Out of Time

Epiphany 2012

2012-01-06T15:47:00.000-08:00

Today is the 100th birthday of New Mexico statehood; I arrived just after their fiftieth. About 1982 I met a woman who traveled east from the Territory of New Mexico in September 1911 to enroll at my alma mater in Virginia. She said it took five days by train.

This afternoon, we chipped much of the only native piñon that had grown on our property. It probably was well over sixty years old when it died in the drought of 2005. Having weathered for the past six years, it offered little resistance to the blades.

Now it will mulch those plants still surviving the continuing drought.

New Mexico is a tough place for trees. We lost much of the ponderosa forest to epic wildfires in the Jemez last summer. Before that, it was the piñon—ironically, our state tree.

So we celebrate our statehood centennial in exceptional drought, having lost most of our piñon forest. Our state flower, the yucca, didn't even bloom last summer.

We do have a state fossil: the coelophysis. It is doing well, as extinct animals require no water.

NOAA warns that La Niña will set us up for a dry spring. At this moment, at least, the snow pack is good, so perhaps April will bring some wildflower blooms.

O, fair New Mexico, we love, we love you so...

But it is heartbreaking to see these changes.

Winter Solstice 2011

2011-12-21T08:46:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the Winter Solstice, 2011. It is time to look back on a year which, for us and our family, at least, has been good. We’ve stayed healthy, been blessed with more than enough, and have been able to spend time with many beloved friends and with our family.

In March, we took our grandsons to visit Bandelier National Monument in the nearby Jemez Mountains. We hiked through magnificent ponderosas, cottonwoods, and elders along tiny Rito de los Frijoles. They climbed wooden ladders to explore caves carved from the volcanic tufa, ceilings blackened by ancient hearth fires and walls populated by petroglyphs and pictographs. The boys took careful notes, and we watched as they proudly received their Junior Ranger badges in the newly refurbished visitor center.

By May there had been no rain since December. The dusty brown spring produced almost no wildflowers, but plenty of strong wind, and our skies were filled with acrid smoke from the burning forests in southern Arizona, over 250 miles away.

In early June we escaped the smoke to the Colorado high country, where ample snowpack had resulted in heavy runoff. The drift next to the cabin provided us with ice for the cooler, and we were glad for the crackling aspen fire in the old blue woodstove. This time, fire was good, under control.

But two days after we returned home, a giant plume of smoke suddenly blew up over the Jemez: thus began the worst forest fire in recorded New Mexico history. In the first 24 hours 44,000 acres were torched, and we watched in horror from our house in Placitas as flames blazed along Cochiti Mesa and up the canyons into the ponderosa forest. At night we watched as the fire crowned across the ridges; during day we wiped a heavy layer of ash from the outdoor studio tables.

The Las Conchas fire burned for over a month, eventually incinerating over 156,000 acres. Then, when the August monsoons came, floods scoured the denuded canyons and the Rio Grande ran black with ash.

Now, in December, we are blessed with moisture in a more gentle form… “snow on snow on snow.” This mid-winter may seem bleak as memories of the wildfires cast a pall, but the snows promise some sort of recovery for the burned mountains.

Looking over to the Jemez today, I see that their snow patterns have changed. They will never look the same during my lifetime, probably never ever.

Tonight we celebrate the longest night of the year by listening as poets read by the light of a single candle. Their theme: Fire, Ashes, Snow.

Fire can be destructive, cleansing, warming, nourishing, and/or illuminating.

Friday, the daylight will be imperceptibly longer, and Saturday evening, Christmas Eve luminarias will mark the birth of Jesus, God’s Light for us.

May our holidays be warmed by the joy of sharing with family, friends, and especially with some we may not know. And may the next year bring promise and light to each of us and to all of creation.

Faith

2011-05-19T17:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I spent an hour or so creating a spiral meditation path on a vacant lot across the road. Though it is late spring, there are no wildflowers or native grasses. The native junipers have been trimmed up so that they can no longer shelter their roots from the sun and wind, and the rocky ground is dusty after months without rain.

From a high point I look across the Rio Grande Valley, sixty miles west to Mount Taylor and back five miles east to the Sandias, thinking that surely there is no place around here where someone has not walked, hunted, cut firewood, or grazed sheep… all impacting the land over the past ten thousand years. But right here, for the past three decades, this spot has endured its most intense human occupation.

Our neighbors spent thirty-seven years in this place. With their own hands they built a house, kennels, and several out-buildings, poured a foundation for an unfinished addition, buried half-burned trash, old car parts, broken sports equipment, beloved pets, and other stuff as yet undiscovered. When it was time for them to move on, we bought their land.

Since the house was unlivable, we began the cleanup by stripping the wiring and recycling or giving away anything usable before demolition. Parts of the kennel went to a local animal shelter, a shed to a neighbor, metal roofing to a Pueblo farm family. Weathered wood board and batten went to a local builder to become a ceiling in a new adobe home.

The entire two acres was littered with nails, barbed wire, shards of glass, broken toys, and the miscellany of modern life. We did a lot of digging, filled a dumpster, and hauled home anything we thought might be of some value to us.

Now, three years later, it is time to acknowledge the past and look toward the future.

Starting at the center I rake a widdershin path out in a dynamic spiral, gathering bits of wire, screws, glass, plastic, and native rocks. An intact concrete patio block emerges to become the center post. Every piece of trash caught by the tines of the rake is tossed to the center, testament to the way in which our transitory existence can have lasting impact on this earth.

Finally the spiral has grown to fill its space, so that now, entering from the left, one may proceed clockwise to the center.

As I head back home, I spot some pale purple and gold iris blooming in an old flower bed. Not being desert natives, they won’t long survive unless someone waters them. But for this moment they are beautiful. And now I know that something wonderful can exist here again.

Crooked fish and Straight Thinking

2011-04-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

“I have some guppies that have deformed spines… why don’t you try to figure out if that could be hereditary? I’ll give them to you if you want.”

Soon I was sharing my bedroom with a dozen or so one-gallon pickle jars full of generations of guppies, keeping meticulous records of their procreation and health. (I still have nightmares about scrubbing algae from the jars and counting tiny fish.)

Taking my friend’s suggestion turned out to be a defining moment in my life. Two years later I was walking up to the podium at the Western Virginia Regional Science Fair. Turned out the first place award in biology came with an all-expense-paid trip to the International Science Fair in Albuquerque NM. (I thought, “Where?”)

That was in May 1963. I fell in love with New Mexico—from the new Western Skies motel on east Central one could look up to the east mesa at sunset, where tall grass reflected the golden skies to the west. We rented horses and rode down the arroyo below Four Hills. We toured Old Town, and munched sopaipillas dripping with honey. There was a tour to Los Alamos, where we lunched at Philomena’s (the old guard station), and a day trip to Acoma Pueblo, the Sky City.

But mostly it was the light, the ultramarine fading to azure green at twilight peppered with stars, that caused me to affirm to my teacher, “I’m coming back here to live.” “Yes dear,” she humored me.

That was nearly fifty years ago. What if I hadn’t taken my friend up on his offer? For sure, I wouldn’t be sitting out here in the desert, listening to coyotes celebrate as the full moon rises over the Sandias.

Bondo: A Good Old Dog

2010-07-09T11:05:00.000-07:00

This epitaph is meticulously chiseled in blackened letters into a gray granite headstone within an old picket fence, leaning askew with peeling white paint. The grave is covered with an old blanket, disintegrating now. It is capped with carefully chosen black lava rock from the banks of lower Dorsey Creek in Poncha Pass.

Bondo was probably a good-sized dog from the size of the grave, and he was obviously worth the effort put into this interment. Maybe he ran these sagebrush hills through aspen and fir, following cattle with his owner.

I'd like to know more about him.

Wild and isolated Poncha Pass overlooks the expansive San Luis Valley to the south and is traversed today by US 285. Dorsey Creek is a Forest Service access road just south of the pass.

Epiphany invited

2010-01-06T14:13:00.000-08:00

This twelfth day of Christmas, Kings Day, Epiphany is bright and clear in the high desert. Although snow still lingers on the shaded ground, the greenhouse is eighty degrees, with Christmas cactus in full bloom and Meyer lemons ripe for harvest.

This morning a flock of mountain bluebirds feasted on juniper berries on nearby Forest Service land. How apt the phrase, "bluebird of happiness"... what possible survival benefit could such magnificent azure afford? More senseless beauty.

Now a white winged dove peers down at me from a locust, still fluffed against the cold. Our feeder has hosted the winter regulars: juncos, towhees, one lovely brown thrasher, and many others. A quick check in the summerhouse fails to provide a sighting of the Western screech owl who has been in residence since August. He was here at least until mid December... perhaps he has scored a warmer roost these days.

So I poke around, searching for some insight, some spark, some enlightenment. Bring it on — I'm ready!

Honeybees, Rosemary and Art

2009-11-09T14:34:00.001-08:00

Here in the high desert, rosemary grows well in our dry alkaline soil. Sunny warm days have kept this tough little herb in full bloom, and hundreds of honeybees are taking full advantage today.

I wonder if their honey will have a hint of turpentine?
Will it be dark or light?

A conversation with a beekeeper last weekend reminded me how amazing these creatures are. As a batik artist, I have used many pounds of beeswax over the past thirty years. It is interesting to contemplate whether or not someone is harvesting the honey from bees in my garden, and whether I might be buying beeswax created from my own rosemary.

Cranes, golden cottonwoods and fairies

2009-10-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

The sharp cobalt sky is filled with the churble of sandhill cranes, heading down to the Bosque del Apache as the high country peaks are showing white.

Our best season lazes on: frost clips the late blossoms, while afternoons warm south walls. The house is downright toasty, thanks to the sun. Furnace still not needed.

A western screech owl has been roosting in the summer house for several weeks, and the resulting owl pellets have been of interest to me and my five-year old grandson. Mouse bones are so tiny.

We recently spent a magical afternoon as he built a house for the fairies, tearing tiny placemats and a tablecloth from rags and carefully hanging mistletoe from the roof.

He assures me fairies like mistletoe.

Tiny stone seats were placed with care around a rock table. Periwinkle petals provided exquisite decor, and a good sheet metal roof supported a rag flag, on which he had drawn a flower and bumblebee.

We're certain the fairies approved.

Spotted Towhees and Robins

2009-10-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

This morning the season officially changed with the arrival of several spotted towhees at the feeder. One of the most colorful winter residents, these little orange, black and white sparrows are never so plentiful as to be a problem (as the robins can be) so they are always welcome.

During a dry winter, flocks of robins crowd our small pond and befoul it, endangering the goldfish. One February we arrived home after leaving our house with a sitter for ten days. The pond water was purple, and two dozen dead fish floated like fall aspen leaves. The robins were so thick that it was hard to think of them as symbols of spring cheer!

As a kid I raised a robin fledgling that had been caught by our cat. I will always recognize the call. Named Cheep-cheep by my little brother, she grew quickly and learned to fly, but always had one wing feather that went at an odd angle due to the cat's claws. She would swoop down and land on my head, then poop. When she was grown we took her with us on a week-long vacation to a nearby state park. Every day we would let her out, then let her into the cabin at night if she would come to us. By the time we left she had taken up with some other robins.

That was in the misty Blue Ridge mountains; this is the Southwest high desert. A very different life for a robin, where life depends on finding water. And since I choose to provide it, guess I can't blame them for showing up in excess.

Kinda like our own species: always able to recognize a good thing, then overusing it to the point of destruction.

Death of a young bobcat

2009-09-23T12:17:00.000-07:00

Sad to find one of the bobcat kittens dead down the hill this morning. Probably dead a day or two; wounds on its back point to a possible owl attack.

Could also have been a coyote or male bobcat. We don't have stray dogs in the neighborhood, so probably a wild predator.

It was larger than a big house cat, but not grown, maybe twenty pounds.

We haven't seen the mother again either. Buried it under the juniper where it died.

Dark of the moon, owl and coyote

2009-09-19T08:06:00.000-07:00

Wakened this morning about 2 AM by an owl. Oddly, I had just been listening to sounds of different owls last night on the 'net. We have seen screech owls in the yard, but this was a great horned owl, for sure.

Fell back asleep to the soft calls, then woke just before six to hear them again. It was close... probably in the dead tree just east of the house. Allowing for Daylight "Savings" Time, it was a bit more than an hour before daybreak.

Last night was the dark of the moon; we are three days before the fall equinox. More calls-- there! we spotted it. Silhouetted against the early eastern dawn sky, perched right on top of the tallest trunk, peering around and calling.

Then a coyote barked, just on the other side of the fence, maybe 30 feet from the owl. They exchanged remarks for awhile, until about 6:30 the owl flew off to the northwest. My friend lives in an arroyo over that way, and reports such a creature in residence there.

No more sounds from Mr. coyote. Safe to let the Lab out? She's ready to go.

Glad we left the tall tree trunks standing; the idea was to carve them with figures to watch over us, like totem poles. Living, they were beautiful Balm of Gileads, giving shade and habitat for orioles and blackbirds. It was very sad when they died, but they are still beautiful in death.

"There is a balm in Gilead, to heal the wounded soul..."

God's dog at my gate

2009-09-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

Coyote packs in mad cacophony have always been part of life here; they typically sound off in the wee hours, presumably in pursuit of a jackrabbit or cottontail. It is not unheard of to spot a lone skulker on the nearby Forest Service lands during the day.

But today around noon we were startled by a sudden yipping-yapping-yelping right in the middle of the dirt road by our driveway, hardly 50 feet from the front door.

Our black Lab sprang to the front window to answer the challenge. The coyote continued to bark, and seemed interested in something in the muddy road.

Was he baiting the Lab? Was he hoping our plump "indoor" cat was sunning on the porch? I wonder. Well he knows which dogs live where in his territory. And who has chickens, outdoor cats, bird feeders, lily ponds...

I think back to the night we spent out in sleeping bags in Southern Arizona about 1970, sans tent, trying to stretch our $25/day museum per diem. All night we heard the wailing coyotes... not much sleep, all the better to enjoy the bright stars that stretched to infinity.

Nowadays we have the luxury of a house and warm bed, yet the howling chorus is a reminder of the wild that still exists on the other side of threshold and window pane.

Thank You Mother.

Supporting the local economy

2009-09-13T10:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to a golden wedding anniversary for friends.

As I unloaded the dishwasher just now, I realized that there is not a day when I don't think of them. Why? Because my kitchen is full of their beautiful handiwork: bowls, small plates, pitchers, serving platters... they are gifted and generous potters, whose work is both useful and aesthetically pleasing. Every time I make a sandwich or soup I remember our friendship. The handmade tiles in part of the backsplash came from them as well.

We redid our kitchen over the past few years (still ongoing) and it is filled with similar memories: the alder cabinets were designed and made by my skilled brother-in-law; the glass in the upper doors was cut by artist friends who do amazing prisms and stained glass crafts; the rest of the backsplash is the work of a local builder who combined materials we already had in an original and unique way.

I look up at the latillas in our ceiling, and remember that our builder had his two young sons helping with the installation 34 years ago. Both "boys" are now well-established builders today, and our families are still friends.

Our lives have been enriched by knowing countless artists and craftspeople due to my many years of doing shows, and as I look at our paintings, sculptures, and weavings, I see their faces. Even our wooden spoons have a story, involving a fierce storm at a show in Pittsburgh.

And our yard is filled with plants from friends who were dividing their own; those are the ones that grow best. A 20 foot apricot tree volunteered from a seed in the compost pile after friends invited us to pick fruit over 30 years ago.

Perhaps someday a new owner will wonder who carved the front door (it was me) and why we used soapstone for kitchen counter tops (we went to the quarry near my childhood home in Virginia and brought back stone quarried over 100 years ago).

May this community always be filled with creative people and may their neighbors continue to nurture them.

Ants, mice and bears, Oh My!

2009-09-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

Just back home from a week in a mountain cabin in Colorado.

First discovery: the cats had killed a mouse and left it for us in the bedroom. No sign of any more, but as the weather cools the cats will doubtless earn their keep.

Second problem: orderly rows of ants are marching across the kitchen counters, up the wall, and into the heating vent. There was no food left on the counters, mind you, so there seems to be no purpose to this great endeavor.

A mild dry winter has been followed by a very buggy summer; the juniper gnats never died back, and ants of all sizes churned up the ground and even the brick patio. The ants are also tending hundreds of aphids on my chrysanthemums.

Is there a benefit to all these anthills? Will they make the ground more permeable? Will some of the seeds they bury germinate over the winter? I'm not killing them outdoors, but inside the house— well, maybe we need to bring in some lizards.

No, wait— the cats eat lizards.

A few weeks ago I ordered some non-toxic ant repellent. The entire house smelled like cinnamon and cloves, but it barely fazed the ants.

Up at the cabin a bear had been raiding campsites close by; can't blame him for trying to put on weight for the winter. Guess it is the same for the ants and mice, and for us too, as we sense the shorter days and oncoming winter.

Looking forward to the first frost.

Of hummingbirds, rabbits, and bobcats

2009-09-01T12:31:00.000-07:00

Since the coyotes and bobcats have thinned out the cottontails and jackrabbits, the Indian Paintbrush is beginning to bloom again, giving delight to migrating hummingbirds.
All in balance.

Remains of the day

2009-08-29T08:49:00.001-07:00

This is what we found this morning. Tracks the size of a medium dog, no claws.

A freshly killed jackrabbit which was dragged into the fenced yard (jacks have never been able to get through the fence on their own). They had just started feeding when something spooked them (probably our dog) and left before covering the kill.

Will be watching for them today in case they return...

Bobcats in the yard

2009-08-28T18:26:00.000-07:00

This afternoon a mother bobcat brought her two kittens into our fenced yard for a romp.

She had caught a small animal, maybe a squirrel or baby rabbit, and they were tossing it and rolling and chasing around while she lounged in the shade under a juniper. They played just like domestic kittens with a dead mouse, although these "babies" were the size of a grown housecat.

Their mother was probably forty pounds, nearly as big as our black lab.

Every now and then, she would go outside of the fence and walk around, then come back to check on the kittens. After the kittens tired of their play, mom ate the catch of the day. They must not have been hungry.

Finally, after about an hour, the outing was over and they went on their way.

These were the first bobcats I have seen here in thirty-five years, though other neighbors have reported seeing them.

Cochineal

2009-08-25T11:49:00.000-07:00

The prickly pear cacti hereabouts have wooly white deposits with dark bugs, about 1/8 inch in diameter. Yesterday as I pulled one out from its fuzzy nest, it began exuding a dark raspberry red liquid.

The bugs, when dried, have been used for centuries to make cochineal dye.

I would like to try this on my silks.

Snakes and monsoons

2009-08-24T06:39:00.000-07:00

Sunday began with the discovery of a dinner plate-sized rattlesnake snuggled under a juniper in the front yard. Probably a western diamondback-- didn't see the tail but his wide "grin" gave him away. (The head of a bullsnake is hardly wider than the body.) This is their mating season, so not unusual to see them out and about, and a good reminder to watch where one steps.

Then a worship service and picnic in the mountains, followed by the return of our monsoon. A good rain and rainbow last evening, showers continuing off and on this morning... welcome relief from the dry heat and unseasonable drought.

Nice to sit at my desk by the open window listening to the sound of water in the desert.

Titmouse update

2009-08-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

Turns out the titmouse couple had a nest in an old "decomissioned" birdhouse which was just sitting on a bench in the summerhouse. Guess we should hang it back up for next season.

This morning a 2 foot bullsnake disappeared under the doghouse as we were working on the porch roof.

All in balance, I hope.

Chimney mouse

2009-08-20T09:33:00.000-07:00

Cats very interested in the fireplace last night.
We set a live trap-- this morning a little grey mouse got a free trip to the arroyo across the road.
Wonder if he has any buddies still in the chimney?

Trap reset.
Cats ignoring the fireplace.

Birding

2009-08-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

Today, a cool dawn gave way to a sunny 90 degree August afternoon.
In the summerhouse a titmouse couple scolded me, and a curious hummingbird buzzed 'round.
Surely it is too late for them to be nesting-- what gives?

Peering up into the dark rafters for a nest, I met the half-open golden eyes of a small gray screech owl.
Ah. So it wasn't me they were after.
I'll leave them to it.