Sidetracked Charley

One of my favorite lines from Pirates of the Caribbean. And very good advice for anyone, but especially for those living close to nature and far from emergency help. Or vacationing here. Between my father with his survival training, training as a pilot, and living and working in an area surrounded by mountains and forests I am probably more alert to my surroundings than the average. And that is before adding the photographer part. All that is probably also why I have never bonded with my cell phone, which is an antiquated flip phone with no bells and whistles. And I cannot see me ever getting a smart phone. Frankly, they are dumb, because if you are zoned in on taking that selfie you are unaware of the cliff behind you. Or the smoke filling the horizon, or the massive thunderhead building uphill on the trail you are following. Setting off for a slot canyon hike south of Kodachrome State Park in Utah my sister and I were busy strapping on camera bags and clipping on water b...

Microburst garden shed  Yesterday morning I had a perfect idea for a return to my usual That-was-the-week-that-was Monday blog. Then came the NOAA warning about a winter storm. Give me a break. It is April. The winds of Sunday made it clear I did not have the poly tunnel laced down correctly so I dashed out as soon as dawn, and before the winds came up to remedy that. And apply duct tape. Poly Tunnel before duct tape The winter storm watch had also upset my neighbor. She wanted her doggie doors replaced before the storm was scheduled and so I was off to do that repair. More to be done at my house but money is always good. I had all my quiche prep done for the order placed for them. I figured I could assemble and bake at lunch so off I went to replace very badly installed dog doors. No wonder they leaked wind and self-destructed under use in record time. And she paid a licensed and bonded handyman to do them. Dog door one down and I came back to my house...

My turn to whine I got a flat tire today. Well, it didn't get exactly flat but it was on its way to there when I noticed it and swung by one of the three places I can put air in it. Actually I swung by two. One was out of order. I think one is always out of order. And the other took quarters of which I had none. By the time I waited out the people getting gas (let me mention they put the air machine in absolutely the wrong place by the gas pumps) and got change for it the tire was really close to flat. And as I am filling it up I notice the huge nail. So off to my mechanic. I have awful luck with tires. I have hardly ever gotten a puncture that can be plugged. Always on the sidewall or like this one too close to be safely plugged. So I have to buy a new tire. Well, actually two. It was a snow tire that was punctured and it is about time to take them off anyway. The new tires will not be here until Wednesday so I am running around on that little donut they call a spare. That ...

Rain Clouds Gathering I think in the history of this blog I have written about weather on more than one occasion, but maybe not as frequently as I have winter. As Mark Twain said, ". . . man bites dog is news." And this has definitely been a news worthy period for weather even if the west has not made the headlines. All the weather we have sent east has, however. For the easterners it all seems to come as a huge surprise. If you live in the rural mountain west, however, you are a weather watcher. Our lives and likelihoods depend upon the weather. And we do not stay bottled up in climate controlled sky scrapers. I had the winter emergency box ready go to the trunk of the car in October. We can get our first significant snow on or before Halloween. The first snow on the roads is always the most treacherous. But by the first week in December we still had not gotten that significant snow. And the ski areas could not even make snow consistently because the nights were t...

Ravens flying over Lake Coyote Last winter about this time I was blogging about Lake Coyote - the huge ice damn downstream had backed up the Little Coyote stream creating a huge ice lake in my back yard. This winter the Little Coyote is still within its banks and covered with a relatively thin coat of ice. Snow has actually been rare. So rare I got my camera out to record this 6 inch blanket in the last week. Yesterday the temperature was about 43F at my house and so much of this is gone like the 10 inch one we got in December. Today is going to be in the 40's again. In fact no significant weather for the next 10 days. It has thrown a spanner into my winter aerobics program of snow shoveling the driveway! And locals have already shifted from talking about the weather to worrying about the summer fire season in the forest. My sister and I are even contemplating taking a few days off and taking to the road to visit Chaco or Canyon de Chelle or the Grand Canyon or Monument Val...

Northern New Mexico where I reside can be rather airy-fairy. Taos, just over the mountain, seems to be home of any number of crystal healers, card readers, tarot casters, etc. But my more grounded side has its forecasters of the future too. The weather prognosticators are rampant in the summer. Everyone has their opinion about whether we are facing a bad winter or not. The height of the grasses seem not to point to this wet summer but to a wetter winter. Indian tobacco on the other hand seems rather short which means not much snow. But then on a more technically developed level there are the talking heads on the weather channel. Seems we are in an El Nino year. Should mean more snow but it also means warmer so it could be just more rain. But we are on the line between wetter and drier so back to the grasses and the Indian tobacco plants. My sister and I saw several flocks of turkeys with pullets in vast numbers so it should be a great turkey hunt this fall (well, if we don't have ...