Bandelier Park, New Mexico

John says Bandelier Park has
"some crazy skies!"
I hope to make it out myself,
within the next few weeks.

Matter of Time

When you think of "time"
what comes to mind?
Other than the basic images
of clocks and watches,
what image speaks to you of time?



Seed packets in the spring?
Baby shoes?
Gray hair?

The honorable "firsts" of life:
-First step.
-First word.
-First day of school.
-Graduation caps.
-Joining the military.
-Joining the Peace Corps.
-Wedding day.
-First car.
-First home.
-First child.
-First grandchild.

Or perhaps time
is all the tiny daily events
held dear:
-Children playing in a river.
-A cat enjoying the sun.
-Soft grass on your bare feet.
-Cool breezes blowing your face.
-Crickets in summer.
-Crunchy leaves in fall.
-Seeing your breath in winter.
Expected and embraced from year to year.
Is that time?

If you have an image of time,
please share.

I haven't heard from some of you
in a long
time.

M

Treasure from SF Folk Art Market

#4 SF International Folk Art Market

Next Post:
What we brought home...
M

#3 SF International Folk Art Market

"A glass pitcher, a wicker basket, a tunic of course cloth.
Their beauty is inseparable from their function.
Handicrafts belong to a world existing
before the separation of the useful and the beautiful."
-Octavio Paz, February 2008.
From the blog: Zocalo de Mexican Folk Art.










As is usually the case,
I found an amazing blog
while writing this post:
www.zocalodemexicanfolkart.blogspot.com
See what you think!



M

#2 SF International Folk Art Market

SF International Folk Art Market

Red

"When red headed people
are above a certain social grade
their hair is auburn."
Mark Twain - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court



5th Annual Santa Fe International Folk Art Market

Monsoons in Santa Fe

After having to leave the therapy pool early this evening
due to a lightning storm,
I checked New Mexico monsoon information:




(Image from: www.abqjournal.com/pix/1lightning03-31-08.jpg)


**************************************************************

Rain: Counting on the monsoon season

This article appeared in the Summer, 1997 issue
of New Mexico Resources.

---

Ask meteorologists to describe New Mexico's weather
and they'll you it has a semiarid, subtropical climate
with abundant sunshine, gusty winds,
little rainfall, and low humidity.

Ask farmers and ranchers to describe the weather,
and they tell you about droughts that parched range grasses
and dryland crops, hailstorms that flattened a promising year,
rains that ruined cut alfalfa, frosts that zapped fruit,
winds that sandblasted vegetables, and cold snaps
that killed sheep and cattle.
Their highest compliment about the weather is, "It wasn't bad."

Whether you see it in scientific terms
or watch its effects on a particular crop,
New Mexico's weather is variable and extreme.
National Weather Service (NWS) records show temperature extremes
ranging from -50 to 122 degrees.
In a single day, temperature swings
of 30 to 40 degrees are commonplace.

Many southern New Mexican towns claim
up to 350 sunny days each year,
although Max Blood, meteorologist-in-charge
with the NWS monitoring station in Santa Teresa,
can't remember a call for sunshine statistics in eight years.

Though rain is scant, New Mexico has more than its share
of severe weather, including thunderstorms, flash floods, hail,
lightning strikes, high winds, and tornadoes.
Annual snowfall can vary
from less than two inches in southern deserts
to hundreds of inches on northern mountain peaks.

Wind is a powerful force in New Mexico,
not only for pumping water but also for shaping the weather.
One somewhat predictable event in New Mexico's weather
is "monsoon season" in July and August,
when most of the rain falls in summer thunderstorms.
Though it may seem a stretch to talk about
a monsoon in the desert,
the term actually has more to do with wind than rain, Blood says.
"When you grow up, in school you learn about the monsoon season
when they have tremendous rains in India," he says.
"But monsoon does not refer to rain per se,
but to the reversal of flow that brings an increase in moisture."

When the wind changes direction during monsoon season,
it sets up a southerly flow of moist air,
which condenses over land and falls as rain.
In New Mexico's case, the monsoonal flow pulls up moist air
from the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico,
triggering summer thunderstorms.

No matter how much rain a storm brings,
it won't erase the ever-present threat of a drought.

Though it's no laughing matter,
the punch line to Extension farm management specialist
Jim Libbin's favorite weather joke makes the point:
What did the New Mexican say on the first dry day
after 40 straight days of rain? "We're heading into a drought."

This century, droughts have parched the state
in the early 1900s, 1930s, 1950s, 1970s, and 1990s.
For New Mexicans who have felt the effects of drought firsthand,
it's no comfort to hear that the last 200 years may have been
the wettest period in 1,500 years.
Researchers with California State University
drew that conclusion after examining 2,000 years
of tree ring evidence from New Mexico.

Whatever the case, John Fowler,
coordinator of NMSU's Range Improvement Task Force,
still remembers the best drought advice he heard
from an old-timer nearly 20 years ago.
"He told me that unless you're born in the Southwest,
you can't ranch here because you don't understand
the power of drought," Fowler recalls.
"To survive, New Mexico ranchers have to
manage as if every year will be a drought.
You bet on drought, you use low to moderate stocking rates,
and you have financial reserves if you're in it for the long run."

Even after the rains come, it may take years for ranchers
to recover financially and to rehabilitate rangeland.
In a drought, perennial grasses lose ground to annuals,
shrubs encroach, and noxious weeds gain a toehold, Fowler says.

For dryland farmers who try to coax a crop
from areas with marginal rainfall,
four straight years of dry weather are disastrous.
For farmers who must pump water from wells
to keep crops alive, energy costs may be prohibitive.

Just as important as how much rain comes
is when and how it falls. Averaging covers up many extremes.
The first half of the year may be one of the driest ever,
only to be followed by record-setting rainfall in the last half.
Several inches can fall in a four-hour flash flood
or dribble out in quarter-inch showers throughout the month.

Farmers with surface water allotments
generally prefer the predictability of scheduling their irrigation.

"Dryland farmers in eastern New Mexico want rain but not hail,"
Sammis says. "Growers who irrigate don't necessarily want rain.
They want control. Vegetable people, like lettuce growers,
don't want rain because it can damage their crops."

Though it won't ever set records for total rainfall,
New Mexico has the highest number
of lightning injuries and fatalities per capita.

The reason is that in wetter climates,
rain drives people indoors,
where they're protected from lightning,
says Hayes, the warning coordination meteorologist.

"What happens here is that people feel a few raindrops,
but they don't stop the little league game
or the round of golf or the hike along the top of the ridge,"
he says. "That's why more people get hurt."
Dry lightning storms, in which rain evaporates
without ever reaching the ground,
can start devastating range and forest fires.

************************************************************

Oh, and it is still raining,
(with lightning & thunder),
2-1/2 hours later...

Have a great weekend!
M

Tour Today

View of Tour de France
TODAY!
From Argenton-Chateau, France.

And to my friends in France -
"I am so jealous!"
M

The 95th Tour de France

Created by L’Auto magazine, Le Tour de France has from the outset been partly linked with the development of the print media. An epic sport “par excellence”, cycling inspired journalists to wax lyrical and enthuse their readers. The full gamut of journalistic exercises were lavished upon Le Tour, from writers’ chronicles and editorials to caricatures, full-page photos, magazines, and portraits…

So Le Tour has grown up with the press, but there is no doubt that the press has also grown up with Le Tour. In 1930, radio was exploring live broadcasting. In 1948, French television attempted a first external live broadcast from the finish at Paris, after which it continually made use of la Grande Boucle to set itself new technological challenges. In today’s 21^st century, with the event now broadcast in 185 countries around the planet, the dawn of the digital age is unveiling new issues, both in the new media (web, mobiles, etc.) and in television. In 2007, the race was broadcast for the first time in hi-definition.

• 650 medias, 3,800 accredited
• 2,000 journalists, photographers, cameramen and consultants
• 1,800 technicians, pilots and drivers

On bike, in choppers or on platforms at the finish areas, 260 cameramen, including 30 from France, capture images from the race and its sidelines, on behalf of 92 different TV channels.

240 of photographers cover la Grande Boucle, shooting the riders for their paper or one of the 40 photo agencies which market their product worldwide.

90 radio stations, 50 of them local, are represented on Le Tour.

Nearly 450 places are provided each day for journalists from the print media, working for 350 publications or accredited agencies.

(From: http://www.letour.fr)

Le Tour

On 9th July 2008,
The 5th Stage of
the Tour De France
will pass through a
sleepy little village in France;
Argenton-Chateau.
(The town's name was changed to
Argenton les Valees,
but I refuse to
change what I have come to know...)
It is located at the first "5" on the route map.
Instructors and students
at Studio Escalier
will be sure to enjoy
spectacular views that morning.

The Tour de France Stages

The Tour de France is broken down into "stages." There is one race held each day but not always one stage. Think of a stage as a sort of distinct race distance. Riders win or lose, rank high or low, depending on their cumulative times from start to finish. Sometimes riders are rewarded time bonuses as well as prizes for finishing first.

The stages can cover all kinds of terrain. Those stages that go through mountains have led to a special distinction, the "King of the Mountain." The physical difficulty of mountain climbs is established in a complex formula that rates a mountain by its steepness, its length, and its position on the course. The easiest climbs are graded 4, most of the hardest as 1 and the exceptional (such as the Tourmalet) as unclassified, or "hors-catégorie". The most famous hors-catégorie peaks include the Col du Tourmalet and Mont Ventoux. Winners of mountain stages often determine the winner of the Tour.

The Tour now has a short beginning stage called the prologue. Riders start the Tour in reverse order– the weakest, slowest riders start first. The prologue decides who will wear the famous yellow jersey on the first day. The race now ends on the Champs-Élysées.

Riders who finish in the same group get the same time. You have finished in the same group as a competitor if you finish the stage with less than a bike length separating each rider. If a rider crashes in the last three kilometers, he is given the same finishing time as the group he would have finished in. It’s actually possible to win the Tour without ever having won a stages. Greg LeMond did this in 1990.

For most stages, all riders begin at the same time, jostling themselves into position. The "real start or départ réel is down the road a few kilometers. There are rules around this jostling. Riders can touch but not push or shove.

(From: http://www.letour.fr)

(I wonder how my little French bike is...?)

M

Papas de la Marty (Marty's Potatoes)

Preheat oven to 400 F. (200 C.)
Spray 9"x12"(23 x 56 cm) glass pan with cooking spray
Line bottom of pan with:
-2# bag of "Inland Valley Tater Babies"
(or any variety of spiced potato wedges),
-Add 1# bag frozen peas.
-Spread 3-5 tablespoons of
chopped garlic in oil over peas.
-Drain a 14 oz. can of
Hunt's Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes,
and spread over the top.
-Salt, pepper, other spices to taste.
Bake on middle oven rack 30 minutes.

Cool 5-10 minutes prior to serving.
Yum!
Tuesday night dinner...
M