So, we're back in Texas. It's hot. I expected that. The cat and dog are both depressed about not having their deck to spend the long days. I'm having allergy problems. So is the cat. We did hire someone to come rake up these leaves and haul them off. Getting ready to have the real estate agent out on Thursday, so we're trying to spiffy things up for her. I cleaned the upstairs, packed up two boxes of books I don't want to keep, and uprooted a mouse who was making a nest under the bathroom sink up there. Guess this happens when you leave a house empty for two months. The mice move in. Anyway, my SO set traps, so maybe we will catch this thing tonight. You know the cat is sick or otherwise that mouse would've been history the first day we arrived.
While we were gone, I found out this past Friday, Daddy had a bad fall. It could've been worse, I guess. He could have broken bones. What he did do is rip the skin off his forearm, from his elbow to his wrist. He couldn't staunch the bleeding so he drove himself to the Emergency Room. There were no stitches to be taken but they bandaged him and advised him to report to his doctor on Monday. He did, and for the last four weeks he has been going in three times a day to have silver sulfadiazine burn ointment applied to the wound and a new bandage. I think it scared him enough he's ready to get Life Alert. I had the home health people here send me some information on that service. The most troubling thing about this who incident, at least to me, is that he can't remember what made him fall, and nobody, not even his regular doctor, seemed to think he should be tested for TIAs or something else that could have caused that fall.
And here we are going forward with plans to put the house on the market and move permanently to New Mexico. It's a hard call but one that makes sense financially as well as logistically. I was thinking today as I cleaned upstairs, that at the other house I would have been done with the entire house in the time it took to clean just that one-third of this house that I managed to maul through. We don't need this large of a house and with this Eagle Ford Shale oil and gas boom, it is hopefully, the right time to sell, too. The only misgivings I have concern Daddy.
Wonder of wonders -- I was writing while we were there. Something new and not ready to be discussed but it felt so good to get lost in words again, even if it was short lived. I think all the reading I was doing there was partly responsible. I tend to forget how inspiring just simply reading books can be for a writer. I also seem to have more time to correspond with writer friends and that also is inspirational, just to talk about writing, like a REAL writer. I had a couple of stimulating telephone conversations as well.
So it will be August tomorrow, when we get up in the morning. The hottest time of the year. I know I will be ready to get back to the mountains when we leave again in two weeks. I'm already counting the days.
Onward ....
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Leaving the Mountains
Night before we're leaving to return to Texas. It's been so nice and cool here, highs in the upper 70s, lows in the 50s. We've been sitting outside in the mornings with fleece and jackets on -- heavenly. And yes, I do know how lucky we are.
Took the dog for a walk with a neighbor who was also walking her dog this evening. We talked about the area and she said she will probably be putting her house on the market in about a year. Then she said she didn't know where she would move because she loves it here, loves the mountains, the scenery. So I asked why she would want to move, then, if she loves it so much? I can't come to terms with that.
We're only going to be gone for a bit over 2 weeks, but it feels like a lifetime. Which is one more reason -- or one more indication -- that the time is now to sell the Buffalo Wallow. It will be hard to do. We both love the place, and it holds so many memories of dreams we shared when we moved in there. But dreams change, and so do financial situations. It feels like the right thing to do, financially, to sell the Buffalo Wallow and move here to the mountains full time. I have just been having trouble reconciling myself to living in a smaller -- much smaller -- place. I will have to get rid of loads of old things that have meant so much to me in the past. But I still keep reminding myself that stuff is just stuff and doesn't contribute one iota to a person's level of happiness. Why is this such a hard thing to convince myself of -- has it only to do with that nest-building instinct that most women seem to have? Oh well ..... time to move on.
Part of me will be happy to divest myself of all these leavings. That's what I think of a large part of it -- leavings from another life. People leave things to you and then you're sort of stuck with it all until you can justify yourself to the fact that you have just been chosen to be the one to figure out what the hell to do with these leavings. Antique stores are full of leavings. I'm about to add a bunch more to their inventory.
On another, much more depressing note, the cat has really declined in the last couple of days. We took him to the vet this morning and I'm hoping he can rally one more time -- at least long enough to get him comfortably back to Texas. But for some reason this time does not feeling as positive as other times, and I am just hoping now that he can make it home. I have cried buckets and part of me would like a denouement to this phase. Although, my SO keeps reminding me that we have had him, and been able to enjoy him, far longer than we thought in the beginning. And he has, I truly feel, enjoyed this trip to the mountains. Up until two days ago, he was playing with his toys, chasing the birds on the deck.
For now, I'm taking one day at a time. With high hopes. Still trying to be a realist.
Onward ....
Took the dog for a walk with a neighbor who was also walking her dog this evening. We talked about the area and she said she will probably be putting her house on the market in about a year. Then she said she didn't know where she would move because she loves it here, loves the mountains, the scenery. So I asked why she would want to move, then, if she loves it so much? I can't come to terms with that.
We're only going to be gone for a bit over 2 weeks, but it feels like a lifetime. Which is one more reason -- or one more indication -- that the time is now to sell the Buffalo Wallow. It will be hard to do. We both love the place, and it holds so many memories of dreams we shared when we moved in there. But dreams change, and so do financial situations. It feels like the right thing to do, financially, to sell the Buffalo Wallow and move here to the mountains full time. I have just been having trouble reconciling myself to living in a smaller -- much smaller -- place. I will have to get rid of loads of old things that have meant so much to me in the past. But I still keep reminding myself that stuff is just stuff and doesn't contribute one iota to a person's level of happiness. Why is this such a hard thing to convince myself of -- has it only to do with that nest-building instinct that most women seem to have? Oh well ..... time to move on.
Part of me will be happy to divest myself of all these leavings. That's what I think of a large part of it -- leavings from another life. People leave things to you and then you're sort of stuck with it all until you can justify yourself to the fact that you have just been chosen to be the one to figure out what the hell to do with these leavings. Antique stores are full of leavings. I'm about to add a bunch more to their inventory.
On another, much more depressing note, the cat has really declined in the last couple of days. We took him to the vet this morning and I'm hoping he can rally one more time -- at least long enough to get him comfortably back to Texas. But for some reason this time does not feeling as positive as other times, and I am just hoping now that he can make it home. I have cried buckets and part of me would like a denouement to this phase. Although, my SO keeps reminding me that we have had him, and been able to enjoy him, far longer than we thought in the beginning. And he has, I truly feel, enjoyed this trip to the mountains. Up until two days ago, he was playing with his toys, chasing the birds on the deck.For now, I'm taking one day at a time. With high hopes. Still trying to be a realist.
Onward ....
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
It's a Zoo!
Sitting out on the deck in the mornings, I can't help but think of that old line -- It's a zoo around here. Well, it's more than just a saying at this mountain place. Yesterday we had a blond black bear walk down the road in front of our house, cross our driveway, and stroll up between the house and the propane tank, just as if it owned the place. My SO walked to the end of the porch as the bear went by and spoke to it, he says, just to see the way the thing might react. It turned like it was going to come up on the porch and shake my SO's hand -- that was how it reacted. Not what I wanted at all. I was frantic and trying to locate the camera on my phone, which wasn't even turned on yet, to take a picture. Our neighbors across the street were yelling, "Bear!" It was a zoo.
I've already blogged about the black-tailed hare. We have also, in addition to a whole family of fox-eared squirrels, a group of chipmunks that have moved in. They are driving the dog insane. She thinks of nothing else but those chipmunks. She isn't interested in other dogs that walk by, in the squirrels, in taking walks, in eating! She just wants to "dog" the chipmunks, galloping up and down the deck and porch each time one of them moves.
We also have birds galore -- our own aviary as my SO likes to say. We've been taking the hummingbird feeders in at night -- because of bears -- but as soon as we hang them out in the morning, the hummers attack them (and each other). We have a male rufous who is especially aggressive. I've never had a rufous at a feeder, and he's a joy to watch, like a orange-red flame buzzing past. We saw one of them poke its beak down in the fragile tomato blossoms yesterday. I'm hoping that it pollinated them.
Other birds we have in abundance are grosbeaks and nuthatches. The pygmy nuthatches are all over the place, spilling the seeds from the feeders in search of black oil sunflower seeds, which they take up onto the pine branches and hammer open. They also drink and bathe in the drip tray under the basil plant. That has gotten the kitty's attention. He stalks them and bats at them, but so far hasn't knocked one down. He tires easily of this, though, and after one or two attempts, goes back to the cushion in the lawn chairs for a nap. Occasional visitors to the feeders are redwing blackbirds, hairy woodpeckers, and stellar's jays.
It's the seeds on the ground, the rejected seeds that the pygmies fling down, that have attracted all this wildlife. Last night, before we took the dog out for her final latrine, I turned on the floodlights and there was a big skunk grazing in the rejected seeds. The skunks here have a wide white swath down their back, wider than Texas skunks, and they're fluffier. We made noises and shined a flashlight on it until it left the premises. We noted that it disappeared into the culvert under the driveway, which explains why the dog is always nosing around those culverts on our walks. The seeds are also the reason we have the squirrels and the chipmunks, and probably bears if we don't do something to clean the pile up. Think we'll get on that today. I don't mind the zoo, in fact, it makes life interesting, but I'd just as soon not walk out one day to find a black bear lounging in the chaise.
Last night as I was dozing off to sleep, I heard coyotes yodeling down in the valley. I swear, it's a zoo around this place!
Onward ....
I've already blogged about the black-tailed hare. We have also, in addition to a whole family of fox-eared squirrels, a group of chipmunks that have moved in. They are driving the dog insane. She thinks of nothing else but those chipmunks. She isn't interested in other dogs that walk by, in the squirrels, in taking walks, in eating! She just wants to "dog" the chipmunks, galloping up and down the deck and porch each time one of them moves.
We also have birds galore -- our own aviary as my SO likes to say. We've been taking the hummingbird feeders in at night -- because of bears -- but as soon as we hang them out in the morning, the hummers attack them (and each other). We have a male rufous who is especially aggressive. I've never had a rufous at a feeder, and he's a joy to watch, like a orange-red flame buzzing past. We saw one of them poke its beak down in the fragile tomato blossoms yesterday. I'm hoping that it pollinated them.
Other birds we have in abundance are grosbeaks and nuthatches. The pygmy nuthatches are all over the place, spilling the seeds from the feeders in search of black oil sunflower seeds, which they take up onto the pine branches and hammer open. They also drink and bathe in the drip tray under the basil plant. That has gotten the kitty's attention. He stalks them and bats at them, but so far hasn't knocked one down. He tires easily of this, though, and after one or two attempts, goes back to the cushion in the lawn chairs for a nap. Occasional visitors to the feeders are redwing blackbirds, hairy woodpeckers, and stellar's jays.
It's the seeds on the ground, the rejected seeds that the pygmies fling down, that have attracted all this wildlife. Last night, before we took the dog out for her final latrine, I turned on the floodlights and there was a big skunk grazing in the rejected seeds. The skunks here have a wide white swath down their back, wider than Texas skunks, and they're fluffier. We made noises and shined a flashlight on it until it left the premises. We noted that it disappeared into the culvert under the driveway, which explains why the dog is always nosing around those culverts on our walks. The seeds are also the reason we have the squirrels and the chipmunks, and probably bears if we don't do something to clean the pile up. Think we'll get on that today. I don't mind the zoo, in fact, it makes life interesting, but I'd just as soon not walk out one day to find a black bear lounging in the chaise.
Last night as I was dozing off to sleep, I heard coyotes yodeling down in the valley. I swear, it's a zoo around this place!
Onward ....
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Notable Books, According to Me
Awoke this morning feeling good about life, about living in a place where the air is sweet and fresh, where you need a jacket to sit outside in July to drink your coffee, where the main sounds are the crows cacking and the tickle of squirrels climbing up the barky pine trees. Yes, this house is small, but it has a beautiful ceiling. It rained yesterday. The roof leaked a little over in the corner by the television. It's the first real rain we've had since we bought the place. I found a flashlight to check for other possible leaks, ran the spotlight up and down the ceiling beams. I found a lot of cobwebs, but no other wet places.
I've seen ceilings before that this one is patterned after -- on old adobe porches primarily. Long beams spaced about three feet apart, with planks adjoining in a perpendicular fashion. The boards on the ceiling here are knotty pine and smooth, with rougher beams that are actually supportive and not just decorative. These beams extend through the exterior wall and out to the edge of the porch overhang. On the porch the beams are painted, but inside they have been left natural to darken with age. Now, that the paneled walls inside have all been painted a light off-white, the beauty of the ceiling really strikes out. And now that I have inspected them with a flashlight, the ceiling has also been de-cobwebbed.
The atmosphere here is really conducive to reading and I have been getting a lot of that done. Don't know why I seem to have no time for reading when I'm at home in Texas. I downloaded some books to my Kindle before we left Texas. Tiger, Tiger
by Margaux Fragnoso is the first one I read. It's about a woman's relationship with a pedophile, and is particularly timely with the Jaycee Dugard
story so much in the news right now. It was one of those books that hangs with you, disturbs you and makes you try to rationalize. Also downloaded was Remember Ben Clayton
by my friend Stephen Harrigan. Stephen is another writer who hales from Corpus Christi, which is our only real connection. He's a wonderful writer and this novel is his best to date. I'm finding it fresh and factual, particularly since it's dealing with a time period I researched considerably for Right From Wrong
, and his characters are lively and real. I'm not completely finished with it, and plan to say more about it later.
One thing I have found with all this reading is how easy to handle and convenient the Kindle is. It doesn't tire my hands out the way a real book does, and mine has a little light attached to the cover, so I can read in the dark, which I have been doing for a while every night before I go to sleep. The one thing that is not handy about the Kindle, though, is that it is easy to lose your place, and you never know what page you're on at any given time. There's a bookmark, but it isn't always easy to get back to the mark if you happen to accidentally hit the paging button a few times. The other thing you miss out on with a Kindle, is photographs that might be inside the actual book.
This is the main reason I bought from Barnes & Noble online, with a birthday gift certificate, a book called River of Traps
by William DeBuys & Alex Harris. It's about these two men's years living in the New Mexico mountains in the shadow of the Truchas Peaks, and an old Hispanic man who befriended them. Harris is the photographer and there are some lovely full-page black-and-whites inside, and the descriptions and history of the area are beautifully told by DeBuys. The old man, Jacobo, is wise and witty and so familiar to me of similar men I had friendships with during my years of living and working in San Antonio.
Finally, there's a bookmobile that comes to our village once a month from up at Cimarron, which is about halfway between here and Raton. In June, I got a card and checked out two books, one of which turned out to be a lovely, informative treatment of The Mountains of New Mexico
by Robert Julyan. The author has visited each of the mountains he discusses, gives so much information about the geography and how the land was formed, that even though I had originally intended to only peruse it for mountains in our area, I ended up reading the entire book cover to cover, and took it with us when we visited the Capulin Volcano when the boys were here. I'm one of those people who needs to know where I am in the world, in a much more detailed way than just by giving an address or distance from some larger town. I still feel a lot of mystery around me here, and won't quit reading until I think I understand this place, its people, its present and its past.
Meanwhile, it's time to take a shower and get this day started. It's nearly noon and I've done nothing but read, drink my coffee, and listen to the birds in the trees.
Onward ....
I've seen ceilings before that this one is patterned after -- on old adobe porches primarily. Long beams spaced about three feet apart, with planks adjoining in a perpendicular fashion. The boards on the ceiling here are knotty pine and smooth, with rougher beams that are actually supportive and not just decorative. These beams extend through the exterior wall and out to the edge of the porch overhang. On the porch the beams are painted, but inside they have been left natural to darken with age. Now, that the paneled walls inside have all been painted a light off-white, the beauty of the ceiling really strikes out. And now that I have inspected them with a flashlight, the ceiling has also been de-cobwebbed.
The atmosphere here is really conducive to reading and I have been getting a lot of that done. Don't know why I seem to have no time for reading when I'm at home in Texas. I downloaded some books to my Kindle before we left Texas. Tiger, Tiger
by Margaux Fragnoso is the first one I read. It's about a woman's relationship with a pedophile, and is particularly timely with the Jaycee Dugard story so much in the news right now. It was one of those books that hangs with you, disturbs you and makes you try to rationalize. Also downloaded was Remember Ben Clayton by my friend Stephen Harrigan. Stephen is another writer who hales from Corpus Christi, which is our only real connection. He's a wonderful writer and this novel is his best to date. I'm finding it fresh and factual, particularly since it's dealing with a time period I researched considerably for Right From Wrong, and his characters are lively and real. I'm not completely finished with it, and plan to say more about it later.One thing I have found with all this reading is how easy to handle and convenient the Kindle is. It doesn't tire my hands out the way a real book does, and mine has a little light attached to the cover, so I can read in the dark, which I have been doing for a while every night before I go to sleep. The one thing that is not handy about the Kindle, though, is that it is easy to lose your place, and you never know what page you're on at any given time. There's a bookmark, but it isn't always easy to get back to the mark if you happen to accidentally hit the paging button a few times. The other thing you miss out on with a Kindle, is photographs that might be inside the actual book.
This is the main reason I bought from Barnes & Noble online, with a birthday gift certificate, a book called River of Traps
by William DeBuys & Alex Harris. It's about these two men's years living in the New Mexico mountains in the shadow of the Truchas Peaks, and an old Hispanic man who befriended them. Harris is the photographer and there are some lovely full-page black-and-whites inside, and the descriptions and history of the area are beautifully told by DeBuys. The old man, Jacobo, is wise and witty and so familiar to me of similar men I had friendships with during my years of living and working in San Antonio.Finally, there's a bookmobile that comes to our village once a month from up at Cimarron, which is about halfway between here and Raton. In June, I got a card and checked out two books, one of which turned out to be a lovely, informative treatment of The Mountains of New Mexico
by Robert Julyan. The author has visited each of the mountains he discusses, gives so much information about the geography and how the land was formed, that even though I had originally intended to only peruse it for mountains in our area, I ended up reading the entire book cover to cover, and took it with us when we visited the Capulin Volcano when the boys were here. I'm one of those people who needs to know where I am in the world, in a much more detailed way than just by giving an address or distance from some larger town. I still feel a lot of mystery around me here, and won't quit reading until I think I understand this place, its people, its present and its past.Meanwhile, it's time to take a shower and get this day started. It's nearly noon and I've done nothing but read, drink my coffee, and listen to the birds in the trees.
Onward ....
Thursday, July 7, 2011
House Guests, a Volcano, and a Serious Discussion
I cannot keep track of the counter numbers on this blog. I don't even know if anybody reads the damned thing. I've thought several times about giving it up, but then I think of something I want to put down here and so it goes.
The pecan pie turned out OK. It didn't taste like my usual pecan pie, but it was devoured so I guess that's a good sign. The boys came and stayed with us for five days, and it really wasn't long enough. They are the easiest house guests in the world, so enthusiastic about everything, and appreciative. They make me really proud.
We took them over to the Capulin Volcano National Monument east of Raton. We hiked down into the crater and back up, which I thought was a hard slog, but I only thought that in the beginning. The rim walk was the real killer. I seriously believed for a while that I would not make it around the rim. It was brutal, and at 8600 plus feet, a real breath taker, and I mean that literally. I my lungs hurt, my heart pounded. The uphill climb was the worst. When we got to the top, finally, I thought I would really enjoy looking down on the lava flows. We'd watched a little movie before embarking on this trek, and it had explained about the pressure waves and lots of other geographic phenomenon characteristic of a volcano like Capulin. Instead, I was so thrilled to be done with the worst of the climb, I just sat on one of the benches they had up there and tried to get my breath, to fight down the vertigo that kept trying to take over, and to quell the nausea. We took some pictures on the way down but I haven't downloaded them from the camera yet.
On Sunday, we took them to the airport in Albuquerque and had a real heart-to-heart on the ride back about selling the place in Texas and making this our permanent home. There are some things that have to happen here for me to be in favor of such a big move, and we began on some of those things this week. We bought some furniture for one thing, and the carpenter we discovered is coming back to do some more work to the place, and to help me paint the bedroom. My SO is going back to Texas tomorrow morning to check on things at the house, and to do some personal errands and make some business calls. He'll be gone a week. When he gets back, the bedroom will be done and all that will really remain is remodeling the kitchen. But that will have to wait until the house in Texas is sold.
It is going to take some real getting used to, living in such a small house again. This house is just barely bigger than the first "starter" home my ex and I bought way back in the early 1980s. I'll have to get rid of half of my "stuff," more than half. But it's just stuff, and I said way way back that I was not going to let "stuff" run my life the way it has done for at least the past 25 or so years. It's not worth it. We'll have a big sale after the house sells, fingers crossed. We have a figure we want to get out of all this which will allow us to become, once and for all, debt free. Both of us are ready for that.
Meanwhile, the cat has taken a real downturn in the last couple of days. Today has been an especially bad day. I tried to go to sleep with the SO at 10:00, but here I am back up with the kitty. I held him for about an hour, and he responded to that. I tried explaining to him that he would feel so much better if he would eat something and drink some water. And that I would take him to the vet in the morning. He turned to press on me the way he has done his entire life, showing me that he loves me, too. And then he got down from my lap and ate some of his can and got a big drink, wandered off to the litter box, and now he is back in the chair he commandeered practically from the first day we moved in here. It's a big old semi-circular 1970s style low back easy chair with rust colored upholstery. I'll be glad to get my good living room stuff here eventually.
Guess it's time to turn in, or try to again. I'll post some more things I've been up to tomorrow.
Onward ....
We took them over to the Capulin Volcano National Monument east of Raton. We hiked down into the crater and back up, which I thought was a hard slog, but I only thought that in the beginning. The rim walk was the real killer. I seriously believed for a while that I would not make it around the rim. It was brutal, and at 8600 plus feet, a real breath taker, and I mean that literally. I my lungs hurt, my heart pounded. The uphill climb was the worst. When we got to the top, finally, I thought I would really enjoy looking down on the lava flows. We'd watched a little movie before embarking on this trek, and it had explained about the pressure waves and lots of other geographic phenomenon characteristic of a volcano like Capulin. Instead, I was so thrilled to be done with the worst of the climb, I just sat on one of the benches they had up there and tried to get my breath, to fight down the vertigo that kept trying to take over, and to quell the nausea. We took some pictures on the way down but I haven't downloaded them from the camera yet.
On Sunday, we took them to the airport in Albuquerque and had a real heart-to-heart on the ride back about selling the place in Texas and making this our permanent home. There are some things that have to happen here for me to be in favor of such a big move, and we began on some of those things this week. We bought some furniture for one thing, and the carpenter we discovered is coming back to do some more work to the place, and to help me paint the bedroom. My SO is going back to Texas tomorrow morning to check on things at the house, and to do some personal errands and make some business calls. He'll be gone a week. When he gets back, the bedroom will be done and all that will really remain is remodeling the kitchen. But that will have to wait until the house in Texas is sold.
It is going to take some real getting used to, living in such a small house again. This house is just barely bigger than the first "starter" home my ex and I bought way back in the early 1980s. I'll have to get rid of half of my "stuff," more than half. But it's just stuff, and I said way way back that I was not going to let "stuff" run my life the way it has done for at least the past 25 or so years. It's not worth it. We'll have a big sale after the house sells, fingers crossed. We have a figure we want to get out of all this which will allow us to become, once and for all, debt free. Both of us are ready for that.
Meanwhile, the cat has taken a real downturn in the last couple of days. Today has been an especially bad day. I tried to go to sleep with the SO at 10:00, but here I am back up with the kitty. I held him for about an hour, and he responded to that. I tried explaining to him that he would feel so much better if he would eat something and drink some water. And that I would take him to the vet in the morning. He turned to press on me the way he has done his entire life, showing me that he loves me, too. And then he got down from my lap and ate some of his can and got a big drink, wandered off to the litter box, and now he is back in the chair he commandeered practically from the first day we moved in here. It's a big old semi-circular 1970s style low back easy chair with rust colored upholstery. I'll be glad to get my good living room stuff here eventually.
Guess it's time to turn in, or try to again. I'll post some more things I've been up to tomorrow.
Onward ....
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