Whatever, it’s raining. We got a good rain a day or so after my last story (written last weekend, but not posted until 7/24), and have gotten rain somewhere around town almost every day since. By late morning, the sky is filling with wonderful, promising cumulus nimbus and by afternoon, the sky is darkening to the north or southeast. Just about dinner, the thunder rolls and somewhere around town, the rain patters.
Driving around town, the roads are adorned with puddles, reflecting sunlight like so many small jewels.
And it’s amazing how quickly living things respond. Where the color palette was brown, brown and more brown not 2 weeks ago, suddenly and within 2 days of the first rain, the road edges and the yards that had been cut were turning green. After a few serious rains, even the fields are greening up. Suddenly the desert willow and the Mexican bird of paradise are standing up with fresh color. Even the raw, bare ground at our place is showing new life. I could see the change from the house. When I was walking the property the other day, I found a baby barrel cactus poking through the ground – with 2 tiny pink flower buds about to pop.
Today, I was working at the new house, caulking. The storm was approaching – I could hear the thunder getting closer. Because I was downstairs, I didn’t have a view of the sky to see lightning. They say you can tell how close the storm cell is by the length of time between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder. Well, by damn, that cell was right overhead because I actually heard the lightning and felt the thunder, and it almost knocked me off the ladder. It went from drip to downpour in an instant and continued to pour for about ½ hour. The storm moved off to the Burros and the sky showed blue for a bit. I went out to take some pictures of the water flow down the driveway and around the house so that we would have a really good idea of where we need to do water management. Went back to work. Next thing I knew it was thundering again, and once again, a downpour. I stopped and went upstairs to watch the rain patterns, feel the wind and listen to the sounds of the new house as it reacted to its baptism.
When this second storm moved off, I stopped and cleaned up for the day. I went out on the porch – imagine that, the side porch is roofed with beautiful douglas fir beams and ponderosa pine ceiling – and looked and listened to PA creek, now a real, roaring water flow below the house in the arroyo. Packed up and pulling out, I wondered what I’d find at Rocky Creek. Yes, there really is a Rocky Creek, hence the name of our road, and it crosses the road between our house and leaving. Sure enough, water was boiling up along the edges and flowing across the roadway. My dilemma: we’re always told not to drive across a flooded roadway if you can’t see the bottom. But I knew at least one large vehicle had crossed not too long before I left the house and I could clearly see tire tracks through the mud edging the water flow on the other side from where I was and going the other way. If I’d been in the Volvo, there’s no doubt: I would have turned around and gone back to caulking. But I was in the truck and I have 4x4, so what the hell. If he could, I could. So I did. It wasn’t even exciting. I guess that’s a good thing.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Oh, I wish that it would rain, Rain, RAIN!
Staring up at the sky. Nary a cloud. Not a wisp! Brilliant sunshine. Curses! Welcome in October, maybe even March. Not in July.
In July, this is what we want to see. Thunderheads! Pregnant gray-bottomed cumulus. Rain!
This is the time of year when the same is on everyone’s tongue. You hear it in the grocery, in line at the little theater, read it on every Facebook page. Rain!!
This must be the only part of the country where people pull off the road and get out of their vehicle when the first splatter hits the windshield. Faces upturned, breathing in the RAIN!!!
This year of drought, we pray for, dance for, beg for, and bargain for rain. Rain arrived July 3, a mere one-hundredth of an inch officially. Enough to create a degree of pandemonium and worry. Pandemonium because it rained and set everyone to hoping. Worry because that 1/100” might be enough to give some a belief that the grass was safe for fireworks and the forest would be the target for dry fire-causing lightning.
Monsoons! Yes? No? What constitutes monsoon, anyway. Whatever does, it isn’t – not yet. A few days later, it rained over there about an inch. The next day, it rained over here an inch and half. Not yet the overcast gray fortuning a real rain. We still celebrated. RAIN I posted on my Facebook page; friends posted back, “Smelled wonderful!”
We’re still waiting. Still staring. Still praying-dancing-begging-bargaining. Everyone has too much of something this year – too much heat, too much flooding, too much rain. We’re on the not-enough-not-yet side of the scale.
Hopes up again today. Clouds built from early morning. By mid-morning, it was gray and overcast without a sunbeam in sight. Through the day, clouds moved overhead, thickening, threatening. At 4 pm, a spot of blue over yonder. By 7:30, a gorgeous sunset
Critter Tails
We have an overabundance of rabbits this year. Of both varieties: cottontail and jack. Hardly a day goes by that we don’t see 2 or 4 or 5. Often in pairs.
Last year was so green. When there’s more food one year, there are more babies the next. Works with squirrels, and apparently works with rabbits. We’ve started counting jacks and cottontails as we go from here to our new house. They are usually by the side of the roads because that’s where the green is. New grass isn’t easy to reach in the high weeds of uncut fields. But where the edges of roads are mown, the grass is coming in. Even without rain, there is a green haze. So there are the rabbits. In a way, it’s sad that there’s always the lag time between an abundance of food and an abundance of eaters. And usually by the time the eaters are there, the food is not. As in this year!
On to puppy-dog tails. We have a 6:30 am routine, Nutmeg and I. I feed her, and she eats. To be a little more specific, I pick up her bowl, rinse it out and fill it with fresh food and a little water, put it on the floor and get my hand out of the way fast. She is sometimes crunching before the bowl settles on the floor. You’d think we starve this dog! This morning, 6:30 as usual, I picked up the bowl. I turned on the radio. I rinsed out the bowl. My ears tuned into to some story on NPR. I put the bowl on the floor. The bowl was full of fresh water. Not fresh food. Nutmeg looked in the bowl, looked around on the floor and looked up at me. I never knew that WTF was in her vocabulary. Believe me, I corrected that mistake, but fast!
House progress
There are walls. There is a roof, though not yet shingled. There is a beautiful, brick-red concrete floor. It even has zias lined in it! There is a front porch roof that is ceilinged with clear ponderosa pine over douglas fir beams. The front porch framing and the back deck and side porch framing is waiting for decking. This week, they start framing the first floor interior.
I’ve been put to work. The framing has to be caulked (or foamed). So I spent hours on Saturday and Sunday with a caulk gun and a case of DAP, caulking the lower level where the frame plates meet the block foundation wall. Believe me, I’m not doing this because it’s fun to crawl around on the floor running caulk beads along the joints. The Build Green New Mexico and the passive house approach call for a “tight house” and that includes preventing all thermal bridging. So I’m just getting started. All of the framing needs to be either caulked or foamed on the inside. All of the seams in the sheeting (OSB) has to be taped on the outside. That’s how you get from one to the other in this picture.
In July, this is what we want to see. Thunderheads! Pregnant gray-bottomed cumulus. Rain!
This is the time of year when the same is on everyone’s tongue. You hear it in the grocery, in line at the little theater, read it on every Facebook page. Rain!!
This must be the only part of the country where people pull off the road and get out of their vehicle when the first splatter hits the windshield. Faces upturned, breathing in the RAIN!!!
This year of drought, we pray for, dance for, beg for, and bargain for rain. Rain arrived July 3, a mere one-hundredth of an inch officially. Enough to create a degree of pandemonium and worry. Pandemonium because it rained and set everyone to hoping. Worry because that 1/100” might be enough to give some a belief that the grass was safe for fireworks and the forest would be the target for dry fire-causing lightning.
Monsoons! Yes? No? What constitutes monsoon, anyway. Whatever does, it isn’t – not yet. A few days later, it rained over there about an inch. The next day, it rained over here an inch and half. Not yet the overcast gray fortuning a real rain. We still celebrated. RAIN I posted on my Facebook page; friends posted back, “Smelled wonderful!”
We’re still waiting. Still staring. Still praying-dancing-begging-bargaining. Everyone has too much of something this year – too much heat, too much flooding, too much rain. We’re on the not-enough-not-yet side of the scale.
Hopes up again today. Clouds built from early morning. By mid-morning, it was gray and overcast without a sunbeam in sight. Through the day, clouds moved overhead, thickening, threatening. At 4 pm, a spot of blue over yonder. By 7:30, a gorgeous sunset
Critter Tails
We have an overabundance of rabbits this year. Of both varieties: cottontail and jack. Hardly a day goes by that we don’t see 2 or 4 or 5. Often in pairs.
Last year was so green. When there’s more food one year, there are more babies the next. Works with squirrels, and apparently works with rabbits. We’ve started counting jacks and cottontails as we go from here to our new house. They are usually by the side of the roads because that’s where the green is. New grass isn’t easy to reach in the high weeds of uncut fields. But where the edges of roads are mown, the grass is coming in. Even without rain, there is a green haze. So there are the rabbits. In a way, it’s sad that there’s always the lag time between an abundance of food and an abundance of eaters. And usually by the time the eaters are there, the food is not. As in this year!
On to puppy-dog tails. We have a 6:30 am routine, Nutmeg and I. I feed her, and she eats. To be a little more specific, I pick up her bowl, rinse it out and fill it with fresh food and a little water, put it on the floor and get my hand out of the way fast. She is sometimes crunching before the bowl settles on the floor. You’d think we starve this dog! This morning, 6:30 as usual, I picked up the bowl. I turned on the radio. I rinsed out the bowl. My ears tuned into to some story on NPR. I put the bowl on the floor. The bowl was full of fresh water. Not fresh food. Nutmeg looked in the bowl, looked around on the floor and looked up at me. I never knew that WTF was in her vocabulary. Believe me, I corrected that mistake, but fast!
House progress
There are walls. There is a roof, though not yet shingled. There is a beautiful, brick-red concrete floor. It even has zias lined in it! There is a front porch roof that is ceilinged with clear ponderosa pine over douglas fir beams. The front porch framing and the back deck and side porch framing is waiting for decking. This week, they start framing the first floor interior.
I’ve been put to work. The framing has to be caulked (or foamed). So I spent hours on Saturday and Sunday with a caulk gun and a case of DAP, caulking the lower level where the frame plates meet the block foundation wall. Believe me, I’m not doing this because it’s fun to crawl around on the floor running caulk beads along the joints. The Build Green New Mexico and the passive house approach call for a “tight house” and that includes preventing all thermal bridging. So I’m just getting started. All of the framing needs to be either caulked or foamed on the inside. All of the seams in the sheeting (OSB) has to be taped on the outside. That’s how you get from one to the other in this picture. If you need me any afternoon after work for the next couple of weeks, you know where to find me.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
A Community on Fire
Our community is on fire, but not the kind of fire that has plagued NM and AZ of late. Instead, we are burning with a sense of accomplishment and thanks. Over the past two weeks, the community came together over a shared concern about fireworks and the dangers for real and devastating fire. An epidemic of chutzpah started with a little exposure to the fire professionals of the town and county in several community meetings, and it was communicated through various email lists of homeowner associations and neighborhood watch groups; it became a real contagion when the fireworks tents went up in Walmart and Food Basket parking lots, causing community members to picket and raise the alarm. Finally, chutzpah went viral when the mayor, the town council and the town’s attorney took a stand against fireworks of any kind, in defiance of state law that allows municipalities to regulate only certain types of fireworks.
To give a little more context, although the names Wallow, Horseshoe and most recently, Los Alamos don’t need context – they are the context – the state of NM allows sales of all sorts of fireworks from sparklers to “rockets bursting in air.” Even the governor has limited ability to impact the sales of fireworks; she can only ban them on state lands. Municipalities are limited to banning certain types. But in the terrible state of dryness across the southwest, any type of firework is a threat – wildfire is nondiscriminatory that way.
In our community, there are several local vendors who contract for and sell fireworks from a company called TNT. Ironic name…or probably, just good marketing. When those tents went up and the vendors were stocking to open, the community stood up. There was quite a bit of pressure brought to bear on the vendors. People walked the street corners with picket signs, garnering a modicum of police protection and a lot of public support. Calls were made to Walmart, locally managed but obviously not locally owned, and to Food Basket, which is locally owned. Believably, the local owners of Food Basket agreed with the concerns. Unbelievably, it sounded as though the Walmart manager, also in agreement, convinced “corporate” to support the community.
The vendors were in a bit of a pickle. At least one vendor under contract to TNT was a church using the sales as a fundraiser for the church mission. Another interesting irony in the saga: pray for rain but sell the rockets. The cautionary and appropriate thing to do would be not to sell. But the vendors would be hurtin’ financially, because they were under contract. Both community members and the Mayor of Silver City contacted TNT, who agreed to let the vendors out of their contracts. Not one rocket, not one sparkler for sale within 60 miles. All those who decried the over-riding greed for profit had to notice: not one, not two, but three profit-driven companies stood down in the face of community and political pressure.
It’s true that people could go to Deming and buy enough fireworks to set all 3 million acres of the Gila National Forest on fire, but perhaps they saw the light of a different reason. So it was a quiet July 4th with dark skies not starred, not spangled, not booming; no ohhs, no ahhs, no dogs hiding under beds in sheer terror. As the fever of chutzpah cooled, it was replaced by a probably short-lived flare-up of common sense.
We’re proud of our mayor. We’re proud of our town council and our town’s attorney. And we’re especially proud of our community who stood up together. Just ask anyone.
To give a little more context, although the names Wallow, Horseshoe and most recently, Los Alamos don’t need context – they are the context – the state of NM allows sales of all sorts of fireworks from sparklers to “rockets bursting in air.” Even the governor has limited ability to impact the sales of fireworks; she can only ban them on state lands. Municipalities are limited to banning certain types. But in the terrible state of dryness across the southwest, any type of firework is a threat – wildfire is nondiscriminatory that way.
In our community, there are several local vendors who contract for and sell fireworks from a company called TNT. Ironic name…or probably, just good marketing. When those tents went up and the vendors were stocking to open, the community stood up. There was quite a bit of pressure brought to bear on the vendors. People walked the street corners with picket signs, garnering a modicum of police protection and a lot of public support. Calls were made to Walmart, locally managed but obviously not locally owned, and to Food Basket, which is locally owned. Believably, the local owners of Food Basket agreed with the concerns. Unbelievably, it sounded as though the Walmart manager, also in agreement, convinced “corporate” to support the community.
The vendors were in a bit of a pickle. At least one vendor under contract to TNT was a church using the sales as a fundraiser for the church mission. Another interesting irony in the saga: pray for rain but sell the rockets. The cautionary and appropriate thing to do would be not to sell. But the vendors would be hurtin’ financially, because they were under contract. Both community members and the Mayor of Silver City contacted TNT, who agreed to let the vendors out of their contracts. Not one rocket, not one sparkler for sale within 60 miles. All those who decried the over-riding greed for profit had to notice: not one, not two, but three profit-driven companies stood down in the face of community and political pressure.
It’s true that people could go to Deming and buy enough fireworks to set all 3 million acres of the Gila National Forest on fire, but perhaps they saw the light of a different reason. So it was a quiet July 4th with dark skies not starred, not spangled, not booming; no ohhs, no ahhs, no dogs hiding under beds in sheer terror. As the fever of chutzpah cooled, it was replaced by a probably short-lived flare-up of common sense.
We’re proud of our mayor. We’re proud of our town council and our town’s attorney. And we’re especially proud of our community who stood up together. Just ask anyone.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
An -est kind of year
This has been, and may continue to be an –est kind of year. To wit:
• The biggest wildfire on record for Arizona: the Wallow fire. The eastern edge of this massive fire is less than an hour’s drive from us.
The fire has consumed well over 537,220 acres as of this morning. It crossed over in New Mexico last week. The forests being consumed are the Apache National Forest, and now in NM, the Gila. In reality, the forest is the same and knows no name. It’s the state line that makes the difference; when you cross from the Gila in NM heading west, you are instantly in the Apache in AZ. So likewise, fire knows no boundaries, lines nor names.
If you want to get an idea of how this fire has grown, here’s an interesting website, even though its last image was June 20.
Remember that the Wallow isn’t the only fire in AZ. There are several others that would total well over one million acres on fire or burned in that state. Nor is it the only fire burning in NM. Last I heard there are 600,000 acres of NM forests on fire or burned. And Texas has been burning, too. In May the report was that every county in Texas except two had wildfires to contend with.
• The driest season across the southwest in many years. We haven’t had moisture since the New Year’s snow. Well, we had two sprinkles that, typically for this area, hit the north-west side of town but not the rest, this block in the neighborhood but not that one, and this side of the house, but not the other.
This is one of the longest dry seasons we’ve had. That helps explain the state of fire emergency – or ‘red flag’ conditions, as we hear most days on the local news. Last year was one of the wettest seasons for this region in years. As the County’s fire expert said, it looked like Ireland. It was, for sure, beautiful. But now all that green has dried into fuel.
Worse yet, parts of eastern New Mexico and across Texas haven’t seen rain since last August!
• It’s the driest in another sense – average humidity is less than 20%. There were days in the last couple of weeks when the average humidity was 3%.
• The windy-est season across the southwest that lifers can remember. Usually our windy season starts in late January or February and calms by April, maybe early May. This year, the winds have howled around corners, rattled windows and most critically, driven the wildfires right up to last week. A good day is winds at less than 30 mph, the best is under 20.
• There are –ests in the rest of the country too. Almost all of the mountain west except for NM and AZ and maybe southern CO have had the wettest winter ever with huge snowpacks and lots of rain. And wettest isn’t limited to those mountain states. The mid-west, from No and So Dakota down the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers and their tribs to the southern states are also experiencing the wettest rainy season.
Progress on the house
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Here’s an image of the house from mid-week. It’s starting to look very house-like! This is the south-facing (long) and east end (short) of the house. I can stand in my office on the lower level and look out the “window” or “door” and we can walk around on the first floor and check out the view from the “windows.” By the end of this week, the house should have a roof! The goal is to get the house dried in before monsoons start. And then pray for the monsoons to start!
The next picture you’ll see will have the roof and if things go well this week, the framing for the deck and side porch. And they are working on the walls on the main floor. Once they get those walls and the roof, they’ll pour the concrete floor on the main level and then begin interior framing.
Meantime, we will be moving from this house at the end of August when our lease expires. The owner requested an additional $500/month over the current rent to agree for us to stay month-to-month. I’m sure you aren’t surprised, after my stories about this guy. And I’m sure you aren’t surprised that we declined. We will be house-sitting the home of friends who are spending their ½ year in Switzerland and will return to Silver City by Thanksgiving. And our new home should be finished by Thanksgiving, so it works out all around. So we’ll move twice. S’ok. We’ll be happy to be home.
• The biggest wildfire on record for Arizona: the Wallow fire. The eastern edge of this massive fire is less than an hour’s drive from us.
The fire has consumed well over 537,220 acres as of this morning. It crossed over in New Mexico last week. The forests being consumed are the Apache National Forest, and now in NM, the Gila. In reality, the forest is the same and knows no name. It’s the state line that makes the difference; when you cross from the Gila in NM heading west, you are instantly in the Apache in AZ. So likewise, fire knows no boundaries, lines nor names.
If you want to get an idea of how this fire has grown, here’s an interesting website, even though its last image was June 20.
Remember that the Wallow isn’t the only fire in AZ. There are several others that would total well over one million acres on fire or burned in that state. Nor is it the only fire burning in NM. Last I heard there are 600,000 acres of NM forests on fire or burned. And Texas has been burning, too. In May the report was that every county in Texas except two had wildfires to contend with.
• The driest season across the southwest in many years. We haven’t had moisture since the New Year’s snow. Well, we had two sprinkles that, typically for this area, hit the north-west side of town but not the rest, this block in the neighborhood but not that one, and this side of the house, but not the other.
This is one of the longest dry seasons we’ve had. That helps explain the state of fire emergency – or ‘red flag’ conditions, as we hear most days on the local news. Last year was one of the wettest seasons for this region in years. As the County’s fire expert said, it looked like Ireland. It was, for sure, beautiful. But now all that green has dried into fuel.
Worse yet, parts of eastern New Mexico and across Texas haven’t seen rain since last August!
• It’s the driest in another sense – average humidity is less than 20%. There were days in the last couple of weeks when the average humidity was 3%.
• The windy-est season across the southwest that lifers can remember. Usually our windy season starts in late January or February and calms by April, maybe early May. This year, the winds have howled around corners, rattled windows and most critically, driven the wildfires right up to last week. A good day is winds at less than 30 mph, the best is under 20.
• There are –ests in the rest of the country too. Almost all of the mountain west except for NM and AZ and maybe southern CO have had the wettest winter ever with huge snowpacks and lots of rain. And wettest isn’t limited to those mountain states. The mid-west, from No and So Dakota down the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers and their tribs to the southern states are also experiencing the wettest rainy season.
Progress on the house
The next picture you’ll see will have the roof and if things go well this week, the framing for the deck and side porch. And they are working on the walls on the main floor. Once they get those walls and the roof, they’ll pour the concrete floor on the main level and then begin interior framing.
Meantime, we will be moving from this house at the end of August when our lease expires. The owner requested an additional $500/month over the current rent to agree for us to stay month-to-month. I’m sure you aren’t surprised, after my stories about this guy. And I’m sure you aren’t surprised that we declined. We will be house-sitting the home of friends who are spending their ½ year in Switzerland and will return to Silver City by Thanksgiving. And our new home should be finished by Thanksgiving, so it works out all around. So we’ll move twice. S’ok. We’ll be happy to be home.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Foxy Blues get Desert Exposure
I had noticed that Nutmeg was spending a lot of time along that edge of the hill and along the wall sniffing every sorry brown blade of grass. Now I thought I understood why. But, boy, I didn’t know the whole of it yet.
That evening, I went down around 8. This time, there were 4 kits playing around the doorway and on the surrounding rocks. Chasing. Jumping. Climbing. Exploring. I watched until it was too dark to watch. Later I spent an hour dusting off my tripod, and getting out my old, film-based SLR camera and mounting the longest lenses. Next morning at 6:20 am I trooped out weighted down with tripod-mounted camera over one shoulder, digital camera over the other shoulder, binocs hanging around my neck and a cup of hot coffee in my hand. Got out there on the edge of the road and set up the tripod, focused the camera and settled down to wait for my neighbor and for babies. Carlene showed up, but no babies. We sat and whispered for almost ½ hour until I had to go to work. We agreed to meet again that night at dusk, about 7:30 pm.
When we met that evening, no babies. Next morning at 6:30, no babies. Mid-day, again, there was mama and 2 kits in the same junipers by the kitchen. Don’t know where the other 2 were. And then they were gone. Just gone! I’m going to bet that since they were moving so readily beyond the confines of the den and doorway, they were ready to really explore the world and start their practicum on hunting and watching out for dogs, coyotes and cars. So mama took ‘em to the school of life.
Silver City’s 2011 Memorial Day Blues Festival
The Blues Festival was wonderful again this year. Went to the opening dance at the Buffalo Dance Hall with a group calling themselves the Coolers from Tucson – a 9 piece band with 4countem4 saxaphones! And 2 of those are women who also do vocals. They specialize in old school blues, r&b, and funk. A great evening and great way to kick off the festival. The musicians over the rest of the weekend didn’t disappoint and we spent more time on Saturday and Sunday than in previous years.
I volunteered on Saturday morning helping vendors get registered, and then volunteered again on Sunday afternoon on a trash-tour. Meaning, I walked around the park picking up trash. There were 2 or 3 volunteers at a time on 2 hour tours doing this throughout the weekend. That prevented a lot of loose garbage on Monday to be chased down by the Town sanitation guys. And one of the vendors, a purveyor of coffee, iced coffee and iced tea treated me to a big glass of iced tea to ease the heat on Sunday afternoon. Only, now I don’t know what I’ll do with the brown-mustard-colored t-shirt that has VOLUNTEER across the back. A painting shirt?
Desert Exposure
A monthly newspaper-newsmagazine here in Silver City. Progressive and, like NPR, takes time to tell the whole story. Great rag. One of the journalists wrote a story on our new house. Harry knew Nick from covering the Office of Sustainability last year and knew that we are building green. So he asked to do a good cover on the house, the design, Build Green New Mexico and the builder and architect. We were thrilled, more because of the educational opportunity than anything. Here it is. Except that I think the Sustainability Czar tag goes a little far. Harry swore that wasn’t his doing. Must have been the editor that likes clichés. Oh well. Just call me Czresta!
Saturday, June 4, 2011
The Rodeo Rode Through Town today
Here are just a few shots to tease. I posted the rest on flikr
Watching the parade
US Forest Service Smoke Jumpers – and we’re glad they’re here
And on to the rest….
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The Bird Tree
We have a bird tree just off the patio.
This house is sited on the side of a hill and, typically for this area, the site was cut into the hill and flattened, with the hill dropping away from the edge of the house pad. That puts the tops of trees at about eye level when sitting on the patio.
The bird tree is a piῆon pine with the top several of its branches bare. Thus making an ideal perch for surveying the neighborhood, whether for mates, rivals or meals. Or just for lookin’ around. I shouldn’t assume that every action has a reason. I imagine that birds enjoy the simple act of observation, much as I do. I know that dogs will spend hours just sitting and watching. So why not their winged cousins?
Sunday was a lazy morning and warm enough to take coffee and breakfast outside. And my book. And my binoculars and Sibley’s. And finally, my camera.
The first arrival – and the fella that got me started paying close attention – was a Gambell Quail. I didn’t immediately go for my camera because I didn’t think that he’d stay if I moved or that he’d be gone when I returned. But finally I made a slow dash, got my camera, eased back into my seat, and framed him in. I’ll be first to note that it’s a little out of focus, but that bird tree is a ways away and I’m only using a little digital camera.
Over the course of a couple of hours, I logged the following neighbors stopping on the uppermost twigs for a look-see:
Scrub Jay
Spotted Towhee singing lustily (literally)
Thrasher, but unsure whether a Bendaire or a Curved Bill
Ash-throated Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
Hummingbird that was probably a male Anna’s, even though Mr. Sibley shows them as more a California bird, with occasional documented sightings in this area of NM. When you’re staring at a hummer that’s about 3 ½ to 4 inches high from roughly 40 feet away, the telling details are a little tough to make out!
In addition to these perchers, I had a Broad-Tailed hummer buzzing around – those you don’t miss because of the unique sound of their tail – a couple of swallows pining for the protected corners of the porch ceiling for their mud nest-building, others not identified and the usual ravens.
If I add in the take from the now-budding oak in front of the house and the ones on the side, we had a Wilson’s Warbler, a Black-throated Gray warbler, and another little guy that came and went so fast, I couldn’t get more than a blur. LBJ, let’s call it, with a touch of yellow.
Nutmeg was just as content to move from sun to shade and back again, toasting her muscles and bones while observing and dozing. Somehow, she pulled a tendon in her back right knee which is giving her problems. I took her to the vet and he said it’s like an athlete or an older person pulling the Achilles tendon or stressing a knee. Well, she is almost 10, so shall we just say an aging athlete?! Turns out she has a somewhat healed, older pull in the other back knee. Nothing to do but give her anti-inflammatory meds and not push her too hard. And get some of the weight off her. Do you think dogs understand the concept of ‘diet’?
Two steps forward and undone!
You may remember that I spent an entire day two weekends ago moving rock to start a retaining wall along the edge of the driveway. I even posted a picture of my progress. Last week, I went by the house-site at noon for some forgotten reason. Found PNM, the local electric company on site. Who knew that they had not finished installing the power line? The utility trench had been covered over and the temporary electric service pole installed. We thought it was just a matter of a little wiring and flipping a switch. Not so. PNM had backed a humongous truck down – right over the edge of the driveway where I had been working on my rock wall. Crushed some of my rock into the ground, pushed others off to the sides. Completely undid all my efforts. Well, so, this time, I’ll build it better – after I make sure there are no more trucks that need access to that utility area!
This weekend, we rented a chipper to mulch up all the cut shrubs and tree trimming resulting from carving out the driveway, clearing the house pad and thinning to create fire-wise defensible space. Picked it up on Saturday morning early to keep until Monday morning for the cost of 1 day. Hauled that machine out there on Saturday, after getting some instruction from the mechanic at the rental center. Took awhile, but finally got it started and chipped for about 15 minutes. Then the sucker died. We fussed and messed around without success at getting it restarted. Did generate a fair bit of smoke from the motor. So Nick thought it possible that one of the grinders was jammed and opened up the shoot. Sure enough, a previous user (remember, this is a rental – no accountability) had chewed up something baled with plastic twine, which was now wrapped thoroughly and completely around the axel. We towed it back to the rental company to get our money back. The mechanic, a very sincere young man with a quick wrench, was able to open it, remove the twine, share his opinion about his week-day counterpart, and send us back out to our task. Later that afternoon, we fired it back up again. This after I had spent more than a couple of hours cutting the larger branches into chippable size and dragging them up from where they were piled to where the chipper sat on the driveway. It fired up readily and we began feeding oak and pine into the maw. After no more, I swear, than another 15 minutes, the rpms started to wane, then wax, then wane again, until finally the grinder just stopped turning and the engine slowed to a halt. Not to start again. We hooked the brute back to the hitch on the truck. And dragged all those limbs back down the driveway.
And this was the reason I had all morning on Sunday to sit and watch visitors to our bird tree!
This house is sited on the side of a hill and, typically for this area, the site was cut into the hill and flattened, with the hill dropping away from the edge of the house pad. That puts the tops of trees at about eye level when sitting on the patio.
The bird tree is a piῆon pine with the top several of its branches bare. Thus making an ideal perch for surveying the neighborhood, whether for mates, rivals or meals. Or just for lookin’ around. I shouldn’t assume that every action has a reason. I imagine that birds enjoy the simple act of observation, much as I do. I know that dogs will spend hours just sitting and watching. So why not their winged cousins?
Sunday was a lazy morning and warm enough to take coffee and breakfast outside. And my book. And my binoculars and Sibley’s. And finally, my camera.
Over the course of a couple of hours, I logged the following neighbors stopping on the uppermost twigs for a look-see:
Spotted Towhee singing lustily (literally)
Thrasher, but unsure whether a Bendaire or a Curved Bill
Ash-throated Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
Hummingbird that was probably a male Anna’s, even though Mr. Sibley shows them as more a California bird, with occasional documented sightings in this area of NM. When you’re staring at a hummer that’s about 3 ½ to 4 inches high from roughly 40 feet away, the telling details are a little tough to make out!
In addition to these perchers, I had a Broad-Tailed hummer buzzing around – those you don’t miss because of the unique sound of their tail – a couple of swallows pining for the protected corners of the porch ceiling for their mud nest-building, others not identified and the usual ravens.
If I add in the take from the now-budding oak in front of the house and the ones on the side, we had a Wilson’s Warbler, a Black-throated Gray warbler, and another little guy that came and went so fast, I couldn’t get more than a blur. LBJ, let’s call it, with a touch of yellow.
Nutmeg was just as content to move from sun to shade and back again, toasting her muscles and bones while observing and dozing. Somehow, she pulled a tendon in her back right knee which is giving her problems. I took her to the vet and he said it’s like an athlete or an older person pulling the Achilles tendon or stressing a knee. Well, she is almost 10, so shall we just say an aging athlete?! Turns out she has a somewhat healed, older pull in the other back knee. Nothing to do but give her anti-inflammatory meds and not push her too hard. And get some of the weight off her. Do you think dogs understand the concept of ‘diet’?
Two steps forward and undone!
You may remember that I spent an entire day two weekends ago moving rock to start a retaining wall along the edge of the driveway. I even posted a picture of my progress. Last week, I went by the house-site at noon for some forgotten reason. Found PNM, the local electric company on site. Who knew that they had not finished installing the power line? The utility trench had been covered over and the temporary electric service pole installed. We thought it was just a matter of a little wiring and flipping a switch. Not so. PNM had backed a humongous truck down – right over the edge of the driveway where I had been working on my rock wall. Crushed some of my rock into the ground, pushed others off to the sides. Completely undid all my efforts. Well, so, this time, I’ll build it better – after I make sure there are no more trucks that need access to that utility area!
This weekend, we rented a chipper to mulch up all the cut shrubs and tree trimming resulting from carving out the driveway, clearing the house pad and thinning to create fire-wise defensible space. Picked it up on Saturday morning early to keep until Monday morning for the cost of 1 day. Hauled that machine out there on Saturday, after getting some instruction from the mechanic at the rental center. Took awhile, but finally got it started and chipped for about 15 minutes. Then the sucker died. We fussed and messed around without success at getting it restarted. Did generate a fair bit of smoke from the motor. So Nick thought it possible that one of the grinders was jammed and opened up the shoot. Sure enough, a previous user (remember, this is a rental – no accountability) had chewed up something baled with plastic twine, which was now wrapped thoroughly and completely around the axel. We towed it back to the rental company to get our money back. The mechanic, a very sincere young man with a quick wrench, was able to open it, remove the twine, share his opinion about his week-day counterpart, and send us back out to our task. Later that afternoon, we fired it back up again. This after I had spent more than a couple of hours cutting the larger branches into chippable size and dragging them up from where they were piled to where the chipper sat on the driveway. It fired up readily and we began feeding oak and pine into the maw. After no more, I swear, than another 15 minutes, the rpms started to wane, then wax, then wane again, until finally the grinder just stopped turning and the engine slowed to a halt. Not to start again. We hooked the brute back to the hitch on the truck. And dragged all those limbs back down the driveway.
And this was the reason I had all morning on Sunday to sit and watch visitors to our bird tree!
Monday, May 23, 2011
Picture this!
May 14, 2011...
Driving home one day last week. Pick up coming toward me pulling a horse trailer with side windows. Horse had his head hanging out the window nose into the wind. Just like a dog!
Driving to the house site a couple of days ago. Passed a house with the garage door open. The lady had her back to the road, leaning over gathering bags from the open trunk of the car. Poised by the corner of the garage, peering in, ears cocked forward was a large doe mule deer.
Driving through the neighborhood this morning. Pick up coming toward me pulling a trailer with side rails but no top. Glanced in my rear-view mirror once past. Laying snout-out on the bed of the trailer was a very large hog. Black head and face, and ties holding the animal down. Couldn’t tell if the animal was resting or ready for the butcher.
Where’s my camera when I need it! Oh, well actually it was on the truck seat next to me. But stopping in the middle of the road to take a picture would be pushing it, even for low-traffic, high-tolerance Silver City.
Working the land
We’ve been spoiled. We’ve been here since November of 2008 and during those two and half years, have fallen out of the habit, not to mention the fitness of working in the yard. Last year was a wet year, so I had to weed-whack 3 times during the summer. The summer before was drier so I think I whacked the grass once or maaaaaybe twice. Pulled a few weeds in front that came up through the gravel. But not the full weekend days of cutting, mowing, whacking, weeding, trimming of old (meaning old Maryland).
But there’s work to do on our house site to mitigate the scarring of construction. We have a good team, and they’re trying to be gentle. But construction is construction and there is scraping and tracking and moving of dirt and digging of trenches. And so there is moving of rock, raking, smoothing, and building of dry-stack rock walls.
I went over this morning about 9:30 and started moving rocks. Heavy (and we’re not talking about brothers). Worked until about 2 pm. I know not to use my back, so instead, my knees and thighs are aching. My arms are aching from “walking” large rocks and picking up and carrying medium size one. My fingers are sore from shifting rocks into place once on the stack. And this is now, having just come home and soaked in the tub in hot water. I wonder if I’ll be able to move tomorrow!! And yet, it don’t look like much!
Nick came early afternoon with the self-assigned chore of beginning to thin and cut brush. Geez, I hate that term (sounds to “Bush-y”) but that’s what’s needed. I couldn’t lift another pebble, so I went to help. Do you know, I realized that pushing a saw is harder than moving a rock. So I quit, came home and got into the tub!
Our house build is going to be featured in June’s Desert Exposure. The journalist came today to take the last pictures – which will surely be stupid-looking, since I hate to have my picture taken, since I had on a cap which I couldn’t take off due to a severe case of hat-hair and since, given all that, Nick and I were standing there staring into the lens. But I’m excited about the article. Building green will grow with education and information.
I finally got around to writing the first story for the new series on building the house. I've just launched the blog site, so please take a look and tell me what you think!
http://itainteasybuildinggreen.blogspot.com/
Driving home one day last week. Pick up coming toward me pulling a horse trailer with side windows. Horse had his head hanging out the window nose into the wind. Just like a dog!
Driving to the house site a couple of days ago. Passed a house with the garage door open. The lady had her back to the road, leaning over gathering bags from the open trunk of the car. Poised by the corner of the garage, peering in, ears cocked forward was a large doe mule deer.
Driving through the neighborhood this morning. Pick up coming toward me pulling a trailer with side rails but no top. Glanced in my rear-view mirror once past. Laying snout-out on the bed of the trailer was a very large hog. Black head and face, and ties holding the animal down. Couldn’t tell if the animal was resting or ready for the butcher.
Where’s my camera when I need it! Oh, well actually it was on the truck seat next to me. But stopping in the middle of the road to take a picture would be pushing it, even for low-traffic, high-tolerance Silver City.
Working the land
We’ve been spoiled. We’ve been here since November of 2008 and during those two and half years, have fallen out of the habit, not to mention the fitness of working in the yard. Last year was a wet year, so I had to weed-whack 3 times during the summer. The summer before was drier so I think I whacked the grass once or maaaaaybe twice. Pulled a few weeds in front that came up through the gravel. But not the full weekend days of cutting, mowing, whacking, weeding, trimming of old (meaning old Maryland).
But there’s work to do on our house site to mitigate the scarring of construction. We have a good team, and they’re trying to be gentle. But construction is construction and there is scraping and tracking and moving of dirt and digging of trenches. And so there is moving of rock, raking, smoothing, and building of dry-stack rock walls.
Nick came early afternoon with the self-assigned chore of beginning to thin and cut brush. Geez, I hate that term (sounds to “Bush-y”) but that’s what’s needed. I couldn’t lift another pebble, so I went to help. Do you know, I realized that pushing a saw is harder than moving a rock. So I quit, came home and got into the tub!
Our house build is going to be featured in June’s Desert Exposure. The journalist came today to take the last pictures – which will surely be stupid-looking, since I hate to have my picture taken, since I had on a cap which I couldn’t take off due to a severe case of hat-hair and since, given all that, Nick and I were standing there staring into the lens. But I’m excited about the article. Building green will grow with education and information.
I finally got around to writing the first story for the new series on building the house. I've just launched the blog site, so please take a look and tell me what you think!
http://itainteasybuildinggreen.blogspot.com/
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Tour of the Gila 2011
It was windy through much of the Tour. I didn’t follow the earlier days which are all road races, but did note in the paper that the winds were brutal on the riders and volunteers alike. I know that after spending the day in town I came home with a stinging face. My cheeks are pink and I can’t tell if it’s sun- or wind-burn. I’ve been slathering on the lotion since yesterday afternoon.
The weather continues to be the main story. The winds as mentioned. In town yesterday, friends told me they’re heading to Newport Beach, CA to visit their son. They checked the weather online and saw that the areas there had a high-wind warning. On further investigation, they saw that the warning was for 13 mph winds.
The humidity, or lack thereof, is the other part of the story. Now down to single digits. At that, you don’t need a towel when you shower. What you need is to be fast-enough to get the lotion on your skin before you go from shower-moist to alligator.
Otherwise, it’s been a quiet week. There’s currently a large wilderness fire – the Miller Fire – burning up near the Gila Cliff Dwellings, but even at approaching 3,800 acres, it isn’t threatening homes or communities and so can do what fires are supposed to do – burn through to leave a life-renewing scar behind. Speaking of which…
My newest read is Fire Season, Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout by Philip Connors
Connors was interviewed by Scott Simon on NPR Weekend edition The interview is worth a listen, although locals and employees of the US Forest Service cringed to hear Scott, usually a well-grounded and oh-so-solid researched interviewer, pronounce the Gila (Hee-la) National Forest as Gee-ya and identify Connors’ seasonal employer as the National Fire Service. Connors writes in the best tradition of Edward Abbey, Barry Lopez, Tom Horton and half a dozen other lyrical writers of the natural world whose books you can’t put down. Connors has also become almost a local, having spent so many seasons in the Gila and some of his off-seasons working in Silver City. Early on, he described the place he used to tend bar in town; as I drove to Albertson’s today for groceries, I looked and sure enough, the cactus and man on a horse were still there, up on the sign for the Drifter’s Lounge.
I picked up on some New Mexico fiction writers. Two worth the mention. Robert Gatewood has written a story set locally: The Sound of the Trees. If you like Cormac McCarthy (The Road or No Country for Old Men) you might recognize Gatewood’s style. Very spare, no frills, subtly descriptive. The other, more easily readable and digestible is Solomon’s Oak by Jo-Ann Mapson.
We were interviewed by a writer for Desert Exposure this last week about our green house. He’ll also interview our builder, perhaps our architect and others in town, not necessarily involved in our home build, but familiar with green building. For example, Habitat for Humanity Gila Region is preparing to start a new home for a local family and they are hoping to build to LEEDs certification. It would be wonderful to get some momentum going.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Earth Wind and Fire
The ground is so dry and everything is stressed. When I walk across the grass -- what we call grass, no such thing as a “lawn” – the clumps of vegetation crunch underfoot, sounding like iced snow crushed by a heavy boot. The oaks that drop their leaves in the spring when their new leaves are pushing out, have dropped but mostly aren’t pushing. We walked in Arenas Valley Sunday, through the tall grasses. The stems are brittle bones that snap at a touch. Spring isn’t entirely brown; there are scattered tiny wildflower blossoms and green pepper where someone took pains to cut the grass during the winter. It’s easy to tell under these conditions where there is any slight moisture under the surface. It’s in those places that the new oak leaves are making a tentative presence and the grass hazes green. Piῆon, juniper, pines and firs are green to the eye, but look closely and see just how desperate they are for water. During an El Niῆo year, like the winter of 2009-10, there can be 100+ inches of snowpack at 10,000 feet. This winter, the La Niῆa winter of 2010-11, there was 18 inches. We’re dry. Deadly dry.
Here’s another visual. The red-chile ristra is a tradition here, symbolizing wealth and comfort. This ristra hangs on out back on the end of the porch overhang and is about 2½ or 3 feet long. But if you look closely, starting half-way down and to the tip, there are no chile pods. There are only jagged bits of husk and seed clusters. The wind has been pounding and grinding the chile against the post. I scavenged a number of chile tips from the ground around the porch – those tips that were clean, seed-free and unbleached. I run them through the coffee bean machine. Don’t worry. I clean the machine quite well before the next pot of coffee.
The winds have been blowing steadily as they do here in the spring. Gusts up to 55 and 70 mph. Not quite enough to howl around the door, but certainly adequate to rock the truck sitting at a traffic light. I asked the young barista at the drive-through coffee shack whether she was worried about it blowing over. She looked out the window and upwards, thinking I must be talking about the shack’s sign. I was talking about the whole shack. She said she couldn’t feel it moving from inside and we both wondered, while we looked at my truck bucking like it was in a rodeo, what kept the little house stable. In winds like this, I don’t go through the bank’s ATM. Grabbing and holding onto those greenbacks spitting out of the cash slot is a challenge not made for slippy or slow fingers. I watched half a dozen ravens reverse-surfing on the wind yesterday. At first there were 2 or 3 and then others blew in to join the sport. All six beaks pointed into the wind, 12 wings outstretched still and cupped. Imagine riding a surfboard on the wave’s crest, facing out to sea and neither losing nor gaining position, just hanging in place and grinning. There were those six great birds riding the wind – the Bernoulli principle at its most playful example!
Here’s another visual. The red-chile ristra is a tradition here, symbolizing wealth and comfort. This ristra hangs on out back on the end of the porch overhang and is about 2½ or 3 feet long. But if you look closely, starting half-way down and to the tip, there are no chile pods. There are only jagged bits of husk and seed clusters. The wind has been pounding and grinding the chile against the post. I scavenged a number of chile tips from the ground around the porch – those tips that were clean, seed-free and unbleached. I run them through the coffee bean machine. Don’t worry. I clean the machine quite well before the next pot of coffee.The wind is not always a friend. It lifts the earth into the air, sifting it into the house to cover a just-dusted table in hours and gritting the teeth. It’s not unusual to see someone walking down the street masked for surgery. Actually, they’re masked to keep the swirls of fine soil out of their nose and lungs. Walking the dog the other day, I was struck by the air pollution I could see layered to the horizon. How hazy the neighborhood mountains looked, the Burro Mountains barely discernable and the mountains down in the borderlands hidden in a brown fog. I thought we don’t have pollution here—we have some of the cleanest air in the country. But when the earth is airborne we have an organic pollution unique to desert lands. Yesterday, Route 180 from Deming in the low desert to Silver City was closed for two hours because of dust storms.
It takes 3, as I recall, to create the Perfect Storm. Three powers in confluence. Our third is fire. This is fire season from now until monsoons start, and a blessing would be for monsoons to start early. The community suffered the Quail Ridge fire in March. Homes and outbuildings lost; fortunately no lives. I think 1800 acres burned—something like that. Started by a catalytic converter breaking apart and lying hot in the grass. Since then, in a 10 day span of vulnerable days, we’ve had six more fires. Several of those were houses, of which one started inside the house. Again and fortunately, no lives lost but stories abound. The propane tank at one house exploded (story apparently unfounded). Ammunition set off by the heat in another, pinging around and zinging out the windows, making firefighters nervous about getting close enough to douse the flames.
Speculation that some of these fires were set. Arsonists, possibly gang members. Set a fire, watch people evacuate and then rob the houses. These are the rumors running through the community. When the danger increases, raising fears, the rumors follow looking for something to blame, other than the most obvious fact: we choose to live in the fire-prone Wildlands-Urban Interface. The fire folks from the county, the town, the volunteer departments, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service are cooperatively holding community meetings. Have we heard of defensible space? Survivable construction? FireWise communities? Plan now. Cut the grass, trim trees, clean up debris, move firewood away from the house. Look at everything in context of its flash point. It has caused us to take another look at some of our construction materials and make some changes to be more fire-resistive. Good thing we can do that now before something gets permanently installed or at a minimum, material purchased.
If there’s a smile in fire season so far, it’s the one-acre fire that was set in the general neighborhood where we’re building. Seems a hawk took a rabbit. Rabbit probably still wiggling. Rabbit fell out of hawk’s grasp and onto a transformer, shorting the transformer, fricasseeing the critter and sparking the dry grass. The small fire was put out right away. This just demonstrates why the town and the county have put restrictions on bar-b-quing with charcoal or other open flame. Nothing was noted about whether the hawk reclaimed his now-fast-food-fried hare but I have to admit I’m briefly jealous of his grilled dinner, since I’ll be giving that up until the restrictions are lifted, hopefully this summer on the heels of a seasonable rainy season.
Small notes:v It’s starting to look recognizable as a house now. There are block walls coming up for the lower level stem/retaining walls. A septic tank was installed yesterday and the septic field will follow. The lower level slab should be poured next week. A real floor! Then, they’ll start on the footings and foundation for the main level.
v We’ve had a houseguest for the last several weeks. Flat Stanley has come to stay until mid-May, sent from our former neighbor, Addie. Flat Stanley may seem an odd name, but not for a flat character from a children’s book that now is the foil for school projects. Addie sent Flat Stanley 1 to see us, and Flat Stanleys 2 and 3 to her cousin in Peru (Ecuador?) and to another friend. Other Flat Stanleys have been dispatched from her classmates to Jerusalem and Europe. Flat Stanleys report back to school about their adventures and what they’ve learned on their respective trips. Our Flat Stanley went to see Annie on stage and met most of the actors after the play and so wrote home and sent pictures. He just sent a second story about animal tracks and poop – imagine how the 3rd grade boys will love that one. He will be sending stories about Silver City before – petroglyphs, Billy the Kid and Geronimo, and today – firefighters and police, and especially a story about building our “green” house.
v Juxtaposition – sitting at a traffic light one day this week. Cross traffic included a big pickup pulling a trailer with sides but no top, carrying a large horse. Think dog riding in the back of a pickup. They went one way across the intersection. Going the other way at the same moment were 9 or 10 bicyclists, racers in town for the Tour of the Gila, which started today.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.
In the spirit of yesterday’s meteorological metaphor, I was reminded of this old nautical saying this morning when I got up at sunrise to let Nutmeg out. There were heavy clouds moving northward from the borderlands up over the mountains and the Gila forest. To the south, as the clouds skidded along, the sky was clearing and the sun was beginning to rise. The early rays set the bottoms of the clouds on fire. Beautiful in one respect, but again…red sky at morning… The clouds piled up, crimson reflections gone, on the ridges of the mountains and there they sit still. If I look carefully, I can see some little cells of rain. Deeper into the forest and at higher elevations, there is the threat of lightning which in turn creates the threat of wildfire. We’re already under a severe wind and fire warning because of the lack of moisture and 30+ mph winds.
Coffee in hand, I came in (not yet 7 am but well past the midnight deadline) to check the Washington Post online. What’s the status of the hurricane called Furlough? Where is he now? Well, somehow, Furlough veered offshore at the last minute and the government is sort of funded for the nonce. I can’t tell from what I’ve read whether we’re funded for a week or for the rest of the fiscal year. But we are not shuttering the government’s windows for now.
Thinking of the sunrise and the storm clouds still up there waiting, here’s the rest of the metaphor. Hurricane Furlough has only retreated – he has not gone away. He may come back in a slightly different form but he’ll be back, either in mid-May when the debt ceiling has to be raised or the country will run afoul of a very different cloud of troubles. Or when Congress starts debating budgets for FY 2012 including one of the Republican proposals.
Do you remember the movie, The Perfect Storm? At the end when the ship is sideways at the cusp of the monumental wave and George Clooney is staring down at the almost-bottomless abyss?
I usually have a more polly-annish outlook on life and it’s served me well for all these years. But just for this moment, until I see which way the storm’s gonna blow…red sky at morning…
Coffee in hand, I came in (not yet 7 am but well past the midnight deadline) to check the Washington Post online. What’s the status of the hurricane called Furlough? Where is he now? Well, somehow, Furlough veered offshore at the last minute and the government is sort of funded for the nonce. I can’t tell from what I’ve read whether we’re funded for a week or for the rest of the fiscal year. But we are not shuttering the government’s windows for now.
Thinking of the sunrise and the storm clouds still up there waiting, here’s the rest of the metaphor. Hurricane Furlough has only retreated – he has not gone away. He may come back in a slightly different form but he’ll be back, either in mid-May when the debt ceiling has to be raised or the country will run afoul of a very different cloud of troubles. Or when Congress starts debating budgets for FY 2012 including one of the Republican proposals.
Do you remember the movie, The Perfect Storm? At the end when the ship is sideways at the cusp of the monumental wave and George Clooney is staring down at the almost-bottomless abyss?
I usually have a more polly-annish outlook on life and it’s served me well for all these years. But just for this moment, until I see which way the storm’s gonna blow…red sky at morning…
Friday, April 8, 2011
Like Waiting for a Hurricane
Several times over the last 20 or so years in the DC area, we found ourselves under hurricane threat. The weather reports would show images of circular storm cells lurking up the coast and maps of likely pathways. As the storm cells were tracked, the maps were updated with likely targets and the likelihood of strikes. The news reporters broke into regular programming with dire predictions of the coming apocalypse. On a few occasions, the sky turned yellow, the winds began to blow and the river rose. On a couple of occasions, we were sent home from work early to avoid commuting problems. And rarely the hurricane actually hit. But it was the tension of waiting and watching and wondering that I’m remembering most right now.
I’m waiting and watching and wondering at this moment for a hurricane called Furlough! This hurricane has been caused by turbulence in the political atmosphere which in turn has churned up a storm cell of government budget uncertainty. The perfect storm of dissention, disrespect and dysfunction. The storm cell is centered under a tall elegant white dome on a square island in a land peopled by politicians seemingly disconnected from the rest of America.
After months of unruly seas, leaving the nation, the government and 800,000 federal workers stranded on a whirlpool from which there seems to be no escape, it comes down to hours. Will they work out a deal? Will they not? Will the government in fact shut down? Will the hurricane strike shore or will it veer away at the last minute and churn on out to sea leaving a thunderstorm of discontent and anger in its wake?
In a larger context, I find myself becoming increasingly politicized here in Silver City.
I never paid too much attention before. I didn’t vote in an election until Bill Clinton – at least I think I made it to the polls in time to vote for him the first term. Certainly did the next. I was fortunate to live in a safely middle-class community in a virtually recession-proof city. I felt empathy with people who struggled, but didn’t know too many personally. Always was a bit liberal-leaning. Increasingly so during the W years.
But here, I find myself becoming more outspoken, more frustrated, more angry at the tenor and thrust of politics and political agenda. Not entirely one-sided, but mostly. I’ve actually written my state and federal congress people. I’ve joined activist groups. This is a me that surprises me. Because I see the impact first hand of political decisions made elsewhere.
For example, Nick’s program, Energy Sense. He has spent the federal (Dept of Energy) grant money that passed through the state on about half of the 400 homes they targeted for energy efficiency assistance. They thought they had several more months to complete the funded project. But he was told recently that the new administration says spend the money by May or risk losing it. The recipients of Energy Sense assistance are mostly elderly poor, many living in mobile homes. By the state’s own report, the program will save each individual about $165 in electric costs. In addition, the other arm of the program is working on large-scale solar projects to provide electricity to the town and county that will save hundreds of thousands a year. But what will the folks up in the Round House (NM’s state house) do with the money they withdraw, if they withdraw it? Can they put it to other needs in the state? No. The money is returned to the general federal funds. A drop in the ocean of debt. But someone in the Round House will get to huff on their knuckles and polish them on their lapels.
More generally, the political budget decisions being made both on Capitol Hill and in the Round House take food out of the mouths of the children here. In order to give more tax breaks to the wealthiest of Americans individually and corporately. Take health care from our elderly. Take unemployment from our mining community who work hard for the mines until the price of copper goes down and then they’re laid off. No other employment prospects. A political climate that is so bent on saving a few dollars that they lose their moral compass in the process – at least so I believe.
There is a wonderful and emotionally moving monument park to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in DC on the banks of the Potomac – well, the Tidal Basin anyway. On the walls are engraved statements made by FDR or maybe repeated by FDR. One of my favorites and perhaps one that echoes my version of liberalism is (paraphrased from memory): “You can judge the morals and values of a society by how it cares for its elderly, poor and its animals.” On all 3 scores, I think we’re stumbling badly. I would go so far as to say our political structure and incumbents are failing us.
Well, enough ranting. Back to my hurricane…uhmm…my furlough watch. Be well, everyone.
I’m waiting and watching and wondering at this moment for a hurricane called Furlough! This hurricane has been caused by turbulence in the political atmosphere which in turn has churned up a storm cell of government budget uncertainty. The perfect storm of dissention, disrespect and dysfunction. The storm cell is centered under a tall elegant white dome on a square island in a land peopled by politicians seemingly disconnected from the rest of America.
After months of unruly seas, leaving the nation, the government and 800,000 federal workers stranded on a whirlpool from which there seems to be no escape, it comes down to hours. Will they work out a deal? Will they not? Will the government in fact shut down? Will the hurricane strike shore or will it veer away at the last minute and churn on out to sea leaving a thunderstorm of discontent and anger in its wake?
In a larger context, I find myself becoming increasingly politicized here in Silver City.
I never paid too much attention before. I didn’t vote in an election until Bill Clinton – at least I think I made it to the polls in time to vote for him the first term. Certainly did the next. I was fortunate to live in a safely middle-class community in a virtually recession-proof city. I felt empathy with people who struggled, but didn’t know too many personally. Always was a bit liberal-leaning. Increasingly so during the W years.
But here, I find myself becoming more outspoken, more frustrated, more angry at the tenor and thrust of politics and political agenda. Not entirely one-sided, but mostly. I’ve actually written my state and federal congress people. I’ve joined activist groups. This is a me that surprises me. Because I see the impact first hand of political decisions made elsewhere.
For example, Nick’s program, Energy Sense. He has spent the federal (Dept of Energy) grant money that passed through the state on about half of the 400 homes they targeted for energy efficiency assistance. They thought they had several more months to complete the funded project. But he was told recently that the new administration says spend the money by May or risk losing it. The recipients of Energy Sense assistance are mostly elderly poor, many living in mobile homes. By the state’s own report, the program will save each individual about $165 in electric costs. In addition, the other arm of the program is working on large-scale solar projects to provide electricity to the town and county that will save hundreds of thousands a year. But what will the folks up in the Round House (NM’s state house) do with the money they withdraw, if they withdraw it? Can they put it to other needs in the state? No. The money is returned to the general federal funds. A drop in the ocean of debt. But someone in the Round House will get to huff on their knuckles and polish them on their lapels.
More generally, the political budget decisions being made both on Capitol Hill and in the Round House take food out of the mouths of the children here. In order to give more tax breaks to the wealthiest of Americans individually and corporately. Take health care from our elderly. Take unemployment from our mining community who work hard for the mines until the price of copper goes down and then they’re laid off. No other employment prospects. A political climate that is so bent on saving a few dollars that they lose their moral compass in the process – at least so I believe.
There is a wonderful and emotionally moving monument park to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in DC on the banks of the Potomac – well, the Tidal Basin anyway. On the walls are engraved statements made by FDR or maybe repeated by FDR. One of my favorites and perhaps one that echoes my version of liberalism is (paraphrased from memory): “You can judge the morals and values of a society by how it cares for its elderly, poor and its animals.” On all 3 scores, I think we’re stumbling badly. I would go so far as to say our political structure and incumbents are failing us.
Well, enough ranting. Back to my hurricane…uhmm…my furlough watch. Be well, everyone.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
It's not that easy B(uild)ing Green
We finally have loan approval and an acceptable appraisal. That means our bank is setting up the construction loan. And THAT means we will be breaking ground soon – hopefully within 2 to 3 weeks. I know we’ve said that before. In fact, since before Thanksgiving. Who knew it would take two loan applications with two different lenders and two appraisals to get an approval? This is the permanent mortgage that I’m referring to; the local bank doesn’t carry mortgages so had to have a loan commitment from a secondary lender before it would do the construction loan.
The problem is a small matter of building green. It’s the smart way to go. It’s good for the environment. It’s good for our pocketbook. It takes advantage of natural, renewable resources. But no bloody bank wants to finance green. Not vanilla enough. NON-CONFORMING!
We’re on our way, though. Now, it seems the usual head-aches of choosing colors and cabinets and lights will be easy by comparison. We’ll see – ask me in a few months when I’m in the throes of those choices. Right now, I’m making myself crazy over picking a color for the dyed concrete floors!
goes to flikr images
Or rather, we went over Bear Mountain! Back when we were just visiting Silver City and hadn’t committed to moving here, I used to watch the sun set behind Bear Mountain from Skee’s porch. It was on our third visit that I watched another New Mexico-classic sunset and found myself resonating like a tuning fork, knowing that this is where I’m meant to be. But it took us almost three years -- and the purchase of one big truck – to finally make it up and around the mountain. Actually you can’t really go over; the road tracks around the shoulder, dipping up and down the mountain shrugs. Bear Mountain Road finally climbs up and levels out on LS Mesa. We have a friend who lives out there, and she tells us that LS stands for Lone Star. Yep, as in the Lone Star state of Texas. History has it that this area used to belong to the state of Texas. That makes New Mexico a “breakaway republic.” Or something like that. Anyway, I don’t know about the Lone Star bit, but the mesa is one spectacular place. A hand-shaped grasslands-covered flat-top wrinkled by canyons, arroyos and dry crick beds. Dropping off at the fingertips to places like Bear Creek and Hells Half Acre, with ridges having names like Tadpole, fronting the Mogollons in the mid-distance and Arizona’s Mt Graham in the blue distance.
We made two trips up there. The first was on our own so we didn’t push the edges of the mesa too far. There were signs that said things like “trespassers will be shot” and “open range,” the latter sign peppered with bullet holes. Much of it is National Forest, hosting grazing rights, but there are some in-holdings of private ranches. So we just parked the truck and walked the open range grasslands, dodging cow pies and tripping over salt licks. But lovin’ every minute (especially Nutmeg). The second time, our friend met us, hopped in the front seat of the truck and showed us around. She’s lived out there for something like 18 years on a small place with a couple of horses, 4 dogs and her “girls,” a collection of hens and ducks. She took us exploring the off-tracks, where I got to put my truck into 4-wheel LOW and creep over rocks and ruts, knocking twigs and leaves into the open windows. I was reminded again that we now live in the real west – or at least an honest facsimile. We twice passed cowboys in the saddle, chaps and spurs looking worn and natural. These weren’t displaced Californians playing dress-up, although our friend tells us there are a few newcomers trying to make a life there. These were the original ranch families or hands who’ve been there 3 and more generations and are still running cattle on their own and federal lands.
We’ll go back to hike as the weather warms. Our friend showed us some easily-followed tracks or trails, although Nick’s tendency is to prefer bushwhacking. Hell’s Half Acre is supposed to be pretty spectacular – down into a series of canyons, including slot canyons. That visit, I will want to go with either a GPS or people familiar with the way out!
Small observations: I went to Walmart on Saturday. I was waiting to be served at the deli. I watched the woman handling the hams and turkey breasts wince as she maneuvered with her right hand. When it was my turn and she turned her chat my way, I mentioned that her wrist appeared to be giving her a problem. She said it was and acknowledged my comment that it was probably hard to wear a wrist brace and do what she was doing. She said she would go to the doctor, but the only thing the doctor would say would be not to work until the wrist healed, and, “Who can afford that?” So she apparently gets by on aspirin and will.
Mid-day Saturday is usually very busy at Walmart in my short experience here. Except sometimes. Sometimes, like this past Saturday, the checkers are downright lonely-looking. I walzed up to a register and without a pause began to unload my cart. When I said something to the checker about how quiet it seemed, and had it been busier earlier, she said, “No, it’s the end of the month. Everyone’s outa money.”
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The Dragonfly and Spring in the Southwest
President’s Day on the Dragonfly (flikr images)
Taking advantage of the day off, I arranged with my friend Gail to have lunch and then head out to the Dragonfly Trail, a loop trail of just under 4 miles that’s part of the Ft Bayard trail system. Dragonfly is best known because of the petroglyphs or rock art created by the ancients around 1500AD. I had been on the trail before with Ami and Bob at Thanksgiving, but we couldn’t find the petroglyphs – we didn’t know exactly where to look and appropriately, there’s no “neon arrows” drawing your attention. But Gail knew and so I got to wonder at the magic of the rock art and its staying power for all these many millennia.
The trail itself is a quiet blessing. A mix of grasslands that glow gold and silver in the afternoon sun and woodlands both dry and riparian, the whole cut by a creek. At the right time of year the air will vibrate with winged life in all its micro-habitats. This day, we saw ravens and jays, juncos and a large crowd of western bluebirds. There were probably a couple of other species skulking around the bases of shrubs but since this was not a “birding trip” I stayed my binoculars for the most part.
I could go on, but instead I’ll share a link with you from March’s New Mexico Magazine called My Favorite Places. It’s written by a friend who’s lived here for many more years than I and who has been writing her life here for most of those years. She tells the story of this magical place – one of so many here – far better than I.
Sure Signs of Spring in the Southwest
It seems like Spring is springing early this year. Maybe because last winter and spring we had snows on top of snows so that we went from white to green almost overnight. This year, minimal rains mean that we’re very dry. But Spring will not be thwarted. Sure signs that Spring is making an entrance:
A slight rain brings out the scents of Spring: wet and warming earth, running sap that wafts smells of pinion and juniper across an upturned nose. No longer the cold flat smell of winter.
Bird-song in the early morning dark: not just the ravens’ breakfast conversation, but thrashers and finches and titmouse and juncos—at least those juncos that haven’t already departed on their northward migration – and others are claiming their territories.
On the days that lack the lingering nip of winter and have not yet been blown dry by the spring winds, there is a balm to the air currents that turns me toward the sun like a new leaf.
The shrubby local oak, which I think might be Gray Oak, are losing their leaves: these trees are deciduous in that they lose a portion of their leaves each season, but interestingly, the season of loss is spring, not fall as I’m used to from back East. In another few weeks, they will start showing a greener gray when their new leaves bud out. And I learned that the reason these oak lose their leaves in spring is that they must wait for the new leaves to push them from their branch tips.
Other trees and shrubs that are more classical in their shedding and budding seasons are already getting fuzzy on the tips: the cottonwoods are showing, so are other hardwoods. Blooming trees are blushing with Spring colors. A few more warm days and not-so-cold nights and the town will be “in the pink” with Serviceberry and Redbud and other vibrant Spring celebrants.
No longer can I tell the difference between the shes and the hes among the Mule deer groups: most of the males have lost their antlers; the mature males certainly have, although there are a few spikers who still have their “they’re-my-very-first-and-I-want-to-keep-them-a-little-longer –please-can-I-mom?” single, finger-length antlers. I’m imagining their plea since they are still moving with their family group that includes the dominant doe (or is that a he?), a younger doe or two, one to several yearlings and last summer’s crop of babies.
And speaking of shedding, Nutmeg is starting to get that patchy look: every spring, she sheds that inner layer of insulating fur, taking on a slightly mangy look. She hates to be brushed. Maybe I just don’t have the right brush yet, but I’ve tried several types with similar results—she looks at me sideways and heads for the bedroom. So she walks around with tufts of fur sticking out like a bad case of bed-head. I think I should put a sign on her that says, “I’m not contagious. I’m just shedding.”
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Insha'Allah--God Willing
My hope for the Egyptian people:
May they reap the fruits of their courage.
May they savor the freedom for which they stood.
May their diverse voices rise in harmony, not conflict.
May Muslim and Christian stand together in mutual respect.
May their challenge of the past build a new democracy.
May their leaderless revolution raise leaders, not tyrants.
May peace, security and prosperity be theirs, as they deserve.
Insha’Allah – God Willing
If you wonder why this is important to me, it’s because I visited Egypt in November of 2001, two months after 9/11(2001). I was a rare American in their midst at a time when the lines were already being drawn, both on the world stage and in American cities and towns. I was welcomed. No, I was embraced! The Egyptian people whom I met and traveled with expressed sympathy and loathing – sympathy for our losses in NY and PA and DC and loathing for those who committed the crimes. Those whom I met made the distinction between people (me) and politics. Sadly, I could not claim the same for all Americans. My seat-mate on my flight from Luxor to Cairo told me of his hijab-wearing niece in Chicago who was spat upon in the days following 9/11. What could I say?
I was back in Egypt the following February, this time with Nick. Again, we were welcomed, even though by this time, our government was refocusing on Iraq as the enemy, much to Egyptians’ dismay and lack of understanding. Well, mine too! Nick walked the streets and neighborhoods of Cairo while I worked. While walking through a poor neighborhood, he passed a woman completely covered, with the exception of her eyes. In that culture, a man does not speak to a woman not known to him. As Nick walked by her, head averted, she said to his back, “Welcome back. We’ve missed you.”
I heard a little about life under Mubarak. On my first trip, I toured on my own, with arrangements for a tour guide and driver in Aswan, Luxor and Cairo. In Luxor my tour guide was a young well-educated man and my driver was a little older and from a rural community. The three of us were eating lunch in a restaurant where the guide knew the restaurateur. He was telling me his opinion of Mubarak and the regime and his perspective of the problems and needs of the people. The driver became concerned and cautioned the guide to silence. When the guide continued in his perspective, the driver left the restaurant. A small example.
So, in the footsteps perhaps of Ghandi and Martin Luther King, the people of Egypt took to the streets armed only with their voices and their belief in their rights. Although certainly not unanimously. They organized themselves, policed themselves and for the most part resisted the rise to violence. They raised one voice: secular, Islamic, hopefully Christians; men, young jeans-clad women from the University, women in hijab, conservative women fully covered; working people, un-employed, educated, well-off and poor. A single call for rights, democracy and freedom from fear, reprisal and suppression. May they reap what their courage has brought them. Insha’Allah—God Willing.
May they reap the fruits of their courage.
May they savor the freedom for which they stood.
May their diverse voices rise in harmony, not conflict.
May Muslim and Christian stand together in mutual respect.
May their challenge of the past build a new democracy.
May their leaderless revolution raise leaders, not tyrants.
May peace, security and prosperity be theirs, as they deserve.
Insha’Allah – God Willing
If you wonder why this is important to me, it’s because I visited Egypt in November of 2001, two months after 9/11(2001). I was a rare American in their midst at a time when the lines were already being drawn, both on the world stage and in American cities and towns. I was welcomed. No, I was embraced! The Egyptian people whom I met and traveled with expressed sympathy and loathing – sympathy for our losses in NY and PA and DC and loathing for those who committed the crimes. Those whom I met made the distinction between people (me) and politics. Sadly, I could not claim the same for all Americans. My seat-mate on my flight from Luxor to Cairo told me of his hijab-wearing niece in Chicago who was spat upon in the days following 9/11. What could I say?
I was back in Egypt the following February, this time with Nick. Again, we were welcomed, even though by this time, our government was refocusing on Iraq as the enemy, much to Egyptians’ dismay and lack of understanding. Well, mine too! Nick walked the streets and neighborhoods of Cairo while I worked. While walking through a poor neighborhood, he passed a woman completely covered, with the exception of her eyes. In that culture, a man does not speak to a woman not known to him. As Nick walked by her, head averted, she said to his back, “Welcome back. We’ve missed you.”
I heard a little about life under Mubarak. On my first trip, I toured on my own, with arrangements for a tour guide and driver in Aswan, Luxor and Cairo. In Luxor my tour guide was a young well-educated man and my driver was a little older and from a rural community. The three of us were eating lunch in a restaurant where the guide knew the restaurateur. He was telling me his opinion of Mubarak and the regime and his perspective of the problems and needs of the people. The driver became concerned and cautioned the guide to silence. When the guide continued in his perspective, the driver left the restaurant. A small example.
So, in the footsteps perhaps of Ghandi and Martin Luther King, the people of Egypt took to the streets armed only with their voices and their belief in their rights. Although certainly not unanimously. They organized themselves, policed themselves and for the most part resisted the rise to violence. They raised one voice: secular, Islamic, hopefully Christians; men, young jeans-clad women from the University, women in hijab, conservative women fully covered; working people, un-employed, educated, well-off and poor. A single call for rights, democracy and freedom from fear, reprisal and suppression. May they reap what their courage has brought them. Insha’Allah—God Willing.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Solar-Sweetie-Solar
My new chant. It’s no accident if you hear an echo of the rant, “Drill Baby Drill” from the presidential campaign of 2008 and ever since in certain unmentionable circles. Here’s the genesis.
You might have been following the weather around the country last week. If you did, Chicago and the Mid-west dominated the news with Dallas and Oklahoma a close behind. For some: snow, thunderstorms, sleet, the dreaded “winter mix” paralyzed much of the Mid-west and Northeast.
Here in New Mexico and neighboring west Texas, we had a realllllly cold snap. Actually this was the second cold spell this year for us here in our little pocket of NM. But this last week, we hit -8 in town one night and about -1 the next, with daytime highs in the teens and 20’s. Now that actually isn’t *that* bad, certainly not compared to the northern tier of the country. But here, people who’ve lived here 15 and 30 and 75 years say they don’t remember when it was that cold before. And it only lasted 3 days. But that was enough. As a result…
We had a little gas problem. The problem was no gas. Texas used it all up! Well, that’s only slightly an exaggeration as you’ll see if you read the Silver City SunNews Story. Or you can read any one of dozens of stories listed on Google from papers all over the country. We even made the Huffington Post and some forum called survivalistboards.com. Anyway, I’m getting distracted.
This house is on natural gas for heat and cooking plus hot water heaters. So we woke Thursday morning to a cold house that got colder as the day went on. Mid afternoon, I went into the garage to look for another space heater (we did have electricity, so the little heaters were pressed into use). I found that a water pipe in the wall between the garage and a bedroom had burst and water was pouring out of the wall and flooding across the garage floor. So as of 4 pm on Thursday we not only had no heat, we had no water. What we did have was lots of company. At least 300 homes in Silver had no gas and an untold number were drowning in water flowing from frozen-and-burst pipes. State-wide, the number of gas-less homes was something around 30,000 based on one of the articles I read. On Friday morning a plumber showed up, sent by the owner of this property and by noon, the gas co guys had come by, turned on the gas meter and relit everything. By 3 pm, heat and hot water. Not a big deal, really. A little uncomfortable. Think of it as camping-under-roof for a little over 24 hours in less than ideal weather.
So why the rant…er…new chant? We have a new Governor. She’s a republican; not a bad thing in itself. Her election was funded in significant part by oil-and-gas interests, especially from Texas. Industrialists poured BIG money into NM to get Suzanna Martinez elected. Ok, well, we’ve got her, for better or worse. So now she’s nominating her cabinet. That’s what politicians do. And of course they usually nominate people who think like them, support them, share history, ideals, vision, whatever – that’s also what they do, dems, republicans, independents, teaparty-ers, all. So Ms. Martinez nominated a guy named Harrison Schmitt – he’s a native of Silver City, a geologist by ph.d and an astronaut who walked on the moon, no less. Nominated him to be the head of NM Department of Energy, Mineral and Natural Resources.
Here’s the problem. Mr. Harrison Schmitt, astronaut and scientist, believes that climate change is a governmental conspiracy to gain control of people’s lives, dollars and decisions. Here’s an actual quote:
Schmitt believes that mainstream climate science is a conspiracy “to increase government control,” as he wrote in his resignation from the Planetary Society in 2008:
“Consensus”, as many have said, merely represents the absence of definitive science. You know as well as I, the “global warming scare” is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making. http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/01/10/martinez-schmitt-deniers/
In addition, he doesn’t have a very high opinion of environmentalists:
While appearing on radio host Alex Jones’ show in 2009, Harrison Schmitt said that leaders of the environmental movement are communists. By Matthew Reichbach
01.06.11 1:18 pm, The New Mexico Independent.
Mmmm. Does that sound like the kind of person I want as the head of NM’s energy and natural resources department? Do I want him creating and pushing policy on drilling and producing natural gas and oil? Do I think he’ll support NM’s nascent solar and other renewable energy businesses? Nobetcha (pardon the Palinesque). I could go on. But I won’t. Bottom line: I’m afraid that Ms. Martinez and Mr. Schmitt if he is confirmed will take advantage of NM Gas Co’s failure to deliver gas to NM homes, schools and businesses, using this as leverage to push for more drilling and production of gas and oil, and to push a roll back of environmental and natural resource protections. In fact, Ms. Martinez has already started working on the latter. She wants to make things “business friendly,” she says. Why not solar? Wind? There’s no money there. Note to Mr. Obama: If you want to be 80% renewable energy reliant by 2035, y’all had better start putting some $$ there, to convince the oily guys that going green pays. Note to Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Chair of US Senate Energy Committee: while you’re visiting the White House to plan renewable energy efforts for the rest of this president’s term, you want to pay attention to what’s going down here at home; the irony isn’t lost.
So I wrote my first-ever-in-my-life-political letters. There’s a chance that the state Senate Rules Committee might not pass this Schmitt guy onto the floor for a vote. I wrote every one of those Rules Committee members. I wrote my own state Senator. And I wrote Sen. Bingaman.
My message: Solar-Sweetie-Solar!
Feel free to take up the chant. Solar is good where-ever you are! And remember, if you hear Solar-Sweetie-Solar chanted at a political convention near you, you heard it here first.
You might have been following the weather around the country last week. If you did, Chicago and the Mid-west dominated the news with Dallas and Oklahoma a close behind. For some: snow, thunderstorms, sleet, the dreaded “winter mix” paralyzed much of the Mid-west and Northeast.
Here in New Mexico and neighboring west Texas, we had a realllllly cold snap. Actually this was the second cold spell this year for us here in our little pocket of NM. But this last week, we hit -8 in town one night and about -1 the next, with daytime highs in the teens and 20’s. Now that actually isn’t *that* bad, certainly not compared to the northern tier of the country. But here, people who’ve lived here 15 and 30 and 75 years say they don’t remember when it was that cold before. And it only lasted 3 days. But that was enough. As a result…
We had a little gas problem. The problem was no gas. Texas used it all up! Well, that’s only slightly an exaggeration as you’ll see if you read the Silver City SunNews Story. Or you can read any one of dozens of stories listed on Google from papers all over the country. We even made the Huffington Post and some forum called survivalistboards.com. Anyway, I’m getting distracted.
This house is on natural gas for heat and cooking plus hot water heaters. So we woke Thursday morning to a cold house that got colder as the day went on. Mid afternoon, I went into the garage to look for another space heater (we did have electricity, so the little heaters were pressed into use). I found that a water pipe in the wall between the garage and a bedroom had burst and water was pouring out of the wall and flooding across the garage floor. So as of 4 pm on Thursday we not only had no heat, we had no water. What we did have was lots of company. At least 300 homes in Silver had no gas and an untold number were drowning in water flowing from frozen-and-burst pipes. State-wide, the number of gas-less homes was something around 30,000 based on one of the articles I read. On Friday morning a plumber showed up, sent by the owner of this property and by noon, the gas co guys had come by, turned on the gas meter and relit everything. By 3 pm, heat and hot water. Not a big deal, really. A little uncomfortable. Think of it as camping-under-roof for a little over 24 hours in less than ideal weather.
So why the rant…er…new chant? We have a new Governor. She’s a republican; not a bad thing in itself. Her election was funded in significant part by oil-and-gas interests, especially from Texas. Industrialists poured BIG money into NM to get Suzanna Martinez elected. Ok, well, we’ve got her, for better or worse. So now she’s nominating her cabinet. That’s what politicians do. And of course they usually nominate people who think like them, support them, share history, ideals, vision, whatever – that’s also what they do, dems, republicans, independents, teaparty-ers, all. So Ms. Martinez nominated a guy named Harrison Schmitt – he’s a native of Silver City, a geologist by ph.d and an astronaut who walked on the moon, no less. Nominated him to be the head of NM Department of Energy, Mineral and Natural Resources.
Here’s the problem. Mr. Harrison Schmitt, astronaut and scientist, believes that climate change is a governmental conspiracy to gain control of people’s lives, dollars and decisions. Here’s an actual quote:
Schmitt believes that mainstream climate science is a conspiracy “to increase government control,” as he wrote in his resignation from the Planetary Society in 2008:
“Consensus”, as many have said, merely represents the absence of definitive science. You know as well as I, the “global warming scare” is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making. http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/01/10/martinez-schmitt-deniers/
In addition, he doesn’t have a very high opinion of environmentalists:
While appearing on radio host Alex Jones’ show in 2009, Harrison Schmitt said that leaders of the environmental movement are communists. By Matthew Reichbach
01.06.11 1:18 pm, The New Mexico Independent.
Mmmm. Does that sound like the kind of person I want as the head of NM’s energy and natural resources department? Do I want him creating and pushing policy on drilling and producing natural gas and oil? Do I think he’ll support NM’s nascent solar and other renewable energy businesses? Nobetcha (pardon the Palinesque). I could go on. But I won’t. Bottom line: I’m afraid that Ms. Martinez and Mr. Schmitt if he is confirmed will take advantage of NM Gas Co’s failure to deliver gas to NM homes, schools and businesses, using this as leverage to push for more drilling and production of gas and oil, and to push a roll back of environmental and natural resource protections. In fact, Ms. Martinez has already started working on the latter. She wants to make things “business friendly,” she says. Why not solar? Wind? There’s no money there. Note to Mr. Obama: If you want to be 80% renewable energy reliant by 2035, y’all had better start putting some $$ there, to convince the oily guys that going green pays. Note to Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Chair of US Senate Energy Committee: while you’re visiting the White House to plan renewable energy efforts for the rest of this president’s term, you want to pay attention to what’s going down here at home; the irony isn’t lost.
So I wrote my first-ever-in-my-life-political letters. There’s a chance that the state Senate Rules Committee might not pass this Schmitt guy onto the floor for a vote. I wrote every one of those Rules Committee members. I wrote my own state Senator. And I wrote Sen. Bingaman.
My message: Solar-Sweetie-Solar!
Feel free to take up the chant. Solar is good where-ever you are! And remember, if you hear Solar-Sweetie-Solar chanted at a political convention near you, you heard it here first.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
House Hunting?
While taking Nutmeg around the block this morning, I noticed a couple walking up the driveway of a neighboring house. They had the attitude of house hunters, although the house in question was not, to my knowledge, on the market. At least there was no realtor sign in the yard.
But here was this pair slowing walking up the drive, looking this way and that. I decided to stop and watch from a hopefully-unobtrusive spot. First, they seemed to be checking out the neighborhood; they would pause as one looked up the street, while the other looked down. Of course, I couldn’t hear their conversation. They were walking pretty close together, and I was at some distance on the other side of the street. But I could imagine what they might be saying: “Looks like a quiet neighborhood.” “Well, yes, though I do hear some dogs barking.” “Just so long as they’re not loose—wouldn’t want them hounding us.” “Oh, you…so funny!”
They strolled a little further up the drive. One stopped in front of the garage door, surveying it carefully, head tilting back and forth. The second walked on, pausing from time to time to examine the landscaping. Considering the curb-appeal of the house and its gardens, I wondered? True, there is a nicely-done small garden sited next to the front walk. But everything is so dry just now, and gray.
After studying their respective interests – garage door…landscaping – for a little while, the two rejoined, putting their heads together in a conspiratorial manner. Again, imagining, “What do you think?” “I don’t know, it has possibilities. What about you?” “I really like that tree over there, tall and it offers pretty good cover.”
The couple suddenly seemed to become aware that they were being observed. Perhaps to reassure that they had neither nefarious intent nor untoward interest in the house, they decided to leave. So they took off and flew into the tree just admired! The couple? A pair of very large ravens!
Btw, everything except the imagined conversation actually happened. Ravens are simply amazing animals to watch.
But here was this pair slowing walking up the drive, looking this way and that. I decided to stop and watch from a hopefully-unobtrusive spot. First, they seemed to be checking out the neighborhood; they would pause as one looked up the street, while the other looked down. Of course, I couldn’t hear their conversation. They were walking pretty close together, and I was at some distance on the other side of the street. But I could imagine what they might be saying: “Looks like a quiet neighborhood.” “Well, yes, though I do hear some dogs barking.” “Just so long as they’re not loose—wouldn’t want them hounding us.” “Oh, you…so funny!”
They strolled a little further up the drive. One stopped in front of the garage door, surveying it carefully, head tilting back and forth. The second walked on, pausing from time to time to examine the landscaping. Considering the curb-appeal of the house and its gardens, I wondered? True, there is a nicely-done small garden sited next to the front walk. But everything is so dry just now, and gray.
After studying their respective interests – garage door…landscaping – for a little while, the two rejoined, putting their heads together in a conspiratorial manner. Again, imagining, “What do you think?” “I don’t know, it has possibilities. What about you?” “I really like that tree over there, tall and it offers pretty good cover.”
The couple suddenly seemed to become aware that they were being observed. Perhaps to reassure that they had neither nefarious intent nor untoward interest in the house, they decided to leave. So they took off and flew into the tree just admired! The couple? A pair of very large ravens!
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Chewing my tongue at the checkout and Saturday’s wolf howl
I was in the checkout line at Albertsons one afternoon last week behind a woman purchasing over $200 of groceries. Not that $200 is so unusual these days, sadly. I wasn’t paying attention when the conversation started, but I caught on when she started to describe how many “hands” she had to feed on her ranch, whether dude ranch or working ranch, I’m not sure. From there, she started to talk about how many elk her husband had taken and filled several freezers. So far, ok. Except for the questions of hunting outside of season and legal bag limits, which may or may not apply on private lands versus public. If he’s hunting and eating what he takes, I don’t have a problem. Hunting purely for trophy is another issue. Then she segued to mountain lions, proudly announcing that her husband took six (6) last year! She looked at the checker who was non-committal, and glanced toward me. I was by now biting my tongue and not looking her way. She continued in the same casual manner to announce that the ‘damn coyotes’ were wiping out all their deer – the ‘damn coyotes’ take the babies. She didn’t add that her husband is killing the coyotes, but coyotes are still considered, legally and culturally, varmints here; killing coyotes is legal, and probably encouraged in some quarters. She did say that the deer were all moving into the suburbs because there are no predators. Finally, she moved to wolves, confiding in the checker – and me, if only I would make eye contact – that there used to be a pack of wolves that lived ‘next door.’ She said that wolves had taken a dog or two and one of their horses. By now, the checker had completed scanning her order, and she had completed paying for it. And by now, I was really chewing down on my tongue.
It would not do to get into a debate with her there in the store. A sarcastic riposte or a pained rebuttal would serve no purpose. Hers is not an uncommon perspective in this region, particularly among ranchers out on the Mimbres and on the Gila and up in Catron County. Not my perspective, obviously. Or I would not have been chewing my tongue to a nub.
Shot 6 lions in one year? That seemed so excessive that I spent some time searching the NM Game and Fish’s website to see what the limit per person is, or at least what the regulations governing hunting of mountain lion are. I was amazed to find…nothing! I did find that the overall state limit for lion was raised significantly, but could find nothing specific to locations, licenses, tags, lotteries (the way hunting rights are often awarded for big game), etc. Nothing about private land versus public. Can you just shoot anything you want, anytime you want, as many as you want if it’s on your own land?
Further I was snared by the customer’s comment about “their deer.” WHOSE deer? When did deer that live on your property become YOUR deer? Such that you would (assuming so) kill coyotes that were taking the babies. From my observations – and we do indeed have predators of deer, including mountain lion, here in the suburbs – those deer that are taken are typically the sick and the lame.
And finally, on the topic of wolves. I think probably wolves had taken her dogs. And I guess possibly a horse. I couldn’t argue with her experience, or at least her belief that wolves had predated her dogs or her horse. Wolves do predate domestic animals occasionally. The reasons they do so are complex sometimes including human actions (or lack of). And the reasons that many ranchers in particular hate wolves are equally complex. It was in the Gila, I believe, that the last wolf was killed as part of the government’s concerted effort to completely extirpate the wolf from the entire country. For some ranchers, although definitely not all, the reintroduction of the wolf to THEIR lands, both private and public, is a ‘terrorist government act.’ And that’s a quote from a letter to the editor of the Silver City Sun News within the last month. In two generations, a short time in the memory of this part of the country, the federal government has gone from paying hunters to kill wolves to spending millions of dollars to reintroduce those same wolves to the same territory. Probably, calling the social and cultural and practical dynamics ‘complex’ is putting it mildly.
On Saturday, we went to 3Dog Café for coffee mid-morning just in time to catch the ‘Wolf Parade’ down Bullard St (our main street). 2011 has been declared the “Year of the Mexican Wolf” by some conservation groups. The parade was followed by a presentation at the public library by several people who are involved in a couple of national NGO’s with local affiliates focused on the plight of the Mexican Gray Wolf. “Plight” -- well described, if you hold with their perspective. Across Arizona and New Mexico, the number of Mexican Gray wolves currently in the wild have dropped under 40. Over 30 wolves in the several extant packs have been killed illegally. Over 30 wolves. Some of those, tracked by their government-owned radio collars in order to eliminate them. Not all wolf kills are illegal. Landowners are allowed incidental take. People, whether ranchers, hunters, or hikers are allowed to kill wolves if they are threatening human life – but not your dog! But there are those who believe the only good wolf is a dead wolf and follow the 3 S’s philosophy as it relates to endangered species: Shoot, Shovel and Shut-up!
Btw, I have to add that one of the NGO’s sponsoring Saturday’s events was a group called the Great Old Broads for Wilderness. This group was started by some older women, retired and with a love for the environment. It’s a national group, I gather, and is starting a chapter here in Silver City. Gotta love ‘em, even if only for the name!
Also btw, a ‘wolf howl’ is actually the name given to the act of going out into the wilds and literally howling like a wolf in an attempt to attract the local wolves to howl in return. This is done by biologists and environmental educators for visitors to various National Forests, National Refuges and National Parks in wolf country as a way of educating people to the wonder of the natural order.
Interesting juxtaposition, isn’t it, of opinions, attitudes, cultures. Within one week, first to encounter an individual obviously proud of the elimination of 3 keystone predator species (lion, wolf, coyote) and then to watch community members walking down mainstreet, equally proud to be wearing wolf-masks in celebration of (one of) the same keystone predators. Interesting—the community we’ve chosen.
It would not do to get into a debate with her there in the store. A sarcastic riposte or a pained rebuttal would serve no purpose. Hers is not an uncommon perspective in this region, particularly among ranchers out on the Mimbres and on the Gila and up in Catron County. Not my perspective, obviously. Or I would not have been chewing my tongue to a nub.
Shot 6 lions in one year? That seemed so excessive that I spent some time searching the NM Game and Fish’s website to see what the limit per person is, or at least what the regulations governing hunting of mountain lion are. I was amazed to find…nothing! I did find that the overall state limit for lion was raised significantly, but could find nothing specific to locations, licenses, tags, lotteries (the way hunting rights are often awarded for big game), etc. Nothing about private land versus public. Can you just shoot anything you want, anytime you want, as many as you want if it’s on your own land?
Further I was snared by the customer’s comment about “their deer.” WHOSE deer? When did deer that live on your property become YOUR deer? Such that you would (assuming so) kill coyotes that were taking the babies. From my observations – and we do indeed have predators of deer, including mountain lion, here in the suburbs – those deer that are taken are typically the sick and the lame.
And finally, on the topic of wolves. I think probably wolves had taken her dogs. And I guess possibly a horse. I couldn’t argue with her experience, or at least her belief that wolves had predated her dogs or her horse. Wolves do predate domestic animals occasionally. The reasons they do so are complex sometimes including human actions (or lack of). And the reasons that many ranchers in particular hate wolves are equally complex. It was in the Gila, I believe, that the last wolf was killed as part of the government’s concerted effort to completely extirpate the wolf from the entire country. For some ranchers, although definitely not all, the reintroduction of the wolf to THEIR lands, both private and public, is a ‘terrorist government act.’ And that’s a quote from a letter to the editor of the Silver City Sun News within the last month. In two generations, a short time in the memory of this part of the country, the federal government has gone from paying hunters to kill wolves to spending millions of dollars to reintroduce those same wolves to the same territory. Probably, calling the social and cultural and practical dynamics ‘complex’ is putting it mildly.
On Saturday, we went to 3Dog Café for coffee mid-morning just in time to catch the ‘Wolf Parade’ down Bullard St (our main street). 2011 has been declared the “Year of the Mexican Wolf” by some conservation groups. The parade was followed by a presentation at the public library by several people who are involved in a couple of national NGO’s with local affiliates focused on the plight of the Mexican Gray Wolf. “Plight” -- well described, if you hold with their perspective. Across Arizona and New Mexico, the number of Mexican Gray wolves currently in the wild have dropped under 40. Over 30 wolves in the several extant packs have been killed illegally. Over 30 wolves. Some of those, tracked by their government-owned radio collars in order to eliminate them. Not all wolf kills are illegal. Landowners are allowed incidental take. People, whether ranchers, hunters, or hikers are allowed to kill wolves if they are threatening human life – but not your dog! But there are those who believe the only good wolf is a dead wolf and follow the 3 S’s philosophy as it relates to endangered species: Shoot, Shovel and Shut-up!
Btw, I have to add that one of the NGO’s sponsoring Saturday’s events was a group called the Great Old Broads for Wilderness. This group was started by some older women, retired and with a love for the environment. It’s a national group, I gather, and is starting a chapter here in Silver City. Gotta love ‘em, even if only for the name!
Also btw, a ‘wolf howl’ is actually the name given to the act of going out into the wilds and literally howling like a wolf in an attempt to attract the local wolves to howl in return. This is done by biologists and environmental educators for visitors to various National Forests, National Refuges and National Parks in wolf country as a way of educating people to the wonder of the natural order.
Interesting juxtaposition, isn’t it, of opinions, attitudes, cultures. Within one week, first to encounter an individual obviously proud of the elimination of 3 keystone predator species (lion, wolf, coyote) and then to watch community members walking down mainstreet, equally proud to be wearing wolf-masks in celebration of (one of) the same keystone predators. Interesting—the community we’ve chosen.
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