It’s become part of the morning routine: Checking the smoke map. As I clear my head and loosen old joints, the daily drill is this: Fill the birds’ water dish, make coffee, feed Cowboy and check the smoke reports. I’ve already seen from bed that the smoke has blown in again. I can’t see the …
Saturday. Last of the yellow aspen leaves on North Peak and way up Del Agua. Just whisps of clouds with no forecast for rain. Most I’ve seen of Cabezon in a couple of weeks, with wildfire smoke from other states clearing slightly. Drought, smoke and pandemic make some critters grumpy. Others stay busy, looking for …
I had hope for a clearer day when I saw a streak of golden light from bed but was reminded how dry the ground was as I rose. I absorbed various facts as I put water out for the birds, made coffee, fed Cowboy, read the news. It’s still smoky to the west, over the …
Blue sky in the morning Wednesday and for my evening walk, wildfire smoke gray gone in three directions at least for a day. Camera exaggerating in 6:30 p.m. light but still picking up smoke to the west.
Sunset and Cabezon through wildfire smoke from Arizona, New Mexico and Navajo Nation. Photographed across the Rio Grande from Placitas, June 30, 2020. Had to use my little Canon Powershot SX740 HS. I seldom use anything but my iPhone, except for birds, but the iPhone couldn’t seem to handle all the smoke.
The sky is so gray with smoke sunrise doesn’t wake me. Western wildfires in June are predictable, but with climate change they seem more frequent — and larger. The smoke this Thursday morning, June 18, 2020, obscured the Sandia Mountains to the south and Indian Country mesas to the west. I could barely make out …
I used to look at satellite maps of the U.S. at night to remind me of where I want to live. I looked for the darkest, emptiest spaces in the West — in daylight, places where you can see mountains and sky. Now, I look at maps full of wildfire smoke and wonder what’s next. …
Heh Pat: I doubt that you have forgotten any detail of this date 42 years ago. Absent your company, I have to go back to my journal. And here’s what I noted on July 12, 1972, starting with the ride into Chicken Spring Lake. I note that we packed in enough food and built that …
dream ranch 