Cocoposts

Weed Ranch Chronicle

Worked a weed cutter yesterday along the driveway for 25 feet or so until the annual blood sacrifice to yard gods of whacking the blade on my ankle thus assuring another year of prolific tumbleweeds.

Here at The Weed Ranch this Spring we've got a bumper crop of mustard and early foxtail-type grass coming in. They're bounding back nicely even without water and this latest moisture will no doubt rally those volunteers for an onslaught.  Little apparent progress in annihilating these was made by opposing forces last year. Next up will be kochia and tumbleweed seedlings. We'll keep you updated from the front lines, like a Joe Monahan of weeds, talking all majestic plural but without the ads or alligators - though I do have snakes.

For my weedy explorations I'm We're using Weeds of the West, The Western Society of Weed Science. They look like a bunch of guys you want on your team. For a completely different (and British) take, Weeds: In Defense of Nature's Most Unloved Plants by Richard Mabey.

Image of Sisymbrium irio AKA London Rocket or Rocket Mustard, from Southwest Arizona Wildflowers.

 

Turtleback Mountain Diary 5

Picnicking on the dead shores of Elephant Butte Lake in the winter is not as depressing as it sounds. At least it never really got cold.  Warmth for achy bones is why a lot of people come here. 

Looking on the bright side of the drought, there's a lot more lake shore. Big dog and I enjoy hikes down to the water and back, a considerable distance in some places.  We were spooked by rustling in the bushes near the water a few weeks ago. Wild pigs are making inroads locally - snagging habitat and being opportunistic with water holes.  Big could smell tasty piglet.

There are plenty of reasons to be watchful beyond big pig tusks. Spooked even. David Parker Ray disposed of the bodies in Elephant Butte Lake. Who knows if he had help. And those bones are decidedly not why I came here. (I never should of read that book.)

There used to be a ferry across the Rio before the lake.  It's demise was the subject of a poem, Engle Ferry, by Eugene Manlove Rhodes published in the Saturday Evening Post August 10, 1929 and excerpted in Keleher's Fabulous Frontier.

The ferry is narrow and deep... the current is strong and the banks are steep ... a winding road up either hand, between black lava and yellow sand, between red water and close blue sky...angry echoes from hill to hill mutter and clamor and threaten still... Engle ferry is gone... never again shall moon or star kiss the hill where their camp-fires are... the passionless waters are deep and still on golden mesas and dreaming hill.

Maybe not as deep anymore.

When a proposal was made to change the name of nearby Engle to Engel, U.S. then Senator Bronson Cutting intervened at Rhodes's request and the proposal was nixed. There's a connection!

Turtleback Mountain Diary 3

Fiesta Dresses are a distant topic from sex torture and murderous pitbulls.  Given the continuing notoriety of the David Parker Ray case and Sierra County's apparent desperation for economic stimulation, I'm greatly relieved and a little surprised no one has had the idea of re-creating the "Toy Box" as a museum piece - at least that we know of.
 
Lessons from that horrifying history seem limited to: A) Gosh, we sure hope that's history; and B) "Let this serve as a warning to girls." 

It's infuriatingly common to hear that this is what happens when girls do X, Y or Z.  Such victim-blaming is blazingly evident in the justice system and the Ray trials.*

The focus on the victim and her part in sex crimes doesn't change behavior - least of all men's behavior toward women and girls.  But it does evoke generalized fear and suspicion on the part of one-half the population toward the other. This is hardly the basis for a healthy community but it's great for gun sales. 

Pleasant and un-prurient interests abound in Sierra County, as fiesta dresses remind me.  The Geronimo Springs Museum also has a most fabulous pottery collection, including a Mimbres Black-on-White pot with an exquisite crossword puzzle-like design - as if the artist was tripping and picturing a New York Times of the future. But the fiesta dresses are my personal favorite.

My Mother, Aunts and every other female I knew had a fiesta dress or three during the day.  These particular rick-rack on-net artifacts of the 50's home sewing era were winners of T or C's annual Fiesta Dress competition. They're kept lovingly dusted and displayed in the "Barbara and Ralph Edwards Suite" along with fifty plus years worth of parade and pagent memorabilia - walls full of B-movie stars' signed photos and smiling fifty faces of Miss Fiestas.

Ralph Edwards died in 2005 and in the 2006 parade the Sierra County Sheriff's Posse honored him with a riderless horse. The Fiesta event has cooled as the town struggles with finances in the absence of Edwards's largesse. But they're still crowning "Miss Fiesta" every year.

 

*For a detailed account see Consequences: The Criminal Case of David Parker Ray, by J.E. Sparks.  But better yet, don't.  Take a picnic or go to the museum where you won't see a thing about it.

More Dam Desert Diary - Spaceport

"For a fancypants spaceport this isn't much of a road."

Greetings from beautiful Truth or Consequences New Mexico, formerly Hot Springs.  I like the old name better but I wasn't around in 1950.  Just thank goodness it wasn't "To Tell The Truth" or  they'd be calling it The City of TTTT.  "Let's Make Deal," or "The Price is Right" would imply the government is corrupt.  And who would want to live in "Jeopardy?" 

There is hope and optimism about the Spaceport around here. It's probably not unlike the dreams associated with gold in the hills, health in the hot springs, and happy Hollywood gameshows that spurred speculation here in the past. 

At least the road to the Spaceport is paved from TorC.  Take that, Las Cruces.  From that direction it's Journada del Muerto all over again for passenger cars.  We're going from wagons and trains straight to rockets and skipping highways altogether.

It doesn't look like much from a distance.  Big dog and I walked a little stretch of the actual Journada del Muerto from BLM's Yost Escarpment Trail. The escarpment - once an obstacle for freight wagons - now offers a view of the Spaceport. You can't see the runways so it looks like just another casino. I suppose it is in a way. Wait.  A casino would have a road.

 

Turtleback Mountain Diary Vol.1 Dam Walking

I dreamed Governor Susana Martinez was on a broomstick flying above all the little people on Elephant Butte Dam. 

The Albuquerque Journal was at the Elephant Butte Dam Walk and so was I. Their thoroughly unsnarky and factual account begs amendment.

The weather was wonderful which is a big reason there are a lot of people in this part of Sierra County, if you can call 7,500 a lot.  Turn out for the event was tremendous. Possibly all 7,500 people were there. Paranoia Security meant restricting access to the dam after 9/11 and restricting access to anything makes it more desirable. 

Volunteers did a great job but there were shuttle buses involved.  The first shuttle for non-VIPs was from parking to the restaurant and recreation area for ceremonies, including a stirring rendition of all thirty three verses of Oh Fair New Mexico. The second was a shuttle to the dam itself.  Again, for all but VIPs and invalids, there was a long disorganized wait.  A meaner crowd might have mutinied. But this is New Mexico and mostly everyone was relaxed. Many, including those for whom the buses invoked painful childhood memories of bullying, walked to the dam.

It was one shuttle too many for at least a couple of impatient yankees disappointed they didn't get to see the Governor  - not that she was expected, but whatever.  They didn't want to walk or wait and didn't make it to the dam.  Instead they drove to the overlook to burn one and watch people, like tiny ants, moving back and forth across the top of the giant structure.

 

Packing Cleaning Shrinking

New York Times story and related bits about making natural tinctures and perfumes is interesting and nicely distracting from packing and cleaning.   Just saying "tinctures" is fun if you pronounce it like the witch says "and your little dog too!"

It doesn't take much to be distracted from loathsome tasks.  Like by Amanda Knox's family on Oprah.

Or dealing with rugs and blankets.  First I had to clean them and that was a circus.  Then I wanted to properly inventory them, which was good for two or three days of study of wool raising practices of the Navajo in the Four-corners region and the obvious and subtle differences between their rugs and much less valuable rugs woven in Mexico.  Like, it turns out, most of mine.  

Clothes packing is a special challenge.  My mighty collection that once filled four closets must now be winnowed onto an eight-foot closet rod.   First I thinned out the damaged, stained and worn.  Then I addressed the various emotional aspects associated with certain pieces, like why I was keeping a twenty year-old wedding dress.  Throw pillows! 

If I could turn it all into Barbie clothes, everything would fit.

For that matter, if I was twelve inches tall my i-house would seem a lot bigger.  This calls for more research.

Life Without the Web

James Sturm, writer-illustrator-cartoonist.  He's been offline for four weeks and draws about it for Slate.  

The Masters and Lake Mead

When asked what I'm doing now that I'm retired, I try to answer differently each time.  This week - hooping and tai chi.  At the same time - to keep thoughts away from the mind-numbingly slow i-house installation.  Don't.  Ask.

John Fleck notes water levels reaching historic lows and says time's up for Lake Mead. 

The Las Vegas Review Journal says Southern Nevada Water Authoritarian, Patricia Mulroy, told members of the House Committee on Water and Power that all we need is love cooperation.  Now that she doesn't have a clear shot at that rural north water stealing pipeline, she's talking all nice about the spirit of togetherness with the other six Colorado River Basin states. 

But the Review-Journal story catches her warning tone:

Right now, the states have agreements in place that parcel out shortages in stages should Lake Mead continue to shrink another 75 feet. But no rules yet exist beyond that once-unthinkable water level, which will see power generation cease at Hoover Dam and leave Lake Mead with barely enough water in it to supply a single year's worth of downstream demand.  "These are the conditions under which we are going to be testing these relationships we have established," [Mulroy] said."

The I-House Positioned - Tardis Landed

After watching multiple episodes of Dr. Who, I've begun to see similarities with the tardis.  In apparent size at least.  

Positioning a time machine might have been much easier.  Especially if I hadn't built the fences first. (Necessary to control the velociraptors mares, of course.) 

Here, the flex room and deck dramatically inch into place - no inch to spare. 

I was watching the ninth Dr. Who, Christopher Eccleston.  His latest regeneration as the eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith, premiered this month.

The I-House Delivered

 

Down Alameda Boulevard, up old Route 66, under trees, along the canal and over the ditch the i-house boat was delivered to my little sea of grass in two pieces. 

It forced drivers on Alameda to drive the speed limit for the first time ever.   

Delightful delivery man noted how much heavier it is than a conventional modular home.  To prove the point, it began listing starboard at the ranchito entrance and came perilously close to a steel gate post as it sunk into the sand.

In the last photo, Big looks longingly for a cube of his own.  The horses were singularly unimpressed and threatened to eat both units overnight. They also suggested a new storage barn. Pronto.