All Hail Summer!

Yesterday was a "weather" day at The Nickel and Dime Ranch, with crazy rain and hail.

While this was happening, I was having lunch with M and M in Santa Fe, on the way home from Albuquerque and the "didn't happen" Friday flight to California for my brother's retirement bash.

I ended up not going because Friday was a "weather day" in Dallas, disrupting flights, resulting in a nine hour wait for an airplane that wasn't going to take me where I wanted to go after all. At 2:30 am, faced with the prospect of waiting another eleven hours at the next stop offered to me by a harried, exhausted Southwest Airlines ticket agent, I gave up.

Sorry I missed your party, bro. All I can say is retirement is awesome and now you can work at whatever you want, whenever you want. Congratulations on surviving 32 years of adolescents.

I'd say, "Come visit," but looking at these photos, you might have second thoughts.

Ms. Pearl certainly had second thoughts, not even wanting to hang out on the covered porch while this was going on. Thunder, lightning and crazy noise on the tin roof were not her thing.

This is why my tomatoes are growing inside a greenhouse.

By the time I was home, all this was gone and today is sunny with nary a cloud in the sky. Still, there's a 50/50 chance for more rain today.

I think I'll go water the tomatoes.

Springtime in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

Everyone around here seems deliriously happy with the end of winter weather, if you don't count folks driving the three mile stretch of highway near Buena Vista, NM, where cars slipped and slid through three inches of hailstones just a few days ago. Clouds of steam billowed up from the road, making it hard to see. I wanted to take a photo, but it was just too dangerous.

What I did see the same day were the purple-mountain-majesty-flower-covered hillsides outside Las Vegas, NM. The hills have been this way for several weeks, the rainfall keeping everything fresh and growing. Everyone's wondering, "Just what are those flowers?"

Las Vegas, NM, is a popular film and television location. The tv show Longmire, set in Wyoming, is filmed here. Of course it doesn't look like Wyoming, but it is pretty, isn't it?

I wanted to identify those flowers, but didn't care to hike out to the hills to look, especially since that sky to the east was looking pretty gnarly. Later we learned thirteen tornadoes touched down out there in Lincoln County. They wreaked havoc and destruction and I am glad I don't live on the prairie.

Luckily, I spotted some flower clusters nearby, so here they are.

After some internet searching, I thought they might be purple prairie verbena. A local professor told a friend that's what the flowers were, so I will concur. Look at those cracks in the earth. The earth's been slurping up every bit of rainfall we've had, and we are very grateful.

Closer to home, the valley along Coyote Creek hasn't looked this green for a while.

When we tell people where we live, they almost always say, "Oh, that's God's Country!" I think they are right.

April Snow

Yesterday afternoon while we were sewing at ThreadBear in Las Vegas, the sky and the air looked gray and moisty, like Newport Beach in the winter. Minus the beach.

"I wish it would do something," a friend said.

"Maybe rain?" someone else said. And then she added, "Hah!"

And then it started snowing. We packed up and hightailed it out of there just in case it was a blizzard or something. It wasn't a blizzard, but at home there was a nice two inches of the wet stuff.

By this afternoon it will have soaked into the earth and the grass trying to grow will say, "Thanks, buddy!"

I like the hopeful vibe of the hammock hanging behind the picnic table.

Green

When we lived in Inland Southern California, our green season was early spring, after the winter rains. California poppies on the hillsides stopped traffic on the I-15 freeway and folks flocked to the desert to check out the wild flowers. 

But those green hillsides and fields of poppies were fleeting, almost cruel in the shortness of their flowery lives. They were here and then, look again, they weren't. And everything turned sere: withered and brown.

Northern New Mexico has a green season, too, as long as it snows enough and rains enough to get everything growing. During late spring through late summer, with help from monsoonal rains (when they come) everything looks fresh, clean and verdant. The green lasts here at bit longer, but come autumn, when the leaves drop, the rains go away, and the snow begins to fall, we have our own brown (and white) time, too, with dead grass crunching underfoot like shredded wheat under that brilliant blue New Mexico sky.

The monsoons aren't due for a couple weeks or so, but there have been a couple good rains to get things started. Here's what it's like right now.

 This is a view from the creek looking toward the house. Lots of good green stuff for the steers to eat.

Number 27 and his bros have been munching away on all the delicacies available to them, which this year doesn't include the cukes in the Growing Dome. Look at Sir Loin lying down in the background. He's ready for a siesta.

Rockier places with poor soil seem to attract wildflowers. The yellow plants are yarrow and the red ones are Indian paintbrush. Here's a closer look:

The big trees are leafing out, too. We're calling this one in the photo below The Bear Tree. Last week Tom was moving some big branches when out of the corner of his eye he saw a large brown object streak by, not 6 feet from where he was standing. Then he saw two bears climb down from this tree and zoom up the rimrock. Tom zoomed in the opposite direction and Ms. Pearl, who was sniffing around in the vicinity, missed the whole thing.

So now this is The Bear Tree. We haven't seen the bears since.

 And Ms. Pearl gets the award for Most Unaware Doggie in the neighborhood.

But I don't think she cares all that much!

Going to Town

It's been windy for the past three days, wind so loud it sounds like the ocean's waves crashing on the beach. The power goes on and off, and everything I touch gives me a shock.

So I went to town to touch base with friend Ann, pick up a few items at Wal-Mart, and have linner (It was between lunch and dinner) with Tom at Cocina de Rafael.

Here's a photo of my closest town, Las Vegas, New Mexico.

 

If you want to see more, watch Red Dawn or No Country For Old Men.

Winter is Icy Hot

While it's 84 degrees in parts of SoCal and people are wandering around in their shorts, here in Northern New Mexico winter is acting pretty much according to season, with 40's to low 50's during the day and teens and 20's at night. As long as there's sun, I'll be okay.

Solar Heating the Cabin

Most of our winter days don't look like this. Snow, if we get it,  melts in a couple hours or a couple days. We let Angel Fire and Sipapu, our local ski areas have all the snow because they need it for business. Which reminds me to tell you that on my list for this season is ski biking. But that's for another day.

We are pretty lucky because the previous owners who built this cabin spent considerable time planning how to site it. They tracked the sun's path during different seasons to determine how to manage the sun's heat, so in the winter the sun comes through those three windows and warms the living room and in the summer when the sun is higher in the sky. we stay cool.

Since this area gets about 310 days of sunshine a year, using solar is a no-brainer, and the cabin, with its passive solar design, was a smart move.  Once the sun is up, we usually don't even need to use the wood stove or the propane for heat.

If it's cloudy, like in the photo below, Tom uses some of his wood supply to warm up the place, and the Airlock logs with their hollow centers act as insulation to keep it toasty inside.

Ms. Pearl and Miss Bonnie love the sun, too, and have found the perfect place to enjoy it.

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday-An I Spy Quilt

I just finished the top for an I Spy Quilt, something easy and fun you can put together in a day or so. I cringe when I say this because the baby boy who is on the receiving end is almost a toddler. Nonetheless, I had other quilts ahead of this one and now it's this guy's turn. I'm going to machine quilt this one myself, since I had practice last week on the One Block Wonder quilt and am hearing "The Theme From Rocky" in my head.

For non quilty peeps, an I Spy quilt is a variety of different prints, novelty fabrics that each have a name. This quilt has spaceships, dogs, cats, balloons, peas, flags, and, well, you get the idea. You can click on the photo for a closer look.

Do you like my quilt weights?

Since the almost owner of this quilt has a brother and a sister, they can help Mom by asking stuff like, "Where's the dinosaur?" while she goes to the spa and gets a massage.

Or, say, "Point to the doggies!" "It's an excellent vocabulary builder," says the former English teacher.

Don't worry, MBB, I am sewing the binding onto your quilt today. It's all cut and ready to go. 

While I was out photographing the quilt, I noticed the clouds massing, like they do in the afternoons during monsoon season. We've had an inch of rain in the past couple days, so I am hoping for more in a couple hours.

Guadalupita Clouds

I hear these clouds are actually producing rain. Let the monsoons begin!