January, 2008

We have a lot of snow. There is probably 2 feet of snow on the ground in Rexburg right now. It’s been snowing and blowing and doing what it normally does in the Upper Snake River Valley in the winter I guess. I took a drive out around the farm fields SE of town this evening after work. I wanted to see how big the drifts were. I wasn’t disappointed. In places the road seemed like a narrow canyon between tall walls of snow. The drifts were as high as twelve feet in places. I didn’t dare stop in these places to photograph because the road was narrow and the visibility wasn’t great. I may have to get out in better conditions to photograph it though, because it is quite impressive. Here are a few snowy scenes from the excursion.

Snowy Road, Madison County, ID 2008

Snowy Field, Madison County, ID 2008

Drift, Walker, ID 2008

Snow-covered Potato Cellar and Road, Walker, ID 2008

At the end of Snowfest the city soaks a bunch of Christmas Trees with a flammable liquid of some sort and lights them on fire. It’s a fun way to spend an evening. Enjoy!

Every year Rexburg celebrates Snowfest a festival the city created to try to force its residents into enjoy the miserable winter weather. It was held this past Saturday and we participated in the fun. Some of the festivities include ice sculpture, sledding, horse-drawn carriage rides, treasure hunts, a polar bear club (maybe I’ll join next year), and a big bonfire at the end of the night. It really is a fun time. We had plenty of snow and the weather was relatively nice.

Kevin and Ethan Sledding (Ethan seems a bit concerned)

Jacob on the Sled (Jacob seems quite concerend)

Susan and Jacob in front of the “Road Apple Trolley”

Jacob Warming Up at Home with Hot Chocolate

I think every school in Eastern Idaho is closed today except BYU-Idaho of course. This has been quite a winter so far. We’ve had snow, wind and cold temperatures. I think it’s the first winter we’ve had since moving to Rexburg that matches up to some of the typical eastern Idaho winters I remember as a child.

Jon was kind enough to send me some photos he took of us fishing on New Year’s Eve. It was between 8 and 15 degrees, but we had fun. Fish were rising pretty steadily to midges. Between Jon, Kristi, and myself we probably caught around 40 fish. We caught a few on streamers, but most of them were on dries. In spite of the cold it was pretty fun.

As many of you know there is a new LDS temple soon to be dedicated in Rexburg. There is an open house going on for the next few weeks and we thought it would be fun to bring the children into the temple for a look. For the open house you are supposed to get tickets, which more than anything helps distribute the visitors throughout the days and the weeks. Four days after putting the tickets (150,000 of them) on line they were gone. We didn’t get any and were pretty disappointed. Well, a while later they released a few more and we managed to get some tickets for this morning at 7 am. So we loaded up the kids and went. It was probably a good time to get tickets because the crowds were small and it got us all up for a productive day. Come to find out, we probably didn’t need tickets. They never asked for, or checked ours. I probably wasn’t supposed to let that be known.

It was very nice. The architecture (the windows looked great Tyler), the art work (Leon Parson’s panels in the instruction rooms are spectacular), and the people volunteering in the temple were all just really nice. Most of the paintings in the temple were landscapes of specific local, rather than general, scenes, which I appreciated. If I had to do it again I would find a sitter for Jacob, who wouldn’t walk and made us (mostly me, but Susan also to her credit) carry him the whole time. There are four or five flights of stairs and he’s a big two-year old. I would have also left my coat in the car, it got pretty hot walking around. I’m glad that we all (especially Kevin and Ethan) got to see the temple though. It was a great start to the day and week. Unfortunately it was too dark and cold for any temple pictures or family snapshots on the temple grounds.

After our visit to the temple we came home and had a quick breakfast, I dropped Kevin off at school and had to take advantage of the beautiful light. I took my favorite winter drive and snapped a few images before coming back to the University to get ready for classes, which start Wednesday.

Snow and Sky, Rexburg, ID 2008

Spruce in Snow (and a bit of the temple), Rexburg, ID 2008

Center Pivot Reverser (I doubt reverser is a word), Rexburg, ID 2008

Hay Stack with Snow Drifts, Walker, ID 2008

For some reason I’ve been a little more motivated than usual to enter my work in shows. My friend Mike Slade has organized a panoramic show that goes up next week. He invited me to participate, which I appreciate. I also recently joined the Idaho Falls Arts Council. Their annual member show goes up this week and I was able to get three potato cellar triptychs in the show. My friends Jon and Andy also alerted me to call for entries to Altered Landscapes, a show at the Newspace Center for Photography in Portland Oregon. I submitted some images and got a piece in. This show goes up in early February. It will be nice to have a few people get to see the work. Here are the images that got in the shows.

Potato Cellar, Hamer, ID 2007 (this image is in the panoramic show as well as the Idaho Falls show)

Potato Cellar, Osgood, ID 2004-2006 (Idaho Falls show)

Cinder Block Potato Cellars, 2004-2007 (Idaho Falls show)

Cove Dam (before and after dam removal), Grace, ID 2004 & 2007 (Altered Landscape show)

Well it seems like it started snowing Christmas Eve and never let up. However, the sun finally broke through a couple of days ago and it’s been quite nice (if a bit cold). It warmed up today and it’s actually raining right now and there is a forecast for blizzard conditions tonight through Sunday. That’s winter I suppose. On Monday Jon, Kristi, and I actually did a little fishing. It was really cold, but we managed to catch around 40 fish between us. Jon took pictures, I was too busy fishing. Hopefully he’ll put some photos on his blog soon. Over the past couple of days I’ve been getting out and making a few snowy/wintry photographs. I start teaching again on Wednesday. Even though I’ve enjoyed the break. I’m sort of looking forward to a routine. Here are some photographs.

Flags, Rexburg, ID 2007

Snowmobile Tracks, Rexburg, ID 2007

Discarded Christmas Tree, Rexburg, ID 2007

Grass and Snow, Newdale, ID 2007

Sprinklers, Hog Hollow, ID 2007