Another in an occasional series on the neighborhood fauna

I’ve been gathering these observations over the last couple of weeks: some are in the ‘awwww’ and ‘awe’ categories, some are amusingly curious, and then there’s the irony of the interface between two legged and the rest of the walking-running-flying-crawling world.

Awwww

• Sitting at my desk in my office, looking out the window, I noticed a fair-sized mule-deer doe come up onto the yard from the arroyo. Right behind her were one – and then two – fawns. Still spotted. About the size of a medium-sized german shepherd dog. When mom stopped to nibble on the weeds, one twin positioned itself to nurse. I jumped up to go and get my camera – when will I learn to keep binocs and camera on the table next to my window – and when I got back, both mom and twins were gone. Another “when will I learn” lesson: to just sit, look and take in as living memory, rather than try to pixilate everything!
• Visiting our newly-purchased property to show friends, we saw a doe and her fawn right off the side of the road. This baby was smaller than Nutmeg (our standard-sized lab) so must have been no more than a couple of weeks old. Our driver stopped without scaring off the pair. So we watched the baby chasing its lunch, while mom casually and repeatedly stepped over the poised nose to move to a choicer bunch of grass. Another sales point for Toyota Prius: it runs quietly enough not to scare away the neighborhood fauna.

Awe-ful

• I went for a hike with two friends on Thursday morning (no I wasn’t playing hooky! I was on official leave…a micro-vacation.) We went to Bear Mountain Lodge, a property of The Nature Conservancy. As many wild-focused properties do, this had a veritable forest of bird feeders hung around the lodge. Including several hummingbird feeders from the eaves of the east porch. The feeders were swarmed with hummers; it sounded more like a busy bee-hive. There were as many as 15 birds around each feeder; it’s possible there were up to 75 or 100 hummers all told. We took seats in the Adirondacks to watch the activity and try to identify all the species present. Anyone who uses binocs knows that you can’t focus under a certain number of feet. And my distance vision is just off enough not to crisply focus on the little birds. So I got up, put on my glasses and moved toward one feeder. Closer. And closer until my face was not two feet from the feeder. The birds were not intimidated – perhaps I should have been by the dive-bombing of the aggressive male Rufous hummers. I could see every little bird in its finest detail. I could identify female of one species from female of another, not always easy to do because the differences can be subtle. I watched as Caliope throat patches changed from almost-black to brilliant, iridescent ruby or Black-chinned to deep purple as birds turned toward the sun. But what was so awesome was to stand with a dozen or more whirling around my head, to feel the energy of their small-but-furious engines, and not just to hear, but to feel the hum and vibration of their wing-beats pass inches by my ears.

Amusingly curious

• Another deer story: last night, I took Nutmeg for a long walk through the neighborhood. By now, you get that we have lots of deer who are very acclimated to the comings and goings of two- and four-legged, as well as two- and four-wheeled. We were walking down a nearby street, and saw two dogs running up the street toward us. Looking just beyond the dogs, I saw a large doe running up the street right after them. Was she chasing them? Or was it pure coincidence? When one of the dogs looked back over its shoulder and the other, smaller dog redoubled its pace, I was convinced. For whatever reason, this doe was the pursuer, and the dogs, the pursued. Whatever happened to reverse the normal course of events I don’t know. Suddenly, the doe saw me and veered down a driveway. Both dogs were so hell-bent-for-leather, they almost ran right by Nutmeg and might have indeed, had Nutmeg not done her usual bark-and-lunge routine. After a brief encounter, the dogs trotted on and we continued down the street to see the doe standing in the driveway watching us go by.
• And another bird story from Bear Mountain Lodge and our hike there. Up on a ridge along one of the trails in the middle of the Conservancy property, we saw a golf ball. There is a golf course in Silver City, but way the other side of town, quite a number of miles away. And the idea of any one person carrying a club, some balls and a couple of tees up-and-down a trail to get into a clearing on a ridge to hit a few…well that’s just silly. So how would a single white golf ball come to be resting there on the ground? Raven. Yep, that big, black, noisy bird with a big, curious and inventive mind. Ravens collect things that interest them. Their nests are often full of odd, shiny and unexpected treasures found and picked up along their aerial journeys. Apparently they are known to mistake all sorts of small round white objects as eggs, eggs being a favorite snack. Small round white objects like golf balls. So a Raven had passed over the golf course miles away, picked up this egg-like object, flown off, and somewhere over Bear Mountain Lodge property decided this egg-like object wasn’t an egg and dropped it. Glad I wasn’t hiking just underneath at the least opportune moment.

The interface

• I have had to walk Nutmeg especially early a few mornings lately, going out at the waning of dawn when the stalked and the stalkers are heading to den for the day. We know there are coyotes in the hills and arroyos that make up this neighborhood, but of all the critters seen, we have not seen these. One morning, Nutmeg and I were on the last block of our walk and we both heard a howling start up, joined and joined again. I wondered – I’m always wishing to hear the wild rather than the domesticated canines singing – and when Nutmeg literally froze with a paw still half-way to the next step, I knew for sure. She stood without moving, except for the quiver in her flanks, listening until the last howl died away. And I was in no hurry, being just as mesmerized as her. When even the echo was gone, we both mentally and physically shook ourselves and came on home – touched for the day by a bit of wild magic.
• Likewise on these early walks, I have encountered neighbors not met before. These are not the dog-walkers. These are the couples our age and older who go out to walk for exercise. The peculiar thing: several of the men in these couples carry clubs. Golf clubs. Which they swing like swagger sticks. But why? What good does a swagger stick – nine iron, sand wedge, whatever – do walking these neighborhood streets? It occured to me that these golf clubs are intended as protection. Mmmm…protection from…? I ran down the list of possibilities in my mind as Nutmeg and I passed the third-such armed couple. The idea of using a golf club as protection against the deer is ludicrous. Although who knows how vicious that doe was chasing those two poor innocent canines up the street! They are certainly not – at least I hope not – thinking they would use a club on one of the community skunks (another story in itself). Besides, any skunk presenting itself during the daylight to be golf-clubbed has more of a problem than a wedge-wielding two-legged; rabies is a real concern in this area. I would hasten in the opposite direction rather than attack a day-lit skunk full-on with a nine-iron (sand-wedge, whatever). If these brave souls think that they are carrying a sand-wedge (nine-iron, whatever) as protection from the occasional mountain lion that follows the deer into town, they need to go back to whatever tamed city they came from! (Sorry, a little judgment creeping in there.) Even trickster Coyote would not be cowed by a golf-club – there are alternatives to avoid unwanted contact with those four-legged folks. And finally, if they are carrying their weapons against the few dogs that do run loose through the community, they obviously don’t know much about dogs. If a dog gets close enough to get whopped by a golf club and the dog means business, the clubber is already too late. Unless they are VERY good with martial defense. If the dog is out of reach of the club but is menacing, just what good will the club do? Better a handful of pebbles to toss at legs or nose and eyes, depending upon the degree of menacing behavior, to yell loudly, to wave arms and of all things, to avoid eye contact. Well, maybe in that context, a wild-ass swing of the club might help after all. Just pretend they’re on a driving range…
  

Well, as the saying goes, “I got a million of’em.” But I’ll save the rest for another in my occasional series on neighborhood fauna. Hope you are out there swinging.

About to become New Mexico tax payers!

Property taxes, that is. We wrote a contract which has now been accepted on 5 acres of land not far from where we now live. It was accepted and ratified, and soon we will be landowners …homesteaders …estate-holders …indebted! No turning back, now – we’re tied to the land. Dirt under our fingernails. Alright, enough already.

We found a nice piece of ground that is – soon to be, was – part of a larger parcel that was not really on the market. Are you curious? Here’s the story – owing mostly to Nick’s hard work and our real estate agent’s willingness to ask questions. When we had looked at everything on the market without success, and after I mentioned a tactic I used when I myself was a realtor, Nick set out to explore the landscape in the areas we were most interested in living. He identified a number of sites that were appealing and then we asked our realtor, “Are you willing to approach a landowner and ask if they’re interested in selling, even subdividing and selling?” Then we took her for a ride and pointed out spots of interest, including, indirectly, the piece we now will own. She asked the right questions of the right people, and found that this 5 acre piece, part of a larger 15 acres, could be purchased for a very attractive price. It isn’t currently on the market, although the 15 acres had been surveyed into 5-acres lots and city water, power and telephone had been brought to the edges of each lot; obviously the owners had some intention of selling eventually.

Here’s are links to some still images on flikr :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sonnie-in-silver/sets/72157621053683892/

Buying land here is a different experience. On another occasion, I told the story of needing a witcher to help locate water for drilling a well, and witchers here make a decent living; you wouldn’t buy land without one if you’re smart – or you have city water. So this time, no witcher for us. But there’s more to this purchase than a divining rod.

Today, Nick went to the Grant County offices (this property lies just outside Town limits) to explore a number of questions, including the ownership, restrictions and rights to the land. One thing we need to research is the mineral rights. The term used by the County staff was “tracing back the land ‘patent.’” A new term for us: it means “A land patent is evidence of right, title, and/or interest to a tract of land, usually granted by a central, federal, or state government to an individual or private company” according to Wikipedia. I gather that a patent was the first title to the land to be held in white man’s hands. Certainly the Native Americans, in local case, the Mimbres people or the tribes of the Apaches neither believed in or traded in land patents. In the East, we always just heard it called ‘title’ to the land, with ‘title searches’ and ‘title documents’ that went with the ‘deed.’ We need to check out mineral rights because if you don’t own the mineral rights under the surface of the land for which you hold the ‘patent,’ someone could conceivably show up and demand to drill your land because they, not you, have the mineral rights of extraction. On another piece of property we looked at, we discovered a small stone monument with a mining claim etched, going back to the time this area was first staked for gold, copper and other minerals. So either Nick or the title company will have to do the research back to when this land was first patented to make sure there are no existing mining rights, which will lead to some reassurance there are no abandoned mine shafts, which are found frequently on land that was part of large tracts now divvied up and sold as building lots.

All this makes me remember one of my favorite stories of all time. That is, a telephone installer on the Eastern Shore of MD whom I knew well, was doing some renovation in his home, the family farmstead. He knew the farm had been in his family for some generations. But he couldn’t guess how many. Until he pulled up flooring in the attic to find a strong box, with the original deed – ‘patent’? – granting the land to his ancestor by King George of England back before folks decided they didn’t want a king.

Now it’s time to get serious about designing a house. We have a designer, and we’re talking to an architect to help us creatively. We know we want to build green – passive solar, etc. We have lots of pictures pulled from builder, architectural and home design magazines for ideas and inspiration. We won’t be able to build until our house in MD is sold. At least I don’t think so. Unless I can get really creative on how to swing the finances. And you know me, I can get pretty creative when I really want something. I can’t wait to move. I can just see our new house and see us sitting there…guess I’d better start thinking…mmm, wonder if we…

Home Again

I’ve written about the idiosyncrasies and character of Grant County Airport. I haven’t talked about the experience of going – and coming – home again. Although I’ve been asked by folks here how it feels to go home again. So here were my impressions from both this recent trip and my trip back in January.

· DC is my natal city, well, just outside of DC in MD (born in Bethesda and raised in Kensington); before moving to NM, I lived in the DC metro area all but 5 years of my life. There are few more beautiful cities than Washington on the Potomac – the Washington that hugs the wide tidal river and overlooks the rocky fall that is the Potomac Gorge. Especially when flying into the city following the river down from the north. I like a window seat on the left side of the aircraft so I can track the river, watch for White’s Ferry and Sugarloaf Mountain, and on a particularly clear day, find my now-former home in Clarksburg. Then the urban centers thread by underneath: Rockville-Bethesda-Chevy Chase-Northwest DC along Wisconsin Ave-the National Cathedral-GlenEcho and MacArthur Blvd-the reservoir-Georgetown. And finally, the great monumental Washington spreads out as the plane drops past Georgetown Cathedral: the Lincoln Memorial, Key Bridge, the Washington Monument, the White House set on the South Lawn and the Capital, and finally the plane sets down right on the edge of the water across from the SW waterfront. This unfolding of DC has always thrilled me, and always will.
· On the ground in downtown DC – a different visual, auditory and olfactory experience. Assaulted by bus fumes, rumbling and exhaust-ing sidewalk grates over the underground Metro tubes, car horns, and the other forms of “street life” to be dodged or skirted, paced and tolerated.
· Seeing friends and neighbors, both personal and at work – getting hugs is so reaffirming. Having FCC folks stop by my office door to ask where I’ve been and how I’ve been reminded me that there are many forms of family. Having personal friends and former neighbors go out of their way to spend an evening or an afternoon reminded me that distance does not change the connection between us, easy enough to forget when relying on electronic bits to keep the connections fresh.
· Riding the Metro from hotel to work to dinner and back to hotel on a daily basis – at one point, I swore that every citizen from Silver City must be on the platforms at Metro Center. The trains were running more slowly because they were being manually controlled since the truly horrible train accident a few weeks ago. But that meant larger than usual crowds on the platforms. Oddly, though, the trains I rode were not, themselves, overly crowded.
· Losing my balance in the Metro – I had forgotten how jerky the trains are when they start and stop, not to mention the frequency with which they stop short of their discharge point. I was up and starting for the door when the train stopped, only to hear those dreaded words, “this train will be moving forward.” And it did, but I didn’t. I lost my balance backwards and almost fell to my butt except that the two women behind me broke my fall – not entirely voluntarily!
· Losing my balance in the Metro 2 – I got off on the yellow line and went upstairs, having to pass along the red line platform to reach my exit. The platform was the most crowded I remember in years – a train had just disgorged its passengers. They were all flooding toward me, half at a run, afraid that they’d miss the next yellow train, oblivious to the fact that another yellow train would arrive in no more than 7 minutes. In DC like many cities, time is money and is jealously and aggressively marshaled. I found myself on the train-side of the flood, and like monsoon-driven floods, could not safely cross the river of racing humans to the saner side against the wall. People were brushing me and some, bumping me, and I began to worry that when the standing train closed its doors and began to move, I could be in trouble. Sure enough, the doors closed, the train moved out, and just then, a woman moving faster than the rest of the flotsam, pushed past me, and knocked me slightly sideways. I believe that, if I had not been anticipating just such a knock, I would have fallen into the side of the speed-gathering train. My DC-attitude finally took over and I almost simultaneously bulled back, managed to move 2 feet into the onrushing flow and push forward. When I finally cleared the crowd, my heart was racing, face and scalp were wet and my mind was whimpering, “Oh to be home in Silver.”
· And that was the instant that I knew. Reinforcement came on the home-bound flight from Albuquerque through the thunderstorms to Grant Co Airport, when I found myself anxiously looking for – and low-and-behold – finding familiar landscapes to mark my progress home. I realized I could recognize, not just the most obvious, like the huge pits of the mines, but the thread that is NM 15 from Gila Cliff Dwellings, the Mimbres valley along the river and NM Rt 35, Hurley and the old graveyard across Rt 180 from the main drag into town and finally knowing when we started our approach to the airport, not by the loss of altitude but by the change in the land running beneath.

There’s no doubt that I’ll always miss much about Washington and MD and will look forward to visiting whenever I can. But now, when someone here asks how it was to “go” home, my answer is, “it’s just so great to BE home.”