I’ve been working on this image a bit today. I bought an Epson P700 a month or so ago, and have been printing some images for my own enjoyment.
The “Carbon Black” feature in the P700 seems like just the thing to use on an image like this, but one of the things I needed to remember to do was not set the darkest black in the image to 2 or 3, so that you can see the difference between it and the next-darkest black (trying to avoid the blacks blocking up). With the Carbon Black setting, you need to have full range data for it to do its magic.
I don’t have it completely figured out, but I’m getting prints I’m happy enough about to set them aside so I can maybe frame them later. I’m glad I bought the printer, and I’m glad I’m sticking to an iOS-only workflow. It’s (re-) teaching me things I’d forgotten over the years through familiarity.
Next up on the list to relearn: “selective color” so I can punch up the yellow flowers at his feet just a tiny bit.
Today’s project was getting rocks around the culvert that runs under our driveway. It was also full of gravel and weeds and at least one nest for one of the neighborhood rodents.
Alfredo cleaned it out and built the nice rock walls to keep the dirt from washing into the culvert again, finishing off the rock projects for this year.
Feels good to have that crossed off the todo list.
By the time we finished with the planting last night, the sun had set, so it was too dark for a progress photo. I took the photo above before we started working again this morning.
This second photo is when we’re done for the morning. We’ve got one more sand cherry to plant up next to the shop (the building in the near-middle background of these photos), but that’ll be tomorrow morning. Digging holes in the clay soil here is hard work.
Another day, more rocks moved about. We also planted five Russian Sage plants by our front gate.
Then after getting them planted, I spent an hour chatting with our neighbor, Greg. He says he’s kind of envious of how much we’ve improved the look of the place in the year since we moved in, which is nice to hear.
When we moved to #NewMexico, one of our new neighbors told us that the official state hobby was rearranging rocks.
Well, I guess we’re officially New Mexicans now. Heading to town in the morning for a second two pallets of rock, another two yards of topsoil, and a bunch of plants. But I think the place is looking a lot better with the work we’re having done.
My sweetie has been working in the yard this evening. And three times now she’s been interrupted by a passing shower. I don’t think we’ve had a measurable amount of rain between all three of the showers, but each one has settled the dust a little and made the air smell a little better. It’s a nice evening!
On my morning walk today, I noticed this cholla with its yellow fruits. It was a nice splash of color on a cloudy morning, and something I remember seeing here on some of my first walks after we moved to Santa Fe.
Hard to believe it’s been a year already, but it has. Time flies when you’re having fun!
Looked out this morning to see this spectacular sky to our northeast. It’s quite a #sunrise. There’s a little hint of smoke left in the sky, but mostly we’re back to our normal #NewMexico skies. Yay!
