Shots Fired: Wild, Wild West? or just some street corner in DC?

So – we were at a meeting yesterday afternoon in the Wells Fargo conference room on 12th and Pope, just across from Gough (pronounced Goff (I think)) Park. The two of us are half of the Publicity and Marketing Committee for the local Habitat for Humanity and we were meeting with the other half discussing the 20th anniversary for our Habitat and a wine-tasting fundraiser and…well, you don’t really care about that, given the title of this story. To get right to the good stuff…

I looked out the window of the conference room in time to see a big SUV swerve around the corner, followed by two police cars with lights flashing that marshaled it to the curb, at which point one cop jumped out of each car, staying behind the doors, drawing weapons, bracing on the tops of the car doors and holding, while another officer not in uniform popped into view, also with gun drawn, resulting in pairs of hands and arms suddenly poking out of the windows of the SUV, and with great difficulty I pulled my eyeballs back into my head, realized the other 3 were staring at me and said – “I think there’s something happening out there.” Or words to that effect.

We gathered around the windows of the conference room and watched while an individual got out of the drivers position of the SUV, keeping hands and arms out in view, faced away from the police, backed up several paces, until the plain clothes guy had her kneel and put her hands behind her; he cuffed her, stood her up and moved her to one of the marked cars, and put her in the back. Well. All of this was enough for our colleagues in the room to start joking about Police 1 or some cop show that Nick and I aren’t privy to. We also started looking around the gathering crowd to see if anyone was taking video and sure enough, there was a guy on the corner who had gotten off his bike, pulled out his cell phone and started shooting – video, that is. He was disappointed. The plain clothed officer was courteous and efficient – as courteous as you can be when you snapping hand-cuffs on someone’s wrists and ducking them into the backseat of the car.

The get-out-of-the-car-with-your-hands-in-the-air was repeated 4 more times. One dude, though, couldn’t quite leave his persona in the car – backing down the street with his arms in the air, but still dipping and bouncing (you know the gait) and holding his fingers in a gang sign.

We couldn’t wait for this morning’s newspaper. And of course, there were pictures on the front page under the headline, “Shots Fired.” Now, we didn’t hear any shots fired, but there was speculation that it might be gangsters. I guess they are the new “Wild Wild West.” The guys with the cowboy hats have been displaced. Now, it’s droopy jeans, backwards caps and attitudes. We thought we left that behind.

On a much calmer note, I had an interesting experience one night last week sitting on the back deck. The moon was a day short of full, and was rising opposite the setting sun – a ghost moon. I was looking in the right direction at the right time and caught it just as the top curvature of the moon was about even with the tips of the trees. I had a hard candy in my mouth; that becomes important in a moment. I watched the moon with the idle curiosity in mind whether I’d be able to see it progress. I watched the steady movement of the moon, lifting itself from behind the trees, to rest full and bright on the tips of the trees and then slip up into the empty sky. In about 5 minutes – or less time than it took me to dissolve my piece of hard candy, I could literally see the moon move. The movement was so distinct, I experienced rather a bit of vertigo. Mostly because I got to thinking that it wasn’t so much the movement of the moon, as the movement of the earth. Where I was sitting was spinning away fast enough that I could track the moon’s movement in finite increments, measured by tree branches. I stayed focused long enough for the moon to rise clear of any framing. And it was especially interesting that once the moon was up where there was no measuring frame, just space, it didn’t seem to move nearly as fast.

A small but touching thing: when we walked up Cherry Creek Rd last Sunday, nearing the top, we came upon a hand-made wooden cross. Made of small slats, but carefully put together; not painted. Handwritten on the cross-wise arm was Branden L. Whitworth. No date. Wood was weathered. Writing a little faded. When you see these crosses on the side of the highway, surrounded by flowers, balloons, whatever, you have a good idea what happened. But on this barely-a-road – it’s really more of a track – that not quite passable for anything except a 4-wheel drive with high clearance, we wondered how Branden came to be commemorated there. I didn’t notice it on the way up, but coming back down, and pausing again to wonder, I noticed a single, faded can of Lone Star Beer at the foot of the cross. Branded was cared for and about. And it reminded me….

Have you even been to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC? Sonnie

Mother's Day Fledging and Other Natural Phenomena

Mother’s Day has come and gone, and I know one mother who will finally get a bit of rest – one father, too! The little Juniper Titmouse family fledged. We weren’t around to help send them off – somehow it always works that way; I never get to see the babies fly the nest. Well, almost never. I was lucky enough to get up early on a Saturday in Maryland and see the Carolina wren babies come tumbling out of the bathroom fan vent where the folks had built their nest, with much coaching and coaxing from both parents. But not this time. I wonder if those busy parents will lay another clutch of eggs and raise another set of babies this summer in that apartment?

I know the Raven family hasn’t fledged down in the cottonwood trees. I know, because I can hear those babies chatter and fuss all the way up the hill to our back deck in the quiet morning when I sit out with my coffee. If you have heard a nest of small baby birds calling for mom, multiply that by a factor of 10 decibel levels. I have seen the raven parents heading overhead for their nest carrying large things in their bills. I know what the titmouse parents feed their young; I wonder what ravens feed theirs?

It’s been very birdy around here over the last few days. Lots of migrants moving through, especially warblers and hummers. Some of them are life-birds for me: a flock of beautiful red-faced warblers surrounded us on Sunday on a walk up Cherry Creek in the mixed oak and ponderosa forest, with a stunning Painted Redstart in the mix. Here at the house, I’ve had MacGillivray’s, Townsend’s and Wilson’s warblers all in the shrub oak and juniper next to the house. A pair of Ash-throated Flycatchers was apartment shopping and studied the bird-house carefully for door size. They weren’t convinced they couldn’t fit through the door to the nest box inside. What did convince them to look for another neighborhood was the titmouse – mom, I’m sure – who arrived in time to raise hell with the larger interlopers. If only I could decipher bird-talk. And imagine what birds I would see if I really took the time!

The most obvious of the hummers buzzing the yard is the broad-tailed. While I haven’t gotten a good look at him, I have heard him loud and clear. His wing feathers make a loud trill that is unmistakable. And finally, the mockingbirds are back. They are ubiquitous, of course, across the country. But here, because they are, after all, mimics, their songs are peppered more with the chips, stutters, chirrs, buzzes and chatter that is more typical here than the trills, tweedles, whistles and warbles that I was familiar with in Maryland. One songster has adopted the top of the electric post outside my office window, and spends all day there, chasing bugs and vocalizing.

I think I saw a coatimundi or two! We were out washboarding on Sanctuary Rd, where we have wandered around looking at land, and I saw, separately, two straight-up black tails attached to small, fuzzy and very fast animals cross the road. Do they have life lists for critters? And another critter we saw in family-packs down in Sapillo Creek was the infamous javelina. Locals, except for hunters, will tell you that javelinas are not a problem, except to the landscaping. Hunters will convince you that the only good javelina is on a dinner plate! I don’t know – I haven’t gotten close enough to them live or grilled.

My Christmas tree is growing. On one of the first trips we made to visit Silver City, we went to the Buckhorn for dinner. It was right around the Christmas season, and they had a dried agave blossom, sometimes called a century plant, decorated with Christmas ornaments. I thought it was outstanding. And that’s what I wanted for a Christmas “tree” when we moved here. Somehow, I thought they’d sell these blossoms on the street corners, like they sell Christmas trees back east. Nope. Gotta harvest your own – or know someone who has one and is willing to give it up. They grow wild in the Forest, as well as in landscape everywhere. One sad thing: once the blossom is up and bloomed, the plant dies. The blossom stalk grows so fast – we’ve been watching one in the neighborhood and it seems to shoot up a foot a day – and so tall in many cases, that it just takes the life out of the parent. This image is from Wikipedia, but gives you an idea of the massive stalk and blossoms.

A last flora-and-fauna note: Some things die back and green up or come out in reverse of what we learned to expect as deciduous Easterners. Here, there is a common shrub oak that is mixed with pinion and juniper. It lines the hillsides and is green all winter, like the evergreens with which it grows. But two or three weeks ago, I noticed on a ride up to Pinos Altos that all along the hillsides, the oaks were turning yellow. At the same time, the large shrub oak by our driveway dried up and dropped all its leaves. Mmm, too little water? Something eating the plant and draining the sap? No, it turns out that the oak stays green all winter, turns yellow and drops its leaves around April and by May, buds out again with new leaves in anticipation of the monsoons to come in June/July. At higher elevations, it will wait to bud and green until the monsoons actually start. Coincidentally, the crickets or locusts here start to sing in March or April, as soon as the days and especially the nights start to warm. They’ve almost stopped now that it’s getting to be 80+ during the day. Now I grew up with the old-wives-tale that winter was 6 weeks from the time the crickets and katy-dids started to sing and chirr. Here, it seems to be seasonally adjusted. Six weeks from when the locusts and grasshoppers make their presence known, look for summer! Is it almost that time of year, already? Where’re my shorts?! Sonnie

A Weekend at the Races with Lance, Levi...

Chris, Philip, Kristin and almost 600 road-racers of international and local fame. The town was a-buzz with riders, fans, officials and media. It was the 23rd Tour of the Gila and the community put on its best. One of the most frequently-heard comments live and in the papers was some version of the following, “…and the Silver City people were all so nice to be around.” That quote is attributed to Kristin Armstrong (no relation), the young woman who won the Women’s Pro, surely an achievement right up there with the 2008 Olympic Gold Medal she also took in Bejing! Of the race itself, Lance is quoted as saying, “…an American Classic.” But the comment that was most telling about our town and the people here was reported in the paper early in the week, “People here are so nice—they let you into traffic!” Surely a big-city racer used to negotiating the streets of DC or Phily or LA.

So who won? You should need to ask? Levi, Lance take top spots… the Sun-News reported on Monday. But I get ahead of myself...

On Saturday, we went to the Criterium, which is the name of the in-town street race. It was a big square with the legs: Bullard (Silver’s ‘main street’), College, Cooper and Broadway. The start and finish line was at 6th and Bullard, but the best places to watch the big-kids races were the corners of Bullard and Broadway, and Broadway and Cooper. First, however, there were the Citizen’s races, starting with adults and working down the age groups to the littlest racers, with the youngest racers aged 3-5 and still riding training wheels and tricycles. And if you think these pictures are cute, check out my videos


And here’s where Lance ran over my hat! Maybe not, but at least half of the 150 plus Men’s Pro 1 did. Here’s what happened: I was wearing my blue Gila Wildlife Rescue ball cap just like I promised. The wind kicked up and was blowing in very strong gusts. Just as the big kids turned the corner from Cooper and down Broadway, the wind kicked my hat off right off my head and into their path. It bounded and flipped and skittered in front of and underneath the riders. My heart was in my throat that the hat would catch in spokes and upend one person, starting a chain reaction. But I and they were lucky – the cap was eventually tamed and run over, leaving tire tracks both on the inside and outside of the crown and in zig-zags across the bill. As I retrieved it, hoping the cameras were following the riders and not the ride-busting cap, someone yelled, “Say, how much you want for that hat!?” You might have missed the cap on ESPN under the Isaac’s sign, but look for it on eBay; Lance’s tiretracks are almost as good as his signature and, having seen his signature on some fan’s jersey, at least as readable.
If you wonder what it’s like to watch 150+ riders at break-neck speed make a 90degree turn with a strong tail-wind, take a look.
My final great picture of the day: Lance and Chris making a cool-down lap at the end of the race: So on we went to Pinos Altos on Sunday for the finish of Stage 5, the Gila Monster Race. The different classes rode different distances, but all rode UP! Because to get to Pinos Altos, that’s the only way – UP! The Men’s Pro 1 rode over 100 miles and climbed a total of >9,000 feet. That wasn’t 9,000 all at once, mind you: we don’t live on the moon, after all, nor even Everest. But the course climbs and dips and climbs and dips and so the total climbing came out to 9,000. Pinos Altos is a small place, as you saw if you checked out the story at the link above. But it was full and bustling and busy with racers, food vendors, fans and locals. The riders didn’t come in as a pack, the way they rode in the Criterium. They stretched out and came riding in, in ones, twos and threes, with only a couple of groups coming in together. We saw the winner of the Women’s Pro, Kristin Armstrong, but didn’t recognize her until people were yelling, but by then she was past and finished. We did see the front three of the Men’s Pro 1 ride with, with an Aussie in the lead – or at least he was riding for an Aussie team – Levi second and Lance third. Chris came in 4th or 5th. Even though Phillip of the Aussie team won the day, Lance’s team took overall first and second places.


I put together my best set of images of both races here on Flikr. Hope you enjoy them. We had just a great weekend. And May is a busy month: we have the Blues Festival, the Rodeo and a house tour. Wonder what we’ll do for June – or the rest of the summer!