Facing Up to the Past: Visiting Trinity Site

Trinity Site is a long way from our house but the ride is gorgeous. We passed through all kinds of terrain—prairie, desert, mountains, and something that looked a lot like California before all the people came—on our way to and from White Sands.

Just before reaching the Stallion Gate we were met by some very friendly folks who gave us printed directions and a brochure. It turns out that they were counting people and pets in the cars headed out to the Trinity Site. I’m not sure why they keep track of the pets, but you can check out past counts at http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/TrinitySite/trnatt.htm. Then we came to the gate where the scrutiny was a little more intense. We presented our identification documents and were allowed through.

Once we got up to the parking lot, we were surrounded by groups of people who had been riding too long together in cars. We noted license plates from New Mexico, of course, and Colorado, Texas, New Hampshire (we left those people a note), Michigan, Montana, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Virginia, Idaho, and Illinois, and then we stopped keeping track because we were also too cranky from riding in the car.

Out to ground zero—it was a big disappointment. I would have thought that such a monumental event would have left behind more obvious evidence. There is just a slight circular depression, not a crater, as you might expect. The 1945 blast melted the desert sand into a green glassy substance called trinitite and the information I had seen implied that I would see plenty of it. However, the the government had apparently taken most of it away years ago so there was none to be seen. Apparently there is an area that contains some of the original trinitite in place, now covered over with sand, but it has a shed built around it that is no longer accessible. We saw lots of people crawling around looking for little bits that might be remaining, but no one seemed to be finding any. It’s illegal to pick it up—dangerous, too, as it is still radioactive.

Since I wasn’t finding the site itself interesting, I concentrated on the beautiful surrounding scenery and the people crowded around me. According to past figures, around 2800-3200 people attend these open houses. I was saddened to see some young kids who must have belonged to some kind of paramilitary organization tromping around in big boots and overlarge uniforms. Seeing them made me wonder if most visitors saw this whole atomic bomb thing as a tragedy of the greatest magnitude or as just another kind of theme park.

There wasn’t any ceremony, there weren’t any speeches—just a lot of tired, hot, crabby people shuffling around from historical marker to photo to bomb casing. Photography is allowed at the site, but not on the rest of the White Sands Missile Range. We left after taking lots of photos of the crowd and ground zero. I was relieved to be leaving, especially when I saw a group of what looked like Japanese tourists approaching the site. There was no right expression to put on my face, no way I could look them in the eye.

We headed off to San Antonio, to find the answer to a question that had long been bothering us. (Tomorrow: San Antonio).

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Trinitite: http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/hiroshimatrinity/trinitite.htm

Trinity Site: http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/TrinitySite/trnatt.htm

Duck and Cover! Memories of the Atomic Age

I want to say right up front that I am not a military history buff. I don't like war, I don't like killing, I don't like bombs. I don't like it when our country uses its power against other countries.

Having said all that, I am going to write about the Trinity Site on the White Sands Missile Range in the Tularosa Basin of southern New Mexico. This is where the first atomic bomb, results of the Manhattan Project, was detonated at 5:29:45 AM (Mountain Time) on July 16, 1945, bringing us the beginning, for better or for worse, of the atomic age. The second and third atomic bombs were exploded over Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, ultimately bringing the second World War to an end. The site of the detonation at White Sands is open to the public for a few hours twice a year, on the first Saturday of October and on the first Saturday of April.

Beez had long wanted to go see the Trinity Site. I was reluctant, thinking about exposure to radiation and just not wanting to have anything to do with the place. However, we agreed to take the trip and drove several hundred miles last Saturday to find out what the site was all about. Along the way, we talked about our memories of those times, and why there is such a fascination with this place.

Here are my memories of the bomb. I was less than a year old when the war ended, so I didn't know anything about that. But when I was 8 or 9 years old, my family lived in San Francisco in the early 1950s when atomic bomb tests were taking place in Nevada. My father drove a tow truck, working the night shift. I can remember my great excitement when he swung home to pick me up in the middle of the night when there were announced atomic tests at the Nevada Test Site at Frenchman Flat, about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. My mother made sure that I was dressed warmly and off we went into the San Francisco darkness. What an adventure for a little kid, being allowed out well after bedtime and with special time alone with Daddy! We always went right up to the top of Twin Peaks and Daddy would park the truck so that the nose was pointed southeast to face where he figured Las Vegas to be. Then he would turn on the radio to an AM station that would actually tune into the countdown to the detonation. Five, four, three, two, one... We'd wait a few seconds and then we would see it--a flash like lightning out on the horizon. And that was it. We'd drive down Twin Peaks for the highlight of the night, to my 8 year old self, stopping in at the Flying Saucer Cafe where we'd eat "dollar pancakes" and I'd have a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream. So much innocence on the one hand, and so much potential death and harm and chaos on the other.

Here is what Beez had to say: When you grew up in the 1950s learning to hide under your desk in case of nuclear attack (!), you owed it to yourself to go see the place that started it all.

To get an idea of the fears we faced as school children, you must first realize that all school-age kids were required to wear engraved dog tags that gave their names, addresses, and blood type. Somehow the space for blood type was never filled in. Even as a child I understood that there probably wouldn't be enough of me left over after a bomb to worry about blood transfusions.

Then take a look at the instructional film called Duck and Cover. It was meant to reassure children about the bomb, so that they would know what to do if/when it came for them. The film is anything but comforting. Here is a sampling from the film of what young children were being told:

• We must be ready for a new danger...Tony knows the bomb can explode any time of the year, day or night...The flash of an atomic bomb can come at any time...vacations and holiday time...we must be ready
  
• Sometimes the bomb might explode without any warning


• You might be eating your lunch when the flash comes


• If you are not ready and do not know what to do it could hurt you in different ways


• There might not be any grownups around when the bomb explodes, then you're on your own.


• [The bomb can come] on a beautiful spring day...but no matter where [children] go or what they do they must always try to remember what to do if the atomic bomb explodes right then. It's a bomb! Duck and cover!


• You'll know when it comes.

Call it morbid fascination, but we were on our way. (Tomorrow: Visiting the Trinity Site).

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Duck and Cover: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0K_LZDXp0I

Manhattan Project: http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/Manhattan/index.htm

Nevada Test Site Historical Information: http://www.ntshf.org/index.htm

Trinity Site: http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/TrinitySite/trinst.htm

White Sands Missile Range: http://www.wsmr.army.mil/

Librophilia

Today's post is short and has nothing to do with New Mexico.

Take a tour through photographs of the world's most beautiful libraries, by way of a web site called Curious Expeditions: Travelling and Exhuming the Extraordinary Past. The exhibition is called Librophiliac Love Letter: A Compendium of Beautiful Libraries.
http://www.curiousexpeditions.org/2007/09/a_librophiliacs_love_letter_1.html

Yet Another Plug for the Clovis Farmers Market…and other local food sources

I’ve been reading Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle; A Year of Food Life. Kingsolver, her husband Steven Hopp, and daughters Camille and Lily, moved from Tucson to the family’s farm in southwest Virginia. Their aim was to eat only food that they grew themselves or that was produced locally for a whole year.

We have gotten used to eating food out of season—food that is transported all over the world. There is a movement, variously referred to as Slow Food, or eating locally (those who do are called “locavores”), that challenges us to eat a more healthy diet and to help the environment and the local economy by not buying food that has been transported for more than 100 miles (“oily food” according to Steven Hopp). In doing so, we eat fresher, more wholesome food and support sustainable agriculture and our local farmers.

Here are some examples of “oily food” from my own kitchen here in Clovis, New Mexico. I have a package of Cape Cod dried cranberries which was purchased in Manchester, New Hampshire before we moved here. Cape Cod, where the cranberries grew, is 120 miles from the store where I bought them--a little over the 100 mile limit I’m trying for. However, the label tells me that the cranberries from Massachusetts were packaged in Kingsburg, California! That’s 3142 miles from Cape Cod, so my cranberries traveled from Cape Cod to Kingsburg to Manchester (and we know that there were probably grocery distribution centers involved along the way that would increase the mileage) for a total of 6,265 miles, plus the 16 mile round trip I made to and from the supermarket. I’m shocked, are you?

I don’t even want to try to compute the miles traveled and the gas and oil used to produce the grape juice I bought recently here in Clovis. The label tells me that it contains concentrates from the United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. I could have bought fresh apple cider from right down the road.

When you eat locally, you can buy directly from the producer, often at farmers markets, or directly from the farm. Much of this food is produced organically, because it is grown on a small scale. The meat comes from animals who have lived a good life and have finished it up in grassy pastures, not in the crowded horror we see at feedlots.

We buy more and more of our weekly food from the Clovis Farmers Market. I have spent some time looking at sources for grass-fed beef and other meats, then checking maps to find which are closest to home—preferably under the 100 mile limit. Local Harvest is a good online resource for the best organic food that is grown closest to you. Check the distance from your door to the food producer’s door on Google Maps. The Animal, Vegetable, Miracle website has a good list of resources to help you start eating locally.

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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle web site: http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/

FarmersMarket.com: Listing of markets by states: http://farmersmarket.com/

Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

Local Harvest; Real Food, Real Farmers, Real Community: http://www.localharvest.org/

Slow Food USA: http://www.slowfoodusa.org/

A source for grass fed beef that is only 53 miles from Clovis: http://www.milnesandgrassfedbeef.com/

Sustainable Agriculture: http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/concept.htm

Pari Noskin Taichert, a New Mexican Author

If you have read any of the novels by Pari Noskin Taichert, author of The Clovis Incident and Belen Hitch, you’ll know that her “whipped cream-dependent protagonist,” Sasha Solomon, works as a public relations consultant for various towns around New Mexico. The Clovis Incident shows that Pari did her homework—it’s full of little Clovis details that give it a real sense of place. Sasha drove down roads near my house, went to restaurants that I recognized, and dealt with members of the Committee of 50* (called the Committee of 25 in the book). The next book coming out in the series will be Socorro Blast. I can’t wait.

Taichert has made a list of "Little Known Facts About the 47th State" (New Mexico). You’ll learn a bit about saguaros, New Mexico’s wine industry, and the “rare mental multiculturalism” that is found here, something I touched on in Las Cruces and the Suspension of Disbelief. You can find her New Mexico list at http://acwl.org/maymug06.html.

More Links:

To see Pari Noskin Taichert’s own web site, go to http://www.parinoskintaichert.com/.

Taichert is one of nine mystery writers at Murderati; Mysteries, Murder, and Marketing. http://www.murderati.typepad.com/

And to find out the setting for the book that will come after The Socorro Blast, read the interview "Pari Noskin Taichert on Aliens, Belly Dancing, the French, Bad Girls, Agatha Noms and Why She Talks to Herself." (http://juliabuckley.blogspot.com/2006/08/pari-noskin-taichert-on-aliens-belly.html).

*If you are unfamiliar with Clovis, read a bit about the city and its Committee of 50 at http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-110619976.html

Las Cruces and the Suspension of Disbelief

“Does anyone know of a good curandera?” I was having lunch in the Teacher’s Room of a southern New Mexico elementary school, and one of my co-workers was asking for advice. Curandera? I looked to my friend who usually helped me when I didn’t understand bits of the Spanglish that was commonly spoken there. “It’s...like a white witch, someone who can heal you,” she whispered. The other teacher went on, “It’s for my wife, she is bewitched.” By this time, I was pretty sure that this was all a joke and became even more convinced when he went on to explain that for the first 15 years of marriage, all went well; but for the last 15 years his wife has not been herself. Ha! I thought to myself—this is going to turn into one of those funny menopause stories.

I was very wrong. Everyone, it seemed, had a curandera to recommend—a friend of a cousin, a neighbor’s auntie, someone in an adobe house just around the corner from that little butcher shop on Rio Grande Street… I looked from face to face, amazed that I was hearing this conversation from these well-educated people.

I should have known better. When we first moved to Las Cruces in the late 1990s I was convinced that we had come to another world, maybe even another universe, given the wild desert and mountain landscape that was so different from our sheltered New England hills. The more I got to know the people, the more I really believed that I was somewhere far, far away from all that was familiar.

Our butcher, for instance, sold the best meat in the world. It all came from nearby ranches. You could practically cut the steaks with a fork and the flavor was unbelievable. He was a mesmerizing character who told stories to us the whole time he was putting together our order. We would just stand there, gazing at him and nodding, our hands hanging loosely at our sides. We spent a lot of time in that shop, listening to strange tales of people lost in the mountains, or thrown from their cars in horrendous accidents. Then we would gather up our bundles and say goodbye. When we went outside into the glaring sunlight, we would shiver a bit and look at each other and say, “Did you notice how sharp his teeth were?”

It is a strange and otherworldly place, Las Cruces. All of New Mexico has an indefinable mystery about it. That must be what they try to express by phrase “The Land of Enchantment”—but those are just words. You have to come here to experience the eery and unearthly sensations. Come with an open mind and be ready to be amazed.

Places to visit in Las Cruces: http://www.nmmagazine.com/NMREGIONS/swlascruces.html

For a discussion of curanderismo: http://healingtherapies.info/Curanderismo1.htm

A Newcomer’s Guide to Clovis, Part 3

The Clovis-Carver Public Library

The news is all good here. Bring a picture ID of yourself together with mail that you have received at your residence (no P.O. Boxes, please) and you can acquire a library card that will open all kinds of doors for you.

Good facility...
There are lots of books, comfy chairs, lots of space. There is a wonderful Southwest room for nonfiction books and documents about New Mexico and surrounding areas. Videos, children’s and young adult sections are all available. You can pick up an application for voter registration here. The library is centrally located at 7th and Main, and there is plenty of parking.

Good people...
There is a friendly, willing, and welcoming staff—the best asset any library can have. They will answer questions for you about the library and about the community. If they don't have a book that you are looking for, they will borrow it from somewhere else.

Good web site, with lots of information and local links... http://www.library.cityofclovis.org/index.html. In addition to a complete online catalog and lots of other resources, the web site allows you to look at a list of the books you have out, to renew the ones you need to keep longer, and to request books you want to have held for you.

A Newcomer’s Guide to Clovis, Part 2

Getting a Mortgage

This will be short: Before you choose your bank or mortgage company in Clovis, ask to be sure that the mortgage decisions are made right here in Clovis. Not in Albuquerque, not in Santa Fe, and certainly not anywhere else but right here in Clovis.

We chose a Clovis bank from online and worked out mortgage details from back in New Hampshire. We wanted to be prequalified and ready to go when we made our quick trip out to Clovis to buy a house. Everything was in place—We were prequalified by the bank, we went to Clovis and looked at houses, made an offer that was accepted, and went back to NH to firm up the details of our house sale there and to pack up.

Once we had moved our belongings across the country to storage in Clovis, and had taken up temporary residence in The Seedy Motel, everything went well and all was approved until our closing date approached. It turned out that the company that handled the mortgage was located in Albuquerque, and they really didn’t care when our closing date was supposed to be taking place here in Clovis. The first closing date was to be early on a Friday morning, and was rescheduled at 5 PM the day before. Eight more closing dates came and went, before I stopped counting. I figured no one would believe me, anyway.

Actually, all the bank professionals involved made this seem like the first mortgage they had ever handled. There were people at the mortgage company who didn’t know how to read a pdf document—the print was too tiny (they were looking at an online document reduced to 24% of its original size!). Fax machines didn’t work. We would be getting ready to go to the title company for (yet another) closing and would get a call half an hour before the appointment to tell us that it was (yet again) rescheduled. After a while they didn’t seem to have the strength to reschedule; they simply cancelled.

The sellers had to leave because they had out of state commitments. They graciously allowed us to move into their house a few days before the 8th closing date so that we could get out of The Seedy Motel, where we had been for two weeks. Of course, that closing date was changed, too. It became a joke, not so funny, that we might never close. The bank explained again and again that it had nothing to do with our qualifications and that we had been approved all along, but right up until the day before we actually closed they were phoning for us to fax proof of employment to the mortgage company in Albuquerque.

Oops, this didn’t turn out to be so short, and it’s kind of rantish, besides. Stop reading right now, and just memorize the first paragraph.

Oh, and by the way, the actual closing was quite pleasant and we love our new house.

A Newcomer’s Guide to Clovis, by a Newcomer

Part 1, Driver’s Licensing and Motor Vehicle Registration

You might think that this is a strange subject for me to be blogging about but, believe me, I have valuable information for you on this subject that you will be glad to know about. Sorry that this is so long, but if you are planning to drive when you move to Clovis, you will have the benefit of my experience.

Getting our driver’s licenses changed over was one of the most difficult tasks facing us when we were getting settled in Clovis, and it was the one time when that famous Clovis friendliness was nowhere to be found. I remember going through this procedure quite painlessly 10 years ago when we moved to Las Cruces, and smiling on the way out. It is nothing like that in Clovis.

To change your driver’s license from another state to a New Mexican driver’s license, which must be done within 30 days after your arrival (but I doubt they are checking), you will have to go to the Dept. of Motor Vehicles. Have a good night’s sleep the night before and a nutritious breakfast, give yourself plenty of time, arrive early (45 minutes before opening time—I’m not kidding about this) and line up outside the door. Do not sit down, or you will lose your place in line. Take deep calming breaths, and bring something along to occupy yourself—but stay alert and aware of your surroundings. Don’t lose your place in line.

The people inside that you will be dealing with are angry and unhappy. We do not know why. They are probably not angry with you, but it will seem like it to you. See why I told you to be well rested and well fed before going?

But first…
Long before you go to the DMV, study the Dept. of Motor Vehicles web site carefully and print out the list of documents that you will need. The DMV’s official site is kind of clunky and hard to use. There is an “unofficial guide” at http://www.dmv.org/nm-new-mexico/department-motor-vehicles.php. It has a casual and jokey tone to it. Do not let this lull you into a false sense of security. To transfer your state license to a New Mexico license, you need to prove two things:
1. Your identity. For this you need your picture ID license from your former state, your Social Security card, and a certified birth certificate to prove your age.
2. Your address. This one is trickier. When you are new to a community, you really have to work to put together this documentation. The official DMV site will tell you that the following documents are acceptable:
Rental Agreement or Purchase Agreement, Any Original Government Issued document, Utility Bill (PNM, Waste, Water, etc.), Telephone Bill, Bank Statement, Check Book (note: must have printed address), Employment Pay Stub, Insurance Bill (Automobile or Home), Local Property Tax Statement, Proof of a Minor Child Enrolled in a Public/Private School, Proof that the person has remained in New Mexico for Seven Consecutive Months, voter registration, Original documentation from a New Mexico community service organization; or city, county, state or federal government service organization attesting to the fact that the person is a New Mexico resident. (PO Box allowed for mailing address only.)

Bring several examples of identity and address documentation. Be prepared for rejection. Have a whole file folder of papers with you. Don’t leave anything out in the car, thinking that you have all eventualities covered. You might have, but they will still reject everything you brought inside and you will lose your place in line when you go back outside to bring in the rest of the file folders. I know this from personal experience.

My husband went to that office three times before convincing them that he was worthy of a license. I was determined to be successful the first time, but here is what happened to me. I brought an insurance statement that was sent to my home address. They rejected it as proof of residence even though I had received it in the mail at my residence, because it was a statement indicating that my New Hampshire insurance coverage was cancelled. I explained that this was because I now had New Mexico insurance coverage, but they didn’t care.

I thought I had the proof of residency further covered with the complete documentation for our new mortgage, but they insisted on seeing our purchase and sales agreement (which was out in the car). When I brought it in, and my place in line came up again, they complained that the agreement was only signed by the purchasers (us) and not the sellers (who had already moved out of state by the time we had our much cancelled and rescheduled closing—See Newcomer’s Guide to Clovis, Part 2). After toying around with me a bit longer to see if they could make me cry or yell, my “service representative” took my personal papers off to another office and made me wait a while longer. When she finally returned, suddenly everything went smoothly. I got my license.

Once I had the license in hand I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Weeks later I noticed that they made a mistake—the license indicated that I must wear corrective lenses, even though I passed the eye test with no glasses on. What the heck, I’ll buy some clear lens glasses and keep them handy. In any event, I am never going back to that office. By paying a bit extra, I got my license for 8 years, rather than for 4 years. By that time I’ll probably just stop driving.

I had hoped that I could recommend the Portales DMV office, 19 miles away, as a better place to go, but I just came across an online discussion (http://www.city-data.com/forum/new-mexico/53882-difficulties-motor-vehicle-division.html) that indicates the opposite—that Portales was picky and that Clovis was an “in and out” deal.

At least I have this good news for you. To register your vehicles, do not go through the horror of the Clovis DMV. Simply drive up Prince St. to:

Complete Compliance Services
5307 N. PrinceClovis, NM 88101

Office Number: (505) 762-3077

Fax Number: (505) 762-9851

Bring along your vehicle, your check book, your old registration, and your proof of insurance that includes coverage in case a non-insured driver hits you. You might give them a call ahead of time to be sure your insurance has any other required coverage. As long as you don’t arrive during the lunch hour when they are closed from 12:30-1:30, you will have a pleasant and restful experience registering your car. They are lovely people and every bit as friendly as everyone else in Clovis (except for those angry and unhappy DMV employees).

Haunted, haunted Pecos

I don't think that you can go to Pecos National Historical Park without feeling a connection to the past. I've never been anywhere else where there is such a sense of disturbing history. The Indians there were forced to convert by the Franciscan fathers; their land was colonized, they were forbidden their kivas, and they were made to build an adobe church south of their pueblo. During the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, they rose up, killed the priest, and "built a forbidden kiva in the very convento of the mission."* When you visit today and look from that kiva to the ruined church, you can easily imagine the Pecos taking back the adobe bricks from the church they were forced to build and using them to reconstruct their sacred kiva.
Each time we have visited Pecos it has been hot and still, with only the sound of birds and the occasional quiet words of another visitor carrying down the trail on the wind. We step lightly, respecting the rattlesnakes' right to privacy. We look over our shoulders often, for there is always a strong feeling that the current peacefulness of the place is only lightly superimposed on the violence of the past.

I am reading The Night Journal by Elizabeth Crook, a novel set in Pecos. The narrative moves back and forth between the modern day and the late 1890s, and from Pecos to Las Vegas, New Mexico. Pecos is described as fantastic...unsettling...and eerily romantic. I think that you will agree, if you have the chance to go there.


Information source:

*Pecos; U.S. National Park Service brochure 404/952-40107, 1996.

You Knew We’d Have to Talk About Snakes, Sooner or Later

Checking out some road kill one morning while out on my dawn bike ride, I saw what looked like a very large (formerly alive) snake. It didn’t have rattles, but I wasn’t sure what kind it was. After doing some research, I determined that it was a bull snake. Here is what I learned.

There are 46 species of snakes in New Mexico, but only 8 of them are poisonous. These include 7 species of rattlesnakes and a type of coral snake. The bull snake, so named because some think it makes a bull-like snort when threatened, is a non-venomous snake that relies on mimicry to defend itself. It might coil up and make a hissing sound while shaking its tail. Of course, this is likely to remind its enemy of a rattlesnake. It can even somewhat flatten its head to resemble that of a rattler, although (unlike the rattlesnake) the bull snake’s head and neck are actually of the same width. If this behavior doesn’t frighten off the perceived enemy, the bull snake might lunge toward it. Personally, I would have been long gone, but readers of this blog already know that it doesn’t take much to send me packing (see The Big, Big Spider and the Brave Red Shoes post).

The bull snake (Pituophis melanoleucus sayi) is a subspecies of pine-gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer). It is found in the U.S. west, the south, and the southeast in deserts, forests, coastal dunes, and grasslands or agricultural areas. It is often associated with prairie dog towns. We have a lot of prairie dogs right around where we live, although their habitat is rapidly being dug up and turned into housing lots, so it's not surprising to find bull snakes close by.

It is one of the largest snake species in the U.S., ranging from three to eight feet, but usually averaging around five feet in length. It is brown, yellow-brown, or cream colored, with black and brown markings.

It feeds on mice, rabbits, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, lizards, ground-nesting birds and their eggs, and even other snakes. Because it helps control rodents, it is really the farmer’s friend, and some farmers will allow a bull snake to live under a porch or in a barn. It constricts, or squeezes, its prey and then eats it whole, usually head first. In turn, it is preyed upon by coyotes, kit foxes, red-tailed hawks, and eagles.

Bull snakes are diurnal, which means that they are active during the day, although they may also be about at night during hot weather. They hunt in the early morning, late afternoon, and early evening. They hibernate in the winter, denning* with other bull snakes and sometimes with rattlers, racers, and even garter snakes.

They mate from March through April, and the clutch of 5 to 19 leathery eggs is laid in loose soil during July or August. Hatchlings emerge in early autumn, and must find their own way in the world, as there is no parental involvement.

In captivity, bull snakes have been known to live up to 22 years. However, because they are comparatively slow moving, in the wild they are often killed when crossing roads or basking on roadways. This road danger, together with ongoing habitat destruction, considerably shortens their average life expectancy.

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*The idea of snakes denning in a great mass is an intriguing one to me and has been so ever since I read the children’s book, A Gathering of Garter Snakes, by Bianca Lavies. I highly recommend this book, which is about the famous Narcisse Snake Dens in Manitoba (http://www.gov.mb.ca/conservation/wildlife/managing/snakes.html). You can borrow Lavies’ book at your library, of course!

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For more information about bull snakes, visit these web sites.

Desert U.S.A.: http://www.desertusa.com/mag99/july/papr/gophersnake.html

Enchanted Learning--For a drawing of the bull snake constricting and suffocating (and eating) its prey:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/reptiles/snakes/Bullsnake.shtml

Natural Source; An educator’s guide to South Dakota’s natural resources. http://www.northern.edu/natsource/REPTILES/Bullsn1.htm

Texas Parks and Wildlife: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/species/bullsnake/

For a very interesting and somewhat disturbing (well, I found the part about trapping snakes using a glue board and then freeing them using vegetable oil disturbing, but you might not) article on snakes in New Mexico, read New Mexico Snakes — recognizing the poisonous ones and controlling them around homes, by James E. Knight, at http://www.southernnewmexico.com/Articles/Wildlife/NewMexicosnakes-recognizi.html

Thanks go to my New Hampshire herpetologist friends, Tanya and Andy, for technical advice for this post.

Green Chile Recipes

It's time for a post about recipes for our wonderful green chiles. From time to time, I'll come back and add additional information to this page.

Chiles Rellenos (low fat version)

Roast 6-8 or more large green chiles (Anaheim type) under the broiler or over an open flame until charred all over. Place in a closed plastic bag or covered Tupperware container for ten minutes or so. You should then be able to peel them easily. Take off the stem ends and take out seeds and membranes (leave some in if you want—they’re the hot part). Beat three egg whites until stiff, adding ½ tsp. salt. You can leave out the yolks, but I stir them up and fold them into the beaten egg whites. In a greased oblong casserole, place half the egg white mixture, put all the chiles on top of it, sprinkle with as much grated cheese as you want, then cover over with the remaining egg whites, spreading them all the way to the edges to seal. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or so until brown.

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Green Chile Meat (for Burritos)

After our trip to Cloudcroft and our yummy burrito lunch, I came home and did my best to duplicate the green chile meat stuffing. This is what I came up with.

Brown one chopped onion. Add a pound of ground beef and stir until all is well browned. Add a 2 tablespoons of flour and mix well. Add four peeled, cubed, cooked potatoes. Stir in 12 roasted, peeled, seeded, and chopped green chiles (you decide on the type and the amount of heat you want. I used a medium hot Anaheim-type). Add 2 cups water or beef broth, stir well. Simmer for about 30 minutes. The mixture will thicken, so stir it occasionally and add more broth if necessary. You want a consistency that you can spoon into a warm tortilla, not too soupy. Top with grated cheese.

Getting a Mountain Fix

A couple of days ago we drove up from 4300 feet in Clovis to over 8600 feet in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, located in the beautiful Sacramento Mountains. What a gorgeous drive! After several months on the high plains, we needed another mountain fix.

We took Hwy. 70 from Clovis past Roswell, to the beautiful Hondo Valley. Here we passed through the tiny towns of Picacho, Tinnie, Arabela, Hondo, and San Patricio. If I were 30 years younger, I would love to live in this uniquely scenic area.

We continued on to the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation, passing through Ruidoso. We turned off on Hwy. 244, a quiet two lane road that travels through Elk Canyon, where we stopped to take pictures and could hear elk bugling on the hillside above us.
We traveled in and out of the Lincoln National Forest, an area rich in history. According to the Billy the Kid Scenic Byway web site: "The Lincoln County area...has been home to Billy the Kid, the Lincoln County War, the Mescalero Apache tribe, Kit Carson, "Black Jack" Pershing, the Buffalo Soldiers, the world's richest Quarter Horse race and Smokey Bear."

For the first half of its history, those going to the village of Cloudcroft went by excursion train from Alamogordo, traveling 16 miles up from the desert floor. The first highway to Cloudcroft was built in the mid-1940s, and the train service was discontinued in 1948. We found a delightful small mountain town with abundant fresh air (and abundant tourists, too). After a delicious lunch of green chile meat burritos that we ate on the front porch of a little cafe, we started back to our home on the plains.

Here are some points of interest on our journey.

• Apache Point Observatory: http://www.apo.nmsu.edu/Site/apo.brochure/apo.brochure.html
  
  
• Billy the Kid National Scenic Byway: http://www.billybyway.com/
  
  
• Cloudcroft, New Mexico: http://cloudcroft.com/
  
  
• The Hondo Valley; Picacho, Tinnie, Arabela, Hondo, and San Patricio: http://www.southernnewmexico.com/Articles/Southeast/Lincoln/TheHondoValley-PicachoTin.html
  
  
• The Lincoln National Forest: http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/lincoln/
  
  
• Mescalero Apache Reservation, an article from New Mexico Magazine: http://www.nmmagazine.com/NMGUIDE/mescalero.html
  
  

For additional information:

• "Black Jack" Pershing: http://www.nps.gov/pwso/honor/pershing.htm
  
  
• Buffalo Soldiers: http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/carson.htm
  
  
• Kit Carson: http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/carson.htm
  
  
• The Lincoln County War: http://www.southernnewmexico.com/Articles/Southeast/Lincoln/TheLincolnCountyWar.html
  
• If you like gambling and horse racing, see the Ruidoso Web Site at http://www.ruidoso.net/

• The story of Smokey Bear: http://www.smokeybear.com/vault/story_main.asp
  
  
• To hear various elk bugles, go to http://www.elkheaven.com/elk_sounds.htm

Lovely Color

Take a look at these two photos, taken with my old non-digital camera, which captured colors in a wonderful way. The wall with the blue door is in Mesilla, Las Cruces' "old town," and the other picture is of my sister's apartment in Berkeley. These colors make me feel so happy, it's no wonder I decided it was time for the beige living room walls to go.









My intention was to paint them a beautiful canteloupe color, so here is the paint I got:


It's so hard to show true color on the computer, but the shade looked like orange sherbet (canteloupe sounds healthier). Here is what it looks like in the living room. I'll show you the "before" beige and the "after" colorwash.













Much cheerier, don't you think? If you could see the colorwash up close, you'd think that I used two or three colors of paint to obtain a layered effect. Actually, I thinned the paint down with water, about half and half, and sponged it on sparingly with a natural sponge, which had been cut to a comfortable size to handle with a sharp knife. The straight edge of the cut came in handy when painting around windows and molding and up where the wall meets the ceiling. Because the wall has some texture to it, the end result is a mottled effect that I really like. However, the walls turned out to be several tones of gold, instead of the intended canteloupe. It was amazing, I loaded canteloupe color onto the sponge and it turned gold on application because of the underlying beige layer.

The room is now a warm and lovely looking color, and it only took seven tablespoons of paint!

Knit for Kids

Just in case anyone reading this happens to be a knitter (or would like to be), I want to tell you a little about Knit for Kids. This program, which supplies hand knit sweaters to children all over the U.S. and the world, is in its tenth year. Volunteer knitters send sweaters to the home office in Carmel, New York, where the sweaters are sorted and packed up to be sent wherever they are most needed. Sometimes they might be sent to an orphanage in Europe, or to American children who have a parent who is in prison. Sweaters have recently gone to southern Iraq, Liberia, and Madagascar. The website has a distribution map showing where sweaters have been sent. Over the past ten years, Knit for Kids has sent out over 400,000 sweaters. According to their website: "2006 smashed all previous records – 74,983 sweaters were received, an amazing 11,729 in December alone."


You don't have to be a fancy knitter. Knitting beginners can use the basic and very simple knitting patterns that are supplied on the website, and very clear instructions are given for finishing the sweaters. You don't need to use expensive yarns--these sweaters are to keep kids warm and need to be washable and pretty sturdy.
Just in case you think you don't have time to work on a project like this, consider this. There are times every day when you might have a minute or two--riding on a train, sitting in a meeting, even working out on your exercise bike! I found out about the program a year and a half ago while chatting with a friend during a Town Meeting break, and since that time I have knit 23 sweaters--some of them are shown here. I knit while watching the Red Sox, while listening to books on tape, while riding in the car. I've found all sorts moments when my hands would otherwise be idle.


Please check out the Knit for Kids website at http://www.knitforkids.com/. You can read stories about volunteer knitters, download a pattern, and see some great pictures of kids wearing their new sweaters. Thank you.

Cowboys of the Canteloupe Corral

Time to paint the living room. Enough with those beige walls. This is New Mexico, after all, where colors are intense and seen in combinations that you might never imagine. When we lived in Las Cruces I learned that pink and orange and purple together make a wonderful combination. My color courage grew, and when we moved back to New England I planted hot red-purple-pink-orange flower colors side by side out in the garden, then took my newfound bravery to our interior walls.

Our red New Hampshire living room brought friends scurrying to have a look. They liked it but said that they would never have the courage to do the same to their walls. But I noticed that they smiled a lot in that room.

Now, in our new Clovis house, we have a red-orange kitchen and dining room. I can't claim to have done it--I probably wouldn't have been brave enough--but I love the results. It's a great place to be in.

So, now it's time to paint the living room. It's such a neutral place, though it has lots of texture--brick, wood, faux leather, and copper touches. It's a little kitschy, I'm afraid, with a cowboy theme featuring pictures of me as a four-year old "cowgirl" living in San Francisco. There are big boots and my little boots from way back then. There are some fake cowhide items. It's comfy and a good place to kick back and put your boots up. But it's all surrounded by those beige walls.

Well, I'm ready to make the change, and I just got back from the paint store with a bucket of paint in a shade that looks like the fresh canteloupe down at the Clovis Farmer's Market. Cowboys, saddle up!

New Mexico Fiction

I've been looking around for the best fiction with a New Mexico setting. I've found several helpful lists that give authors, titles, and sometimes short reviews.

The Santa Fe Library has some good lists.

• New Mexico Mysteries: http://www.santafelibrary.org/nmmystery.html


• New Mexico Readers' Choices: http://www.santafelibrary.org/swshelf.html


• Recent Southwest Fiction: http://www.santafelibrary.org/newsw1.html. This list contains both adult and children’s fiction recently added to the collection at the Santa Fe Library.


• New Mexico Fiction: http://www.santafelibrary.org/nmfict.html (last updated in 2004, so this list is getting old but is still useful).

From the Moby Dickens Bookshop in Taos comes A Selected, Annotated Bibliography of Books About Taos and New Mexico: Works of Fiction, prepared by Arthur J. Bachrach. http://www.mobydickens.com/selbiblio2.html#anchor568710. This is a charmingly personal list, with comments that make you want to drop into the bookshop and talk books with the people there. If you scroll down you will also see the list The Major Writers of Mysteries Set in New Mexico.

Thinking About Fall in New Hampshire

Back in New Hampshire right now it is time for the big fall preparation for winter. Between Labor Day and Columbus Day it seems like there is never enough time to get everything accomplished. The days are crisp and beautiful, sunny and windy, but although we would appreciate the weather leading up to the first big frost, we were way too busy to take out much time to enjoy it. Here are the main chores and tasks that I recall we packed into those six or seven weekends:

• Get the behemoth furnace down in the cellar cleaned and serviced


• Be sure that the oil has been delivered and the oil guy will come automatically to refill the 250 gallon tank a couple of times


• Stack the dry firewood, get some green wood delivered to be drying for the next year


• Decide about when to close the pool, traditionally done on Labor Day weekend. If you wait until later you can get in some nice warm Indian Summer swims, but then somebody (me) has to take one last chilly dip to get all the leaves out before putting the cover over the pool


• Decide when to take out window air conditioners, gambling on the weather staying cool


• Put the garden to bed: Plant bulbs, weed, mulch


• Rake the leaves


• Wash the windows one last time or spend the winter wishing you had


• Put the storm windows down and the screens up or off


• Make sure you have a good relationship with the plow guy and have a plowing schedule set up


• Be sure the snow shovels are in good order and available


• Get buckets of sand from the town sand pile to spread on icy walkways


• Visit that great farm in Deerfield to get squash, apples, pumpkins, mums, apple cider


• Make a straw man for the porch or use the summer's scarecrow


• Decorate the porches with pumpkins and mums


• Go to as many local fairs and farmer's markets as you can


• Freeze and can fruits and vegetables


• Grill outside a lot while you can


• Get ready to store deck and patio furniture before the first snow


• Have cars checked out for the winter—change window cleaner for non-freezing kind, put on snow tires


• Put emergency supplies in car: cat litter to shovel under the wheels when you're stuck on ice or in snow, shovel, blanket, flashlight


• Put away summer clothes, get out winter clothes, and hope you didn't do it too soon

The fall rush to get things done was always ended for us by the first hard frost. Then it was time for us arthritic types to hunker down by the fire and enjoy our quiet indoor winter pursuits by lamplight, leaving the skiing and snowshoeing and snowmobiling to the younger and more mobile folks.

Here are a couple of pictures of winter at our house in New Hampshire. The first one is of our VW Bug, buried in a single snowfall a few winters ago.

Here in eastern New Mexico, on the other hand, I'm not really sure what the coming winter will be like. I do know that we will not be in for those six months of winter we endured every year in New Hampshire. I haven't noticed that our neighbors are doing much preparation, other than putting out some porch decorations of fake fall leaves. Personally, the only change I've made so far is to occasionally wear a long-sleeved shirt with my shorts on my early morning bike rides.

Back to the Camel

I just can't seem to get over seeing a camel in our neighbor's backyard. I had to go back and get better pictures. This time she was standing up, but I wasn't calm enough to get a picture in focus. I know, I always have an excuse, it's either me or the subject or the camera.

Because of this new acquaintance, I've done a little background research into the subject of camels. Apparently the one-humped camel is called a Dromedary, is rather hot-tempered, and is found in the hot deserts of North Africa and the Middle East.

My new friend, the more mild mannered two-humped camel, is called the Bactrian Camel and is native to the cold mountain and high desert climates in Central Asia. Because of the variations of this climate, the Bactrian Camel grows a thick coat for the winter, which is shed in the spring. It can grow to over seven feet in height and can weigh up to 2000 pounds. Its life span in captivity is around 40 years, and is shorter in the wild. There are thought to be fewer than 1000 Bactrian Camels still living wild in their native range, and it is therefore considered an endangered species although there are perhaps 2,000,000 domesticated Bactrians. There are perhaps only 200 to 400 living in North America.

The Bactrian Camel was domesticated over 4500 years ago. It is an herbivore; it eats dates, grass, wheat, oats, leaves, bark, and shrubs. It will often eat plants ignored by other animals, such as thorny or salty plants. It will even drink saltwater slush in the absence of fresh water. It is well adapted to its desert life--the two toes on each foot spead apart to help it travel in shifting sands, and its nostrils can be closed at will to avoid blowing sand. It can run up to forty miles per hour.

Here are some interesting camel hump facts (if you are still with me). The humps contain fat, not water. The camel can go long periods without food and water. As the fat stores in the humps are used up, the humps lose their rigidity and can fall over to the side. When rigid, however, they make a handy saddle for those inclined to ride camelback.

Information Sources:

The Alaska Zoo: http://www.alaskazoo.org/willowcrest/boris.htm

Brookfield Zoo, Chicago: http://www.brookfieldzoo.org/pagegen/htm/fix/fg/fg_body.asp?sAnimal=Bactrian+camel

Enchanted Learning: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/mammals/camel/Camelcoloring.shtml

The Clovis Roundabout

The City of Clovis has a roundabout not far from my house, at the intersection of Norris and Llano Estacado. Its construction was begun in November 2005 and completed in February 2006, when the community of the nearby Faith Christian Church provided landscaping for it. You can see photos the construction and the completed project at http://www.cityofclovis.org/roundabout/roundabout.htm.

I was curious about the history of these traffic control features, so I found out that roundabouts, also called traffic circles or rotaries, have been built to help traffic flow since the construction of the Columbus Circle in New York City in 1905. At first the circles led to traffic lockups, crashes, and increased congestion. In 1966, the United Kingdom began requiring incoming traffic to yield to traffic already in the circle, so that traffic flow improved and there were fewer and less severe accidents. Other countries adopted this approach and the circles became more popular. For a U.S. Federal Highway Administration information guide on roundabouts, which includes historical information, see http://www.tfhrc.gov/safety/00068.htm. To read a more simplified version of the history see the Maryland Dept. of Transportation page at http://www.sha.state.md.us/safety/oots/roundabouts/history.asp. For a slightly nerve-wracking (to me) animated clip showing how a roundabout works, see their roundabout home page at http://www.sha.state.md.us/safety/oots/roundabouts/index.asp.

I always approach the roundabout with a bit of trepidation, especially when there is other traffic around—of course, that’s a situation easily avoided in low-stress Clovis. I’m sure that I’ll get more used to the process with experience, but I always mutter my way through—“right lane for immediate right turns at 3 o’clock or 12 o’clock, left lane for eventual right turns at 9 o’clock or 6 o’clock.” At least I don’t do as poorly as this fellow, whose single-minded approach was captured on video by a web cam mounted on the steeple of the Faith Christian Church: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jesf4xFOg1Q. The story goes that he lost his brakes and panicked. That little brick wall around the center landscaping is 2-3 feet tall.

Harvest Time in Clovis

It's green chile time in New Mexico. Everywhere you go you can smell chiles roasting--in supermarket parking lots, in backyards on grills, and at the farmer's market.

It's also peanut harvest time here in Clovis. Just down the road toward Portales we can stop in at the big peanut plant and buy big bags of sweet Valencia peanuts. They are different from the peanuts we used to buy back east. Valencias have three or even four kernels in each pod and have a beautiful dark red skin.

And it's watermelon time, too. You will see pickup trucks full of the striped melons backed up to the road, selling directly to their customers. My favorite place to buy them is at the Clovis Farmers Market. It takes place at 4th and Pile St. on Saturday mornings starting at 8 AM and on Tuesday afternoons starting at 4 PM.

Because we've already put up our fifty pounds of chiles and didn't have to worry about waiting in line for the chile roaster, we didn't get to the market this morning until at little after 8 o'clock. There was already a good crowd. It's a funny thing about that place--everyone seems to have on a big smile. Why not? The smells are wonderful, especially down by the line for the chile roaster. The people are friendly, and the food is lovely and fresh and handed to you by the person who grew it.

We bought onions with a little red dirt still on them. We bought corn and tomatoes and cucumbers. We admired these sweet potatoes, just dug up by their proud grower.

Back to those green chiles. After your bucketful is roasted, the chile roaster guys pour the chiles

into a big plastic bag. Here's what we did with ours when we got them home the other day. We dumped a couple of pounds at a time into ice water to cool them down, then drained them and packed them into quart freezer bags and popped them into the freezer. Some people like to peel them before freezing, but we just peel them when we are ready to use them. The skins slip off nicely when the chiles are partially thawed.

When we lived in New Hampshire we used to have a couple of boxes of chiles shipped out from Hatch, NM every fall. It was a lovely September tradition to work out on the deck on a sunny afternoon, under the big umbrella, roasting the chiles on the gas grill. I didn't mind doing the processing part this year, however, in the air conditioned comfort of our new kitchen.

For my best green chile recipes, go to http://zeesgowest.blogspot.com/2007/09/green-chile-recipes.html.

I'd Ride a Mile for a Camel

Today wasn't such a good one for seeing rabbits. The only one I noticed was hiding behind a fence, as though he knew that I was finally carrying a camera on my dawn bike ride. I did, however, see the camel and the zebra. I don't know why they are there, but after seeing them the other day in a backyard down the block and telling family and friends, I was grateful for the photo opportunity so that I could prove I wasn't seeing things. When the camel stands up, she (he?) is so tall that she can easily look over the adobe wall.

My New Mexico

I have spent a lot of time researching about New Mexico, especially before we moved here. I wanted facts, I wanted descriptions, I wanted photographs, and I wanted to dream. Here is a group of links that I return to again and again to find out more about my adopted state.



Art
Collector's Guide; Sharing the Art of New Mexico http://www.collectorsguide.com/wingwelc.html


Discussion
City-Data Forum: New Mexico. http://www.city-data.com/forum/new-mexico/


Food
Cocinas de New Mexico. http://www.vivanewmexico.com/food.recipes.cocinas.html

New Mexico Farmers' Markets. http://www.farmersmarketsnm.org/index.htm


Guides
New Mexico in Words and Pictures. http://www-psych.nmsu.edu/~linda/pics.htm

Northeast New Mexico. http://www.nenewmexico.com/index.php

Santa Fe Journal. http://www.santafejournal.blogspot.com/

SouthernNewMexico.com. http://www.southernnewmexico.com/

Taos Web: A Vistor's Guide to Northern New Mexico. http://www.taoswebb.com/index.php

Virtual Guidebook: New Mexico. http://virtualguidebooks.com/NewMexico/NewMexico.html

Viva New Mexico. http://www.vivanewmexico.com/

Welcome to My New Mexico. http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Gorge/4093/newmexico/menu.htm

Welcome to the Land of Enchantment. http://www.newmexico.org/index2.php


Information
New Mexico City Data. http://www.city-data.com/city/New-Mexico.html


Magazines
New Mexico Magazine. http://www.nmmagazine.com/FEATURES/current.html

News
Albuquerque Journal . http://www.abqjournal.com/

Clovis News Journal Online. http://www.cnjonline.com/


Photographs
Cities/Pueblos/Reservations, etc. http://www.newmexicoet.com/nm_photographs_01.html

Images of the Southwest. http://www.photowebs.com/thornburg/SouthwestGallery/index.htm

New Mexico: Taos and Santa Fe. http://www.pbase.com/tnkbuzan/new_mexico

Southwest Photos. http://www.helmutkuhn.com/portfolio/southwest/P_SW03.html

Taos Web: Snaps. http://www.taoswebb.com/snaps/


Places to Stay
New Mexico Bed and Breakfast Association (directory). http://www.nmbba.org/index.htm

Oasis State Park

We camped at Oasis State Park last weekend. We didn't really expect much, as the park is just 18 miles away and, for some reason, camping trips are supposed to be much further from home. But Oasis provided a beautiful and restful camping experience. We watched the incredible sunset and the even more breathtaking sunrise. Because I am new to digital photography my photo of the sunrise doesn't even begin to do it justice. That sun was red orange, as it often is at dawn here.

We sat out late, watching the stars and listening to the sounds of the night. In the predawn hours, we heard hunting owls and a pack of coyotes. I also heard the continual lowing of a nearby cow, eventually followed by what sounded like the cries of a newborn calf. We couldn't see far in that direction, because the vegetation was growing so high.

Even though the fishing pond was drained for repairs, we didn't miss it. We took walks, enjoyed the fresh air and the beautiful prairie views and colors. We slowed down enough to look at the small things, watching the mating drama of a pair of large grasshoppers. Then we headed off for home, marveling that such wonderful experiences were available just a half an hour from our door.