Progress Reports. (2 in 1)

A few weeks ago I wrote about the emergence of the poppies, and also about the beginnings of Sandia's thyroid supplement treatments.  Here, in a single image, is evidence that not only are the poppies on an accelerated growth spurt, but also that the supplements are beginning to have, however slight, a noticeable effect on Sandia's appearance.

Sooner Than Expected..

Spring poppies in the yard

When we moved in in the Winter of 2009, we heard stories about the poppy blooms that would cover the foothills with blankets of gold.  We were told we'd be lucky to see them once or twice in our lifetimes here... they were "7 year blooms".

Well guess what.  We had a spectacular poppy (and other wildflowers) season in 2010.  And it looks like it's going to happen again this Spring after yet another fairly wet Winter.

Our yard is beginning to fill already.. the above image was just at the end of the driveway between the house and the Hare-Brained Express.  I'm also starting to see bands of gold in the small gullies of the Little Florida mountain foothills.  More to come...

Hiatus

Like the French, I'm taking the Summer off.  When the temps cool, posting will return. Apologies for the lack of advance notice.

Life at the Hare-Brained Homestead

So, enough with the semi-hopeful signs of life with the trees.  Here are some things in the yard that are positively thriving.  The drought-hardy, Chihuahuan Desert native flora..

Ocotillo

Prickly Pear Cactus

Cholla Cactus

Survival Mode

The drought continues.  According to the weather services, the humidity late yesterday afternoon was 1%.  The dew point?  A ridiculous -20°F.  That’s right.  Twenty freaking degrees below zero!  And since the ambient temperature was 110° higher than that, it wasn’t likely that we would squeeze any moisture out of the air.

Somehow, despite the lack of any measurable precipitation since the end of last year, (and that was a single snow fall, so really, the dry spell goes all the way back to Summer), things are turning green.  It’s most noticeable when driving  home from town.  Huge green swaths of creosote bush surround the base of the Florida Mountains.  In the yard, the mesquite brush seems to be the most drought-hardy of all the plants.  Dammit.  Of all the flora I wish dead, the mesquite is at the top of the list!

I’ve been watering (and no, so far there’s no shortage of water in our aquifer, knock wood) the peach tree and the pecan tree, and the fruit is looking good.

The pines, at least from a distance, look as dead as the pronouncement from a friend who knows things about trees and plants.  But if you look closely, the trees have a secret.  When stressed, as they are in extreme drought conditions, they seem to go into a kind of survival mode.  First, they dropped almost two-thirds of their needles.  New needle clusters normally would be sprouting from the ends of the branches , but even with the constant, 24/7 drip I’ve got going to our two pines, the tree’s not sending water to the extremities.   But it is using the water!   A few weeks ago, I noticed these little green needle clusters start showing up on the branches closer to the ground.  As time passed more have begun to sprout, and on higher branches, too.

What seems to be happening, and I couldn’t find quite what I was looking for on Google, is the tree has gone dormant at the top, and the extremities, but it is keeping itself alive by pushing out enough green to keep transpiration happening. 

This is even more evident on one of the trees in the back yard.  Up until a couple weeks ago, I was certain it was dead.  While other trees in the yard were full of broad, green leaves, nothing was happening with this tree (which we’ve never identified, but we know the hummingbirds like to roost in it because it’s the closest tree to the feeder).  The ends of the branches were brittle dry.  No sign of life.
Then a strange thing happened.  Leaves began to sprout from the trunk; and from the thick areas of the branches closest to the trunk.  It looks odd, but this is another tree that’s killed off part of itself, to save itself.  Kind of like that kid in 127 Hours.

One of the climate models looking 6 months to a year out, shows a powerful el Niño is a possibility.  That , if it happens, will most certainly break the drought.  Will the trees then “wake up”, and go back to the way they were before the drought and the powerful February freeze?  Don’t know.  We’ll just have to wait and see, but I’m happy they seemed to have figured out a way to hang in there and wait with us.

Boy Needs A Bib!

Scott's Oriole feeding on Ocotillo

The last couple of months in and around the yard have been like an amateur birder's wet dream.  The short list of birds is pretty stunning.  In addition to the pollen-covered Scott's Oriole, above we've seen-

• Bullock's Oriole
• Blackchinned Hummingbird
• Roadrunner
• Mockingbird
• Curve-billed Thrasher
• House Finch
• Red Tail Hawk
• Turkey Vulture
• Cactus Wren
• Western Kingbird
• Ferruginous Hawk
• Kestrel
• Cooper's Hawk
• Harrier
• Golden Eagle
• Gambel's Quail
• Scaled Quail
• White Winged Dove
• Gila Woodpecker
• Loggerhead Shrike
• Western Bluebird
• Lark Bunting
• Western Meadowlark
• Horned Lark
• Pyrrhuloxia
• Lesser Goldfinch
• Slate Colored Junco
• White Crowned (or White Throated) Sparrow
• Boat Tailed Grackle
• Common Raven

And probably more that I can't remember right now, or haven't seen yet.

The hummingbirds are probably happy the Ocotillo finally began to bloom, as it's now keeping the Orioles out of the feeder...

FOR SALE: The Hare-Brained Express (!)

Yes, it’s the legendary motor home that faithfully (with only a few hiccups) carried Shot On Site Photography from sea to shining sea for almost 6 years.  It will make someone an ideal short run dog hauler for field events and shows, while still perfectly capable of the occasional long haul.  Why pay to stay at an expensive hotel? 


              
Things that are new (or new-ish)  - the radiator ; the rear springs;  the tires (6); the alternator; the retractlable awning.
Things that are old, and/or don’t work, or may need work -  The leveling jacks. (parts are no longer available); The 5000W Onan generator will run, and produce power, but has a disturbing knock, which may be a piston rod.  Refrigerator door needs new hinge, but the fridge works great and has recently had the safety recall work performed, so it won’t set you on fire!   Much of the drawer hardware throughout needs replacing.. they’ve just worn out, or fallen out from lack of moisture.  Cabinet over sink needs connection to ceiling reinforced.
On the very last trip we attempted in late 2009, the distributor cap went wonky, which threw the engine out of time, and left us stranded outside of El Paso.  It has been repaired, but does need a tune up (spark plugs and wires were fouled, so it doesn’t run smoothly).
The chassis is a Chevrolet truck. Engine, a 454 cubic inch, with throttle body injection.
Direct inquiries to MargaretFairman@gmail.com, or Dan@shotonsite.us.

Simple Mathmatics

I can do the simple cipherin'. For instance, if I know that we have a healthy sized swarm of honeybees that hang around the leaky faucet in the yard (1), and I walk into the living room and find Buffy has changed her name to Puffy (1), then I can posit that the silly girl has put her face where it doesn't belong, and is likely       not to ever go again.That equals "2".   (1 + 1 = 2. Get it?)

Two Very Tangible Signs of Spring in the High Desert

Turkey Vulture

Peaches in the yard

Sooper Dooper Moon.

Everybody and their brother (and aunts, uncles, and nieces and grandsons, no doubt) took pictures of the closest "Perigee Moon" in almost 20 years. Why should I be an exception?

Now, every time I've shot the moon since we've lived here, it's been from the back porch, and I've caught it rising over the Little Florida Mountains which, you should know by now, are basically in our back yard.

I needed to find a new location to shoot from in this case, because I knew that once the moon got a few degrees above the horizon it would begin to look like any full moon. I needed the horizon in the picture when the moon was appearing to be at its largest. It was time to pack the little Montero and head up into the Little Floridas.

We were going to a spot about 2 miles east of the house, but the drive was more like 6 miles on fairly easy jeep trails. Our vantage point would give us unobstructed view all the way to the Organ Mountains east of Las Cruces... nearly 100 miles away! I had my horizon, and had only to wait for the moon to rise.

Problem was, I had no way of knowing exactly where the moon would appear. So we arranged it so we'd be there early. Real early. Not wanting to be rushing around at the last minute, we arrived at our lookout around 6:15. Moonrise was scheduled for 7:44!

I got the camera, with 300mm lens on the tripod, and wandered around with another camera and shot a bunch of pretty much forgettable ambience shots. I've been to this location many times before.

I took my position at the tailgate when there were about 20 minutes remaining before moonrise. Margaret thought my verbal countdown ever five minutes was overkill, but hey, that's how I roll. When I finally saw the glow on the still quite light horizon, I had only about 10 seconds to get focused in and start shooting. It moves fast, and yes, it really did look 30% larger than a normal moonrise:

Moonrise, W. Potrillo Mtns., NM

f4.0 1/8sec, ISO400

For a while.. meaning 2 or 3 minutes.. I was able to shoot on auto, and still get detail in the foreground, and also in the moon itself, along with its beautiful orange cast. Also, the whispy clouds add much to the drama of the image. Unfortunately, as anyone who has tried to capture images of the full moon knows, (and judging from the interwebz, that's nearly everyone) there comes a point when you have to choose between detail on the ground and detail in the moon. You can't have both. Again, as evidenced by the images on the internet, most of the people who shoot the moon, have no idea how to do it properly. If you let the camera have its way, you end up with a white disk in the middle of the frame that looks very much like an Alka-Seltzer tablet.

f8, 1/250th sec., ISO400

If you want a properly exposed moon, with lots of detail, you expose exactly as you would at high noon, because what is moonlight, after all, but reflected sunlight! At ISO 200, shoot it at f5.6 and 1/500th of a second. Or thereabouts. Just don't be looking for any details in the surrounding frame. To get that you have to "take one from column A, and one from column b", mix in a little Photoshop magic, and voilá...

Moonrise, Little Florida Mtns., NM

That image was taken from the old stand-by location.. the rear porch of the house.  After we'd used up almost all of the daylight up on the mountain, we drove back down as quickly as was prudent, and got set up on the porch in time to catch a second "rising".  Moonbats.

Another Spring Visitor.

The peach tree is attracting all kinds of insect life, from common houseflies, the metallic green sweat bees featured in yesterday's post, regular honeybees, and this solitary Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly. I don't know where his friends are, but he's now thoroughly worked over the tree for the last 3 days.

Nectar

Another peach blossom image, but this time with Agapostemon virescens, (Metallic Green Sweat bees)

Some Good News After All.

Peach Blossoms

As reported previously, the palms are DOA, as is the fig, and much of the cacti, and presumably the oleander. Noticed yesterday that even the large Mexican Elder is brittle, and may be dead as well. All victims of either/or the brutal February cold snap and drought. But I've been watering the pines (now that all of our piping's been repaired) and I'm happy to report they're no longer golden in color, but are now more of a rusty red with a lot of pale green starting to show through! Best of all, as illustrated by the photo above, the peach tree has survived, and is blossoming. Some of the readers of this blog may have tasted the peaches from this tree last Summer, so you know this is very, very good news. I'm betting the little pecan is probably all right as well.

Yup. This is Depressing.

A mere 6 weeks separate these two images.  The palms all over town, and in Las Cruces look the same.  This makes me sad.

Hummers Rule!

Past 30 day count shows the hummingbird film is beating the former most viewed post here.. Dipshit Glenn Beck. I think I owe Soso Whaley one.

Consequences of a Changing Climate

Just a few weeks ago, these California Fan Palms in our backyard were snow covered, and still green.  Then the deep freeze hit.  More than 90 straight hours below freezing, with overnight lows around 0°F, and wind chills 15 - 20° below that.  Daytime highs struggled to make the 20’s.  A few days after the cold broke, I noticed that all the fronds had turned brittle and brown.  Then we had a day with brutal winds, and the crown of the tree just went over in a right angle to the trunk.  We don’t know if these palms are dead.  The experts say don’t trim or chop till Spring.. see if the plant can replenish itself from the roots.

We live in an area where the average January and February high temperatures are in the 40’s and 50’s, and overnight we might hit 20° on a bad night.  The plants aren’t used to what we have and neither are the houses.  We lost our water for 48 hours, and have some not-quite-essential pipes to replace under the house.. (the pipe supplying the outside faucets, and also the refrigerator ice maker-  the horror! No cracked ice for Margaritas!).  There’s also a tiny leak in the well house, although I’m not sure it’s related to the cold.  It took me several days to realize the consistently crowded parking lot at the hardware store wasn’t because they were having a giant clearance sale.  They were selling PVC pipe. Thousands and thousands of feet of PVC pipe.

Besides our palms, our prickly pear cactus are drooping, and even the acacia, and Mexican elder look sickly.  The Ocotillo always looks dead in the winter, so we’ll just have to wait and see on that one.  The only thing that looks unscathed is the all the goddamn cholla!

Most disturbing of all, is the plight of the Ponderosa pines.  At Christmas, they were green and thriving, lit up with our holiday lights.  Now they are sad and brown.  I can’t believe that the cold did this.  They’re mountain trees fer chrissakes!  I think they’ve fallen victim to the lack of moisture.  We haven’t had any appreciable precipitation since Summer.  We had a blizzard at the end of January, but because it was so cold and dry, the snow seemed more to evaporate than melt.  There was no mud. 
I’ve been watering the pines and the fig tree, (which also looks in a bad way), but so far they remain golden brown, and stand out on our hill like a beacon. 

Rain is in the forecast for Sunday.  It may, and it may not, depending on the wildly varied forecasts from the different online weather services.  These plants have been in the yard since the house was placed here in 1997.  I’d hate to have to start over.

The Hummers of the Summer of 2010

On an eye-bleedingly, bone-chillingly cold day in the middle of Winter, where the last two days set record low temperatures, and tonight promises to do likewise, I was inspired to finally put together a film from last Summer. I was probably complaining about the flies and the heat then.



I may have mentioned - more than once - that we had an unusually large numbers of hummingbirds around the yard last season. May this make you feel warm. (Not doing much for me so far...)

Margaret Shoots Me. On Site.

After seeing myself in a picture, I decided it was time to work a little more exercise into my days. Yesterday, I headed out to the canyon in the Little Florida Mountains behind the house. When Margaret got home from work I radioed her to grab the camera and shoot me. Can you see me? (you'll have to click the image to at least the next bigger size).

It wasn't even a mile and a half round trip, but as you can see, it's not an easy walk. I plan on exploring the rest of the cliff faces over the next few weeks of cool weather. Once the snakes come out I don't go there.

A Day In Nature Pictures.

Why?  Because, that's just the kind of day it was.  It began right out the gate this morning, (literally), with this young fellow posing for a portrait.

After an uneventful trip to the bank, I decided to find a couple 

Geocaches out in the flats; a drive of about 10 miles.  Not long after turning off the main highway, I interrupted this immature

Harlan's Red Tail Hawk, who was opportunistically gobbling up a road-killed jackrabbit.  Sorry dude.

At the second cache, I felt I was being serenaded, looked up on the wire and saw this non-raptor meat eater.. a Loggerhead Shrike. 

 I enjoyed the song for a while, then headed back north for another hide.  That's when I whizzed past a Coopers Hawk relaxing on a fence post.  I made a quick U-turn, and stuck the camera out of the window and snapped off a shot just as it was tensing to make it's escape from my intrusive scrutiny..

At that point, I gave up on the caching, because I needed to get up close to something very spectacular that was going on on the west foothills of the Florida Mountains.  I had to get here:

Yes, the Mexican Poppies are blooming great guns.  It looks impressive from here.  Up close it looks completely insane!

And if that impresses us as humans, imagine the effect it has on these guys:

Blue Moon

For the benefit of that one reader of this blog who's not on Facebook, here's a shot of last night's final "blue moon" of the decade.  (Unless you believe the decade doesn't end until the end of this year- but that's a whole 'nother article).

Bonus: who can tell me the difference between this moon rising over the North Florida Mountains, and a similar shot from last Spring?