Daydreamer

August 28, 2022

Howdy folks,

Our hunt for green chiles continues and Erin scored another 25# box this week. She finally was able to locate a box of 'mediums' that she has been looking for. A couple of weeks ago she tried a box of 'hots' and dehydrated them all. These can now be reconstituted with water or ground down into a powder as is. This time she had them roasted right outside of the grocery store(a unique feature of late summer life in New Mexico) and then brought them home and canned them all in a saltwater/vinegar solution, after first cleaning them and peeling the skins off. Every grocery store this time of year out here has roasters outside to roast whole boxes of chiles for anyone who buys them there and wants them that way. You can even see roadside stands set up here, there and everywhere doing the same thing. Now, we're up to 50# of wonderful New Mexico chiles that we've processed in the last few weeks. And just like that, when we stopped at the store again on Saturday, the roasters were tarped and there wasn't a chile to be found inside. On top of all the chiles, the garden keeps churning out produce day after day. We didn't have much of a tomato crop, and only a few peppers of our own, but everything else is just going gangbusters...especially green beans and all the various kinds of leafy vegetables that are planted! Erin keeps experimenting with ways to keep the tomatoes and peppers warm on the cool, high desert nights that we have out here, including water walls and tents, but she's still not getting the success like she had back East in humid Pennsylvania. It's hard when even a hot, 90-degree day can wind up back down at 60, or even 55, by dawn. The weather's fallen back into a mostly dry pattern and we haven't been seeing very much rain. We did get an afternoon thunderstorm on Friday, but otherwise there has been no weather to report. The week started out in the 70s and rose up into the 80s over the weekend. Nights are still hovering in that 55 to 60-degree range. The mosquitos are formidable again, after getting so much rain, day after day, a few weeks ago. You just about can't stand being outside at all, but I will say that the hot, mid-afternoon sun over the weekend seemed to finally keep them at bay. It will just take some more rain to keep those little buggers going until we start getting colder at night and begin to fall back into autumn's embrace again. I've gone from sweating myself to sleep at night in the high monsoon humidity of the last two months, awaking cooled off and refreshed, to now that the humidity is disappearing and we find ourselves starting to reach for the blankets again.

I've been broadening our walks with the dogs little by little again, venturing just a little bit outside of the open areas around the houses. We've done a few driveway loops and some pasture jailbreaks(while the horses were corralled on the other side) that led out to the horse ponds. I'm still a little leery of letting them completely tear ass through all of the now very tall grasses, but I definitely will not led them head to the north a few tenths of a mile to where the land rises up and gets very rocky...and much more snakey! On really hot days this doesn't bother them in the least, as even short walks makes their tongues start dragging, but as the daily highs have started coming down, they've really been wanting to run! We've still only had that one week where we were seeing rattlesnakes, but we're not quite out of the woods yet, so prudence must be maintained. And, speaking of traipsing around the woods, my friend, Valentin, and I have finally set a date to hike the mesa again and are going to be doing it on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. We've been going back and forth on doing this for the second time(first time a year ago...check out 8/15/21) ever since the beginning of July and always have decided for various reasons to postpone or cancel each weekend. It was usually because of the heat, but also once because of flooding, but most often it was because we were both just too damn tired to move after a week of breaking up rocks and doing all the other hard work around the jobsite. Last year his Dad drove us out to the graveyard just south of San Jose, along the Amtrak line, and then drove us west right alongside of it until we got to the first big arroyo coming down off the mountain that warranted a bridge for the train tracks. We'll probably start at the same point again this time, but have yet to determine our exact route to the top...three miles on up the trail and 1600' higher in elevation.

Now, here's another batch of pictures for your enjoyment. First up, one of my photo creations...I was way too perky(annoying) one Saturday morning at about 6am and this was the response that I got! Then, a shot of Old Bucky napping on the inside with Bootsie(pregnant again!) on the outside. Next, a series of seven shots of the dogs: everyone(Ela's hidden) looking to see if Mama was going inside; next, my two summer walkers(Rui often stays home or just lingers around the garden); then, Ela & I caught napping by Erin; next, Willow lounging on the back of the couch, waiting for the sun and the temperature to go back down; and, finally, a shot of Ela, Rui and Willow with their new Southwestern scarves that we just found for them at Big R. Then, a shot of Freedom and I hanging out with each other during one of the feeding times. Next, the girls out looking for trouble around the Boneyard(where all the extra stuff ends up at the jobsite). Then, the aforementioned chile roasters outside of the Lowe's Market that we shop at in Las Vegas. Next, a closeup of the pile of found things that sits on top of our coffee table. Then, a closeup of the many yellow flowers that are in bloom right now(on top of the sunflowers, too). And, finally, a shot of the center console of my yellow Mercedes: I only had one window that didn't work a few weeks ago, now I only have one that does...and it mostly involves the wires and switches in this picture!

See ya next time.