Category: backyard

The Big Bad Sultans of Swat And One Eight Year Old Girl

Imagine it if you will, Albuquerque in the 1970’s. Idyllic late summer days of blazing hot temperatures and then around 4pm, the boiling dark clouds move in and the rain comes a’pouring down.

That summer monsoon rain would cool things off, water the plants and change the smell of the air.

I used to love running outside to play in the pouring rain. It was always a warm rain and I’d dance among the raindrops, catch a few on my tongue and generally frolicking about getting soaked from head to toe while searching for rainbows.

Rain storms in New Mexico are a show. Ripping bolts of lightning and crashing booms of thunder. On one such dancing day in the rain when I was a kid, I didn’t realize how close I was to the center of the storm, and as I did my soggy dance, the thunder cracked so loudly that my feet moved from a lively jig to a dead ahead run in one swift movement as terror coursed through my veins.

It looked something like…well…this:




Except I was an eight year old girl. The people in this .gif are grown ass men. Major league ballplayers for the New York Yankees. (there is video out there, the Boston players had a similar reaction).

But I know the feeling. Oh, I get it.

Just as my dad laughed his butt off when I went racing by, terrified and soaking, I am laughing my head off at this .gif (and the video).

Just can’t stop watching it. heh.




.gif found on Cheezburger.com.





I Keep Looking Over My Shoulder

I think I’m being stalked. I’m not sure how to prove it or what to do about it but I am pretty sure I’m totally being followed. By an otherwordly entity.

I have shouted “what do you want?!?!” but the face of the man following along remains passive, as if my shouts are lost to the cosmos.

This stalker goes by a few names, but we’ll go with Man in the Moon for the sake of ease and understanding. MITM keeps showing up everywhere lately, getting real close and glowy.

In the small morning hours when I head out to work, he’s there, peering over the hills and looking quite chilly yet magnetic. As I ride the train, he rides along but fades away as I get closer to work.

In the evenings as I drive home, he’s there hanging low on the horizon looking quite handsome. The evening attire is more of a warm and inviting yellow tone. He hangs out over the Bay and turns the tips of saltwater waves a golden amber. They wave as if beckoning me to dive in.

I try to ignore his intense gaze and then take a sharp curve in the road. For a moment I think he’s gone but then voop! there he is again, a little less bigger-than-life when taken from that angle but still there staring down at me with persistence.

I thought it was just a couple coincidences, but I’m pretty sure that the moon is chasing me. And maybe flirting with me too, just a little.

For all the world that big shining Snow Moon looks just like a gigantic cosmic Snickerdoodle.

He’s so charming, I just might take a bite.

———

Now tell me this doesn’t look like a snickerdoodle.



The full Moon as seen in Japan on Feb. 25, 2013. Credit and copyright: Masashi Ito.





Photo from Universe Today.




Some Thoughts On February

Here we are already in the second month of this crazy New Year. I’m not sure I’m even over my New Year’s Eve hangover and here it already is February.

So to honor the shortest month of the year, I’m going to borrow from a couple of my own previous February posts.

First of all, my cross-cultural thoughts on Groundhog Day. Seems not all the world has an annual rodent pulling day:

—————-

From the post titled “You Do What, Now?” originally posted February 7, 2011.


My boss has a sense of humor about to the level of mine, so lately we have this ongoing riff.

It goes something like this:

Boss: “So, what is this, um, let’s see what do they call it…yes, this day of groundhog you people celebrate in the US?”

Me: “What, they don’t have this holiday in the UK?”

Boss: “I don’t think so, what is this all about?”

Me: “So, wait, you’re telling me that in the UK they don’t pull rodents out of the ground in order to determine the extent of winter?”

Boss: “Not as such, no.”

—————-

Really, how do you explain Groundhog Day to someone who doesn’t understand?

Hell, I don’t even understand, but my personal confusion not withstanding…

When the poor burrowing rat, Punxsutawney Phil, had bright lights shined directly in his sleepy eyes yesterday, he did not see his shadow.

I guess that means we are game on for an early Spring.

I’m totally ready.

I love this time of year. Spring makes me so utterly happy. It’s all full of fun and color and happy expectations.

Here’s some thoughts on February:

—————-

From the post titled “An Ode To The Shortest Month” originally published January 18, 2011.


The second month of the year. The shortest month of the year.

February is a beautiful month.

In February, winter is not quite over, but spring is not quite here. In February we start to see the brilliant yellow of blooming daffodils against the monochrome hue of stormy skies. Daffodils are the harbinger of warm sunny days to come. They give the cold body hope.

I believe the daffodils and tulips and the snowfall of Cherry Blossoms in February are meant to keep us going like the carrot at the end of the stick. The “something wonderful just around the bend” that helps the human soul stay willing to endure the cold and damp days that are yet to be endured.

In February, Punxsutawney Phil, pokes his burrowing animal’s head out of the ground and lets us know the score. The planning can begin.

The ground begins to thaw. Birds start to think about coming back this way. There is hope.

Heck, February is also the birth month of at least three of my favorite people (wait, four! Just thought of another).

I’m looking toward the second month of the year with a not-so-secret anticipation.

So I will get all poetic and speak of daffodils and warm days.

—————-


Speaking of daffodils, I optimistically purchased three bunches today. Their buds are closed up tight and I am not sure they will find a way to break free. Only time will tell.

For today they tell me, “not yet…but soon”.

Sort of the same message that February has for me.

I feel, dare I say it, optimistic.



Hope springs a daffodil.




Photo Copyright 2013, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone5 and the Camera+ app.




An Oh Fair New Mexico Tradition

In what has now become an annual tradition in my almost six years of this little ol’ blog, it’s time to bring out something that was first published back in 2007.

It’s as true today as it was back then.

Without further ado:



Top ten things I miss about Christmas in New Mexico (in no particular order):

Originally published December 11, 2007


1) An annual shopping trip to Old Town in Albuquerque. This was a longtime mom and me tradition. Every year I’d get to pick out my own ornament that would eventually be mine when I became an adult. I have every one of those ornaments stored in a Thom McAnn shoebox and they go on my tree every year. They are a glitter and glass history of my life. I remember buying each of them and it gives me a beautiful sense of continuity to have them on my tree.


2) Luminarias. I always was the one to make them for the family. Someone would drive me to an empty lot and I’d dig out two buckets worth of good New Mexico dirt, then I’d go home and fold down the tops on brown lunch bags. Each would get a candle inside and then at night I’d light them. It was my holiday job and I loved every folded bag and every bulk buy candle (and every small emergency when a bag caught on fire in the wind). I miss real luminarias.


3) The Bugg House, which, sadly, is no more. My sister lived over on Prospect and we’d go for a walk in the dark on Christmas Eve to take a look at the outstanding display of holiday spirit. On the way to Christmas shop at Winrock Mall, I’d take a detour to the Bugg house to take a look. No one does lights like the Buggs did.


4) Neighbors bringing over a plate of freshly made tamales as a Christmas gift. When there are three generations of Hispanic women in a kitchen with some masa and shredded pork, magic happens. Yum! I also miss that people would bring tamales to work in a battered Igloo cooler and sell them to coworkers. I was always good for a dozen or more.


5) A ristra makes a good Christmas gift. I’ve given. I’ve received. I love ’em. They’d become a moldy mess here, and that makes me sad, cuz I’d love to have one.


6) Biscochitos. My love for these is well documented.


7) Sixty-five degrees and warm on Christmas Day. Growin’ up, I think one year there was actually snow on the ground for the 25th, but it was melted by the end of the day. Oh Fair New Mexico, how I love your weather.


8) Christmas Eve midnight Mass in Spanish with the overpowering scent of frankincense filling up the overly warm church. Pure torture for a small child, but oh how I’d belt out the carols. And when we came home after, we could pick one present and open it. Gah! The torture of choosing just one!


9) A New Mexico piñon, gappy, scrawny Christmas tree that cost $15 at the Flea Market and was cut from the top of a larger tree just that morning. Look, to my mind, it ain’t a tree unless you are using a few low hanging ornaments to fill the obvious empty spots. These overly fluffy trees just ain’t my bag. If you aren’t turning the bad spot toward the wall, you paid too much for your tree.


10) Green chile stew for Christmas Eve dinner and posole for New Year’s, both served with homemade tortillas. My mouth waters. It’s weep worthy. I can taste the nice soft potatoes in the stew, the broth flavored just right. And posole to bring you luck with red chile flakes and soft hunks of pork. Yeah……


*sigh* Now I’m homesick.

Which is not to say I don’t have happy holidays where I live now…but sometimes I feel melancholy. And in a weird way, that’s what the holidays are for, right?



Finally, in order to just really drive a homesick knife into my heart, I give you this, the beauty of Old Town Albuquerque:








Image via New Mexico Magazine



Places I Would Rather Be

Today I found an unexpected hour in my day. My new hire of just three weeks told me that he feels comfortable taking a regular weekly meeting off my hands. He said he had it covered and that I didn’t need to attend.

I almost wept with utter relief. This is what I hired him to manage, but this progress is so much faster than I’d expected.

Hooray! Early Christmas gift to me!!

And so I could have used this found hour to do some other work or get caught up on email. Instead I decided to flake off.

Best and highest use of my time, in my humblest of opinions.

So I skated over to the Google News page to see what’s doing back home in New Mexico. That’s where I came across the Southern New Mexico fishing report.

Listed in today’s report are some of my favorite lakes in Southern New Mexico, and some of my favorite places to be in the whole world.

As I read down the list I sighed and wallowed like a lovesick schoolgirl.

Bill Evans? Oh have I had some amazing times night fishing there.

Caballo Lake? So pretty.

Elephant Butte? Always a fun time and a crazy amount of boats on that lake.

Quemado? That’s where I was supposed to go earlier this year and wasn’t able to. *cry*

Oh muh lord. Here I sit while the rain pours outside. I’m tapping away at my work computer and feeling low and definitely not putting a worm on a hook and sipping a beer and watching the clouds float by on a clear New Mexico day.

Uh oh, here it comes…waves of homesickness crashing on my shores.

In related news: The husband of my best friend works for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. He’s the guy in charge of Southern New Mexico fish. All of ’em. He has days at work that go something like “I put a boat in at Caballo, sent some shocks into the water, counted the stunned fish and then went home.”

Basically, the guy fishes for a living. And then writes a few reports.

It may be the greatest job in the world, or at least in the top ten.

*whimper*

In case you are near a beautiful New Mexico lake today and need to know if they are biting, here’s today’s report courtesy of the Silver City Sun News:


*Bear Canyon: Trout fishing was very good using homemade dough bait, Power Bait, salmon eggs and worms.

*Bill Evans Lake: Trout fishing was fair to good using garlic cheese, salmon eggs, Pistol Petes, Power Bait, and homemade dough bait. We had no reports on other species.

*Caballo Lake: All boat ramps have been closed and will remain closed until such time as water levels rise and is deemed safe for launching. Fishing pressure was extremely light this past week and we had no reports from anglers.

*Elephant Butte: Fishing was sporadic. A few white bass, crappie and black bass were caught by anglers using jig and minnow combinations and spoons. We had no reports on other species. The water was murky and the surface temp was in the low 50s.The Monticello, Dam Site and Rock Canyon boat ramps remain closed due to low water conditions.

*Escondida Lake: Trout fishing was fair using homemade dough bait, Power Bait, Pistol Petes under a bubble and corn salmon egg combinations. We had no reports on other species.

*Gila River: Water flow on the Gila as of this past Monday was 62 cfs. We had no reports from angles this week.

*Glenwood Pond: Trout fishing was good using Power Bait.

*Lake Roberts: Trout fishing was good using rainbow and red Power Bait, garlic cheese, homemade dough baits, salmon eggs and worms. We had no reports on other species.

*Percha Dam: The water was low and fishing was slow for all species.

*Quemado Lake: We had no reports from anglers this week.

*Rio Grande: Water flow below Elephant Butte as of Monday was 3.4 cfs. Trout fishing was fair using worms and Power Bait. We had no reports on other species.

*Snow Lake: We had no reports from anglers this week.

Source





This is a New Mexico fish, but from way up north at Navajo Dam



Image from FunFix.com.