First Tracks

January 1, 2023

Hello again,

Another week has passed us by without even pausing on its way.  The weather has leveled out with more of a roughly 50/30F split most every day.  However, the wind, which has been no stranger again for the last month or two, was blasting us all week long with most days averaging a steady wind of 25-30mph.  On two of those day(and nights!) it hovered closer to the 50mph mark for hours at a time and was even gusting all the way up to 75mph!  We even got a little snow on Wednesday night.  We tend to be on the less-snowy side of the mountains, as we sit facing to the east and the Plains, and the western slopes tend to get much more snow than us.  That and Glorieta(which is on our side of the mountains), between where we're at and Santa Fe, that sits much higher and is its own weather province within the state because the weather can be so volatile there and different from everywhere else.  We sit within the Northeast Highlands, and that is a decent-sized piece of territory, but Glorieta itself gets its own special recognition.  In any event, a lot of storms track to the east or northeast and til they get over the Rockies to us there may or may not be any moisture or oomph left to deposit any snow on the ground.  Plus, we sit at a very interesting crossroads between the plains and mountains and the desert and the river valleys, and we quite often are warmer than Albuquerque or colder than Taos, or the opposite, or both in the same day even!  What we have learned in the last two years, though, is to always have a small bag of clothes with you in the car just in case the weather changes and you need: a sunhat; a warm hat; a raincoat; socks; pants; shorts; flip-flops; boots; etc...you get the idea.  At work, doing construction mostly outside, it is nothing to start with three or four layers on, strip down to one or two by lunchtime, then add one right after lunch as you're digesting and until it's finally time to go you've got your whole outfit back on that you started with!  I finally got our generator out of storage, with the help of my friend, Valentin, and used it up at work for a few days just to run it again before bringing it back down to our front stoop with the tractor and keeping it right there in case we get a rare loss of power from all the wind that we've been getting.  When I walked out the other morning I saw that the wind had blown the cover off and away to points unknown and that our front coyote fence was leaning in towards our casita at about a 45 degree angle.  Amazingly, after assuming that the cover was long gone, the boss just found it this morning, stuck in a tree out by where we feed the horses, some 1500' away!

Up at work we finally got done making all the square and rectangular stone pieces that we need for our final patio and few random steps and stepping stones that we still need to put in yet.  We began the week by mortaring Valentin's third fancy-stone patio, with his curvy designs, all in one day(this was Tuesday...we didn't get Monday off but took it anyway, btw).  After mixing some thirty 80# bags of mortar mix or so with a big paddle mixer in a five gallon bucket, it was all I could do to trudge back down the hill to let the dogs out after work.  By Friday we had reached our goal of 232 cut pieces of flagstone that we needed and now will have to mortar them into place this week.  I probably cut 80% of the stones myself, maybe even more, before Valentin finally started making them, too, once the third patio was done.  Little by little, things are getting nearer and nearer to being wrapped up.  It will be interesting to see how soon I will have to start driving back in to Santa Fe every day to work on the other projects that are going on.  Erin's gigs have leveled off to some degree, with one in Santa Fe staying constant, but the other one in town should be starting back up again soon when they get back from Arizona in a month or so and she found one in Glorieta that she's interested in trying out.  The house is still overrun with cats and they are really getting into everything, with the older kittens making sure that they are teaching the younger ones all the tricks.  We're rapidly approaching a point where we're going to have to start making them spend some time outside during the day, so that they can get used to it and not instantly turn into coyote food the first night that they're outside.  Still, it's been quite a blast to watch all of the little buggers and they always instantly bring a smile to your face.  Erin just brought the little ones downstairs last Sunday and already they are running the place...it took them about 36 hours to lose their bashfulness, maybe even less!

Now, I've assembled another batch of pictures for everyone to enjoy, sharing what I saw this week.  First up, a shot that I played around with from the other night when I was putting the tractor away and Venus was briefly visible right over my cars after sunset.  Then, two shots of the dogs: first, having fun climbing around in the hay barn; then, Rui sitting on my chaise with me, mugging for the camera.  Next, six shots of the horses from Thursday morning, in the middle of a windstorm, when the horses demanded being fed right there in the trees and not out in the open at the feeders: first, Hidalgo eating out of the buggy; then, Rosie and Blossom eating with Starvation Peak in the background; then, just Rosie; now, viewed from the other side, you can see the rest of the crew behind them; next, Xena, Freedom & Felipe under one tree; and, finally, Annie, Hidalgo, Milagros & Negrita all chowing down, comfortably out of the wind.  Then, two shots from the jobsite: first, our assembled stacks of 232 stones; then, the melting snow coming off of the big, butterfly roof in the sunlight.  And, finally, five different landscape shots: first, the sunrise right before I fed the horses on Thursday morning; then, an equally beautiful sunrise from the next morning; next, a shot of the mesa from up in the quarry that shows the front moving in that brought all of the high winds with it; then, the clouds being driven across the mesa on Saturday morning, even spilling over the side of it further upriver, to the right of our mesa; and, lastly, a shot of the windmill working its magic in the non-stop winds that dominate this crazy spot where the Rockies end and the Plains begin.

Take care!