Monday, January 30, 2023

Milepost 8

The falling of the mountain (see picture below) onto the road at Milepost 8, or thereabouts, really kind of moved me. I am here in Illinois now, safe from the prospect of living way out in Sixteen Springs and having to drive now seventy or eighty miles to get groceries, rather than the usual forty. Or maybe it could have been fifty or sixty, but it would be more, harder, more difficult. I'm not sure I could bear it.

I'm really surprised they fixed it as quickly as they did. Reports say, the road is open tonight; that means really traffic was disrupted for only a few days. I had given them a month, because I figured the road damage was so extensive they would have to rebuild the road. Apparently it was, and they did, but they're quite good at it. And they could fix the guardrail too, or at least mark it so traffic could get by knowing that hey, the guardrail is broken for a spell here. That's nothing new. I have to give them credit; my hat's off to them. They fixed the road.

I think a lot of people seek out that little mountain corner of New Mexico for its general remoteness and isolation. That is kind of what I liked about it. The majority of people up there weren't afraid of Laborcita Canyon or any of the rocky backroads that could have been taken instead of the highway. They though weren't like me, having kids that needed dentist appointments all the time, or, needing some x-ray myself down in the Gerald Champion. For most of what my life really is these days, I'm grateful to be up in Illinois where I can now go only a mile of flat plowed roads to fill all my needs. I really respect the people who live out there and that's what I'll remember: the ability of people to work together, converge on a spot of trouble, and make the trouble go away. So that life can go back to its usual.

Monday, May 16, 2022

A true mountain tale

I wrote this story about living here:
A true mountain tale

I am busy preparing to move, and I'm very sorry about that; I love Sixteen Springs and will miss it a lot.
More on that later. I'm sure I'll still write about this place. And I've promised, sincerely, to make it all good.

Thursday, March 17, 2022

June

The cold hard wind has been blowing for days, at varying speeds and even varying directions. But always dry, dry as a bone, it comes through the mountains and sucks up whatever moisture might have been left from a tiny snow.

I'm grateful for the snow, because it actually put a little green in the grasses, a green that will have to last through the dry season.

In the north they sometimes say, "April is the cruelest month," because, though spring comes and everything is green, nothing is really edible until later in the spring. So, you can see all this life around you, but you can't eat any of it, because none of it's ready. And it's possible to starve even when everything is blossoming.

But I like to say, "June is the cruelest month," because, having waited so long for so little moisture, we in New Mexico have the same problem. There actually is a little rain in the spring, but not much; there is even sometimes a little rain in June, but again not much. Last year we had an unusual situation when the July rains actually came a little early. But generally, June is the cruelest month.

Except that this year, we're leaving in June. We will let someone have these beautiful mountains, just as the rains arrive.

Saturday, February 26, 2022

Fire training

I walked into the fire house for a training session. not intending to stay. After all, I am leaving the valley, and therefore the fire department, probably in summer (what will happen to this blog?). But an odd thing happened. There happened to be a very comfortable chair parked right in front of the television, and I was ushered right into it. It felt good; I'd been working all day and I fit right into the chair with my sore back. The training had already started and the movie was going.

I was actually able to hear better than I often am able to, and that's partly because the chair was right there at the monitor. The guy giving the training had reasonnably clear speech. I learned a lot about fire crews. They start with communication. We often watched clips from forty, fifty years ago.

But then it occurred to me. Fire training is based on real life experience where lives are at stake. Unlike academics, there is abslolutely no reward for using big words or being obtuse. All of their systems are based on hard experience and on what saves lives and works best fire after fire.

Of course, being a grammarian and proofreader, I couldn't help but analyze the kind of speech they used. But I also felt a little sheepish as, being inexperienced, I've never actually been in anything like these guys, ever. And they, living in this area, have seen a lot.

The movies that went through time served to show how firefighting has been a mutual aid society - we are all out there helping each other, and, in the mountains, our time will surely come - and I came to appreciate all the more my neighborhood and the neighbors I will soon be leaving. Probably most of them know what the movie was telling them - I am the most rookie-est of rookies, but they are not - and most of them use clear direct communication all the time anyway. That's what I love about them. But when it comes time to learn more about firefighting and pay attention to the fire season at hand, they are there - all of them - and they are watching the same movie.

Yes I am leaving the valley, but not because I don't love it. I do love it, and love my neighbors. I'll spare you the details for now but will eventually tell all, before it happens. It's a hard place to live - roads that are so bumpy our fitbits give us credit for driving them - weather that makes the ridge a little icy - switchback roads with cliffs - but I've loved it out here. The fire training is a community event, and it was a joy to see a group of neighbors work together for a common goal - the protection of our valley.

Friday, December 24, 2021

Hunting season

I've been here a couple of years now, so I've gotten to see the whole cycle of hunters and RV people (often the same) coming up on certain cold fall weekends, and going home either with deer, with elk, or without. Some, I think, come up for turkeys or maybe even other things, but I don't see that clearly into what they're hauling out, unless they've strapped it to the back of their pickup trucks and the antlers are sticking out.

We in the mountains object when they just cut the antlers off or just cut the whole head off, and leave the rest for nature to pick clean, but that doesn't happen all that often. Mostly they seem to be polite and respectful to our ways and I would have to guess that if they haul a buck off on the back of their truck, somehow they've paid the state for the hunting permit that made that possible, and the state obliged them by allowing it all the while keeping their own eye on it. What I'm saying is that the majority of what I see appears to be legally obtained, all more or less above-board, and it doesn't seem to be endangering any of the species involved, or I think some of the locals would be bothered about that. I used to notice that lots of the larger deer and elk would simply go to town during the peak of the hunting season, knowing that the village itself is probably the safest place for them, but I think it's more accurate to say they know about the hunters and their schedules, they avoid any place with human contact at all during that time, and we are not as likely to see them as usual.

Another crowd that comes up here in this time is the Christmas-tree-foragers, who pay a fee to the National Forest and then just cut and take whatever tree they want - usually they trudge into the forest for a ways, as opposed to taking something out by the road which I think the Forest Service has asked them not to do. We see more trees on trucks this time of year than deer or elk - it's easier to catch a tree, which after all can't run away - and you're more likely to come home with a successful haul to unload when you get there.

So actually I'm all in favor of these things, though I know hunters in particular have their detractors. To me it's ok to have a small group of people maintain the skills and practices of using nature to feed themselves. against all odds, even though it requires carrying around all these firearms which I know can be dangerous in the wrong hands. I'm a little quesy myself in the presence of blood and guts and a sharp knife and a big mess, but I still respect them for the ability to do it and wouldn't want them to have to stop just because some people aren't comfortable with the killing of animals. We humans were born with two very sharp teeth and to me that means we were probably made to eat some red meat every once in a while, although nothing in my natural instincts seems to say anything about guns except to avoid them in the hands of angry people at all costs.

The RV's sometimes just park in the middle of the forest, but on the forest road, and I recognize that they are hopefully carrying out everything they brought in, including their own poop and garbage, as we have literally no services there in the middle of the forest. Sometimes these guys sleep in the RV's during the days, so they can go out into the forest in the middle of the night, but if they are bringing back carcasses with them, I am rarely seeing it, and I'm often wondering how you'd handle that with just an RV, and all that blood and guts all over the place. But that's their problem, and my guess is they'd have to be pretty comfortable with blood and guts before they'd even try such a venture anyway. I sometimes wonder if some of these RV people aren't just trying to get away from it all, get away from the city, get out and be left totally alone, and don't really want to hunt at all. But what do I know - I leave them alone, no matter what, just drive by, and though I can sometimes see whether they have guns and are wearing camo. (most often yes & yes), other times, I only see the RV, and don't know anything about it. Sometimes you'll come up behind someone, and they're driving really slowly, and they're driving in the middle of the road, looking both ways all the time and trying to keep from driving right off the side of the road, and often they don't even see I'm there, and don't know to pull over and simply let me pass, since, if they don't, I'm kind of stuck. For a few moments there we share the road in the middle of the national forest, but the animals themselves are long gone, knowing full well what's up, and the scenery is nothing I haven't seen a million times in the last year. Pines and more pines, and the possibility of other critters, if you hang around long enough.