As I eased the car up to get closer, she did an about-face and started walking the other way!
You’ve probably never been to a place like Rayado. Kit Carson had a house out here once, or rather someone important (I forget who) gave him the place on the old Santa Fe Trail at the edge of the plains in the hope that his mere presence might discourage Comanche raiders. I don’t know about that, but he must have been glad to get out of Taos for a while.
It’s very quiet in Rayado. There aren’t any streets. No post office or stores. There’s nothing for sale and no one to buy. Turkeys and mule deer wander up and down the road in broad daylight. We sat by the side of the road for about fifteen minutes while my wife talked back and forth with a meadowlark and nary another car came by.
Nothing of consequence to post just now. But sitting outside looking at this scene reminded me of how it felt to be on the edge of the plains in Rayado a couple of weeks ago. It’s all about the air, and light…
Video is 1080p HD! Adjust setting in viewer for full effect.
Damn it all. Here I was all set to jump back in with a fine big story, but current events grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let go. Be that as it may, I’m alive and kicking. Enjoy the video—an excellent metaphor for the last week or so—while I try to sit down long enough to get some writing done.
It snowed two days ago, then melted. Yesterday it mostly rained and blew. This morning it’s been snowing heavily since dawn. Tomorrow it will snow all day and accumulate several inches, then down to 20°F in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Then, and only then, will we slowly climb back to the seventies we’d been enjoying for some time.
Yes, this happens at seven thousand feet, even in May. I have plenty of photos of hummingbirds in May snow. The bird above is a lazuli bunting, my favorite visitor of all. We usually have several who stay most of the summer. I always buy the cheapest bird seed, because the lazulis like to eat the “filler” seeds the other birds ignore. These birds are quite aggressive, even chasing away the larger juncos. Good for them! The world has plenty of juncos and not nearly enough lazuli buntings.
Rickety feeding platform made from salvaged boards
Deep down inside, we know. We always have. There’s a thread inside that you can follow to the Source of everything. The junco knows. Why do I so frequently forget, when it’s the only thing that saves me?
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