Macro Monday: Water...at last!

While the rest of the U.S. has been enduring an unusual winter, we've actually been back to what we consider normal--a couple of days of gentle rains in the 40's followed by a sunny day in the 60's but freezing at night, then the cycle repeats.

Yesterday it felt like the first day of spring! Farmer Rick and I spent the day gardening in t-shirts! The asparagus also thinks it is spring. They are predicting 2 inches of snow tomorrow. That's just how weird our weather can be.

But the most amazing news I want to share is our well is now topping off at 5'9" of WATER which means: I am now able to once again run the washing machine and dishwasher! I have not been able to do this in NINE MONTHS. If you are new to my blog, we have just endured the driest, hottest year on record and our well was entirely without water for four months, and has been limping along ever since. I will never take turning on the faucet and water coming out for granted. If you want to see what it looked like empty check out this post

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Here's some highly aerated water down at the river, and a couple of riffles.

 

 

Suddenly it comes back to me why I live here!

Just listen to the river sing:

For more up close images, visit Macro Monday!

Macro Monday: Recipe: How to Bake a Camera

To my absolute horror--the nightmare on Ranch Road--this morning I discovered I'd left the camera outside overnight, and--in this land of so little rain--it had rained! (Guess the bets are off on which part of my body will conk out first!) I brought it in, toweled it dry, changed the batteries and took this picture. Let's call this one BO (Before Oven). Looks like a macro of a cloud.

I was crushed! How would I ever explain to Farmer Rick--now that I have gutted our main bathroom and uncovered unsightly, secret, chaotically wired chambers--I would rather have another camera instead and just finish the bathroom project in, say, 2011? That would only be a tiny inconvenience, right? Right? No, that would never do. Not when I'm the one always harping about follow through, like I had it tattooed across my...well you get the picture, no pun intended.

So, I googled 'what to do if your camera got left out in the rain', and I came across someone who said they actually baked their Canon Rebel (I can hear many of you cringing right now) and it was raised like Lazarus from the dead and it has continued working. I decided to give it a try. Even though my oven couldn't go as low as 120 degrees, I set it at my lowest of 170 degrees and baked it (without batteries or memory card) for 20 minutes with the door slightly ajar.

This way, I could at least peek in and see if it was melting. I would hate to have to explain to Farmer Rick how we suddenly needed BOTH a new camera and new oven! I'd really feel like Lucille Ball then. It got hot, way too hot to handle but held its shape. So I let it cool to room temperature. After replacing the batteries and card, here's the first picture.

For AF (After Oven) isn't this amazing? There's still a bunch of moisture under the digital screen of the viewfinder, but I'm hoping I can remove that with a little time in a plastic ziplock baggie and some silica gel. Or maybe it will need to bake longer.

Anyway, here's another vintage bird button and a maple leaf to go along with the recipe!

For more up close and personal images, visit Macro Monday!

Postscript: After a cozy evening spent by the fire with my camera (wish I could have captured this happy photo), and a night sealed in a plastic baggie with all the silica gel packages I could find from shoe boxes, and some Rainsorb thrown in, the last bit of moisture I was seeing in the display screen has completely disappeared! Whew!

Sunday Stills: Happiness is...

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Empress Antonia butterfly (Asterocampa antonia)

coming across something new and never losing your sense of wonder.

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The start of a quilted jacket.

making something beautiful and useful from all the odd little pieces of your life.

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Momma, the burrs just jumped all over me!

not worrying about small problems, as things are never as bad as they look.

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Taken by a friend at our $150 wedding.

finding true love long after you've given up looking for it.

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You can see the end of the rainbow! Check out my new blog header collage with this view from our garden.

is realizing with patience the end of the rainbow will find you!

For more takes on Happiness visit Sunday Stills!

All Our Ducks in a Row

Today, when we woke up all our ducks were in a row!

Farmer Rick and I have much to be thankful for--we've made it through another year together including our better foibles in chicken husbandry and accidental gardening, and our worse drought in history. His love did not waver even when I persisted on having curved walls in the new coop, and admits his carpentry skills improved with my nagging encouragement.

Nor did he admonish me for the outrageous debt we incurred from me having to take rabies shots after being bitten by the fox. Yea, he understands and supports my need to rescue critters, stick fingers into their wild mouths and to nurse them back to health. He loves my cooking--even when I forget that I am cooking and serve dinner a la charra y el carbon.

I have come to enjoy being awakened at 4 a.m. when he begins playing Chopin etudes and Joplin rags, mistaking my back for the piano in his deep slumber, and have begun to see it as a new way to get a jump on my busy day. I look the other way when he consumes all the household pickles, and gleefully cap the toothpaste and shampoo after him, because secretly I think I got the better end of this deal. He assures me we are equally fortunate!

People tell us we were made for each other. Indeed, we are cut from the same recycled cloth, quilted together by the poets, nobility, explorers, and farmers of our ancestry, having since discovered an 8th great-grandmother and 21st great-grandfather in common. When we cross the creek, neither of us can remember what we went there for.

Honey?

Uh hum?

Look, all our ducks are in a row! How cute!

But...we don't have any ducks!

Oh...You're right!



Y'all better go home!

Jeepers Creepers, Where'd You Get Those Peepers?

Since the scare back in February when Big Bird went on her big adventure, she's stayed pretty close to home. In fact, yesterday afternoon I last saw her sitting by the coop door. When evening fell, Alzina the Ameraucana (the one who worries) was standing in the door telling me something was wrong. Roll was called, and instantly I knew what she was talking about: Big Bird was missing again.

Fortunately, I had bought two nifty LED headlamps (how did we ever live without them?) and Farmer Rick and I began the search. I've since learned the best way to find a chicken in the creek is to lay on my belly and shine the light at their eye level. Within a few minutes she was located, sleeping under the big oak. I think she just gets caught unaware because she can't see the others heading to the coop.

 What? Where? Why do you have scissors in your hand?

So, I borrowed Farmer Rick's mustache scissors (sorry, honey) and went to work! Although the Polish are loved for their poufs and antics, I don't want beauty interfering with safety.

The bob is IN you know...

Just look at those big eyes!

Does this mean I can get sunglasses now?

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!

Big Bird's Big Adventure

After looking a gazillion places at least five times and giving her up for dead, Big Bird returned in the arms of Farmer Rick before dinner time yesterday! You can imagine my joy of seeing her again!

He was down in the creek dutifully patching up all the critter holes under the fence with wire when he heard a car slam on its brakes, and then a chicken cackle. He saw a couple of feathers floating up, and wondered...

...could it be?

He ran to the top of the bank, and there stood Big Bird in the middle of the road, befuddled as ever, twisting her head around trying to figure out where she was.

Now I'll remind you, this is a fancy feathered light-colored chicken with limited vision that's just spent two days and two nights out in the rain and cold without much cover, food or water, and plenty of predators around. The fact that she survived this is amazing.

Suddenly, a car was coming, headed right for her! Farmer Rick scaled the no-climb six foot fence and bounded for her, and the car slowed to a stop, to avoid hitting both of them. I'm sure the driver was wondering what was that?

By now, she figured she was in some kind of really big trouble and fleed toward the 20 foot drop off to the culverts below, narrowly ducking into a thicket of green brier, and forcing FR to dive into it, gashing extremities to retrieve her.

It was a beautiful reunion. We sat together in the wicker love seat on the front porch as the rays of the setting sun washed us in gold. She nestled her bouffant head into the crook of my arm as I petted her. She sang a sweet little song. Then, I felt it hit my thigh. Thinking it was something else, I looked down, and there was one perfect white egg in my lap!