dreamranch

For a moment, I wondered if the neighbor’s barn was on fire.

Then — though thick-headed with early-season allergies — I realized maybe something can be said for wind-driven dust, at least in the evening, after a couple of belts of Flonase.

And, if you don’t believe me about allergies, here’s a pollen-loaded juniper at dreamranch on Feb. 18.

Frankly, it seems to me we have redder sunsets more often these days and pollen-bombing that I used to associate with March now comes in February. I’m thinking this is what climate change does to sunsets and poetry.

Sunset flip

no comments

February 14, 2016

The birds were lying low, so I decided to do a little flying on my own. (See video).

This fella is from the night before.

Walk in the hood

no comments

February 11, 2016

Cameron the bike rider, Cooper the resting dog, caballos the free-roaming, camera amateur with legs.

Turquoise guy.

Evening sentinel.

Pathfinder.

One of those nights

no comments

January 30, 2016

This is how it went down.

Celebrity tips and other stuff I learned on Twitter today

1 comment

January 29, 2016

How to be recognized as a celebrity:

Wear giant sunglasses while walking through LAX in an abundance of outerwear, partially concealing a small dog.
Carry a lidded Starbucks cup as you stroll through the Village with your spouse or partner in giant sunglasses, sloppy jeans and an abundance of outerwear.

How to prove your commander-in-chief and foreign policy chops when running for the Republican presidential nomination with no prior foreign policy or government experience:

Go nuclear on a prominent television news anchor.
Go nuclear on a newspaper editor in a small New England state.
Refuse to debate when you suspect your opponents will go nuclear on you.

Dental work, bluebirds and Donald Trump

no comments

January 28, 2016

I can report, after a year of apparently successful cancer treatment, that going to the dentist feels like a reaffirmation of life.

Never has an hour of hanging upside down with my jaw propped open cheered me as much as it did yesterday.

I shared this with the western bluebirds enjoying fresh water at my place this morning while I drank coffee.

I now return to Trumpmania on CNN, not entirely convinced it is the end of the world.

Confessions of a semi-rural suburbanite

1 comment

January 23, 2016

Sometimes my nobility is as thin as the stucco on my fake adobe house.

I made it through our annual homeowners’ meeting without a scratch — probably because everyone studiously avoided discussing free-roaming horses and Donald Trump — and ducked assignments to any of our civic boards.

I soon was back in my life as a public lands miser, walking on the 240-acre inholding just beyond my back door, hoping a public-minded government agency doesn’t trade it off to a subdivision developer and turn me into a backyard Bundy. Shouldn’t my subdivision be the last?

We talked about recycling and water consumption and I made as stab at cleaning up my own place when I got back from the walk. I plugged my fancy Dyson into what I’m afraid might be coal-fired electricity and admitted to myself that if I bought the vehicle of my dreams, it would be a Chevy Suburban.

As the full moon rises, I photograph a speck of semi-rural suburban life on a hazy horizon.

Morning company

no comments

January 22, 2016

This morning’s visitors included these guys, and it was especially good to see the larger of the two — the Northern Flicker — in a circumstance other than a startling nighttime encounter on the front porch.

The smaller Downy (I think) Woodpecker usually keeps his distance and even seems to prefer bugs on trees to the seed I put out for others.

The flicker, or flickers before him, has for 24 years shacked up during the winter months under the beams of my front portal. But I forget he is there and there often is commotion — homeowner ducking, bird flapping away — when I wake him coming and going in the dark.

The little woodpecker has been around for a couple of months. The flicker seems to have arrived more recently arrived, but he seems settled in his winter digs now. He or fellow flickers keep coming.

I suspect there is some bird sign on my place that in effect says, “Good place for flickers, despite resident rube roaming around in the dark.”

Billy the Kid at the Desert Inn

no comments

January 21, 2016

I dreamed a famous billionaire real estate developer appeared before the Santa Fe historical styles committee to seek approval of his proposed Torreón de Billy the Kid Hotel and Casino in an old neighborhood near the Roundhouse.

The New York developer, who touted Hispanic influences on his Florida resort, wore a Billy the Kid-like hat. Tufts of orange hair stuck out beneath the narrow brim. Stenciled on the crown were the words, “Make the Barrio de Analco Great Again.”

In my dream, he was leasing the property along the south side of the Santa River from the state of New Mexico, which recently had acquired it a complicated swap involving an Indian tribe, former apple growers, one of Santa Fe’s most famous families and a beloved hamburger joint.

The Legislature was meeting in Santa Fe and the state budget was in trouble. The developer and supporters argued that a cut of the money paid to the state by the hotel-casino would help replace declining oil and gas revenues.

Also, a small oilfield might be developed on the river bank property, the developer mentioned briefly, near the end of his presentation.

“This would be huge,” he said, citing the potential financial reward to Santa Fe and the state.

The round, 10-story hotel-casino tower would be in keeping with other architecture in the neighborhood, including the state Capitol, the developer told the committee. It would feature cracked plaster, leaky, flat roofs and small, barred windows.

It would be modeled on a famous 19th century torreón in New Mexico’s Lincoln County, possibly once visited by Billy the Kid, although compliant with “Recent Santa Fe Style.”

When it was disclosed that the stucco on a large wall around the torreón — to conceal the parking lot and the possible oilfield — would be synthetic, a committee member suggested this could be seen as a slap in the face of the original Tlaxcalan people of the barrio, who had plastered their buildings with mud.

“I have discussed this with my many Tlaxcalan friends,” the developer responded.

“I have a great relationship with the Tlaxcalan people,” he said.