Feeding the dream

Within the first month, while I waited for the ship (carrying the baggage) to come in,  I indulged the beautiful lightness of being without stuff by dreaming up a food garden.

I found a seed company which specializes in heritage and native seeds. The best part about their online catalogue is that I can search according to my region and thus find a selection especially suited to the high desert. I ordered a selection, focussing on hot peppers and beans. I am new to this high desert food farming. It is going to be a challenge. i need all the help i can get

I found a starter pack for a heritage seed three sisters garden - corn, beans and squash - from another seed house.

And woke up to a muffled white world. Again.

Hello sun!

Besides the fourteen feral cats breeding under the shed, when the snow melts and I venture out to forage in the debris around the garden, the first gift from the Blue House is a little a smiling sun face ornament cast in some kind of cement.

The sun in this enchanted land is seriously strong. I feel it penetrating layers of epidermis, even this early in the season. My outer layers grow reptilian scaly, wizened and parched.

I am transforming into the ancestral Mother lizard.

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,


dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.”

—Mary Oliver

Frybread and flea marketing on a bleak desert highway

Just outside of town, there is a flea market alongside the highway every Friday Saturday and Sunday.

Guns and junk. Silver jewelry, chipped china plates, Stetson hats and old western boots that have walked many a mile. Just about anything goes.

In late February it was still early in the season for vendors. The wind was gritty with dust and cutting with a snow edge.

 The frybread truck, however, was open for business. Powdered sugar, cinnamon or honey are you self-serve toppings options on the rickety plastic cart beneath the service window.

Refreshingly rez. Frybread power!

Friday riding: my pink Valentine

I celebrated three weeks in a new job by taking my second-hand, salmon pink Valentine out for a ride along the Animas river trails.

I stopped to read the rules and instructions. Of course. I wonder who else does?

The xeriscaping is slightly marred by cigarette butts, even though the parks and open spaces are posted as smoke free zones. Disgusting people. Smokers! Ugh! No respect for their bodies nor the earth.

 The water of lost souls was a dark aquamarine, very cold looking. Donʻt be fooled by the blue skies. Temperatures were hardly above freezing this day.

Lots of older folks were being walked by their dogs at mid-morning on a Friday (first day of my weekend).

Hairy Potter the pug stopped to greet me.

A curious terrier wanted in on the action

Birds of enchantment

One afternoon I look out to see that woodpecker - Gilded Flicker most likely - all fluffed up in the chilly wind.

A little higher in the tree are more American Robins.

IDown on the ground another fine little fellow combining spots, stripes and rusty red:   I suspect a Spotted Towhee.

Voyages of discovery: north

As the snow melts, I take the shiny new Red Pony out for some little exploratory drives.

Looking at landscapes: sagebrush and big skies. Yellow sandstone cliffs. Mesas, buttes and hoodoos like curious mongoose

Bitterly cold, the wind cuts like a knife. I do not do much walking.

Nostalgia on a plate

Weekend breakfasts are steeped in nostalgia: (soapy) bananas, gluten free pancakes, honey. With Puna Kazumura Big Island coffee. Of course.

Food takes us adventuring and food brings us back home to familiarity. Yes. I am an emotional eater.

Happiness is a pink bicycle

The crazy gods sent me a Valentine in the form of a second hand, pink Raleigh bicycle

A perfectly sunny (if chilly) day allowed me to explore riding in the dry sandy riverbed under bridges and along the river trails crisscrossing the town.

 It even has a real bicycle bell on the handlebars. . Triiiiing! Trinnnnng

This is what part of the trail connecting my house with the riverside trail leading to my work looks like

It does feel good to have a metal horse to ride again!

The ruins at the heart of it

Taking advantage of the national parks fee free Presidentʻs day weekend I took a late afternoon walk around the Aztec Ruins National Monument - the ancient Puebloan city at the heart of Omphalosville, my new hometown. 

I love the way the early morning or late afternoon slanted sun lights the ruins, so these are my favourite times to just hang out a little bit with the Ancient Ones. 

The structures of this very significant archaeological site are speculated to be over 900 years old.

 At five pm, closing time, on cue, rabbits took over the site. I was privileged to witness this.