An unusual drive to work...

Why is it that most of these days I work the most exciting part of my day is the commute?   I stayed up late to talk with Thomas when he got home from work about 12:30 am.  I am tired this morning and kind of stared dazedly out the window as I started my commute.  Fall is here.  The changing seasons mean a lot more than leaf colors in these parts.   At the lake I saw half a dozen trucks and horse trailers, and then around the big corner or the UU Bar Ranch there were about 8 semi trucks...where's the beef?  A little farther on there was a traffic jam...not on the highway, but on the other side of the fence, serveral cowboys on horseback were driving cattle.  It was fun to watch as I flew past.  There were a few other cowboys scattered about as I drove, and some unsuspecting cow out grazing, too.   The wild turkeys have really moved in from somewhere.  Sometimes I feel like I am driving through joke as one turkey crosses the road, then another and another.  Why did it cross the road?  To get to the other side?  The antelope are also clustering: a month ago I would see three or four together, but now there are 20.  I think they've seen the trucks on the side of the road with big men and their binoculars and shotguns scouting out the hunt that is soon to come.   And most unusual...no deer.  Not in the road, on the side of the road, or even over the fence by the small pond where they usually nibble on grasses all day.  Most peculiar....   Anyway, I am going to a training for work tomorrow, so I am hoping to leave earlier today.  Maybe the ride home will be more exciting...

Falling in love...

Everybody knows I already fell in love with Thomas...old news.  But there is much worth falling in love over.  I love Arrupe's prayer "Falling in Love": Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way.  What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.  It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.  Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything. This place I live in is beautiful, and I fall in love with it over and over.  The colors of the sunrises and the sunsets are stunning.  I can't help but grin sleepily out my window at the way the light plays on the clouds and the trees and the lake.  A heron has been at the lake when I come home from work, and I like to see its thin outline against the water.  Living so far removed has decided a lot for me, and I don't regret it. Tonight on my way home from work, my breath was sucked away as I climbed up around the curves of the lake and there, hovering on the horizon, was the most beautiful glowing moon.  My voice caught in my throat and all I could manage was a deep exhale of "Oooooh."  As the road wandered from side to side, the full moon stuck in the trees and shrubs from one side to the other until I came to a bend that suggested the moon was just hovering over my house.  I wished I could capture the image: the sky fading from dusky blue to purple behind the ripe disc of light.  I was enamored and didn't want to take my eyes away. Ohhh...I fell in love all over again...

Unlimited long distance....

Oh yeah....unlimited...... Sure, after 8 pm and on weekends...it's a fairly standard cell phone feature.  But out here I was thrilled to have a land line, and it is more comfortable to talk on than a cell phone.  So paying for unlimited long distance means there is no limit, except for bed time, to my phone calls...not the time of day or day of week!  Not surprisingly Thomas would rather choke on a piece of my tofu than talk on the phone, which just means he's not tying up the line.  I only bring this up because the weeknights I come home to no Thomas, nearly every weeknight, I can pass the time knitting, online, or reading, but the past couple of nights I have had really, really great phone calls with friends.  Thanks, Deb & Cathy, for our really great discussions and rememberings and other stories.  It's good to be connected.-

Homemade...

Today I took a drive down to the parish hall with our maintenance man, Chris.  Chris is one of my new favorite people.  He's a lot of fun to listen to, and his stories are great.  But more than anything, he will smile while he tells you he's great and when he's not.  He always has a positive attitude, the kind that rubs off just seeing him.  (Side note: I remember Dick, a volunteer at MCR, talking about a lady at work who inspired you to walk away if you saw her coming toward you because her grumpiness was so contagious.  Chris is the opposite.) So we get in his little green Datsun truck and head off.  When finished at the hall, he asked if I would like to see where he lives.  So we drove up there, and I told him what a great view he has.  His wife, who is Mexican, was outside, so Chris asked if I wanted to see Maria's garden.  It was absolutely fantastic.  We wandered around, and Chris delighted to show me the squash climbing up the pinon trees, still flowering 10 feet in the air.  He showed me the tomatillos and the stalks left of the corn.  It was a lot of fun when Maria joined us.  I spoke a little broken Spanish and then felt more fluid speaking with Maria about the plants, asking questions about her garden.  She broke open and shared so much.  It was very life-giving.  I was even invited inside to see her other plants.  I have certainly met my match; though I have so much more knowledge, she has tons of experience.  I look forward to next year's garden season, so we can compare notes. While inside Chris noted the pile of freshly made flour tortillas.  Maria quickly wrapped two up for me, which I devoured tonight with green chiles and garlic...delicious!  We talked about food, being vegetarian, tamales camarrones (shrimp tamales), eating healthy, nopales (a cactus I enjoy eating, which made Maria excited; she did tease me that it is meat because you eat the flesh of the cactus), chiles and spicy food, and some more about plants.  It was really refreshing, and I think we both were beaming.  I had met Maria once at church, but she didn't comfortably speak English.  I don't know how much of it she speaks, but I that Sunday I wasn't sure if she liked me.  Now we're friends.  When Chris came back to the office from lunch later in the day, he brought me a jar of Maria's salsa caliente.  It is very good, and I am looking forward to the exchanges of homemade goods over the years....especially if she makes the tamales camarrones!

Pen pals...

No, I haven't been practicing my new hobby of letter writing...one of these days. Last night I was invited to dinner at Marie and Dave's.  It was nice to talk with Marie and share some wine; we both had tough days at work.  The kids had all sorts of stories and whatnot.  So Maya asks me if I think Maddie and her family will ever come to visit.  I explained to her that two days before her birthday, Maddie is going to have a new baby brother or sister, and it probably wouldn't be for a while, but maybe someday.  It is really so sweet of her to ask, as the girls only got to spend a few days playing while all were in Portland for our wedding back in June.   Then Maya said, "I miss Maddie."  In true Mia/Sara form (sometimes I think these two are kindred spirits for the things they say), Sara said, "I miss...you know, the other girl?"  I told them that if they wanted to write a letter to the girls I could help mail them.  Maya was excited about having a pen pal, but had to go pick up before bed.  Sara, on the other hand, went and got her folder out of her backpack, a pencil, and a piece of blank paper.    Sara started with "Mia", then decided to squish "Dear" into the little space before "Mia", and sounded out her first sentence: "I like scool".  "Like" is a sight word she's learning, so most of the sentences were about things she likes about school.  She's only 5 years old and in kindergarten, so I was totally impressed with her letters and sounding out of words.  Since it was bedtime, I helped write the other sentences she wanted to say, and then she signed her name and drew a picture of herself saying "I like Mia".  The heart with "M" and "S" are for Mia and Sara.  I didn't tell her Mia is 6 already, so she added another "M S" heart with "5 5" underneath.  So precious! It went in the mail today, and Amy said she'd make sure Mia wrote back.  I can't wait to see the letters the girls come up with over the years.

Yummy dinner...

I guess I am not feeling too humble tonight because I just finished a really great dinner with my husband...and I cooked. Thomas picked up some avocados when he went up to Raton/Trinidad today.  There were some other things on my list, but avocados make a cheese sandwich extra special.  And you know, these days I am packing a lunch and eating three dinners alone....the kind of times one eats a lot of cheese sandwiches. Anyhow, they looked so good, and I remembered when I was in South America that sometimes as an appetizer I would be served these delicious avocado salads, just chopped up with tomatoes and onions and dressing.  So I looked around at supplies on hand and made this (sorry, no pictures; we were hungry!): a spicy, tangy avocado and crab salad.  Served over a bed of lettuce topped with bow tie pasta topped with chopped tomatoes, red bell peppers, and red onions: chunk crab and diced avocado in a dressing of grapefruit juice, lime juice, red chile powder, pureed ginger, garlic salt and pepper, and mayo.  I didn't actually get it spicy enough, but maybe the mayo cut the spice.  I could have used oil with the citrus juice, but thought the mayo would blend better for better consistency and coverage.  Oh, and Thomas got just the best avocados, ripe but not mushy and the skins peeled right off!

A growing pile...

Friday I was home early from work (four long days will mean either a fifth short day or no fifth day at all!).  Thomas and I ran the splitter for a good part of the day...four hours, maybe? "The splitter" is a gas powered wood splitter that makes short work of cutting down our big tree logs into fireplace sized bits.  Maybe not short work, but easier than if you had to split it with an axe.  Our firewood pile still looks a little puny to me, but gratefully Thomas hasn't insisted that we stack it in nice rows, as I remember the joy of that growing up. Saturday, Thomas and I were up bright and early to head up with the family into the forest in search of dead or down trees to fill up four pick up truck beds.  Unfortunately we were ready a little too early, as we hadn't gotten the message about leaving at 8 am (poor Marie got a lot of grief for this one...).  I am not sure if that contributed to our disposition, but neither Thomas nor I were terribly amused as we proceeded to drive past some prime firewood in search of a more perfect spot.  The further we drove, the more treacherous the road, and the worse my headache grew.  At one point we nearly lost it, as Thomas's dad lost traction on a particularly steep and rocky section.  We nearly had a collision, as he tried to back-up to gain a better path.  Thank goodness all was well. We did find a nice spot where the road forked.  We cut in all directions and began filling the trucks.  With a truck and a half to go, we laid out sheets and rolled up logs for a fantastic picnic.  At once Marie and I both wished we had a camera to capture the fun.  We passed sandwich trimmings, cookies and chips, soda, and some really great cantaloupe.  We laughed as Alice made Andres look her in the eye and tell her he had only had three Nilla Wafers.  He pulled it off, saying "I only had three", but she told him to repeat himself and say "three Nilla Wafers".  He did and looked away right at the end, and she called him on it with an "ah ha!"  He covered his face and moaned.  He can't fool his grandma! After lunch we finished off the trucks.  It was a much longer day than last weekend because we had to go back down the road we came up, now with full loads.  You could smell brakes and hot, hot engines as we caravaned out in low gear, but at last we hit smooth road and then the highway.  Thomas was pooped, so I unloaded the truck and put everything away myself.  Next up was laundry, changing the sheets, putting things away.  I didn't let Thomas nap too long, as I wanted him to be able to sleep before 2 am.  I am a lucky girl, as he has the weekend off, but he will have an extra brutal weekend next week.  In light of our luck, I proposed SWILLFEST!  Graciously, Marie offered to host us all.  We enjoyed great stories and much laughter, but by 10 pm the gang of us loggers were pooped and ready for sleep.  An early night, to be sure, but the snoring children on the couch didn't keep us from yawning. Today we enjoyed church in the morning and a mostly lazy day, but I was back at the splitter this afternoon.  That pile is starting to grow and grow...

Three billy deer gruff...

You know the old story of the three billy goats gruff?  It was the funniest thing...driving to work last week I had to stop at a usual deer hang out.  A small buck had crossed the road, but I had to stop for a bigger buck still crossing the road.  Looking west (left) I saw an even larger buck approaching the road, but he looked like he was stomping mad.  Somehow I imagine an ugly troll would pop out of the bushes any minute to try to eat the "elder brother", as the story goes.  Wish I had a picture...

Wild life on the road

These days I am working long days.  I am trying to work only four days a week, or at least four and a half days.  This way I can spend Friday with my husband who I don't see at all during the week, since our work schedules and sleep schedules keep us from getting to spend waking hours together.  I leave home around sunrise and head home nearing sunset.  The days getting shorter is making it increasingly true.   While I don't generally see many (or any) cars on the road, I do get to see a lot of animals.  Eagles sit atop the utility poles surveying the land.  Little birds flock together near the road, maybe for the heat, and all fly up together, just barely dodging my windshield sometime.  The cows aren't included in my understanding of wild life, but one stretch of road is open pasture, and occasionally a cow will be standing in the middle of the road tempting me to turn him into ground beef.   And of course, there are deer.  Lots and lots of deer.  I did see a big, big elk cow this morning, not far from Miami Lake, but I think they are rarer to see.  And the antelopes are abundant out in the fields, but I haven't seen any get close to the road.  Not like the deer.   This morning a whole family of deer were moving across a meadow to cross the road and get to the creek area on the other side.  I saw a lone buck hanging out a little further down.  I even saw a lone fawn in the yard down the road...hopefully the doe was nearby.  Sometimes I can cruise on by, but most times I slow down to make sure they aren't going to throw themselves on the hood of my car.   I much prefer the wild life to the DOT trucks that are graveling the highway.  If I didn't work a long day, I surely would be following those dump trucks and waiting for flaggers all morning.

After all these years...

This afternoon I imagined my grandparents smiling down on me. On Tuesdays, my boss Fr. Emanuel Izuka comes to Cimarron to work.  He lives in Springer at the St. Joseph rectory, as the Immaculate Conception rectory is now the parish office.  He divides his time amongst the churches, and Tuesday is our day.  He also stays for adoration from 4:30 - 5:30 pm and mass at 5:30 pm.  Last Tuesday I was just trying to get my bearings and did not attend, but today I went over about 5:20 pm.  There were three parishioners there with Father.  One woman led the prayers until adoration was over.  Then Father began the mass.  I was wondering how things worked when Father pointed at me to come up and do the readings.  He had to pull out the book and find the page for me, and then I began.  After the Gospel, homily and prayers, he waved for me to come to the altar.  My first time as an altar server..... As a child my brothers and sister and I would join Mom, Grandma and Grandpa, sometimes Dad, our uncles, and the other daily mass regulars before we went to school.  I felt it a terrible injustice that my brothers got to be altar servers, as well as other boys from the school, and sometimes even the older men; however, the girls were not allowed.  My sister and I went to mass practically daily all through school, and not only had we memorized all the altar boys' parts, but we had learned all the priest's parts, too.  Shortly after I left Holy Family, girls were allowed and trained to be altar servers. So here I was today getting to be an altar server for the first time, and I was clueless!  I wasn't sure what I was supposed to hand to Father to set the table, but I knew that I was supposed to put the towel over my arm and pour water on his hands.  I was ready for that part a little on the early side.  I then knelt on the tile floor and rand the bells at the right time.  Instead of having to hold the patton, I got to be the cup minister (yes, for all of three people).  I didn't know if I was supposed to go back to my seat, so I just stayed for the blessing.  Then Father kept waving for me to follow him and process out, though it was lost on me.  Not too shabby of a job, but I will have to practice.  Moreover, I hope that the three faithful didn't feel slighted that Father asked me to do everything.  Next Tuesday, I will be the wiser...

Hot chiles!

Friday on my way home from work, I stopped at the grocery store to buy green chiles. Yes, the grocery store. In Denver we went to a stand on the side of the road, though you could also get them at the farmers' markets. Here in this beautiful country you can get your chiles roasted while you shop! I picked up two whole bags of roasted hot green chiles, and Thomas and I proceeded to peel, peel, peel. Many people will just bag them and freeze them, but Thomas and I don gloves and slip the skins off the chiles while they are still warm. It means that when we pull them out of the freezer, they are ready to eat. Friday we peeled chiles to Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. We got one and a half bags done before Daniel and Julie came over to hang out. (We did take a dinner break after the first bag...quesadillas with fresh green chiles!) Yesterday when we got home from gathering firewood, Thomas went to bed about 3 pm in preparation for his midnight shift. I put in Thelma and Louise and peeled the rest of them. When Thomas woke up about 8:00 pm, we had pizza with green chiles (and pineapple) for dinner. Twenty one bags in all...I think we'll make it till next year!

Heating up and cooling down...

September has brought some hot, dry winds. The grasses have all turned to straw, and the sunflowers have mostly closed up for the season. The days still carry the heat of summer, but the nights are getting very cool, you might even say cold sometimes. We haven't needed to heat the house or anything, but it is even more imperative to stock up firewood for the winter. We are fortunate that Thomas's brother Daniel works for Philmont Boy Scout Ranch. It means that he take us out to chop down dead trees out in the mountains. This is a wonderful opportunity for us, but also affords the ranch our service to help keep the forests green and reduce the dead materials that would feed a forest fire. I missed out on today's chopping, so I could go to church (I was introduced at mass this morning), but yesterday we had fun. We drove up towards Urraca (pronounced you-rock-uh) and found ourselves a prime spot to start cutting. We only felled one tree and found some recently downed trees. While Thomas took a break from cutting, I picked up his chain saw and went and cut up one tree myself. It was fun to contribute in this way, though I enjoy helping fill up the trucks while the guys do their thing. We moved on after three of the trucks were full, found a meadow to eat our picnic and then filled up one last truck from deadwood in the area. This morning they went back up to that meadow to chop up one that Thomas fell right before we left yesterday (this meant sleeping in a little this morning) and a few more.

Marie tending to Daniel's chainsaw wound...nothing severe. David checking out his chainsaw... Our littlest logger, Sara entertained herself with the animals (stuffed ones, that is). Mike & Alice's truck full of wood for splitting. A view of the Tooth of Time as we drove down for lunch.

tired...

I am tired...21 hours worked in two days...add an hour of commuting each day...pooped! I have to admit that my day at the office was pretty upbeat.  Lots more purging, lots of organizing, e-mailing and starting to plan things... My highlights were the three bursts of rain (not sure if it fell in Miami, too) that sent up that wonderful smell of rain and part of a rainbow sticking out of the mesa on my drive home. Now, to bed...

a day of firsts...

Today was my first day as the "church lady" at my parish here in New Mexico.  Thomas and I live in between two parishes that are served by the same priest.  His parents go to St. Joseph's in Springer, which is closer, but holds mass at 8 am on Sundays.  His sister and family go to Immaculate Conception Church in Cimarron, which is worth the extra little drive for mass at 10 am.  I put in a really long day, mostly purging old catalogs and papers.  Still much of that to do, but I will have plenty more time.  At present there is only one desk and computer, and Tuesdays the secretary is in from 9 - 1, and the priest was in noon - 4.  So today I kept busy with the full filing cabinets.  I don't have a boss at hand to tell me what to do, really kind of making it up as I go along.  Should be interesting... And when I got home nearly 12 hours after I left in the morning, the water was here!!  Our first distribution of ditch water.  Thomas and I have been working to get the ditches ready to fill the pond, but I didn't get to see the water come in today.  However, I noticed my father-in-law's truck by the tin shed as I approached on the highway.  Thomas had gone to work three hours earlier, so I hoped there was no calamity.  I parked and ran out in my "professional" outfit to find Mike was digging open the line away from the pond.  Evidently it was full, so he was opening up one line and damming the other with the dirt.  I tried to run down the ditch to see how full the pond was, but it turns out the water seeps into all sorts of little goat paths and what not.  I ended up in water up to my ankle where there was no ditch.  I ran back to the house to change into my overalls and go help.  What fun it was to work with Pop on the line, slogging into the mud and changing the flow of water.  I don't know how long the water will run, but I imagine with the hot dry weather that we have been having, everything will soak up the water really fast.

Coming home...

Driving south on I-25 towards New Mexico...I know I am getting closer as the cars and trucks thin on the road from the wolf packs of Colorado Springs and Pueblo.  The mile markers blow past on the right, a countdown to the border. To distract myself from the time, my mind crunches the numbers this way and that, calculating distances, time traveled, my projected arrival time.  With Thomas in the car, we will talk about the past, our future, stories of hope and humor.  But lately I drive alone, filled not with laughter at our stories but longing for home in the distance. Everything seems to be rounded off in hours, but by my calculations last night, Raton is 45 minutes away.  Trinidad is an hour.  Pueblo is then just a little over two hours, and depending on traffic in the Springs, Denver can be a mere four hours or much longer.  I made Castle Rock in 3.5 hours with little stopping me, save a pit stop for gas and a bathroom. Coming home last night, the sun began to sink before I could see it.  Raton Pass blotted out the setting sun, but the colors were beautiful as I sank down into my new homeland.  I feared for the dimming light, as I haven't grown comfortable yet with the possibilities of deer on the road, jumping in front of me without warning.  Heaven help me, for there is nothing I can do to will the deer away from me as I speed through the dark closer to home. As the miles count back from #460 at the pass, I keep a close eye on the horizon to the west, my right.  I am eager for the green posts that drop into the 430s.  At #435 I know I am close: there will be a short climb to the west towards the rest area just past the Tinaja exit.  From this vantage the gap in the mesas is visible, the gap at the end of our road.  When I see that gap, I can picture my home at the base of it.  There is something fun about being able to spot your home.  My first year in Denver, I lived two blocks from St. Elizabeth Senior Residence, a towering building in an otherwise one and two story neighborhood.  I could spot that tower from all over the city and from airplanes and know that I lived right there.  There is a feeling of security and confidence in knowing that is home.  It is like that when I see that gap in the mesas driving south.  Between #434 and #432, the highway snakes east, then west, then east again, as it descends from the rest area.  The long stretch of snaking west is aimed directly at the gap.  Sometimes I imagine the highway keeps going straight, straight to our haven on Horsethief Gap Rd.  Alas, the road curves away, but the mesas stay in my view, and I know it won't be too long that I will be home.

a new start...

...to my day that is.  Starting on Tuesday after Labor Day, I will be working for the local Catholic Church, doing everything from, well, let's just say pretty much everything.  It has been several years since the church has had any administrative staff, so there will be a lot of catching up to do.  Back to the days of packing a lunch and setting an alarm.  I have a few businessy things to take care of quickly before the end of the week.  Woo woo...