The Big Dipper is leaking and the Moon is a Ghost

The Big Dipper is leaking.


Stepped out early one morning last week, well before dawn, with Nutmeg. Looked up at the still-dark sky filled with brilliant stars just in time to see a streak escaping the lip of the Big Dipper constellation. A shooting star! Just a couple of weeks ago I saw two shooting stars in one evening while sitting at an outdoor presentation on the universe and space. Now that the humidity and haze of the monsoons are relieved by the arrival of fall, the skies are crystal again. The Milky Way is again stretched across the heaven as though it’s replacing the earth-bound rivers that have dried in their beds until the next monsoon season.

The presentation was offered by an astronomer named Gary Emerson. Gary is now an amateur astronomer. Amateur only because he’s no longer paid for his passion. His particular passions have included designing the imaging technologies on satellites such as Magellan, Galileo, Voyager and, most recently, the Hubble Telescope. Can you imagine sitting in the dark and watching images projected against a stucco wall, taking you right up into the stars, riding on the wing of a satellite with one of the people who made the images possible! Looking up at the stars on his direction and seeing streaks of light making exclamation marks.

The ghost moon is setting.
This morning, the full moon was a dawn ghost, appearing on the horizon at 8 am large as a silver dollar sitting on edge and glowing with reflected light.

A fitting start for a day trip to the ghost town of Mogollon (pronounced Muggy-yown) up in the Gila National Forest. The town is an old mining town that is said to be the “ghost town that won’t die.” While many of the buildings have indeed been left to the miners’ ghosts, there is a solid core of fleshandblood people who live there year round and who have taken pains to build lives and livings, and to stabilize and preserve the town. Among the old wooden and stone structures are a general store, a theater, a church, several old houses and outbuildings, old stone buildings with filmy windows and fading painted signs and an old gasoline pump surrounded by cars that must have died waiting for a gasoline delivery. Among the living structures are the Purple Onion Café, an antiques and collectibles business, an art gallery and the Cemetery’s archive. Here are my flikr images from Mogollon.

The day was blue and gold, cool and crisp – a perfect fall day. We drove out through the Gila valley, crossing the Gila River at several points. This was the landscape that was verdantly green just weeks ago and full of wild sunflowers and other summer blooms. Now the fall has burnished the hillsides into shades of bronze and copper, yet still spangled with scatters of yellow flowers. To reach the town of Mogollon, we climbed 2,000 feet in elevation and then dropped vertically almost that far into a deep, narrow canyon to find the town, ghost and living, spread along Silver Creek. The road is not for the faint of heart or stomach. It is as wide as a king bed and has no guard rails. We were assured by one resident that in the 35 years she’s lived in Mogollon, they’ve never had to call an ambulance for an accident. Going back upthendown snake curves, blindly trusting that everyone who was coming to Mogollon today was already there and not heading uphill to meet me on the next hairpin, I thought they wouldn’t need an ambulance – any old hearse would do if I went over the edge!

We were lucky. Today was their last day open for the season. The next big cloud could bring them snow. The living will be bringing in wood and wrapping windows soon. Who knows what the ghosts do to prepare for winter.

By the way, it dawned on me (pun intended) the morning I saw my third shooting star in two weeks: Chicken Little was right. The sky does fall – one star at a time. Chicken was just a little too literal.

Cloud Cover -- Summer 2010

Selections from a series of summer clouds -- sunrise, sunset and storm cells.

Summer into Fall in the blink of an eye -- Part 3

Late summer and early fall have brought some interesting critters of the 4 legged and winged variety to the neighborhood. Just tonight, turning off the street to start down our driveway, my headlight caught what at first appeared to be the neighbor’s cat. Nooo, their cat is yellow and this animal appeared no-color in the glare of my light. Ears too tall and pointy. Tail too long and bushy. Moves oddly for a cat. I stopped the car and the animal, in the act of running the other way, also stopped and turned to look. After a quick pause, it started back to the direction I suspect it was headed as I started my turn – right down my driveway and into the weeds. Now I could see – a small gray fox.


Another denizen of the dusk was surprised by Nutmeg while on a walk with Nick a couple of weeks ago. I was in DC and talking to Nick on the phone as he walked her, and heard, “No Nutmeg. Get back. GetbackgetbackaghhhhhNUTMEG!” This followed by, “Oh sh__, it got her…NUTMEGaghhhh.” Then the next – and last – thing I heard that night was – “What is it I’m supposed to wash her with? Vinegar? Baking soda? What?” No having to guess what she found in the weeds by the culvert. A cat of a different stripe! I came home a day later to find my skunked dog quarantined in the garage. Nick had gotten as much off as he could but she still had that unmistakable fragrance.

And still another cat story. It was a few weeks ago now that I encountered one of our neighbors on my morning walk with Nutmeg. She had had a harrowing night. A deer was taken just outside their bedroom window. I never thought deer made noise. But in extremis, I guess they can be vocal. She told me that they woke up to the cries of the deer, cries that stopped abruptly. They continued to hear some shuffling and other noise, but no further sounds of distress. The next morning, they found the deer – or what was left of her. From the remains, their assumption was that a big cat took her. They thought this was probably the doe that had just birthed a fawn, but had not done well in the birthing. They had seen her refuse the fawn’s attempts to nurse. And the doe wasn’t moving normally. So she was quick prey to a hungry cat. We have so many deer in this neighborhood (well, you’ve heard my rants before) that at hunting season and birthing season, the predators are naturally drawn to the catchable prey. Not many days later, I noticed that the vultures that had been attracted to that doe were now soaring, perching and hovering over the arroyo that runs alongside our house. It wasn’t long before any doubt was removed upon crossing downwind.

On a rather amusing note, though. Nutmeg HATES big black birds! Just let a raven pass close enough to the ground to cast a shadow and Nutmeg will look up and bark and jump, as though somehow she believes either she’s going to put the fear of Dog in that raven or she’s going to snatch that bird right off the wing. With the number of vultures inhabiting the neighborhood recently, soaring and drifting, it was bound to happen that a vulture and Nutmeg would cross paths. Again on a morning walk, the vulture was drifting slightly behind us as we climbed a hill, putting the bird 10 feet off the ground but downhill, so effectively at eye level. Definitely checking us out. Were we still moving? Vigorously? Any possibility….? Nutmeg turned suddenly and lunged at the bird. Silently. Not barking. When a dog goes off without making a sound, that dog is serious. She was dead serious. Well, not dead, or the vulture would have hung around. But serious enough that the vulture sort of flipped her off with a wing finger and peeled out for more appetizing quarry.

Now, a final cat story. Nick hurt his back at work one Friday. Pulled it badly or pinched a nerve while moving a box at work. He was in a lot of pain that night and so we were both awake about 2 am. The windows were open in the warm weather. Suddenly, a huffing, gruffing noise outside the window—very close by. I sat up. “What was that?!” I had had one ear buried in the pillow so was slightly hearing-handicapped. Nick, already sitting straight up and alert when the noise occurred, said, “Mountain lion! I think…no. Yeah, that’s what it sounded like.” I could hear every outside dog in the neighborhood suddenly start to bay, howl and otherwise make wake-the-dead racket. Except Nutmeg. She was sitting up with her neck stretched as far as it could go, and then a little farther. Her ears were peaked and twitching. But not a sound. In fact, she had stopped breathing momentarily, the better to hear. We said, nah, couldn’t be. But yeah, it could, because it was only last week… What clinched it was when a friend told a story the following Sunday about camping up in the forest, having a mountain lion come up to his truck and huff-growl at him, annoyed that he was in her territory. He mimicked the cat and my jaw dropped. Exactly! I’m not venturing beyond the back porch light until season is over and those cats have retired up the hill to their more natural habitat.

Far more benignly, the fall migrants have almost all moved through and on. For several days, I watched a small flock of warblers work the seed heads on the grasses and weeds outside my office window. A bird would light on the top of the grass stalk. My first reaction was that the dumb bird didn’t realize the stalk was too thin to support it. I was soon struck dumb watching as the bird rode the stalk to the ground, fluttered its wings to shake the stalk and then hopped off. The stalk bounced back, leaving behind its harvest of seeds, upon which the bird jumped with alacrity. This happened over and over as the small flock took in the harvest before moving on. And the bluebirds are back for the winter, gathering in gossipy groups on the power lines.

It appears I got carried away with critter tales and didn’t leave time to finish Part 3. So, Part 4 – Comus Rd is sold and Rocky Creek is on the verge. We are in the process of selecting the builder – at least I hope so. Have to negotiate a price we can afford. Hope to break ground by Thanksgiving. So stay tuned.

Summer into Fall in the blink of an eye -- Part 2

Chile harvest isn’t the only harvest that’s been abundant.

This summer, we bought a share in a CSA – Community Supported Agriculture – called Frisco Farms. We bought in with 3 other couples, so that every other week, we split the take with one couple and the opposite weeks, the other two couples split. Interesting to see what goodies were included from week to week: stuff I love like earth-fresh carrots and sweet lettuce and then stuff, well, let’s just say the other couple got more than their share of the beets, turnips and rutabagas. As the summer progressed and the bounty grew, I found myself picking up our share, and then shopping for more. Until finally, I had to buy a second market basket. And we didn’t throw a leaf or a stem away!

El Niño continues to play out.

The monsoons started pretty much on time. We got rain, and more rain, and then more rain. For variety, we got hail, winds and flash floods. In the desert Southwest, you never complain about the rain. But the humidity! And, OMG, the mosquitoes!!! There’s been drought here for the last several years, but between the heavy and lasting snows of the El Niño winter of 2009-2010 and the heavy and soaking rains of this summer, I think we’ve probably caught up a bit.

The rains have greened the landscape. Even the driest, brownest, barest land has been brushed with green. The hillsides have been soft and lush and the meadows and fields, verdant. A friend of my friend says it’s just like the East Coast – rather “garishly green” says he. More than green, though. The wildflowers – the year’s second coming of wildflowers – have embodied the state’s emblem: Zia. Zia is sun, and the sun has bloomed yellow everywhere you look. Imagine entire fields – acres full of sunflowers. Not the large sunflowers from which you might harvest seeds, but sunflowers with blossoms about the diameter of a tennis ball. Fields and meadows and roadsides and pastures and gardens – all ablaze with brilliant yellow sunflowers grown head-high. To give depth to the sunflowers, imagine ground cover spreading yellow butter inches high and still another yellow of pure gold winding around the sunflowers’ knees. And now imagine the yellow spiced with orange globemallow, brilliant salmon and red Indian paintbrush, blue and purple and pink penstemmons and other colors topping plants I have yet to learn. Now, though, Fall has begun its inevitable change. One day the landscape reflected the sun and the next, the grasses are seeding, giving hillsides a tan complexion and the cottonwoods are minting their own gold leaves. It’s still raining, though. It’s October, and most days, the skies are turquoise and the cumulus is billowing white. But every few days, those clouds turn black and serious and the rain pours for an hour or so.

San Diego for Labor Day

On Labor Day weekend, we left Nutmeg with a trusted house and dog sitter and headed for San Diego to visit Ami and Bob, aka daughter and son-in-law. They recently bought a somewhat down-at-the-heels house through a foreclosure – is there any other way to buy, these days? We saw it when they just bought and before they restored and could see its terrific potential. It had “good bones.” Now, they’ve mostly completed the work and their little 1920’s California bungalow is a knock-out. Combines a sweet sense of origins with a good dose of personal taste. Took them a little pottery from a local artist as an anniversary gift and, what else?, some fresh green chiles!

I’ve visited my daughter in San Diego a number of times over the years; she has, after all, lived there fully one half of her life and, dare I say, one-third of mine! But we’ve never done the “tourist thing.” We usually go birding at the refuges or the lagoon, or walk the sidewalks of La Jolla and look at the seals (or sea lions, Ami?). But this year, we took in the harbor along with hordes of camera-toting tourists. The tall ships were in port so we toured a couple of those and then we took the full 2 hour harbor tour that cruised the Navy yards and out by the point where the sea lions (or seals?) haul out, and at this time of year, have their babies. I loved the juxtaposition of the canvas sails against the high-tech military sails. Was fascinated by the variety of military ships to be seen. Every ship had a story and the captain, a former Navy ship’s captain himself, knew most of them. Went to the zoo at night where the only critters stirring were a lazy polar bear, an arctic fox in summer dress and the lions. Went to a Labor Day party at which the main course of marinated steak disappeared from beside the grill, which lead all the guests to speculate on the nerve of uninvited neighbors to sneak in and steal the beef. Platters of uncooked dinner later showed up stowed in the bottom of the fridge, covered with foil, but no-one could remember putting them there. The grill was still hot and the guests still hungry, so we had rare steak for dessert.

Oh, and I was definitely one of those hordes of camera-toting tourists. Here’s what I saw on my summer vacation…

Summer to Fall in the blink of an eye—Part 1

It can’t have been six weeks! If I was able to write while walking the dog, I’d be prolific. That’s when I imagine all kinds of stories – all the details of life in Silver City. Getting my imagination practically translated to electrons is the challenge. So here, in 3 parts, is a summation of the end of summer and harbingers of fall.

Chile season at last

We waited anxiously. We had long used up last year’s harvest in the freezer. The season started late because of the cool spring and the abundant rains. We checked the internet for news of ripening in Hatch, NM. The Chile Festival was coming on Labor Day but we would be headed west, missing the Hatch-wide roasting. Bags of green chiles started showing up in Albertsons, but who knew where they were from; local, probably, but still. When roasters began to show up on the parking lots of the Co-op and Albertsons, and the air began to take on that slightly burnt, slightly spicy smell, it was time. A friend mentioned Diaz Farms down in Deming—they would have chiles; they are a big farm operation with a road-side market. Think Butlers Orchard if you’re reading this in MD. So off we went on a Saturday afternoon.

Chiles piled high on tables and more in burlap bags on the floors. Sorted by heat: mild, medium, hot, extra hot. We’re still novices, so mild still our choice. A half-bag is about 20 lbs fresh, and roasts down to fill two plastic grocery bags. And they roasted the pods while we watched. (more pics on Flikr) Fragranced up the car on the way home. I spent the evening laying the chiles out on cookie sheets for the freezer. Next day, I bagged the now-individually-frozen chiles.

The next weekend, worried that the 20 pre-cooked lbs wouldn’t last until next season – after all, the half-bag Nick bought last year didn’t make it to harvest this year – I went to the local FFA chile roast in the lot across from WalMart and bought another 10 lbs. FFA? That’s Future Farmers of America. Now our freezer is stuffed. We should be good for the year.

On the Gila up at Forks

Late August, I took one of my occasional one-day mini vacations and went with 3 friends up to a spot on the Gila called Forks, a Forest Service primitive campground and day-use area. Named so, I think, because it’s approximately where the middle and south forks of the Gila come together. If I’m remembering incorrectly, one of my SC friends will have to help me out. It’s just a few miles shy of the Gila Cliff Dwellings. It’s also not far from the assumed birthplace of Geronimo. It’s a lovely drive through the Forest. At this point in August, there were wildflowers everywhere: lining the road, in the meadows, down the hillsides and hiding in the grasses.

There, the river is gorgeous. There are towering cliffs on one side of the river. The other side is riparian riverbank, so there are camping spots and river-side beaches. We spread blankets, pulled out the coolers, books, cameras and binoculars, and settled down for a day on the river. Restful, good company and glorious weather. See for yourself…

Neighbors

You should'a seen our faces...

You should’a seen our faces after the rain a couple of Saturday evenings ago: We had dinner in town around 6:30. We realized at some point it was raining outside – hard! But that’s nothing new; we’ve had a very generous monsoon so far this summer. Finished our meal, left under sprinkles and started home. As we came out of downtown and out Little Walnut Rd, we realized this must have been a right heavy downpour because there were large ponds and minor lakes on the road. Got to Cottonwood and started up, after fording several still-water spots. Had the windows open. As we approached a cross street that we know has a very low point, we slowed down. The first thing we heard was a roar. Like a waterfall with a lot of water over a lot of rock or a long drop. We turned down the cross street to take a look and stopped dead. Not only because of the sight in front of us, but because we couldn’t go any further if we wanted. Flashflood! Nick remembered them from living in Tucson as a kid and I had seen one once in California near Barstow. We’d heard about them here. And here it was! The water covered an entire meadow that is normally otherwise just flat grassland with a dry arroyo running down the middle of it. Now, the meadow looked a little like the Potomac at flood: wide, fast-moving and muddy. Then the water hit the edge of the roadway and began to tumble over itself. It was, of course, the water roiling over the roadway that roared. (Don’t you just love alliteration?) After standing there for awhile watching the power of the flow, and waving at the neighbors who had walked down the other side, we got to wondering what our NEW road was like. It is, after all, called Rocky Creek. And you do have to cross over a dip down into and through the normally-dry creek bed which is strewn with boulders and rocks. We wondered if Rocky Creek was also channeling the flood. More, we wondered if we could actually get to our property, what OUR arroyo would look like. Don’t know if you remember my video of the gently coursing stream back in the winter from the snow melt? So we hopped in the car, turned around and went on over. Sure enough, Rocky Creek was flooding as well. Roaring. Churning. Depositing rocks and boulders into the middle of the road. Needless to say, we could not get out to our property. How our arroyo experiences a flashflood will remain unknown to us a little longer. The next morning in all the low spots – no roar, just ripples and flattened grass.


You should’a seen our faces at about 5 pm mountain standard time on Monday, 8/2/2010. That’s when our realtor called and confirmed that our house on Comus Rd, Clarksburg MD had officially transferred to the tenant/buyers. Contract for sale: April 29. 4 banks later and much paperwork, we finally settled. Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Gonzalez, proud new owners of 15305 Comus Rd. Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Nick Sussillo, proud new holders of $$ to be put toward our new house at 52 Rocky Creek Rd. Let’s get started…


You should’a seen my face when, with house $$ in hand, I ordered and received the first purchases for the new house: 3 energy-star ceiling fans. I have spent hours online looking at various appointments for the house. Ceiling fans. Lights. Wood stoves. Tubs. And even toilets! My plan is to purchase in advance and online some products and store them in our garage. This is how I will get exactly what I want. I’ve become, in general, a proponent of “buy local, support local” but that doesn’t work as well for house appointments as it does for tomatoes. There’s only one lumber yard/materials store in town, plus an ACE hardware and a Wallmart. No Home Depot. No Lowes. Nearest are in Las Cruces, Tucson, El Paso, or Albuquerque. So I’ll let the builder go to Foxworth for lumber and nails and all that stuff. But I’ll go online for those things when generic won’t do. Besides, I save money. Lower prices usually. No taxes usually. No shipping if I’m careful. And no builder markup on materials – yep, it seems that at least some builders add a percentage markup on the materials they order for the project.


You should’a seen my face when I came back to my car in the grocery store lot on Sunday, to notice that things were lying on the drivers and passenger seat and on the passenger-side floor. To scratch my head. To realize that I couldn’t have missed seeing the prescription bottle on the driver’s seat and sat on it. To come to the slow and unhappy realization that the car had been rifled. More specifically, the little storage area that is in the center thing between the seats where stuff gets stored like change, small bucks and music. None of that here; just a prescription bottle, an empty glass case, a couple of wrappers and a leaky tube of lotion. A good hat still lay on the back seat. My unique and irreplaceable hand-painted walking stick still lay in the floor in back. Car was not only unlocked but the windows were open. Most of my life, I have resisted locking my car on philosophical reasons. Should I re-evaluate my philosophy?

The Fireworks Continue

The monsoons are treating us to some magnificent light shows. We have had thunderstorms almost every afternoon or evening. The pattern is the same – the morning comes bright and clear, cool until about 9:30. By mid day, the clouds have either built over the mountains or moved up from the south. By late afternoon, or more lately, by nightfall, the storms are active, with lightening flashing from low-hanging clouds which are, in turn, trailing rain along, obscuring spots and lines of the horizon.


Monday night, the lightening was PINK! I thought I was imagining things. The storm was far south over the desert and the lightening was mostly within the clouds or cloud-to-cloud. And it was pink. I had to come in and google pink lightening to see if my eyes were playing tricks on me. Nope, they weren’t; there really is pink lightening. I was tempted to get into the car and drive to a high point and watch, even to try for some pictures.

Today, I watched the storm cloud roll right overhead. I mean that quite literally. Over the ridge at the bottom of our street, the sky was clear blue with white clouds. Overhead, it was pouring rain and hail. I tried to take a picture of the blue sky and clouds through the downpour. The blue and the clouds were there but the rain was lost in the foreground of the image. I’ll have to do a little more studying on how to capture some of these images that are so clear to my eye and mind.

After dinner, though, we went for a walk and I did grab these two shots, just to give a hint of the different cloud formations at different altitudes. By the way, don’t miss the moon in the embrace of the clouds in the second picture.

Last week I took a day off and went to the beach! Well, more accurately, to the river’s edge. The Gila River up near Cliff, NM--about a hour away. There is a day use area on Gila Forest-land that borders the river. We spend the day with blankets, a picnic lunch, floats, binoculars, and cameras. It was wonderful to have the day to play and have the river to play in. I posted several other shots on flikr. Those shots include my friend Gail floating; doesn’t it look like fun on a hot day? And typically, we ran into a hard pelting downpour as we came home into Silver City.

The silver lining: thanks to all the rain, everything is so green. The hillsides and grasslands, the pastures and meadows, the roadsides and lawns. We’ll enjoy the green for as long as the monsoons last and a little longer too.

Organic Fireworks

We stayed up to watch the fireworks last night. Not the bombs-bursting-in-air kind. The organic, native, millionbillion-volt kind. What is it about thunder and lightning storms that is so awe-inspiring? That keeps me outside watching, watching and listening?

We knew it had to rain yesterday. The heavy, unmoving storm clouds had built up over the higher elevations, created first as cathedrals of white cumulus by the warm moist air flowing in from the south and rising against the 9,000 wall of the mountains then lowering and gaining their weight of water. The monsoon season has begun, but the rains have been indifferent. If those heavy clouds didn’t unburden themselves, it would be a cruel joke.

Around 8 pm, we were on the patio. First the low rumbles and then the light began to flash behind the clouds. After awhile, we realized that the flashes were coming from the north – the other side of the house from where we were sitting. We put Nutmeg on the leash and walked up to the top of the driveway so we could watch as the lightning became more active, flashing more regularly, perhaps every 30 or 45 seconds. We made sure that we weren’t the tallest objects standing. After a few minutes, as the flashes took on visible form, bolts jagged and brilliant, we let caution send us back down the driveway and back to the patio.

The storm cells split. Some went from north toward the west-southwest. Those cells were dry, leaving nothing but ringing ears and residual retinal images. But finally the cells moving south and east released their weight of water. And so finally it rained.

When I was growing up, my godparents used to tell me that thunder was really the gods (or giants, I’m not sure) bowling. And lightening – well, that god just got a strike! Last night, there must have been two full leagues competing and the strikes just kept coming. Here in the southwest, strikes mean something else – how many lightening strikes in the forest – how many new forest fires to spot and track and fight. In preparation for the gods’ bowling league season, the US Forest Service has moved in its fire teams: Hot Shots can be seen shopping at WalMart; the Smoke Jumpers rode in the July 4 parade along with the horse teams; the big-bellied aircraft that deliver the HotShots and Jumpers to the smokes and carry the flame retardants are parked, ready, on the tarmac at the Grant Co Airport.

Finally, about 10:30 the cells moved away. Lightening could still be seen far to the east. Low rumbles of thunder still set Nutmeg off, though not as frantically. We went in to bed, closing the windows and the shutters against the storm-cooled air. And the world settled down for a good night’s rain. We woke up this morning to find it is raining still. But it’s a farmers’ rain; a female rain. It is welcome to stay for a couple of days.

Critterlines

The month’s headlines from fur to feathers

Back in the neighborhood --Driving up Cottonwood to our house one evening close to dusk. We were startled and then thrilled to have a good-sized adult gray fox trot across the road in front of us. Gray foxes were common in this area – even this neighborhood – until a few years ago when they succumbed to an epidemic of rabies. We knew they were making a comeback because our neighbors had spotted them, because we had seen their scat and because Nutmeg the Nose alerted on their scents regularly. What a beautiful animal. What a welcome return.

It takes an expert who’s willing to stand still long enough! I had difficulty deciding what kind of snake I almost stepped on up on Cherry Creek Rd on the edge of the Gila Forest. I mean, who can identify something while simultaneously jumping 3 feet in the air and making loud screamy noises. By the time I hit the ground, started breathing and allowed my curiosity to take over, I’d scared the poor snake half-way up the hillside and onto the rocks. So my friend Gail and I studied it from a distance and then went to the internet. Gail’s herpe friend took her description and narrowed it down to a milk snake or a sonoran king, most probably the latter. He gave us high marks – seems I almost stepped on a rarity. Here are the usual suspects. Could you tell the difference? There’s a rhyme to help remember the safe versus the scary: "Red to yellow, kill a fellow; red to black, venom lack,"

Raising a family –A pair of ravens returned to their nest in our neighbors’ cottonwood tree. They successfully hatched and fledged 5 chicks. Key to their success was the deer carcass in the arroyo just down from their nest tree. Drawn by the deer remains, the sky was frequently full of turkey vultures desiring to do what vultures do. While one raven parent snatched gobbets of deer meat to take to the ever-hungry chicks, the other parent fended off the vultures. The raven a soaring, diving, turn-on-a-feather F22 to the vultures’ heavier less-maneuverable C-130. Eventually the vultures would leave – at least for the day. With the rising thermals the next morning, they were back to try again. Finally the raven chicks fledged. Our neighbors watched flight lessons and reported the chicks were unstable and uncoordinated, more like the Wright Bros than the Air Force. They have learned fast, and grown faster. There is now a ‘conspiracy of ravens’ in the neighborhood sitting the power poles and riding the currents while discussing the turn of human events below.

My deer, but you’re getting big Sitting on the patio reading, having the feeling of being watched, and looking up. She was standing right on the edge of the patio, not 5 feet away. Ears up and forward, nose twitching and sides moving. Wait – sides moving? To be perfectly honest, the foregoing is a bit of a composite picture. I was sitting on the patio and she was standing 5 feet away looking at me and she was very round of belly. But the time I saw her sides moving was a few days before when she was grazing outside the kitchen window. She is very preggers and will deliver very soon – twins, if she follows the typical pattern. For a flash, I empathized with her slow, awkward gait, remembering how it feels to walk for two!

Did the tooth fairy miss one? We were walking on our property when Nick bent over to pick up a long, white and weathered object from the dirt. Measuring about 4 inches, sheared at an angle at the large end and tapering to a point. Tooth? Bone? I always opt for the exotic first and settle for the commonplace second. Exotic: a javelina’s tusk. Not thick enough nor blunt enough. A cat’s incisor? Not unless the sabertooth has made a comeback. The commonplace: by comparing our find to a mature male deer antler scavenged from another trail, it turns out that this was left by a “spiker.” A spiker is a young buck that is old enough to grow an antler, but too young for the antler to make much of itself. You might kindly call this a “one-pointer.”

Puppy dog tails Nutmeg the Nose got snake trained. Not all dogs are snake averse. Some, like Nutmeg, lead with their nose not their caution. In MD she discovered a little racer in our backyard and kept poking her nose into its range even after it struck her 3 times. I finally had to rescue the snake! That isn’t good with a rattler. Spring training here includes Hector the milked, de-fanged rattler brought by the dog trainer to the local park. Turn the snake loose, put a shock collar on the dog and take the dog for a walk – right into snake range. See what the dog does. Let the dog get a whiff, get a look, hear the rattle and maybe even get a strike and then BAM! ZING! Yipes!! It turns out Nutmeg can tell the difference between the smell and sound of a little racer and a black-tail rattler named Hector. She paused. She sniffed. She shied away. But the trainer picked Hector up with a 12 foot hook stick, lifted him into range and at the same time shocked her good. I’m sorry – I know it sounds cruel. But 1: Nutmeg was on a shock collar on her invisible fence in MD so she knew what that shock meant when she felt it, and 2: a momentary shock is preferable to a rattlesnake bite anytime. Retest: give her a break and a bone, take off the collar and “go for a walk” again into snake range. This time, Nutmeg smelled, heard and ran the other way. Now when we’re out hiking, all we have to do is watch her; when she turns and runs, we turn and run.

So those are the headlines. June was a hot month and a dry one. Writer-dry, not a word moving on the page. Now it’s July, the heat’s broken, monsoon season is here and the air has freshened. Enough to dislodge a few random thoughts and observations. We’ll see what this month brings to story-land. Sonnie

Blues Festival 2010 -- The Character of Silver

The 15th annual Silver City Blues Festival – the 2nd annual for us – has come and gone. The weather was perfect. The music that we saw was fine. Got in some good dancing. Better people watching. Final conclusion? The Blues Festival is one fascinating human parade.

This is a sampling of the character that is Silver City. I kept wondering: where are all these people the REST of the year!

See the rest of the album on Flikr.




How was your Memorial Day? Did you grill a burger? Eat a snow cone? Wave a flag? Thank a Vet? ss

Natual Phenomena Part 2

Lance is back


The annual Tour of the Gila runs next weekend. Last year, cyclist force-of-nature-Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer and their team came in at the last minute, adding a little more glitz, a little more hype and a lot more people to the scene.

Who would’a thought he’d come back. His reason last year was to get back in shape from an injury before a big race in Italy. Not sure why he’s coming this year; the Sun News article, linked above, says he withdrew from a race in France and is preparing for races in California and the great one, the Tour de France. I’d rather believe that he and the team enjoyed the challenging courses, including the 9,000 elevation change (updownupupdownupppp) that was the course on the final day, ending in Pinos Altos. Not to mention the friendly people who were both thrilled to host the tour including Lance and Levi, and low key about having world-famous athletes hanging around the bike and the coffee shops!

Snow and coyotes

Did I mention yesterday’s blizzard in Part 1? Woke up this morning to 30 temp and more snow. Light, just a mist of snow, but snow all the same. A little after dawn, just as I was settling in to work, I looked out my office window to see a coyote slipping across the yard. Very exciting—first one we’ve seen here. Of course, we know they are around, as well as gray fox. We see their scat on a regular basis now, and occasionally hear the coyote neighbors calling each other around the hills of the neighborhood.

I went out to walk Nutmeg and could hardly get her past the trail. She hung back, her nose twitching furiously. At least I assumed it was the coyote’s trail. About half way around the block the Grant County Animal Control truck, with a big cage in the back, passed me, driving slowly. I thought to myself, “how dare they. Someone has reported that coyote and called out Animal Control. That’s pitiful. People let their dogs run loose (I don’t think I wrote about the local pit bull that got out of its yard a month ago and tried to attack Nutmeg when I was walking her; I yelled and growled at it, and it retreated enough until its owner came for it) but they’ll call the “cops” on a coyote…” and so my thoughts ran, getting me fair riled up! Until I turned on my street and there sat the Animal Control truck and the man out talking to a neighbor. So I walked over (felt like ‘marching’ but decided to ask rather than tell) and asked him what was up. Turns out, after all my building righteousness, he was after a big black dog that runs the neighborhood and killed another neighbor’s little dog this morning. Neighbors have reported this big black animal before but it has never been reported as hurting another dog. Now the Animal Control needs to capture it and take it in and so was looking for a good place to set the cage-trap. So possibly, it was the dog’s trail or the scent of his victim, that had Nutmeg twitching. Well, I sure hope he catches that dog. And I sure hope he doesn’t catch himself a little neighborhood coyote by mistake. Or if he does, he figuratively pats it on the head and lets it go.

The continuing dilemma of deer

The Sun News also reported on the most current thinking about the deer overpopulation. Apparently, the Game and Fish folks are thinking of trapping and relocating deer. They’ll be using nets to capture the animals. If you read the article linked above, you’ll note that they’re hoping that by reducing the deer numbers in this populated area, they’ll also reduce the predators that come in search of a meal. Note especially in the article that our present neighborhood, Indian Hills is specifically mentioned. Just in case you thought maybe I was buying into urban legends and imagining things :^)

Rollin' their own and other natural phenomena

We made a quick trip to Santa Fe last weekend to visit our architect – up on Thursday and home on Friday. The drive was grand with some wonderful scenery. These mental images come from that trip.


Desert mountains roll their own clouds.

I’ve noticed this phenomenon before. Drive across the desert and you likely will see clear skies. Except along the high ranges. There, you are likely to see clouds. These clouds are only along the peaks of the mountains with elevations of perhaps 8,000 and higher. On past trips, I’ve noticed these white puffs. They may not move; instead they may stay suspended above the lines and points of the mountains. Then again, the puffs may accumulate over the high ridges until the mountains huff them out over the desert plains and toward the opposing range or along the prevailing wind stream. If enough mountains are huffing their cumulus at each other, the possibility of rain takes shape. So on our drive up on Thursday, this was the face of the phenomenon.

Out of Santa Fe on Friday and driving toward Albuquerque, we noticed that the Sandia Mountains were rolling up a different cloud. From our initial perspective, it appeared that the mountain was smoking. To the west, the sky was clear, but there was a dark gray cloud emanating from the peak nearest us and trailing along the ridge toward the east. As we drove further down I25 toward Albuquerque and rounded the end of the range to run alongside, we could see that the dark, dense roll of cloud was clinging to the ridgeline the length of the Sandia range. As we traveled south, the threatening cloud receded in the rear view mirror along with the mountain range. Our attention captured, though, we watched to see whether the other ranges of note had rolled up similar dark bands of cloud. Sure enough, each range that we passed was similarly topped. And we noted that rain fell in isolation over mountains to the east. We had planned on driving back across the Black Range rather than take the longer, flatter but faster way, but began to worry that we’d get down to the point of decision and see that the Black Range was likewise clouded. Fortunately, by early afternoon, the desert sun had prevailed and the clouds had dissipated into a bit of cirrus.

That thing had horns!

On leaving Silver City on Thursday, we drove the longer, flatter but faster way, which takes us down toward Deming. From south of Hurley and the great Grant County Airport on down to Deming , the landscape is rangeland. Cruising along at 65 makes for difficult wildlife viewing. However, it is easy to tell a wild critter from a domestic one. And the wild critter we saw as we flashed by was no mule deer. But it wasn’t elk either. That thing was a pronghorn! No discussion about whether a pronghorn is an antelope (it’s not) or whether pronghorns are in the neighborhood (according to the internet research I did, they are). If only I’d seen, thought and reacted in time, I would have stopped to enjoy its presence.

More desert flowers

We crossed just south of the Cook range on Rt 26 and up toward Hatch. Unexpectedly, we found the desert floor and lower hills covered in yellow. Not with poppies, but with a low-growing ground-cover type of flower. Again, we found ourselves pointing out hillsides, crevices and ranges that appeared soaked with sunshine!

And finally, our trip back across the Black Range

I guess I’ve been here long enough now, driving these mountain roads often enough and acclimating my fear of heights adequately enough. When we drove the Black Range the one and only other time, crested at Emory Pass at about 8,200 feet, after snaking up on 10 mph curves, to snake down the other side on equally tight curves, I was in vertigo hell. The only reason that time my nails weren’t bitten to the cuticle was that I was driving. This time, the drive over was my idea, and again I was driving. But the experience was very different. I won’t tell you I took in the scenery. On those curves with no side rails and nothing but down, you don’t sightsee. But we pulled over a couple of times to take in the view, and what views there are from up there. When we got up to Emory Pass, we stopped, got the dog out and walked up to the Emory Pass view point. To tell you the truth, we stopped and walked the dog because, despite what would seem common sense and against the posted restrictions of 17 feet, we came up behind a double cab pickup hooked with an overlong 5th wheel and towing a car, and traveling tandem, another double cab pickup towing a flat bed with several atvs tied down. Way more than 17 feet. And anything more than about 17 feet cannot possibly stay in lane on the switchback curves. I didn’t relish following them down the other side; so we stopped. I was stunned to learn afterwards that mining trucks – double carriers – used to ply that road over the mountains on a regular basis.

A dog story

We took Nutmeg with us. I successfully found a halter that hooks to the seat belt, keeping her secure in the back seat, if somewhat disgusted and embarrassed at having to wear the darn thing. We stayed in a Comfort Inn. They put us on a lower level hallway next to the back door for easy escape for a puppy that needs to pee. Along with about 4 other dogs! The rule was that you aren’t supposed to leave the dog in the room alone. Apparently some of the other dogs’ people chose to ignore the rule. We were settling in when the other dogs began to bark. When it wasn’t the sheep dog across the hall, it was the little yapper two doors down. Or maybe the other yapper on the other side of the hall. Nutmeg, otherwise quietly hanging out by the bed, would jump, lunge at the door and reply in kind. It was obvious we might not get much sleep. So I decided the only thing to do was to sleep with her – or her with me – so that I could control her if she jumped up to bark. This is a dog that has never been allowed on the furniture – bed or otherwise. She didn’t even know how to get on the bed! If you can imagine, I had to walk her to the side of the bed, which made her nervous, not knowing what to expect. Then grab her around the chest – making her close to panicky. Lift her front quarters up onto the bed, causing her to try to back up between my knees. And then hoist her rear end up onto the bed. She stood stock still for a minute, trying to figure out her footing. That was long enough for me to slide under the covers. Which was her signal to sink down next to me and sigh heavily. And not move the rest of the night. Well, actually she did move – she jerked, she dreamed, she thumped and ran. But she didn’t bark once. That’s the last time, however, that she’s getting on the bed with me. She has terrible bed manners. She plopped her butt on the pillow next to me, with her head down by my knees. Morning came quickly, though. A quick bowl of food, and we packed up, coaxed her into her halter and were on our way.

Finally, white again

Today is April 22. A full month after the first day of spring. This afternoon, it snowed. Actually, it blizzarded. The cumulus that rolled up and out of the Gila today carried lightening, thunder, rain and snow. I looked out my office window at one point and couldn’t see the house on the other side of the arroyo, let alone the peaks behind. It snowed for an hour, enough to frost the junipers and leave a white coating on the ground between the pines on the mountainsides. At dusk, we still couldn’t see the tops of the ridges. Tomorrow morning, they’ll be white. At least until the sun warms them, melting snow and evaporating the moisture. Then the moisture will roll up the mountainsides again, to create more puffs to grow into new cumulus.

If Monet painted wildflowers...

instead of water lilies, this is what he might have painted. See the rest on flikr.


We took our Safford AZ wildflower excursion on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday morning, we stopped into our local bookstore – I needed something to read – and Dennis (O’Keefe of O’Keefe’s Bookshop) suggested that we go over NM Rt 78 rather than mindlessly following I10; he was at lengths to describe the views we would enjoy crossing the mountains there. So we headed up past Cliff, admiring our own snow-capped Mogollons and nearer-by, fields full of small yellow flowers – our wildflower immersion began earlier than we expected! Above Buckhorn, we turned our back on the Mogollons and headed west to Mule Creek, NM, and up into the Gila National Forest, which became the Apache National Forest as we crossed into Arizona. I was fascinated by the way the microhabitats changed so quickly and so completely: Drive through rolling grassland, hit Mule Creek and through two washes, round a bend and into ponderosa pine. Go up the side of the mountain through healthy pine forest, over a small ridge and instantly leave pines behind and enter piñon/juniper forest. Another curve and a bump and back into the pines. And finally, crest the mountain range, cross the state line and drop into prickly pear, ocotillo and scrub bushes. We stopped, breathless, at the overlook. Gazing into Arizona from that elevation, we could see across a valley to hills jeweled with gold coins and necklaces, and crowned by another snow-capped peak. The mountain on which we were perched dropped past cathedral spires of stone, with foundations of smoothed rock outcroppings. I reached for my camera to take some pictures and…Oh no…No memory card! I thought I’d remembered everything: dog food, dog bowl, water bottles, snacks and the little insulated lunch bag, binocs and bird book, battery charger for camera batteries, 2 pairs of shoes and 5 layers of clothes (not changes, layers). But I forgot to make sure the memory card was in the dang camera!

We wound our way down the side of the mountain, thrilling but not enough to panic my fear of heights, and into the valley. And here, they began. Blankets of flowers. Mexican gold poppies, desert marigolds, desert chicory, globe mallow and a half-dozen other flowers whose names I don’t yet know. The hillsides looked as though Monet had wandered the landscape with a leaky paint bucket and a runny brush. The gold ran in streaks down some hills and puddled in the crevices. In places, Monet had brushed gold across a slope and the poppy-paint sagged downhill in ripples. And his paint pot leaked drips, drops and splashes of color. Monet loved to paint the light—on these hills and fields, he infused rainbow colors with glowing sunlight. Some fields and hills and crevices were dense with gold while some were lightly brushed. He hazed fields of poppies with purple penstemmons and dotted them with white. In some areas, tall spikes of red-purple, red or orange stood over the shorter, massed poppies, asters and marigolds.

All this and no camera….

We drove on into Safford, located our hotel and checked in, then went to find the WalMart. Conveniently, we had not gotten around to getting N his Christmas present—a small digital camera. So we shopped, successfully, for his and found an inexpensive memory card for mine. Now, we were both ready.

On Sunday, we were back in Monet’s footsteps. We drove the triangle of Safford to Duncan, crossing the Gila River, and back to Three-Way. We detoured to the area where we had found such a profusion of flowers on Saturday afternoon, now that we had cameras. Continued up to Clifton to a little café called PJs, then back down and east to NM again. Climbing the mountain range which we had descended the day before afforded a different view of the mountains, the hills and their flowers. We stopped again at the top, but the day was hazier. The jeweled hills that stood out on Saturday were now fuzzed into blandness and the snow capped mountain forming the western boundary of the valley disappeared into the haze. So glad we had gone that way the day before. I still took a number of shots, but on inspection, the light was so bright that the images were washed out. Next time. Driving back Rt 78, we crossed the line into NM and from the Apache to the Gila National Forest, and dropped down into view of the Mogollons again and ran for home alongside the Gila River.

General notes from the weekend:

1. Sightseers can be foolish wherever they are. I watched a man driving erratically down a long grade sided by a steep downhill slope protected by a flimsy guard rail. When he got close enough, I could see he had a video camera aimed at the golden hillside. He came too near hurtling right over the rail, down the slope and into that same hillside, a lousy ending for his home movie.

2. Dogs are not always conducive to peaceful poppy-peeping. Nutmeg got bored sitting by her back window and tried – several times – to climb up into my lap. Guess who was driving? I was more than a little worried about hurtling down a slope myself, especially on one of those 15mph switchbacks on the mountain side. And if she wasn’t trying to climb in the front with us, she was barking at the unseen, unheard and very possibly un-embodied. I’m going to WalMart before our next trip to locate a doggy seat belt. At least that will keep me on the road, even if deafened.

3. We crossed the Gila River several times in two states. The river has its headwaters in the mountains of the Gila National Forest; I’m not sure of the name of the range at its source. It flows free through New Mexico, heading north through its valley and curls around between one range and the next to come south again on the Arizona side. If you trace the river across the map, it turns north again to Phoenix, and then angles down to a juncture in Yuma with the formerly-great Colorado. Once our free-flowing Gila runs into Arizona, it is dammed and siphoned and channeled into a formerly-great condition as well. At the point where the Colorado and the Gila join, neither is much more than a muddy trickle. But that’s a blog for another time.

4. Did you know: Arizona does not follow the change to daylight savings time. So in the winter months, NM and AZ are on the same clock. However, 2/3 of the year, when you cross the state line, you lose (or gain, heading east) an hour. Like the state lines themselves, time is arbitrary and convenient, having little bearing in the short view on reality.

5. And finally, what was I reading? Thanks to Dennis’ recommendation, I picked up an account of Geronimo, called Meet Me on the Mountain. Fascinating; told from the perspective of Apache oral history. There is always another story and another view – and another truth.

Ridin' with Bonnie & Clyde

Meet Bonnie. She’s the lead of this team. And Clyde’s the one without the blaze. Sonny’s the driver. We rode with the gang around Piños Altos as part of our “showing off” weekend with our friends, Maribeth and Eric, from DC. Great fun, especially because we drove the entirety of the small old gold-mining town. Piños Altos is peopled by about 310 souls in a real variety of housing – everything from old adobe cottages about the size of a small hotel room to new, high-tech green homes. Piños Altos is also the home of Judge Roy Bean’s original bar, a church built and donated by the Hurst family in the 1800s, the first school house now turned museum/curio shop (even the dust in the place dates back to pre-1900!), and the soon-to-reopen remodeled Buckhorn Saloon and adjoining Opera House. We rode through town after brunch in a tiny restaurant called Two Spirits Café, which boasts all of 7 tables.

Leaving PA, we traveled the triangle called the Trail of the Mountain Spirits, stopping at Lake Roberts for a bit of a walk down to the lake, partway around and back up again. So wonderful to find large(ish) bodies of water in the high desert. This lake was spotted with waterfowl; had I known – or more accurately – remembered, I would have brought my spotting scope. As it was, I did have my binocs and picked out bufflehead (not hard), coots (also not hard), canvas backs (a little harder) and ruddy ducks (had to consult the book on them).

We also pulled off at the Ben Lilly monument for a long view both up into the Gila and west toward the Mogollon (Muggy-yown). Beautiful vistas and details. Here’s my visual account of the day.

We took advantage of a second beautiful day to go up on the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) and hike a bit. Took Nutmeg. I ended up playing party-pooper and turned us back after about an hour. We were noticeably losing elevation – gradually, not steeply, but still. We did have to walk back up! An old friend of mine once said, about hiking, “walk till you’re half tired. Remember you have to walk back.” Well, when you’re heading downhill on the outbound, you’d better stop before you’re half tired because you gotta walk it uphill on the homebound. I don’t know who was more grateful to be heading back in the direction of the car – me or Nutmeg. She surely went uphill much more slowly than she had gone down, satisfying herself with only those smells that her nose could reach without leaving the trail. No pictures, although I had my camera with me. Really, one pine treetrunk looks much like the next unless you’re going to make a real study of them. On the other hand, there were several varieties of small wildflowers blooming at ant-level. It would have been fun to try and get down to their level and get some macro-shots. But that takes more time than most people are willing to wait for, and it’s not real interesting watching someone lying on their belly with a camera pointed at a miniature white (or purple) flower. That type of photography is better done alone.

Speaking of wildflowers, I just made our reservation in Safford AZ for the weekend. Over there, I gather that there’s more than gold on the hills. There is purpleblueorangeredandwhite – a real rainbow of earthbound color. Hope it waits for us.

Poppy-peeping OR Thar's Gold in Them Thar Hills

Wildflower season is here and at least in southern New Mexico the gold standard is leading the way. Alerted that the Mexican gold poppies are blooming on the lower desert, we made plans to head on Sunday to Rock Hound State Park, which is just below Deming, NM, which in turn is right on I 10, about an hour southeast of us. But we opened the Silver City Sun News on Friday to see images of poppies covering the hillsides around the Lower Box of the Gila. The Lower Box refers to a box canyon that leads down to the Gila River on the upper edge of the lower desert! Convenient – in our hiking class on Wednesday, one of the hikes they told us about was the Lower Box; they even provided a map. So that became our Saturday plan.

Driving down Rt 90 toward Lordsburg, we marveled that there were no signs of poppies in the desert – it looked exactly the same as it always does: shades of green and gray and light brown. Never having gone poppy-hunting before, we didn’t realize that the plants only grow on the hill- and mountain-sides facing the southwest (mostly) and at particular elevations (mostly) and probably in certain soils. We followed our driving instructions, which included turning off paved road and washboarding, sliding and jostling about 20 miles over a road that varied between dirt, sand and rock. We began to see faint glows on the sides of the hills and the slightly-more-distant mountains. After passing the windmill as advertised, and the corral as advertised, populated with a number of penned and not-penned very large cows – with horns – not as advertised, and going through a ‘close the gate please’ barbed wire fence gate, we finally reached the wash that presages the canyon. We parked, carefully avoiding the sandy low point of the wash. Did I mention that we were driving my town-mouse Volvo – what else! Unloaded the car of 2 2-leggeds and 1 with 4onthefloor, shouldered our packs, making sure we had all the water we could carry plus two bottles left in the car, picked up walking sticks, camera, binocs, leash just in case, and headed down the wash. We walked for some time before we came to the dam that was built some long years past, and started into the real box of the canyon. Problem was, we were getting no closer to the poppies we had seen on the hillsides. Walking the box would be fascinating, but that wasn’t our purpose for this trip. So we climbed up, or rather scrabbled and clutched our way up to the ridge, where we could see that the golden hillsides were on the other side of the box canyon, and very possibly the other side of the Gila River which flows by the end of the canyon, though it might be more accurate to say that the canyon falls into the river. We had gotten a late start on the day, having a morning to spend in town; it was by now about 3 pm. We were on our last bottle and a half of water, plus a granola bar and a juicy-juice. Somehow, it did not make sense to pursue the objective on this trip – the objective being to put ourselves into the middle of the field of gold – which could have been another hour away, if even attainable. Turning back was not a universally-held notion. However, 2 humans and the dog finally reached agreement, scrambled back down the hillside into the canyon and started back up the wash.

On Sunday, still game for poppy-hunting, we packed more water jars, more fruit, and made sandwiches and headed south again, this time on Rt 180 to Deming. Again, marveling at the lack of anything of color or note on the way down. Just dustdevils. Good thing they were only little devils; on Friday, serious dust storms had caused the closure of Rt 180 over most of our route. But this day was calmer, bluer, warmer. Rock Hound State Park is on the southwest side of the Little Florida Mountains, not to be confused with the Florida Mountains just to the east, and much taller. In fact, the Florida Mountains were covered with snow above a certain elevation, while the Little Floridas were covered with poppies; wonderful contrast. Certain areas of the mountain-sides just glowed in the mid-day sun. Interesting how the flowers grow more densely in some areas, and less so in others. The growth in the state park was adequate for the objective—to surround ourselves with gold. With a visitors center, a bathroom, picnic tables and well-maintained trails, we couldn’t have found a setting more different from the previous day’s challenges of dirt roads, potty-in-the-sand and a way marked only by the banks of an ephemeral stream bed.

We climbed the trails, Nick going further up than Nutmeg and me. I took lots of shots, knowing that most would not survive the editing. It’s very difficult to get good images at the height of the day’s sun; it’s much too bright; the light is much too harsh. But when you’re there and that’s when you’ll be there, and not earlier or later in the day, you take what you see. Nutmeg must really have been tired – she whined each time we stopped for more than a minute or so. Or else she flopped down. And then I had to encourage her up and moving again. After “rolling in gold” for a couple of hours, we decided to head for home.

Today, we’re tired. Little old 4onthefloor really didn’t want to go all the way around the block this morning. After her necessaries, she tried to convince me to turn back and take the short walk home. Nick was likewise moving slowly. I am suffering from walking-stick shoulder, caused by regularly poking the walking stick into the earth to keep this 2-legged vertical. But happy. This is why we moved here!

Here is the link to my set of images from the weekend on flikr. The images are about half from the Lower Box and half from Rock Hound. Also in the process, I discovered a website that provides up-to-the date information on where the wildflowers are for several states. I got a little…envious, I’ll admit it…when I saw the images posted on the website for California and Arizona. I don’t think we have that many varieties; certainly there aren’t that many blooming now. But we may be able to make a weekend trip in a couple of weeks to nearby Arizona. And who knows, we may be surprised—a whole world of unsuspected wildflowers may spring up here in the area. And if not, we have the blossoms of cherry, weeping cherry and other ornamentals to oh and ah over as we drive around town every day.

Suddenly, Spring....Maybe

Suddenly, last Friday, Spring! Instead of cold, damp, cloudy and snowing, it turned brilliant. Not diamond-hard cold brilliant as in a dry winter morning. But soft, blue and fragrant brilliant. The songbirds unwrapped their winter mufflers from their throats, leaped to the tops of the trees and telephone wires and unfurled their spring songs. The mountains held onto patches of snow in their north-facing crannies, but the rest of the world faced a warm and warming sun.


It’s true that we have had an unusually cold, wet and snowy winter; very unlike last winter (our first here) that was dry, mild and sunny. Led us to think all winters were like that, and that’s where Silver City got it’s moniker: “Four Gentle Seasons.” Not all. If you talk to those who’ve been here ‘only’ 8 or 10 years, they say this winter was unusual, atypical, even unheard of. If you talk to natives or virtual-natives, they’ll tell you that they remember winters like this…but not many. Just so, native Washingtonians – the few of us that there are – would tell you that this winter in DC was not a once-in-a-100-year winter, although certainly not typical any longer.

I read last week that the snow pack is the deepest up at elevation (9K and higher) that it has been in many years of long-standing drought. The snow-melt down the Gila side of the local ranges is expected to be 2 ½ times normal runoff; the snow-melt down the Mimbres up to 4 ½ times. A lot of water, much needed here and in the desert, on the surface and to recharge the aquifers. And the desert bloom is expected to be spectacular. We’re planning to plan some trips out and around to go desert-bloom-peeping!

And Maybe the snow isn’t quite done with us yet. Seems like every Monday for weeks, I’ve gotten up to snow. I resisted complaining for a long time: after all, I could have been in DC this winter. But it finally got to me. I even started giving weather reports on Facebook in a sorta whiny kinda voice! If all the snow that fell on Mondays for the last several weeks stuck, we would have been in direct competition with DC for snow-on-the-ground accumulation. At least here, the ground never really freezes, and the snow accumulates a little then melts. We had at most 3 or 4 inches on the ground at any one time, that would then be gone the next day – except in the north-facing crannies. After a glorious weekend, I woke up again this Monday…to snow falling! Those poor songbirds, back into their winter mufflers for another day.

On Sunday a week ago, Silver City put on our first annual (we hope) International Women’s Day Parade and Celebration. It started because 3 women had coffee together (or whatever) and started some back-of-the-napkin thinking. As an aside, I contend that most of the most ingenious inventions, the most creative solutions, and the germination of the most imaginative art started on the back of a napkin: linen, cotton, hi-class paper or Papa John’s, napkins are the stage and the floor for creative sketching. Anyway, the three began imagining what a parade to celebrate Int’l Women’s Day could be like, here. What we ended up with was a colorful parade of floats and puppets, street drummers and dancers, and women in costumes representing their wildest dreams (at least those that could be expressed in a family parade). One of the highlights of the parade was the large characterization of the fertility Venus of Willendorf, the 4-inch original of which was dated 24,000BCe. Women marched carrying banners and girls marched carrying hand-painted cardboard signs acknowledging the women they admired, everyone from grandmothers and sisters to the Virgin of Guadeloupe and an Indian Bodhisattva. Men marched wearing t-shirts with the acknowledgement, “Awaiting Instructions.” In addition to the pictures included here, check out my Flikr album of the parade!


This was one of the days when Mother Nature (She’s probably an international woman. That’s probably why she cooperated at the last minute) couldn’t quite decide which season she was; the morning started with something white, changed to rain, rained on and off until 1:25. The parade was planned to start at 2 pm. At 1:50 the skies turned blue with gentle cumulus and long mares’ tails clouds. The parade was over by 2:40 and it was raining again at 3:05.

In the way unique to a small town, that single weekend (from Friday March 5 through Sunday March 7) found our entire weekend’s schedule featured on the front pages of the Silver City Sun News: on Friday, a close friend was featured front-page above the fold in a photograph showing her painting, as part of the story on First Fridays; on which for the next several months, several galleries will be open late, with hors d’oeuvres featuring either artists’ new works or new artists’ works. Our friend, Sue, owns Yello on Yankee gallery and she was featuring a new series. Below the fold on the same front page was the group for which we held tickets later the same evening, the Boulder Acoustic Society. And of course, Silver’s own Venus of Willendorf was on the front page on Monday. Try to find your entire weekend covered by the Washington Post, including images of your friends and neighbors on the front page -- that is to say, assuming the story isn’t a tragic one or doesn’t involve 36 inches of snow!

So Maybe it is really Spring. Maybe this last Monday was the last time I’ll start my week watching white stuff drift by my window. And Maybe we’re solidly into the next Silver City season – the Windy season! ss