Wintery Walk ▌Cochise County Photographer, Arizona

We've been battling a series of colds and bacterial infections since Christmas, rendering the children unable to attend the gym hourly care, the McDonald's play area, or any other communal play zone that we would usually frequent during long vacation days. Probably for the best as today we found ourselves out communing with nature, the boys excited to give their new binoculars a go, always anxious to make tracks and poke at various animal scat with Grand Bob's nifty hiking poles. We went to the San Pedro River Riparian National Conservation Area, about 20 minutes from home, perfectly flat = great for little legs, and plenty of flora and fauna to entertain. For Christmas I was gifted a new Sigma 10-20mm F4.0 wide angle lens, a toy that I am still, well, toying with. It's an odd sensation to be about 3 inches from the children and still have their whole body in the frame, or to be pointing the camera up to the sky and still see the ground by my feet. I forced myself to stick to it today and was rewarded with a handful of interesting shots. Have you ever wondered "to where does tumble weed tumble??" Today I found out; the Riparian area is along the San Pedro River bed, which forms a sort of natural boundary across the desert. Just before the towering Poplar trees there stood a wall, basically comprised of tumble weed! Though it didn't photograph too well (third image down), and I'm determined to go back and do it justice, it was a pretty neat sight to see, all the tumble weed captured among the various trees. These are my favorites from the day: