Spring Day

May 23, 2021

Hello everyone,

Not much to report on this week, other than the daily rhythms of the ranch: up with the dogs at dawn; doing the horses before breakfast and then working at the new house all day; Erin cleaning all afternoon; and finally the horses again before dark. In addition, Erin fits in kitten care, birdfeeders, plant watering and the garden, among other errands like running to the post office. It's turned hot and is typically hitting 80F or a little more each day, before cooling off to 50F or even the mid-40Fs at night. The sun is very hot here, but, between the wind usually blowing and going back and forth, in and out, all day, it has thus far not been overbearing. I do see how it could be potentially scorching on some days, but all we have to do is go back inside of our adobe cottage with a concrete floor and cool right off. Actually, we usually have to close all the windows a couple of hours before sunset so that it stays warm enough inside overnight...it's usually in the 60Fs inside when we wake up and you'd swear that it was much less! Still no sign of snakes, but there are little lizards everywhere, as well as jackrabbits, cottontails, ravens, herons, ducks and deer...let alone what we don't see moving around at night. All the plants are blooming and the few deciduous trees that are here are fully leafed out and shimmering in the sunlight with their shiny, new leaves. Everywhere you look are flowers, wildflowers, that is, and they are usually very tiny. The cacti are starting to bloom and one day keeps turning seamlessly into the next.

Now, a few more notes about Las Vegas and this area that we now find ourselves in. Las Vegas, or the meadows in English, was founded in 1835 by families descended from earlier Spanish colonists, some going back as far as the late 1500s. Once the Santa Fe Trail blossomed into life after Mexico became independent from Spain in 1821, this little town of adobe walls and coyote fencing, three days ride from Santa Fe and sitting at the western end of the prairie that then turned into the Staked Plains and then beyond that the buffalo grasslands, starting attracting attention and notice. Ciboleros who hunted buffalo(Cibolo in Mexican Spanish) moved to Las Vegas so that they could easily get out onto the plains while still living under the shadow of the Rockies. The people of the town grew peppers, corn, beans and squash and raised sheep...and attracted the attention of the Navajo, who loved to raid it. One such raid happened on August 12, 1846, just two days before the US Army arrived and declared the town now under the protection of the US...which was on its way to provoke a war with the Mexicans at Santa Fe so that the US could finally have reason to claim New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California as its own and also beat the British to the punch who were looking to purchase outright California, at the very least, if not more. The Navajo swept in at dawn, bareback on horse, or with sheepskin saddles, with reins of braided horsehair and clubs and buckskin shields made out of the thickest part of the hide at the hip. They drove off all the sheep, goats and horses that they could and just as quickly made their way back out of town and up into the hills, but not before killing one young shepherd and abducting another. What a sight to see the Navajo sneak in with their mountain lion-head helmets and arrows dipped in a mixture of rattlesnake blood, prickly pear pulp and charcoal from a lightning-struck tree! We are in the middle of so much history that happened here, the rough and tumble days of frontier uncertainty much more recent here than they were for us back East. Two days after the attack, General Kearney of the US Dragoons(soon to be the US Calvary) had Las Vegas' Alcalde, or mayor, on the roof of a building overlooking the plaza swearing an oath of allegiance to the US and, then, three days after that the army was set up to camp in the ruins of Pecos Pueblo, once the largest of all Pueblo villages with 3000 inhabitants, and lying just before Apache Canyon where the Mexican defenders from Santa Fe waited in ambush. Before leaving Pecos Pueblo, the soldiers became enthralled with the legend of the Fire of Montezuma, which related the ancestry of the Pecos Pueblo people to the Aztecs and of Montezuma himself instructing them to build a permanent fire in one of their sacred kivas until a people arrived from the east to liberate them from the Spanish. Pecos was inhabited for five hundred years and the sacred fire was maintained until 1838 when the last seventeen inhabitants took themselves and their fire sixty miles west to Jemez Pueblo to their nearest relations. Once the Santa Fe Trail opened up the population of Pecos Pueblo dwindled steadily from disease and the survivors of the new pandemics were frequently the target of Comanche raids that stormed in off of the plains, thus bringing a once mighty enclave and trading center to its knees and heralding its subsequent demise...

So, now for some pictures. We start with three different art pieces that I created, a b&w lizard closeup, six flower shots and then end with four sky/cloud shots and two of the latest from the job site. This weekend we're finally going to investigate Pecos Pueblo, and maybe even Fort Union on the other side of Las Vegas...we'll report back with tons of pictures and some new stories.

Take care.