Castles and Clouds

There are not many castles in the desert. One exception being the home of the late Death Valley Scotty perhaps. I have not seen it but heard it is quite fantastic. Of course some of the cliff dwellings left by  the ancient early Native Americans have been termed castles also but they don't approach the kinds of edifices we think of when we hear the word castle.

I am sure I would not want to live in one! They were grand but austere, cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and lack so many of the amenities that we take for granted, even those of  us who live in very small and modest homes. How running water! Refrigerators and dish washers! Real indoor plumbing. I could go on!! Still they are the stuff of myth and romance and many of us are fascinated by them. I have a bit of interest in one in Wales, Powys or Powis Castle. Supposedly my maternal grandmother's family, surnamed Wilcox, had some distant ties to the hereditary laird of that castle. I went on line and found some pictures and learned it is famed for its beautiful gardens including the terraces leading up to the castle itself which sits atop a hill. I found it even has its own facebook page! You can check out www.facebook.com/NTPowisCastle. I did grab one picture which I will share. Isn't it quite grand? I like the red stone or brick exterior but no,. I still would not want to live there!

Now clouds are much more common here in the southwestern US  deserts, especially during monsoon season. Today they were marvelous--great towering thunderheads or cumulo-nimbus I believe is the proper name for this form of cloud. They were billowing up just about everywhere one could look from my home here on the lower edges of the foothills of New Mexico's Sacramento Mountains. Across the valley to the west, over the Organs and the San Agustin ranges, probably farther away as well over in the mountains behind Truth or Consequences where the Silver Fire was just recently doused by the rains. And all along the range of mountains that I now call 'mine' since I live at their feet. I did take a few pictures which I will share. We did not wind up getting any rain today--did have a half inch yesterday in a fast hard rain late in the afternoon but it cleared enough to have a nice cookout and eat on the covered patio! That's the way the summer rains usually are--fast and furious and then they move on.

About to rain!

Classic Thunderhead!

Clouds over the Sacramentos

Monsoon Magic

I don't doubt that some folks are spinning in their graves to hear me use that term! I grew up among old time south westerners who knew this season simply as "the summer rains." Then troops came back from Southeast Asia speaking about monsoons and the new term crept quickly into common usage. Technically our rainy season does meet the monsoon criteria of a significant shift in the currents in the atmosphere which cause a major change in the weather for a region. And btw, it is not plural unless you are speaking of the phenomenon over several years or in several separate regions! There is generally one monsoon per year regardless of how many storms or rains it produces!

In this regional US case the high level winds shift to blow from the south and east bringing in tropical moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. Still we do not get the same kind of massive torrential rains that hit India and Southeast Asia. I just read  there were 6000 people missing in floods in northern India. Perish the thought we get that here! We do have flash floods and they can be destructive and dangerous, though. Every year one or more people lose their lives by getting caught in ditches or arroyos that are dry one moment and awash with roaring water the next. A few inches of rushing water can sweep you off your feet or start a car floating--and in most cases that is all it takes to steal your chances to get out alive.

But my original topic was the wonders of this time of year. It can happen almost overnight--all at once moisture has come to the desert bringing amazing changes. I can tell the very first day. All at once the air instead of  the sharp edged 'hard' feeling of dryness is like wet silk sliding over your skin. Then the cacti and other desert plants that have gone faded and pallid sport new green and fresh growth. Weeds and grass spring up and grow visibly each day. Even the birds and other wee beasties are out to revel in it.

I am energized by the thunderstorms. In the morning it is usually mostly clear although there will be clouds, streaks or fuzzy clumps like herds of sheep. By noon they are billowing and towering over the mountains, white on top and dark gray beneath where the rain begins to fall. Then perhaps a storm will pull away and slip down to the lowlands. You get the chill of the outflow winds and soon the scent of ozone from the lightning and then the pungent odor of wet creosote and mesquite. Then the rain comes. I dash around to close windows and be sure nothing is out that should not get wet or might blow away but it's wonderful.

Speaking of this and of the rare springs and streams that grace the desert, the original editor of Arizona Highways magazine, Raymond Carlson,  mentioned "water in a thirsty land." How true that is. Every drop is precious. So for maybe eight or ten weeks we can enjoy this. There will still be hot and dryer days but the whole atmosphere is different. I've always loved it. I love to watch the lightning at night, usually a safe distance away since everywhere I have lived in the desert one could see many miles in at least a couple of directions. I've taken a lot of photos of lightning. Of course my "Spirit of Huachuca" is my favorite. Here it is again.

On to a related topic that will wrap up an earlier discussion. I showed you the first green leaves of the mesquites and even the knobby buds that precede them. I showed the fuzzy yellow blooms. Now it  is time for the beans to ripen. Due to the unusual rain we had in May, we're getting a bumper crop despite the general drought. In ancient times the Native American people of the region gathered them and ground them into meal and flour. The beans are high in protein and very nutritious. Most even have a wild but rather pleasant taste. The wild creatures will enjoy them too--everything from birds and rabbits to deer and even coyotes eat mesquite beans! Cattle and horses will also.

So that is the magic of monsoon season and the joys of water in a thirsty land. Here is a parting shot of how the thunder clouds look over the mountains here.  I think they are magnificent!

With A Heavy Heart

I learned late Sunday of the death of nineteen firefighters in central Arizona. Although I did not know any of them personally, Prescott was almost a second home to me when I was growing up in the Verde Valley, just over one range of mountains to the east. I was also fairly familiar with the area around Yarnell, south west of Prescott,  where the fire still rages. Where rugged mountains rise precipitously from the desert, it is extremely rough and difficult country. It is also bone dry and plagued by savage winds fueled by differential heating and the abrupt rise in elevation. A sudden shift in those winds is what trapped the Granite Mountain Hotshot crew and incinerated them. This is a huge tragedy and the worst day for firefighters since 9-11. The men ranged in age from 21 to mid-40s, most in their twenties. So sad to have young lives cut short in this way.

These were no novices or weekend warriors. To be designated "Hot Shot" a crew must be experienced and well trained in fighting wildfires which is a completely different science than dealing with structural fires in metropolitan areas. There are probably only about 100 such groups nationwide. I cannot say which is "worse" but when you think of hiking several very rough miles with heavy gear and having to use mostly hand tools in battling an untamed monster of a blaze, often so intense it creates its on weather in terms of wind etc. you may have a vague idea of what these crews are dealing with. This team had been in New Mexico just a few weeks ago helping on some of the fires in the northern part of the state; they were actually training and mentoring a newer New Mexico team as well. So we feel the loss here too. Governor Martinez was near tears when she ordered flags flown at half staff for them. A crack team from the Zuni Reservation has gone to Yavapai County to take over part of the work the Granite Mountain crew cannot now accomplish. I can only pray they all go straight to The Best Place and that their families and friends find a little solace in knowing almost the whole world shares their pain.

Deirdre has been working along on a story about a pilot who flies on of the fire fighting  red tailed "slurry bombers" and when that tale is done it will be dedicated in memory of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. I will be watching to see if a fund is set up to assist the families and if so I will be giving a good share of those royalties to that cause.

Meanwhile here in New Mexico, a brutal fire still rages in the Gila Wilderness, the so-called Silver Fire. Although it is some distance from Silver City; its still in that county and region anyway. Friends there are shocked and stricken since the north western part of that region went up in smoke last year and now the eastern part will be gone as well. I have hated wildfires since I watched part of my beloved Mingus Mountain and that Black Hills Range (the area where the Silver fire started is also called the Black Range) burn back when I was a teenager. All these fires are tragic and when structures and lives are lost, even more so. The recent management policies of the Forest Service are felt by many to be making the situation much worse as are the financial cutbacks mandated by the government's economic fiasco and the current climate fluctuation to hot and dry is of course a huge factor as well. It is a horrific mess beyond a doubt.

So I can only pray for all those who are still out there on the fire lines, doing their best. They are as much or more in harm's way as any soldier in the battle zone and I honor them all for their courage and sacrifices. Each of them is a true hero and may the Powers That Be protect them from harm. And please, no more bad fires this year. Between the Black Forest fire in Colorado, several in New Mexico and this latest Arizona one, it is not being a good year. So much forest and wild lands I know and love is being destroyed. To say nothing of homes, valuable grazing land, wildlife and habitat and now lives. Please pray with me!

No pictures with this one; what could I possibly add? To show what used to be is fruitless and you can find more about the team etc. at various sites. Here is one link: http://news.yahoo.com/town-mourns-ariz-hotshots-storms-threaten-fire-142533291.html

Nostalgia

I suppose there is nothing quite like a reunion to turn one's thoughts back to 'the good old days' and maybe slip a pair of rose colored glasses on so that the rear view mirror shows enticing scenes. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that nostalgia kind of sounds like an ailment or illness. You know, neuralgia, fibromyalgia...that sort of thing. In a way perhaps it is. We've all heard the old saw "You can't go home again." And it is true. Especially when you get into mature years, the home you may recall from childhood simply does not exist any more. Although I say that all change is not progress, you cannot progress without change and time inevitably brings change, whether we want it or not. So looking back with a mixture of pleasure and sorrow is not very beneficial yet we all do it. In a way it is good to resolve or release the bad memories but too much "Oh, I wish I was still..." is not healthy or productive. I've been working my way through that part these days.

It was interesting to go back to Jerome and the Verde Valley in the central part of Arizona as I did two weeks ago. I have been back a number of times since I left the area, first going to Flagstaff to college and then on to work, marriage and a number of residences in Arizona, Colorado, California, back to Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado again and finally back to New Mexico! So I was not unaware of the growth, the expansion, the new levels of prosperity and the tendency of the main town of Cottonwood to grow itself into a mini-Phoenix and Sedona to morph into a New Age Mecca of sorts with an amazing array of spiritualists, hucksters, gurus, medical and pseudo-medical practitioners and of course a motley assortment of artists of all kinds. T'ain't what it used to be for sure and never will be again. I felt like a tourist which was fun in some ways but a bit disconcerting as well.




The first house I can really remember living in was in Jerome, on a place called Sunshine Hill--there are no houses there now. They were torn down or moved away after Phelps Dodge closed the mine. During the fifties and sixties the whole valley was in a mini-depression and that's the part I remember most. Here is where the house once stood, or close to it. There is a lot more growth in terms of brush and cactus now and the whole terrain has been altered. And the building where I went to first grade, as did Roberta Blazina Wescott who was a classmate in first grade and then from eighth grade through high school. I saw her at the reunion.

Then there is the depot in Clarkdale. I recall it  as a simple little frame building in a kind of yucky mustard yellow color that held some of the local maintenance equipment and the office for the Railway Express agent and the telegraph office etc. Now this structure has vanished and a stylish new Spanish Colonial variant sits there. It serves as the office for the Verde Scenic Railway and also houses a gift shop, restaurant, and other facilities. In fact this very place is now in the middle of a story I am writing--or rather Deirdre O'Dare is! There will be more about that posted on the 'writing blog' later on. But here are a couple of shots of the new station. I took the excursion a few years back and recommend it highly! If you are ever in the middle part of Arizona, do look into taking it. It is only about a four hour trip but the scenery is awesome, you will see a variety of wildlife, and if you are a rail buff, as I am, you will marvel at the engineering feat that built the basic track well over a century ago. Be sure to bring a camera!

And finally to give you an idea of why Alamogordo feels familiar to me, here is a shot of the hills near Clarkdale on the left and one of those just east of me, above the Air and Space Museum on the right. Am I just imagining a similarity?

So, nostalgia strikes again--I can't go home to where I grew up but I can still live in and love the high desert and the familiar flora and fauna with which I have lived for a good chunk of my life. My spirit is at home in this desert. It just may be that my nostalgia goes back far beyond this one lifetime.... This type of environment knows me and I know it, to the depth of my soul and the marrow of my bones!

Summer Solstice

This is a special day! Most of you know I am a very solar person, and although I may not precisely worship the sun, it is a very significant aspect of my life. So this day when it is the closest to straight over head and at its greatest strength, I em energized and excited! I'm also a avid student of the Old Ways, especially those of my ancient Celtic ancestors, so I do tend to mark the key quarter dates and those in between them that were celebrated in days of yore.

I was up before the sun today to watch it slip over the mountains to my east, the same range that showed up in my cloud photos of a few weeks back and some others I have posted here. It is interesting to see the first beams touch the mountains to the west, visible across the valley some 40-50 miles away and then march slowly across the spaces in between until it reaches my home!

Of course Ginger and I took our normal walk and then I did some yard work in my flower beds and thus honored the earth and the sun's role in making my beloved plants grow. One of my three new rose bushes, though still very small and newly growing, opened a pale yellow bud into flower this morning which I thought was a perfect omen! Now I am inside enjoying the cool air from the evaporative cooler; it is a bit more humid than usual but not enough to render the cooling power ineffective--yet. That won't happen until the full 'monsoon' pattern is in place--and who knows when that may occur!

To add even more celestial magic, the full moon is coming up on Sunday and it will be another of those 'super moons' when it is as close as it gets to our earth and thus very bright and perhaps unusually powerful. Watch for high tides and enjoy the bright night beauty this weekend while still basking in the post Solstice sunshine through the day.

While I am on the subject of the old ways, I'd like to recommend a very favorite album that I've enjoyed for many years. While quite a lot of their music is a bit on the 'heavy metal' side for my taste, Jethro Tull is a very versatile, talented and creative group! The album I refer to is Songs From The Wood. In it the leader and flautist Ian Anderson draws on the folklore and prehistoric roots of his Scots ancestors--and maybe a few Vikings too since Anderson has a distinctly Scandinavian flare! The songs all celebrate the old holidays (holy days!) in one way or another and are full of sly and sometimes bawdy humor. Those ancestors were not stuffy nor over-nice goody two shoes type folks! They were lusty and vital, full of life, fun and with their respect and honor handled in earthy and mostly realistic ways. I love it! I try to take some of that spirit into the more racy and explicit tales that Deirdre O'Dare writes! Anyway if you can find a copy of Songs From the Wood, you just might enjoy it also! My second favorite Jethro Tull album is called Heavy Horses and the title song moves me to tears every time I hear it.

To close I will share two pictures I took on my recent trip. One is at Red Rock Rest Stop, just inside the Arizona border on I-40 and the other is a view off the SR-6 cutoff that connects I-40 to I-25 and misses the madness that is Albuquerque. It's not as neat as my Steins Pass shot from January but a pretty good train picture! And of course trains are another of my passions--there are quite a few, no? Keeps life interesting!

And, to brag just a wee bit--I got daring and entered my two desert scene wall hangings in a local quilt and fabric art exposition that is happening here this weekend! I doubt if I will get as much as an honorable mention but I had to try!

I think I posted those pix before my trip? If not I will do so shortly--especially if I do win any accolades!

Past Perfect--perhaps

I just got home from a trip back to my old home in Arizona--I mean my childhood growing up region--and a class reunion or actually a school reunion. When I was going to high school in the Verde Valley, several districts were consolidated in an incremental process. They wound up with an enrollment too large to be housed in any place but the old Jerome High School which had once served the booming mining town. For about 15 years all the students were bussed up the hill. We call ourselves the "On The Hill Gang" and a special camaraderie exists among those who attended school during those years although we came from several communities which were then separated by fair-sized areas of undeveloped land. Those have shrunk drastically now but it is still not quite one bi metro complex like the greater Phoenix area, thank goodness!

As a kid I was a bit of a misfit. My parents as I have probably said, were 'hippies' before there were such in many ways and a bit reclusive and so restricted the social interaction of us kids as well. I did not date in high school and had enough chores with the livestock to keep me busy most of the time I was not in school. So I always felt a bit awkward and out-of-place. I did well in most class work and was quiet, mostly shy but I feared some would think I was stuck up. I wasn't but anyway. Most of my friends were younger--horse crasy 'little' girls whom I befriended and kind of adopted as little sisters. Still, in 2003 after seeing how much fun Jim, my late husband, had at his class's get-togethers in Bisbee, I dared to go back. It was a pleasant experience. But this time I was going on my own and that made it different. I could not stay with a partner and be spared the meet and greet and outreach!

Early on I reconnected with three of my old gal pals--Evelyn, Arlene and Janice. The first two married shortly out of high school and both to Latino boys--at that time most of the Mexican Americans were euphemistically called "Spanish" and a lot of Anglo girls dated them but it was kind of an act of defiance that was not generally approved. No one expected their marriages to last but  this weekend I saw two devoted couples who have been together about fifty years! They raised kids and grand kids and have had a good life which makes me very happy. And the men are nice, pleasant and quiet gentlemen in every way!  The third friend didn't  marry but she is cheerful, active and fun as she always was. And her face is hardly changed. It was so great to relive old happy times. They all knew I would be a writer and I used to entertain them reading my "ranch romances"  scribbled in steno notebooks!! Here I am with Arlene and Evelyn, the three Clarkdale Mouseketeers! Janice was at another table.

Then I saw some people I would not call enemies but they were not ever friends, really. One woman I went to first grade with in Jerome and then from eighth grade through high school. She greeted me very warmly and I was really thrilled to find the common ground bridged any distance that once existed. Then there was a pair of siblings that I had known in Jerome when we were all small. Our families did not get along --my parents and the grandparents they lived with--but they were friendly and pleasant and we  ignored--maybe even forgot-- any old conflicts and rejoiced that we had some common roots and memories and that too was good. A number of classmates I had never known well or been close to greeted me and seemed genuinely glad to see me as I was to see them. There was not one awkward or difficult moment. Now that is truly past perfected! You erase the ill-fitting parts, the estrangement and the less pleasant moments and share common ground in attending the same school, recalling the same teachers who you liked or hated, the pranks and adventures and voila, scattered and severed parts become for the time a coherent whole. I was really a part of it all--after some fifty years! It was inspiring and healing in so many ways!

Two women I had known though not really well, have collaborated on a book of short memoir tales from a group of women from other places in their lives and I got a copy. It is powerful and moving! We hope to do a "Mingus Union Authors" event at some future time. I was also awed by the many and varied things classmates and school mates have done, how far they have gone and the things they have accomplished. A half century sees a lot of things change and develop! No rose colored glasses--I did not remake the past and its realities are still what they were but I came away seeing that the impressions and down sides that I had carried with me for a long time were much less than I had portrayed them to myself--mere ant hills and not the Andes! I am healed and made whole in many ways and that is always good! I am so very glad I dared to go and just be myself and open to all I met and encountered. I've learned a lot too, I guess.

The book I mentioned above is called Ped.i.cure and it's available on Amazon. ISBN is 147818549X or 9781478185499. I do recommend it.as a moving, powerful and even shocking book in some ways but it opens to the light dark secrets like most of us carry and shouts that we are not alone nor are we tainted and flawed by these things, many of which we did not even have control over! It is liberating to realize this and the book does a great service in this manner. Every family has it skeletons and every life its errors, accidents and sadness. It is part of being human! You may not be able to share as these ten women did but you are a sister of the soul. Know and be comforted by that. I shared a bit above--I could go into more depth but I do not think it is necessary!

Eyes To See-Part II

Right now I am especially appreciative of the gift of sight. For the past ten days or so I have fought a severe eye inflammation that for a few days had me down to about 20-300 vision, with or without my glasses. That was pretty scary and not fun! I went to the local eye clinic--the same one where my ophthalmologist practices. The tech almost freaked out when I could only read the top line of the charts but I knew why. The doctor was not sure if it was allergies alone, an infection or a combination of both so he prescribed eye drops combining an antibiotic and steroid medication. Slowly I have recovered. Not quite 100% yet but getting there. I can drive again, read and spend short stretches on the computer. So the power of sight is very precious to me now! For a few days I could stumble around the house, get a glass of water and use the restroom but that was about all. Yes, I can spell b-o-r-i-n-g!! I called people and slept and whined....and listened to the radio and my CD collection until I was ready to climb the walls.

My ability to sew came back first as it was less eye-intensive than many of my activities so I completed a second wall hanging or kind of tapestry to go with the first one I had done a couple of weeks ago. The idea had been in my mind for some time and I finally found the fabric that would give me what I wanted at eQuilter.com, one of my favorite places on line! Here are my projects. For prototypes I think they turned out well. The one has the Ocotillo for New Mexico and the other the Saguaro for Arizona. They are about 2x3 feet.

BTW on any of my posts with pictures you can click on one and bring up a 'slide show' screen where you can see a larger version. These projects have loops on the back so they can hang on a rod but I just used the pants/skirt type hangers to display them for now so I could get a photo.

No new birds or flowers to report for now. We're in an odd pattern of some stormy afternoons the is similar to the summer monsoon season but not quite the same. Some areas of the state are having good rains as well as some violent storms--medium to large hail, severe wind gusts and heavy rain. Our area could get some this afternoon and evening. No more spectacular clouds, either, but I will keep an eye out--hmm, make that a close watch. Eyes out sounds a bit nasty in view of recent situations!

I am again fairly confident I can go on my planned trip to Arizona next week for my high school reunion and to see some friends and part of my old stomping ground. I will leave Thursday and be home early to middle of the next week. I plan to take lots of pictures, some that can be shared, and just have a good time! Some other sewing I have done is a few new clothing items -- I will be the lady in purple for the most part, one of my favorite colors along with turquoise/teal/aqua shades. Since they actually go together in the right shades that works fine! But I will drive my little red truck.... An 'artsy' aunt once told me red and purple clash when I used them in a coloring book and she was right in part but I still love my "Red Hot Mama". (That is kind of an inside joke as I never cared for red cars but got a good deal on this pickup and decided to flaunt it by naming her "Red Hot Mama" as it was at the start of my writing much more explicit and steamy tales. I was quick to point out that despite a front license plate filler with that name,  it was the truck and not me! Hee hee. But maybe not quite 100%???)

So now you know why I have been away for a few days here and will be again shortly, barring unforeseen catastrophes. I will still work at the book store when I get back but probably as a cashier and not in the back sorting as a box full of old books apparently stored in a shed with lots of dust and maybe mold was one of the triggers for my problem, I think. The doctor tended to agree and said to avoid dust...shun dust in Alamogordo, NM? Not sure how that is possible but I will try to miss the extraneous exposures anyway.

Hasta luego all and go in peace and harmony!