Star's Rose

Star was the black horse who started it all. For many years he was my best friend and my inspiration...Mike even had to get Star's blessing on our wedding day. That wasn't a problem because Star liked Mike the first time he saw him, just like the rest of the animal family did. Star's rose was the second one we added to our memory garden and like the horse himself, it is strong and beautiful. Each year it gets better and the beauty of its blossoms this summer take my breath away.

The first round of blooms this spring weren't outstanding due to the early and intense heat we had. These promise to be the best yet. I have a hard time not touching them and I go out often just to look and appreciate their beauty. The name of this rose is Oklahoma and the early buds are so dark they look almost black. As I am learning, keeping roses in New Mexico is not an easy task and I'm proud that at least this one is thriving.

We have lost a number of the roses that we added to our memory garden, including the white tea rose that started it all when it was given to us by friends to remember our old greyhound, Cody. I am determined to not give up though and slowly I am finding roses strong enough to survive our intense sunlight, altitude and winds. And, I am getting better all the time at knowing how to care for them.

It seems very appropriate to me that the horse who always seemed bigger than life, the one we thought would outlive us all, should be remembered with something so beautiful.

Thunderstorms

The geography of northern New Mexico is composed of high ridges, many in excess of 8,000', with narrow valleys tucked between them. This land structure creates a microcosm of unpredictable weather; weather that baffles the forecasters in Albuquerque just three hours south of us. I remember laughing one winter day as we watched the snow pile up around us while we were told our skies were clear. Another time a forecaster simply said 'it will be raining in some parts of New Mexico' and left it at that.


We have our own forecasting system here at Star's Rest that is fairly infallible even if it only gives us short notice of coming rain. There is an 8,300' peak directly above us to the west. It doesn't have a name, just a height notation on the topography maps. It is in the Santa Fe National Forest and this peak provides us with so much I'm thinking we really should find a name for it.

It's difficult to photograph the peak because the tree cover around us is dense; but that's it, just behind that center distant pine tree. It stands more than a thousand feet of granite above us and shelters us from the wind during the winter. We sit snuggly nested down below it, while in the valley winds are removing roofs and causing great damage. These clouds may not seem like anything to be concerned about, yet they will bring us rain very soon.

During the summer monsoon months moisture heavy clouds approach from the south, bunching up behind our peak until they are finally pushed up and over. The sudden change in temperature as the clouds increase altitude in the climb condenses their moisture. As they slide down on our side, they release it in heavy rains. We will receive several inches when neighbors just a mile or two away will see no rainfall at all.

There are other far more dramatic storm cells moving by us to the north and south today but they are all flash and noise. We will see intense lightning strikes and hear loud crashes of thunder from these enormous clouds, often these cells are what knocks out our electricity. I know somewhere they are leaving heavy rain and damage behind, yet here on the mountain we only scurry to close windows and cover hay when we see clouds bunch up behind our sheltering peak.

Sunrise Exaltations

She's driving me crazy!

There she is...eleven years old...saggy old pot belly...gray face...missing a lot of her teeth. She's been moping around for weeks, forcing us to beg her to eat and bribe her with treats. And just two days after starting medication and her new diet, that old girl isn't really resting, she's plotting mischief! Since sunrise Vannie has been bouncing off the walls. Literally. She has repeatedly taken every toy they own out of the toybox to joyfully throw them up in the air and just as repeatedly brought a nasty, smelly, forbidden old rawhide back in the house to chew on. She is so eager for her new kidney diet food that she hops up and down in anticipation as I get it ready and licks her bowl clean.

She's driving me crazy! But I love it.

And then there is the silly one, the young one, the one who is supposed to be full of energy and causing trouble...

Fiery morning.

Ellie got me up at ten to six this morning to go out. I didn't resent it too much even though I was sound asleep for once. I was having a not-so-pleasant dream about vending at our biggest event in Dewey Beach in October and I had arrived to discover we were sharing a booth with someone who had only allowed us about five feet of display space. To anyone who knows what Dewey Beach is like, or how much inventory we have to display...it was a nightmare! So besides not minding the interruption of that particular dream which was a whole lot like one of those high school/college dreams where you walk into class and discover there is an exam you didn't know about, if she hadn't gotten me up at that particular minute I would have missed this -

I had just enough time and presence of mind to run in and grab the camera before all that color disappeared. Two mornings ago I walked out to discover we had beautiful rose colored mountains across from us. I took a photo, then walked back into the yurt to get my coffee cup thinking there might be an even better shot waiting that would show the lovely pink mountains more clearly. By the time I walked back out about a minute later the skies were gray with just your plain old everyday sun coming up. Around here you have to be up early and act fast to get the good stuff!

The sun is out and I'm having such a hard time even thinking about working. But if I don't get started on the inventory for Dewey Beach I'll be an insane woman in another month. This means the majority of the weekend will be spent in front of the wax injector or cleaning waxes up for shipping. Maybe it will start raining again and I won't resent the indoor time so much.

This weekend is fiesta weekend in our little town of Mora. The entire community looks forward to it and I wish I had a photo to share...I know it is an exciting event for people who have lived here multiple generations, and one families plan for all year. For us who are still basically outsiders, it is a time when our little one-road town becomes impossible to get through because of parades, traffic with no where to go, and a mass of people wandering across the highway. One day I hope Mike and I will be home at the same time and possess the energy and fortitude to go out and immerse ourselves in our beautiful and traditional local culture. For now, I will be happy to stay away from the crowds up here on the mountain with the peace of our animals around me. Hmmmmm...perhaps staying away from Mora is the inspiration I need for happily sitting in front of a wax injector!

We are so glad that's over!

Just got back from our vet trip and the news could have been much worse. Ellie probably does have a disc problem but who can afford an MRI? Since buffered aspirin does the trick for relieving it, that's what we'll stick to for now. Except for getting blood drawn, Ellie quite enjoyed entertaining everyone who came in the clinic. Now she just wants to further embrace the life of retirement and forget that awful blood test...talk about pretty in pink!

The news for Vannie wasn't great but could have been a whole lot worse. She does not appear to have cancer, but her kidneys are beginning to fail and she seems to have a bacterial infection. She is on a round of antibiotics and starting a diet for kidney support to see if we can get those issues under control. The pain and mass in her belly may have been a partial tortion of her stomach which isn't an uncommon problem in greyhounds. It is unfortunately a very serious one.

In typical Vannie fashion, once the bloodwork was over she flattened out in total relaxation on the examining table and relished every pet she received. She laid there without moving a muscle for a good half hour while we talked treatment options and waited for the test results. What an old charmer she is...that girl must have been something else in her prime!

She goes back in ten days for follow up bloodwork and if the infection is under control, and if her kidneys are stable, and if we can keep her stomach from tortioning, we might be looking at a little more good time with our old girl.

***********************************

Wow. As I was typing the entry above, I realized the light had turned an odd gray-green color. I went out on the deck to check and huge black clouds were rolling in over the peak above us. I had just enough time to circle the yurt closing windows. This isn't as easy as it is in a house...you have to release the clear vinyl allowing it to roll down, then zip closed each side and attach the heavy velcro across the bottom. I had just finished this with all of the windows and closed up the skylight when this powerful storm arrived.

These mountain storms can be overwhelming in their sheer intensity. The rain was so hard, cold and heavy it was deafening on the roof of the yurt. The power was quickly knocked out from a continuous barrage of lightning and thunder and the UPS gave me just enough time to save files and shut down.

In the end, we had almost three inches of rain in just over an hour and once again the arroyos are filled with mountain runoff. And gee...for about three hours there was absolutely nothing I could do except relax on the couch and read a book.

Where large appliances hibernate.

Mike managed to make huge progress on the loft this trip home. I now feel completely safe climbing up and down, even during my foggiest moments of the night. The stair railing is smooth and solid in my hand and the posts coming across the landing give me a sense of safety. The posts will come all the way across the front and around the other side the next time Mike is home and the sleeping portion will be complete. This will open the door for...dare I say it? A bathroom we won't have to commute to!!!

A neighbor complimented Mike on the lovely combination of Mission and contemporary styling. He just smiled when I told him, saying he hadn't been going for any 'style' at all. Regardless, his natural sense of design always comes through with work that is both functional and cleanly elegant. Not too bad for someone who had never built anything before he started building our entire home.

We were talking last night about how quickly we should be starting to get our debts cleared out. I commented it might be easier for us than some people because we aren't 'buyers'. We seem to be quite content to live simply. Mike responded that when we do buy things, they just stay in boxes. It wasn't until later I realized he was referring to the large appliances we prudently bought on sale, some three years ago, that are patiently waiting under the deck to finally be put into service.

I'm up early again this morning, another trip into Santa Fe. We are overcast which is unusual this early in the day and it is just beginning to rain a bit. Our storm clouds are more often here in the afternoon with lots of thunder and lightning. But it does make for spectacular sunrises. If you wonder why there is seldom a sunset photo here, it's because the high peak to the west of us keeps those concealed. That's fine with me, sunrise is my quiet refuge.

Tomorrow I have appointments scheduled at our vet for both dog girls. Vannie's health has been up and down this year and the other night she cried when I rubbed her stomach. Later I found what felt like a mass so we are taking her in to see if it is something that belongs in there. Miss Ellie is having some back trouble again and we are looking for a diagnosis of that as well. I am hoping the prognosis for both of them is good but with Vannie being eleven already, we know our time with her is becoming shorter. It's very, very hard to think of losing her...too many loses of animal family these last few years. I think Judy Paulson who heads Greyhound Companions of New Mexico is right...we have paid our tithes with taking in many of the old and damaged ones. It's time for us to hedge our bets a bit with young healthy dogs for a while. Of course there are no guarantees on life; but when you start out with an old dog you can pretty much be certain they won't be with you for long.

Another day in paradise.

We have been getting a splendid balance of rain...about every two to three days a half inch falling from a monsoon thunderstorm passing through. Very little runoff and all of it going to good use by the local plants. My deck garden is fully restored and looking lush again. Two of the new roses are ready to bloom for the first time and Oklahoma, Star's Rose, is getting ready for its second flowering. Little Mikey's memory rose is opening its first bud and I hope to get a photo later today to put in his file.


I've been reading about the extreme heat other areas are experiencing and feel even more grateful to be here. We have had a few hot days, but they are immediately tempered by the next group of storms moving through. I imagine we have only had a handful of days that even got into the 90s, though I certainly did a good job of whining about those.

Miss Fionna wanted to let everyone know what a big, bad cat mistress she is, able to kill her weight in chipmunks and grasshoppers! And as pot bellied as she is, that's not a brag to be taken lightly...

Can't you just hear her? 'I may not be lean, but I'm the big bad cat of the mountain!' After the west nile virus killed so many of our raptor birds, we were being completely overrun by chipmunks and other rodents. When Fionna came on the scene, she would wake up in the morning, yawn and stretch, then casually saunter up into the rocks to begin her daily body count. The chipmunks and mice soon moved on to safer territory. Now she lies on the deck railing just daring the little 'oh but they're such cute carriers of hantavirus' darlings to keep their distance.

Mike spent a good part of yesterday afternoon, between rain showers, working on the handrail for the sleeping loft. This is a very good thing for us folks who must get up groggy and stumbling during the night to let animals in or out who urgently believe they can't wait another minute. His new miter saw made the job much easier than trying to cut and finish angles by hand as he had to do with all of the previous work.

After getting to sleep with me at the motel in Pagosa Springs last weekend, Miss Ellie's nose is just a bit bent and she keeps standing at the bottom of the steps with soft little whines. I imagine one of the these days she will try to come up...little Mikey would have followed me up the first day and claimed his spot next to me. Stairs aren't easy for most greyhounds and some never master them; but as Mike put it so well, Mikey was the epitome of dog loyalty and would have followed me anywhere.

Are you looking for me?


Mike and I got home the same day and as usual, it has been a frantic time of catching up on all of the things only he can manage up here. Today the water tank was filled and the truck loaded with trash to take to the dump. One particularly nasty job, Mike took down the old smelly fly traps...the ones with 'Holds 10,000 flies!' on the bag and I am quite sure they did. Tomorrow we will be putting up fresh new traps and in the evening putting out the new batch of fly predators that just arrived in the mail. So much exciting stuff going on here...

On the equine front, Griton and I are continuing to bond and develop a language with each other from the position of me on his back. He seems to truly look forward to our evenings together and comes up as soon as he sees me at the gate. Corazon is prospering on his diet and his energy level and overall health seem to be blooming. He isn't thin yet, but he is certainly a lot more svelte than he was two months ago!

We call these guys the Porch Horses. They live in a large field as you come into the Mora valley and there is an old abandoned house there. For several years now we have watched these horses each day as we drive into the post office. There used to be four of them and it was easy to see who the bosses were by which horses were on the porch and which ones weren't. The two that are left seem to be content to share the space. I don't think we should ever allow our horses to see this or they will want a porch of their own.

"There and Back Again"

The road to Pagosa Springs...

Leaving the beautiful Mora valley.

Driving through Taos.

Into the desert.

Rio Grande Gorge.

Misty blue mountains.

High plains sheep herder.

The view from the top.

And back down again.

The last leg to Pagosa Springs.

And finally...yes indeed! Vending at art shows is both fun,

AND exciting!!!

Gone ridin'

Not really...wish I was...just headed for another art show this weekend. I'm taking the camera and hopefully will not have a photo of the booth canopy collapsed by the usual high wind thunderstorms in Pagosa Springs!

The best photo ever.

You might think I've lost my mind when you see the photo I'm referring to so let me tell you a story about a horse who was born wild and happy in Wyoming. When he was two years old, he was gathered up with his family and friends by the Bureau of Land Management and taken to an adoption in New Mexico. He was adopted right away but he wasn't too lucky about who adopted him. Based on the scars on his body, he was ridden hard when he was way too young and with a saddle that didn't fit him.

When you adopt a horse from the BLM, you don't legally own the horse and can't sell them until you have had the horse for one year and receive a title for him. This horse was taken to a sale as soon as his adopters had the title from the BLM. He turned out to be a lot more lucky than many horses. He was being led to be loaded on a truck headed for the slaughter plant in Texas when a woman saw him and bought him before they could load him up. When she got him home, she discovered he had horribly infected feet from thrush and he was terrified of having a saddle put on his back or to let a person get on him.

She got his feet well and tried for a year to help him but still couldn't get on him. Because she needed a horse for her daughter to ride in 4H, she decided she had to sell him. That's when this horse got lucky the second time because I only had to look once in those sweet soft eyes and the checkbook jumped out of my purse and he came home with us.

On the trip home Mike and I had been talking about different names for our new horse and when he got home, he named himself - Griton. He was so happy to see other mustangs again he galloped around calling to them all so loud Mike said let's call him Griton which is a Spanish nickname for someone who shouts a lot. The funny thing about this is after that first night, he has been the most quiet of all of our horses.

After he got settled in, we started working with Griton to heal his fears about humans. He very quickly got over his fear of the saddle because we used a light one that fit him well and we only went as fast as he was ready to manage. He still could jump twenty feet sideways if you thought about getting on him though. We were making steady progress with that when he hurt both of his stifles (mechanically the same as a human's knees) while he was playing. For the last year, Griton has been healing his injury, playing with the other horses, and learning to trust humans again.

About a month ago I decided it was time to start thinking about getting on Griton's back again. I wanted to make it completely different from any of his early experiences so I decided to not use a saddle at all and from the beginning I said he would never have a bit in his mouth again. So almost everyday I went out and first just stood next to him on a mounting block and gave him lots of praise and rewards when he would relax. Each day I went a tiny bit farther...leaning my weight over him, bringing my leg up on his back, until last night I was standing on the mounting block with one leg and the other was all the way over on his back. We both took a big breath and I sat down. My sweet, sweet, sweet Griton never moved a muscle or a foot, just wanted to know from which side I was going to lean down and give him a cookie.

So that is why this is the best photo I've ever taken. I had brought the camera up there with me and held it out as far as I could, just hoping I would manage to get something. And here we are, me and Griton, on the first day of the rest of our adventures together!

Another glorious sunrise.

It was a short night for me, a storm moved through at 1:30 AM waking me up and then the animals tag teamed me with trips out, back in, then Nicodemus the cat decided to turn the deck into a kitty racetrack at 5:00. How do soft kitty feet make such thumping loud noise? I may be feeling more tired than usual but how can you stay low with a sunrise like this? It almost makes the lack of sleep worth it.

The wild asters have begun blooming down in the valleys and there is a lovely lavender cast to many of the fields we drive by. The sunflowers will come in August, turning the fields and roadsides golden. This land has so much resilience it's astounding. The most breathtaking display of wild flowers we have seen was two summers ago after a very long period of drought was finally broken.

These storm cells that have been moving through have made for exceptionally dramatic skies. Normally New Mexico has clear blue skies with little cloud cover and these great rolling banks have kept me looking up more than usual. If you compare these photos to ones taken just a few months ago you can see how quickly a little rain sends everything into growth.

The forecast now is for clear skies for a few days giving everything a chance to dry out a bit. They're warning us of highs in the low 80s and humidity of 40%. I promise not to whine about it...all I have to do for a reality check is look at Austin's forecast today of 96 degrees and 72% humidity to count my blessings.

Who painted this sky? And other photos from the wet west...

The lower arroyo is running well now too after yesterday's heavy rain storms. Our road into the house has to cross that arroyo and it was pretty intense to ease across big boulders and pits with the truck when we moved here. We have a neighbor who is a genius with a backhoe and he created a bridge across the arroyo using felled timbers and boulders that he carefully moved into place with his equipment. It is both fully functional allowing runoff to move through and aesthetically blends in with the land.

On my hike up the mountain yesterday I found many little cactus plants sprouting up from the ground. They usually don't survive the winter unless they have a nice layer of pine thatch to protect them, or a good layer of insulating snow. When I found this spiny cactus sharing the same rocky runoff with ferns I thought they illustrated the diversity of life here particularly well. When the water disappears, the ferns will die back until next year; but this sheltered little cactus will make it through to another season of hurried growth.

And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard,
and it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall...Bob Dylan

This place truly takes my breath away. I started the day feeling inexplicably sad...missing you Mike is my best guess. I had a couple of errands to do and as I was driving back, could see thick black clouds building behind the peak above us. I hurried home and was just getting myself and the dogs indoors when the first lightning strikes began to walk down the peak towards us. The flash and the crash of thunder were almost simultaneous and I was glad to see the horses standing well away from the wire fence. The lightning moved down the ridges of granite on both sides of us and the smell of ozone was sharp. Lightning is oddly exciting and frightening at the same time, especially when all that is around you is rock and tall trees.

It passed almost as quickly as it came and I could hear the thunder making steady progress across the valley. I knew I should be more cautious, but with the electricity knocked out and keeping me from work, I couldn't resist hiking up to see the world washed clean from the top of Cuervo Point.

Everywhere water is running downhill as quickly as it can. I admit to feeling a bit damp. Things seem a little soggy and the wheels we use for polishing jewelry are less effective in this weather making my work even harder. After months of heat and dust and things crunching with brittle snaps under your feet, having my hair curl with exuberance again and my skin get soft with moisture is truly delicious.

Small desert ecosystems.

We've had enough rain now that the arroyo next to the yurt has a small but steady stream running in it. The sound of water running over the fall and down the rocks is so lovely and temporary that I spend as much time as I can with the deck door open so I can hear it.


For most of the year, this seasonal creek is dry and filled with pine thatch. You would never know that moss and ferns are waiting patiently in the rocks for the monsoon rains to start and give them their brief period of green. The peaks above us have hit a saturation point which means all new rainfall will find its way over rocky surfaces and down into the arroyos, feeding these small desert ecosystems.


Coming back from Santa Fe this afternoon, I was shocked to see how green everything has become in such a short time. Just a week ago when I made the same trip, the valleys were still brown and parched looking. Life here seems to hold its breath during the long pause between the end of winter and the beginning of summer rain, and then leaps into frantic growth during the short rainy season. When I walked down to the arroyo to take photos I discovered the first wild aster blooms. By the end of the month the entire area will be filled with wild asters and tall sunflowers will line the roads.

Blue morning.


I woke up exceptionally early this morning...early even for me. There was hardly a trace of light yet but there I was, wide awake and my thoughts moving quickly. I know from a lifetime of 'morningness' that if I make myself go back to sleep, I'll just wake up an hour later feeling groggy and hung over. So I got up, let the dogs out and made coffee. When I stepped out on the deck, the morning sky to the east looked as moody as I have been feeling the last few days. Too much time alone lately I think.

It's still raining and the latest forecast says rain through Saturday. Out on the deck there was not only the sound of the rain, there were two large ravens calling to each other in their harsh voices. I love their visits, but there isn't much reason for ravens to do anything up here but pass through. All of the good stuff, trash to raid, eggs to steal, is down in the valley. All we get is a polite hello every now and then and they're off to rob and plunder down below.


It was a hazard I knew to expect, with so much work to get done in the shop and the daily rains, I haven't been around other humans enough lately. Being an introverted person by nature, it's easy for me to get a little lost inside my own thoughts. Sometimes I feel I lose the ability to speak when I am by myself too much. The phone doesn't do it nor do emails; I need face-to-face interaction to keep me functioning socially. Well, tomorrow I go into Santa Fe with my neighbor and perhaps things will look a bit rosier.

A rainy 4th.


Yesterday continued the current rain cycle bringing our total up here on the mountain to about six inches over the last ten days. We have neighbors who are less than sensible about fireworks and last month I was dreading the approach of 4th of July activities. Instead, I was happy up in our bed in the loft just below the roof, listening to the rain fall. When the fireworks started in earnest, I was able to smile to myself and drift peacefully off to sleep.

We haven't had any more hail and the deck garden is beginning to recover. The flowers show the affects of taking a beating as buds, but they look like they are hardy enough to last up here. The lettuce and basil remain the most damaged and I just went ahead and replanted the lettuce with sprouts already appearing. We'll see about the basil...I should get enough for at least one batch of pesto by the end of summer. The roses are busy replacing lost leaves so we may not have more blooms for a while yet. Though one new rose we planted this spring, Sheer Bliss, has put out a large but bruised rose. It looks a bit odd with just a bloom on the end of a leaf stripped stem. Another new one, our little Mikey's memory rose called Double Delight, has some large buds as well.

It's raining now and I've gotten used to seeing the horses as soft shapes seen through rain. The lack of snow all winter and dry spring means no hay has been cut here in the valley all summer. With the current rain, there might be a fall cutting of hay but farmers will be holding onto it for their own use. Grass hay, which is what we feed our horses, has jumped to $10 and $11 a bale in Santa Fe and Albuquerque and is predicted to go as high as $17 by the end of summer. Our good friends put together a co-op to buy two semi-loads of grass hay brought here from Kansas. It arrived on Monday and took up the entire day for a lot of folks to unload and distribute that much hay. I went to bed Monday night tired but secure in knowing we have enough hay for our horses to last a whole year.

Meditations on vacuuming.

I hate to vacuum. Well that's not completely true. I love seeing the floors and rugs clean and sand free after I've vacuumed. It's the process I hate. Or actually, it's the vacuum I hate. One of those 'little known things about me' categories... there have been several less prosperous times in my life when I have worked as a housekeeper. When I was in college in northern California, I worked as a motel housekeeper because that was the only job to be had. Other more adult times when I needed a break from the stressful life of a freelance graphic artist, I fell back on housekeeping as a way of giving myself a mental break while still paying the bills.

I often rated my customers by the quality of the vacuum they kept in their home and how easy it was to use. An ancient poorly functioning vacuum usually went with a house where no one cared about how clean things were, where you could tell the same spilled food was dried on counters and floors from shortly after the last time I was there. And the house with a good and efficient vacuum often hardly seemed to need cleaning.

Well I don't have a good vacuum. It was the best I could afford at the time and it has seen hard work the last six years of cleaning up after a woman whose stray long hairs get wrapped around the brushes, and two to three dogs (don't believe them, greyhounds do shed), plus several cats with their litter trackings and the feathers of birds lying around and thank goodness when you don't also find the bird. And since we moved here, there is the endless granite sand tracked in by all of us. This less than old vacuum now whines and complains nearly as much as I do.

I just shake my head and say thank goodness it isn't mud I'm trying to clean up and then I ask each of the dogs if they would please help me out by taking up the job of vacuuming for me. At least Ellie humors me by thinking about it. Or maybe what she's really thinking is 'I'll be vacuuming in your dreams woman...'