Sunday, September 29, 2013

Mending Walls


Weather: Freezing temperatures before dawn; morning will tell; last rain 9/18/2013; 11:49 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, silver lace vine, Russian sage, daturas, zinnias and African marigolds from seed, alfalfa.

Beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, sweet peas, leather-leafed globe mallow, yellow evening primrose, Russian thistle, pigweed, ragweed, chamisa, snakeweed, Hopi tea, Tahoka daisy, gumweed, horseweed, broom senecio, native sunflowers peaked, áñil del muerto, golden hairy, heath and purple asters.

In my yard, looking east: Winecup mallow, Maximilian sunflowers peaked.

Looking south: Rugosa and miniature roses.

Looking west: David phlox peaked, catmint, calamintha, bachelor buttons from seed.

Looking north: Chocolate flowers, blanket flowers, anthemis, chrysanthemums, dahlias.

In the open, along the drive: Fern bush, hollyhock tips, some California poppies, Heavenly blue morning glories, black-eyed Susan, lance-leaf coreopsis, few Mexican hats, Sensation and yellow cosmos.

Bedding plants: Snapdragons, sweet alyssum.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Large and small black ants.


Weekly update: Robert Frost began one of his most famous poems, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." He was referring to depredations made by hunters and Nature. Today, one must add, people who can’t drive.

If you live on a corner, you learn the routine. The engine too loud.  Moving gravel, wire scratching metal. Looking out to make sure no one’s hurt. Usually, the car’s gone, leaving you the mess.


In 1914, the solution was simple. Men remembered how to pile stones to repair a wall, knew they "have to use a spell to make them balance."

Knowledge has been lost. Something must be done to fill the breach.


Even if you built the wall yourself, you brought the materials from elsewhere. Can more be found?


If you hired someone, the answer to "Can the builder be found?" is "Not likely." It’s almost impossible to hire someone to do repairs.


For Frost, repairs fell into the natural cycle. At "spring mending-time," he and his neighbor "meet to walk the line." If you live near a corner, effort is more random.

One man near the village repaired his wall a few years ago.


This summer, someone new missed the turn.


It took six weeks, but he rebuilt, and left a barrier to slow down the next.


Others, make repairs, then install bigger, stronger bumpers.


Frost was puzzled by the need for fences. He thought,

     He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
     My apple trees will never get across
     And eat the cones under his pines

But the neighbor only answered, "Good fences make good neighbors."

The older man knew something Frost hadn’t learned.

Down the road, a small wooden house near a narrows in the road had a cedar board fence 23 pickets wide, or about eleven feet, from the living area.


A few years ago, a car broke through, stopping just short of the house. The tenants gave notice. The owner erected a low lava stone wall at the roadside, then added palings for privacy.


Automobiles do not make good neighbors. And neither do the uneasy spirits left behind.


Frost may dismiss his neighbor as one who

     knows the darkness as it seems to me~
     Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

But darkness exists. ‘Tis better to repair than give in.

Notes: Robert Frost, "Mending Wall" in North of Boston (1914)

Photographs:
1. Cement block wall, 7 August 2011.

2. Adobe wall, 13 January 2012.

3. Barbed wire fence downed by a vehicle, 11 January 2102.

4. After someone drove through the adobe wall, the owner was out with a tractor grinding down the dirt. Then he installed farm gates, 30 January 2012. A year later, the property’s for sale.

5. The cement wall from #1 was repaired after someone drove through it, 17 January 2010.

6. A wooden fence has been replaced with heavy wire mesh, 11 January 2012.

7. Repairs in a cement block wall are marked by differences in paint colors, 18 January 2012.

8. Recently, someone broke through it again, 25 July 2013.

9. The man repaired it, and again paint reveals the scars. He left some remains near the corner as a barrier. 12 September 2013.

10. Down the road, men repaired a mesh fence, and added bigger protective bumper posts, 12 September 2013.

11. Cedar board fence near the house, where a car drove through, 11 January 2012.

12. Replacement lava stone wall, 7 June 2012. The Armco barrier at the arroyo is new.

13. Lava stone wall that was driven through, and repaired. Relatives of the drivers maintain two shrines, 12 September 2013, as carefully as Frost’s neighbor maintained his fence.


14. Sometimes, like Frost, people simply abandon the effort. The cement block wall in #1 was hit again, and this time the hole remains years later, 17 July 2011.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Waterways


Weather: Cooler mornings, rain; 12:10 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, silver lace vine, Russian sage, daturas, zinnias and African marigolds from seed, alfalfa.

Beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, sweet peas, leather-leafed globe mallow, bindweed, greenleaf five-eyes, yellow evening primrose, wild lima beans, clammy weed, lamb’s quarter, Russian thistle, pigweed, ragweed, chamisa, snakeweed, Hopi tea, Tahoka daisy, gumweed, horseweed, broom senecio, native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, golden hairy, heath and purple asters; Indian paintbrush near a chamisa.

In my yard, looking east: Winecup mallow, Maximilian sunflowers; pink evening primroses germinating for next year.

Looking south: Rugosa and miniature roses.

Looking west: Johnson Blue geranium, David phlox, catmints, calamintha, bachelor buttons from seed.

Looking north: Chocolate flowers, blanket flowers, anthemis, chrysanthemum, dahlias.

In the open, along the drive: Fern bush, hollyhock, California poppies, larkspur, Heavenly blue morning glories, black-eyed Susan, lance-leaf coreopsis, few Mexican hats, Sensation and yellow cosmos.

Bedding plants: Snapdragons, sweet alyssum, French marigolds.

Known unknowns: Madcap, the flower at the bottom.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Hummingbird moths, small bees, hornets, large and small black ants.


Weekly update: An arroyo seems such a simple thing. A channel carved by water seeking a lower place.

Every time I return, I think I see something different. When I’m home, I realize I saw it before, and forgot. I repeat myself. Yet when I went out yesterday, after three weeks of rain, I was sure there were differences.

Geology began the enterprise and still controls through changes in elevation that alter flows of water. The far arroyo washes up from the south, widens and narrows, widens and narrows. Below a fault line marked by a line of harder rocks, the water shifts to the right, where it’s carved steep banks.


Water washes off the edge, eroding the base, and undercutting the bank some more.


Here and there, water moves down from the hills through breaks it made.


Then man built a road, that channeled more water into a canyon.


Where the water enters, the recent rains cut a channel a foot high. Every year they create a sharp edge, that’s smoothed by the winds and gravity.


Over time, the bottom widened, chamisa sprouted in higher places. Its islands perpetuate their heightened elevation.


Water leaves its mark, for nothing grows where it moves. The flood banks along the side are covered with an annual grass, seven-week grama. It’s denser near the road crossing and the tributary canyons, and thins between.


Climb up the bank, and the grass grows near the arroyo edge, where the land is flatter, and water lingers.


Farther away, the slope is steeper. Only late summer ring muhly grass and Russian thistles have sprouted.


Few flowers are blooming. It’s late in the season. The chamisa, broom senecio, purple asters and snakeweed always arrive this time of year. But, here and there, something is blooming that has been dormant for several seasons.


Photographs: All pictures taken yesterday, 21 September 2013.

1. Wash entering the arroyo with large purple aster and yellow broom senecio.

2. Looking from the cholla flats across to the Russian thistle covered hills; yellow snakeweed.

3. Steep arroyo walls, right bank; water begins to carve a channel, indicated by the steps in the center. The channel then erodes the base of the bank, making it higher. Mainly four-winged saltbush at base.

4. The water meets a project of the right bank, the channel ends, and the water flows toward the center. The vertical scored in the bank are caused by water running down from the prairie above. Chamisa islands in the center of the arroyo.

5. Seven-week grama marks the path water has carved in the prairie edge as it moves down into the arroyo. Winterfat and other shrubby plants mark the junction. Chamisa islands are in the arroyo center.

6. Right flood bank where the ranch road enters; covered in places with seven-week grama; shrubs grow at the base of the bank where water falls, then remains in shadows.

7. Channel edge downstream from the ranch road. Layers of gravel alternate with sandy loam. The gravel falls out and marks the waterway. The water undercuts the bank, and it eventually falls, widening that section of the arroyo level. Overexposed to show the strata in shadow.

8. Water paths between the right chamisa island and the right flood plain, downstream from the ranch road. Some perennial grama is blooming in front.

9. Right flood plain between the ranch road and the small natural channel, covered with seven-week grama. Chamisa and some yellow áñil del muerto.

10. Prairie above the natural channel. Seven-week grama in front, with some stickleafs and snakeweed. At the back, channels made by ATVs. Across the ranch road, Russian thistles grow on the slope.

11. Close up of the Russian thistle that has grown between existing dead grass clumps. The brown heads are late-season ring muhly grass.

12. Indian paintbrush. I last saw one in the arroyo last May (2012) before the drought began.


13. An unknown flower; although I know it has bloomed in places around the arroyo more recently, the last time this plant bloomed was May of 2009. It grows on the left flood plain before the wash and ranch road enter.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Rain


Weather: Rain; 13:29 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, bird of paradise, silver lace vine, Russian sage, roses of Sharon, zinnias and African marigolds from seed, alfalfa.

Beyond the walls and fences: Trumpet creeper, sweet peas, leather-leafed globe mallow, bindweed, greenleaf five-eyes, yellow evening primrose, Russian thistle, pigweed, ragweed, Hopi tea, Tahoka daisy, gumweed, horseweed, goldenrod, native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, golden hairy and heath asters.

In my yard, looking east: Hosta, coral bells, winecup mallow, Maximilian sunflowers.

Looking south: Rugosa, floribunda and miniature roses.

Looking west: Caryopteris, Johnson Blue geranium, David phlox, catmints, calamintha, sea lavender, lead plant, bachelor buttons from seed, Mönch aster.

Looking north: Golden spur columbine, chocolate flowers, blanket flowers, anthemis, chrysanthemum, dahlias.

In the open, along the drive: Fern bush, Dutch clover, hollyhock, Shirley and California poppies, larkspur, black-eyed Susan, lance-leaf coreopsis, yellow, red and mixed Mexican hats, Sensation and yellow cosmos.

Bedding plants: Wax begonias, snapdragons, sweet alyssum, French marigolds, gazanias.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Hummingbird moths, small bees, hornets, large and small black ants.


Weekly update: You know you’re in trouble when the weather service warns there will be an "impressive late season monsoonal surge for much of the work week."

Impressive!

To a weatherman, who has been sending out warnings for the past month that:

"National Weather service Doppler radar indicated heavy rain north of Los Alamos and over the Santa Clara creek. This will impact the northern Las Conchas burn scar and the area to the east of the burn scar...including but not limited to Santa Clara Canyon."

And went so far as report on September 1:

"Law enforcement officials reported a 6 to 7 foot surge of water moving through the Santa Clara Creek channel at Santa Clara pueblo at state road 30. The storm runoff was within the stream channel and no significant flooding impacts were observed."

Impressive! As they say, batten down the hatches.

It had already been raining. The Río Grande was running rust red. What more can happen?


More rain. Friday the weathermen reported:

"Emergency management reported a mud slide on highway 502 at Totavi gas station and numerous arroyos flowing across highway 30 at bank full." The one’s at the base before the road climbs to Los Alamos, the other’s the road from Española to 502.


Later they indicated there had been "a rock slide on highway 68 between Taos and Española has closed the road."

That did it. It was nearly 1 pm. The rain was letting up for a moment. I got in the car to see what could be seen.

The surges from the heavy rains of the morning had passed. The local arroyos were running, but not fast or high.


Arroyo Seco wasn’t deep, but it seemed faster at the bridge. In both it and the near arroyo, I could see lines of white where the water was cutting its channel.


The bridges were roaring.


They constrict the flow on one side, release it in gushes on the other. The ditches created rapids were they had earlier dropped stones.


The Santa Clara river and arroyos along the road to Los Alamos were receding. Some that may have been running high in the morning were only wet and speckled with black from the fire debris upstream.


A few hours after the banks were full, no sign of crisis.

Like everything else, floods are different here.

Along the Mississippi, they build slowly. It starts to rain in the north, perhaps in early spring when the ground is frozen. It can take weeks for water to disappear and roads reopen.

Snow melts. Water runs down the tributaries. It takes time for waters to reach flood stage in Louisiana.

Floods here happen during the rain, not after.

Usually, the threat begins in late summer, not spring. The ground is dry. If the first rains are heavy, they can slide over the soil and collect fast. Otherwise, water from each storm sinks a bit deeper.

This year’s floods have been caused by fires that baked the soils. The glazed surface cannot absorb much water. Flows are magnified. The floods Friday began in the canyons of the Las Conchas fire, the Los Alamos, Guaje and Santa Clara.

There’s no question floods here can be destructive. Water moves down hill. All the land here is either on a slope or at the base of a slope. It doesn’t need an arroyo. A road will do. Upper side roads flood the main road, they all flood the lower roads. Water runs down drives into garages, houses and wells.


Water falls into empty irrigation ditches. The dirt ones absorb what they can, the concrete ones move it along. It lands in my local arroyos. Banks collapse.


People learn. The closer I got to the village, the less the roads were flooded. Partly, their land is more level. Partly, they avoided the hilly lands, the only ones available for newer homes.

Everyone has heard the mass media warnings about flash floods in arroyos. More, they probably have heard stories from friends about people who died in flipped cars, people who were kin to people they knew. They may still cross a running arroyo, but they consider it first.


The rains continue. Tropical storms exist on both sides of México. The weather service was reporting yesterday, "a significant rise of water on the Rio Grande river" and that a "wave of water will reach a peak in Albuquerque" in the evening.

As I post this, there has been thunder and lightening for more than an hour. Rain sometimes sounds on the metal roof. We’ll see what daylight brings.

Notes: Impressive from weather report of 8 September 2013. Burn scar from 6 August 2013. Surge from 1 September 2013.  Albuquerque warnings from 14 September 2013.


Photographs:
1. Irrigation ditch near Río Grande in Española, 13 September 2013

2. Río Grande in Española, 13 September 2013

3. Close up of Río Grande in Española, 13 September 2013

4. Arroyo flowing between route 30 and Río Grande near Black Mea, 13 September 2013

5. Prairie arroyo, 13 September 2013

6. Island in near arroyo, 13 September 2013; water cut a section of the island edge as I was standing on the bank so wet, my feet were sinking

7. Same arroyo flowing toward bridge under road, 13 September 2013

8. Arroyo Seco at point where an irrigation ditch drops debris when it enters, 13 September 2013

9. Arroyo between route 30 and the badlands, 13 September 2013

10. Side road near village, 13 September 2013

11. Irrigation ditch dumping into near arroyo on the other side of the bridge in # 7 above, September 2013; the brown culvert is carrying the remaining water to the prairie arroyo

12. Arroyo between route 30 and Río Grande, 13 September 2013; the road is probably the old railroad bed that now goes through the arroyo to a house on the other side

13. Río Galisteo near highway on San Domingo land, 14 September 2013


14. Arroyo near San Felipe exit on highway to Albuquerque, 14 September 2013

Sunday, September 08, 2013

Plants Tattle


Weather: Cloudy afternoons, cooler dawns; last rain 8/30/2013; 13:39 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, bird of paradise, silver lace vine, Russian sage, roses of Sharon, zinnias and African marigolds from seed, cultivated sunflowers, alfalfa.

Beyond the walls and fences: Trumpet creeper, sweet peas, buffalo gourd, purple mat flower, leather-leafed globe mallow, bindweed, greenleaf five-eyes, ivy-leaf morning glory, silver-leaf nightshade, velvetweed, yellow evening primrose, Russian thistle, pigweed, ragweed, Hopi tea, Tahoka daisy, golden hairy aster, gumweed, horseweed, goldenrod, native sunflowers, áñil del muerto.

In my yard, looking east: Hosta, baby’s breath, coral bells, winecup mallow, Maximilian sunflowers.

Looking south: Rugosa, floribunda and miniature roses.

Looking west: Caryopteris, Johnson Blue geranium, David phlox, catmints, calamintha, sea lavender, ladybells, lead plant, bachelor buttons from seed, Mönch aster.

Looking north: Golden spur columbine, chocolate flowers, blanket flowers, anthemis, chrysanthemum, dahlias.

In the open, along the drive: Fern bush, Dutch clover, hollyhock, Shirley and California poppies, larkspur, black-eyed Susan, lance-leaf coreopsis, yellow, red and mixed Mexican hats, Sensation and yellow cosmos.

Bedding plants: Wax begonias, snapdragons, sweet alyssum, French marigolds, gazanias.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Small bees, hornets, small black ants.


Weekly update: Once upon a time, you knew when someone died. They hung something black outside the house.

Then, people didn’t want funerals announced in the newspaper, lest some thief take advantage.

Here, each house is isolated from its neighbors. No signals are sent, except at Christmas. But, you still know when someone has died. Nature tells you.

The first sign something had happened somewhere walked into my yard a few years ago. The small black cat ran if it saw me, but came every day to lay under my peach and wait for a bird.


When I grew tired of feathers, I started putting out food. It knew what dry cat food was. It knew the sound of dried cat food hitting the dish. It knew there were such things as regular meal times. It wasn’t feral, only homeless.

I asked a neighbor if he knew to whom it belonged. He’d seen the animal, but only guessed a place up the road.

I started looking for signs of abandonment at the place he mentioned. They’re not easy to see in an area where so many let weeds grow wild part of the year.


Then, I saw a middle aged woman standing alone in the drive. Something about the set of her shoulders signaled despair. She looked like someone who had lost a mother or daughter and was returning to clean our her last home.

I continued to glance at the place when I drove by. I knew I only had novelistic fancies about what had happened. And a hungry cat that wouldn’t come into the house on the coldest night of winter.

Whoever had lived there had once spent time on the yard. A mixed planting of yuccas and evergreens grew near the road.


Nearer the house, a circle had been planted with iris, hollyhocks, and taller evergreens.


Spring a year ago I saw a man pruning the Russian olives. A chain saw is often the first sign property has changed hands.  Some new owners seem to feel a need to prove they own a piece of land by eradicating whatever the previous own had done.


This spring, he was out with a torch, burning the grasses.


And the weeds, and whatever else seemed dead.


The novelist begins to conjure stories about family relations. Was he the brother of the woman, or her husband. Was he simply treating the weeds the way he’s been taught?

Or, was he working out some deep resentments against a woman who'd dared care about something besides him?

Or, was he simply still mad at a woman who demanded her son-in-law help with the heavy lifting?

Plants suggest possibilities, but remain indifferent. One burned area had been needle grass. Scurf peas came back. They were growing along the road. Apparently the seeds had been accumulating, waiting for the right opportunity.


In the xeric planting, the yucca survived.


It hasn’t been a good year for them.  It’s hard to know how much of its condition is due to climate and how much to fire.

Bindweed has taken over the areas between. It too was growing elsewhere and biding its chance.


Hollyhocks nearer the house have been thriving with this year’s late summer rain. Otherwise, things are back to normal. The dead trees have not been cut.


No matter how much I imagine, I still don’t know anything more than something happened. No two people ever treat plants and the landscape the same. You always know when something changes.

The cat continues to show up. I think someone else is also feeding it. A year ago it sometimes wanted to have its ears scratched. This year, it has grown more independent of humans, more feral. But it still knows dry cat food and where to find it.


Photographs:
1. Broad-leaved yuccas blooming at house down the road, 8 May 2012.

2. Christmas wreath at same house, 20 November 2011.

3. Homeless cat hiding in my yard, 22 June 2011.

4. Russian thistles accumulated in corner of house down the road, 30 March 2013.

5. Xeric planting, 20 December 2011. Broad-leaved yucca, evergreens, volunteer four-winged saltbushes

6. House circle marked by rail timbers, 8 May 2012. Blue and peach-flowered iris plants, evergreens, a red-leaved tree, and other shrubs.

7. Russian olive pruned into tree form, 19 April 2012.

8. Burned grasses, 11 April 2013.

9. Burned trees on the outer edge of the house circle, 11 April 2013.

10. Scurf peas growing amongst remains of burned grasses, 14 May 2013.

11. Burned yucca, 11 April 2013.

12. Xeric planting, with bindweed and snakeweed growing between the yucca and surviving evergreens, 24 August 2013.

13. Hollyhocks in overgrown circle, 24 August 2013.

14. Cat, 31 May 2012.