Springing into Summer & National Train Day

In the high desert, seasons do not slide smoothly from one to the next. We're in that transition period right now.A few days will be relatively calm --just moderate afternoon breezes -- and warm to nearly hot. Then, blam, a storm goes by to the north and we are pounded with gale force winds, 35-45 mph sustained with gusts up to 50 or even 60 and hurricane force blows in some mountain passes and such. It isn't cold but raw and sometimes on the chilly side now that blood has thinned for warm weather. We get 'brown outs' where blowing dust cuts the visibility to a mile or less. That is not good for allergies and other respiratory problems nor easily irritated eyes...  But this too will pass.

Today, I just read, is National Train Day. I made a trip over to the Silver City area last weekend and got a

shot of the Southwest Railroad's repair track at Hurley. The units (locomotives) sitting there are not the two wrecked in the accident I talked about earlier this year but you can see they are pretty stripped down. Whether they will ever roll again or not I do not know. The line in the middle of the picture is the antenna on Red Hot Mama; I took the picture from inside the cab as I was kinda trespassing...But it was Sunday and no one was around to be upset or run me off so I chanced it. I still feel kind of proprietary about that little bit of railroading.

I had a good time--despite the Tour de Gila bike race madness which had the whole area in a spin. I even discovered there is a community of Alaskan 'refugees' in the area to include one gentleman who follows the Iditarod on a snow machine each year and blogs about it several times a day on the ITC site. I greatly enjoyed his commentary this past race.He's now raising hunting dogs but I'm glad to see he's still into canines. He did win the Last Great Race once, quite a few years ago. I will have to go back in a bit to try and talk to him.

Lots of things blooming now. Since I posted photos of most of the local flora last season I won't do that again but I will share a new shot of the Ephedra shrub, often called "Mormon Tea," which grows in my yard. It really bloomed out this year. It is beginning to fade but the brilliant yellow was like a pile of sun drops just  glowing. It is an interesting plant.

Last bit of news is I went yesterday to a meeting of a writer's, group at the Senior Center. They call themselves OWL, Older Writer's League, and focus on inspiring and encouraging seniors to do essays and word sketches of their diverse experiences and recollections to preserve for the future many things that have changed, vanished or been almost forgotten. History is important and so much is lost with each generation's passing. We all wrote for half an hour on a subject we chose.and then read them aloud. No critique, not snide or snarky comments and really each essay was quite good! I will do some minor editing and clean up of my effort and post it a bit later today. We had to write in longhand and for me that is a challenge wile deciphering the hieroglyphics later is even more so!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms and grandmas in the crowd. I guess I am one of them myself and still have a hard time in admitting or accepting I am pretty much the clan's matriarch of both the Morgan and Walton families and have been for awhile. My maternal cousins' mother passed a couple of years ago and she was the last one. All my aunts and uncles are gone and I'm the oldest of the cousins on both sides Sheesh--I am not sure if I like that or not!! Maybe rank has its privileges and I suspect I am about as rank as any these days LOL..