Easter Campfire Breakfast

For our Easter breakfast we met with friends at Dripping Springs in the Organ Mountains above Las Cruces. The views were stunning, the air was clear and warm, the company was great, and the food was delicious.

Everyone brought a dish to share, but since all of our friends are so generous and creative there were a lot of extras, including candy Easter eggs, flowers, tablecloths, and holiday decorations. The menu was superb:

Mimosas (champagne and orange juice)

Cowboy Campfire Coffee (2 quarts of chilly spring water pumped into an antique graniteware coffee pot and brought to a boil over an open fire. Add a handful of coffee, and toss in a clean eggshell to settle the grounds; simmer over the fire for a bit, then pour)

Tea

Lemonade

Farmer's Omelette, an all-in-one dish with eggs, cheese, sausage, peppers, and onions; mostly cooked ahead of time and finished off over the campfire in a heavy black iron frying pan (because that's what our family used on breakfast picnics when we were kids)

Sourdough bread and butter

Jean's Blueberry Coffee Cake

Pat and Mary's Buttermilk Poppyseed Cake

Fresh pineapple, strawberries, grapes, and blueberries

We decided to make our Easter Campfire Breakfast an annual event, although I believe that I can foresee some Spicy Breakfast Burrito Picnics in the near future.

La Cueva: We Finally Arrive

If you have been reading this blog over the last few days, you will be wondering if Auntie Bucksnort and I, lost without water on a hike in the mountains for a good twenty minutes, ever found the right trail to the cave or if we were eaten by mountain lions.

The photo above is the proof that we eventually found our way to our destination. Once there, we sat inside the cave for a long time in total silence. When we compared notes afterwards, it turns out that we were both imagining life at the cave over the centuries.

From the brochure (Bureau of Land Management: La Cueva Trail Guide BLM-NM-GI-98-008-1230):

La Cueva rock shelter is an archeological site associated with the Jornada branch of the prehistoric Mogollon culture...

In the mid 1970's, the Centennial Museum of the University of Texas at El Paso conducted test excavations in front of La Cueva where approximately 100,000 artifacts were recovered...

Preliminary analysis indicated that the rock shelter was occupied from about 5000 B.C., through the historic period that followed the arrival of the Europeans.

It appears that the prehistoric occupants of La Cueva subsisted on rabbits, deer, antelope, and bighorn sheep.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, the rock shelter of La Cueva was probably known to the roving bands of Apaches who frequented the area.

...in the late 1860's, the cave reportedly served as home to one of the more eccentric figures in New Mexico's history--Giovanni Maria Agostini, known to local folks as "El Ermitano"...the Hermit.

I have always been fascinated by the story of the Hermit, and wrote about it on this blog in 2008:

Agostini had perhaps studied for the priesthood in Italy. He spent some time with the Penitentes of Northern New Mexico, who were impressed by his healing powers. He decided to go to La Cueva to live alone and to meditate, a plan that worried friends he had made in Old Mesilla. He and his friends worked out an arrangement to set their minds at ease. Every Friday night he would kindle a fire in front of the cave that they would be able to see from Mesilla, and they would thus be assured of his continuing safety. One Friday evening in 1869, as the story goes, the fire did not appear. When the friends had made their way up to La Cueva, they found El Ermitano dead--face down on the ground with a knife in his back. His murder was never solved.

At the Pecan House, where we now live, we can look up at the Organ Mountains at night and just about pinpoint where one might have looked up to search for the glow of the Hermit's fire.

One Arroyo; Two Very Different Habitats

...Continued from Saturday's post, The Trail to La Cueva...

As we hiked along the trail to La Cueva, we could look out across the Mesilla Valley and the city of Las Cruces.

Then we turned a corner, and could smell and hear water right away. This is a talent that quickly develops when you live in an arid environment like our Chihuahuan Desert.

Looking down the trail, we could see that we were going to be walking down into an arroyo, or small canyon. This one, according to our trail map, was called Ice Canyon.

Even on a winter afternoon, the thin air at this altitude can be quite hot, so we were happy to sit for a moment in the cool, damp shade on this stone bench.

Heading down the trail, we began to see what the trail guide meant by two distinct habitats on the sides of the arroyo.

As you can see in the above photo, trees and shrubs were growing on the left, or north-facing side of the arroyo. The right, or south-facing slope featured the familiar cacti and desert shrubs we are more used to seeing in the desert.

Here is the complete description of Ice Canyon from the brochure:

Water and rainfall from flash floods is channeled in this arroyo from the Organ Mountains to the Rio Grande. Because the soil remains moist longer in the arroyo than in the desert (and the water table is higher), the arroyo supports diverse plant, animal, and bird life. In this arroyo, you will see different trees (oaks, netleaf hackberries, and hop trees) and shrubs (seepwillows, sumacs, and grape vines) than in the desert. The hackberry and seepwillows require a permanent water source and are common indicators of desert riparian areas. What a contrast between the ocotillos and desert shrubs on the opposite slope! It is easy to see that arroyos provide a cool protected corridor for wildlife to traverse from the mountains into the desert. (from La Cueva Trail Guide, Bureau of Land Management BLM-NM-GI-98-008-1230. Available at the Dripping Springs Visitor Center).

As we continued down the trail through the arroyo (missing the sign for our intended trail to the cave itself) I was thinking about 1) those water bottles that I had improvidently left behind in the car and 2) the wildlife whose transportation corridor we were trespassing in and 3) whether there were any hungry mountain lions around...

Tomorrow: Back on the right trail, and a visit to the cave

A Palpable Silence: La Cueva

Looking toward the Organ Mountains from the Rio Grande

The Organ Mountains hang over Las Cruces like the backdrop for an old cowboy movie. You can drive up to the Dripping Springs Natural Area to experience the mountains close up.

On our first trip there we were drawn by the sound of water, as one always is in the desert, into a small display garden of native species outside the Visitor Center. I located the source of the water, a tiny fountain and, as I leaned closer to look at it, noticed a small sign. It informed me that just as I was drawn to the trickling sound of water so were other inhabitants of the desert, including snakes and lizards, and that I should watch my step on my way out of the garden.

This was just our first introduction to the animal population of this seemingly empty place. There are several miles of trails, and the center has extensive lists of animal sightings that are reported to the ranger there. According to New Mexico Wildlife publication: "Because of water which finds it way to the surface there year-round, Dripping Springs is a desert oasis where unique biotic communities thrive. Any time of year, visitors enjoy excellent viewing of red-tailed hawks and Gambel's quail. There's also a good chance of spotting desert mule deer, coyotes, and rock squirrels. In spring and summer, watch for golden eagles and prairie falcons which occasionally soar overhead. Along the hiking trails, look for black-chinned sparrows, Scott's orioles, canyon wrens, Red-naped sapsuckers, and collared lizards. There are also occasional sightings of mountain lions, of which this area has a viable population. Dripping Springs is also home to a race of the Colorado chipmunk and two threatened species of land snails." We saw an amazing variety of brightly colored lizards and a tarantula's burrow by the side of the trail.

Our destination was La Cueva, a large cave that has been associated with the prehistoric Mogollon culture. It is thought to have been occupied from around 5000 B.C. and has yielded thousands of artifacts. The Apaches used it for a shelter in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the late 1860s, it served as a home to El Ermitano (the hermit), an Italian of noble descent called Giovanni Maria Agostini.

Agostini had perhaps studied for the priesthood in Italy. He spent some time with the Penitentes of Northern New Mexico, who were impressed by his healing powers. He decided to go to La Cueva to live alone and to meditate, a plan that worried friends he had made in Old Mesilla. He and his friends worked out an arrangement to set their minds at ease. Every Friday night he would kindle a fire in front of the cave that they would be able to see from Mesilla, and they would thus be assured of his continuing safety. One Friday evening in 1869, as the story goes, the fire did not appear. When the friends had made their way up to La Cueva, they found El Ermitano dead--face down on the ground with a knife in his back. His murder was never solved.

In spite of its long history, La Cueva is another of those empty New Mexico places with a palpable silence. It's a place to stop in, to be still, and to meditate.