A Spring in Springtime

Patterson Canyon Spring (near Magdalena, NM), March 5, 2011 ("Abstraction" filter in Topaz Labs Detail)



Patterson Canyon Spring detail (semi-abstract)



First, a note about the Bead Soup Blog Party: I'm still working my way through the 210 wonderful blogs; the last 10 days have been crazy-busy but this week (after tomorrow) should be a bit better. I want to both see and comment on everything, so if you haven't heard from me, you will soon! God that was fun, and I can't wait to do it again.

I finally got out for my first hike of the year yesterday, a favorite short hike up near a friend's house that was enough to get my heart pumping but not too much to stress my winter-lazy muscles and bones (and slowly recovering immune system). Our weather is up in the 50s and 60s most days, and the sun makes it feel even warmer than that, so as I've been recovering from my never-ending sinus/etc. infection I've been feeling restless to get outside -- a sure sign of both recovery and springtime. The shot above wasn't much on its own, so I put it through my Topaz Labs Detail plug-in for Photoshop and decided to go a different way with their "Abstraction" filter, to give this image a painted feel. This little spring runs all year round, and the new green reeds tell of warmer days and nights even up around 7500 feet. So, although my beloved Lucydog still isn't ready to hike (she needed more surgery, and the healing clock for her is reset to 8+ weeks), I can't resist any longer and so will start reconditioning myself to both the exertion and higher altitudes again. I need to hike. Not when it's cold -- I don't need to do anything that forces me to struggle to stay warm when it's cold outside -- but now, yes, it's time to get back out there, leave my ego-self behind, and live in that place of the moment, whatever it might be called.