This tiny little tree really appealed to the camera last Saturday, as I visited my friend Bruce and his family to wrestle with Windows on their behalf. I'd wrapped up a cleanup day at our church after an early morning photo trip with Monte, a new photography friend who I met while working as a ringside boom operator for a SHOtime boxing broadcast a while ago. The morning was VERY frosty. When we drove across the new Memorial Bridge, steam was literally billowing over the bridge, swept downriver by the cold, blasting wind.
This little tree reminds me of the tree in Charlie Brown Christmas; perhaps that's why I like it so much. Standing just over a foot tall, it's a tough little conifer. My friend's daughter planted it as part of an Arbor Day project from school last summer, and it has since survived encounters with the lawn mower and an uncle's tractor tire. It's a beautiful little tree, especially decked out in a fresh coat of thick frost.
There were many other varieties of trees in Bruce's yard, each with a different type of needle sporting jagged white frost. I took many photos, and some may appear later, but this was one of my favorites. The frost along the river was VERY thick, but in town there was nothing of the sort.
This is one of the sights Monte and I saw early in the morning. This fencepost juts out of the frozen ground at a neat angle, just north of Horizon Middle School. The top of the post remains parallel to the ground, however, which is why it caught my eye. A thick wood parallelogram with frost-covered loops of rusty barbed wire is a great ingredient for a winter morning photograph!
Regardless of weather, I love getting up and chasing down unique photos. This frost didn't hang around forever, and it was provided by just the right conditions of warm river water and cold, harsh wind. I may not take the best photos in the world, but I try to make each one indicative of a moment that was unique at the time my shutter clicked. There are plenty of those moments to be had in Bismarck and Mandan, and I'm going to continue to capture my share of them.
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If you have the Adobe Flash Player installed, and over 90% of computers do, you can see a rotating banner image at the top of this site. I added a Christmas banner into the mix in the 7th slot, with a Christmas-decorated capitol building, Fort Lincoln blockhouse, and Sertoma Park.
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My mom called yesterday to let me know that I was mentioned in Fine Living Review magazine. Cool. I must say, living in Bismarck-Mandan is pretty fine! My wife picked up a copy for the blog scrapbook while out shopping. I've got a lot of souvenirs associated with this website already!
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I stopped at the former BP (is it Tesoro now? I hadn't taken note) at the intersection of east Rosser Avenue and north Bismarck Expressway earlier this week and noticed that they have Charlie Brown Christmas CDs on sale at the front counter for only $10.99! If you don't own it yet, you have no excuse: run out there and get it while the price is right! Tell them I sent ya.
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What can I say? Been jammin' to some classic Sammy Hagar on the ol' iPod while doing dishes, and it made me think of this photo. I recently processed it for a photo contest with the theme of "Red" as well. Say...maybe Brian was listening to some Sammy when he thought up the theme...
These berries hang from a tree on the North Dakota State Capitol grounds, one of my favorite hangouts ever. When I was in high school and for a short while after, that was my favorite haunt. I had a lot of friends there, and it's a great place to hang out at night. I particularly enjoyed reading on the steps of the library, playing frisbee in the parking lot, or coloring (yes, box of 64) under the lights. These days I think loitering near the capitol at night will get you thrown out or fined. Too bad...it's a waste of a great place.
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