A Day With the Organ Mountains for Skywatch Friday

We had some rare cloudy skies and rain this past week here at my new home in Las Cruces, New Mexico. On the afternoon of the third day, the clouds cleared and the Organ Mountains were visible again with a new coat of fresh snow.

At dusk, the magic show really started. The sky, and then the mountains, turned pink. Cars began to stop along the roadsides so that their drivers could snap cell phone photos. I kept thinking--people come here for the view, and I LIVE here.

To make the evening even more special, a full moon rose over the beautiful mountains. As always, I wish I had the photographic skills to convey the scene more clearly to you, but this photo, together with your imagination, will have to do!

To see skies over all kinds of land and sea, be sure to visit Skywatch Friday. It is hosted by Klaus, Sandy, Wren, Fishing Guy, Louise, and Sylvia, who all do a terrific job of bringing you the sky photography of more than 350 website owners from all over the world.

Acequias

The acequias of New Mexico are communal irrigation canals; a way to share water for agriculture in a dry land. Their history stretches back over 400 years to when Spanish laws were applied to the irrigation systems that had been hand dug by the native Americans for perhaps hundreds of years before that. The system is a way to give equal shares of water to users in both wet and dry years.

Acequia associations, led by the mayordomo (the ditch boss, or overseer), were often considered "the first governmental entities of their communities."

In New Mexico, by state statute, acequias as registered bodies must have three commissioners and a mayordomo. Irrigation and conservation districts typically have their own version of mayordomos, usually referred to as "ditch riders" by members of the districts. From Ask.com, definition of acequia.

The main canal, called the mother ditch, is dug starting at the river, and flows gently downhill from there, with a series of smaller ditches, or laterals, bringing water to specific fields. If you click on the illustration at the top left, from The Mother Ditch, by Oliver LaFarge (1954), you will see how a series of gates and some judicious moves with hand-held hoes direct the flowing water right to the individual plants and trees.

As we walk around our new neighborhood, we see ditches, large and small, all around the pecan orchards and chile fields. I've seen the truck from the irrigation district coming around in the middle of the night; I can make out the man in his headlights, turning the wheels that raise the gates to let the water into the waiting canal. I hope to figure out the schedule so that I can take some photos of our local ditches when they are full.

Resources:

Answers.com: Definition and historical background for "acequia"

An Irrigation Ditch Runs Through It, by Peter Fish for Sunset Magazine, 1997. This article discusses Stanley Crawford, who moved to northern New Mexico and eventually became the mayordomo of his acequia association, writing about his experiences in farming and community in his classic book, Mayordomo, winner of the 1988 Western States Book Award fro Creative Nonfiction.

The Mother Ditch, by Oliver LaFarge (1954). Originally written as a children's book, LaFarge's work is rich in detail about the working of the acequia system in both good and bad water years. I am lucky enough to have an old copy that was being discarded from a library years ago.

New Mexico Acequia Association (Official Website and Blog). Did you know that there is even a radio program "exploring the richness of the acequia culture?"

Will Impending State Regulations Undermine Local Acequia Management? Article by Katey Byrd, written for Periodistacostilla.org.

A Walk Around the New Neighborhood

We feel very lucky to be living in such a rural area so close to the city of Las Cruces. When we lived in the city in the late 1990s we somehow missed discovering what a fine area was to be found just outside the city limits. Actually, its loveliness is easy to miss, since the nearby road leading out from the city is lined with a mix of older adobes, tired trailer parks, and commercial concerns that make it fairly unattractive. It isn't until you turn down some of the side roads that the potential of the area is revealed.

Here are some photos from our regular morning walk.

I'm not sure what these lovely little trees are, but I admired their shapes along the fence. This neighbor has a small herd of goats.

A pecan orchard, just like the one that surrounds our house.

Down the road a bit, there are some newer homes in the southwest style.

Back in Clovis, over a hundred trains a day pass through the town. On our tracks, shown here, we hear just three trains each day, and they are just far away enough to sound rather romantic.

The train tracks, headed south for Texas. That big ol' Texas is everywhere. When we were in Clovis, in a part of New Mexico actually called "Little Texas," the real Texas was just about ten miles to the east of us. Here in Las Cruces, we are just under 50 miles to the Texas border, this time to the south of us. We are also just over 50 miles to the border with Mexico.

In my next post, I'll show you some photos of "the ditch"--the acequia, or irrigation canal that is so important to life in New Mexico.

Good News Tuesday: Extraordinary Musical Instruments

Update, 12/5/09: A musical friend pointed out the improbability of this "instrument," and, sure enough, he was right. According to Snopes.com, this device does not exist at the University of Iowa, or anywhere else. You can read the whole article at the Snopes link. It's still a fun video, though, but it sure took me in!

My original post:

Here is a quote from the email I received with this video: This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa. Amazingly, 97% of the machine components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft, Iowa. Yes, farm equipment!

It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment, calibration, and tuning before filming this video but as you can see, it was WELL worth the effort.

Notice how all the balls end up neatly in the receiving cups.

It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University and is already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian.

A New Point of View

Dawn from my Clovis porch

Yikes!

It seems that for a very long time this green metal building showed up in my shots of the prairie sky in Clovis, New Mexico. And why not? It was the first thing I saw when stepping out on my front porch. I kind of liked the expression on its face, especially in the second shot, where it seems to be saying "yikes!" about the incoming weather.

Things have changed, now that we are in a very different part of New Mexico. Now I have a choice of views: The Organ Mountains to the east (this is the view from my pillow--mountains, sky, and city lights!), and Picacho Peak to the west. I like the change, even if my Organ photo is a smeary one--I was so excited to be seeing such a beautiful dawn through that tree branch that I messed up the photo. I'll get better, I promise.

The Organ Mountains: The first thing I see in the morning, and the last at night

Picacho Peak at the end of our road

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our happy and grateful little family is gathered around the fragrant piñon and mesquite fire that is burning in our kiva fireplace. From our family to you and yours, Happy Thanksgiving!

We're Here!

We had our real estate closing last Wednesday afternoon and finally got the keys to the new house. Ever since then we've been pulling boxes and furniture across the lawn from the garage where they were stored when we cleared out the big truck. In between we pretty much just sit outside and look at the mountains and congratulate ourselves on our great good luck.

We keep promising ourselves a complete day of rest and I hope today turns out to be it. I plan to do more posting as soon as I can drag myself away from the thrills of unpacking.

We finally got our cable/internet hooked up yesterday, so we are no longer feeling so disconnected. I've got lots of photos to share but can't locate the USB cable at the moment. I suppose that means unpacking yet another box. You know how things get when you are moving--we started out so organized, with meticulously labeled boxes. Toward the end there everything seemed to fall apart and chaos set in. In my exhaustion, I labelled a box of baby books and high school yearbooks as "under the kitchen sink stuff."

Any idea where I might find the cables and wires? Perhaps in that box with the fetching label that says baby books/cat litter scoop/tea pots. Oh, dear...

Can't wait to show you my morning walk around the neighborhood!