Morning Glories

This is the sky that greeted me this morning. 

It's monsoon season here in the desert. This is the fourth wettest year on record, so far. That means lots of clouds, which make for interesting photos. 

Yesterday, the sun was just breaking through some gloomy morning clouds. As long as those clouds bring rain, we are happy to have them here. 

The day before that, the morning clouds were echoing the shapes of the mountains again. 

And this is the friend I see on my morning walks, the little goat who lives on the other side of the orchard from us and who likes to climb trees. I was ready to get a photo of him doing just that, but this time he decided to teeter on top of his fence instead. 

If you peer through the pecan orchard, you can make out a part of our garage roof on the left. Whenever I go out to see the chickens or to tend to the garden, this little goat calls to me and I say hello back to him. 

10th Anniversary

I almost always miss anniversaries, and this one was no different. I still want to celebrate it, though. 

The first post on The Zees Go West appeared 10 years ago this month on July 5, 2007. It was called Aux Arcs and Beyond and was about our trip by car when we moved from New Hampshire to New Mexico.

We traveled 2000 miles through 14 states in four days; used 11 tanks of gas; and saw license plates from every state but Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota, Alaska, and Hawaii. We traveled in three time zones, saw the World's Largest Cross, and lots of kudzu. We saw signs for parks named Hungry Mother, Frozen Head, and Toad Suck; we passed by Pickles Gap Village and Dollywood; and we drove by exits for Little Skin Bayou and Mount Magazine.

We traveled with two dogs (one of whom is still living) and three cats (one still with us; the others are buried out back in the pet graveyard) and lots of houseplants.

Gracie loves chicken TV

I wondered at the time what I would write about next. It turns out that wasn't such a problem after all, as there have been 1135 posts since then. Good grief, 1135! And 381,695 page views...

When the Clouds Echo the Shape of the Mountains

This is what I saw from my front porch last night. Too bad about that pole, but I can't complain about the view. 

After dark there was lightning aplenty, then a wonderful drenching rain. We got an inch of rainfall--big excitement in desert country. That's maybe a tenth of what rain we'll get all year. I'm sure there were dangerous flash floods somewhere, but here our scraggly back lawn will turn green in a few days. The pecan orchard manager won't have to worry about irrigation for a while. All our flowers in the raised beds will perk up because there is a huge difference for them between the rare rainwater and the usual groundwater from the hose. 

If children still played outside they'd be dancing in the puddles.

As for us, we are grateful that it is well and truly monsoon season. Oh, we'll complain about the 40% humidity. But we know that, once again, we have lived through the hardest season of the year--the days and days of triple digit temperatures. From here on out the weather will be just fine. 

¡Fiesta! Or, How We Know We're Not in New Hampshire Any More

We love our grocery store--Lowe's Fiesta Foods--here in Las Cruces. It has a special section for religious candles.

 The spices come in bags like this, and they have Spanish names: Canela (cinnamon) and comino (cumin) are ones I use a lot.

The chile section is mas grande. These are just a few of the dried ones. Over in the fresh vegetables you'll find the long green chiles that are such a big part of New Mexican cooking, and there are also fresh pequins, poblanos, cascabeles, jalapeños, and guajillos. The dried chiles, some shown below, include pasillas, serranos, anaheims, habaneros, poblanos, chipotles, mulatos, and the list goes on and on...

There is an aisle devoted to cooking utensils, including stone molcajetes, which are the Mexican version of the mortar and pestle for grinding food and spices, and are traditionally made of basalt. Friends up on the west mesa of Las Cruces say folks in their neighborhood occasionally dig up old ones in their gardens. 

Over in the meat department, packaged beef tripe for menudo, a classic tripe soup/hangover cure, takes up a lot of space; as does buche (cooked pork stomach), and pigs' feet. You can buy prepared barbacoa beef, carne adovada, and other marinated meats ready for cooking. 

There are very large 5-10 pound packages of prepared masa, which get made into tamales. Of course, you can also buy bags of masa harina and make your own dough, and there are always large packages of corn husks, also used for making tamales.

One of our favorite parts of the store is the big open tortilleria, where you can watch fresh corn or wheat flour tortillas roll out of the huge machines and get bagged up for you, still warm. 

It seems that every southern New Mexico food market features at least a few piñatas for kids' parties. 

Today I noticed some beer bottle piñatas for more adult gatherings. 

Even on a blazing hot summer day like today, the atmosphere in this store is always friendly and pretty darned festive. People move slowly, stop and chat with neighbors and friends, and smile at each other in two languages. 

Irises!

Last year at this time we had a lovely picnic with friends at the Hondo Iris Farm. After we finished our lunch, I could hardly wait to tour the gardens and pick out some iris plants to bring home. A couple of weeks later, I ordered some more rhizomes from their catalog for fall planting.

We set up raised beds between the house and the chicken yard, in a nice spot partly shaded by a huge old Chinese elm and well-serenaded by sparrows, finches, doves, and "our" mockingbird. Then the wait was on, dreaming of irises all winter.

All the early and midseason plants have bloomed with either single or double stalks of flowers. Next year there will be even more. I still have a couple of late season bloomers to look forward to, but I wanted to share the blossoms we have enjoyed so far.

Edith Wolford 

Fiery Temper

This is the same Fiery Temper in another light--quite an amazing difference, I think!

Florentine Silk

Best Bet 

Night Ruler

Spice Lord

Starship Enterprise

Joy in the Morning

"...weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning..." (Psalm 30)

"O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" (Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll)

This morning's walk was filled with the joyful sights and sounds of spring. My companions were the little dog, Weetzie...

...and the youngest pup, Beany.

We stopped by the place down the road where the banty hen has just hatched out three chicks. She was out in the field, teaching them chicken things, but was too far away for a photo. We heard geese and peacocks, distant and unseen. 

Then we crossed into the pecan orchard, where the trees have leafed out and are making us sneeze. Oh, but they are lovely, and we will all appreciate the shade they provide in the coming heat of summer, not to mention the pecans later in the fall.

We passed by the dog who never gets walked, but who appreciates a hello when he peeks out of his pen at us. Then we saw the escape artist dog, Mr. Socks, who was out for a jolly free gallop through the orchard. He'll be in timeout tomorrow, I'm sure. We were cautious as we passed the gate of the noisy Mr. Bounce, who is a cattle dog with very springy legs who leaps up behind his stone wall, again and again, getting glimpses of us only when he reaches maximum altitude. 

As we walked down the irrigation ditch pathway, we came to the farm with the chickens and the foster dogs. They are a lively bunch, all of them. The same place has three horses that Beany likes to visit.

We crossed the country road to check out the newly plowed and planted fields. I'm not sure yet what will be growing there (cabbage? chiles? cotton?), but we like to keep an eye on things. Just past the field you can see a light green orchard of young pecan trees, and beyond that, a mature orchard. Watching over all are the Organ Mountains, the first thing I see out my window in the morning. 

Turning the last corner, we came to "our" orchard, which is the one that surrounds our small property. We don't own it or pay taxes on it or have to labor in it, but it gives us pleasure every day, and is a place where grackles, white-winged doves, killdeer, robins, hawks, owls, coyotes, skunks, raccoons, and the occasional tarantula pass through.

And then we arrived home to our little adobe cottage, where the hollyhocks bloom and the mockingbird sings. 

The Garden Evolves

In looking back through old posts about my gardening attempts here in the Chihuahuan Desert, I am reminded of just how many plants didn't survive. Perennials and even cacti were in the wrong place at the wrong time, getting either too much heat against a south-facing wall, or too much or too little water.

I've been learning through the failures, though. There are certain cacti that will thrive here, no matter what I do to them. The hollyhocks--taller than me and ready to bloom--are happily self-seeding everywhere, and so are the desert bird of paradise shrubs--all giving a reliable and dramatic show of color, year after year.

2010, two pads only

2017, five feet wide and almost taller than me

This will be the second summer for the raised beds in the back yard. With better control over the soil and moisture content, I'm still trying to grow some of my colorful favorites. Here is a sampling of what's blooming so far: The columbines are a big success, as they are freely multiplying and acting as a ground cover to shade the soil; there are three rose varieties so far, yellow, red, and a multi-color; scabiosa (pincushion flower in blue), dianthus, and Iceland poppies.

   

The irises I bought last year at the Hondo Iris Farm are growing well and some have started to bud. I will post pictures of them as they come into bloom. The sweet peas are up, as are the morning glories (even though our little dog Dweezil did some sunbathing in that bed). My poor little much-moved lilac is looking happier and more protected from the sun in its new raised bed home. The mint and rosemary are thriving, and the surprise lilies are coming along.

It's a small garden, but it brings me great pleasure!

Retiring to the Garden

I don't think I ever worried about filling up my retirement days. First, I just wanted to read and read, and read some more. However, the view from my reading chair kept beckoning me outside, and I began to spend more and more time in the yard.

The landscaping that came with our little adobe cottage was plain. Big trees and rocks out front; green lawn out back. Some of the trees fell down and some had to be taken out. A few remain and we are thankful for their shade. 

The plain landscaping was little trouble, but I like flowers. So I added some.

And some more...

... and "some" hollyhocks.

Out back, we added a flock of chickens and a plain little shed to house them. That plain little shed was no trouble until the roof started sagging. And we didn't like looking at it from our shady patio.

It only took us a couple of weeks of sweaty summertime work to make a big change to that chicken house. Bill ripped off the saggy roof (to the consternation of the hens who were sitting the chicken house attic nests at the time), and put down new plywood, roofing paper, flashing, and shingles. 

I painted and embellished. 

Windchime/door knocker/flower arrangement

A faux window box, propped up by a broken chair 

that was brought back to life with a little spray paint.

Window box detail, after a week or so: 

The flowers are starting to recover from being transplanted.

My Spider is Bigger Than Your Spider

I've been seeing a news story on Facebook and other places about the terror of a New Hampshire family when they found a black widow spider inside a box of organic grapes. The spider caused a big stir in the local and even the national media.

These photos were taken by the Fremont, NH family and published in various places around the Internet

That got me to thinking about how brave we must be to live in New Mexico, where even the plants can grab you and the spiders are not the only creepy-crawlies we must face on a daily basis.

Even the plants can grab you; this one looks pretty
but it wants to hurt you. Trust me. 

For example, I know a lady who knits. She is mild-mannered and kindly, and you would never suspect her of heart-stopping bravery, yet every night when she gets up to go to the bathroom she carries a black light so that she can avoid stepping on the little nocturnal scorpions that scamper across her tile floors.

When we go for walks in the nearby desert, we carry walking sticks to let the rattlesnakes know we are coming. We like to coexist in safety. 

Nobody panics, everyone gets along

Occasionally, we come across a snake who wants as little to do with us as we want to do with him/her. Now, I am a gentle retired librarian and nobody called the press when I met this fellow. We just both went on our way.

Now that I think of it, we live risky lives of constant danger that would send many Eastern folks scurrying right back to the airport. Lots of black widow spiders live on our front porch and in our garage. Those pesky sticky webs of theirs are everywhere. Fox News doesn't seem to care a bit. We just watch where we stick our hands. 

And those bitty old black widows are nothing, compared to our tarantulas. I helped one safely cross the road in front of our house one day. It didn't even make the evening news. 

This tarantula was interfering with traffic on a road near Tucumcari, NM.
That's my sister's shoe he is patting. He chased me across the highway when I took his picture.

Early Mornings in the Garden

Winters were hard back in New Hampshire. We would emerge from the long cold snowy months with a feeling that we really survived something.

Here in New Mexico, June is the month to survive. It's a hard one, the hottest of all the months, with wicked temperatures in the late afternoons.

I never tire of sunrise reflections in the flooded pecan orchard that surrounds us

But the mornings are glorious! I treasure any morning when we don't have errands or obligations of one sort or another--any morning when I can get out into the garden really early to poke around, dig a bit, get everything watered, visit with the chickens, and just appreciate our yard and its mountain views.

This morning, while Bill biked around the city, trying to beat the rising temps, I did all my favorite things out in the garden. Now it's afternoon, 104 degrees outside, and we are doing our best to stay still and stay cool. It's a perfect time to share some early morning photos. 

A late hollyhock bud

Beverly Sills, my first iris success and the inspiration for our trip to the iris farm
and the irises that we brought home from there

Iris Cinque Terre

Iris Nigerian Raspberry

Iris Fiery Temper

One of the girls, concentrating on laying her morning egg

Don't know if this fellow is an albino or if he just molted and is waiting for his color to come back.
There were two like this hopping around the front yard today.