I’m not sure it’s possible to have a better weekend. Aside from it being Mother’s Day weekend, and having a delightfully wonderful daughter and pretty much the best mom on the planet, I also was able to sneak in a hike and wrapped up the weekend with something so unexpectedly amazing I sincerely questioned whether or not I was awake or dreaming.

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Anna (my daughter) and I kicked off the weekend with another evening drive out east of town. It was a pretty typical drive, but it did afford us a shower in a decent rain storm and a glimpse of some new-to-this-earth animals who were as fresh as they were cute.

It’s been a challenge to get Anna to engage in these outings. She is not only 10 going on 11 but she has recently bought a new tablet which she is constantly burying her nose in. I’ve started coming up with games and challenges to try to engage her with the real world around her. I think she is starting to enjoy the time and and has even spotted a few critters before I have. She especially likes the fact that I have started bribing her with ice cream in exchange for her company.

One of the best moments on our Friday evening excursion was a stop alongside the road to observe a fairly young colt. Anna requested the chance to get out and pet it, which I granted. The colt was a little shy and darted back behind the comfort of its more mature field-mates, but the other horses welcomed Anna’s touch and it lit me up inside to watch the interaction. We chased a few hawks and caught a lovely sunset before heading back to town for the ice cream.

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Saturday found me and a pack of my nearest and dearest friends wandering some freshly logged and very obstacle-laden terrain in the Cathedral Spires. They have been clearing the beetle kill but haven’t quite gotten around to cleaning up after themselves yet. We clumsily climbed up a valley between two giant walls of granite until we could not climb any higher (without ropes). As we sat and enjoyed the view I started to notice a rather high quantity of animal scat. I determined that it belonged to Mountain Goats and, considering the volume, we decided we were hanging out in an area where the goats liked to hang out too. We didn’t see any, but I am fairly sure I heard one as it ran off trying its best to hide from our pack of dogs.

Aside from noticing the scat from our resting point I also caught a glimpse of a rock climber across the valley on a neighboring spire. That area is a hot spot for climbers so I really didn’t think much of the fella until I noticed him again on the way back down the mountain. I looked up just in time to see that they weren’t just climbing but that they had run a slack-line between two spires and were JUST about to tight-rope walk across it. I was able to get the camera cued up and did a passing job of recording the event. It was truly a sight to behold.

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“goats”

Sunday, of course, was Mother’s Day. The day started with a side journey with just me and my wonderful mom out to an area I have been frequently exploring for photo adventures. There were a few sites out there I wanted to share. I especially wanted to show her a grouping of very large nests my friend Eric and I had spied on a previous adventure. They were perched at the very top of some giant cottonwood trees about a half a mile off the side of the road. Eric started to refer to them as “goats” (Eric has a special sense of humor… I appreciate it very much). Of course, they aren’t really goats, they are nests, but I liked the idea of them being called “goats” so I kept the name.

My mom had a pretty great pair of binoculars in her truck so I was able to make out the faintest shape of a very large bird perched on the top of the nest. “I think those are blue herons!” I exclaimed. My statement was met with hesitant disbelief and since I was unable to make an absolute identification we headed on and I continued to point at things and say “and this is where I took that one picture…” and “when we were here Anna did this… “

The last thing I wanted to show her before we fetched up the rest of the family for our official Mother’s Day outing was a fresh batch of tiny baby sheep Anna and I had happened across a few days earlier. We had a blast watching the little fluff balls play in the field and laughed as one seemed to be as allergic to the air as we are and proceeded to sneeze in a most familiar way.

After the sheep we swooped up my daughter and brother and we set out to aimlessly wander the Black Hills. Our quest consisted mostly of trying to find a place to eat lunch but circumstance after circumstance pushed the event back to about 3:00pm when we finally landed at Legion Lake. We shared a meal of BBQ and I chased around some beautiful swallows with my camera. Anna was able to dip her toes in the water before we loaded back up and hit the king of all Black Hills Roads, Iron Mountain, and headed home. The weather was perfect and I can’t think of a more lovely way to spend a day than celebrating our mom-ness with our kid-people in the Black Hills.

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The family affair was over but my hunger for adventure wasn’t yet satiated. I could tell by the thin clouds and the lazy sun that the sunset was going to be a good one, so I thought I would wonder out one last time in search of one more thing to focus my camera on… I had no idea I was about to discover the thrill of a lifetime.

I had already visited my usual location earlier with mom so I decided to take another direction out of town. I headed North instead of East and was surprised at how quickly I was gifted the final gift of my Mother’s Day.

I crested a hill just outside of town when I noticed a very familiar site. I instantly recognized another patch of “goats” in some trees. Only this time instead of a handful there were dozens and instead of the nests being too far away for me to see they were in the tops of trees right next to a side road. I pulled off without hesitation and lost my breath as I noticed 50 or so very large nests each inhabited by its own blue heron tending to the eggs.  I sat and watched as their partners came and went, returning with fresh twigs and sticks to fortify their homes.

It was without a doubt one of the most breathtaking sites I had ever seen. I had no idea that they nested in colonies like that. Its hard to find the words to describe the feelings I had as I watched them come and go. I shot hundreds of photos and couldn’t bring myself to start the car and leave even after I had filled every gig of memory space I had, but as the sun went down I did find the will-power to turn the key and drive away.

As I drove back to town a single heron flew above me following the same road. I laughed at how, had I not just spent all that time with so many birds, I would have freaked out at the site of that single bird flying above me. I didn’t appreciate the solitary bird any less but I did look at it in a totally different way.

All in all, it was a weekend to remember punctuated with a gift from mother nature herself. There were several occasions when things were so perfect or awe-inspiring that I felt the only explanation was that it was all a dream. But I think thats how we know you’re doing it right, when your reality feels as good as your wildest dreams. I am a truly lucky girl. I have the best mom, best daughter, best family a girl could ask for – and I live in God’s country where miracles happen daily, as long as you’re willing to find them.

I really didn’t wake up this morning thinking I would be out taking pictures of bluebirds… but to be honest, even if wasn’t a snow day, I would have likely found a way to wriggle out of work and go shooting. It was simply breath taking outside.

They called a winter weather warning last night, which I instantly shrugged off. I was certain that because I was so sick of snow, it was just going to… not snow. But apparently my desire for the contrary wasn’t enough and the snow gods decided to give us one more dose of the white stuff. It dumped nearly 9 inches while we slept and when we woke up we were gifted yet another snow day. Now, could we have gotten to work, yes, but you see, today was also my moms birthday and I believe she had a secret desire to spend the day at home too.

I did have to run to work for a bit to take care of some client needs and took that opportunity to grab my camera – I was delighted to pull up to the office to see the squirrel who must have taken the wrong turn at Albuquerque. Instead of heading back up to the house, I took a quick lap down Skyline Drive and found a very photogenic blue bird who was kind enough to make sure I got a shot of every side of him, even his good side.

On the way back down the hill I saw the robins again… I mean, how can you NOT see the robins. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! I spent a little time with them again and am still baffled by their numbers. I’m hoping to get an understanding of their numbers soon, but for now I’ll just take delight in the anomaly. I did read last night though, that the high niumbers of robins may correspond directly to a low number of ceder wax wings – which would be a very sad reality if it is indeed true. I assume we will know soon enough.

For now, I’m back up at moms, I cant really think of a better way to spend earth day than celebrate the birth of one of the best, most amazing people on the planet; my mom with my brother, my daughter, the pups and seinor snowman.

Its snowing again… Its April 21st… I’m over it.

Yesterday though, was a gift. It was supposed to rain but it held off long enough for the sun to come out and melt off a majority of what we were given earlier in the week. Signs of spring are everywhere, but no where more than with in the mysterious dances of our feathered friends. I took a drive with my mom through the back roads to the north east of us and then a second trip into the woods with my cousin to find the blue birds.

I’m not sure why its all about birds right now, but it seems to be regardless of intent. I’m enjoying my time with them though. They are truly magnificent creatures. I’m patiently waiting and passing the time until the hills ready themselves for exploration. For now though, I’m just glad these guys are willing to wait around for me to find them.

There is something interesting unfolding in my city right now.

Rapid City, South Dakota is a funny place, it isn’t quite big and it isn’t quite small. Within that conundrum we find ourselves with problems that no one has ever really dealt with before. Our current turmoil seems to be bubbling over a (not so) secret gem located in the heart of our downtown: Art Alley.

Back in 2003(ish) a group of people decided to combat a vandalism problem in an alley through encouragement. This story was recently told by Dennis Halterman at an Art Ally Guild meeting: (forgive me Dennis, I am paraphrasing because I didn’t take very good notes)

“There has always been vandalism back there. I was talking to a gentleman the other day who was telling me he was spraying anti-Vietnam stuff on the walls in that exact alley back in the 70’s. It [vandalism… art… expression] has always been there and it had just gotten painted over with grey paint every time it showed up.  We marveled at the irony of considering grey squares to be more appealing to look at than the “graffiti”. We also chuckled about how Andy Warhol would have loved such a thing. One day in the spring of 2003, back in the alley, two tombstones appeared rather than paint them over with ugly grey squares of paint, a group of us who lived and worked back there decided to add to them and paint more. We wanted shift what was a (all be it a poorly executed) statement into something that was now, simply, “better”. “

Dennis credits this as one of the first actions that started what is now Art Alley.

That loosely gathered team began to paint more stuff in the ally and slowly the efforts gained momentum and the alley has evolved into something truly remarkable. I will quote Dennis again and say “I’ve seen it look better and I’ve seen it look worse”.  In the beginning, there was a very rag-tag management system. A crew of dedicated caretakers would spend warm summer days with a paint brush and white latex paint and they would brush out the inappropriate or the unappealing. Once a year in March they would go back there and “wash out” whole walls and clean it out to create fresh new space for new art. But some of those folks have moved on or grown tired and the unstructured maintenance has slowed dramatically. The painting hasn’t however and without that magic eraser there to blot out the unpleasant, the unpleasant has become more visible and the visibility has gotten noticed.

There are lots of people who are frustrated with what the alley has become. There are complaints that it’s not “art” anymore, that the only thing painted on the walls now is vandalism and tagging. This isn’t true however, there are some of the best pieces I have ever seen down there on the walls right now. There are complaints from the business owners that their property is being destroyed and their historical buildings and rooftops are being damaged. There are complaints from citizens who are greeted not only by bright colors in the alley but by drunken people and filth. There are complaints from artists that their hard work gets covered by someone else’s scribbles faster than the paint can dry. All of these complaints are valid but the solution is simple. If people can just behave like decent human beings back there, then all of these problems go away. Now, is that practical, no – but the challenge becomes: how do you spread the message that Art Alley is a place for good behavior, a place to be treasured and a place where people want to come to be inspired?

It’s not enough to say “Art Alley is cool”, but it is also not that hard to respect something. I myself am planning to take some ownership of the alley as I will encourage the rest of my community to do. The interesting thing about placing value on something is that you have to, then, care for it. You can’t just say “this thing, this thing right here, is worth something to me.“ and then cast it aside. If it’s a trinket or a trophy, you put it in a case; if it is a nice car you get it tuned up. I’m not going to say you have to go down there and paint, or that we need a 24-7 watch team to protect it from vandals, but I think things that are treated with respect tend to get respected and things that are neglected tend to fall and decay. There is an excellent discussion going on right now and an exciting experiment in collaborative open source creativity is being conducted right here in this funny town in South Dakota. If you are so inclined, I strongly encourage you to join the conversation.

I rode my bike through the alley last night after attending a meeting about how to handle this goliath of an intangible thing and one thing I noticed was that there were about 5 groups of the usual “lookers” going through it and not one of them was complaining about anything – to the contrary, they were marveling, oohing and aaahing. They weren’t looking at the “crime” or the “vandalism” or the “politics” they just saw the alley, they saw the colors and they saw the art … and in that, to me, there’s hope.

For roughly 10 years now, a relatively small amount of space has given so much to so many. For the artists, it is a place to not only express themselves, but to develop skill and practice and become whatever it is we are all striving to be. It is a place where the lost have been able to find their light, change their lives and in turn touch the lives of others. [If you don’t know about the Lakota Voice Project, I strongly encourage you to do some reading up on what those guys are doing. It’s a truly remarkable story as well as an incredibly enlightening example of how we as people can handle the responsibility of being there for each other. ]

Art Alley is so much more than paint on walls, it’s not just a place for the lost to get found or the young to grow; it is a place to find things you didn’t know you were looking for. Art Alley is a place where impossible things happen, a place of vulnerable beauty, organic creation and endless potential.

… And how can you not love something like that?

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The slidesow at the top of this page is a collection of some of the many photographs I have taken over the years. Its been a fun journey to go back and look at what has caught my eye.