Golden glow lays over the land
Praying mantis walks up the window
Storm clouds gently glide through azure
nature
September 1, on the Rim of Wonder
Sunrise
Dappled clouds
Owl hooting
Wren climbing
Later, I graded papers and watched part of John McCain’s funeral, some of which almost brought me to tears. I often disagreed with him but never did I question his passionate love of country, his courage, his willingness to buck the norm, to defy convention when he thought it was the right thing to do. I think he and I shared certain values on which this country is based even if the country as a whole rarely lives up to them. These include the conviction that all people are equal, that everyone deserves justice, and each person carries the right to find his or her own share of happiness without judgment and condemnation from others who may think differently.
Later, while working on the latest book I am writing, I found handwritten recipes written by my grandmother, my mother’s mother, Nellie Narcissus Duke (Kaiser),whose father came here from Switzerland as a child. One, for dumplings, remains readable. The other written in pencil on the front and back of thin paper is fragile. It is for Strawberry Shortcake. If Grandmother Duke ever made dumplings, I do not remember it. Mother did–chicken and dumplings. I wonder if she used this recipe. I do remember conversations about the shortcake because Dad did not like strawberry shortcake even though he liked strawberries. I took photos of these two recipes written decades ago in my grandmother’s handwriting.
New Adventure: A New Teaching Job
Monday I went to my new job, finished decorating my new room with a few posters, a giant puma drawing from one of my former students, and an old National Geographic photo of a giant redwood tree with several men stationed at varying heights. This year I will be teaching English Language Arts to grades 7-10, a writing class, and Spanish 1 and 2. The 7th and 8th graders will be a new experience. However, several have already come by to meet me, chat, hang out. Hard to knock that for starters. It is a nearly new building out in the country surrounded by fields and pasture with a feed lot down the road–ranching country where rodeo is a major activity.
On the east side of my classroom a giant window takes up 1/3 of the wall. A small section of the window even opens. Twice I have opened it and listened to the birds singing outside. The window sill can hold several plants because it is long and at least one foot wide. Plant shopping occurs this weekend. Students begin next week.
Cutting Yucca
Yucca will take over if you let it.
Every summer after the blooms dry, I tackle them with long,
red-handled clippers and cut off long stalks.
Not bothering to put on boots, I set out in black and grey Chacos,
cutting stalks in places unreachable by tractor.
I climb down to a rough area, open these long, red-handled clippers,
chop off the dead blossoms, then look down.
She lies there, her body slightly bigger than the size of my upper arm,
fat, not long.
A snake stretched out, only 1/8 inch from the front of my Chacos.
I look again. Crap. She’s a rattlesnake, one of those short,
stout prairie rattlers, perfectly blending with the grey and brown
rocks and soil.
Slowly, I inch backward, taking care not to fall on the steep slope.
When several feet away, I run to the barn, grab two shovels off their hooks,
run back. She’s gone. I search everywhere around.
I never find her.
Missouri Roadtrip—the Missouri River Bottom
My mother grew up in Fortesque, Missouri, a once thriving town which now contains 32 inhabitants. Mom’s dad owned a farm right on the Missouri River near the Rulo, Nebraska bridge. Then eventually, it was my grandmother’s and then belonged to Mom and her two siblings. We went to visit and found the river really high.
For years we crossed the Rulo, Nebraska, bridge and came to a restaurant at this site to eat catfish, carp, and all the trimmings. A few years ago a really large flood destroyed it. This is the new building but obviously it is closed because of high water.
Back on the Missouri side looking across the soybean fields. Strange sight to see irrigation proceeding at the same time the river is high. The Corp of Engineers is releasing water upstream where the river is really high. The bluffs in the distance are across the river in Kansas.
Several times in my life I have seen water at least 15 feet deep from bluff to bluff. A few years back I knew people who lived inside a big levee and for nearly three months had to go to and from their house in a boat. Needless to say, that year no one raised a crop of anything.
Without levees, the river would be over all the fields now.
I walked down the main levee and took this photo under the Rulo, Nebraska, bridge.
While in the river bottom we decided to take the loop drive through the Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge. The last time I was here five years ago, there was more water and fewer lilies. The smell of their blooms permeated the air.
Apparently, this is bull frog heaven because they were certainly actively croaking. In October and November approximately 400,000 geese and ducks migrate through here.
At the north end of the drive through the refugee this beautiful sight occurs.
The tunnel between the trees continues for several miles.
Later when we drove back to St. Joseph, we drove down to the nature center and the river’s edge there.
No swimming in the Missouri River. They warn people every year, but alas, people still try and drown. The river moves fast and the undertow will pull even strong swimmers under.
I was not happy out here. Ema, my daughter, insisted. If a person fell in, there is no hope. She, however, keep bouncing around and playing on it.
Even though I grew up in this area, I am always amazed at just how green and wet it is there even when they have a dry spell like now. Plus the humidity–not like here in the Panhandle of Texas–it does not cool off that much at night in Missouri.
Argentinian Adventure–Cafayate in the Calchaqui Valley
One of the highest wine growing regions in the world exists in northern Argentina in the Calchaqui Valley. This lovely hotel where we spent the night reminded me of New Mexico.
The hotel garden.
The ceiling above the walkway.
The walkway from the garden to the front of the hotel. Spanish colonial architecture and design seem much the same everywhere.
Cafayate is small and lovely. Like every other city, it too has a square with a church on one side. We went there instead of Mendoza, the city most people in the US associate with Argentinian wine, because Hugo, Gaston’s dad, prefers the wine from there over that from Mendoza.
The church on the square in Cafayate.
Many trees were in bloom there. Gaston’s mom and I collected some seeds from this one and I have two plants growing in pots at my house.
More colonial architecture.
Although most of this valley is filled with vineyards from one mountain range to the other, I did see fields as well.
Behind the hotel where we parked the truck, the guy was raising fighting cocks. I never had the chance to take of photo of them.
After a leisurely breakfast at the hotel, we needed to the oldest winery in the valley.
Rain
months of nothing
six inches below normal
suddenly late afternoon
downpours, flooding
three waterfalls off canyon cliff
double rainbow
birds sing evensongs
and now this
This Evening
Raging wind gone still
Mockingbird carols to Sunset
Dusk whispers to Night
Flowers–Texas Panhandle Tough
In spite of only one inch of rain since last autumn, many flowers persist: sundrops, black foot daisies, chocolate flowers, wine cups, primrose, desert (Mexican) birds of paradise, red yucca, salvia, catmint, native grasses, milkweed. I took these photos after feeding the horses this morning.
Argentinian Adventure–The Road to Wine Country
Late on a Monday morning, Gaston’s parents and I headed toward Cafayate, a relatively small town at the edge of the sierra which grows some of the best wine grapes in the world. It is a long drive through incredibly varied landscapes.
One of the first towns we drive through is Jesus Maria. As in many Argentianian cities, trees line many streets. Here acequias provide water for the trees.
Except where cleared for farming–giant soybean and corn fields, much of the land through which we drove looks like this.
Taken as we sped along, this photo show soybeans in the distance. Since it seemed relatively dry here, I asked if they were irrigated. Gaston’s father told me no, that they had developed a type of soybeans that require much less water.
When I first saw this out my window, I thought maybe water, but no, this was the beginning of miles and miles of salt.
Another photo taken looking through my window.
And then we speed into the cloud forest. I was astonished my whole time here. I had to idea there was such a thing in Argentina.
We climbed higher and higher and stopped at a visitor’s area where displays explained the flora and fauna which live here.
This area is a subtropical jungle.
Often we drove through clouds or along the side of rushing mountain rivers. And then as suddenly as we arrived in these mountains, we were on the other side where it was dry. The selva–jungle–stopped almost as suddenly as it began. One side of the mountains lush and green with ocelots, all sorts of other wildlife, and on the other semi-arid country, equally beautiful but so astonishingly different only a few miles away.
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