Otherworldly
Friday, 16 October 2020
Among non-traditional/atypical/unexpected plant morphologies, I present Brussels sprout trees. Go brassicas!
Musings
Yum in an iron skillet
Sunday, 27 September 2020
We have apple trees in the orchard that yield apples that make deep pink applesauce. Turns out that if you use the same apples to make tarte tatin, they become such a deep red that you might think the fruit was plums! Oh, so super tasty!
Reminiscence
Monday, 31 August 2020
Remember January of this year? We were not living like we were on the precipice of a descent into a pandemic. We ate out that month, two fancy meals…. “Ate out…”—slow and casual dining, too: sounds radical today!
…and I had a beet salad each time. I do love a beet salad. These are proof.
Today we watched “Freight trains and monsters,” an episode of “Yellowstone.” There was no beet salad, although there were campfire biscuits. Neither beet salad was a freight train or a monster. BTW, that refers to non-preferred horses in the barn….
Fresh herb
Wednesday, 5 August 2020
Tonight we ate veggies from the neighbors’ garden: mini-cucumbers, leaf lettuce, broccoli…all super-yum. We ate basil from our garden*…snipped atop a pasta-tomato sauce mixture [okay, I admit: the ingredients for that were from various groc stores].
I kinda think the basil made the main dish phenomenal!
* Our garden consists of basil…and a pair of barely rooted spearmint stems. So we pretty much harvested all we had! [Not enough of a garden to get through the winter….]
Afflicted
Saturday, 25 July 2020
Knowing the heat was coming, I got out right after coffee for a bit of pruning, then we went to town for a few groc necessities. I suspect this is an Asian honeysuckle that escaped from the great-grandmother garden, and not a native species. This branch survived the pruning.
Late in the afternoon, we walked across the road to visit with the neighbors at a social distance (plus), and to pick some of their lettuce—lovely and tasty.
Between these two, I just soaked in the heat, from a seated and decidedly un-lively position. [I call that afflicted by the heat/humidity combo.]
Adventuring
Tuesday, 12 May 2020
Hands down, the most exciting happening in my day was finding this blossom, and its family. Because I knew it was a berry blossom. And a signal….
So I kept looking. Eeee-heeee! Berries! Hmm, any ripe ones? How ’bout ripe-enough ones? Gentle twist on one with color. Nope. So I try another, hmmm, add a bit to the gentle on the twist…thinking, well, I’ll try it, probably a bit…not-quite ripe. Sure enough, not full tasty, but…mmm…sun-warmed berry! Yay! Fortified, I keep looking. Back there, way behind the close distracting berries, a fully ripe berry…mmmmm. A new season…berry-season! Yeah. Life is darned good. Ripe. Sun-warm. I’m so lucky.
Artsy picture. Not sure why this grass has not greened up…must be a stay-brown a LOOOOONG time species.
Jay commented not that long ago that a V-marked marker probably announces a valve. Duh. She is so right…as I expected. Here’s a different V-marker, a hydrant, and a valve cover. Done and done. Thanks for the tip, Jay.
Relocation
Friday, 14 February 2020
On the move….
Hum-bao*. Best of the west.
Faded rose. Still gorgeous. Still smells rosy.
* Bao is Chinese for stuffed bun, usually steamed. Mmmmmm.
Scale can be elusive
Sunday, 15 December 2019
We departed early, heading south through the Galisteo Basin. Cool archaeology is here, but we didn’t stop.
We spotted trains crossing—enough train action here to merit the two levels of tracks….
Strange giant cowboy cut-out face-off or smack-down.
At the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns park, there’s a multifaceted business called White’s City, a commercial undertaking with many buildings that seeks to get money out of your pocket and into theirs. Look at the critter-statues…bison, alien, etc., and a big USA flag flapping above.
Road to the visitor center…hairpin turn that looks like it may hang in space. Turns out it’s on solid ground, however.
We took the sissy elevator entrance. The elevator has a top and a bottom stop, nothing in between. And the distance is measured in feet. We dropped smoothly several hundred feet. The walking tour is of the Big Room. It goes on and on. And on and on.
First view. Shiny handrails are on both sides of the paved path.
Handrails left. This is a big space. Even standing there it is difficult to grasp the size of the open space around you.
More big stalactites, stalagmites and perhaps speleothems.
I was fascinated by this well-decorated passage to…dunno where.
I was also fascinated by the few pools of water we could see. This one had drips falling into it, making the “wrinkles” in the water.
We elevatored back to the surface, had a snack from our abundant food stores in the cab, and headed south-ish below the Guadalupe Mountains. Signs every few miles warned us about the wind. It was always there this afternoon, and for maybe fifty it was straight at us, spoiling our mileage.
We crossed into Texas and had this confirmation that we were approaching the US–Mexico border. We frequently hear about walls, but these things are perhaps far more effective. When airborne.
We had a fancy dinner way out in the relative boonies, very delicious, at Cochineal in Marfa. I had a pricey and yummy steak, and the Guru had schnitzel. With veg for both of us. Recommended.
Yawn.
Layers and graduations
Tuesday, 10 December 2019
Nature of course offers harsh edges and lines. Today I kept seeing subtle changes of many sorts. Notice how the variations in juniper dimensions help your eye note the landscape’s folds and creases.
Add some snow-dusted high elevations to a steeper juniper plus pines landscape.
And tall pines! And more snow…blanket more than merely dust.
Even these amazingly tasty Brussels sprouts have layers. And that honey-mustard sauce…otherworldly. We lunched in Taos on not-New Mexican cuisine.
Real verticality. Meadow/pasture at base….
And a gorge! Downward verticality. That’s the Rio Grande.
Meadow-to-peaks verticality again, this time with a line of fence-posts angling across.
We climbed to higher elevations, and thus more snow accumulation. Even lines of animal tracks crossing the white.
Always, since we were driving and the road was plowed, the road wends across the landscape, a scar in the snowiness.
Hoar-frosted trees. Layers here are branches and between-branches.
This town is named Los Ojos, which means eyes, but is also used for springs. If you were an anciano*, wouldn’t water emerging from the ground be pretty darned special?, an addition to the complexity of the Underworld.
Erosional remnant…all about layers. And graduations of color.
And dusk…on a clear night. With a big moon, off to the way left, to be imagined. Full tomorrow night….
* anciano = ancient one in Spanish.
No driving
Saturday, 7 December 2019
While the coffee was brewing, I stepped outside. The birdbath was frozen solid.
We’re somewhat overdosed on driving, so we didn’t today. Walked to do our errands. Mini-crabapple?
Sample of the residential architecture in our neighborhood; these units are a bit larger and fancier than ours. Same feel, however.
First chore trek took us to the Farmers’ Market. I talked to a bean guy, and bought some black beans from him. Also got a turkey leg, butchered yesterday (TMI?), the grower said. Stew to come. This is a watermelon radish, the sign said, with black radishes on the left edge. Did not buy or taste either one.
Near the FM is the northern terminus of the Railrunner commuter train that goes down to Albuquerque and beyond largely in the Rio Grande valley. Love the roadrunner graphic that flows from the locomotive across the trailing cars.
During a later errand trek, we found a largely untended urban cemetery behind a Mickey’s and similar fast food places, nail salons, and the like. On a slight hill.
Companion shot to the first one from the cocktail hour.
Apparently this sky warns of ❄️. The highest peaks nearby are already 🏔.