Apocalyptic Planet–Part Three: Ice Collapses

April 18, 2014April 18, 2014 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

It may be difficult for some to believe, but over the last three million years ice dominated earth’s climate. We remain in that long ice age; widespread glaciers still exist. For most of earth’s long, long existence no ice existed anywhere. Currently, we are in an interglacial period in which ice has retreated back to the poles and the highest mountain reaches. Earth as we know it has been shaped primarily by ice and to a lesser extent by volcanoes. Once ice lay hundreds of feet deep as far south as Chicago and London. What caused this see saw between Ice Ages and warm, wet periods where the ice retreated or disappeared entirely? The changing tilt of the earth’s axis. Currently, the earth’s tilt is 23.5 degrees or so. This tilt causes the seasons in non tropical areas. Earth’s tilt changes a degree or so over time, causing the alternating periods between extreme ice coverage and warm periods. At times the change has been so great that no ice remained even on the poles. Usually, these changes are very slow, over thousands of years. No longer.

Equatorial glaciers once common in the high equatorial mountains, e.g. Andes, Himalayas, a century ago no longer exist. Ernest Hemingway once described the glacier on Kilimanjaro as “wide as all the world”. Now nothing but a few patches of hard snow remain. The once giant ice fields in northern Patagonia in Chili and Argentina currently lose volume at an ever accelerating rate. While hiking and kayaking with a filming crew in this area, Childs saw just how rapidly this ice loss occurs. In one instance a huge ice lake run off from one glacier totally disappeared in two weeks. In Greenland an iceberg four times the size of Manhattan floated off in 2010 and finally melted in the Gulf Stream. It narrowly missed shipping lanes and offshore oil wells. The Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica the size of Yosemite National Park and 700 feet deep had been stable for more than 12,000 years. It started coming apart over a decade ago. It eventually floated off and melted.

Why does any of this matter? Ice keeps the planet cooler. Solar radiation bounces off into space. Currently, ice reflects approximately 30 per cent of incoming sunlight. Few present animals and people are prepared for the hothouse that would exist if much more ice melts. This is in spite of the fact that radiation from the sun has actually gone down in the last fifty years. As the planet warms, more ice melts, more heat remains on earth, more ice melts and the cycle continues. The current acceleration of ice loss causes many scientists to question: where is the tipping point? How can we stop this rapidly accelerating ice loss?

Humans are increasing carbon dioxide levels ten thousand times faster than they changed over the last 65 million years. Our globe is warming; all climatologists agree. At what point will it be too late to turn this around? Indeed, can we turn this around? And if we do, will some of the ice return? No one knows. Nothing like this has occurred before in human history. All this melting ice causes sea rise. At the current rate a one meter sea rise by the end of this century is plausible. Many of the world’s largest cities already have a sea level problem e.g.Bangkok. Furthermore, the water supply for much of southern and southeast Asia depends on water from rivers and glaciers in the Himalayas. The world’s largest supply of fresh water depends on this system. Are we ready for a hotter, drier earth?

Apocalyptic Planet-Part Two: Hadley Cells, Weather and Drought

April 16, 2014April 16, 2014 / Juliana Lightle / 2 Comments

Hadley cells, the wind systems in each hemisphere , form patterns of atmospheric circulation in which warm air rises near the equator, cools as it travels poleward at high altitudes, sinks as cold air, and then warms as it travels back to the equator. They are named after George Hadley, an English scientific writer. Tropical regions receive more heat from solar radiation than they radiate back to space and such areas have constant temperatures. More simply, warm air rises (heat rises) and then flows poleward at high altitudes, cools, drops, and flows back toward the equator at lower altitudes. Then the process repeats itself. When the air rises and leaves these tropical areas, it loses moisture as it heads to subtropical areas. The majority of the worlds large deserts lay in these subtropical areas.

Hadley cells are expanding. Precipitation has declined in tropical areas since 1970. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Southern Asia, the Sahel, Southern Africa, the Mediterranean, and the US Southwest are getting drier and drier. Even wetter areas now experience long dry spells between extreme events of rain and snow. Examples in the US include the cold and snowfalls in the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard this past winter. Texas and New Mexico continue to experience a prolonged drought. In the next thirty years scientists predict a 30 per cent decline in water resources.

In some places both governments and individuals create innovative and sometimes simple measures to counteract desertification. In India near the Thar Desert, the government mandated the dispersal of grass seed to hold the ground. Studies indicate that the grass seed grew better when planted by hand than when dispersed from airplanes. Also in India orans, small sacred groves, have helped preserve shrubs and grasses and even trees, a genetic bank that would otherwise have been lost. Childs describes how his friends who live on the outskirts of Tuscon have coaxed their water table fifteen feet higher, using ordinary shovels and hard work. They built contour traps and “massaged” the ground. Hardly worth noticing except when it rained, the rain sank into underground catches. Their properties now look like small areas of refuge in the vast desert. In some areas of the Sahel people have been able to plant and nurture trees in such a way that areas of green exist where they had disappeared.

Archeologists and geologists know that periods of drought occurred repeatedly for millions of years. For humans and the animals we know, drought has never been easy. Large areas of civilization cannot exist without water. We can affect our future in positive ways and prepare ourselves if we choose.

Apocalyptic Planet–Part One

April 16, 2014April 16, 2014 / Juliana Lightle / 3 Comments

Usually I read only one book at a time. Lately, I am reading several, one of which is Apocalyptic Planet: Field Guide to the Future of the Earth by Craig Childs. Childs is a sort of combined explorer/adventurer/scientist. He goes to places few go to see what occurs there, the wind, the flora and fauna, the weather, the climate. The next couple of days I intend to share some of his most pithy observations and ruminations. We will start with the desert. He and a friend literally wandered around the most arid and hostile portion of the Sonoran Desert in northwestern Mexico. This desert has enlarged and become more arid due to an extended drought.

Deserts come and go. If you live in a lovely lush green landscape, wait long enough and it, too, may become a desert. Six thousand years ago lakes, marshes, and grassland lay where the Sahara is today. A slight orbital change in earth’s relation to the sun caused nearby oceans to heat up, changing atmospheric conditions. Humans living there had no choice but to move. Forty per cent of the earth’s population lives in semiarid regions. Even a small drought changes survival chances for the people who live there. The Sahara, the Gobi, and the Taklimakan are growing, arable farmland decreasing. Vulnerable areas include southern Spain, Greece, Bolivia, Australia, central Asia, and our own West. The entire American High Plains (I live in the southern part) sits on top a giant desert. Without pivot irrigation, only grass grows here. In the last decade many irrigation wells have dried up or gone too saline. The giant bulges you see in places like the sand hills of Nebraska are really a sand dune sea covered with grass. Take away a little rain and here comes the desert.

Childs and his friend carried water with them and buried them with markers in the sand so they could find them later. As the desert grows in parts of India, women carry water farther and farther, an average of six miles a day, four gallons at a time. In the Sahel just south of the Sahara a difference in rainfall of just an inch or two can mean the difference between survival and starvation. Without water, there is no civilization.

What causes these changes? Human behavior and the increase in greenhouse gases are part of the reason. Humans are creating enough changes that we are moving toward more deserts, not fewer. One climate expert, Jonathan Overpeck, thinks we are seriously underestimating the severity of drought we will face in the not so distant future. Forget five and seven year droughts and think fifty years. Hadley cells also affect climate change. Tomorrow I will explain Hadley cells and how they affect our weather.

Northern Arizona

Eastern New Mexico

Texas Panhandle

Gypsies, Deserts, and Random Thoughts on a Cold Sunday Morning

March 2, 2014March 2, 2014 / Juliana Lightle / 1 Comment

In less than 15 hours, it has dropped from low 70s to 9 here on my canyon rim–one of the joys of living in the Panhandle of Texas where a mere change in wind direction can dictate the weather. Yesterday afternoon, I was helping my daughter clean her back yard and ready the ground for planting some shrubs and a tree and now 60 degrees colder. This type of drastic weather change has occurred repeatedly in the last few weeks. Perhaps it has muddled my brain which keeps hopping back and forth from this to that. First, the “this”.

Mostly, I read Latin American, American Indian, and Middle Eastern authors. When I recently stopped by the library, I could find none of these that I had not already read so I picked up a book from a Dutch author of whom I had never previously heard, Margriet de Moor. The book, a novel, The Duke of Egypt, tells the tale of a Gypsy man who meets this young Dutch woman. They marry and lead a quite unusual life: in the winter he lives with her on the family horse farm; in summer he leaves and lives with the Gypsies, wandering around Europe in their caravans. When he is “home” with her, in the evenings he tells her tales of his Gypsy family and friends, centuries of history. These tales shocked me: centuries of discrimination, hangings–even Gypsy women hanged publicly for no other reason than they happened to be Gypsy in the wrong country at the wrong time, sick children whom no doctor would treat, starvation, driven from country to country. Of course, like many people I have heard stories about Gypsies: as a child my grandmother telling me that Gypsies stole other people’s children, a friend telling me the police said it was Gypsies when someone stole some silverware from her house, but I never really believed it. Reading this book caused me to delve a bit more into Gypsy/Roma history only to learn even more tales of horror. Hitler and his Nazis hated Gypsies almost as much as they hated Jews. It is estimated that the Nazis sent at least ten per cent of the Gypsy population in Europe to the gas chamber. On the positive side, I learned that many Gypsies were hired by people who raised horses to help them with their horse care because Gypsies were considered expert horse trainers and traders. In addition, some hired them for their music to play for social events and festivals.

When several friends came over for dinner, I mentioned the book to them and my shock. I wondered aloud as to why so many hated the Gypsies. The general response was this: Gypsies consistently live as they wish and refuse to follow the social norms of the rest of the population. They refuse to settle down and live in one place, they enjoy life, dancing, drinking, roaming. If you refuse to live like everyone else, the rest of the world will punish you.

Then I moved on to the book I am reading now, Apocalyptic Planet: Field Guide To The Future Of The Earth. I am only on page 27 of 327, and already I have learned: “Deserts generate most of the world’s airborne dust, contributing to a global migration of surface minerals. Dust blowing from the southern Sahara is the single largest producer of iron for the mineral-poor soils of the Amazon in South America. Half of this dust originates in the Bodele Depression north of Lake Chad, which produces about one hundred storms a year, each sending 40,000 tons of dust across the Atlantic to South America.” And a bit further in the book: much of the fertile High Plains here in the US (Kansas, eastern Colorado, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, basically from Canada to Mexico) sit on top of a desert, e.g. the Sand Hills. Currently, these sand hills remain stabilized by miles and miles of grass–our native short grass steppe. It does not take much to imagine what would occur if drought continues and the grass disappears. Once desertification occurs as it is now occurring in many places in the world, e.g. the Sahel, deserts consume. Jonathan Overpeck, a leading climate researcher claims, “…we are significantly underestimating the severity of drought we could get in the future.” He predicts many places now inhabited will become uninhabitable unless we initiate drastic changes in our water management. People will be forced to move from places of little to no water to places “wherever there is no desert”. He adds, “We are contributing enough change to the planet that we are moving toward more droughts instead of away from them.” In the Sahel alone it is estimated that 500 million people will have to move to survive. I think over this information and about the current drought here and look at the beautiful place where I write and live, wondering will it be habitable in one hundred years.

Now on to the “that”: grateful I live here in the United States in spite of all our “problems”. I could have been born in Ukraine, Syria, Central Aftican Republic, any of those places experiencing turmoil, fear, religious hatred, genocide, torture–the list goes on and on. Instead here I am happy, relatively safe, warm in spite of the 9 degrees outside, well fed–you get the picture.

Snowbound

December 6, 2013December 6, 2013 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

This prose poem recently appeared in the latest “Story Circle Journal”.

They’re young; they’re handsome; they’re mine for six months.

Two seventeen year old South Americans. The Brazilian has never

seen snow. It snows two feet in less than twenty-four hours, wind

shrieking along the canyon rim, drifts piling four feet high, roads

closed. Even the snow plows give up. We’re house and barn bound.

Horses need food. We all pitch in, climb through drifts, shovel.

Schools never closed are closed; offices closed. No lights on the road.

Two days later it takes us an hour rocking back and forth in the green

Off Road 4X4 truck to go the one eighth mile to the main road. After school

and work we leave the truck near the road and trudge down the long hill

to the house. By flashlight we struggle back up the next morning, trying

not to fall. Even boots fill with snow. That evening, the boys insist

we drive all the way down to the barn. I start to fix dinner. They tell me,

“We’ll be back in an hour. We aren’t going through that again!”

They shovel tracks for the truck all the way from the barn to the main road.

I miss them, especially in winter.

Day Trip to Marvin Lake and Canadian, Texas–Part One

November 2, 2013November 2, 2013 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Two weeks ago, I joined the local Native Plant Society group for a trip to Lake Marvin east of Canadian, Texas, near the Oklahoma border. Lake Marvin is located in the Black Kettle National Grassland which includes land in both Texas and Oklahoma. This national grassland’s name comes from the Southern Cheyenne Chief by the same name. An aging chief, he had attempted to make peace with whites and had been guaranteed protection by the head officer at a nearby US Army Fort. He, along with old men, children, and women was massacred by Lt. Colonel Armstrong Custer and his troops in Custer’s first great “success” as an Indian fighter. It was an easy battle; the Indians had been assured their safety at this encampment. They were totally unprepared. Black Kettle attempted to meet the soldiers and flew a white peace flag as well as a US flag over his teepee. He and his wife were mowed down in a barrage of bullets. The massacre is called the Battle of the Washita because the Indian encampment was on the Washita River which flows through the grassland.

Those of us who live in the Panhandle of Texas become accustomed to the lack of trees and semi arid climate. It is always a huge surprise to find those rare spots with numerous trees, water, and thick vegetation. Lake Marvin and much of the area near Canadian provide a total contrast to what we usually see. JR Bell, an expert on native grasses and plants, lead the hike around Lake Marvin, a manmade lake constructed for conservation purposes in the 1930’s on Boggy Creek. Regretfully, I failed to carry a pen and pad to write down the name of all the grasses, some of which exist in the area where I live and others I had never seen before. Perhaps some of you who read this will be able to identify the various grasses which include blue grama, side oats grama–the state grass of Texas, little blue stem, and two other species of blue stem, switch grass, buffalo grass, and wheat grass. Unfortunately, Johnson grass, a non-native, invasive species, also grows near the edges of the lake.

The hike began near what was once the water’s edge before silt and drought made the lake half its original size. Johnson grass, the outsider, is not too difficult to identify because of the bright maroony red on the leaves. This enables an non-expert like me to differentiate among Johnson grass and a few other similar looking species. While I tried to listen and watch grass identification, rather quickly I realized that without pen and paper remembering all of them would be impossible so I focused on photographing the natural beauty surrounding me.

No one told me the origin or purpose of the abandoned buildings up the hill from the lake. The change in flora one sees by facing the hill rather than toward the lake is amazing. One could almost draw an imaginary line with certain grasses and shrubs on one side and totally different ones on the other. The magic key, as always, is water. Where I live, two hours away, no sage brush grows. Here on the hillside, it grows everywhere with various grasses, some rather small and semi hidden, interspersed.

I learned several keys to identifying grasses: seed heads, texture of leaves and stems–some rough and others smooth, size of leaves and stems, some variations in color. Height helps but does not necessarily determine differences because the same grass species can vary depending on amount of water and type of soil. The amount and size of the trees continually astonished me, like this tunnel through the trees, something I never expected to see in the Panhandle.

Where I grew up in northwestern Missouri, huge black walnut trees grow everywhere. I recall exploring the walnut grove on the farm repeatedly as a child. I certainly never expected to see them on this little trip. Suddenly, astonished me stood there surrounded.

While these trees never reach the size of the ones where I grew up and the nuts remain considerably smaller, here they stood, their distinctive leaves giving them away. Before I went away to college, every autumn, we picked up the nuts, cleaned them–while the outside is a lovely lime green, the area between the seed and outside, is a sticky, dark brown mess which makes excellent natural dark brown dye, and cracked them to retrieve the meat inside. Black walnut nuts are much harder than English walnuts and cracking them requires a hammer and something really hard on which to place the nut. After I left home, every year Mom spent hours working on these nuts and brought me at least a pound at Christmas, a true labor of love. They are especially tasty with in recipes with chocolate or bananas.

The hike provided continual surprises, a boggy pool, persimmon trees, a plant whose leaves resembled miniature spectacles, a grass so fine and thick in a glade between the trees that it looked like a tiny patch of fog on the ground, and poison ivy.

Persimmons.

This particular tree was loaded with persimmons.

Cattails in the background.

When I first walked up to this spot, the fine grass toward the back of the photo looked exactly like a tiny patch of fog nestled in a miniature glade among the trees.

We took off from the main trail especially to come to this cottonwood tree, one of the oldest, if not the oldest, in the Panhandle. Over a hundred years ago this tree stood as the sentinel for the overland trail that went through this area. The military, ranchers, and Native Americans all used the trail across this area of the plains. The tree’s height enabled it to be seen for miles and helped travelers keep on their way with accuracy. Once we reached the end of the main trail, some of the group took off in their vehicles while a few went on around the lake. It saddened me to see so much of it dried up and old tires sticking out of the dried mud. However, along the way, we saw numerous trees I could not identify. The bark of this tree is particularly distinctive.

This field trip coincided with the fall festival held annually in the small town of Canadian which gets its name from the Canadian River which flows beside the town. The town is unique in the number of large, elaborate Victorian houses there. Several of us ended the trip at the local elementary school with a big craft fair and a barbecue lunch.

Blackwater Draw-Part Two

August 28, 2013August 30, 2013 / Juliana Lightle / 3 Comments

The ancients hunted here at the shores of a lake

nearly 12,000 years ago. In 1929, an amateur

archeologist discovered an ancient spear

point lodged in bone. I walk the mile long trail

down into the depths. Caliche, gravel,

larger rocks strewn by millennia. For

thousands of years Clovis, Folsom, and Portales

Man left remnants of their hunting life.

The scattered cottonwoods whisper in the wind,

timeless voices call me, beckoning.

Who were these people?

What did they look like?

Where did they come from?

In whose gods and goddesses did they believe?

Doubtless hunger drove them to this place of water

and plenty. Columbia Mammoths, giant sloths, dire wolves,

saber toothed cats gathered here for thousands of years.

The diggers found an obsidian spear head with a

bison whose horns spanned seven feet and

mammoths twice the size of elephants.

Saber toothed cats competed with these

ancient ancestors at this place, all driven by

hunger, thirst, and instinct. I wonder how

these people overcame danger, fear?

I walk the mile long path, stand in the shade

of these cottonwood trees , read the signs that

tell me what diggers found at specific spots along the trail.

The cottonwoods whisper to me. They

tell me ancient tales of hunger, strife, fear,

beauty, love, endurance. I hear the ancient voices

calling. They tell me ancient tales of woe, war,

weaponry, courage, and community. My

skin tingles strangely in the summer heat. Now

this land is dry, a desert, the water that sustained

teeming life evaporated in the crystalline air.

Twelve thousand years from now who will stand here?

Will this place exist? Will someone wonder the meaning

of our bones, who we were, what we believed?

Blackwater Draw–Part One

August 18, 2013 / Juliana Lightle / 3 Comments

Annually, I make a pilgrimage to this ancient place where people hunted on the shores of a lake nearly 12,000 years ago. It continues to be the oldest evidence of human habitation in the Americas. For a large part of the twentieth century it was a gravel pit. The gravel mining created both positive and negative consequences. Without it, the bones of giant bison, mammoths, dire wolf, saber toothed cat and camels might never have been discovered at all. However, because the owners of the quarry refused to stop mining, some portions of the site were destroyed by big swoops of the excavator machines. Frequently archaeologists worked simultaneously along with mining operations, continuing within sight of each other. Various groups, including some private individuals, attempted repeatedly to buy the site to save its precious stash of bones, artifacts, and ancient wells. The owners refused to sell. Finally, in 1978, Eastern New Mexico University purchased the site and continues archaeological excavation there. They also run the nearby museum adjacent to the university football stadium.

If you expect something wondrous and grandiose, you will be severely disappointed. A small building houses a teensy museum, restrooms, a few sweat shirts and posters and books for purchase. An individual sits by the door to take your meager entrance fee–at most five dollars–and answer questions. These individuals explain they are majors in disciplines related to the site, archaeology, paleontology, anthropology, that sort of thing. A simple gravel trail traverses the site and a smaller trail goes to an ancient well–16 have been found at or near the site–and to a dig inside a building where you can observe the layers unearthed, which group of people left which type of artifacts, and actual bones of mammoths, giant bison, and other animals from the end of the last Ice Age.

People react differently to such sites. I always remain entranced, overwhelmed, reflective, thinking to myself, “I am walking where people walked and hunted and went about their lives more than 11,000 years ago.” The most ancient evidence of people is labeled Clovis Man–Clovis, NM, is just up the road. They never found human bones of these people here , just their spearheads stuck in the ribs and shoulders of mammoths which stood 15 feet at the shoulders. The people who came later made a different type of spear, called Folsom points. These people, Folsom Man, lived later by 1-2 thousand years. Another site, called Folsom, is near the tiny town of Folsom, NM, farther north at the edge of the mountains. This site is on private land and tours are available only twice a year. Although I visited the town last year, I have not visited this site. Other people arrived later and although the collection is smaller, their spearheads remain available for viewing at the nearby Blackwater Draw Museum on the main road between Clovis and Portalis, NM.

When I look at the list of animals who lived here at the end of the last Ice Age, I feel amazed because they include both camels and horses as big as our horses now. Both of these became extinct as did the saber toothed cat with the humongous canine teeth and the dire wolf. Giant sloths lived until modern times but nowhere near New Mexico. How could all these animals live here? It was wet and green then. Until the last couple of decades, bodies of water of varying sizes have drawn animals and people to this area. Giant fields of irrigated corn and dairy farms lowered the water table sufficiently to eliminate any evidence of water. At the time of Clovis Man a large lake covered the site. Later, during a 3000 year drought, people dug the ancient wells to reach water. Because this remained the only place for hundreds of miles with a supply of water, people came.

The trail begins just to the northwest of the tiny building and goes along the top for a couple of hundred feet before it drops down into the gravel pit remains. The gravel was below all the layers containing human artifacts and ancient animal bones so the pit is wide and deep.

If your sight is good, you can read this. The primary source of food for Clovis Man, giant bison and Columbian mammoths, came here for the water. Archaeologists theorize that hunters often killed these huge animals while they were in the water where it was more difficult for them to escape and move quickly. In one place on the trail, evidence of a five bison kill complete with spearheads makes one think just how difficult and dangerous this hunting activity must have been. I stand there, think about my own 5’4″ height, and wonder what it would be like to have a Columbian mammoth close to me. Doubtless many died from injuries during such activities.

The train meanders along the bottom of the gravel pit. This year, plentiful rain grows abundant grass. During the last several years, little rain has fallen as evidenced by all the dead trees and bushes scattered around the site. Normally, this area is semiarid with less than 18 inches of rain per year.

If spectacular scenery appeals to you, do not go here. Most of the bones and artifacts were found in the layers at the sides of the pit. As you walk the trail, markers indicate the location of findings. Few human remains are found at such sites because these were not permanent settlement places. Ancient peoples roamed the land in search of water and food.

Signs, such as this along the trail, illustrate different places where specific bones and artifacts were found. They also explain the different types of artifacts, their specific uses, and the history of the site. Maps, like the one on this sign, help the viewer hone in on specifics in relation to where one is standing. The photo illustrates archaeologists in action during site digs.

Cliffs, like the one here, surround the site. In these small cliffs each layer indicates a different age of human activity by not only the type of sediment but also by the type of artifacts and animal bones found. Just beyond this particular cliff at the west edge of the site, irrigation pivots run in a huge corn field. The grey at the bottom of the cliff indicates an immense pile of dead, dried, tumble weeds. This is dry country.

Approximately three fourths through the trail, the site mangers have erected several structures. This one is the most primitive. Others are modern with picnic tables and in one place I saw a giant sand box. Guessing, I think it must be used to illustrate how one sifts through layers of soil to carefully remove spearheads, bones, pottery, etc. This is the perfect place for a field trip, not too long, but full of geological and paleontological information.

I go here usually once a year. If you ask me why, I may articulate something about how it has the oldest artifacts and bones found in North America. The real reason?? I am not quite sure. This place fascinates me, connects me with something ancient and wondrous, something undefined and mysterious.

The Farrier

July 16, 2013 / Juliana Lightle / 1 Comment

He looks like the typical cowboy

with no cowboy hat.

A cowboy hat would get in the way

up against a horse.

Pale blue eyes,

grey, handlebar mustache,

pack of Camels

he chain smokes,

Australian shepherd, Chili, by his side.

After the trimming

he sits and talks to me

for two hours.

He tells me a story

he told me the last time.

I listen as if it were the first time.

People call him from Oklahoma City.

They want a shoer.

He tells them,

“Too far unless

there’s ten head at 85 a head.”

They agree.

He gets there with Chili,

a pup then.

He starts to tie her up.

“No need;

let her play with our puppy.”

He does.

They invite him out.

It is New Year’s Eve.

“The dive they took me to

was real rough, real rough,

so rough I’d worry about

my safety even with two 45s.

They had a friend singing there

somewhere in Southeast Oklahoma City.

Real rough.

Next morning I’m ready

for the other six horses.

There’s none.”

He packs up,

comes home.

Chili won’t eat,

won’t play.

He sits and waits at the vet.

It’s parvo.

She’s had the vaccine

but not enough time.

“The people in Oklahoma City

lied about the horses

about the parvo.

Chili stayed on IVs for five days.”

Today, Chili’s a dog dynamo,

no longer a puppy but

with puppy energy.

She and Isabella play

constantly for the two hours.

He says,

“You must be rich to build this place.”

I laugh.

“Rich, I’m not rick.

Lucky maybe,

no, not lucky.

I don’t believe in luck.”

A person makes her own luck.

Smart helps, sometimes.

Family Roadtrips

July 13, 2013 / Juliana Lightle / 6 Comments

During my childhood, my father took us on regular road trips. The first one occurred when I was three. He actually drove all the way from northwestern Missouri to Monterey, Mexico, via Padre Island and back. Every year we took at least one, sometimes two. Later in life, I truly realized the value and magic of these family road trips. Although my daughter, grandson and I take short road trips to New Mexico in particular, we had never taken a really long one until two weeks ago when we left Amarillo, Texas, headed for Carmel, California.

At our first stop, Old Town, Albuquerque, for lunch, we experienced a most refreshing and delightful drink which I plan to duplicate the next time I invite friends over for dinner.

This feast for the eyes and mouth consists of water infused with pineapple and strawberries. It tastes best after letting it set to allow the fruit to meld into the water.

We spent the night in Gallup, but arrived too late to visit the galleries and shops so headed to a little Italian restaurant where my grandson, D’mitri, donned a black shirt which reads Got Mafia. Friday morning we headed to Window Rock, capital of the Navaho Nation. Since D’mitri’s great grandfather was Navaho, D’mitri’s interest in this stop remained high.

After strolling around the park here, we stopped to visit the ladies selling the jewelry they were making on site. As a person a bit obsessed with corn plants, I could not resist a pair of turquoise earrings that look exactly like tiny ears of corn. D’mitri had to have a necklace with a soccer ball pendant which he wore the rest of the trip.

After the morning at Window Rock, we drove off across the Navaho Nation and the Hopi, headed for the North Rim. We stopped off and on to visit vendors along the side of the road. The dwellings throughout the Navaho Nation seemed scattered across the landscape with many hogans next to or close to what appeared to be a main house. Horses roamed in the semi-arid fields. The Hopi area, however, held a different view with no scattered dwellings. Everyone seemed to live in villages along the way and I never saw a horse in Hopi country. Finally, we crossed the mighty Colorado River at Navaho Bridge from which I took this photo.

The road follows the base of the cliffs of Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. We could see them looming large long before we arrived. Huge rocks appeared to have tumbled off the cliffs and lay near the road. I kept wondering if they ever fall and hit cars.

We finally made it to the Jacob Lake Inn near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We arrived too late to go to the Grand Canyon so took a hike through the ponderosa pines supposedly headed to a lake. Dry, hot weather apparently turned the lake into a mere puddle. We barely made it back before dark, disappointed. The next morning we drove the forty some miles through heavy woods interspersed with giant meadows to the North Rim. If you have never been to the Grand Canyon, its size and grandeur remain impossible to convey via photos. Perhaps due to the rather warm, dry conditions, a heavy haze hung over the Canyon all day. We took a few tiny hikes, only to discover just how very much out of shape we are. Additionally, the altitude affected D’mitri quite negatively, making him more tired than customary. Nevertheless, determined to not miss out too much, I took several photographs from Imperial Point.

Flowers exactly the same as grow where I live on a little canyon in the Panhandle of Texas grew along the path. We spent another night at Jacob Lake and then continued toward Las Vegas. The fastest route drops off the Kaibab Plateau rather dramatically with spectacular long views, the depth and breadth of which no ordinary camera can capture. We ate a late breakfast in Hurricane, Utah, a bit after the infamous Colorado City, Arizona, where the houses appeared quite large with high walls around many of them. Then off to Las Vegas, Nevada, to meet an elementary school classmate, Craig Prater, whom I had not seen in years. He treated us to a fabulous lunch at the Mandalay Bay, took us to a shopping area down road, and he and I attempted to catch up for all those years while Ema and D’mitri shopped. We marveled how two children who attended a rural school (at first it had only one room and then later two) eighteen miles from any town of more than a couple of hundred could attain what we have attained. He produces films and travels all over the world. I have lived, worked, and traveled to many different places.

After Las Vegas, we drove to Mojave, California, for the night. The only scenery on this drive is through a canyon on the Interstate. We experienced high winds and a sand storm and arrived after dark. The next morning we solved the mystery of the hundreds of red blinking lights on the hillsides, wind turbines. From there it is a rather short drive, a couple of hours, to the Trail of 100 Giants in Sequoia National Monument. To say we experienced amazement is an understatement. What a magical forest so wet and dark and alluring after miles and miles and miles of hot desert.

My daughter, Ema, and her son, D’mitri really enjoy clowning around and what better place than surrounded by the largest trees in the world. The squirrels here also “talked” a lot and we tried to get close.

Usually, I frequently dislike photos of me, but this one is an exception. Although not large, this tree stood out as so unique I could not resist a photo shot. Even with the best camera, I doubt a photo of an entire sequoia tree is possible. You have to see them to obtain the full effect.

We wanted more time with the trees, but needed to make it to Carmel by evening so headed down the mountain toward California Hot Springs. Altitude is everything here. In ten minutes the golden hills replace giant trees.

Then, in an hour or less, we were driving across the Central Valley past miles of vegetables and at least three types of trees in huge orchards or groves. The only tree species I was able to identify was almonds. I wanted to take pictures, but did not desire to arrive in Carmel at my college roommate’s house in the dark so I kept driving. No quick road exists that crosses California except way to the south. This still astonishes me. Two lanes with heavy truck traffic take a long time to get from one destination to another. We decided to cross on 198 through Coalinga to San Lucas which resulted in a fun, scenic drive with lots of twists and turns. Much to our surprise, huge pine cones lay everywhere beside the road. It seemed strange that these cones came from a tree much smaller than the Sequoia. Ema and D’mitri collected some to display at home.

Finally, just before dark we arrived at the Rinaldo’s. Suzy and I roomed together at Grinnell College at the ages of 18-19. David attended Grinnell also. We only see each other once or twice a year but can pick up conservations as if it were a few moments ago. They live in the Santa Lucia Preserve.

Every morning this deer casually ate California poppies and ran away only if I went outside too quickly. One morning I took a long walk up one of the few roads on the Preserve. I love the live oaks and learned they are very fire resistant so residents are allowed to let them grow close to their houses. Everything else, except for a few native grasses and plants–no trees or brush, must be cleared for 150 feet all around any house.

I commented on the radiant red colors I saw in the leaves of an attractive plant only to find out it is poisonous oak and if I touched it, the result would not make me very happy. It must love this particular environment because it grows everywhere.

One of my favorite restaurants is at the Hacienda at Santa Lucia Preserve, not because of the food, but due to the impeccable service and enchanting atmosphere, what I imagine to have existed in old California. D’mitri says it is his favorite fancy restaurant on the trip.

In the dark, driving back home to David and Suzy’s, we saw a bobcat, several deer, wild turkeys, a skunk, and another animal we could not identify. The next day we ladies went shopping in Carmel while David and D’mitri took a ride in the Porsche and swam. No one can go near Carmel surely and not drive the glorious drive south to Big Sur. D’mitri loves water so we stopped at two different places along the way.

D’mitri became quite alarmed when Suzy told him many of the bushes along the path are poison oak. David informed us that a really wonderful beach existed down the road if we could get in. Off we drove to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. They only allow so many cars into the park at once so we had to wait until someone left. It was worth the wait. This beach does not allow swimming; people have drowned here. Nevertheless, who cares; the drama of crashing surf, giant holes in rocks worn by water, and trees shaped by wind and erosion make it magical.

You cannot go down highway 1 without stopping at Nepenthe. This restaurant’s views alone are worth going there, plus a gift shop full of finds from all over the world. The wine list and hamburgers finish off the list of why you must stop here if you are anywhere near Big Sur.

Time seemed to run rapidly; with only one day left, we decided to head to Moss Landing to see the seals. Much to David’s astonishment, not only did seals lay all along the beach, but a large number of sea otters were playing in the water, rolling over and over, splashing. David had been there many times and never seen anything like this. The sea otters delight the watcher with their playful antics.

Unlike the ever playful sea otters, the seals just lay still like large rocks along the beach.

Early on a Saturday morning, Suzy and David fed us waffles to fortify us for the long drive to Flagstaff, nearly 700 miles. We crossed over to Salinas, then down 101 and finally through Bakersfield where we found a delightful, rather elegant Italian restaurant for lunch. The good looking waiter chit chatted and provided excellent service, three pluses when you go out to eat. As we cut across the middle of California, headed for I-40 eventually and neared Tehachapi, Ema decided to call D’mitri’s other grandparents who have a house there. When we went the other direction almost a week before, they had been vacationing in France. To our surprise, they answered and asked us to stop for the night. D’mitri’s excitement was contagious. He expressed special delight to have his grandfather to himself for hours instead of needing to share him with other grandchildren. The Herreros live on a hillside with a breathtaking view for miles. Unfortunately, the haze prevented proper photography so I gave up on the idea of capturing the endless panorama. However, this presented itself as the perfect opportunity for family photos.

The California desert never comes to mind when I think of California. I always fly to San Francisco or Oakland and visit friends or conduct business. Unlike the glorious red rocks and drama of southern Utah and northern Arizona or the saguaros of southern Arizona, the California desert maintains an endless pale tan color with only a few tiny plants. Thanks to air conditioned automobiles, you can drive for miles, escaping the intense heat. When we finally stopped at a Dairy Queen for a refresher, D’mitri and I stepped out of the car and were nearly knocked over by the hideously hot wind. In general, I like heat, but this seemed overwhelming. When we drove off, I asked Ema about the temperature. She looked it up on her smart phone, 118. The only truly beautiful I sight I saw (and I think nearly everywhere possesses some sort of loveliness) occurred when I drove over the mighty Colorado River, surrounded by the only green for miles. After this heat, the cool, green beauty of Flagstaff enchanted us. We settled into our hotel room, then drove off to our third Italian restaurant in two days, Oregano’s. Instead of the usual coloring books, puzzles, etc. offered to children, this place gives them pizza dough to mold.

As we drove home, I noticed how terribly dry it is once we dropped out of the mountains around Flagstaff. Off and on we crossed areas where there had been enough rain to create a pale green. Apparently, it had not rained west of Albuquerque because it still looked like brown winter just as it had eleven days before on the first day of the trip. East of Albuquerque we encountered such an intense downpour with some hail that I could not see to drive. I pulled off the road and waited. From Albuquerque to Amarillo, in the eleven days we were gone, it had rained enough to make the mountains, foothills, and high plains a lovely soft emerald. We had missed the hot, 100 plus week and came home to rain and cooler weather that lasted several days. In one week, the weather had changed from record highs to record lows, the typical extremes one learns to live with on the Llano Estacado.

writingontherim

wondering the world with fun, food, travel, poetry, contemplation

nature

Apocalyptic Planet–Part Three: Ice Collapses

Apocalyptic Planet-Part Two: Hadley Cells, Weather and Drought

Apocalyptic Planet–Part One

Snowbound

Blackwater Draw-Part Two

Blackwater Draw–Part One

The Farrier

Family Roadtrips

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