Life goes on in New Mexico:
Woke to the sound of a breeze in the piñons and junipers — to my ears distinctly New Mexico and one of the reasons I live here.
Brewed coffee — thanking goodness for continued operation of the family-run Whiting Coffee Company on Osuna in Albuquerque — squared myself in front of the iMac and cautiously opened its windows to news — my own paper and local news first.
Caution is advised because there was the usual grim crime story, 
and crime seems increasingly grimmer in Albuquerque.
There was a report about damming and diverting water from New Mexico’s “last wild river,” the Gila.
There was a column about a guy who hikes the high country with his wire fox terrier. (Believe me, we are a dog-lovers’ newspaper).
Another writer examined the New Mexico tradition of descansos, memorials placed at the sites of deaths, too often car crashes.
And, most cheerfully to me, our bear-beat reporter wrote that he had been up in the Sandias with a Game and Fish biologist who says the food supply for bears is “hugely better” this year, compared to past drought years that sent the bears wandering into town and trouble.
All of the stories accompanied by fine photos from Journal photographers. (Photos here, respectively, by Nicole Perez, Jim Thompson, Jim Thompson and Dean Hanson. The piñon is one of my lame iPhone deals, although it’s pretty hard to catch wind in the trees. I’ve had no luck recording the sound either).
As for for government and economic news, I can do no better at the moment than to recommend John Trever’s editorial cartoon this morning on bidding for Tesla.
I know this is not the whole New Mexico story this morning. I’ll read the other stuff in the paper later, if I didn’t read it going in.
For now, out into that breeze.
dream ranch 