Kerr Dam, May 2013

I'm waiting for the director to sign my papers so I can work, he wasn't there earlier so I will check back maybe close to eleven or ten thirty. It's been a process seeking work. I'm glad I'm healthy enough to work. This picture was taken in May I think over by Kerr Dam, we drove on Valley View road to Vicki's dad place in the old agency housing. We walked down to Kerr Dam and visited the site. I was unsure about my physical condition and did not want to over exert myself and trigger another heart attack. I didn't trigger another heart attack and this picture was a testament to it. The mountains in back are the Missions, they are part of a chain of mountains that stretches from Saint Ignatius all the way to Big Fork and beyond. I think the mountains are very picturesque so I don't have a problem photographing them.

As you can see, the grass it quite brown because it hasn't rained in awhile, it rained all winter but it did not freeze, we had two days where it froze or where we had any snow, I was disappointed by their winter. I thought we were in for it. The mountains received a reasonable amount of snow but not in the lowlands around Polson and Pablo, Montana. There were plenty of days when it was overcast and cold, it was cold but not too cold. So it was enlightening living up here for a winter and seeing a different locale than New Mexico. I was homesick but I got over it and enjoyed the winter somewhat. The Morigeau family experienced a horrific winter, their favorite son, Doug Morigeau was brutally murdered in December. His attacker just wanted cigarettes. I can't believe his reasoning, he was murdered for a pack of cigarettes, logic escapes me when I think about it. Doug's murder has yet to be tried and might end up in the mental hospital, we are hoping he gets at least life imprisonment or the death penalty. This country's justice system needs overhauling. Murderers can get out of prison in maybe ten, twelve years while the people they murdered are gone forever. Something is not right with the system.

 

It rained this afternoon.

Okay, can't get it the way I want, dang, it rained this afternoon. I moved the computer downstairs because the bed was causing my back discomfort. Hmm, thought I write another blog post today, I been writing every day for months now but never posted anything, time to change that. This photo was taken over by the BIA dormitories. I was parked by the new medical center on the road in the morning. I liked the shape of the clouds and the light shining off the clouds. It was last month when this picture was taken. I remember Ollie asking for a ride. When I pulled into his place another friend came out with them and another older Jicarilla Apache gentleman. I won't mention his name but from what I gather he was locked out of his house and had no way to get in. I drove him to several places to see if he could find a place for him to stay until his wife returned from wherever she went. Oh, she had locked all the doors and windows so he was locked out period. Eventually we met up with his friend and he borrowed that friend's vehicle and drove off. Damm it looks pretty wet outside. It is seven thirty six but looks later than that.

 

I been taking pictures pretty regularly since I had my heart attack in January, it has been an amazing journey, I been going back and using all the available identification tags like descriptive and geotag to show where the photograph was snapped. It's kind of annoying at this late to do all of them, I don't honestly know how many photographs I have, literally thousands. so it will be a challenge to label all of them, I honestly don't know what to do with all of them. I don't want to just delete, I went through a lot of trouble color correcting them and where ever needed I cropped them. I don't usually like to crop them but if the building in the background is too small, I will crop them and make them stand out more prominently. When I started photographs I never knew it would grow so fast, my collection that is.

 

Wow, look at the color on this photo, when I first returned from Montana, I walked up the hill to the north and west near the water tower to the north. I kept on walking after I reached the top and walked west toward the mesa that frames the town of Dulce. It was in the morning and the sun was at my back. I've learned not to take photos when the sun is directly over head or into the sun, it will show a funky color and sheen so I've tried to avoid those situations. You can see this rock because it is visible from down below.

 

It's been awhile since I posted in this blog, I been back home since June 22, but haven't paid attention to this site. So here I go, this photo was snapped on the way to Santa Fe on August 17th, 2013. It was a beautiful morning and we left Dulce about seven thirty, this was about eight thirty or so. Usually, there has been a gatekeeper at the entrance charging a fee but he was no where in sight this year. I love the blue of the sky, god, it just inspires my sense of wonder. so I was happy we stopped in at this rest stop, the area around here is part of our aboriginal homeland and Abiquii, about eleven miles to the southeast was where they had the first Gogiiya ceremony back in the 1800's. Gogiiya translates as Knife Edge. So after we left this place we headed to Santa Fe, we stopped at Bode's Store in Abiquii and had tamales for a snack. We arrived in Santa Fe about ten in the morning and immediately went to the DeVargas Mall where we had breakfast at Atrisco Bar and Grill inside the mall.

After breakfast my friend Reynard Faber asked one of the people in the restaurant if he could change into his Indian outfit so he went and retrieved his suitcase and dressed in the bathroom. We left and I drove to the north side of the mall where we parked across from Domino's Pizza, we were careful not to park in any of their designated spots so we wouldn't get towed. We boarded the city bus and it was free for Indian Market weekend. We arrived near the plaza and proceeded to Dominic Arquero's booth space where my friend Reynard was asked to take pictures by the tourists from all over the world, he asked for a donation from those wanting to take pictures with him, anywhere from a dollar to five dollars. As the day wore on, we knew we were tired and I wanted to leave before it got dark, I was stopped by a tribal patrol officer and said my license place light was out, so I wanted to get back to Dulce before the sun went down. So we left around five thirty and headed home.

 

We were on the outskirts of Tierra Amarilla when I heard this funny sound, it was a thumping kind of sound and we knew that we were having a flat tire. We made it as far the Chevron station in Tierra Amarilla and proceeded to change the tire. Only thing was that the donut tire was low. I walked over to the trailer next to the station and asked the person if they had a pump. The man I spoke to said he had a cigarette lighter pump and went to get it. We changed the tire and waited for him, he came a few minutes later and we plugged it into the lighter. We thought it would air up fast but it wasn't and my friend notices that there was a tear in the valve stem. So we knew we had to leave it there overnight, we asked the man if he could give us a ride to Chama and Reynard would call his nephew to come pick us up. We told the older Hispanic man we would give him money for taking us. He went next door and soon they returned, I loaded my ruined tire and rim into the back of his suburban and headed for Chama. He waited with us at the Chama Grill while his nephew drove to get us. After his nephew came the elderly gentleman and his wife left us there. We had dinner at the grill and headed to Dulce.

Echo Canyon in the morning on the way to Santa Fe Indian Market.

 

May 17th, 2013

Yesterday we were down in the Moiese Valley on the Flathead River. The whole student body from Two Eagle River School was in attendance along with most of the faculty and the family of Doug Morigeau. We were there to dedicate that fishing area to Doug Morigeau, he was brutally murdered in December 2012 by William Lee Calvert in a home invasion. The family and his friends went to the Salish Kootenai Tribal Council to obtain permission to dedicate that area in his name. Doug Morigeau loved to fish in this spot.  The horses were there because Doug was also a cowboy in his younger days and his father (Sonny Morigeau) and brother (John Morigeau) still keep a few head. They also have hay fields which they used  to feed their cattle and horses.

Cheryl Morigeau, Doug's wife is in the red jacket. The woodburning was done by Shawn Dobey (I'm not sure), the art teacher at Two Eagle River School. The poem in the middle was written by Ashley Lozeau. There were approximately one hundred people in attendance.

From left to right are: Elmer (Sonny) Morigeau, (Doug's father) Jermain Charlo (Granddaughter), Vicki Morigeau (Daughter), Donovan Sorrell Morigeau (Grandson). walking away under an umbrella are Rosalie Sheridan (daughter of Tom Sheridan) and Heather from Browning. We were there to honor his memory. The festivities started with a prayer by a Two Eagle employee and Rudy King from the Northern Cheyenne reservation who prayed in his language. Rudy King is the husband of Clarice King, the recently retired principal of the Two Eagle River School. After the prayers a drum group composed of area family members and members of the Two Eagle River student body sang a memorial song in his honor.

The photo is of Shawn Morigeau leading a black horse away from the gathering and tying it to a tree. Shawn and other family rode from their homesite to the park in his memory. The park is in a very picturesque spot along the Flathead River south of the highway that winds through the Moiese Valley.

From left to right are: Charlotte Morigeau (John Morigeau's wife) Ted Schall (Doug Morigeau's best friend),  Claudette Bird (Rodney Bird's wife) walking away, Judy Gibbs with glasses and Lisa (the librarian) with red hair. We were waiting for the dedication to begin and shooting the breeze with people we knew.

Vicki was taking  photos of the dedication so I took a couple of her.

Today is may 6th, and it's beautiful, spent the weekend out on the flathead rez taking pictures. I took over 190 and there was some beautiful pictures. I always edit them before posting them, it's been my practice for the last four years. I regretted not editing them so I won't post them if they're color corrected.  Some of the people said I should do a coffee table outlay of my pictures but I'm not sure how to do it.

This weekend we attended the Kickinghorse powwow in the afternoon, they weren't that many people in the afternoon but it picked that night. We left so we could go visit Vicki's dad down in the Old Agency. We didn't arrive until after one because we took Valley View road via Kerr Dam road. It was pretty scenic, the brown grass of a couple of weeks ago has been replaced by green, green grass, it makes photography awesome.

This was taken on Friday when we drove down to Buffalo bridge on the west side of the reservation. I wanted to discover a new area of the reservation where we haven't been to. So driving down here was awesome, the Flathead River is beginning to run at high tide and it make the river huge and dangerous, they advise people not to run the river, the river is running fast and very high.