A bright winter's day

A New Mexico-blue sky, a bright January day, dry and spring-like at about 60 -- Who could stay inside (more on flikr)?

We went to Fort Bayard, a few miles east of Silver City, to hike the Big Tree trail, part of the Ft Bayard National Recreation Trails We didn’t make it all that way to the Big Tree, which is the second-largest Alligator Bark Juniper in the country. Blame that on two things: (1) with Nutmeg, we walk at sniff-pace and (2) I was walking on Zumba-legs! Translate both (1) and (2) into one word: Slowly!

Oh, and if you aren’t familiar with the condition known as Zumba-legs, those are the somewhat rubbery, definitely sore legs resulting from last week’s two sessions of the dance-exercise, Zumba, which I just started this last week.

The day’s take:

• an active flock of Juncos
• Juniper Titmouse, heard but not seen
• 2 ravens
• Jay, probably a Western Scrub, heard but not seen
• Miscellaneous well-hidden LBJs

There aren’t too many birds that move around in the mid-afternoon so we didn’t see many. And since it’s winter, there’s no urge to merge, so they aren’t singing. When you’re a dog plus two people noising down the trail, the birds will scatter. You need to sit down and sit still for a few minutes for them to put their heads up and look around.

I was hoping to see elk, since this area is known as a wintering area for elk which come down from the higher elevations in the winter until calving time. I did find numerous gray fox scat, what appeared to be a single bobcat track and at a different place, bobcat scat.

You’d never believe that 2 weeks ago, it snowed between 6 and 12” in 24 hours, depending where you were in town; we probably had 8” at our house. Up in the mountains, up to 2’ fell. And that’s not all that fell. The night-time temps fell to negative numbers. In town? -6 But up at Lake Roberts, which is another 1,000’ in elevation, the night-time temp was -19. There was a rash of frozen and burst pipes all around town. There’s still snow in the shade and on the north slopes and hillsides. Long-timers here say they haven’t seen temps like that nor that much snow at one time in many years.

For all the snow of New Year’s weekend, we are short of moisture this winter. Unlike last year when we had generous snows and tremendous monsoons thanks to an El Niño year, so far this winter we are apparently at about 30% of normal. For as much as I enjoyed today’s weather and the opportunity to soak in the sun and the peace of the setting, I’d be happy to be stuck inside watching the precious rain fall.