I started thinking about the weather when sister Hope sent me photos of life in Montana.
We started sensing what was coming here in Placitas on Friday.
The wind picked up from the west and it was time to brave the construction-clogged traffic in Bernalillo and stock up on food and allergy medicine: Climate change has made it a year-round thing. Also got one of those those dandy seed, nut and worm things from the Wild Birdhouse.
Thunder, lightning, hail and snow raced in from the west early Saturday night.
The temperature dropped and it was time for togetherness and an indoor hat, (fleece by Sunday night). Sad to hear on the Weather Channel that 4 million Texans went without power, utility officials in Houston told people not to drip their faucets to avoid overloading the municipal water system, Amarillo officials tried to get homeless people into shelters and snow, freezing rain and unheard of temperatures caused mayhem from Lubbock to Shreveport to Nashville. I was already saddened by my 85-year-old neighbors being turned away from the COVID vaccine clinic at the Bernalillo Walmart, despite having been sent an “event code.”
The wind started coming from the east and blew most of the snow west. But the ground was strangely hard and by all accounts the temperature felt like minus 1.
Meanwhile, someone let the coyotes in again.
By 6 p.m. Sunday that hard east wind died down, I got the warm air flow worked out and Monte Walsh showed up on the TV.
At 11 p.m. we heard the hollow thump of an 800-pound hoofed animal outside the west wall. Cowboy burst through the dog door to bark. I knew it was a free-roaming horse, probably one of the stallions kicked out of its band. Monday morning I saw how close it had come to the brink of the deep arroyo in the snow and dark and where it stumbled in the soft dirt at the edge.
But these neighborhood horses somehow make do. I could see where this lone ranger regained his footing and continued on south.
dream ranch 