post.  Met some from Texas and some from Norway.  Famous place.

I think I qualified yesterday.

Ravens here very aclimated to humans.  They scavenge food scraps in the parking lot.  A pair were going at a garbage sack in the back of a pickup out in front of the post.  I don't think they are nesting yet, but it's close.

Roof of the main store.

Shooting front door of the residence.  Post closes at 5:00 and I get the place to myself.

iphone notes.

Day 2 AIR: on the road and Albuquerque.

  Slow roll out from Santa Rosa. Clocks all set an hour later to New Mexican time.   Out on the interstate I got a "check engine" light.  All lindicators holding steady so I throttled back to 62 and went to the first exit.  Eventually would up in Albuquerque. Found a high rated garage near the UNM campus. I'm in a VERY retro hotel on central down on what is suppossed to be the good part. Found the appointment for tomorrow. Met Kirk Gittings for an hour at Flying Star. Very interesting guy with lots of experience.

  Truck goes in tomorrow. I go to UNM.  Hopefully we all rejoin forces and roll West after that.

  Right now its windy and dusty with beautiful slanting light.  Ought to go to Albertsons over on Carlisle and grocery up. 

Day 1: Artist in Residence.

Woke up with wind whistling around the Best Western room door in Santa Rosa New Mexico. Ithe neighbors are clanking and talking and trucks whining by on I40 outside. Glad to be on bed with covers pulled up.

  630+ yesterday but today just meandering into Albuquerque. Hoping to connect with Kirk Gittings and finish food prep for out West. In the morning I get to see some Chaco Canyon Artifacts at Unm and then head over to Hubbell.

  Can't think of anything I have forgotten that is crucial. Truck packed like a gymbag- not very organized.
 
 Filling water bottles from Best Western Tap. The odd taste of water from strange places always lets you know you are travelling.

  Neighbors from Prescott, Arizona. Nancy Mattina, the writer was right in front of me as AIR st Hubbell. She's probably home now.

  At breakfast I was the only person with a legit logo T-shirt on, unless Banana Republic is an event and Old Navy actually has old boats. I'm TSRA rifle team. The hard way. I love people, but sometimes I see a clue that I'm not from their tribe. 

Spring Bloom shut down.

 The bloom got hammered by the ice storm.  I've never seen this in 25 years of shooting some of these trees.  Pretty dramatic.  I got a couple rounds of shooting in but mostly was just scouting as the blooms were just a few days away from peaking.  Not a single one left in the county.  Waiting on the dogwoods.

White pear with dead blossoms.  There are a lot of starving bees around.

Here it is the day before the ice.

Been working this one for years.

Pulled out my new loppers and cleared some brush around a couple of these....then got iced.