Sunday Stills: Old Churches and Graveyards

This morning it was misty, which set an ethereal background for photographing our local cemetery, which dates back to the pioneers that settled this area of the Southwest Texas hill country in the mid-1800's.

Perhaps you can tell something about a town by its graveyard. Our ghost town, population 49, has more dead than living. As a rural ranching and farming community there isn't a lot of money for fancy edifices. Some graves are incomplete but not forgotten.

 

 

This is my good friend Geno's grave. He and I shared a pet coyote. He lived a healthy lifestyle and could ride a bicycle 50 miles a day, but liver cancer took him unexpectedly and too soon. We buried him on what would have been our (Farmer Rick and I) wedding day. Farmer Rick and I sang Ave Maria at the grave site. One day I will put a marker up with a bicycle or coyote. Or both.

The wind and animals scatter the fake flowers. Many wash down the creek and end up at our place. They seem to symbolize the impermanence of a human life.

Some people decorate more than others. Anything goes. It shows the diversity of this small populace.

 

I dedicate this post to my mother whom I buried 34 years ago today, and to Laurie, the former owner of my house here for 31 years. She was buried in this cemetery a couple weeks ago in an unmarked grave decorated only by a cross made of white and purple flowers.

For more images of old churches and graveyards, visit Sunday Stills.

Spring has sprung!

One of the benefits of living in the southwest is that while the rest of the U.S. is still entrenched in snow, ice, and mud we are among the first to bid good-bye to winter. Our part of Texas only has two seasons: Summer and January!

It's always exciting in February when suddenly, nestled in the tall, expired grasses, these beauties pop up. They would be our equivalent of seeing the northern crocuses popping through the snow. Wind Flower, or Anemone heterophylla, comes in shades of white, pink, lavender, and blue. Interestingly it has no petals; it is the petal-like sepals that show the colors!

 

And in the vegetable garden last season's Collards--left to go to seed so that I can collect them--have begun to flower. The local bees have discovered them and I have been giving what's left of the leaves as treats to the chickens.

I am so happy to see the first signs of spring! sigh

Macro Monday: Wandering, Correctly

 

We had our first frost last night. Here it is glistening in the morning's light on Tradescantia pallida. This is a species of Spiderwort native to the Gulf coast of Mexico and is commonly called 'Wandering Jew'. Although its provenance is indeterminate, many consider this a derogatory name yet I know it by no other. It is a splendidly beautiful trailing evergreen perennial with purple leaves and flowers that brightens up the garden so I'm not sure how this is an offense. We could just as easily call it Wandering Crazy Chicken Lady and I'd be honored!

Some interesting facts: most Spiderworts have a beautiful fragrance if you take the time to sniff them, and studies have shown as houseplants they are very good at removing toxic VOC's from the air.

Visit the up close world of others at Macro Monday!

How to Tell Girls from Boys

Most plants are bisexual, containing both male (stamens) and female (pistil) parts. Sometimes the stamens and pistil are together in the same flower and sometimes there are separate male and female flowers on the same plant. Either way, these are called monoecious, from the Greek "one household".

However, some plants still depend on the wind to pollinate them and are called dioecious, that is, having separate male and female plants. Typically they do not have petals and they make a lot of pollen. This is our native Cardinal Feather flower, Acalypha radians, which is dioecious. It is always a favorite on my botanical tours.

This is also Cardinal Feather flower.

 

Sometimes it doesn't take a botanist to tell which flowers are the girls and which are the boys. Just sayin'.

Macro Monday: Coneflower and Friends

I planted this Purple Coneflower last fall in the vegetable garden to attract pollinators and it bloomed for the first time this weekend. This morning it had attracted some new friends.

Here's a little Folded-winged Skipper of some sort enjoying the nectar. When basking in the sun, they hold their fore winds and hind wings at different angles unlike other butterflies. They have really big eyes! I would say they fall into the cute category.

Here's a male Little Metalmark or Fatal Metalmark. Don't you love how butterflies uncoil their proboscis to take a drink? His striped antennae are interesting.

Closer up you can see the metalic lines in his patterning that give these butterflies their name.

For a more detailed view on life, visit Macro Monday!

Jemez Springs or at Least Looking for Them

Driving up from Bernalillo, through the Jemez Pueblo and the mountain town of Jemez Springs, we stopped at the Soda Dam. It has been over a decade since I was here last and it was sad to see that all the little dams within the cave had been broken away by people crawling through it.

Some creative soul, though, had made snakes and lizards out of nails hammered closely together on the entrance logs. Pretty cool.

There were probably 50+ people swimming here in the Jemez River, so it was quite a feat to get photos without them in it. We stopped at the first campground where I'd stayed before and it was full! Guess I'd never come during summer before.

Where have all the flowers gone? Young girls picked them every one.

The Jemez Falls campground also said full, but the park host let us know someone had just left and the site was ours if we could claim it before anyone else. It was a beautiful site.

We opted to stay two nights. Each evening an electrical storm blew in and it rained. This might have discouraged some campers, but since we haven't seen much of the stuff lately we were delighted. Rain--what a concept!

Sunday we spent the day looking for hot springs. We got up very early to beat the crowds the park host had described, and hiked the trail to Jemez Falls. There were numerous wild orchids blooming in the pine duff.

These little falls above the big falls were delightful...

as were the Harebells, Campanula rotundifolia.

Jemez Falls is always a lovely spot.

We backtracked up to the trail head and followed the trail sign toward McCauley Springs. Now, all of the hot springs I've ever visited were right alongside the river they were associated with.

The trail was strenuous, up and down, and kept climbing up and away from the river. Maybe because I was out of shape it seemed like we had already gone the 2.5 miles. Looking down from this precipice I could not imagine us further away from them. We came upon a little stream, and in retrospect, I should have stuck a foot in it. But at this point we gave up and turned around, retracing our way. The parking lot was almost empty, where were the throngs?

We met only a woman and her daughters looking for the springs. We talked again to the park host, who admitted he wasn't sure where they were as it had been a while since he had been. We decided to drive up the road where lots of people park, assuming hot springs were nearby.

Nope, folks were just going down to some part of the river where it was deep enough to jump from cliffs. Along the way we saw this flower. At first I thought it was Apache Plume, but I think it's something else I'll have to study. The locals here told us we should go to Spence hot springs as they were easiest to find and right on the river.

We got there and a strangely dressed man from Russia greeted us. I said hello in Russian and he corrected my pronunciation. He was wearing a dress shirt, shoes, and socks, but with outdoor shorts and sort of a woven safari hat. Maybe his luggage was lost, or is this how they look adventuring in Steppes? Or, perhaps a nuclear scientist (or spy) from Los Alamos with a small wardrobe?

Anyway, he seemed well versed on how to get to all the local hot springs, and in recounting our earlier trek to find McCauley he said we were basically there when we turned around! Rats! The newest problem, though, was both trails to Spence hot spring were closed due to landslides. While we were talking numerous locals ignored the signs and headed for warm waters. He did not want to risk his visa, and we really didn't want to incur any fines so we left.

Down the hill, and around the bend was a day use fishing park...might not a short hike up the river lead us to the springs? We were off, pushing through brush. And snakes. And crossing the river. And displacing fly fishermen. Finally, we saw the highway above and hiked out, realizing we still were no where near the springs.

Our solution? We drove down to Jemez Spring and rented a hot spring at Giggling Springs.

Years ago I rented this as part of an accommodation...there was the Big Dipper, Little Dipper, and the small cabin I stayed in, the Skinny Dipper! But the owners turned that into the dressing room, and now make their money renting the hot spring by the hour.

No wonder, as it's impossible to find the others!

Second Silver Project

My second project was actually a combination of silver, brass, and copper.


I did not start with the finished bracelet design in mind, it just developed as I worked. I knew I wanted it to have a nature theme with birds and flowers, and a few inspirational words. Letter punches were used to create the words.

The shapes were hand cut. Then most of the textures were created with hammers and brought out with various patinas.

No heat touched the metal. Elements were layered and joined with cold connections, namely various types of rivets. This means that some of them are free to rotate in motion, making the piece even more interesting.

The finished elements were then assembled with jump rings and a copper toggle clasp I also made. The bracelet has a nice weight and feel. I'm planning to do a series of these, along with pendants and earrings for my Etsy shop launch.

Color Carnival: Gonolobus

No, it isn't an STD. It's a type of Milkweed flower that inhabits Mexico. I love the intricate, magenta center. Originally called Gonolobus cyclophyllus, it is now known as Matelea cyclophyllus. Like many asclepiads it is pollinated by flies and has the fragrance of carrion. I must need two of them, as this one has never developed a seed pod. Do you have one I could borrow?

For more colorful photos, visit this week's Color Carnival!

Sun So Hot I Froze to Death

About the only thing blooming now are morning glories in the drip irrigated garden. This image is almost red white and blue! Today we staffed the Healthy Harvest booth at the local 4th of July Jubilee, where Farmer Rick got to play some old time music with other music pickin' farmer types. Oh, Susanna-- maybe this heat is getting to me. For fun I brought my knitting along and nearly finished a winter scarf. That made sitting outside in 106 degrees as pleasant as sitting outside in 106 degrees can be.