• landscape,  mountains,  quotes,  Smoky Mountains National Park

    We called it home…

    We did not regard the mountains and forests as wilderness; we called it home.

    Luther Standing Bear
    Sunrise on the Foothills Parkway, Great Smoky Mountains Park

    I found this quote and realized how truly distant we are from nature. It would be interesting to know how many people in the world never step foot into nature or even consider calling it home. Anyway, I roamed around in my archives to find images of mountains and forests to go along with the quote. I found the pickings rather slim because I am attached more to the open landscapes of the prairie rather than mountains even though I live in Colorado. Go figure! I found this image taken on the Foothills Parkway in the Great Smoky Mountains back in October of 2003 with my trusty Nikon D100. It has been cool and cloudy here today but no rain. I put on a crockpot of chicken tortilla soup this morning since it was going to be a cooler day. I got my Covid and RSV shots about 4 hours ago and no side effects so far. I hope you are enjoying your day!

  • blogging,  writing/reading

    This Theme’s New Look

    One of the sculptures at Benson Sculpture Gardens

    If you visit here often you will notice visual changes to this blog. I have changed the name of this blog from Monte Stevens Photography Blog to Monte Stevens Blog. I am still using the same free theme, Savona Edge by Optima Themes, but made a few tweaks to it. I have gone back to the theme’s original fonts. That way, I get rid of the Fonts Plugin. I am liking it so far but I could still add the plugin later. I have also removed the right sidebar so that blogging is more the focus. I blog because I wish to share my images and words for the joy I receive from that experience and not my ego. I now have a dropdown menu located in the footer for Categories, Archives, and giving the reader the ability of subscribing to notifications of new posts, it that interests you. Be aware you will get an email each time I post which could be 20-25 days a month. The Blogroll that was located in the sidebar is now on the main menu at the top which loads up a page of blogs I follow and websites I have interests in. You can check them out if you’re bored or can’t go to sleep or want to see if you’re listed.

    If you do take a look at my Archives menu you will find my blog posts from 2009-2011 do not have images attached. And, this could be true of any post due to the import process. When I exported those posts I failed to also export the media. So I’ve imported the blog posts without them and will add the files later when the snow is falling and it’s too cold to be outside or I just say to heck with them. I’m not sure they are that important to anyone but me as I’m finding I actually am enjoying the process of looking back over those old posts.

    Please let me know what you think of the new look and if you find any issues.