Bye Bye Balloons

This past Sunday morning was the last event of the 2013 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. It was a pretty good lift off - a lot of balloons came up. The winds took them to the West of us so we didn't have many land anywhere close.

Betty and I agreed the same feeling we have on the afternoon of the last Sunday of the Fiesta is similar to the feeling we have Christmas Day afternoon. It's over and we'll have to wait a whole year to build up our anticipation for 2014.

A couple of balloons did fly over the house so I made a couple of pictures just for the fun of it.

 

 

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Those Magnificent Men - Part II

Yesterday's balloon show was pretty great and we're fortunate to get one of those each year. This morning the early balloons, the Dawn Patrol, all went more to the West so we didn't expect many, if any, balloons to land around our house.

Boy, were we wrong!

This first, beautiful balloon is a Swiss Chocolate company - yummm!

An astronaut balloon flew over, but didn't land close to us.

These next two pictures are in the sage area across the street from our house where a lot of balloons often land.

Once again Sugar and Morgunn had an exciting morning.

Here's a short video of our second, great morning balloon show.

However, the real excitement of the morning came shortly before Betty left for her Bible study.

I was out in our driveway taking video and she was in our living room. I noticed the Phillips 66 balloon was coming in from our back and he was pretty low. He was so low it caused Sugar to take off at a gallop.

It quickly became obvious he was going to go right in front of our house and probably land on our street.

Betty in the living room heard his propane blasts and came out to our courtyard.

As he passed by, the pilot hollered to Betty and asked if she wanted to 'catch me.' Betty being the adventurer she is said, 'Sure.' And she did.

She went out to the street and caught the basket as it touched down. You'll see her in her light blue jacket in the video and picture below.

Great catch, sweetie!

After all this excitement, Betty went to her Bible study and after that we went to have lunch at our favorite Corrales restaurant, The Indigo Crow.

A fun day!

 

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Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Balloons

Every other year or so, we get a magnificent display of balloons from the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. This morning, Tuesday, was one of those days when dozens of balloons fly over and around our house and many land close to us.

It all started when I was out feeding the horses and I made a timelapse movie of the sunrise and some of the early Dawn Patrol balloons coming by.

The rest of the morning was filled with balloons coming all around and landing close by.

The largest special shape balloon, Creamland Dairy's Airabelle, even landed down the street from us. She seemed to be happy to be back on the ground.

And Humpty Dumpty flew over the house.

One balloon named Kim's Winddancer II piloted by a family from Wisconsin landed in the street right outside our drive. This first picture is from the end of our drive.

These next two pictures were taken from up the street looking back toward our house which in on the left in each picture.

All of this balloon movement, color and noise gave Sugar and Morgunn an exciting morning.

Finally, here's a video that gives an overview of our unforgettable balloon morning.

 

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Balloons, Fish and Plants

The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta started Saturday morning. Even though the weather was good both days, the winds took the balloons to the South so we couldn't see them very well.

This morning, Monday, the winds were more to the North so the balloons came up our way. We didn't have a lot land close to us as in the past, but we did have a few.

In the early afternoon, Betty and I went over to the Galloping Grace Youth Pumpkin Patch to volunteer for three hours. The Ranch is moving toward an agricultural experience for kids. One of Max's projects is Aquaponics.

Max built a demonstration of aquaponics for the Pumpkin Patch. Our goal is to have several, larger functioning aquaponics units for the Ranch next summer that will produce a lot of produce.

The process starts with fish and, as we all know, fish, like most animals, poop in the water.

This poopy water is pumped up to the plants where the poop ingredients act as nutrients for the plants.

Once the water has flowed through the plants, they absorb the poopy nutrients and the water, now clean, is returned to the fish tank. And the process continues on and on.

Pretty cool, huh?

 

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