After a big rain, these mushrooms appear.
This yard used to be dirt, stones, brush, debris, unused patio bricks, dead leaves and trash. There were overgrown vines, broken trellises and shrubs in need of water. A small tree was removed, litter raked and stuffed into trash cans, earth leveled and turned over. Flower beds were reconstructed. After new desert plants were tucked in, sod was brought from Home Depot. Mr. Porter, my neighbor, loaned me his wheelbarrow and twenty strips of sod were wheeled back and laid down,knitted together by hand.
Closeups reveal these mushrooms to be delicate, white with streaks of purple. Against the green grass, still moist from last night’s rain, they are very much alive.They clump like clouds and the edges of their circles, almost transparent, look like nipples.
After a day, these squatters are turning brown.
Tomorrow I will cut them down with a weed eater.
I don’t want them to take over the yard.
If I wanted them here I would have issued them Passports.
Rainbows aren’t discriminating about where they appear.
This hint of a double rainbow gracefully arches over an Albuquerque Wal-Mart that has its own version of golden arches inside.
Rainbows tell me that there is more than just here and now.
Scotttreks and rainbows have had conversations before, my last rainbow sighting in Belize on the way back from a snorkel trip at Hol Chan with sharks.
This rainbow is almost as good as the one I saw in San Jose, Costa Rica, outside the Hotel Aranjuez.
Rainbows are nature’s brushstrokes, and, as a painter, I’m hooked on color.
If I were a rainbow, though, I would find a better place to do my shopping.
These mountains are a cold hard skeleton and life is the green coat draped over their jagged bones.
Long spindly leaves of desert plants move lightly in the wind. Granite boulders have lichen waiting for raindrops to make their color more vibrant and further up arroyos, in the canyons between mountain fingers, are mule deer, hiding in plain sight.
I touch restless leaves, run my hand through their hair. Their long razor thin leaves pull at my hand and cut at my fingers.
Nature, when you reach for it, shows its defenses.
These old fashioned lawn chairs, made from steel with curved welded parts assembled in some long closed Iowa factory, have moved several times from their original homestead, on Bellamah Street. They used to sit in our childhood back yard under a cherry tree that grew tart cherries for Mom’s pies.Their final stop finds them in my townhouse front yard under a shade tree.
These two used to be a factory sprayed green,but, in succeeding years ,were hand painted white to match changing decors.They used to share back yards with green swing sets but now are the only surviving outdoor furniture from our elementary and preschool days..
Moments ago a freak summer hailstorm blew into Albuquerque and this photograph, just after the storm, is ghost like.
I can see my parents sitting in these ghost chairs, mom sketching and dad reading the newspaper.
I too will be gobbled up by time.
Till then I enjoy reclining in one of these chairs on warm evenings, watching the stars late at night when they are the brightest, listening to the wind rustle leaves above my head.
I’m planning on stripping off their paint, down to the metal, re-priming and re-painting them green.
Putting things back the way they were has been on my mind a lot lately.
In Charlie’s front entry, his project materials are carefully spread on the floor.
There are drills and hammers, paint brushes, screwdrivers, scissors and a set of instructions, if needed.
In Charlie’s newest project, the rocking horse rockers are made first with each part drawn on good wood, cut, sanded,primed and painted. The next step is attaching the separately made body and legs of the horse, to the rockers, with glue and thick screws. The last steps are doing details; a bridle, a saddle with stirrups, a mane, eyes, a mouth and tail with accessories from his wife Sharon’s sewing room.
The rocking horse, when time to visit arrives, will be loaded in the back of their SUV and delivered in person to Memphis, Tennessee.
At night, Meghan will talk to her horse softly, and, when things are tough, will wrap her little arms around the horse’s broad head and give it a kiss.
There is always more to a rocking horse than a set of instructions, screws and nails, and paint.
Charlie takes everything into consideration.
When fish glance up, they see the bottoms of leaves, insects touching the river’s back, white ripples where water hits obstacles that splits its flow.
In this underground observation area, us desert rats gawk at sharks, rays and groupers,cruising. They brush against their tank’s glass wall and pass us like race cars at the Indy 500.
Fish move aerodynamic, wasting no energy.
Watching them cruising, I wish I had their gracefulness.
Their world has no doors, no walls, and no friction.
Fish are made for quick turns, rapid acceleration, gorgeous movement.
Men are made for plodding and, as Alex the architect points out,often, plotting.
When I look up at the stars at night, I don’t see much difference between myself and a fish.
What we can see above us only goes so far.
Flamingos are often seen in front yards as plastic yard ornaments, and double as stir sticks in fancy lounge drinks.
This evening, the Albuquerque zoo is hosting a music concert. Surrounding the stage, families and friends have spread umbrellas, blankets, folding chairs and wait for Ryan McGarvey, a local boy made good, to sing and play his electric guitar. Newspaper stories say Ryan has performed with the British rock and blues legend Eric Clapton.
Flamingos at the zoo, this evening, can’t be charged with not sticking their necks out.
Tonight’s concert will sound, to them, like the bellowing of hippos and their tall graceful necks will move to the music like a conductor’s baton.
Julie and Nathan, California Chris’s sister and her boyfriend, like the concert, and especially love the rain and stormy skies.
Spectators huddle under umbrellas, blankets,plastic tarps, and the music, all by itself, out- dramas the weather.
Seeing flamingos in New Mexico is as surprising as it would be seeing roadrunners in Florida.
Hanging out with those of your own kind seems to be rooted in nature.
We humans are always trying to outdo nature’s design.
The Armijo hacienda began as one of the first homes in Albuquerque, but was long ago resurrected as the popular Old Town restaurant, ” La Placita. ”
Haciendas were self contained economically, spiritually, emotionally.
Several generations of family lived, worked, sustained themselves in these compounds where they farmed, herded livestock, made clothes and tools, used medicinal plants, entertained themselves at night on back patios under the stars. There were haciendas within yelling distance all the way from Mexico City to Santa Fe, nestled in the Bosque cottonwoods by the Rio Grande. Skirmishes with Indians and bandits were always part of their landscape.
In the 1700’s, this would have been a hard but peaceful life, far from the treachery of Europe and Old Politics, the power of the Catholic Church, the restless marching of armies across continents,flags of discovery and conquest planted on beaches around our planet.
Having lunch in a La Placita dining room, open ears can almost hear the animated dinner conversations of these early settlers.
Their conversation would not be much more different than ours today with family, friends, community, politics, religion, and gossip the main concerns.
The difference, between then and now, is that then, families lived, ate,worked, and talked together.
Inside the downtown Marble Street Brewery, adults pursue spirits, music, networking, barbecue ribs, chips and salsa, self promotion, smoozing, passionate political arguments, soothing ruffled feathers, looking for sex, patching up business deals.
Outside the brewery, kids, watched by their Mom’s, build castles with lego’s on the sidewalk.
When little, we played baseball at dusk in the street,rode simple bicycles down to the local five and ten, dug tunnels in arroyos. In evening baseball we could barely see the white tennis ball coming at us as we stood in the batter’s box. Home plate was a street manhole and first, second and third bases were chalked in at the curbs. We were still playing when the night streetlights came on.
Adults were nowhere to be seen, leaving us to our own devices, waiting for us to grow up and get out on our own.
This evening reminds me of the 1950’s.
These kid’s skyscrapers are already teetering from the weight of the next block.
Their screams, as their skyscraper falls and blocks spread over the sidewalk like a witch doctor’s bones, are happy.
Happy screams are the best ones to hear.
Pets, in America, have become more than pets.
At the Marble Brewery, the limits to their importance are clearly stated on step risers leading to the second floor.
It is only a matter of time before this road house rule against pets going upstairs is summarily challenged in court, ruled on by learned men and women wearing robes, with a jury chosen by prosecutors and defense attorneys that has no thinking animals to make decisions complicated.
If a dog’s master breaks house rules and takes his pet upstairs, can the dog be held responsible for what his master does?
I’d like to be sitting on that jury.
Seeing a dog barking in its own defense would be worth hearing.
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