Lie in August’s Welcome Corn!

     “Join in black December’s sadness, lie in August’s welcome corn, stir the cup that’s ever blending with the blood of all that’s born . . .”

-- Jethro Tull,  Cup of Wonder, from Songs from the Wood

                         

Pesach took me by surprise and then there was a long silence on this blog. So many things happened in April and May and then summer was upon us, and now the Monsoon and the first hints of autumn are already showing themselves here in the high country. Elul is also upon us, early this year just as Pesach was. But in order to begin looking to the year ahead, I need to look back at least a bit to see what brought me from there to here.

 

April, Come She Will:

The post-Pesach Spring Term was divided between Freedom Ridge Ranch and the house in Sedillo. Both the Cowboy and I were taking classes, he at CNM and me at UNM. In April, we drove up to Albuquerque every Monday morning and returned late Thursday night. It was a hectic busy time, make more do-able by the increasing light and warmth, although it was a cool spring in New Mexico.

In April, I:

•   Edited a dissertation for my Ruby Slipper friend, doing both APA Style formatting, grammar and spelling, and helping with writing style.
• Worked on a literature review for a class I was taking, as well as a research proposal and presentation.
•   Enjoyed down time hanging out at Barnes and Noble in Albuquerque, and began planning the summer work at the ranch.

May Days:

The term ended for the Cowboy and I at the end of April,  and he returned to the ranch and stayed. However, I was still back and forth there, and on up to Aurora, Colorado, mostly on Libertarian Business.

In May, I:

•   Helped plan and attended the LPNM annual convention, where I was termed out as Vice Chair and began a term as Secretary. There was a lot of politicking involved this time as we had a take-over threat and I really wanted our current Chair to remain Chair, although he wasn’t so sure.
•   Continued final editing on the Ruby Slipper’s dissertation, which reported a kick-ass study he did.
•   Drove up to Aurora one weekend for the Libertarian State Leadership Alliance meeting, held in conjunction with the Colorado State Convention. This was great—more relaxed than the bi-annual National Convention—there was plenty of time to talk to Libertarians. It always feels like coming home!
•    With the pressures of committee and comps preparation over for the semester, I had a chance to spend time with Excel Manufacturing friends after a long hiatus.
•   At the ranch, we welcomed our only baby calf of the spring (we had shipped some of the older cows and the bull earlier in the year). We also had water-pipe problems and had to work on the system, and install a new French drain in the irrigation system as well. We got the fencing complete for the greenhouse/garden area.

June is the Hottest Month:

June is hot and dry in New Mexico. Every living thing begins to long for water, and people slow down. We had several weeks of very hot weather, and late in June, temperatures climbed to a record 106 degrees. During late May and June, we had a number of serious wildfires in New Mexico and Arizona, and we saw some smoke at the ranch and in Albuquerque.

In June:

• I picked up my nephew, the Illinois Boy, at the airport as his parents moved to Texas and he came to try out life at the ranch. Once he adjusted to the altitude, he took to it very well.
• The day I picked up the IB, I had a long talk with my realtor, and we brought the price down for the Sedillo house, my beautiful Hobbit Hole. It was a painful decision, but important. We knew we needed to sell the house.
• On the second Friday in June, I thought I saw lightning as I was setting the Shabbat table. Dry lightning is common in June, so I thought nothing of it. The next morning, I woke up with a floater in my eye. I called Eye-Doc Randi that afternoon, and the short of it is that I had a vitreous detachment, requiring numerous trips to Albuquerque and UNM Eye Clinic for monitoring.
• We started fencing for a new horse pasture, and the Cowboy was really happy to have the IB’s help. The IB also learned to ride a horse, drive cattle and drive the tractor. We will make a cowboy of him yet!
• I went riding every week with a friend, JL, another Jew in the Republic of Catron. She was a wrangler for years in Arizona, and passed on some of her riding expertise to me.
• The Cowboy broke his hand while driving cows, and spent five weeks in a cast. Or he was supposed to, anyway!

 

 

Glorious July: 

July was truly a wonderful month, because the Monsoon  came right on the Glorious Fourth and stayed through the month. We got 3.53 inches of precipitation for the month, several of them in cloudbursts that re-arranged the landscape.

In July:

• We celebrated the Glorious 4th small-town style, with a parade and BBQ. Yours truly was honored to read the Declaration of Independence right after the choral presentation of patriotic music.
• The IB settled in, helping me dig retention basins around the trees, and we started a garden.
• The Cowboy spend several weeks working cattle at the York Ranch, but that ended in mid-July because the Monsoon had not yet hit the Continental Divide Country, and they shipped their cattle to a ranch in Texas for better grass.
• I qualified for my Concealed Carry Weapon license, shooting the EG’s Glock .40!
• The Cowboy removed his cast prematurely at the York Ranch, cutting it off himself, because it was getting gnarly. He’s definitely a Cowboy.
• The IB had to return to Illinois to take care of some business late in July and we weren’t sure if he was coming back.
• In the same week, Eye-Doc Randi found a small tear in the retina of my right eye—the one with the vitreous detachment—and I had a week in Albuquerque, playing appointment tag with an over-worked retina specialist.
• In the same week, the IB decided to come back—with resome gentle pushing and bribery from his mother and grandparents, and I arranged the flight.
• In the same week, we had a real gully-washer and frog-strangler, that washed away half the county. We have a new micro-topography here at the Ranch.

 

Lie in August’s Welcome Corn: 

And here we are at the end of the first full week of August. Time speeds when there is so much to accomplish and so many things happening.

The country looks like spring does elsewhere, all green and gold with water falling from the sky, running, trickling and making mud for the dogs to play in and trucks to get stuck in. The IB, gone barely two weeks, did not recognize the place.

And the day I picked him up at the airport, we got an offer on the house. Monday, that was. We dickered Monday evening to Tuesday afternoon. We came to agreement just after I had a good interview for a part-time staff position at CNM, a position I applied for in the Disability Center.

Whoo-hoo! The house is under contract. And, sniffle, we must now say good-bye to that era in our lives.

And just in time for Elul—the season of our turning . . .

But that’s another blog.

Technorati Tags: Meanwhile Back at the Ranch,Summertime,Times and Seasons,Family Life

Road Trip Reserve: A Geology Field Trip

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Life is getting serious again. There are wars and rumors of wars, the economy is unstable, and some of my readers want a break from "all that." And it just so happens that last week, I took a day trip to the Catron County Seat, the town of Reserve, in order file a deed at the couthouse, on to Luna on the Arizona Border, and back through Reserve to Quemado. I drove from Quemado, and it is a spectacular drive across mountains, mesas, canyons, and two different watersheds. So, it's time for another geology road trip! Because, despite our troubles, the mountains have been standing for more than 40 million years, they are still standing, and will remain long after we--and our troubles--are gone!

Castle Rock as seen in the early morning, along New Mexico State Road 32. Like many of the mesas in the Mogollon-Datil Volcanic fields, it is a remnant of a Tertiary Conglomerate (the O.K. Bar Conglomerate) preserved by a cap of Quaternary Basalts, that has slowed its weathering. The basalts are very young, extruded less than 2 million years ago. Castle Rock is in the Apache National Forest, in the Largo Creek Wash--in the Little Colorado Watershed.




Further south on S.R. 32, the road plunges over the edge of Jewett Mesa, and into the Apache Creek Canyon. A divide had been crossed, and Apache Creek is part of the San Francisco Watershed. The water that falls on the southern reaches of Jewett Mesa flows into the San Francisco River, then into the Gila, and finally to the Colorado and the Gulf of California. The lava rocks in the center, right of the trees is made up of Tertiary Andesites that are much older than the basalts on Castle Rock. They were extruded more than 37 m.y.a.


South, after plunging into Apache Canyon, the road rides upon Tertiary-Quaternary alluvium of the Gila Conglomerates, and winds along Apache Creek into the small town of Apache Creek, at the junction of Route 32 with New Mexico 12. Apache Creek also sits at the confluence of Apache Creek with the Tularosa River, flowing southwest from its source in a small canyon on Tularosa Mountain. The camera here was pointed north across wetlands at the confluence, looking toward Jon South Mountain.






From Apache Creek, S.R. 12 winds southwest along the Tularosa to Cruzville, and then leaving the river, crosses the faults of the San Francisco Mountains, riding now on Tertiary Ash Flow Tuffs, and again on Quaternary Basalts. Here, looking west of the road across the Gila Formation, we see Mess Box Canyon, composed of a gate of Quaternary Basalts, and framed by older Tertiary Rhyolites and Andesitic domes that make up Higgins Peak and Monument Mountain.



The town of Reserve sits on a mesa at the north end of the Saliz Mountains, and in the Valley of the San Francisco River, that winds through the canyons from Arizona into Luna, and on into the Catron County Seat. Just south of Reserve, between Upper and Lower Frisco Plazas, the Tularosa River and Negrito Creek run into the San Francisco, doubling the size of the river.






After leaving Reserve, Route 12 takes a right angle west through the Five Bar Ranch, and joins US 180, which I took northwest to Luna, where I got my rifle a sling at Southwest Shooting authority. To get to Luna Valley, 180 winds across the San Francisco Mountains. Here we see the cross bedding in dune deposit sandstones that lie below the rhyolites and basalts of Prairie Point Peak. The cross-bedding in this sandstone of the Gila Group is spectacular indeed.

Following the visit to Luna, I turned back along US 180, and S.R. 12, through Reserve and back up Apache Creek Canyon, across the divide, and through Jewett Gap toward Quemado.




Noontime in the Largo Creek Wash, the dark green gymnosperms forming the side of Largo Mesa. Here, in the Little Colorado Watershed, the cottonwoods were just beginning to leaf out in a delicate green, only a few weeks past the last frost in this high Mesa and Canyon country. The waters of Largo Creek flow into the Carizzo Wash that flows just south of the Zuni Plateau, and into the Little Colorado River south of Winslow Arizona. The Little Colorado flows into the Colorado at the Grand Canyon, far north of where the Gila waters join it, near Yuma in southern Arizona, on the California border, and just north of Mexico.





Coming into Quemado from the south along S.R. 32, we cross into the more open canyon and mesa country of the Mogollon slope. Here the mesas are high, and one can see for miles. The mesas and peaks here are all part of the Datil-Mogollon volcanic field, composed of Tertiary and Quaternary volcanics, with a Chain of Craters that march north and east, from the Red Hill near the Arizona border to Mount Taylor. The youngest of the lavas are less than 2,000 years old north in the Malpais. The earth is still very active in this part of New Mexico.

Ragamuffin Ranch lies in this open mesa and canyon country, the canyons created by ephemeral washes that lie above shallow aquifers, creating little areas where the grass is good, and the volcanic sediments create a fertile soil watered by wells pumped by windmills.

Good Weather for a Road Trip

Since January 1, 2011, the Engineering Geek and I have spent exactly three nights under the same roof. All of those nights were within the first two weeks of January. On New Year's Day, the CIT and I drove down through frigid sunshine on icy roads because he was due to start school on the 3rd. At that time, Cowboy J. and his wife Nurse A. were still living in the ranch house, and the CIT and I took up housekeeping in the Cabin. However, they have since moved to new digs, and we have one horse, three pregnant cows, two heifers, and one bull to care for, as well as the dogs. So as one of us stays at Ragamuffin House to prepare our move, the other is down here, looking after the CIT and Ragamuffin Ranch.

One of the few consolations for our hurried lunches at halfway points between the two places is that the weather had been good for roadtrips over the past month. Last Monday was one of the best days. The roads were completely dry, the sun was out and the temperature was in the 40's in the highlands and in the 50's in the Rio Grande Valley. And I was driving US 60 to Socorro and then up I-25 to Belen, where I was planning to meet the EG for lunch, so that we did not have to pass exactly like ships in the night. I took some good pictures of the geological features that day, for the sun was out and despite a stiff wind in the valley, the air was relatively clear. Here, then, are some pictures of the grandeur of New Mexico.

Peaks of the Sawtooth Mountains near Pie Town, NM, rise above the surface in these southern reaches of the Colorado Plateau. The Sawtooths are part of the Mogollon-Datil Volcanic Field, and are the sedimentary deposition of pyroclastics weathered from the volcanic action between 24 and 40 million years ago. The sedimentary layers also include breccias composed of large pieces of the country rock at the time, limestones and sandstones that were incorporated by the streams that deposited the weathered volcanics.

Looking southwest across the plains of San Augustin towards the San Mateo Mountains west of Magdalena. During the last ice age, a glacial lake resided within the downfaulted block between two upfaulted mountain ranges. The lake within this graben finally disappeared about 8,000 years ago. I was standing on an old beach bar of the lake that once was. The San Mateos are volcanic in nature, and the rock is composed of ash flow tuff and rhyolite flows that erupted during the Oligocene, about 28 million years ago. I find it easy to imagine the waters of a lake on the flat plain below the mountains.



The western front of the northern Magdalena Mountains, here seen from just west of Magdalena, NM. The mountains core consists of Precambrian igneous and sedimentary rocks that were upfaulted relative to the Precambrian sediments I was standing above while taking the picture. These mountains were later intruded and extruded by basalts and volcanics of the same age as the Rocky Mountains to the north, during the Laramide Revolution about 65 million years ago. These events account for the minerals , including silver and iron ore mined at Magdalena and Kelly during the early years of the 20th century. Highway 60 here joins a fault that defines the edge of the mountain range.


Looking slightly north of east across the Rio Grande Rift west of Magdalena. Behind me is the Magdalena fault that is resposible for the high valley upon which I stand. Across the rift are the upfaulted Los Pinos Mountains that define the eastern edge of the rift. The rift defines an area where the continent is being stretched apart, and the fault blocks on either side bound a graben. These faults are still active and the mountains are still rising relative to the valley floor. The Rio Grande Rift began pulling apart nearly 30 million years ago, and the maximum distance between Pennsylvanian Limestone at the top of the fault-block mountains and that same formation below the valley sediments is as much as 30,000 feet. The rifting is responsible for the activity of the Mogollon-Datil Volcanic Field to the west.



Here I am standing on the stabilized dunes of the Rio Salado north of Lemitar, within the Rio Grande Rift itself. The mountains in the background are rift fault block above the dunes to the southwest. They are composed of tertiary sedimentary rocks rising from the quaternary Santa Fe Formation. In the foreground, is a moving dune field just across the Rio Salado.





Here, I am standing on a terrace of the Santa Fe Group west of the Rio Grande at Belen looking across the rift to the Manzano Mountains that here define the Eastern boundary of the Rift. The steep side of the fault block, these mountains rise steeply, and form a rainshadow over the valley. The "green side" is the other side, that falls to the hinge of the fault block at a much gentler angle, and catches the rainfall.

The EG and I met and ate at a little railway car diner there on the edge of the terrace, that is open 24 hours a day. I recommend the Green Chile Burger.My trip took me on up the Rio Grande Rift to Albuquerque and then through the pass made by the Tijeras Fault to Ragamuffin House.

I thought I would be making another road trip from the Ragamuffin Ranch to Ragamuffin House this week, but the January thaw seems to have ended with the month, and today snow showers have become a steady snowfall here in the Western Mountains. It looks like I am here for the week, as the Continental Divide is expected to be difficult traveling. So I will look back with pleasure at the good weather and the road trip while I contemplate taking the 4WD ranch truck to the bus stop this afternoon to pick up the CIT.

We do need the snow. But the bitter cold that will follow, I could do without.

Summer Travels with Flat Ryan

Yesterday, the Engineering Geek and I--and Flat Ryan-- got up at dark o'clock in the morning so that we could be on the road at the crack of dawn. We needed to be north of Capitan, NM by 9 AM for the Western Rally for the Constitution, which was put together very quickly at the behest of people from the Western US who did not want to travel to Guilford Courthouse National Park in Greensboro, NC.

The New Mexico Rally was to have been at the Fort Stanton State Monument, but the state government wanted much paperwork and would only give the go-ahead a few days ahead of the event, so it was held on private land north of Capitan, in the Lincoln National Forest--which is Smokey the Bear Country.

The EG and I, along with several others from NMPA, attended the all-day armed rally in order to represent our organization and to hear speakers that included constitutional sheriffs, former Congressman Steve Pierce, and others discuss Article I Sections 8-9 of the Constitution, and the current government's gross overstepping of bounds, and possible solutions including the Patrick Henry Caucus leader's concept of returning control to the states.

Here are pictures on the way down and at the rally:





We started in the dark, but shortly after sunrise, we were on NM 41 heading from Willard to Corona. Here we are very near the gEOGRAPHIC Center of New Mexico, though we didn't stop at the ranch that holds the marker. Heading east, we can see the northeastern corner of Chupadera mesa to the right, and the Gallinas Mts. to the left.







This is a one of the famous New Mexico roadside tables that marked the lonely state and US highways long before interstate rest areas became fancy. This one was build by the CCC during the depression, and you can see the trademark stone steps in the forground. The way to the bathroom at these roadside tables was a set of steps over the barbed wire fence, leading to the nearest cover.





The old trading post and drugstore in Corona, New Mexico, just inside Lincoln County, at the intersection of New Mexico 41 and US 54.
Located in the beautiful setting, Corona is the gateway to Billy the Kid country, but a sleepy little town miles from nowhere none-the-less.





Looking west toward the Gallinas Mts. that NM 41 brought us across, you'd never know that anything was once here, but . . .

This is the location of the old Greathouse Stage Station and Tavern, where in November 1880, Billy the Kid and two companions were surrounded by a Sheriff's Posse. In an attempt to arrange the famouse outlaw's surrender, Sheriff Deputy James Carlisle was accidently shot and killed. William "Billy the Kid" Bonney escaped unharmed.

At the Rally for the Constitution, Bob Wright, Patriot, exhorts the crowd on the meaning of a constitutional state militia, while a very good country dance band waits to play a number behind.

In the background to the east are the Capitan Mts., although Capitan itself is to the southwest of this location.

The Rally was interesting, and fomer congressman Steve Pierce seems to have become less conservative and more libertarian/ constitutionalist since his defeat last election. He is running again this election, and was the only national level candidate from New Mexico to speak. Our ranch is located in the same district, so we will have to decide whether to vote for him. It's more promising than it was in 2008 when he ran for Heather Wilson's Senate seat.

Most of the speakers didn't say a whole lot new, but a radio guy from Oregon, who was live-streaming the event on the internet, was one of the first people I have heard in the broad patriot movement get up and discuss the real issue in big-picture terms: Collectivism vs. Individualism, he announced, and proceeded to describe what that means for us philosophically and practically.

And although a spattering of rain did send away some of the New Mexicans who had gathered, the rest of us rather enjoyed the cooling effect of the afternoon monsoon rain.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch, Our New Home on the Range

At Ragamuffin House, even while discussing and writing about the issues of the day and working with NMPA to educate and strengthen the bonds among patriot groups, we've also been working on some new projects related to the Engineering Geek's upcoming retirement.
Yes, the time is coming, and our plans have been hastened a bit by the installation of Obummer's Health Care fiasco, which means that the EG's employer cannot guarantee they will be allowed to pay for his health benefits through our private plan if he does not retire before certain provisions go into effect. That and the issue of how to invest the different self-managed retirement accounts, has led to some very exciting and interesting changes in our plans.

We have been planning for a number of years to move out of highly taxed Bernalillo County, to a place that has darker skies, lower taxes, and fewer people. (The first and third generally go together). We were thinking of a place in a Preservation Development down near Mountain Air, but as we have been watching events here, we decided that for many reasons, someplace in west-central New Mexico would be better for us. We have decided to invest in a ranch in a county that has low population, low taxes, and lots of space, and where the use of firearms and hunting and fishing is a way of life, and where the people have an ethic of self-sufficiency and where there is the tradition of a Constitutional County Sheriff.

We spent one day every weekend from the middle of May to the middle of June driving with a Ranch Realtor out to the mountains and mesas of west-central New Mexico, looking at and evaluating properties for our purposes. We had quite a checklist. A few weeks ago, we went down to negotiate an offer with the owners of a perfect ranch, which was accepted and we are now in process.

This is an exciting time for us--we have reserved three cows, all of which have calves suckling, and all are pregnant. One is a Texas Longhorn. She's beautiful. In the next six months we will be getting ready to go into the ranching business, lease our house here (we own it and with this economy it makes no sense to sell it), and make arrangements to be at the ranch.

The place where we are going is stunningly, spare and beautiful! So below are pictures of a large area of the western New Mexico country surrounding our new property.

The Malpais--very young volcanic flow--is part of the landscape. Here there are 800 year-old lava flows in the foreground, that flowed down the Rio Puerco valley. In some places, pinyon trees and sagebrush have taken root among the twists and tubes of the flow.









Here in the Narrows of El Malpais Monument, the road runs between the lava flows and great mesas composed of Colorado Plateau formation sandstones and shales. At the top of this mesa is a degraded sandstone, but the Ventana Arch is in the Zuni Sandstone, a very competent layer. Weathering creates the arches, making a stunningly beautiful landscape.

The wildlife in this part of the world includes bear, mountain lion, and elk as well as the deer and antelope that play. Coyotes sing campers to sleep, and eagles, hawks and falcons provide a focus in the big, big skies.




On an immense ranch that is located across parts of Cibola and Catron counties, the very competent sandstone has weathered into huge boulders that when balanced on other rock are called hoodoos. This ranch is beyond our means, but we traveled through it on county roads to see other ranches. This open pinyon-juniper woodland and shortgrass prairie is what most of New Mexico looked like when the Spaniards came. In the East Mountains, where we now live, a misguided conservation policy has made the woodlands too thick--dirty woods--and a great fire hazard.

A view of part of our ranch-to-be from a rimrock mesa top. It is in a protected valley, with very good water rights and to our delight, very dark skies! The round hill against the sky at the upper left of the picture is one of the many old volcanic cones found in the entire western region of the state. The ranch headquarters are in the valley, and there is also an old homestead further out, with a hand-dug well and timbers. There's lots of history here! Many of the tiny towns were once thriving ranching and mining centers before the men went off to fight WWII, and the women went to work in the airplane factories in California.

This county, like much of western New Mexico, is ranching country, complete with local rodeo rings and Mercantile stores. These areas were not settled in the original Spanish settlement--they wisely settled the Rio Grande Valley along the Camino Real--but after the United States acquired New Mexico as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hildalgo. Most of the people who settled and live in these parts are not Spanish, and the culture is more broadly European and American. And Texan, too! There are also different Pueblo Indian tribes and Navajo and Apache bands.

Another view of a sandstone bluff within El Malpais. It is a very large park, covering parts of several counties, and in our travels we drove across different parts of it.





We think of where we live now as G-d's Country, but we are truly fortunate, because New Mexico is repleat with places that make one sigh at the beauty of it all.

The Articles of Freedom Ceremony at the Roundhouse

They thought we were skinheads. Evidently, the Roundhouse security didn't click through on the links to the We the People Foundation for Constitutional Education, and to the Articles of Freedom website. So our ceremony, in the Rotunda of the Roundhouse, was attended by a few Constitutionalists, and large group of the Capitol Police. Well, perhaps the policemen heard us talking about their Oath to the Constitution. I hope so. At one point in the ceremony, I said:

"How does anyone taking this vow, elected officials especially, reconcile this with the violations that have been committed against our Constitution, and what those violations have done and are doing to America, with effects for generations to come?"

During the ceremony, they did allow a tour group composed for the most part of retirees and schoolchildren to walk through, so by then I imagine that they realized that we are simply ordinary Americans, concerned about our out of control government.

(Here we are getting ready for the ceremony. Michael Lunnon had put our state table marker from CC2009 on the lectern, but the Capitol Security made us take it down. Evidently, there's been some incidents of anti-Richardson signs at the Capitol lately. Wonder why?)

The New Mexico Roundhouse is the only round capitol building in the US, and it looks like a Zia--the symbol on our seal, from the air. New Mexico has the oldest Capitol Building in the US--the Palace of the Governors--built to house the Spanish colonial governor--pre-dates Williamsburg and New England. New Mexico also has the newest, our current capital, the Roundhouse, finished in 1966.

(Picture: The Great Seal of the State of New Mexico was on the front of the lectern. It is an interesting seal because it shows the American Bald Eagle protecting the Mexican Brown Eagle, which has a snake in its beak and an cactus in it's talons; the same Brown Eagle is on the Mexican Flag. The date 1912--the year of our statehood is in Arabic rather than Roman numerals, as the the people thought the Roman numerals were too prententious for us. The Motto--Cresit Eundo--means "it grows as it goes". Although some think it is nonsensical, I believe it fits New Mexico very well.)

Although press releases were sent out, there was only one person there who may have been from the press--but he didn't identify himself. No matter, the ceremony was intended to be a public speaking out to our government which is in violation of the Constitution. Although we hope for a response to the Articles of Freedom, we do not expect it. The purpose of this public speaking out is to have a record that we have petitioned for redress of our grievances, and getting no response, now we have provided our servant government with instructions on the violations from the reak Sovereigns--the people themselves. In the future whether we regain our liberty as free men and women, or if we lose our liberty entirely, there will be record that some of us resisted the encroaching power of the state.

Despite the fact that we were treated as if we, the people who own the building, were somehow a danger to it, we were happy that we were able to use the Rotunda. We did so with prior notice, and we did sign a copy of the rules--but we did not ask for a permit to speak. Rights need no permission. And in that sense, perhaps the State of New Mexico is more honorable than many other places. They did not ask us to violate our rights.



(Picture: The inside of the Rotunda is faced with native New Mexican travertine, carefully matched. The Rotunda is full of light from the simple but beautiful ocula above).










Rather than beginning with the Pledge to the Flag, we began with a more meaningful (to us) Pledge of Honor to the Constitution for the United States:

"I pledge my Life, my Fortune, and my Sacred Honor, to protect and defend the Constitution, and the Republic which it forms, One nation of Sovereign States, with Liberty and Justice for ALL." (I wrote this after looking at various other pledges to the Constitution).









The second part of the ceremony, after all the pledges and the Prayer of the Continental Congress 2009, read the statement of purpose:


"Our message is not about the resusitation of a dead Constitution.The Constitution still towers above the wrecks of our national life.


. . . We are NOT fanatics. We are NOT extremists. We do NOT seek revolution or anarchy.


As a people we need to ask . . . what kind of a country do we want to leave to our children and grandchildren?


Shall we let our Constitution and its essential principles be murdered by the powers of this world? Will we tolerate TYRANNY merely to be comfortable?


. . . Now we offer these instructions to our government to obey the Constitution, which after all, is a strongly worded set of principles to govern the government, NOT the people.


By the provisions in the Constitution, the PEOPLE have formed the government, and enabled the government to act in certain ways. HOWEVER, the PEOPLE have also purposely and markedly restricted and prohibited the government from acting in certain other ways.


. . .We are not moved by any hasty suggestion of anger or revenge. Through every possible change of fortune we adhere peacably to this determination.


. . . It is our obligation as responsible citizens of this country to set a proper value upon, and to defend to the utmost, our just rights and the blessings of life and liberty. . .


. . . [We are placing our government and its officials] on notice that, We, the Free People of America, believe them to be in violation of their Oaths of Office and the Constitution for the United States of America."

Dave Batcheller then read the Declaration and Resolves of the Continental Congress 2009:





" . . . In defense of a Free People, the time has come to reassert our god-given natural rights and cast off tyranny.


Let the facts reveal: The federal government of the United States of America was instituted to secure the individual rights of our citizens, and instead now threatens our life, liberty and property through usurpations of the Constitution. Emboldened by our own lack of responsibility in these matters, government has exceded its mandate and abandoned those founding principles that have made our nation exceptional.


. . . Whereupon we, as citizen-delegates have gathered in defense of divine justice, liberty and the principles of limited government, now stand in recognition of the Supreme Law of the Land--the Constitution for the United States of America.


Therefore, we demand that government immediately re-establish Constitutional Rule of Law, lest the people be forced to do so themselves; and we hereby serve notice that in the defense of Freedom and Liberty there shall be NO COMPROMISE to which we will ever yield."




After I then read a list of the fourteen Constitutional violations for which the formal petitions for Redress of Grievance had been ignored, as identified by the Continental Congress, the people present were invited to join in taking the Pledge of the Articles of Freedom:

"In full view of the Creator as my Witness,
I hereby pledge to join with millions of Americans, to hold our elected and appointed officials accountable to their oaths of office: To preserve, protect and defend the Constitution for the United States of America.
In seeking to hold them accountable, I shall hold myself accountable to do the same.
I renounce and condemn, any and all INITIATION of violent force, and will pursue all Lawful and Constitutional means to fulfill my duty.
I speak these works as an Eternal Record of the will of a people to be Free."

These are the highlights.

After the ceremony, Dave, Michael and I were escorted by security to deliver the Articles of Freedom to the Governor's office, and the offices of the Speaker of the State House, and the President Pro-Tempore of the State Senate. These offices are in the Roundhouse. We then went (sans entourage) to the offices of both US Senators, as well as the US Representative in whose district Santa Fe is located to deliver the Articles to them.

At each place, we gave the staffer a short shpiel and then handed over the articles. As I said above, it would be nice if they look at them but that is a lot to expect from these politicians. Their bread is not buttered by the people that they supposedly represent.

Now we work to get that 3 - 5 % of the population on board with the concept of peaceful but determined civic action, in order to put the pressure on our out-of-control government.
That is the next step. Whatever happens in the end, at least I will be able to tell my grandchildren that I did not fiddle while the Constitution burned.

Another Road Trip: Socorro and Catron County

NEARLY WORDLESS SPECIAL

Before the big snowstorm hit last night, Flat Ryan and I went with the Professional Revolutionary and another friend, to Socorro and Catron Counties in west-central New Mexico to hike around some different properties the friend was looking at. It was a great opportunity for a roadtrip before the snow began.

The Ladron fault block, topped with snow, can be seen behind the the stabilized dune field at the confluence of the Rio Puerco and the Rio Grande.






A wilderness area in the Barrel Hills in northern Socorro County, outside of Magadalena, NM.
There was much evidence of volcanism in the rocks, including a brecciated welded tuff in the small arroyo in the center of the picture. We hiked the arroyo, a warm microclime on a windy day.


A spring, a small source of water, at the base of the bank of the arroyo. The water accounts for the presence of willow growing in abundance in an otherwise desert plant ecosystem. The welded tuff forms the bank, and brecciated volcanics form the darker rock at the top.









We stopped at the rest stop on US 60 so that Flat Ryan could get his picture taken in front of the Very Large Array. He's blurred because of the strong wind and the distant camera focus. Behind him is the old San Augustin glacial lakebed, with the VLA buildings and two radio antenna's in the mid foreground. The lakebed appears to run all the way to the San Mateo Mountains.

Clouds build over the ridges of the San Mateo Mts. above Highway 12 at Datil, NM. They are harbingers of the oncoming snowstorm that hit the state today.

After getting stuck in the mud at a property southwest of Datil, we drove back across to Socorro and dinner, then home.

A good day. Wonderful company and interesting geology.

I think I want to live in Catron County.

February Roadtrip: Roundtrip Alamogordo

NEARLY WORDLESS SPECIAL

It has been a record winter here in central New Mexico for snow and cold. El Nino has prepared us for a mild fire season this coming spring and summer. But in the meantime, a three day weekend, and a visit by Sheriff Richard Mack to Alamogordo's 2nd Amendment Task Force made it impossible to resist an overnight road trip to the warm southern part of the state.

Accompanying me and the Engineering Geek south were my business partner, the Professional Revolutionary, and Flat Ryan, who had arrived by mail from Atlanta. Flat Ryan is here to learn the geography and culture of New Mexico for a few months in order to teach his three-dimensional avatar upon his return to Geogia. He appears in two of the pictures below.

We took the 40 east to Moriarty, and then drove south through Estancia to Willard, where we cut southeast through Cedarvale to Corona.

Shortly after leaving Willard, we encountered a windfarm perched on the northeastern edge of the magnificent Chupadera Mesa. Below the very space-age looking electricity-generating windmills, was an old fashioned windmill used to pump water for cattle.

In the lobby of the Flickinger Theatre in

Alamogordo, Sheriff Richard Mack poses

with Flat Ryan before giving his speech on

"The County Sheriff: America's Last Hope"

based on his book by the same title.

Sheriff Mack, of Graham County, Arizona,

was one of two plantiffs for the Printz-Mack

vs. the United States SCOTUS decision

that reaffirmed that the County Sheriff is

the highest officer in his county, and has the

responsibility to protect his people against coercion by federal agents of any kind.

After the event, we went to a Patriot Alliance Reception sponsored by Alamagordo 2ATF, the Lea County Tea

Party Patriots, and our own New Mexico Patriot Alliance.

It was very nice down south, with temperatures in the 50's and 60's during the day, with a gentle southeastern breeze.

Allof my long sleeved clothes seemed suddenly too warm, and I put the winter coat in the trunk, using only a hoodie at night. Wonderful!

align="left">But Sierra Blanca had more snow on it than I had ever seen, reminding us that this very cold, wet winter is not yet complete. So we stopped near Oscura to take pictures near an old railroad trestle that spanned one of the Three Rivers.

Spectacular!

After stopping in Carrizozo for a cold Cherry Cider,

we cut across Chupadera Mesa on NM 55, instead

of going around it through Corona and Cedervale.

We stopped in Claunch, where the Library doubles as

the Post Office, and then took Flat Ryan on a short

tour of the Gran Quivera site of the Salinas

Missions National Monument. Here he is,

posing in front of a pair of manos and matates,

used by the native women for grinding maize.

From GQ through Mountainair, and then the last leg of the trip home, along the Manzano Mountains. Here, we stopped near Toreon to get a rare picture of the entirel Estancia Basin covered with snow. In the distance (middle right), blow-out dunes outline the form of a beach berm, formed when Glacial Lake Estancia filled this basin up to 7000 years b.p.



Years ago, I worked on the Glacial Lake Estancia project, identifying microfossils--ostracods--that grew in that lake. By looking at the relative numbers of various species, we could tell when the lake was rising and when it was receding.



The snow in the picture, beautiful as it is, indicated to us that we had returned to the frozen north! Thank goodness, no more snow is predicted until later in the week.

Being a Non-Celebrator

There have been many times when in talking to someone I allow as to how we don't celebrate Christmas, and I am met with a look of disbelief comingled with pity. A common follow up to that look is some variant of: "But then what do you do?!"

Well, there is nothing different about the calendar date of December 25. It is 24 hours long, and the daylight hours are still rather short, even at 35 degrees north latitude.

Some years, of course, Hanukkah crosses over Christmas day, so that we are "in Hanukkah" as I like to say. (There are several Jewish holidays that are more than one day long, and it feels more like one is "in" these than "on" them). But due to the the fact that the Jewish calendar is a lunar one that was intercalated with the solar year more than 2000 years b.p., sometimes we are not celebrating any holiday when Christmas rolls around.

And we don't celebrate it, although we are certainly aware that most people are celebrating, and in a very big way. And that means that the day itself is still weirdly different for non-celebrators (NC). I mean, there's no such thing as a quick trip to the store or a spin through the mall. (We make it a practice to avoid the mall and most major department stores and big-box stores anyway during the month of December. Our sensitive Aspie nervous systems just can't take the crowds).

What to do? Well Christmas seems to be a gift to non-celebrators. It is one of the only days in our 24/7 year when an NC doesn't have to make up an excuse to stay home and finish that novel, or that project or watch a movie.

And speaking of movies, that is one-half of the traditional American Jewish solution to what to do on Christmas: A Movie and Chinese, which harks back to the place and/or time when the only restaurants open were Chinese ones, and the movies seem to always be open. When we lived in town, we usually managed the 'movie' part--especially the three years running when segments of the Lord of the Rings were released--but alas, the Chinese restaurants in Albuquerque tend to close on Christmas. Then for a few years, our synagogue ran a fundraiser on December 25 where you could come and pay to watch a subtitled Israeli movie and eat catered Chinese food purchased from a Chinese place at the close of business on December 24th.

Also, in New Mexico, the evening of December 24 is the last night of Posadas, and Old Town and other neighborhoods begin to glow with the warm glow of the luminarias when the sun goes down. When we lived in town, we used to go down to Old Town or to the old Ridgecrest neighborhood to walk in the cold air, listen to the mariachi, and the carolers in the square, and enjoy the light. We'd either start or end the evening with a traditional but pork-free New Mexican dinner at one of the New Mexican food places--posole, tamales enchiladas--done "christmas" with both red and green chile, refried beans and Spanish rice, and of course, biscachitos--the enchanting New Mexican Christmas cookies made with anise.

Now that we live in the mountains, we seldom go into town on the evening of the 24th, so we skip the luminarias but we do enjoy our own homemade New Mexican dinner--pork-free, of course! And this year instead of Chinese and a movie, we watched the new Star Trek movie before having a wonderful Shabbat dinner featured a slow-roast beef, roast butternut squash, the Engineering Geek's comfort-food favorite green-bean casserole (a bit salty), and a fruit pie. A quiet day reading The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins (me), doing puzzles (the EG), and working with the new puppy (the Boychick). A NC friend over for the Boychick, and friends stopping by to have a glass of wine for us.

A nice day. Really, the importance of Christmas for those who celebrate it, makes it a quiet and relaxing day for those of us who are non-celebrators. The only day in our American 24/7 year where we don't have to make an excuse to stay home.

California Central Valley Farmers' Deal with the Devil

Yesterday I posted an entry about the fight between the farmers and the fish, in which I intended to also discuss the farmer's deal with the devil. However, due to various interruptions (my family expects to be fed at dinner time, as do the animals) and discursions in the text I actually wrote, I didn't do so. To be honest, I found the writing going a certain way and went with it, and as the post had gotten quite long, I thought that another post would be a more suitable way to discuss that aspect of the problem. In the meantime, alert blogger Monica of Spark a Synapse fame wrote an extensive and well-argued comment that you can read here. It was so good, and will keep me so on track that I will be using portions of it.

Monica wrote:
"Cutting off the water supply for a fish is ridiculous, I agree with that part. But the historical and political context here needs to be taken into account as well."

This is very true. As much as I would like to discuss situtations in which one party to the dispute is as pure as the driven snow, it is getting more and more difficult to find them. The farmers in question, and their predecessors are not free-market capitalists who have never taken handouts from the government. Unfortunately out of ignorance or desire to get something for nothing, as people are wont to do when they can, most Americans had made deals with the government devil.

Monica says: "There's no such thing as a free lunch. Or, there is when you deal with the feds. ;)"

Unfortunately for our California farmers, there's no such thing as a free deal with the feds, either. In fact, they have made deals with two devils, the state government (California) and the federal government. Further, they had either not read their Faust, or they forgot that the devil would come calling to collect sooner or later.

The California Aqueduct is a government project that is maintained by the California Department of Water Resources. Because it is a government-run project, rather than a private Acequia Association, demands for the water are apportioned politically, and the costs are born by the taxpayers. From it's inception to the present, the California Aqueduct, the purpose of which is to move water from the Sierras in the north to the dry Central Valley for agriculture, as well as to cities for municipal use, has given very favorable, subsidized rates to farmers and charged municipalities much higher rates, so that the taxpayers pay twice: once for the subsidies and once again for the use of their own water.

The whole issue becomes even more convoluted because the farmers, who own businesses, pay business taxes on their profits to the state, as well as personal income taxes, with the right hand, while taking the subsidies (in the form of water prices far below market value) with the left. And this is all at the state level. When the feds get involved, as they have, by delivering federal money collected from people all over the country to benefit certain sectors of the California economy.

At the same time, the federal government has taken it upon itself to control the use of water in the west, sometimes stripping older, private water associations of their water property rights and giving them carte blanche to local, state and regional governmental agencies that are more easily controlled. The private water cooperative to which Ragamuffin House belongs, and from which we purchase our water, has gone through several name changes and a number of legal maneuvers to purchase and maintain water rights because the City of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County,, through the Mid-Region Council of Governments, wants to annex our water.

(In general, water law in the Western United States can become quite complicated. The private purchase of land, for example, does not necessarily give the owner the mineral or water rights for these resources on that land. In some locations, a land-owner may be able to collect rainwater that falls on their roofs, but they may not have the groundwater rights to dig wells, for example. To further complicate things, individual states have negotiated treaties with one another about how much water they may use from their rivers that flow into or from other states. These treaties have generally been short-sighted in that they do not take into account recurring weather/climate phenomena like drought).

In California (and the rest of the West), population growth, drought and competing water usage (urban, recreational, agricultural, environmental) have predictably* come together to create the situation the Central Valley is experiencing today. And nobody who uses water is innocent in the matter of accepting government subsidies and handouts; further, individual property owners and Land Grant communities have often been forced to accept governmental authority over their older, more communitarian water arrangements, which worked quite well for the kind of small, regionally commercial farming that was traditional in these parts. (See the article about Acequias, linked above). The concerns of people who farm in small-population states, like New Mexico, are often ignored when the people of larger states, like Texas and California, appropriate property rights by force through the federal government. In New Mexico property rights disputes (including water and mineral rights) also date back to the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hildago, and are not considered resolved in the eyes of the descendents of the original settlers, who are still quite suspicious of the federal government. (For a very interesting fictional treatment of 'colonization' of Northern New Mexico by Texans, and the ensuing water 'wars', see John Nichol's novel, The Milagro-Beanfield War).

(Property deeds here include the ownership history of the land purchased; thus when I received my title search from the title company for my first home in Rio Rancho, the transactions were listed back to the original Black's Arroyo Landgrant documented by King Philip of Spain in the 1500s. The title for this house was much the same, going back to the Sedillo Land Grant in the 1600s).

So the California farmers are not innocent. At the same time, I do have more sympathy for them than Monica does, because I suspect that although they are not innocent, in some cases, they were likely forced to make deals with the devil against their better judgement in order to continue farming or hold onto their land. Some of them--especially those whose land and orchards had been in the family for generations--were likely forced to give up their ground-water rights at the point of a government gun.

There are other concerns, as well. Food security is going to become a larger issue in the United States because the productivity of farms has been squandered by nearly a century of federal meddling (going back to the New Deal), that has been destructive to the initiative and independence of American farmers. (McLean County, Illinois, where I hale from, is an exception because most of the farmers there owned their land outright before the New Deal. But Iowa was nearly destroyed by FDR's policies. My children's great-grandfather, born on an Iowa farm, and died in 2000 at the ripe old age of 110, never got over his hatred of that president and his destructive policies).

I am not sure I can forsee a good solution to these problems. Any solution is going to require painful accomodations to reality. The State of California has some of the most meddlesome and restrictive environmental regulation in the United States. It is said that the California state government even wants to determine the size of citizen's big-screen television sets. (I'm not sure if that's really a joke!). Due to repressive government and increasingly burdensome taxation, wealth is fleeing that state at an unprecendented rate, and property is becoming usalable due to unrealistic values. California is on the verge of total financial collapse.

I think it would be a good start for California to assert the 10th Amendment and get the feds out of the water picture. I am, however, very uncertain of the legalities involved. But if this could be done, then the next step would be to privatize the California Aqueduct. Perhaps with modifications for size, the Acequia and/or Water Association models would work for California. This would likely mean that farmers in the Central Valley would have to change the types of crops they grow, and how they use their water. Municipalities would also be charging more for water, and people would have to forgo frequent showers, green lawns and lush golf-courses, or pay more for these amenities (Those of us in the Inter-Mountain West have considered Californians spoiled and privileged by federal favoritism for some time; thus the ubiquitous bumper stickers: Don't Californicate _____ [name of mountain state]). Clearly, government has some role in these water issues, if only to adjudicate a process of transferring water rights into private hands and then adjudicating disputes in the future.

If water rights were in the hands of private associations, I don't think there would be any nonsense about diverting water from productive use for the (dubious) benefit of a fish.