June is the cruelest month in New Mexico. It’s supposed to hit 100 degrees today at 6,500 feet in the Sandia foothills. Humidity is soaring at 7 percent. Wildfires are burning in the Gila, the Pecos and father north, near El Rito, obscuring my visions of cool, clear streams running fast in the mountains. Arizona …

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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 …

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Towhee. Lost gloves. Hillside romance. Titmouse. Good book, (hat tip to a friend). Sunday clouds. Last of the Oct. 26-27 snow. Voting souvenir. More visitors: Titmouse. House finch. Junco. Western bluebird, one of many robins. Click on Nate Silver/FiveThirtyEight for his final Nov. 3 election forecast. What’s cookin’. Also stopping by: Mountain bluebird. Sage thrasher. …

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Conversations with friends about the destruction of the Santa Fe Plaza obelisk this week sent me to the Newspapers.com archives of the Santa Fe New Mexican, where I started working the year the word “savage” was chiseled away. I found the original story from Aug. 8, 1974. I found that it was below-the-fold news on …

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