altitude adjustments

This is an older poem inspired by the hazards of cooking at altitude. It is only marginally about cooking.

Making Tapioca on the Moon

The relationship between the weight of air

and lift of heat

Must be just right.

Even at the lowly high altitudes on earth,

Some things just won’t make:

Boil dried beans on Mt. Baldy

And they will still be little rocks, even

After five days of boiling.

Boiled oatmeal, cocoa, and peanut butter cookies

Will never be cookies in Santa Fe,

Not ever.

They will be chocolate oat sludge.

When is boiling hot not boiling hot?

When it is a mile high, or two miles, or 256,000 miles.

It takes pressure to heat, pressure to cook, pressure to create something good.

Funny, how all the right ingredients

 in the right proportions

 in the right order

 at the right time

Won’t matter a bit

If the pressure isn’t there.

bb

8/11/09

Earth and Sun, Cities of Gold

Sunset light on our place (we're in the basement)

It's no wonder the Spanish thought they found Cibola, the City of Gold, when they first saw pueblo walls. Mix slanting sunlight with adobe walls, often mica-filled clay,  build against a knockout blue sky, and you get treasure, indeed.

To live in an earth home - walls three feet thick - warms the heart and comforts the soul, trite as that may sound. Our basement burrow, with windows level with the grasses, lets us watch scratching towhees, bunnies, and other passersby with a small life point of view.  This is beginning to sound Hobbity  - well, Bilbo was content, at the end.

Wall of Deer - Santa Cruz, NM

Imagine driving through the twisty, narrow, roller coaster lanes of a 500-year-old village, rounding a curve, and seeing this.

Artistry like this makes a gallery out of life.

walls and clouds

technical difficulties?

so sorry-"posted" two blogs and they have disappeared. This is a test.  This picture is of the new (to me) Railrunner commuter train that runs between SF and Albuqueque. The rest of the Roadrunner is painted on the other cars. To see this rolling silently along in the distance, around the green pinon-dotted hills, is to experience an incredible momentary blend of art, mythos, and technology.  Let's paint Thunderbirds on the underbellies of planes.

Coons up a tree!

Tonight Shan ran in saying she saw two coons in the tree outside. Flashlights and cameras ready, we went bravely out, ducking the spiders that grace the door of our basement hideaway. Saw a pair of red eyes, a striped tail, and heard a little "mew."We hollered for our hosts, who came running out with bigger lights. Next neighbor came out and said she had seen 7 coons on the wall, with a coyote behind them.

After careful searching of the highest tree limbs, we counted four sets of red, round eyes and masked faces in a range of sizes. Bandits!  Our hostess says they rip out the bulbs around the pond. No picture of the coons, but here is a picture of the pond taken this morning. No better place to cool off after the heat of the day.

Espanola Valley Deer Herd

Riding in the back seat to the art show at Okeh Owenge Pueblo's Conference Center and Casino, "Pancho and Lefty" filling the car, Mexican Coke filling my mouth,  I had time to think but did not...just enjoyed every minute. We stopped here and there to record the people's art - no real need to go to a show. Imagine having your headlight hit these guys at night. The little tile picture behind the last deer is Our Lady of Guadalupe. She's everywhere.

                               

Arroyo Walk

water walked here
before us
we walk in its rippling tracks
soft dust on shoes
rocks crunch underfoot
in mottled shade

until wind or water walk here
again
these treads, these patterns
stay, reminders for tomorrow

of choices made today.

Am I dreaming?

Day 4 of the New Mexico expedition. Posting read on craigslist:

"Hey Time Travelers stuck in New Mexico. Perhaps we can help.

Come to our convention.

Time Traveler Convention™
March 18 - March 25, 2013.
Pokhara, Nepal.

More to follow. . .. . .. . .. . ..."

In that spirit, this blog starts in the middle and will go both directions until it meets up again. Rocks above near Ghost Ranch, Abiuqui, Georgial O'Keefe Country. Hot. Dry. Cool winds a blessing. Juniper and chamisa tell the nose this is the right place. At night....stars...