Now that is one very happy willow tree. Imagine having your roots growing close to an irrigation ditch all your life—talk about a metaphor! It’s a significant thing here in the terrible high desert when the mayordomos open the gates and let the water through. The surroundings become electrified and alive—more than anything else, this [...]
acequia
Water flowing from right to left, view is to the ENE »Buy This Photo!«
This is about where I was standing when I took the photo in the previous post. That’s a wild cherry tree blooming by the acequia. The cherries are tiny but taste just like the big ones in the stores or sold at the orchards in Velarde, but you have to get them before the western [...]
Current flowing right to left
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 [...]
Transformation
This is “down by the acequia.” Water is running high in the ditch just beyond my feet here where you can’t see. The reddish shoots are willows that the ditch cleaning crews usually cut down, but this year I haven’t seen them yet. I don’t know what the blooming tree is. The dark one in [...]
Most of these are underwater. Can you tell where the surface is?
A little voice told me to take my camera with me on my hike today, but of course I didn’t, so naturally I encountered three tarantulas! The third one was the biggest I’ve ever seen, crawling along the bottom of an arroyo. At any rate, that’s why you’re looking at those underwater leaves in the [...]
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