These were my candidates for an amateur photo contest with the theme "arches."

I joined an Amateur Photography Contest on Facebook. You can check out their past winners right HERE ON BLOGGER. Each week there is a new theme. This week's theme is "arches." Scoring is based on the quality of the photo and on how well it suits the theme. Here are the "arches" shots I got today. I've got too busy a week to go shoot some more original arches like my the arches on my niece and nephew's precious feet or to make arches out of penny structures and shoot that.

I already chose the toilet arch and the tree with the long reaching "arms" with its "elbows" resting on the ground.

Too bad I don't have more time. I'll be in San Antonio all day tomorrow. Don't you know they have some fun architecture there? I could have gotten some really fly arches.

Above: This awesome tree has two long, spindly branches that arch down to the ground. To me, it looks like the tree's elbows are resting on the ground. This tree resides on the hill near the Fort Clark Springs spring-fed pool. It's a lovely pool.

Above: This tree forms the oddest arch over this little road that goes down to some picnic areas on the far side of the Fort Clark Springs pool.

Above: This was my favorite "arches" themed shot. The arched window sits above the door to an outside bathroom at the Post Theater on Fort Clark Springs.

Above: This is the same arched tree in the second shot from a different angle.

Above: Same tree as in the first shot.

Above: A lovely arched gateway to a private residence on Fort Clark Springs.

Above and below: An ongoing restoration project on Fort Clark Springs.

Tularosa Road

Above: This might be my favorite photo of the Tularosa bunch. Click it to see it full size, personally, I think it's worth a look.

Not everything on Tularosa Road was scary today (see previous entry). Some of it was quite lovely. I got another shot at the Common Mestra butterfly which made me very happy because I was thoroughly dissatisfied with my shots of it a few weeks ago.





Above : This is where I stopped to rest. It looks like Hagrid's cave collapsed behind that tree or something. Below: I like to burn incense outside. I light it at cemeteries (when visiting my late peeps) or whenever I'm feeling especially witchy. I also like to think it keeps the skeeters off me when I'm having an impromptu picnic.

Above: Cactus is some tenacious stuff, ain't it?

Above and below: The aforementioned Mestra.

Above: I had no idea the Snout was such an ambitious butterfly. Everywhere I looked on Tularosa Road today the Snouts were covering these, um, round whatever-they-ares that grow on some trees here. They're hard like a rock. No idea what kind of trees they grow on or just what exactly the Snouts were attempting to do with these things. But they were fighting for space on them.

Update! My friend Darbee says, "The little round rock like balls growing on trees are called "oak galls." They are home to a little larva insect and they grow in the gall and then turn into a real bug, or something like that. We had them in the Park and people came in all the time asking what kind of nut that was. Not sure what kind of insect that it is growing in them though." So I looked it up and it's apparently gall wasps (aka gallflies) that grow inside them. That's what causes the large tan ball as well as all the little tiny red balls above! I'm so glad I didn't taste one!

Orgenta Sunset in Brackettville

I decided this little fossil rock was so pretty that it really could be something you'd find in Art & Artifact . Seriously! All it would need is a little marketing and the claim that it was made from resin or cultured marble instead of real, genyooine limestone.

All I'd have to do is photograph it next to something important looking, like a Stephen Hawking book or something written by Milton Erickson and the caption would have to be something along the lines of, "Made from compound stone with an antique stone finish, this exquisite recreation of the mysterious Italian chunk-o-ruin found in that barn behind that house that looks like it might have some historical significance in Avezzano, Italy." And then I could sell it for $29.95. Click the pic to enlarge it, it really does look like it fell off the column of some ancient Italian or Grecian ruin.

No? Well, while I was trying to set up the shot for this lame joke I happened to notice some not artificial exquisiteness coming through my kitchen window and I ran outside in my socks, stood in the freshly shoveled earth from my husband's recent plumbing work on the house, and tried to capture the amazing orange and magenta light coming through the trees during the sunset. I didn't capture what I saw, but the light is still pretty. I was so excited about this op, I took about 50 shots before I lost the light. The sunsets aren't always so colorful here in Brackettville.

More pix of our Magenta Orange Sunset