Christmas...Bah, Bug!

No Hum about it, we had the bug and for the second year in a row, missed out on Orphan’s Christmas dinner at Skee and family’s. Last year, Nick had the flu; a pretty bad case as I recall. This year, it started with me – not the flu, fortunately, just a cold. Then Nick adopted the bug so that, by Christmas eve, we recognized that we would be bah-humbug-ed out of Skee’s house if we went for dinner carrying pumpkin pie and a bag of cough drops. What a disappointment. We stayed home with our little pear of a piñon pine. At least I felt well enough on Thursday to slip out to Albertson’s and buy what we would otherwise be missing: a turkey and supporting cast.

On Wednesday, Nick was walking Nutmeg around the block and encountered one of our neighbors. He mentioned that I was home sick and he was on the verge. On Christmas eve, these neighbors showed up with a comforting gift of bread and cheese. Carlene is one of our celebrated artists. She even turns her bread into art. She told me that she celebrates the Solstice by creating bread as animals. This year, it is Raven. Wonderful to look at. Better to eat. Following instructions, I warmed part of it on Christmas Day for lunch and served it with home-made curry squash soup, made out of the butternut squash I would have used to make pie for Orphans’ Christmas dinner.

For all our East-Coast snow-shoveling friends, I want you to know that we get the white stuff also! Several days before Christmas, we woke up to a snow-softened world. Several inches had fallen overnight, leaving us with the weight of snow-laden pine branches and the insular silence that is unique to falling flakes. The sky began to clear by mid-morning and by noon, the roads were black and drying. Although we did not bring a snow shovel with us, Nick did get to do a little shoveling down the driveway and up the walk with an old flat blade shovel we have. There was enough snow left on the north side of the hills and in the lee of rocks and shade of trees at Christmas that we didn’t have to “dream” of a white Christmas, we just had to look in the right places!

I have been watching the Sun-News with cautious optimism since our local hero, Zulu, darted off after saving her person. I’ve wondered how long those committed to her rescue would be able to continue their search. The good news is, it would appear that she is still alive, despite the heavy snow that fell at elevation and the weeks she’s spent in the wild. The story in the paper this morning shows images and recounts sightings that suggest that she is still in the area; the speculation is that she is traveling a loop that traces the route she and her person took from the start of their hike at Emery Pass down into the valley where Sumrall was found with Zulu lying on him, keeping him warm. I have renewed hope that perhaps she can be eventually lured in to food and captured.

I hope this season of light is keeping you warm and dry, and with those whom you cherish. Love, Sonnie

"The Elderly" Rock -- Black Tie at the Buff

Our friends have an adult daughter who was also attending the Black Tie at the Buff. In discussing where to pick a table, she told her mom that “the elderly” like to sit on the main floor… So, ok, here’s “the elderly”’s night at the Buffalo Dance Hall, transformed for the Gilded Masquerade Ball.

Being “elderly” in Silver City is proving to be a lot of fun. Take a look at the rest of the evening: Black Tie at the Buff – A Gilded Masquerade

And being adopted into the hearts of new friends here is proving to be, more than fun, embracing! We dropped by some friends yesterday to deliver Goodness Gracies – our small token of Christmas wishes. We anticipated chatting over coffee for a little while. What we didn’t anticipate was the reaction when I mentioned we hadn’t gotten a Christmas tree. Seems there aren’t Christmas tree vendors on every corner in town like back East. We’d stopped at Walmart to see what they had, and they had sold their last tree two nights ago. I don’t think I would have wanted to be stuck with the last Walmart Christmas tree; probably Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree was better looking. We could have purchased a $5 permit from the Forest Service and gone looking up in the Gila for a tree. But our town-mouse of a Volvo isn’t quite built to drive in on Forest Service (non-paved) roads the requisite distance in order to search for and cut our own tree. On hearing that we were thus far tree-less, our friends took us on a search in their neck of the woods—literally. We ended up cutting a very nice little piñon pine, about 5 feet tall and just as round. Brought it home and set it in the tree stand – PERFECT! We’ll decorate it on Wednesday, probably, since Nick has gone up to Albuquerque today-tomorrow to visit his brother.

But that’s the way people are here. We’ve been welcomed and adopted and embraced by almost everyone we’ve met. I don’t know if the character of Silver City attracts friendly, warm people or friendly, warm people have contributed to the character of Silver City. But we are grateful to be the recipients.

We hope your Christmas is friendly, warm and full of the magic of the season. And your Hanukkah full of lights. And your Winter Soltice brings you the peace and security of knowing that the world is not ending, and the days will get longer and brighter from here on to Spring. ss

12 Days, but no Lords A'Leaping

Last year, I shared with you the venerable Pancho Claus. This year’s seasonal musical treat is a uniquely southwestern rendition of the 12 days of Christmas. Follow the bouncing ball…

12 New Mexico Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
A quail in a piñon tree.

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
2 prickly pears and a quail in a piñon tree.

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
3 black bears, 2 prickly pears and a quail in a piñon tree.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
4 javelina, 3 black bears, 2 prickly pears and a quail in a piñon tree.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
5 turquoise rings…
4 javelina, 3 black bears, 2 prickly pears and a quail in a piñon tree.

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
6 road runners
5 turquoise rings…
4 javelina, 3 black bears, 2 prickly pears and a quail in a piñon tree

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
7 candles gleaming, 6 road runners
5 turquoise rings…
4 javelina, 3 black bears, 2 prickly pears and a quail in a piñon tree

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
8 chilis roasting, 7 candles gleaming, 6 road runners
5 turquoise rings…
4 javelina, 3 black bears, 2 prickly pears and a quail in a piñon tree

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
9 ristras swaying, 8 chilis roasting, 7 candles gleaming, 6 road runners
5 turquoise rings…
4 javelina, 3 black bears, 2 prickly pears and a quail in a piñon tree

On the 10th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
10 mariachis, 9 ristras swaying, 8 chilis roasting, 7 candles gleaming, 6 road runners
5 turquoise rings…
4 javelina, 3 black bears, 2 prickly pears and a quail in a piñon tree

On the 11th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
11 yuccas blooming, 10 mariachis, 9 ristras swaying, 8 chilis roasting, 7 candles gleaming, 6 road runners
5 turquoise rings…
4 javelina, 3 black bears, 2 prickly pears and a quail in a piñon tree

On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
12 coyotes yipping, 11 yuccas blooming, 10 mariachis, 9 ristras swaying, 8 chilis roasting, 7 candles gleaming, 6 road runners
5 turquoise rings…
4 javelina, 3 black bears, 2 prickly pears
AND A QUAIL IN A PIÑON TREE!

Natual Phenomena and Unnatural Acts

Natural Phenoms
We were over at our new property yesterday – boy, is it wonderful to write that – just for the exercise of walking and exploring. We had Nutmeg, of course, and let her off-leash to chase her nose. The weather was wet last weekend so the ground was holding tracks. And there were a lot of them. Found many tracks made by several animals ranging from this year’s juveniles to adults. Mule deer? Javelina? Didn’t have my tracks book so couldn’t be sure. After talking with an experienced hunter last night at a dinner party and also looking in my tracks book this morning, I’m fairly sure they were deer. But I’m still wondering. There are javelina that range the area in general, and the ground where I found a large party of tracks was just where pigs, more than deer, would likely hang out. I guess if 4 leggeds can be said to “hang out” like a bunch of teenagers at the mall.

And Nutmeg made the more interesting find. She dragged out from under a large juniper along the dry creek bed an old skull. It had no lower jaw; the spine/backbone was still attached down to about the 4th vertebra and was curved so that it was parallel to the upper jaw. Once again, my curiosity outran my knowledge. I thought it might be a javelina skull, but now after googling skulls for javelina and for mule deer, I am flummoxed. You wouldn’t think such different critters would fool so easily. Well, s’what happens to a city girl with wild-country pretentions! Had I brought the skull home with me, I wouldn’t have to rely on my memory impressions. But Nutmeg was pretty insistent this was HER bone, not mine, and I had to play Hamlet to the skull in order to keep Nutmeg from snagging it out of my hands. We finally got her distracted and I put the skull back in its resting place under the juniper. Wonder if it will still be there when I go back, having researched and better prepared to make an identification. You might wonder why I should care. MmmMMhmm (translation: verbal shrug). Just want to know who my neighbors, past and present, are.

I’ve watched a full cycle of seasons now, and with that, a full migration cycle. The sparrows so busily stripping the grasses of their seed heads back in October are gone now, replaced by juncos working over the same grasses. The spotted towhees I watched picking through the leaf litter under the scrub oaks last winter migrated to the tips of the oaks to sing their mating drive in the spring and are now moved back to the bases of the oaks, quietly to bide their time through another winter. And the canyon towhee juvenile siblings that chased through the bushes in the late summer have settled down to the serious winter business of feeding and staying warm. The phainopepla, which looks like a black cardinal to an Eastener, is back with its dripping-water call. The books say it is here all year, and breeds here, but I have not seen these in our neighborhood since the weather warmed. The brightly colored summer birds are now replaced by the flocks of western bluebirds that cheered me out my office window through last winter. Today, with the wind blowing, there were 6 or 7 bluebirds sitting in the top of a small tree, all facing into the wind. Better than a weather vane!

Unnatural Acts
I’ve noticed the distinct lack of fragrance in the air, especially early in the mornings. That particular Pepe LaPew fragrance. The striped purveyors of that distinctly acrid fragrance seem to have abandoned their normal haunts. No lingering scent of skunk when I let Nutmeg out in the morning, or pass the culverts they have called home for the last several months. We were talking with our neighbors down the corner and come to find out, someone on the next block has been poisoning the skunks. Unfortunately, this is causing collateral damage. Not only are they “saving” the neighborhood from its striped offenders, they are “saving” the neighborhood from cottontails and jackrabbits, outdoor cats and other small furry foragers. They will even “save” the neighborhood from the tree-climbing gray fox that have just been making a comeback from a rabies-caused die-off. Apparently, other neighbors have spoken with them in defense of the critters – all of them, including the striped target of the first neighbor’s ire. I gather, to no avail.

And then, our neighbor further discouraged me by tale-ing that another rabid human in the neighborhood, also with a distorted sense of self-importance, has been shooting flickers. Flickers! Those of the beautiful red-shafted wing and tail feathers. Apparently the flickers – imagine the impertinence – have been pecking on the human’s roof! Speechless – I am utterly speechless. Probably a good thing. If I were speechful at this moment, it would not be pleasant speech.

Not all humans are rabid.
The Gila will eat hikers, if hikers are not savvy and careful. We have been holding our collective breath while the NM Search and Rescue teams searched for the second missing hiker in as many weeks. This hiker was 67, not inexperienced in the terrain but prepared for only a day hike and accompanied by his black lab, Zulu. When he was reported missing after 24 hours, the SAR swung into action. They will hike the mountains through the night, they search by ATV and horseback, and they can call on air spotting support – and they are all volunteers. They searched for several days, on and off, as the almost-blizzard conditions in the Black Range permitted. Finally, after 6 days, a ranch couple riding out to check on some cattle found the man down and semi-conscious. Zulu was hugged up next to him and was probably the reason he was still alive. When the couple rode up and she dismounted to attend the man, Zulu took off. SAR came in to provide first aid and stabilize the man, who was airlifted to El Paso to the hospital and his waiting family. SAR and the local community breathed a sigh of relief and went back to their daily lives. NOT. Zulu is still out there and so volunteers and community members continue their search for the hero lab that helped save her person. Here’s the story in the Sun-News. I don’t know how long they can sustain their effort, but the effort itself speaks to what I think it means to be truly human.

Feathers and Stones

Walking up Cherry Creek Rd last Sunday, my eye captured by a spark of orange-red, I bent over and picked up a feather from a Red-shafted Northern Flicker. Brilliant orange underside with a black tip and black on the upper highlighting the orange-red shaft. We started looking around and found another and then a third, but that one with black and light on the edges which would contribute to the bird’s spotted wing markings. There weren’t enough feathers to suggest loss by violence. I tucked them into a pocket.

Our attention now focused on the ground, we found more wonders. Two small conglomerate rocks with shiny black bits and layers that might be obsidian, since there are volcanic rock boulders plentiful. Separately, a small rock with flecks that reflected the sunlight goldly. On closer examination, that one has tiny shavings and bits of gold – whether real or fools, I can’t be sure. Either way, not enough to make a fool rich!

My real treasure: what I have convinced myself is a spear point, with the point broken off. This area is rich in native history, going back to the Mimbres people of 900-1200 AD. I won’t begin to suggest who created this point, but I cannot be persuaded that it is not a hand-chipped spear point of someone’s design. It is shaped in a triangle with a flat surface and the other two sides forming a ridge down the center of the spear and with a waisted stem. Even without its business end, it is the size of my palm. It’s very rough and shows inadvertent dings and chips from being scraped, crushed and graded into the track that is Cherry Creek Road. Yet there are chips and flakes that are too consistent to have been inflicted by heavy road equipment.

On an early visit to Silver City before moving here, we found a hand-flaked scraper not far as the raven flies from Cherry Creek and in an area of a known Mimbres village. The stone scraper was made of similar-looking rock. So I have reason to believe I am holding a remainder of the ancestors.

It’s Thanksgiving weekend; the holiday has brought us much to value and appreciate. Beginning last night through all day today and predicted through tomorrow, it is raining/snowing. The ground is white and everything drips. In the high desert, we’ve learned never to regret the rain. Even when it rained for 45 minutes last night, ending just as the first float of the Christmas Lights parade began down Broadway. The parade would have gone on despite rain. 26 floats long, it included warriors in camouflage and dress blues under banners reading, Home Again and warriors of a more local variety – the fire and police and the Forest Service, including Smokey Bear. The floats sponsored by local businesses were their usual razzle-dazzle of living room scenes with chimneys and decorated trees, all strung with lights. I say “usual” as a true veteran of these parades – having seen my first Christmas parade here just last year ;^D What a wonderful surprise, though: the Habitat for Humanity float took first prize for non-profit-sponsored floats. While we didn’t help construct or decorate it and there was only one rider dressed as Santa’s Elf, we could still share the pride of recognition. And after the parade, we retired to Isaac’s where our waitress had saved our pre-parade dinner table for after-parade drinks and dancing.

And in just the time it’s taken me to write these notes, the snow stopped, a blue patch opened up, allowing the sun to shine and now the snow is 50% reduced – melting away between the pinions and oaks and mahoganies. But the tops of the Pinos Altos mountains, which I can see out my office window to the northwest, still disappear into the snow cloud and soon, the blue patches will close and the moisture will begin to fall again. Tomorrow, I have to go to work. At least I don’t have far to “go.” And the Thanksgiving holiday will be over for another year. But not the thanks.

What a difference a year makes!

We arrived in Silver City November 9, 2008. Steph and Skee brought us dinner that first night to our empty house, along with a card table to serve it on and folding chairs to sit upon.

One thing that hasn’t changed? Our friendship with them; we had dinner together Monday, November 9, 2009! They didn’t remember that it was an anniversary, but I did. And we’ll spend our second Thanksgiving here with the family.

But what a difference a year makes.

• Perhaps the biggest change is that we are now property owners, having closed in September on our 5 acre piece with a wonderful southern exposure with a view, and beautiful copper colored rock that will find its way into the house design in a living-room banco (bench) and fireplace.
• And a house design about which we’re getting very excited. Both for the design itself, and the new roots that the house and the land reflect.
• New friends made in a friendly town that largely welcomes newcomers. How quickly we have found community here, both socially and spiritually.
• We are now ‘wavers’ instead of ‘wavees.’ We wave at almost everyone on wheels or on foot whom we pass in our neighborhood. And why not! Waving is part of what has made me feel welcome here; I’ve learned the one-finger wave (no, not that finger!), the two-finger wave and the full-hand wave. While I may be more discerning out on the roads, waves still pass with regularity between passing cars and trucks.
• We are not only taking classes at the Western Institute for Lifelong Learning, affiliated with Western New Mexico University, for the second semester, but I’m giving a class. Dynamic Presentations. Not as sexy as the history of gold mining in Pinos Altos or as powerful as the history of the strike against the copper mines in the 50s which inspired the only movie, Salt of the Earth, to be banned by the US Government. Not as artsy-craftsy as beading, painting, sculpture or fabric art classes. But it’s what I can do, and it gives me the feeling of giving back.
• Habits and routines and regulars: things that we do, places that we go, people that we see and treats that we buy every week. Coffee at Javalina’s; Diane’s Bakery for fresh breads; Adobe Springs for dinner on Friday where she knows the wine I drink; Masa or Mas for pork and chicken tamales; favorite hiking at Gomez Peak, Ft Bayard wildlife reserve, Cherry Creek Road; Wally Lawder and the Artful Coyotes or Rhythm Mystics at Isaacs for a Saturday evening’s dancing.
• Local color: Oklahoma!; Gough Park hosting of July 4th and the Blues Festival; the Mimbres Art Council’s hosting of national and international performances at reasonable prices; the local parades – July 4, Christmas Lights and the one I missed this year, the Day of the Dead parade! The Chicken Art Auction (all the art was chicken-themed) and the Art Walk Weekend. And don’t forget the Wild Wild West Rodeo.
• Investing in the community: in addition to WILL, we are involved with Habitat for Humanity where Nick is on the Board and on the committee for the next building project. He’s also working on the Mayor’s Committee for Sustainable Development, a green-oriented committee responsible for winning a grant from the feds that will help “green up” private homes and public buildings by funding energy efficient upgrades.
  

At least once a week, I find myself driving down the main street of the old town, and saying, as I look at the lights-cars-facades-people, “I LOVE this place!” So I threw a party last Saturday to celebrate our first year here and my 60th birthday. A fun evening to celebrate a great first year, here. I do think we’ll stay.

The Colors of Fall

I arrived in DC just in time for the turning of the leaves. My 9th floor hotel room in Crystal City overlooked the old neighborhoods of Arlington overarched by a dense and vibrant hardwood canopy. I watched over 2and1/2 weeks as the trees blushed from the tips of the leaves until they flamed with red and orange. By the time I left, the row of maples along Jefferson Davis Hwy had progressed from a hint of color through a peak blaze to shedding their fall dress for the season. Equally, the view of the Potomac river and its treed banks and edges from our building’s conference rooms was washed with yellow and gold and rust and russet crowning still-green lawns. Flying out and southwest from National on Sunday offered up the crazy quilt of color spread across the corrugations that are the Blue Ridge mountains.

It was wonderful to see. I always said that Fall was my favorite time of the year, without the sadness or sense of loss that some experience as the year – and the trees – appear to die. Seeing Fall in the East did not make me homesick; it did make me appreciate again a sense of place.

By comparison, one would think the dry Southwest lacks Fall. Or at least lacks the colors of Fall. And yet, when we arrived last year at this time, I was struck by the gold coins minted by the cottonwood trees. This year, I’m discovering other deciduous trees that dress for Fall, although they are found singly rather than en masse. I am enjoying the rich flaming red-oranges of understory sumac at the higher-elevation ponderosa forests. I am realizing that I have not left Fall behind – I just have to look for Fall’s dress hues in a different context.

The grasses are the Southwest’s quiet answer for the colors of Fall. Especially where the ground is virgin – undisturbed by construction, unlittered by the gravel that passes for landscaping, uninfested with invasive species – the native grasses are a full palette of color. By turns, crimson and gold and orange, sometimes on the same stems. Grasses that have seed heads which catch the sun like shooting stars, constellations and delicate pinpoints of light. Ground cover that is intensely red on this side and yellow to brown over there – the same ground cover responding to the soil upon which it thrives.

The trees of the East in the Fall spread their coats tall and wide; the great mural of colors can be appreciated at a distance of feet, stories or miles. Here, a single tree stands out for its unique display. And to see Fall in the grasses requires slowing down and looking closely day after day to see Fall as a miniature portrait. There’s an intimacy required with the landscape to see the colors of Fall when the landscape of Fall is only inches above the ground.

There are probably life lessons in this perspective; if so, I think I’ll leave them to discover another Fall.

Book Report: Since I was on travel, I had lots of time to read:

The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown – great if you want to know everything there is to know about the myths, symbols, history and significance of the Masons; long and boring if you don’t need 2 pages of didactics for every clever twist, point of philosophy or new technology in the story, and disappointing if you know Washington DC, the setting for this mystery thriller. I mean, really – flying into Dulles Airport and seeing the profile of the Washington monument? and then driving from VA into DC across Memorial Bridge with the Lincoln Memorial in front of you and the Jefferson memorial and tidal basin just off to your left?? Fire the researcher!
Dear American Airlines – something we would all wish to do if stranded 12 hours in an airport by a fickle airline: write a long letter to the airline asking for our money back. Well written, this is a real Oprah transformative book-club tale – at times depressing with a life confirming ending as the hero examines his life.
A Touch of Dead – A Sookie Stackhouse collection of short stories, Charmayne Harris – at least I think that was the title; I’ve already given the book away. I enjoy Sookie and have read all of her adventures. Good mind candy after a heavier read (see Dear American Airlines, above). I don’t usually read short stories and might have passed this one up if I had realized. $24.95 for less than 24 hours of reading. This is why they invented libraries.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows – loaned to me by a friend (thank you very much, Dona). This was one of the more delightful stories I’ve read in a very long time. Not necessarily transformative (although our heroine does realize what’s “real”), very little mystery (although there is a question of what happened to Elizabeth), absolutely no dark side (although it is just post-WWII and Guernsey was occupied by the Nazis). It is charming, sweet (but not saccharine or smarmy sweet), engaging and has all the right elements to keep you turning the pages.
Devil’s Teeth, Upton Sinclair’s Pulitzer-prize-winning story of Lanny Bud, third in the series of 11. I was reading this when I left and took it with me. Sinclair wrote this series of historical fiction starting just before the first World War and continuing through both World Wars. This piece of the story is set in Europe in the mid-30s. If you ever wondered how people in their collective right minds could vote for and elevate someone like Adolf Hitler, this is an eyeopener. Challenging and thought-provoking, adventuresome. This is also why I read Sookie Stackhouse.
And read just before plunging into Devil’s Teeth, I Am Not Sidney Poitier, Percival Everett. The character’s name is: Not Sidney; his last name is: Poitier. Born in east LA; taken to Atlanta when his mother dies; lives with Ted Turner (yes, Jane also makes an appearance). I’ll tell you no more, except if you like reading something out of the ordinary – as opposed to The Lost Symbol – read this one.

Chasing LBJs and Other Fall Fun

We are cycling into Fall mode. Birds are moving, leaves are turning and harvest festivals are…festing!? Oh well, you know what I mean.

Chasing LBJs (a technical birding term meaning Little Brown Jobs)

Even though the hummingbirds have been migrating through since late July, there are still some late travelers. I haven’t seen a Rufous hummer in weeks—and you definitely don’t miss those aggressive guys. Today, I saw a diminutive female calliope hummer darting through the junipers outside the kitchen window and I occasionally still hear the trill of the broadtailed hummer’s tail. But all the hummers are just about gone. It is getting cool up here and will be cool as well on the sky islands on which bounty and water they must rely as they traverse the deserts on their way to their winter grounds; cool translates to megaenergy consumption for these few-ounce creatures.

Several flocks of verrrry small sparrows have moved into the neighborhood as the grasses have put out their seed heads. I can’t get a fix on them – they are so small and move so quickly, and they look like a combination of 3 species but not enough like any one! When I walk Nutmeg, they are skulking in the grass along the edge of the roadway, and they scatter like blown leaves when we get within 2 feet, startling Nutmeg and out-quicking my ability to get my binocs to my eyes and focus. I have seen and identified several fall warblers moving through in ones and twos. Such a treat to catch a glimpse of yellow, track it down and then find its image in my Sibley’s when I get home. But there are others – oh, the category “confusing fall warblers” is aptly named in the bird guide. Isn’t it true that at most conferences, it is de rigueur for attendees to wear name badges for easy identification. Why not at these migration conferences: “Hi My Name Is…Mr. Wilson Warbler.”

I was treated to a spectacular hawk display one late afternoon last week as I sat on the back patio. I watched first one, then two hawks and several ravens conduct their avian version of the Firebird across the sky. Act 1 of the ballet: one hawk was being teased by the ravens – diving, swooping, darting in, toward and around the hawk as all circled on the stage overhead. Act 2: the second hawk appeared, the ravens became the supporting cast and the two hawks took center stage. On a pass, the two were flying in Blue Angels formation: one off the wingtip, slightly behind and slightly above the other. On the next pass: one dancer above dove down and under, barrel-rolling underneath its partner and dropping away. Pass number three: again, one partner diving below and turning belly-up while the partner above dropped its talons, the extension of the talons clear against the blue sky-curtain background. What kind of hawks? Who knows…and who cares! The Firebird ballet concluded with the hawks breaking apart and exiting stage right and stage left, each with its own raven chorus.

On Saturday, we went over to the Mimbres Valley for the harvest festival and drove home on the Trail of the Mountain Spirit, which took us through the Gila over the mountains to Pinos Altos. We skirted the upper-most edge of the Mimbres Valley, winding through the ponderosa pines but with a view across an achingly-beautiful valley floor of grasses, stream beds, the river itself and a clear blue ceiling above. My attention was caught by the movement of several large birds flying flat-winged. Dihedral wing shape almost invariably means vulture, but flat-winged…it was worth a look. So I stopped the car almost in the middle of the road and climbed out – you can do stuff like that here without the likelihood of holding up the one-car-per-20-minute traffic. There were 4 or 5 hawks soaring communally above. I don’t think I’ve seen that many coasting the currents together before. As far as I recall, I’ve seen no more than two, usually a mated or courting pair. But here they were making the best of the warm currents flowing between the ridges. Too far away to ID. But again, it didn’t matter. I can get obsessed with reducing the magic to a lifelist notation. But it’s the magic, not the notation, that is sustenance.

And Other Fall Fun

So I mentioned the Mimbres Fall Harvest Festival. Small but fun. Attended an interesting presentation on rain-water harvesting for gardening. We want to set up a rain-water harvesting system when we build, not just for gardening, but also to provide some household water as backup to the city water we will tap. Among the numbers of vendors – well, better to say, among the several vendors (!) was a booth for the new winery that just opened in the Valley. They have been at Silver City’s farmers market selling wine jellies, but they are now launching their wines. They can’t serve the wines at the festival for obvious reasons, but what they can do –and did – was to bring baskets of their wine grapes. No, I didn’t jump into a barrel and crush my own vintage. But I did get to sample the raw source of their pinot noir, merlot and cabernet franc. I was also encouraged to taste a golden grape that instantly took me back to fall in South Carolina at my grandparents: scuppernong grapes!! These weren’t scuppernongs; they were a golden variety out of upstate NY. But if I had been blindfolded and asked to source a memory… Interestingly, when the name, scuppernong, popped involuntarily out of my mouth, the owner said it was the second time he’d heard that, that day. I must not be the only southerner around. By the way, did you know that New Mexico was the first, um, not-state in the Union to grow wine grapes and make wine? The Spanish priest-explorer-missionaries brought wine grapes to this Mexican-Indian territory when they first arrived. The modern-day vintner met on Sunday will have reds for tasting and sale in time, he thinks, for the holidays. Not as cheap as Yellowtail, but a bottle or two will be a nice treat.

And, the arts season is getting underway. Oklahoma! will be presented this weekend, with a local cast. What is fun for me to anticipate is that we now know a number of the performers. Where last fall, we were newbies and enjoyed discovering the local performance landscape, now we have friends and acquaintances up on stage that we can root for, applaud for, and cringe for in case of an off note or flubbed line!

Fall is definitely here. The cottonwoods are beginning to go gold and as we came across the mountains on Saturday, we saw an understory full of blazing-red sumac. The monsoons have passed into the lore of 2009 and have left us with skies reminiscent of many western-themed songs – not a cloud and blues ranging from indigo to robins’ eggs. We arrived in Silver City in November 2008, so we have seen the back-half of fall. Now we are enjoying it in full measure. I wonder what Indian Summer is like, here?

A dilemma of deer

Deer oh dear, how many deer there are here. And the numbers have become a real dilemma for the town. Recent Town Council discussions, covered at length in the local paper, and debated in the local sound-off columns, have fired the debate: what to do about all these deer.

Hunt them? That is the recommendation of the county Game and Fish department. Hold a special hunt, hire sharp-shooters, sponsor expert bow-men – reduce the population by culling. This is a typical recommendation of the hook-and-bullet crowd. Not a popular option for many former-urban dwellers who’ve relocated into wild country. Often, urban folks jump to negative judgment – conservation, especially in the West, owes much progress and success to people who hunt and fish for food or recreation. Hunt/fish organizations are often instrumental in turning the popular opinion in favor of conservation. And the argument will be made that culling is the most sure-fire way (pun intended) to manage overpopulation. Unfortunately, another argument can be made, just as persuasively, that it’s the hook-and-bullet folks that helped get us here facing the dilemma of too many bambis. Game and Fish departments at all levels, starting with the US Forest Service, have been known to cull predators and conduct re-introduction efforts to bring back deer – mule and otherwise – to habitats where they have disappeared by whatever, often natural, means. In central Maryland, white-tail deer had all but disappeared by the early 1900’s, cause not remembered by me in 2009. Hunters brought pressure on the state for a population of venison-on-the-hoof and the state graciously filled their plates by bringing a breeding population in from, I think it was, Pennsylvania. Now, across a significant portion of the state, if you drive a car for 2 years without hitting a deer, you get a plaque from your auto insurance company.

What else? Birth control! Now often touted as the ‘humane’ solution. It’s true that hunting can have ‘inhumane’ results with the possibility that the sharpshooter might miss and hit a two legged instead of the targeted four-legged. Or more likely, wound instead of kill the targeted four-legged and cause inhumane pain and suffering. Does happen. Does birth control work? I remember a conversation with a National Park Service biologist studying the overpopulation of white-tailed deer in central MD in which I facetiously suggested birth control for deer. In complete seriousness, the biologist gave me chapter-and-verse on the pros and cons of a very real alternative. At least given the state of deer medicine at the time (about 2003 or so), birth control was only administered to a ‘closed’ population, meaning one contained by man-made or natural barriers from ‘wild’ populations. The immunocontraceptive tainted the meat and if a birth-controlled deer was unknowingly hunted for food, consumption of the meat had deleterious effects on the consumer. More critically to the control effort, the vaccine still today has a low percentage of success and has to be re-administered every breeding season. Most critically, the solution is prohibitively expensive, costing as much as $1,000 per doe so vaccinated. What Game and Fish department, especially at a local level, has $1,000/doe times how many breeders? Does our Town Council wish to allocate additional funds to our Game and Fish folks to conduct a mass immunocontraceptive vaccine campaign -- annually!?

Hey, we can feed them!!! After all, they were here first and we moved in and pushed them out. So we are the cause of the problem and we should just step up and feed those poor critters. This is exactly the argument made by a Town Council member as printed in the Sun-News a couple of weeks ago. I am convinced that he made this argument in good conscience with the best of intention. He just couldn’t get comfortable with the notion that he and his colleagues on the Council would approve – and fund, no less – professional hunters to creep around our neighborhoods drawing an expert bead on an otherwise-innocent deer to reduce the free-range herd. He said he was more persuaded by his wife and friends that feeding was the best answer. Perhaps he should do a little research on the web. Corn, the most common feed purchased to put out for deer, does not truly “feed” the deer because they don’t get the sustenance they need from limited corn protein. Game and Fish biologists have found deer that died of starvation with full bellies. But at the heart of the matter, deer increase in suburban/urban neighborhoods because they thrive on the edges. They make their living on the seams and margins between woods for protection and human farms, gardens and landscaping. Feeding deer reinforces in several ways: keeps unhealthy deer in the population that otherwise would die of natural causes; keeps deer reproducing because they have just enough sustenance to conceive and birth, but not necessarily to foster healthy young; and concentrates deer in “feeding communities” instead of otherwise living in areas where they would be predated – or at least predated by other than 4-wheel predators! By the way, having this many deer in our neighborhoods can also attract their natural predators. The big cats sometimes follow the path of least resistance right into town to pick off an ailing or wounded deer. Many communities prohibit feeding of deer. I thought Silver City did. Maybe that’s one of the questions before the Town Council. They should vote for the ban. And they should prosecute people who put the corn or pellets out anyway. Does more harm than good. Kills the deer as surely as a rifle, but slower, silently and out of sight.

The last and least appealing option is to let the deer fend for themselves. Which means in good years, they have beautiful spindly-legged, big-eyed and big-eared spotted fawns—in singles, twins and even triplets. Over which I have ohhhed and awwwed as much as the next person. Which means that we are treated to magnificent bucks during rut season with huge racks, standing in the field with 3 does at his side. Which means that Nutmeg has something of interest to get her hackles up but which she’ll never catch. But it also means that we have to fence in our tomatoes and fragrant flowering bushes or they are nibbled to little sticks. And when there’s too little water and too little browse in bad years, the fawn mortality is high and the deer sicken and starve.

This is the 100th anniversary of Aldo Leopold’s lasting legacy to conservation, the environment and to the human community. And it started here, with the first official wilderness, the Gila Wilderness. We are celebrating his legacy here in Silver City this year. He wrote frequently about the impact that removing predators from the landscape had on the deer population. He wrote about the ethics of managing deer herds, including hunting. He wrote about the education of the community about the wildlife around them. Now we have a dilemma of deer on the doorstep of his legacy. Hmmm. What will our Town Council decide?

A Hot Time in the Old Town

Cliché’s become clichés because they start as truths. Last weekend, Santa Fe was on fire!

Watching Zozobra burn!
Zo-zo’-bra is a 50 foot tall marionette fondly known as Old Man Gloom. People fill his skirts with all the gloomy stuff they want to get rid of from the past year – divorce papers, deeds, debts, and symbolically, disease. Not to mention bad grades, sad thoughts, and mad feelings. Burning Zozobra is, as much as anything, a Santa-Fe-New-Year reason to party. The tradition started 85 years ago, has been going strong ever since, with 20-30,000 +/- Santa Fe’ans and tourists gathering at Ft Marcy Park during the course of the day to picnic and wait for dark, when the sparks fly—literally. At dusk, an official mounts the steps to the hem of the giant character and officiously carries out sentence on the boogeyman, calling out the fire dancer and the little ghosts. In this video, the gloomy Zozobra is sentenced with the jury screaming, “Burn Him!” Then, put the party on pause for 20 minutes while the fire dancer and supporting cast run up and down stairs, twirl lights, swirl scarves and generally annoy several thousand people. If I still smoked, I would have a lighter in my pocket. If I had a lighter in my pocket, I would have run up the stairs and set the boogeyman on fire. The whole time, Old Man Gloom groans and moans, growling loud displeasure when roman candles shoot off around his head. Finally, someone takes pity on the doomed red-head and shoot him with a fire bolt, which set him to full blaze.

Our nephew captured Zozobra’s fire-y end and posted it on YouTube, accompanied by the frenzied chant of the crowd, “BURN HIM!!” As the year’s glooms went up in flames and finally collapsed to a final ember, we were treated to one of the most wonderful fireworks show – real July-4th-fireworks – that I’ve ever seen, not even excepting Washington DC on Independence Day.

The Old Town celebrated: Viva La Fiesta
Santa Fe is 400 years old this year. It has reason to celebrate! There are few American cities that can claim so long a presence. And it appears to be a city that embraces all influences of its history and culture. The center of life is the main Plaza. Facing the Plaza is the Cathedral, hotels, luxury-item boutiques, the Palace of the Governors which is the oldest continuously used public building in the US, and most importantly to the 4 of us hungry fiesta-goers, the Plaza Diner. Santa Fe is known for many wonderful restaurants, often with as many $$$$ on their menu as little red chiles. But the Plaza Diner is perfect for breakfast, lunch or dinner; we tried it for each. Red or Green – the leading question at every meal. Did you know they can put chile in pancakes? My taste buds rebelled at even the idea of green chile pancakes – what would they flavor the syrup with? Chipotle? I settled instead for blue corn and pinons on pancakes…mmmm.

But it was so crowded in town. I definitely appreciate the absence of traffic in Silver City. Remembering what traffic is like and maneuvering in traffic when you don’t know the town are two different things. Our hotel was just off the Plaza, so very much in the heart of congestion. When we arrived on Thursday and it took 15 minutes to go around a small block to get to the hotel’s parking area, I’m afraid I was ready to leave the “big city” right then. Fortunately, downtown Santa Fe is a very walkable city—and we did. Didn’t use a car except to go out to the edge of town and when we went up into the mountains.

So here were the highlights: wonderful music that had me dancing in the street; dancing that was fun to watch as the girls and women tossed and fanned their full, ruffled skirts; a 2 ½ mile walk at 9,500 feet through aspen and pine forests, where the 4 of us had the trail largely to ourselves; and time spent with our nephew and his wife. I had so much fun, I forgot to take many pictures. But what I took, you’ll find here.

And you can’t leave Fiesta weekend without Zozobra’s rendition of “I’m on Fire”

Southwest Perfume

If you know anything about the Southwest, especially New Mexico, you know I’m talking chiles. Red or Green is the state’s motto. I have, as told before, started experimenting with red and green chile: powdered red…dried green. I was given some ground deep red chile by a friend from last year’s crop; she said that when this year’s bounty came in to throw that “old stuff” away. Later, I bought some ground red of a lighter color, but hotter taste, at the farmer’s market and a bag of dried green pods.

Now, though…now it’s chile harvest time. That means the perfume of roasting green chiles pervades the streets and squares of New Mexico towns anywhere within hailing distance of a chile patch, including Silver City. My first acquaintance with roasting green chiles was at the Silver City Co-op, a full roaster turning on the street corner, while boxes of fresh pods waited their turn to the flames. I had my choice – green mild or green hot. Since I’m wading into this gastronomic pool slowly, I opted for mild. Went inside and found a bag of about 2 ½ lbs for 79 cents/lb. I froze two small boxes and kept a third in the fridge. Figured I was good for awhile. And so I was. Until Nick went to Albuquerque for a couple of days and stopped in Hatch, NM on his way home. Hatch is the epicenter of chile – for the world, to hear them tell it. And harvest is the time the Hatch farmers shine. I would have loved to be with Nick as he went from store to roadside stand to truck tailgate. He brought home 3 types of ground chile: 2 different reds and, unusually, ground green chile. But most aromatically, he brought home ½ bag of freshly roasted green. In Hatch, a half bag is the smallest they will sell. A half bag weighs over 10 pounds!! From my office, I could smell the chile before the garage door was down behind the car. I could smell them before he got them out of the car. And boy, I could smell them the moment he opened the door from the garage to the house. We spent the next 3 hours laying out still-hot green chile pods on cookie sheets and putting them in the freezer. Well – I spent 3 hours doing that. Nick spent 3 hours stripping the roasted skins off and piling up a store to make soup the next day. And for every pod he stripped and put in the bowl, he stripped a pod and popped it in his mouth. I grew up around summer berry crops – one blackberry in the bowl and one in the mouth – till my mouth was stained. I would never have dreamed of eating chile pods the same way!

The perfume! I don’t know how to describe it. Definitely not bell peppers; intense; slightly burnt; very slightly sweet; like nothing I’ve smelled before. The house still smelled for a day afterwards; we even slept with green chile staining the air currents in the bedroom. Now that the smell of the roasted green chiles no longer lingers in the kitchen, I’ve noticed another perfume. More subtle, but pungent. Earthy; warm; spicy; makes me sneeze if I stand near over-long. The 3 bags of ground chile he brought still sit on the counter. I tracked the source to those bags. Aware now, I smell the earthiness and spice every time I go into the kitchen and find myself leaning over the bags to gather in more. Now I understand why Skee said to throw out the “old stuff.” By taste and by aroma, there is no comparison between last season’s and the new season’s harvests. But it’s rather hard to tell for sure. Last night I tried to do some taste testing to differentiate between this one and that, this year’s and last, and to start thinking how to use each. Just a touch of a damp finger tip transferring a slight dusting of red fire from bag to tongue. The first time, I got flavor with the fire. But you know the saying: “a slow burn.” After 3 such tips, I could only tell hot from hotter. I guess the distinctions and preferences will come on the basis of marriage to chicken, fish, vegetables etc.

I am also now the proud owner of 5 chile cookbooks. One is an old classic – one of those that you can tell the favorite recipes because the pages are stained. Two I picked up at the Albuquerque airport my last trip through. One a present for Nick’s birthday. And finally, the Hatch Chile Festival Official Cookbook, with the winning recipes for red and green for the last 5 years. Great reading and great ideas for my own experiments.

This is fun. Learning and trying – stretching my palette beyond its regional biases. And here’s what I find truly interesting, now that my lingo includes ‘red or green’: the DC region has a world-encompassing restaurant scene. Within a few blocks in Bethesda, there are 200 restaurants, representing foods from most regions and countries of the world. But except for one restaurant I remember at the corner of K and 19th Streets, NW which specialized in rattlesnake, I don’t know of one true Southwestern – not TexMex – but Mexican-Indian-Spanish-ranch-influenced eatery. So – Chicken grilled with green-chile chutney and lime, anyone?

This week's scatalogical theme: All I Want for Christmas...

…a tracks ‘n scat book…(da dee dumdum)…(da dee dumdum)…so I can tell what was here before me!

This is not something you need in DC. DC streets may be wild but knowing what to be wary of doesn’t require knowledge of tracks in the mud and scat on the trail. Now, hiking in the Gila? Beware a cat of a different, um, genus?

Watch your feet on the trails where-ever it’s wild, and even, I’ve noticed, on the property we’re buying. Not so you don’t step in som’thin’, but so you can see who’s been visitin’. We were hiking on the Gomez Peak trails today; it has rained a number of times in the last couple of week, creating an abundance of print-preservative. I’m guessing – that’s why I’m askin’ Santa for a tracks book – but mixed with the dog-prints and boot-prints and mountain-bike-tire-tracks I swear there were big cat prints. Or were they bob-cat? Need that tracks book.

We also found much scat on the trails. Now, having been a dog owner for the last 30 years, I can tell you what that scat wasn’t. But what’s fascinating is trying to figure out what the various markers-of-passing were. Well, fascinating to some of us. Others of us would just step over (or on?) and keep going. I saw interesting examples a couple of weeks ago hiking at The Nature Conservancy’s holdings and I noticed curiosities on the property that we’re buying. I’m not even going to try to convince you that studying scat is everyone’s call of nature. However, if you’re trying to figure out what might eat your favorite chocolate Lab, you might want to study the possibilities. And, if you’ve hung out with biologists over the years, as I have, there’s a natural…well…attention. Every nature center you visit in the Parks, Forests and Refuges will show you tracks ‘n scats to help you learn the neighborhood – the producers of same are notoriously hard to spot. Fox, coyote, deer, elk, bear, bob-cat, mountain lion, raccoon, packrat, and on goes the list; and then you can also learn to read the owls’ , hawks’, and ravens’ pellets – not scat, but equivalent ledgers of recent meals.

Oh, ok, enough wild kingdom.

We went to a street dance last night. One of Silver City’s attractions is the number of world-class musicians that return to Silver to raise families and engage the community by making music. Last night’s group played a mélange of Brazilian and African. The lead singer-musician-song writer is what I can only describe musically as a White West-African. He may have studied Brazilian music, but he is at soul an African griot , a story-holder/historian/magic-teller/moral-teacher. I’ve seen both world-renown griots and local griots in Senegal and this man is on par with any of them. The group played free to the community – tips appreciated – and the young, hippy and alternative crowd was there in force. Also a few of us who enjoy a night under the street-lamps and who appreciate good music regardless of label.

We had been to a fund-raiser a couple of weeks ago where a number of local musical artists and groups performed, including this artist. For $5, you could sit all night and watch one performer or group after another take the stage for ½ hour each. Musicians in this town combine and recombine in different ways and each combination has its own identity and style. Last night’s griot-artist performed alone at the fund-raiser, while last night he played in combination with a bongo player who drummed with an alternative group at the fund-raiser and a husband-wife team we normally see playing Motown and 60’s classics.

I remain amazed, enthralled and fascinated whether I’m watchin’ my feet or tappin’ my toes. ss

20% Chance of Rain

A new weather term – or a new interpretation of a familiar weather term. I didn’t make this up – I think I heard it on NPR’s local affiliate. 20% chance does not mean that the entire area has a 20% chance of getting rainfall. Nope. That would be too normal for the likes of the Land of Enchantment :^] Remind me to explain the ‘approximate-ness’ of Silver City, a wonderful and accurate concept introduced by a friend and long-time resident here. What the weather term means is that 20% of the entire area will probably get rain. Let me say that a different way, in case the subtleties escape. A cloud here and a thunderhead there and a gray mass over there, all separated by brilliant blue clear sky, makes up 20% of the sky that bears rain. If all of that rain that starts up there actually hits the ground – and a good measure does not – then you have 20% of the (ground) area getting rained upon. So a 20% chance of rain! Makes sense, no?

We have been observing this phenomenon known as rain. This is supposed to be monsoon season. But it is, from what we can gather, very dry with much below-normal rains. At least in Silver City. Here’s where the 20% chance comes into play. Several days in the last couple of weeks, we have started the day with beautiful clear skies holding up a few puffy clouds. By late afternoon or early evening, about the time we walk Nutmeg, clouds virtually surround Silver City’s clear blue ceiling. It’s raining down in the desert, or it’s raining up over the Gila. You can see the cloud patches and bands with the rain falling. But not here. We did get a good night’s rain late last week. And yesterday, I think it was, we got up to heavy overcast – a very gray morning. I thought: today’s the day – we’re going to get some good rain today. Umm, no…it rained to the east and it rained to the south, and maybe a little in between, but no rain here. And by mid-afternoon – sunny, bright, warm, blue. There may be 20% rain, but we’re in the 80% that’s dry.

And that means, warm. Well, hot. For here, hot. Only during the day, but flat-sunlight-hot-to-the-touch hot – low to mid 90s. Well, ok, then, not hot by Tucson or Phoenix standards, or El Paso or central Texas hot, but still… I am having to learn to chase the sun around the house, but with a different intent than my whole life’s training which was: Open the window for breeze and the curtains or shade for sun – let the light pour in – hate a dark room – feels like a cave. That does not work here. After more than one argument with my more-desert-savvy husband and the experience of heat radiating off the window glass, I am learning. Chase the sun to lower the shades and close those windows. Open the ones – windows and shades – in the rooms the sun has just abandoned. Get used to caves because it’s only for a couple of hours. And not necessary on an overcast day. But we haven’t turned on the ac yet! Have had to suffer through a few 80° afternoons in the house, but not enough to justify the electricity or the chill in the air the rest of the time. We have ceiling fans in most of the rooms. That’s been all that we have needed during the day. Don’t forget to turn the fans off at night or we wake up over-cool when the outside temp drops below 60°. This isn’t even an efficient house. Wait until we build our ‘green’ house with passive solar and passive cooling.

I’ve gotten a number of notes back about my last discourse on armed men walking the neighborhood prepared to fend off potentially hostile canines. Where I don’t see the usefulness of a nine iron, sand wedge or whatever as a protection against a loose dog, others would consider it a psychological reassurance. One good and loyal friend sent me a story about a lion whisperer (ok, her term) she saw on a documentary. His job? Carry a big stick and make loud noises to impress an aggressive pride of lions – Big-Cat aversion therapy, I guess. Been known to work with bears. The cats were aggressing the tourists at a safari location in an African country. He was charged with changing their behavior. He was apparently so successful that he was able, eventually, to walk up and cut a chunk of meat from the pride’s recent kill without the lions challenging him. Fine if you like wildebeest pot roast complete with toothy tenderizing. Truth in advertising, even for lion whisperers – the dude, his big stick and big mouth were backed up by big guns – just in case aversion therapy failed. I definitely don’t think that’s what these golf-club guys are thinking. But thanks, Ivia – every story deserves a better one back.
We have an fully signed contract now on the piece of land we’re buying. It took a few days to get everyone inked together. Now we’ll apply for the financing and I expect we’re off and planning. Talked with the architect yesterday and he’ll make a site visit to start translating dreams to dirt. Here’s a picture of our official greeter. Ain’t he cute?

Another in an occasional series on the neighborhood fauna

I’ve been gathering these observations over the last couple of weeks: some are in the ‘awwww’ and ‘awe’ categories, some are amusingly curious, and then there’s the irony of the interface between two legged and the rest of the walking-running-flying-crawling world.

Awwww

• Sitting at my desk in my office, looking out the window, I noticed a fair-sized mule-deer doe come up onto the yard from the arroyo. Right behind her were one – and then two – fawns. Still spotted. About the size of a medium-sized german shepherd dog. When mom stopped to nibble on the weeds, one twin positioned itself to nurse. I jumped up to go and get my camera – when will I learn to keep binocs and camera on the table next to my window – and when I got back, both mom and twins were gone. Another “when will I learn” lesson: to just sit, look and take in as living memory, rather than try to pixilate everything!
• Visiting our newly-purchased property to show friends, we saw a doe and her fawn right off the side of the road. This baby was smaller than Nutmeg (our standard-sized lab) so must have been no more than a couple of weeks old. Our driver stopped without scaring off the pair. So we watched the baby chasing its lunch, while mom casually and repeatedly stepped over the poised nose to move to a choicer bunch of grass. Another sales point for Toyota Prius: it runs quietly enough not to scare away the neighborhood fauna.

Awe-ful

• I went for a hike with two friends on Thursday morning (no I wasn’t playing hooky! I was on official leave…a micro-vacation.) We went to Bear Mountain Lodge, a property of The Nature Conservancy. As many wild-focused properties do, this had a veritable forest of bird feeders hung around the lodge. Including several hummingbird feeders from the eaves of the east porch. The feeders were swarmed with hummers; it sounded more like a busy bee-hive. There were as many as 15 birds around each feeder; it’s possible there were up to 75 or 100 hummers all told. We took seats in the Adirondacks to watch the activity and try to identify all the species present. Anyone who uses binocs knows that you can’t focus under a certain number of feet. And my distance vision is just off enough not to crisply focus on the little birds. So I got up, put on my glasses and moved toward one feeder. Closer. And closer until my face was not two feet from the feeder. The birds were not intimidated – perhaps I should have been by the dive-bombing of the aggressive male Rufous hummers. I could see every little bird in its finest detail. I could identify female of one species from female of another, not always easy to do because the differences can be subtle. I watched as Caliope throat patches changed from almost-black to brilliant, iridescent ruby or Black-chinned to deep purple as birds turned toward the sun. But what was so awesome was to stand with a dozen or more whirling around my head, to feel the energy of their small-but-furious engines, and not just to hear, but to feel the hum and vibration of their wing-beats pass inches by my ears.

Amusingly curious

• Another deer story: last night, I took Nutmeg for a long walk through the neighborhood. By now, you get that we have lots of deer who are very acclimated to the comings and goings of two- and four-legged, as well as two- and four-wheeled. We were walking down a nearby street, and saw two dogs running up the street toward us. Looking just beyond the dogs, I saw a large doe running up the street right after them. Was she chasing them? Or was it pure coincidence? When one of the dogs looked back over its shoulder and the other, smaller dog redoubled its pace, I was convinced. For whatever reason, this doe was the pursuer, and the dogs, the pursued. Whatever happened to reverse the normal course of events I don’t know. Suddenly, the doe saw me and veered down a driveway. Both dogs were so hell-bent-for-leather, they almost ran right by Nutmeg and might have indeed, had Nutmeg not done her usual bark-and-lunge routine. After a brief encounter, the dogs trotted on and we continued down the street to see the doe standing in the driveway watching us go by.
• And another bird story from Bear Mountain Lodge and our hike there. Up on a ridge along one of the trails in the middle of the Conservancy property, we saw a golf ball. There is a golf course in Silver City, but way the other side of town, quite a number of miles away. And the idea of any one person carrying a club, some balls and a couple of tees up-and-down a trail to get into a clearing on a ridge to hit a few…well that’s just silly. So how would a single white golf ball come to be resting there on the ground? Raven. Yep, that big, black, noisy bird with a big, curious and inventive mind. Ravens collect things that interest them. Their nests are often full of odd, shiny and unexpected treasures found and picked up along their aerial journeys. Apparently they are known to mistake all sorts of small round white objects as eggs, eggs being a favorite snack. Small round white objects like golf balls. So a Raven had passed over the golf course miles away, picked up this egg-like object, flown off, and somewhere over Bear Mountain Lodge property decided this egg-like object wasn’t an egg and dropped it. Glad I wasn’t hiking just underneath at the least opportune moment.

The interface

• I have had to walk Nutmeg especially early a few mornings lately, going out at the waning of dawn when the stalked and the stalkers are heading to den for the day. We know there are coyotes in the hills and arroyos that make up this neighborhood, but of all the critters seen, we have not seen these. One morning, Nutmeg and I were on the last block of our walk and we both heard a howling start up, joined and joined again. I wondered – I’m always wishing to hear the wild rather than the domesticated canines singing – and when Nutmeg literally froze with a paw still half-way to the next step, I knew for sure. She stood without moving, except for the quiver in her flanks, listening until the last howl died away. And I was in no hurry, being just as mesmerized as her. When even the echo was gone, we both mentally and physically shook ourselves and came on home – touched for the day by a bit of wild magic.
• Likewise on these early walks, I have encountered neighbors not met before. These are not the dog-walkers. These are the couples our age and older who go out to walk for exercise. The peculiar thing: several of the men in these couples carry clubs. Golf clubs. Which they swing like swagger sticks. But why? What good does a swagger stick – nine iron, sand wedge, whatever – do walking these neighborhood streets? It occured to me that these golf clubs are intended as protection. Mmmm…protection from…? I ran down the list of possibilities in my mind as Nutmeg and I passed the third-such armed couple. The idea of using a golf club as protection against the deer is ludicrous. Although who knows how vicious that doe was chasing those two poor innocent canines up the street! They are certainly not – at least I hope not – thinking they would use a club on one of the community skunks (another story in itself). Besides, any skunk presenting itself during the daylight to be golf-clubbed has more of a problem than a wedge-wielding two-legged; rabies is a real concern in this area. I would hasten in the opposite direction rather than attack a day-lit skunk full-on with a nine-iron (sand-wedge, whatever). If these brave souls think that they are carrying a sand-wedge (nine-iron, whatever) as protection from the occasional mountain lion that follows the deer into town, they need to go back to whatever tamed city they came from! (Sorry, a little judgment creeping in there.) Even trickster Coyote would not be cowed by a golf-club – there are alternatives to avoid unwanted contact with those four-legged folks. And finally, if they are carrying their weapons against the few dogs that do run loose through the community, they obviously don’t know much about dogs. If a dog gets close enough to get whopped by a golf club and the dog means business, the clubber is already too late. Unless they are VERY good with martial defense. If the dog is out of reach of the club but is menacing, just what good will the club do? Better a handful of pebbles to toss at legs or nose and eyes, depending upon the degree of menacing behavior, to yell loudly, to wave arms and of all things, to avoid eye contact. Well, maybe in that context, a wild-ass swing of the club might help after all. Just pretend they’re on a driving range…
  

Well, as the saying goes, “I got a million of’em.” But I’ll save the rest for another in my occasional series on neighborhood fauna. Hope you are out there swinging.

About to become New Mexico tax payers!

Property taxes, that is. We wrote a contract which has now been accepted on 5 acres of land not far from where we now live. It was accepted and ratified, and soon we will be landowners …homesteaders …estate-holders …indebted! No turning back, now – we’re tied to the land. Dirt under our fingernails. Alright, enough already.

We found a nice piece of ground that is – soon to be, was – part of a larger parcel that was not really on the market. Are you curious? Here’s the story – owing mostly to Nick’s hard work and our real estate agent’s willingness to ask questions. When we had looked at everything on the market without success, and after I mentioned a tactic I used when I myself was a realtor, Nick set out to explore the landscape in the areas we were most interested in living. He identified a number of sites that were appealing and then we asked our realtor, “Are you willing to approach a landowner and ask if they’re interested in selling, even subdividing and selling?” Then we took her for a ride and pointed out spots of interest, including, indirectly, the piece we now will own. She asked the right questions of the right people, and found that this 5 acre piece, part of a larger 15 acres, could be purchased for a very attractive price. It isn’t currently on the market, although the 15 acres had been surveyed into 5-acres lots and city water, power and telephone had been brought to the edges of each lot; obviously the owners had some intention of selling eventually.

Here’s are links to some still images on flikr :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sonnie-in-silver/sets/72157621053683892/

Buying land here is a different experience. On another occasion, I told the story of needing a witcher to help locate water for drilling a well, and witchers here make a decent living; you wouldn’t buy land without one if you’re smart – or you have city water. So this time, no witcher for us. But there’s more to this purchase than a divining rod.

Today, Nick went to the Grant County offices (this property lies just outside Town limits) to explore a number of questions, including the ownership, restrictions and rights to the land. One thing we need to research is the mineral rights. The term used by the County staff was “tracing back the land ‘patent.’” A new term for us: it means “A land patent is evidence of right, title, and/or interest to a tract of land, usually granted by a central, federal, or state government to an individual or private company” according to Wikipedia. I gather that a patent was the first title to the land to be held in white man’s hands. Certainly the Native Americans, in local case, the Mimbres people or the tribes of the Apaches neither believed in or traded in land patents. In the East, we always just heard it called ‘title’ to the land, with ‘title searches’ and ‘title documents’ that went with the ‘deed.’ We need to check out mineral rights because if you don’t own the mineral rights under the surface of the land for which you hold the ‘patent,’ someone could conceivably show up and demand to drill your land because they, not you, have the mineral rights of extraction. On another piece of property we looked at, we discovered a small stone monument with a mining claim etched, going back to the time this area was first staked for gold, copper and other minerals. So either Nick or the title company will have to do the research back to when this land was first patented to make sure there are no existing mining rights, which will lead to some reassurance there are no abandoned mine shafts, which are found frequently on land that was part of large tracts now divvied up and sold as building lots.

All this makes me remember one of my favorite stories of all time. That is, a telephone installer on the Eastern Shore of MD whom I knew well, was doing some renovation in his home, the family farmstead. He knew the farm had been in his family for some generations. But he couldn’t guess how many. Until he pulled up flooring in the attic to find a strong box, with the original deed – ‘patent’? – granting the land to his ancestor by King George of England back before folks decided they didn’t want a king.

Now it’s time to get serious about designing a house. We have a designer, and we’re talking to an architect to help us creatively. We know we want to build green – passive solar, etc. We have lots of pictures pulled from builder, architectural and home design magazines for ideas and inspiration. We won’t be able to build until our house in MD is sold. At least I don’t think so. Unless I can get really creative on how to swing the finances. And you know me, I can get pretty creative when I really want something. I can’t wait to move. I can just see our new house and see us sitting there…guess I’d better start thinking…mmm, wonder if we…

Home Again

I’ve written about the idiosyncrasies and character of Grant County Airport. I haven’t talked about the experience of going – and coming – home again. Although I’ve been asked by folks here how it feels to go home again. So here were my impressions from both this recent trip and my trip back in January.

· DC is my natal city, well, just outside of DC in MD (born in Bethesda and raised in Kensington); before moving to NM, I lived in the DC metro area all but 5 years of my life. There are few more beautiful cities than Washington on the Potomac – the Washington that hugs the wide tidal river and overlooks the rocky fall that is the Potomac Gorge. Especially when flying into the city following the river down from the north. I like a window seat on the left side of the aircraft so I can track the river, watch for White’s Ferry and Sugarloaf Mountain, and on a particularly clear day, find my now-former home in Clarksburg. Then the urban centers thread by underneath: Rockville-Bethesda-Chevy Chase-Northwest DC along Wisconsin Ave-the National Cathedral-GlenEcho and MacArthur Blvd-the reservoir-Georgetown. And finally, the great monumental Washington spreads out as the plane drops past Georgetown Cathedral: the Lincoln Memorial, Key Bridge, the Washington Monument, the White House set on the South Lawn and the Capital, and finally the plane sets down right on the edge of the water across from the SW waterfront. This unfolding of DC has always thrilled me, and always will.
· On the ground in downtown DC – a different visual, auditory and olfactory experience. Assaulted by bus fumes, rumbling and exhaust-ing sidewalk grates over the underground Metro tubes, car horns, and the other forms of “street life” to be dodged or skirted, paced and tolerated.
· Seeing friends and neighbors, both personal and at work – getting hugs is so reaffirming. Having FCC folks stop by my office door to ask where I’ve been and how I’ve been reminded me that there are many forms of family. Having personal friends and former neighbors go out of their way to spend an evening or an afternoon reminded me that distance does not change the connection between us, easy enough to forget when relying on electronic bits to keep the connections fresh.
· Riding the Metro from hotel to work to dinner and back to hotel on a daily basis – at one point, I swore that every citizen from Silver City must be on the platforms at Metro Center. The trains were running more slowly because they were being manually controlled since the truly horrible train accident a few weeks ago. But that meant larger than usual crowds on the platforms. Oddly, though, the trains I rode were not, themselves, overly crowded.
· Losing my balance in the Metro – I had forgotten how jerky the trains are when they start and stop, not to mention the frequency with which they stop short of their discharge point. I was up and starting for the door when the train stopped, only to hear those dreaded words, “this train will be moving forward.” And it did, but I didn’t. I lost my balance backwards and almost fell to my butt except that the two women behind me broke my fall – not entirely voluntarily!
· Losing my balance in the Metro 2 – I got off on the yellow line and went upstairs, having to pass along the red line platform to reach my exit. The platform was the most crowded I remember in years – a train had just disgorged its passengers. They were all flooding toward me, half at a run, afraid that they’d miss the next yellow train, oblivious to the fact that another yellow train would arrive in no more than 7 minutes. In DC like many cities, time is money and is jealously and aggressively marshaled. I found myself on the train-side of the flood, and like monsoon-driven floods, could not safely cross the river of racing humans to the saner side against the wall. People were brushing me and some, bumping me, and I began to worry that when the standing train closed its doors and began to move, I could be in trouble. Sure enough, the doors closed, the train moved out, and just then, a woman moving faster than the rest of the flotsam, pushed past me, and knocked me slightly sideways. I believe that, if I had not been anticipating just such a knock, I would have fallen into the side of the speed-gathering train. My DC-attitude finally took over and I almost simultaneously bulled back, managed to move 2 feet into the onrushing flow and push forward. When I finally cleared the crowd, my heart was racing, face and scalp were wet and my mind was whimpering, “Oh to be home in Silver.”
· And that was the instant that I knew. Reinforcement came on the home-bound flight from Albuquerque through the thunderstorms to Grant Co Airport, when I found myself anxiously looking for – and low-and-behold – finding familiar landscapes to mark my progress home. I realized I could recognize, not just the most obvious, like the huge pits of the mines, but the thread that is NM 15 from Gila Cliff Dwellings, the Mimbres valley along the river and NM Rt 35, Hurley and the old graveyard across Rt 180 from the main drag into town and finally knowing when we started our approach to the airport, not by the loss of altitude but by the change in the land running beneath.

There’s no doubt that I’ll always miss much about Washington and MD and will look forward to visiting whenever I can. But now, when someone here asks how it was to “go” home, my answer is, “it’s just so great to BE home.”

Grant County Airport revisited

Nick had to travel back to Brooklyn in July and no sooner did he return than I had to go out to DC. We had 4 – well, actually 5 opportunities to visit our regional airport about which I’ve already told a couple of stories. I have a feeling that Grant County Airport will always be a source of stories – this time, corroborated with pictures.

. I remembered to take my camera so you could travel with me down the country road to the airport, see the welcoming committee, remark the size of the plane, note the airmail being passed up to the pilot’s window and Nick’s deplaning, and finally watch the plane take off over a member of the welcoming committee, her attention now redirected to a most preferred activity. Here, at flickr, is the story.

. Janey, one of the employees of the airline and airport, is a local animal rescue specialist. You never know what you’ll find when you visit her at the airport. When we dropped Nick off for his outbound flight, she let us know that the pilot was coming in quickly to see her babies. Too bad I didn’t have my camera that time – her babies were 2 month old skunks! Their mother had been killed while they were still nursing. We found them running loose in the back section of the airport. She moved the baby gate and the babies scampered out from the back into the ticket and waiting area. 5 baby skunks exploring the territory, eventually finding human shoes and toes, as well as more adventurous human hands trailing the floor to be sniffed. Janey scooped them up, one by one, to greet us. They “scoop” much like cats grabbed around the middle and held aloft. These were very cute little critters and would soon be ready to release or adopt. Fortunately for all noses present, they are acclimated to people, dogs, distractions and chaos – so they don’t get defensive and spray.

. Picking Nick up, I had my camera, only to find that Janey was not on duty, thus neither were her babies.

. Nick came home on Friday, and I was supposed to leave on Monday. We showed up Monday to find the flight had been canceled. It seems that the lightning storm the evening before had taken out the airport’s one light/power pole on which hung the airport’s communication system and the airport’s approach and landing lights. FAA requires both for commercial flights to operate. The power company hoped to have the transformer working again by mid-day and afterwards the communication and approach/landing systems could be restored. When was the last time you couldn’t fly somewhere because all the systems that made the airport functional were on one pole and that one pole was struck by lightning?! However, the babies were in the terminal. You should have seen the faces of the people not local, not knowing Janey’s penchant for critters in need, when they saw several small skunks with tails standing at high noon waddling around the waiting area checking out feet and bags. But you can imagine. Good news: two babies have been adopted (skunks, believe it or not, make excellent pets) and the others are almost ready for wild release.

. I flew out on Tuesday, spent a good and productive week in DC and flew back on Sunday last weekend. Monsoons are here. That means that, like DC on sultry summer afternoons, there are often storms moving through. We got out of Albuquerque ok, and flew through the overcast at an altitude of around 20,000. Looking out the window, I was struck by the experience of watching the cloud particles flowing past the plane’s window. We flew out from the surround of gray cotton, only to find ourselves surrounded by lightning cells. Off to the left, there was a very active cell – so fascinating to watch the electric discharges right to the ground. To the right, another storm cell was providing an impressive display. Ahead, toward Grant County, the mines, Silver City and the airport, was sunny, blue sky. But we had to get through the leading edge of the front to reach that calmer, brighter prospect. And so we hit the bumps. Once through, we sailed clear into the airport. I hoped that the plane would have time to land, shovel us all out the door and get airborne again, before the storms hit. Otherwise, those pilots would need someone’s living room couch for the night.

. Landing on time meant we got home just before the storms moved over Silver City proper. So we sat on the back patio and watched the most spectacular sky scenery that we’ve seen since moving here. Magical -- clouds, layered in purples and blues with coral bands where the cloud layer was high enough to reflect the setting sun’s light; deep windows into the strata of clouds with lightning running laterally across space against blue sky; almost black at the horizon with falling rain making indistinguishable the sky from the hills. We took Nutmeg for her evening walk, walking in circles and loops up the road and back again, with our heads craned back, trying to take in what was offered to us up above. And you know, for all of that, it never did rain here that night.

A Collection of Small Observations at Week's End

I have been collecting these small observations about visiting, being and living in Silver City.

· When you drive in Silver City, wear your seatbelt. Nick has the opportunity to support the state, if not the local, Motor Vehicle Department because he forgot to put on his seatbelt and got pulled over and ticketed. No warning for anything else – not going too fast, no rolling stop at a stop sign, no light burned out, nothing. Just the seat belt. I know small towns make a living on unwary drivers, but usually with out-of-state plates going 2 miles over the speed limit. But seat belts!?

· When you buy in Silver City, have cash. Many small business cannot afford the cost of credit cards, which can charge a business up to 5% or more (especially American Express) for a purchase. So many have instituted a cash/check-only policy – no credit cards at all. Others have set a limit of $10 or $15 dollars for credit card purchases. Not the big stores or businesses like WalMart or Micky-D’s – they still take your card for $3.15. But a latte? Or a tamale? Cash only, please.

· Javalina, one of the coffee houses, still posts people’s names who write bad checks. There’s someone who wrote them not one, but three bad checks. Dude’s from Colorado, so I doubt that Javalina will see the money. Again, the lesson, though – avoid embarrassment, cash only, please.

· “Yes, we have no tamales…” Oh, but we do – pork spiced with red chili and chicken spiced with green. Real corn husk. Large, plump; two will fill you up. Best part is – they’re a small unadorned storefront, which means the tourists won’t find them. That’s good because even without tourists, they sell out fast. Just increased, with apologies, the price for tamales to $1.50 each. They’re a small family-run business in a little section of a strip; the kitchen-side is screened by a table-cloth and the side you enter has no neon sign, no logo, no advertising, no testimonials – just handwritten signs on lined notepaper telling what they sell, which is about 5 things: tamales, tortillas, Menudo and home cut-and-cooked chips. All fresh. All handmade. All still warm from the fire. I don’t eat peppers. Or at least I thought not. But there’s a difference between bell pepper (don’t eat) and chili pepper (am learning to eat). Tried a piece of Nick’s pork tamale and was instantly hooked. Have been in most Saturday mornings since to purchase six tamales (half pork, half chicken) to take home for lunch

· Getting adventurous now – IF I can eat RED-CHILI PORK, what else might I be able to eat? I’ve been experimenting with some red chili powder given to me by a friend, different, lighter red chili powder purchased from a couple from Hatch – chili capital of the world, self-proclaimed – and green chili. To date, my gastronomical experiments: light red chili and key lime juice homemade salad dressing; dark red chili marinade for chicken breasts; chicken soaked in chili and lime juice on the grill; jicima (raw) with light and dark red chili and lime juice and tonight, a twist on an classic Southern recipe. I grew up with fresh cucumbers and onions sliced into a bowl and fresh pickled with oil and red-wine vinegar, with lots of dill, preferably fresh, plus salt, etc. A favorite! Tonight I soaked 3 dried green chili pods and when they were plump again, stripped out the seeds, chopped them up and mixed them with oil, vinegar tarragon and basil and put that on the cucumbers and onion. Even I liked it! Next time, I think I’ll use one green chili pod less – they were so hot, Nick got the hiccups.

· Learning to use chili, especially green chili pods, means also learning where not to put your fingers afterwards – Eyes! Nose! Although I had washed my hands carefully – I thought – I still had some chili under my fingernails. Scratched my eyelid! Oymygod! Blew my nose!! Ay, carumba!!

· Going to the local theatre means not having to wait in line, even for blockbusters. New mathematical relationship to master: blockbuster only as large as blocks from which to draw theatre goers . Harry Potter hit town. We haven’t been to a movie since we got here. Yes, there is a theatre – two screens, even. In a metal warehouse type building. No marquee to speak of, just an old sign for the Real West Cinema. Really! Real West… There isn’t a ticket booth. There’s a card-table where the lady sells tickets and only gives you one half, because there’s no ticket taker. We arrived ½ hour before the show. That would be almost too late for Harry Potter at 6 pm on a Saturday in Gaithersburg or Bethesda or Arlington. Not sold out, no siree. No line! 3 souls in front of us. No ticket lady yet – too early? Just making popcorn. Mmmm, fresh popped. Theatre seats about 200. But it was less than ½ filled.

· We’re discovering that, without an acre and half of grass to cut, trim, sometimes-rake, plus bushes to prune, mulch or otherwise tend, we have quite a bit of leisure time. If we don’t have a plan for the weekend days, we have time to just be. Novel experience – one I’d recommend everyone try out from time to time. This evening, we sat on the back patio sheltered from the rain, and fell into a drowse watching the thunder storms move across the sky. Woke up in time for dinner and walk the dog. And now time to get ready for the week to come.