Week 24 - 2017 in Photographs

Day 162

This is my "How Green is My Valley" week. Late snows and spring rains combined to make everything green.
After several years of drought we have been pulling out of aquifer depletion and moving back to lush meadows and healthy forests.

Day 163

Yes, there is a Black Lake. In fact, it used to cover much of the valley pictured in the photos below.
A meadow which was once a lake is called a cienega. My house is perched on the edge of once was another cienega on the Little Coyote West.

Day 164

The first five photographs featured this week were taken on one day of extraordinary light and clouds over the Black Lake Valley just a few miles south of my house.
This area stood in for Montana during the filming of Lonesome Dove.
But this is New Mexico.

Day 165

This area was settled during the 1762 Homestead Act and combined by the family settling it 160 acres a time into one of the larger ranches in New Mexico. It is still an active ranch though parts of the original holdings have been sold off.

Day 166

The two photographs below are from the Moreno Valley just to the north of my house. It too is very green.

And the wild iris have spilled down the side valleys running through ranch land toward Eagle Nest Lake.

Day 167

Day 168

The Sangre de Cristo Mountains are at the heart of all these photographs. I live on the wet side of this mountain range.

Taos, New Mexico is on the other side.