There's A Chill Is Coming On

We don't expect there to be a hard freeze for a while yet, but you never know. New Mexico has apparently been cited by the Weather Channel for the most extreme weather for 2013, and I'm not in a position to prognosticate. But there is a distinct chill in the mornings now, and I've even run the heater -- once -- to take the edge off and see if the dang thing still works. I took the air conditioners in the bedrooms out of the windows, too. None of the windows are left open overnight any more, either. And I thought about covering the tomato plants so the late fruit could ripen on the vine, but I didn't do it last night, so after the sun comes up, I'll take a look at how the plants held up overnight.

The tomatoes are about the only things we planted this year that actually did pretty well. Most of the rest either perished outright or came up stunted and then perished. Oh, the sunflowers were pretty productive, even though they were stunted somewhat. Some of the other flowers were attacked by bugs and withered. None of the vegetables made it. Some of the beans never even germinated.

Even most of the wild flowers and the other things that grow on their own around here were fairly stunted overall, and we really don't know why it's been that way. We planted earlier than we should have, and planted everything in pots rather than in the ground or in the raised beds we were planning on. We'd been told that planting in the ground wasn't a good idea because of the alkalinity of the soil. The planting soil we used, though, may not have been ideal, and I'm pretty sure the alkalinity of the water we were using to irrigate with was also a problem. Then, of course, I wasn't sure how quickly things would dry out in the wind. I think a lot of the plants got too dry too often in the early growing season, and that's probably the main reason why most plants either died or were so stunted.

The drought's been bad to be sure and the older trees are really showing the stress. There were also huge dust storms, one of which overwhelmed the sky, enveloping everything in brown, gritty fog. It was an unexpected and amazing experience. Right out of the Dust Bowl.

The enormous amount of rain we've received lately has helped regenerate the flora; it's surprising the amount of new growth in the last few weeks, for example. But now that it's getting colder, the leaves will fall and most of the plants will shrivel and dry up. We're happy for the Cherokee Purple heritage tomatoes; they've done very well, and we had some excellent tomatoes in our salads all summer. Yay!

And next year, we'll try again. Hopefully, we'll have raised beds built by then; we'll use a different planting soil, we'll try planting later and keeping a close watch on soil moisture so things don't dry out as much as they did this year before the rains came. I'm not sure the quality of the water is really the problem, as the farms around here irrigate with the same water and they seem to do OK. They no doubt correct the soil ph, but beyond that, probably don't do much.

To Mora and Ocate -- Hi Lo or the Faraway Nearby

Ocate Peak

Grazing herd

Ocate Mesa

Downtown Ocate

Frack No!

Mora Driveway

The beetling cliff that looms over what little is left of the town of Ocate, New Mexico, comes as a distinct shock as you drive toward the remnants of the place from the south on NM 442 from La Cueva. You're not expecting it to be so high nor so dominant, especially if your eye has been caught by Ocate Peak over on the east, a round mound looming over the temporarily lush ranches of the Durans and the Montoyas where sparse herds of Angus and other breeds of cattle graze or laze in the early fall sun.

Ocate became a destination because of Ol' Abe, one of our neighbors in Sacramento. Ol' Abe was pushing eighty, and he would come over sometimes to chat about God and his girlfriend's reprobate son and he'd tell me how lucky and blessed he was to survive his strokes. He was a wonderful character who took care of Fred and Rosemary's place across the street when they were off gallivanting or kyaking or doing whatever they wanted to do in their retirement. Ol' Abe was retired, too, of course, as I was when Abe and I got to know each other better than just nodding "hello" at one another now and again.