Driving through Isleta Marsh on the way to work. The foliage gets prettier every day

dramatic clouds in the sky this morning

We are having work done on our house - coming home and enjoying the improvements made while we were gone (the best 2 so far are a light switch in the pump house where our chest freezer is so we don't have to grope for a light pull in the dark, and 2 new light switches in the finished shed where my parrots live, so I don't have to turn the lights off at the circuit breaker box)

an evening at the balloon fiesta last night. The balloon glow didn't happen because of wind but:
temperature was perfect
food was good
we had a beautiful view of really amazing cloud formations over the Sandia mountains while the sun was setting, plus all the different light conditions as the sun was sinking. And the mountains always turn pink at some point during a good sunset
we got to see the fireworks
we were home by 8:30

I was really disappointed because we were supposed to see the special shapes balloons, which are my absolute favorite part, but as we were leaving, I decided to buy a program so I could at least see pictures of all the balloons, and then I felt much better. And then the fireworks started - I thought we were going to miss those too, but they did them early because there was no balloon glow. They had these very cool curly fireworks. Maybe next year they will get to do the special shapes glow (it didn't happen last year because of awful weather).

Today's bird photo - Northern Mockingbird. Not a flashy bird, except when it's flying, but one of my favorites because I love to hear them sing

Learning about the Masked Flowerpiercer

Allison