Silver City, NM

The Museum is all astir with preparing for the upcoming ice cream social on the Fourth of July. It will be held from 11:00 to 3:00 on the big day, Tuesday.

The temperature continues warm but quite comfortable because of the altitude, and there are trees and shrubs blooming all around.

Silver City has a large number of citizens who have dogs for pets. Lately I have been reading about people who have been teaching their dogs more words. Evidently dogs can understand a good deal; they just can not say words because they do not have the right mouths for forming them - in the same way they do not have opposable thumbs.

I am beginning to be disturbed by this knowledge. Do I now have to watch what I say around dogs, the same way we have to be careful around children? (I was never much good at being that careful around children, let alone dogs!) Cats probably have similar prowress, so are people going to start teaching them the same way? Maybe not - cats probably just do not care.

Hmm... maybe I am more of a cat person than I thought.

Silver City, NM

Stepped up my workout at the gym a week or two ago so I could finish more quickly: more weight, fewer sets give me an hourlong workout instead of an hour and a half!

Perfect, because just about the time the music is driving me crazy, I am gone.

Just because I have not been talking about local events lately does not mean there are none. This town offers more interesting activities than your average town of ten thousand, I think.

We have strangers, too, to bump into - among others, heat refugees from Texas and Tucson and financial refugees from California.

I have very fond memories of California from seventy years ago, and I am sorry to hear that the state seems to be courting disaster.

But then... sometimes it seems that our whole nation is.

Silver City, NM

Early evening. Even at ninety-two degrees, what you would call balmy, with a light breeze and a little bit of cloud cover. I am seeing oleander in bloom, which I do not recall seeing in the last couple of years.

Perfect evening for a stroll to a Scrabble game. Best of all possible worlds.

Silver City, NM

More gorgeous weather here in Silver City! Even the evenings are balmy, so living here is quite a pleasure. The Museum has a lot of visitors today, many of them refugees from the heat at lower altitudes. We seem to be having weeks of over-ninety weather ourselves, scheduled to get close to 100 degrees soon. If that happens and it gets too humid, where will we townsfolk go?

There was a concert last night at the Hub on the block kitty corner from where I live. So close! I walked by the venue but it seemed that the musicians were still getting organized, so I went on home. I thought I would be able to hear the music inside the house.

I went in, forgot all about it, did my stuff and went to bed. The next morning I remembered the concert and figured it had not, in the end, played. After all, I can hear music from Gough Park half a mile away.

Today at work someone mentioned the concert and I was surprised to hear that several bands had played. I was a block away and did not hear a thing! Well, now I know.

Silver City, NM

I cannot believe I let all that nakedness hang out for so long! Well, busy busy.

My daughters and I went to the Latina Festival last weekend and I was surprised that there were not more people there. Admittedly we did not go to the musical features for which there was a charge.

We did go to the ceremonial Aztec dances, and after watching for a while, responded to their invitation to finish off the demonstration by joining them. The steps were easy enough, but it did take some endurance for us (mostly old folk) to persist to the end.

One of the dancers blew a conch shell, which was amazingly loud - like a mountain horn.

Days after we ate at the Buckhorn a fire started outside Pinos Altos and the authorities called for a voluntary evacuation but luckily the fire moved away from town and people were able to move back into their homes in a day or two - except for those in the Bear Creek area. It is still burning, 0% contained, I am told.

Winds and heat are supposed to get worse, so everyone is still on guard.

Silver City, New Mexico

Naked is such a funny word.

If your thirst is slaked, that means you could slake it. You can use a rake to rake your lawn, and if you do we consider it raked.

A cake is not often caked on things, and if you say you were caked with something, people will not think of cake, admittedly. If you say you were well caked, nobody is going to think you are talking about dessert. (Although I was certainly well-caked last night!) But at least there is still an extant word for its present tense.

Of course there are different past tenses for make and take and shake. But there are present and past tenses!

No one, however, ever says they are going to go home and make himself (just proven by the correction of my word by word-correct to make.) No, no one ever nakes himself.

I do not know if the very idea of it used to seem indecent. No one wanted to admit she would ever get herself into such a risqué condition.

No, we all have to get naked, as if we had to rely on a higher (or lower!) power to ever get ourselves into such a situation.

We talk about the naked truth, but never about naking it. It has to be revealed - a word more suave, I guess.

I can hear a chorus of people (starting with my parents) saying Look it up! And of course I will. Toying with it for a little while, though, is much more fun.

It makes a great Sunday subject, heh heh.

Oh, and what about the famous phrase naked came I, talking about our births into the world. We came here naked - who needs a present tense for that?

Silver City, New Mexico

If you are in town this weekend, head on over to the Latina Festival! I was there for a while yesterday evening and it was a lot of fun. There are some talented vendors of weaving, pottery, paper mache, and more. There will be musicians and food vendors as well as a short puppet show about La Llorona put on by the Silver City Museum. The puppet show will be repeated several times so if you miss one performance you can catch another. Everything will be there tomorrow also, reportedly.

Come one, come all!

Silver City, NM

A year or more ago a woman that I met in front of a trailer park told there was a trail from behind the property to the hospital on 32nd St. I never got around to trying it, but would think of it whenever I walked up one of those long, busy roads, Silver and Swan.

This morning after my doctor’s appointment I decided to try it. What decided me was a sign by the trail with the characteristic deer tracks that indicate that it is a trail meant for hiking by the public.

Well, it was a pretty tricky trail with some uncertain footing for aging hikers. At one point I came perilously near some cholla spines. On the other hand, I saw some pretty wildflowers including one that looked like a pale pink chicory. Never saw that before.  At some point I just started using the dry arroyo and wondered what I would have done if there had been water in it. I heard a little yipping - dogs or coyote? - and picked up a handy big stick for both protection and balance. The trail came out near the county health complex, not a trailor park, so maybe I came off it sooner than I needed to.

It was just as well, because it landed me right at another office that I will be visiting tomorrow a.m. Very serendipitous.

Silver City, NM

Yesterday I went hiking on Boston Hill Open and saw - a ways off the trail - a plant that has a common name of bird of paradise. It is not the one with big orange parts; it is a desert (or maybe semi-arid) plant with yellow blossoms and luxuriant long red stamens. I did not realize it was native. Or has it gone feral?

The sun rises for me here at least ten minutes after the weather station says it will because of a ridge East of the downtown, but it is still light early. If I had no knowledge of the summer solstice I would be in seventh heaven. Summer is just beginning! But alas, soon the light will begin to wane again.

Well, crying about that is like crying about bedtime at noon. The sky is blue, the weather is glorious, and I saw a hovering hummingbird this morning along the ditch.

Silver City, NM

My phone is a big baby. It wants attention all he time. No sooner do I walk away from home than it begins grunting and intoning, making me wonder with a guilty start if I forgot to change its diaper. 

It cares more about what it wants than what I want - just like a baby. Okay, okay, I behave that way sometimes too, but this object is supposed to serve me and my loved ones, not itself.

Sound familiar? If we have this kind of trouble with our phones, what does that forecast for artificial intelligence and robots?

Silver City, NM

I am pretty high on life right now because I saw something I have never seen before: a deer walking right by my house. I have seen them here in the neighborhood but never right by my dwelling. I also may have failed to report that we have an owl living nearby. I am told that particular hoot is a great horned owl.

I mentioned to an acquaintance who, as it turns out, lives on Brewer Hill across the creek, rattled off a plethora of wildlife that visits his place also near the downtown area. Even if you do not see them it is good to know they are there.

Near our house I see lots of cats - and I have smelled skunk. Whoopee.

Silver City, New Mexico

Maybe it is the Year of the Hollyhock in Silver City. They are really happy to gather in some yards - even uninvited, I hear. Then some of us send the equivalent of engraved invitations, planting seeds where they should be quite happy to grow, one would think, and they do not respond even to care.

I fall between these two extremes; I gather seeds of my preferred colors, and throw them where I hope the weed-whackers will not feel the need to go. Nothing has come up yet. Maybe I will try something else next year something that takes a little more effort.

But will that work? I really feel for the woman that plants in vain. Hollyhocks sprout and bloom from the gutters, for pity’s sake! And the plant blooms in its second year, which means the bloomers have survived over a year.

It is almost comical - but remember - we laugh at what gives us pain.

Silver City, New Mexico

Today is bright and quite windy here in Silver City. Last night I did not need my comforter at all so I spot-washed some stains acquired over the last winter so I held it out to the wind from my porch and let it get tossed around for a while. Between the sun and the wind it dried out some and fluffed up. I felt a little silly but it was kind of fun. Your average kite-flying failure is no more fun than watching my outdoor dryer at work. I will take the comforter to the laundromat to clean it better before I store it for the summer.

Turns out the current fire started May 18 from a lightning strike and as of two days ago was 13% contained. The Gila Forest remains open.

Good news in that respect at least. It sounds as if this fire is accomplishing some of what a controlled burn accomplishes, helping to avoid more uncontrollable fires in wooded areas.

Silver City, NM

Yesterday evening I took a friend to see the artichokes in the horticulturalist’s garden at the Western New Mexico University garden and the way we passed one of those magnolia trees with blossoms as big as plates. We smelled nothing. I wondered if the dry climate dried the blossoms up enough so that they just do not smell as good - as I have observed in roses. Then on the way back a mere twenty minutes, we were bathed in a wonderful fragrance and there was the magnolia! I am glad the climate here fails to suppress its exuberant offerings!

Speaking of roses, a number of the bushes I pass by seem to be drying up already. It is not late in the season, I do not believe. Maybe gardeners are not considering he lack of rainfall enough when they are watering.

Having said that, the lilacs in the yard where I live are not getting enough of something. I water them occasionally, but evidently not enough.

Agaves continue to grow fast and set buds, and today here on the city property of the Visitor Center a cholla has beautiful fresh flowers.

Yesterday I saw the biggest most beautiful patch of larkspurs I have ever seen - grown from seed yet! I will have to find out the technique of that gardener!

Silver City, New Mexico

This morning the eastern horizon looked suspiciously smudgy, and sure enough, there is a fire. And has been since March 14, when lightning started it! So far it is 0% contained but only grassland and small shrubs have fallen victim to it so far, I am told. Plant life, that is. I have no idea how many small creatures have fallen victim to it.

June is typically dry here, so although there are over 100 people are working on containing it, they are going to get no help from nature.

Silver City, New Mexico

It was with a heavy heart I went to the gym yesterday, but it was not so bad. In spite of the fact that I missed Labor Day workout, I did not seem to lose any strength. In fact some of my muscles were stronger! (I wondered if they adjusted the machines.) I have seemed to lose strength when it comes to operating the rear delta machine. Maybe eating more protein will help.

Every once in a while I try to speak to someone there. Silly me! Many wear earphones most of the time. Yesterday, though, I heard a real human voice singing along with the music that was already playing. In tune! It was like seeing a new kind of blossom for the first time. It made me happy and lightened the end of my workout.

Walking through the campus after my workout (I am always happy then!) I went past the horticulturalist’s garden and saw - artichokes! The had already gone from flower to fruit! I want one - I wonder when they will appear in the stores.

The weather continues clear and gorgeous, and I heard a rumor that the NOAA predicts we may have no monsoons this year. That is a very scary prospect.