Banished from the Bedroom!

Nutmeg got herself banished from the bedroom on Saturday. I took her out into the yard for her last pee of the evening. She heard a critter down in the creek bed. She hasn’t ventured that far down before; up until now I could reasonably trust her to stay within the yard limits she set for herself. But critters are just too enticing. This one was no exception. So, she chased it into the stones that make up the dry creek bed and it slipped into a crevice. She barked and nosed at the crevice until….OH NO….SKUNK. I was standing up on the flat next to the house calling her name and watching helplessly as she barked a last barrage and then recoiled. Then…I could smell it…wafting up the hill…

Not that we’re skunk novices. There are plenty of skunks back in MD, but Nutmeg never, nor for that matter, have any of my dogs, ever encountered them nose-to-tail, as it were. This time, she and we were very lucky. The skunk was more annoyed that frightened. So it didn’t spray her with full authority, but rather gave her just a spritz – just enough to back her off. But still enough to bring it into the house. So too bad for Nutmeg, but there was no way she was going to stink up our sleep. I opened all the windows in the main part of the house, closed the bedroom door in her face (Sorry, Nutmeg) and hoped for better air in the morning. Fortunately for all involved, the fragrance was passing and, while there was still a hint Sunday morning, it was gone by the time our brunch guests (can you believe it! Of all times to have a stink-catastrophe) arrived. It faded away both from the general environment and Nutmeg herself. She was very embarrassed in the immediate aftermath and I wonder if she’ll remember and give wide berth the next time. I need to tell you, though, by all reports – tomato juice does NOT work. By all reports, though, vinegar, umm, commercial-product-for-ladies, does. I’m VERY glad I didn’t have to test the recommended antidote.

Titmouse update: You’ll remember that we have a titmouse couple that decided to move into the birdhouse sitting on the corner of our patio. I didn’t know whether the couple would proceed with egg-laying and –hatching and chick rearing because of our proximity, but they have. The two have gotten very accustomed to having us around on the patio. That doesn’t mean they don’t fuss at us – they certainly do, around every mouthful of food they bring to the chicks in the nest. But they persist, and I’m beginning to hear cheeps coming from within now if I listen closely. On Sunday, we and our guests sat on the patio eating and chatting, while the hard-working parents came and went; if not ignoring us, at least not ceasing their feeding forays.

This weekend is one of the highlights of Silver City’s year. The Tour of the Gila. This is a multi-day and multi-stage bike race that has become an international draw. There are over 600 bike racers registered this year, including Floyd Landis. He’s one of the big names expected. The other superstar that is rumored, then confirmed, then denied, then rumored again is Lance Armstrong. I guess we won’t find out for sure until he registers, as Landis already has. This is big-time for us! And the town apparently swells by about 6,000 people, I guess including bike racers, team support, supporters, hangers-on, media and general race fans. I’m told that the place to be is on the corner of Bullard and Broadway, just outside Isaacs on Saturday when the main race through the streets of Silver is run. So I’ll be there, and I’ll take my camera. If I’m lucky, the next you hear and see from me will include shots of the big boys – and girls too – as they make the 90degree turns on the 1.something mile in-town race. Of course, I don’t know from Lance and Floyd except by name, so beware – I’m likely to post any old picture and baldly state, “See there, there goes Lance! And Floyd is right on his tail.” Or maybe the other way around. Or with my new-found new-hometown loyalty, I might even claim them trailing a local favorite! Stay tuned. Oh, and if you’re watching the race on ESPN or ESPN 2 or 3 or whatever, look for me behind my lens – remember, the corner of Bullard and Broadway, under the Isaacs sign, in my Gila Wildlife Rescue blue ball cap!

A Celebration of Spring in Silver City

I think we have finally seen our first beginning of Silver City’s outdoor season. They tried the first weekend of April with the Art Mart, the hysterical-not-historical gunfight at Yankee and Texas Streets and other events, but the weather wasn’t ready – it blew, it snowed, it sleeted, it hailed and it was downright cold!

This past Saturday, the weather acquiesced and the season was on! We started with the Celebration of Spring in the Big Ditch Park as well as a vintage fashion show and gallery sidewalk event.

First, a note from history: The Big Ditch Park is now a park following a deep creek bed running through the middle of town, parallel with and running between the main street through the historical district and the ‘other’ main street, Rt 90. However, what is now the creek bed was at one time Silver City’s real and original Main Street. But in the late 1800’s, so many trees were felled up along the edges of (what is now) the Gila Forest, essentially where Nick, Nutmeg and I live, that the area was clearcut, there was nothing to hold the soils or slow the water runoff, and thus when the monsoons were particularly heavy in 1902, the floods came and very literally washed away the street. After the flood, the street was gone as were all but one building that had been old Silver City’s downtown. Over the next years, the floods carried away more and more of the creek bed, until it got down to bed-rock and there it remained a perennial stream cutting the town in half. In recent decades, the town turned the big ditch into the Big Ditch Park with wonderful walkways and paths, and with foot and vehicle bridges crossing over between Rt 90 and the historical district.

The Celebration of Spring featured artists of jewelry, sculpture, pottery and other art forms, along with a food stand vending freshly-made Indian Fry Bread, Indian Tacos, other typically Southwest fare and soft drinks. There was a facepainter and a band. There was a young Navajo sculptor who created his work by interpreting the stories he heard all of his life; I bought a small piece he called Turquoise Woman, based on a creation story involving Changing Woman and Turquoise Boy. Mostly, there were Silver Citizens in all our diversity, plus a few tourists. I remembered my camera this time, so here are a few photos to give you a flavor. We passed the vintage-wear fashion show, but stopped into our favorite gallery to visit with the owner. While there, Nick and I both, but especially Nick fell in love with a particular painting that Sue had titled, The Pilgrimage. It’s wonderful and looks terrific on the wall where we’ve hung it! We – or I – absolutely MUST stop going into these galleries. As Sue said, we are going to have to design a house around our art, rather than hang our art in a new house!

We also met Dennis and Denise Miller who run the Gila Wildlife Rescue, one of only two wildlife rescue organizations in the state. They are licensed to rescue all wildlife, from the largest four-leggeds to raptors and other winged, to crawlers like snakes. They are also gifted photographers and their big draw at their booth was their photography of rescued creatures. We stopped and visited a bit, and admired their images – eagles, bald and golden, bobcat kittens, fox kits, a full grown mountain lion. They mentioned that every bird and animal they release, including this huge male mountain lion, charges out of the cage or rockets into the air off their gloved wrist and heads for the horizon, pauses on a perimeter or circles around in flight, and looks back at the couple directly and unflinchingly before going on their wild way. My instant reaction was that the creatures are thanking them. What else could it be? They agreed that, anthropomorphic, idealistic, romantic as that might sound, it’s what they feel also. I made a contribution and received a great hat with their logo in return. Look for me sporting it around town.

A small thing: Silver City has its own homegrown and low-tech facebook. At least that’s what I’ve decided an observed phenom represents. I have noticed a number of older cars driven by younger women around town lately, but especially in the Wal Mart parking lot. These young women are using shaving cream or other white-spray-stuff and highlighting their cars’ windshields, side windows and rear windows. The equivalent of creating their profiles on facebook, complete with ‘screen names,’ ‘wall’ comments and all the other personal identifiers on a social network. Picture it: the driver’s portion of the windshield is framed with a heart or circle with stars. There are arrows, hearts, and designs across the rest of the windshield which all point at the framed driver. The side windows host sayings, quotes and quips, while the rear window usually posts some connection to, perhaps, the high school girls’ basketball team, the girls’ baseball team, or some other association to which, one imagines, the driver must belong. Fun, but does it make for safe driving?

I am saving a special story on a film we saw called Salt of the Earth. I hope you won’t mind the tease, and won’t be sorry when I get to write that story. Till then, celebrate…

Something magic in the air!

It’s the light – the sunlight is different this morning. I don’t know how and don’t know what could have happened overnight but I went out with Nutmeg about 7:15 this morning and the air was charged with magic. Ok, so that sounds both trite and exaggerated. But I gotta tell you…

It also felt calm enough, although far from warm at about 45, to sit on the patio with coffee. So I fed the dog, made the coffee, made my toast and put on a jacket, and got back out in less than ½ hour and settled in at the patio table. That was special enough since it’s the first time I’ve sat out for breakfast and coffee since we moved here. Here’s what the magic was made of:

• Flocks of small birds moving from tree to bush to telephone wire. As they flashed through the sunlight, their wings turned translucent, with shape and form of feathers suggested as they filtered the light from the east.


• A woodpecker on a distant tree drilling for breakfast; far enough down the way to be heard as a light percussive background to the calls and trills of the songbirds nearby.


• Shadows and reflections from the rising sun as its light spilled down into our slight valley; the surrounding hills become voluptuous with the shadows’ sculpting. Shadows disappear and the hills flatten as soon as the sun looks down directly.


• And most especially, the magic was created by the lime green of the new leaves on the cottonwoods that line the stream bed – the tree canopies acting as light transformers, taking the sunlight that slanted among the leaves from the early angle and charging it so that it radiated glowing, brilliant and full of living energy.
  

By 8:30 the sun had moved enough to change the shape and energy of the light. It didn’t change the intense blue of the sky nor the brilliance of the day nor even dampen the birds’ movement and song, but the magic has dimmed for the day. Although I brought out my camera to try to capture the incredible light-torches that were the cottonwoods, I had waited a little too late.

On another note, I discovered Susan Boyle on YouTube this morning. Of course, I didn’t actually *discover* her, I just found the video. I’d read a very brief piece in the paper – even our local paper occasionally has world news worth reading – and then saw a story on Comcast’s home page. So I followed the link to the video of her win at Brittan’s version of Idol. Unbelievable. Nick heard the music and came in to watch with me. We watched her performance 3 times. If you haven’t, do…but make sure you have a handful of Kleenex ready. To imagine voices like this singing in choirs, in kitchens and on front porches all over the world: amazing grace.

And back to birds: We moved one of two birdhouses that my brother made out here with us; the other one is still in our backyard on Comus Rd. This is a two-story condominium generally designed for martins and other community-dwelling birds. It’s big and heavy and we did not install it on its post in the yard, but sat it on the corner of the patio on a sturdy plant stand. I thought it would be garden art until we move and have our own place to install it permanently. I wouldn’t believe that any bird would use it sitting so low in such a high traffic area. After all, the apartment entrances are nose-height for Nutmeg. But it’s home, now, to a titmouse – Juniper, not Tufted, for my East-coast birder friends. Gail, that’s the little guy you noticed when we sat out on the patio that Thursday afternoon! It has hung around and decided it likes the real estate. Problem is, as happened this morning, it came up with a worm in its bill while Nick, Nutmeg and I were out there. It flitted from branch to chair back—back and forth, muttering around its mouthful, but wasn’t quite willing to let us know which apartment it had chosen. When Nutmeg went to investigate this brazen little gray moving thing perched on the chair arm, it flew off to a nearby tree and voiced its displeasure loudly. We called Nutmeg, came inside, and just as I was turning to close the door behind us all, I saw it dart into its apartment door, drop the meal to the unseen resident and leave as quickly. Now, can we use our patio or do we wait until fledging? Or do we expect it to get used to us and come-and-go as if we were invisible. How to build mutually-respectful community here?

Mmm, extra lights on around the house, extra dishes drying on the countertop drainer, Nutmeg has somewhere to be rather than stuck to the back of my knee, and the sound of the blender and smell of garlic going into the making of home-made hummus ------ Nick is home, for sure and finally. He didn’t get in until Monday morning; those damned winds kept his plane grounded and kept him in Albuquerque one extra night. But he was the first off the plane at 8:30 Monday and hurried right through the airport out the front to where Nutmeg and I were waiting, both wagging…well, you can get the picture. Wishing you a magical day wherever you are

Six degrees of memory

It’s said that we know everyone in the world within six degrees. As a generalization, I believe that might be true; maybe it takes seven or ten to get from one side of the world to another, but even that’s pretty amazing. But what I’m beginning to learn is that writing these stories of mine about our transition to and discovery about our new home and environment is triggering memories and stories for others already in my life, and bringing new friends into my life.

I related a story that wasn’t even mine, but shared with me by our friends – riding a motorcycle into winds so strong that the rider couldn’t go faster than 40 miles per hour at full throttle. That struck a memory for another close friend of a windy day some years ago on Long Island Sound where they spent a full day sailing into a head-wind, but making no head-way and finding themselves at the end of the day right where they started. And her story reminded me of one of my favorite author’s stories of a boat in high winds and water: John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie which I had locate the chapter and read again – which will probably motivate me to read the entire book again, if I can find it in the house.

When I wrote of the fires here in town, and the small burned circle on the street below us, I was gifted with another memory from our nephew, who spent his early years in New Mexico: "Your email reminds me of the time when I lived in Santa Fe and I almost started a prairie fire! The mother of my friend saw these little kids (including me) running in and out of the house with coffee cups full of water! :) Finally, she figured something must be wrong and sure enough the fire was starting to get out of control. Luckily, one of the neighbors thought very quickly and brought his garden hose over to put out the fire, which by that point was a good 5x10 foot. " Thanks, David for permission to include your memory here.

And my musings have brought two new friends into my life. One I met because of her involvement with WILL (the Western Institute for Lifelong Learning) when she called to get feedback on the classes Nick and I attended. She didn’t know – but now does – you never ask a trainer for feedback on training and trainers unless you want an honest answer. And to be fair, the people who deliver the courses, everything from Birding for Beginners to Enjoying the Wilderness (the survival-skills course) to Four from Hillerman are dedicated volunteers who propose and deliver these classes out of their own interest and willingness. So it was easy to give a good evaluation and in the process, start a conversation that still continues. When we met, I had just created my public blog to share stories, so I got up the gumption to mention it to her. She liked them and passed my address on to a friend of hers, whom I am also now getting to know. Thus is a sense of community built, becoming an important foundation in a new place.

Maybe this is the way story-telling is supposed to work, but I’m still honored that I’m part of six degrees of memory!

It’s Easter Sunday, and a wild weekend, weather-wise. Yesterday, the sky was black – and then sunny – and then black again. The winds howled – and then they didn’t – and then they did again. It snowed. It rained. It little-white-pelleted. I don’t know what those last were, but they stung when they hit! I walked Nutmeg during a sun-break about 4 pm, and then had to hurry home because I could see another mountain of black, dense and dropping clouds heading my way. I fully intended to get home, grab my camera and head up to a high point because the clouds were so diverse in shape, altitude, density, color and illumination I just felt I had to capture it on film. Well, not film; everything’s digital now, so on pixels. But by the time I got back here, unhooked Nutmeg and got my camera out, the sky was flat, grey and snowing again. Today didn’t exactly dawn; let’s say it ‘opened’ darkly. The amazing thing is that the clouds would appear to move in one direction, while down at street level, the winds were blowing in a totally different direction. Now, looking out the window in my office, I see high, white puffs – the kind that take form, shape and life.

I think, though, that it’s only us two-legged that have problems and complaints about the wind. It doesn’t seem to bother the ravens, which are soaring, dancing, and as a friend observed the other day, surfing the currents. It doesn’t seem to bother the smaller migrants which are moving through in greater numbers. It isn’t stopping the deer; this morning, there was a snuffling, huffing sound coming from below the hill just behind the house and Nutmeg was on point. In a burst, I heard then saw a large buck dash around the bottom of the hill, with Nutmeg racing it along the top. She stopped when it pushed through the bushes and on down into the arroyo. And the wind is definitely not stopping the skunk that lives in the culvert under the driveway of a house we pass every day when we walk. I thought skunks don’t spray unless unsettled; I’ve even known people who had natural, as opposed to de-fragranced, skunks as pets and they swore they never got sprayed because they learned the warning signs. But this neighborhood skunk must be unsettled much of the time because at least 2 or 3 times a week when we walk around that block, his presence is obvious. I wonder what stresses a skunk out!

Anyway, the winds are a big part of Spring, even if not my favorite part, and a topic of frequent complaint here. Maybe we two-leggeds are just more prone to getting blown over!

Bernoulli's Principle at work in Silver City

The Spring winds are really blowing and I’m beginning to get the feeling that these breezes hang around for awhile at this time of year. I’ve experienced brief periods of high winds in the past; after all, we had 50-75 foot trees blow down in our yard in Clarksburg. But I’ve never lived in an environment where the winds are sustained as they have been here. How windy is it, you may ask?

The wind has been blowing so consistently across my ears when I’m walking Nutmeg on the streets in the neighborhood that I don’t hear the cars coming. Scary on streets that rise and fall across ridges and bend around curves. Sounds carry a great distance here normally and I rely on the sound of approaching cars and trucks to drag Nutmeg off the street and onto the edge. She seems to think the middle of the street is the perfect place to plop down and scratch. The calls haven’t been too close so far, but let’s not push my luck, ya ol’ blowhard!
And speaking of ears, the wind is blowing so that Nutmeg’s laborabor-ear flaps lift straight out! Dumbo had to flap his ears in order to fly but he wasn’t headed into a 45 mph headwind. I’m expecting lift-off if we get 5 more mph up on that one high ridge we cross every morning. Thus the reference to Bernoulli’s principle of flight as illustrated by this wonderful little YouTube demo.
Our friend and his motorcycle gang, er, group, were riding home from a weekend trip – they came home early because of the high winds – with throttles wide open and barely moving. He rides a cycle that would do over 100 mph at comparable throttle on a still day. All because they were riding directly into the gale.
A local amateur weather station registered 70 mph one day last week. Granted that was on a high ridge to the south-east of town where there is little to break the winds between there and Mexico. But still.

Last Saturday was the first weekend of April and as such, was planned to offer up a number of outdoor activities. For example, the first-of-the-season outdoor Art Mart. But it was so blow-y that only one booth was set up; she was selling pottery, so maybe she figured she had the weight to stick close to the ground. Then, there was a shoot-out at Yankee and Texas Streets in the heart of the Art Gallery district. No, do not think shoot-out at the OK Corral—Tombstone is in Arizona, after all. The action was billed as hysterical, not historical, family fun. A bunch of buckaroos – grown-up ones, to be sure – dressed up in black dusters, cowboy boots, black hats (not a good white-hatted one amongst ‘em) and fired blanks at each other across the disputed intersection. Finally they exhausted the hail of virtual bullets and called for good guys over here, and bad guys over there, and any and all kids to pick a side. Then they brought out buckets of water balloons and had at it! Don’t believe for a minute that they did this to attract tourists…nope, entirely personal exhibitionism disguised as neighborly entertainment! This thrilling street theatre was repeated on the hour from noon to 2, and then the street musicians set up for the rest of the afternoon. I saw one shoot-out, which lasted about 10 minutes, long enough to entertain those who expected the disruption and frustrate a couple of vehicles that got caught between rounds of bullets and balloons. I didn’t hang around for the musicians or the evening’s street dance. There were too many competing activities. I already had tickets for the Saturday evening performance of Fiddler on the Roof.

Fiddler proved to be another small-town delight. Tevya was terrific—our own Topol. Maybe not quite ready for Broadway or Hollywood, but can’t imagine finding a better Rich Man (check it out – not what you’d think!) The rest of the cast was spotty in talent, but definitely full-out in performance enthusiasm. I enjoyed every minute – still humming the tunes.

Highlight of the day—
Had to stop twice today just coming up Cottonwood from the store. The first time: a roadrunner crossing the road (no bad jokes, please). The second time, a parade of Gambell quail with their little topknots leading their way. One after the other -- some hustling and some shy, standing on the edge while the car idled as non-threateningly as a big grey Volvo can idle, then finally getting up the courage to race across after their braver brothers. Five, there were.

Nick comes home Sunday. Gone too long. Will I recognize him? Not a doubt…

Even dogs do it! and other phenomena

Nutmeg is making her own transition to her new environment. She isn’t a homebody like she was in Maryland where, I’m embarrassed to say, she didn’t leave the yard unless she was going to the Vet. How sheltered was she? The first time I took her to the park – on the way home from the Vet’s, of course – she wouldn’t go on the grass. I don’t mean, she wouldn’t go to the bathroom on the grass, I mean she wouldn’t step onto the grass. She would only walk on the pavement. The first and only time I took her to the lake, she wouldn’t go into the water above the knees: her knees, not mine. And then only when I threw a most appealing stick into the water just beyond her reach. Remember, we’re talking about a Labrador Retriever here. Before you report us, also remember she had an acre to roam, race across and hang out on so she wasn’t exactly deprived.

So, ok, how do I know she’s making her own transition? Well, there’s this:

• We have to walk her now, as I’ve related in past stories. Not only is she following smells back and forth across streets and edges and ditches but she is marking those olfactory trails. That’s more than leaving a calling card – that is an act of establishing dominance. And it doubles our walk-time because she has to sniff until she finds just the right target; this happens 3 or 4 times per walk.
• We don’t take her to our friend’s house now because she has decided she needs to make her place in the pecking order that exists among our friend’s 3 dogs. And that ain’t at the bottom! She and Beau (the youngest, a male, and current holder of last-place) co-exist peacefully for minutes at a time, until one looks at the other askance, and they’re off – barking, snarling and standing stiff-legged. The real problem will present if Nutmeg challenges the ruler of that roost, a Doberman female about Nutmeg’s age, who’s used to obeisance. So no risks – Nutmeg doesn’t go visiting there now.
• She has discovered “going for a ride.” She’s a good traveler until a car pulls up next to us that she deems threatening. And what she deems threatening is: a loud radio; a loud muffler; a loud person on a cell phone; I’m beginning to think she finds a loud color worth a growl or two.
• Last, and don’t ask me what started this, she deems drive-up ATM machines as suspect. No sooner do I pull up to the Bank of America ATM, she starts to bark. And bark. Until I turn around and snap the equivalent of, “Don’t make me come back there!”
  

And speaking of olfactory stimulation, I have been so taken with the scents that tease; it’s almost like a cartoon where you would see the good smell wafting through the air in visible form, as though it was edible fog.

• I know I’ve described that, in the winter, when I stepped out before dawn in the cold weather, the juniper next to our deck gave off a piney-turpentine odor. Now, I find myself grabbing a branch as I walk by and bringing that odor to my face.
• Then Spring began to change the blend and I didn’t have a name for it, but was so aware of it. Rudolfo Anaya, a native New Mexican author, wrote the phrase, “…spermy and spongy with the smell of thawing earth…” and I knew that’s what I was smelling. Different than the scent-change of a Maryland spring.
• Getting off of the neighborhood’s human-disturbed ground and into the forest or onto the grasslands, there is the fragrance of sun-warmed earth mixed with natural herbs that wrap around me like a flannel sheet, making me want to burrow in.
• And I think that the earth has a genetic memory. If not, then odors travel a very long way. More than once this month, I’ve gone out, especially in the stillness at first light, and smelled a salt-laden ocean breeze. Genetic memory because the deserts in this region were once sea-beds and still carry the marks of the oceans that covered them. Or travel a distance, because the weather patterns often come from the south-west, in which direction lies the Gulf of California and what’s left of the Colorado River delta flowing into that gulf. But no mistaking the impression of soft, wet, salty smell of tidal flats.
• When the winds came up this last week, gone was the wet smell of the tides and back the hyper-clean air of the high desert and mountains, but tinged with smoke. And something else. Observing Nutmeg yesterday afternoon in winds about 40 mph, she had her nose stretched as far up as she could, standing almost on toe-nails to stretch just a little farther. I couldn’t get her to come with me, no matter how hard I yanked on the leash. She was facing into the wind, like a treed flock of birds, and studying its scent-freight with her fullest attention.
  
  Hope that gentle Spring breezes are warming the air for you…ss