JHFARR.COM

No, I didn’t lay them in the mud! But I did add a huge fleece bathrobe to the cold water wash my wife was loading (and she knew), but now “nothing is clean!” Eek. Listen to your elders and don’t try this at home, kids. Could be the 40-year-old Whirlpool (double-eek!), but let that laundry breathe.

»Buy This Photo!«

What the hell is this? Did I just dream the last fifteen years? How much of my life has been a sleepwalk? I mean, motherfucker, right?

I just had the strangest experience. You know how when you look back at something you said or wrote a long time ago and die from embarrassment? That’s pretty common, I’ll bet. Well, I had to look something up in a previously-published book of mine—Taos Soul, to be exact—and Jesus, I couldn’t believe how good it was! On a hunch, I decided for the first time ever to check the Amazon U.K. store for reviews. I found a couple, all right. Here’s what someone said:

“Baring the heart is not so easy but it’s great when people do it. At times a great flash of insight in amongst some often frustrating sequences of events, but the feel and glory of the natural world in this area glows throughout.”

That’s been sitting there for a whole year and a half, and I only now just saw it? There was another, this one for Buffalo Lights:

“What a really great read, full of stories and anecdotes. Takes the reader to the places mentioned in the book.”

“What a really great read…”

That’s it, I give up.

[whew]

»Buy This Photo!«

Behold the mysterious acequia! (See preceding post) Otherwise known as the “ditch”—as opposed to a “mother ditch,” which would be wider and deeper—the surviving remnants of this colonial irrigation technology brought to Spain by the Moors are still massively important to agriculture and everyday life in northern New Mexico.* Too bad this section wasn’t properly cleaned this year. None of that nice greenery is supposed be there, you see. The crew should have trimmed those willow shoots crowding the opposite bank. I don’t know how that happened. Maybe they were pressed for time, or the guys were young and didn’t realize.

The water comes from quite a ways upstream, somewhere on the Rio Grande del Rancho. It’s intriguing how this ditch gets its water, though, because we’re so much higher than the river where we live in Llano Quemado, west of the acequia. (Maybe there’s a bruja-lift!) Here’s a map (click for full version):

Can you see where our acequia starts at the river?

I’ve hiked considerable distances in the hills between here and the river without ever crossing any portion of the ditch between here and the diversion gate upstream. Not even in the area with “switchbacks” in the acequia. That’s where the mystery arises. It must be out there somewhere.

This is just a little corner of northern New Mexico, but it’s as weird as all the rest. I’ve had some incredible adventures right here in the neighborhood. Pueblo natives walked this ground before Rome and Jesus, and there are signs. Spanish conquistadors came clanking and wheezing over the mountain behind the house. I once hiked up to the top of the highest ridge without a trail and found things you wouldn’t believe, so dangerous and strange I decided not to take photos. It really scared me—that’s how strong the spirit was in that place! (There’s an account in the “Dowser Man” chapter in TAOS SOUL, available at Amazon and iBooks.) An acequia that flows a hundred feet or so above the river that it comes from seems bizarre but surely (?) follows mundane physics.

* The state of that website doesn’t bode too well, unfortunately.

»Buy This Photo!«

That’s what it’s like here now. As I write this on Friday night, the highway from Dixon to Peńasco is closed because of “heavy flooding.” It’s in the mid-fifties outside and only a few degrees warmer inside the old adobe. I thought about making a fire but didn’t. The electric heater underneath my desk is on, however. You might think this is unreal for August 1st, but I’ve seen it a few times before. It’s a mountain thing. Seven thousand feet, you know. When the sun gets covered up, it’s cold. Add the humidity from the monsoon rains, and you get October in New Hampshire. We like it, though. It’s different. Pulling the down comforter up around my neck, falling asleep to the sound of dripping water, smirking at wet raccoons wrecking bird feeders in the dark.

Yes, we need some new prayer flags. (Probably need some new prayers, too.) And that old Mexican pot has a history. That’s where I burned every page of my mother’s evil little notebook two years ago. Quite the necessary ritual! You can find out what was in it by reading my new book, and boy, do I have an awesome deal for you: just sign up for my new releases newsletter, which at the current rate means you’ll hardly ever see one, and you can have an iBooks promo code to download The HELEN CHRONICLES (see footer) for free! I’ll send a promo code to every new subscriber until they run out. You can use them to download the book at the iBook Store by clicking on the “Redeem” link there.

Hell, I would.

»Buy This Photo!«