The News from Black Lake

Front porch this week

At broadcast time it is a minus 30.3 outside and I have just proven that warm coffee tossed into the air will become a brown mist instantly. Such things are important to know. For me this morning it means I am not going outside until the sun comes up. The temperature is forecast to rise to a positive 21 degrees, which after being in the single digits or below for the last three days, will be positively balmy. And no the snow has not melted off, but the 15 inches we received has compacted and/or evaporated because of the cold to about 7 inches.

Chatting on line to friends in other parts of the country I have found a lot of misunderstandings about New Mexico. Even the national news was saying this huge storm went from Texas to Maine. We're the void to the west of Texas. And a whole group of people think New Mexico is desert. So I Googled up a satellite map this morning of my part of the state. There is an awful lot of errors. Google got the name of only one road correct. Well, maybe two.


View Larger Map

Notice that everything is green (currently under snow it is all white). The darker green is primarily Ponderosa pines and firs and spruce. Forest. I live at approximately 8580 feet above sea level in the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

View across road
I live on a county maintained improved dirt road just off a paved state road and only 5 miles from Angel Fire which is a ski resort town that is currently getting more famous for its golf course and the increasing number of artists with studios and galleries in the area. The reward for living here winters is that summers are fantastic with the temperatures in the low to mid 80's during the day and dropping to the 40's and 50's at night. No air conditioners. Also no fleas, ticks, and cockroaches ergo to polluting bug sprays.

So what happens in greater downtown Black Lake? Not much. Big news this week was the snow - long over due this winter - and whose pipes froze or didn't freeze with these unusually Arctic temperatures. Several chats on the phone about how behind the man with the plow was. But unlike our eastern countrymen (yes, we are part of the United States - one of the 50 since 1912 but then it was 48) we are amazingly prepared and wonderfully self-sufficient. So we don't make the news often. And we rather like that.

Comments

  1. Terry RoweFebruary 3, 2011 at 5:13 AM

    Staying a hidden paradise is sometimes a good thing. Amazing how little we know our own country. I have a small house on the Eastern Shore of Virginia - and I can't tell you how often people (even Virginians) ask me "where is that?" ~Terry

    ReplyDelete

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