Intense RE, Weather, Garden plans...
This 2-week RE course is intense. Damn! Last class tonight, our test on Friday. I feel pretty good about it but then I always do. And sometimes I do really, really well and sometimes I totally bomb out. Turns our THERE ARE trick questions. They do it on purpose!! Apparently there are trick questions on the state and national exams as well but they are not quite as tricky as Kaplan's trick questions.
So nice to know it was not my imagination.
Our April snowstorm is here! Leaving Santa Fe tonight at 8:30 to drive home....The freeway traffic was moving at 25mph due to a driving snowstorm. No one could see where to go—no one could really discern where the lanes were. It cleared up after about 10 miles but there was still lightening in the distance, the first this year. On my way into town the snow in Truchas turned into almost monsoon-heavy rain the entire drive into town. Spring weather is upon us!
I’ll do some RE review tomorrow but will go down to the house mostly and see if I can’t take care of the remaining small bit of demolition on the bathroom (my husband has been saving it for me, he knows I like to tear things out) and maybe get started back on the bathtub commission painting again. That’s really coming along quickly—depending upon drying time I expect to finish it up in a week or two.
It is garden time in the garden centers down in the Rio Grande Valley!! We had to go in for 2 x 6’s for the floor joists in the gallery room today (to patch that termite-eaten-spot in the corner, no termites for years, no worries) We also came home with armfuls of rose root-stock, yellow tea roses, red and yellow climbing roses, packets and packets of wildflower seeds, and grass seed for the yard as well.
Most folks up here do not have yard areas at all and if they do few have grass. We have a huge one and at one time it was grass. Now it’s mostly voles or gophers or whatever they are that are digging all those tunnels (and Willie sniffs and smells them then pounces upon an opening digs the tunnels out into BIG holes and dirt. We have vestiges of grass. So I got a bag of blue fescue seed (it says the roots go down deeper, it grows thicker, and it takes 30% less water). Great. As the only water the lawn will really get is going to be from the rains. We are not allowed to use domestic water for outside use of any sort. Well, at least if they catch you. Everyone waters anything they grow after dark unless they have acequia rights!
Acequia rights are mostly for farming—hay for horses, a field of beans--you get to flood your field when they tell you you can. If your time is at 3am, so be it, you’re out there opening the ditch gate at 3am. Cause you might not get the schedule again for another two or three weeks or so. Or even longer. Strawberries, corn, garden crops, etc. can’t live like that hence the rain barrels. Cause it gets wilting hot for garden plants here in the summer, even though we are so high. Maybe it’s the thin air.
We still need to speak w/ the Mayordomo about acequia rights (we may be able to get some) and we will be installing rain barrels in any case. The spring and summer rains here are significant and if we get a few hundred gallons of barrels set up to catch the runoff from our rather generous roof we’ll have plenty to water all the roses and grow a vegetable garden as well. Of course we’ll have to grow it in a cage to keep the cows, horses, rabbits, ravens and who knows what all else out of it (curiously enough I have never seen a deer up here anywhere though I hear there are elk and even mountain sheep nearby). And there are vast herds of antelope (we've seen them!) as close as Valle Vidal, a most amazing and wonderful place.
Valle Vidal is basically a huge prairie wilderness in the remains of a volcanic crater. They only let people in there like 50 at a time and you have to apply for a permit to hike or fish. They also have GIANT herds of elk that we've seen from the highway nearest one edge. If you're really, really lucky you can get a permit for backcountry camping or skiing there. It's about an hour and a half or two hours from here toward the east--in the Jemez mountains, we're in the Sangre de Cristo on the west side of Rio Grande Valley.
Thank goodness for the rain today—Tonka (as in “buffalo” not “toy”) Truck is cleaner than he’s been for six or seven months since our last rain. In this dry climate it is sinful to spend water to wash your vehicle. Esp. since it will only be muddy again a day later.
The job thing? After that last long and horrible experience I’m leaving it alone for the next couple weeks at the very least. I’m trusting in the universe, focusing on RE, art, publishing project, house. It’ll all be fine, you’ll see.
artgrrl (2008-04-09)
Dammit! It'd be nice if I ever got a comment anymore ;-)
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