ABQ and back

This is such a quintessential New Mexican view ... I took Alice down to the airport in Albuquerque this morning, before doing a final hunt-down of footnotes in UNM library - which has a top-class Fine Arts Library and, I must say, a top-class Fine Art librarian, Aaron Blecha, who helped me to track down something that has taken me an age to locate (a reference in Archibald Robertson's 1802 Elements of the Graphic Arts, the first drawing manual to be published in the US: for some reason, UNM had, WorldCat told me, an e-version of it.  And, eventually, it emerged, from the depths of their system).  It's one of my favorite libraries to work in, and I polished off the other fns, too, before driving back down Central - the old Route 66.  It's change a huge amount in the last 30 years - in the last 10, indeed - many new blocks of housing; vacant (and bulldozed) lots; endless cannabis stores ... But there are still a few of the old Route 66 motels standing;

and some re-purposed signs to give a sense of the past ...

Then back up the 14; 42 to Galisteo - half way along I took the top picture - and I just made it home before the heavens opened and huge hailstones started to hurl down.

 

not a hosepipe

Isn't he handsome?  This is about five foot of Red Racer, who was hanging out by the front of our house today, and doubtless slithered off fast (they are not called "racers" for nothing) to decimate some pack rats or mice or lizards or anything else that they can find down the many holes and burrows.  S/he isn't dangerous - in that they aren't venemous, though apparently can deliver a "nasty bite" is cornered (or if you're a pack rat) because they have very sharp teeth.  We are delighted to have such a spectacularly colored and scaled rodent operative.

 

sunflowers, view

This morning's walk: those are the Sandias in the distance, rising above Albuquerque.  You can see how dry it all is ... we had half a teaspoonful of monsoon rain this afternoon, at the most optimistic.  But the sunflowers in the foreground are flourishing: flourishing on some of the mounds of soil that have been by the side of Monte Alto for a few months, as they slowly, slowly replace the water main.  It may not be as elderly as the one that broke catastrophically in LA - I should think it's a little over 50 years - but there again, although LA has to put up with earthquakes, heat, and occasional heavy rain, it doesn't have to weather frosts.  Right now, they are digging it all up near the school - which should make for some ill-timed chaos in a few weeks time.

 

two different lunch locations

Ours, at Cafe Fina, just up the road (relatively speaking): I'm sure this sculpture didn't have all these extra figurines and Things on it a few weeks ago, but it was good to catch a break for an omelette.

And this raven, outside my window, was having something unidentifiable for lunch.  Maybe a half-beheaded lizard?  I preferred mine.

 

and today, the ravens

Very Poe.  And it wasn't just one of them - at one point there were eight or nine in the tree outside my study window, flapping around, and apparently having a party on the roof, too.  I suspect they were clearing up after whatever carnage the hawk(s) dropped off there - at one point one dropped past my window trailing some very long entrails, with a couple of others in hot pursuit (rabbit?).  This was a lot more entertaining than lining up picture sources and permissions, of course ...

 

watchful eye

We're not sure if we have one Cooper's Hawk or two.  Either way. Coopy (and maybe Coupette) have been watching me all day, with breaks to do hawk-like things, like sit on the roof, or chase after a small bird.  They must have discarded a small deceased rodent in the yard at some point, because a raven came and removed that.  I do find this supervision a little pressurizing, as I grapple with these final book stages, rewriting, reordering, anxiously word-counting and counting again, and finding that the picture captions (which aren't the kind of thing one can argue with) are taking up a whole lot more words than I would like them to.  It's as though they know that the emphasis of my book is on the non-human natural world, and they feel justified in asserting their presence.

 

chile time!

There's nothing like arriving at the Farmers Market and smelling the first chile roasting of the season.  Hatch chile gets all the publicity, and I don't know if any has arrived in town yet, but my favorite chiles are those grown at Romero Farms, which are at La Cienega, just on the south side of Santa Fe.  And here are the baskets of chiles waiting to go into the roasting hopper ... and with the Turquoise Tuners playing traditional fiddle and banjo music under the water tower, I was very happy...

And sunflowers, etc.  And then back (bearing produce) to the book ...