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Photos from Ah, Wilderness!

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Jun 032013

Black Canyon Campground near Santa Fe, NM
We camped near Santa Fe in a great little campground near the bottom of the ski basin road. Black Canyon CG has paved sites with great separation, clean outhouses, no hook-ups. It’s barely an hour from Albuquerque and near 8500 feet. There is a good trail out out of the campground and another to Hyde [...]

Black Canyon Campground near Santa Fe, NM is a post from: Ah, Wilderness!. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh
You want to see hawks? Get thee to Estancia Basin pronto.
Merri notes, “After reading Judy Liddell’s bird report for the Estancia Basin, we headed to Clements Road just south of I-40 and just outside of Estancia. Wide-open ranches dominate the landscape out there. Driving and walking down dirt roads, we saw more than TWENTY ferruginous hawks, 4 rough-legged hawks, 2 red-tails, 2 golden eagles, some [...]

You want to see hawks? Get thee to Estancia Basin pronto. is a post from: Ah, Wilderness!. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh
Time Travel in Colorado
We’ve been camping in Colorado for more than two decades. Most years, we head up north before the end of June, but this year my book project kept me busy well into July and we hit the road 7/10 for 14 nights away. This year, our travel plan was vague: head north until we encounter [...]

Time Travel in Colorado is a post from: Ah, Wilderness!. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh
Gooseberry Spring Trail, Mt Taylor, near Grants, New Mexico
Above: Note Merri on the trail on the left. Off to her right, our truck is at the base of a road (not a trail) up to Mosca Peak in the clouds. Vertical, rolling country above 10,000 feet. [photo by Merri Rudd] Gooseberry Spring Trail, Mt Taylor, near Grants, New Mexico is a post from: [...]

Gooseberry Spring Trail, Mt Taylor, near Grants, New Mexico is a post from: Ah, Wilderness!. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh
Birds and more in Alameda Bosque, north of Albuquerque, New Mexico
We visit the area around Alameda frequently. There is a large free parking area just southeast of the bridge. This area is the northern end of the miles-long Paseo del Bosque bike trail through the bosque. Within an easy walk are the old bridge, now closed to cars but used by walkers, cyclists, and equestrians, [...]

Birds and more in Alameda Bosque, north of Albuquerque, New Mexico is a post from: Ah, Wilderness!. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

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When it rains in the desert, you tell people. Some are happy for you; some are jealous that it didn’t rain where they were (which might be one block over). We got drenched and muddy playing volleyball in Los Lunas today. It rained two or more times, for 10 or 15 minutes. Wonderful. Heavenly. Joyous. Everyone wore big smiles and talked about what a great day it was. I’m not sure anyone outside of the desert can really appreciate that rare joy.

Meanwhile, in Albuquerque, there was water in the gutters at the southern end of town but not a drop a few miles north at our house.

I listen to the wind / to the wind in my soul – Cat Stevens

The Atheist's Pulpit

Jun 022013

The wind howled for hours last night. It tossed me in my bed as surely as if I were in a hammock strung between high trees, death a long fall away. I cursed the wind. I called it vicious, raging, cruel, and a bully. But, on waking, I realize the wind proves my complete insignificance and powerlessness. Wind isn’t cruel; it is utterly indifferent and beyond grasping.

And so, again, I push together the stones of my sanity, until the wind blows, as it will, long after I’m dead.

Unhinged (a seasonal poem)
Wind Makes Crazy (a timely poem)

But it’s a dry heat … a hellishly dry heat

loco

May 312013

Check out these headlines from today’s Albuquerque Journal, scattered among the day’s trivialities and ads:

0.91 inches of rain in 8 months | ABQ Journal By John Fleck
Drought watch: no improvement in New Mexico
Pecos fire rips through 500 acres
Fire danger closes Sandia Mountains
Magdalena R.D. fire restrictions to begin
Starving cattle find new home

and, paradoxically,

Snowstorm closes I-70 west of Denver (444 miles north of Abq)

And we end with gallows humor:

» Drought watch: quotes of the month | ABQ Journal

“I’m worried that the dirt’s gonna catch fire.”

- Adrian Oglesby, Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District board member

update: No sooner posted than we have a second contender:

“It’s forgotten how to rain down here.” Phil King, New Mexico State University/Elephant Butte Irrigation District hydrologist

» Drought watch: quotes of the month | ABQ Journal

Uh-oh: Rogue modified wheat found in Oregon #wtf

WTF?!

May 312013

Can’t stop progress. Or greed. Or mad scientists. We’re doomed.

» Rogue modified wheat found in Oregon | ABQ Journal

Field workers at an Eastern Oregon wheat farm were clearing acres for the bare off-season when they came across a patch of wheat that didn’t belong.

The workers sprayed it and sprayed it, but the wheat wouldn’t die. Their confused boss grabbed a few stalks and sent it to a university lab in early May.

A few weeks later, Oregon State wheat scientists made a startling discovery: The wheat was genetically modified, in clear violation of U.S. law, although there’s no evidence that modified wheat entered the marketplace.

They contacted federal authorities, who ran more tests and confirmed their discovery.

“It looked like regular wheat ,” said Bob Zemetra, Oregon State’s wheat breeder.

No genetically engineered wheat has been approved for U.S. farming

» Rogue modified wheat found in Oregon | ABQ Journal

» Of the rich, by the rich, for the rich | ABQ Journal

Election

May 282013

» Of the rich, by the rich, for the rich | ABQ Journal by Dana Milbank

wealth is power in Washington. A multimillionaire president nominated a billionaire who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for his campaigns, and he sent her to be confirmed by the millionaires’ club that is the United States Senate.

“You will certainly have my vote,” Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (average estimated net worth: $103 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics) assured the nominee (net worth $1.85 billion, according to Forbes).

“My hope,” said Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner ($228 million), is “this committee will recommend you.”

Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill ($22 million) told Pritzker, “I find it very refreshing to find someone who is stepping up like you are in this position.”

Another committee member, Sen. Richard Blumenthal ($100 million), didn’t speak at the hearing but issued a statement calling the heiress “a longtime friend with a lifetime of business experience and acumen that will serve her well.” …

This doesn’t mean the lawmakers were bought. But it does add to the impression that the nominee and her interrogators are all part of the same club of the wealthy and the powerful.

About half the members of Congress have a net worth of more than $1 million, CRP found – about 15 times the worth of the typical American household. And it’s a bipartisan club, from Republican committee chairmen Darrell Issa ($480 million) and Michael McCaul ($500 million) to Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi ($94 million). The Senate’s wealthiest was John Kerry ($236 million), but he left to join an even more exclusive club.

How exclusive? Well, it’s about to land a billionaire.

» Of the rich, by the rich, for the rich | ABQ Journal

Our Anniversary

photos, The Atheist's Pulpit Tags: Merri

May 282013

Merri and I have known each 32 years as of next Halloween. However, today is our 22nd wedding anniversary.

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