The Map

I had something wise and politically astute to write, but events yesterday swept it from my mind.  So now I'm filling in today's post with a link to the NatureServe online map of ecosystems.  At first blush, it's a remarkable collection of data visualized.  But on closer examination, I'm finding oddities. 

Candelaria Nature Center and vicinity

Looking at our bosque near the Nature Center, just a mile or so to the west, one finds that most of what I consider riparian woodland is coded as pasture or hay.  True, there are some fields north and east of the Nature Center's two large ponds, but that cultivated area does not extend to the shoreline of the Rio Grande.  

I'll continue to investigate, but I haven't figured out how to place the street layer on top so I can precisely orient myself.  For now, I have to use rather crude estimates of what exact pixels I'm looking at.  

More to come... 

 

City Greenhouse

Courtesy of a BioPark event, I was able to be part of a guided tour of the City's Parks and Recreation Department greenhouses.  Their Master Gardener gave a, well... masterful, tour of their facility.  

It's very impressive as to how they've managed to turn the place around from a derelict facility 7 years ago into a model plant propagation endeavor.  

I'm encouraged that the theme of Backyard Wildlife Refuge is in common with the Botanic Garden.  That is making Valle de Oro Wildlife Refuge a hub for rewilding Albuquerque.  

The Courtyard Kitchen

While reorganizing a cupboard full of old board games this afternoon, Caro came across my boxed set of "Cookin' Cajun / Creole in the Courtyard Kitchen."  It contains an ancient video tape, an audio cassette, instructions on how to host a dinner party, invitations, and (most importantly) a recipe booklet.  

When a nearby lightning strike took out our cable TV service and the Internet, but not our power, I took advantage of the unscheduled evening to scan the recipe booklet.  Portions are appropriate to a restaurant, so I've got some serious math to do before I can cook up even a 4-person version of any of those famous dishes from that wonderful little restaurant at San Pedro and Zuni.  

Amazingly, when the interwebs came back up, I was able to search online and found two references to the old Courtyard:

https://www.walterjonwilliams.net/2007/07/legends-of-the-waiter-part-iii/ 

http://www.lawrencemschoen.com/plugs/eating-authors-walter-jon-williams/

Chaos

"And seas boiling 40 years of darkness earthquakes volcanoes the dead rising from the grave dogs and cats living together mass hysteria..."

Over the weekend TCF went over the CA Governor's head and sent National Guard into Los Angeles.  Now this afternoon I learn that Marines are being sent as well.  So far this has been predicated on a rarely-used law that gives that power to the President, but with the consent of the governor.  To use Marines for law enforcement would require the use of the Insurrection Act.  

Meanwhile, here in NM our governor has already brought in a small number of our National Guard to assist the ABQ Police by performing non-law enforcement tasks like traffic control to free more police for crime prevention. 

Possibly a traffic control training session for NM Nat'l Guard

Tensions are palpable in NM.  

FELON47 never activated the National Guard on Jan. 6, but now, when it's politically expedient, he does so in a Blue state.  Not to mention that he's happy to imprison people for peaceful protest while pardoning convicted criminals who attacked the Capitol.  Hypocrisy writ large.  

Where are the Butterflies?

I've been reading an article about the entomologist Daniel Janzen in The Guardian tonight (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/03/climate-species-collapse-ecology-insects-nature-reserves-aoe).  It tallies well with my limited observations here in ABQ.  

Perhaps it's due to the record dry winter (5 months without precipitation), perhaps one of the late season cold snaps damaged the insect populations, but there are few bees, few butterflies, and almost no mosquitos. 

I certainly can't complain about the dearth of mosquitos, especially the absence of Aedes aegypti, but I'm sure that their lack in the food chain will be reflected in bird populations sooner or later.  While most songbirds as adults eat seeds, their young nestlings need protein fed to them by their parents.  That protein comes from insects caught by the thousands to nourish the fledglings.   

Meanwhile, the fennel grows lush without any black swallowtail caterpillars.  Last year there were large caterpillars visible by June 19th.  That would've meant that eggs were laid 4-5 weeks earlier.  I've seen one two-tailed swallowtail, but mostly we have Small Whites (Pieris rapae).  

Backing up a bit, today being a Monday, it was a Nature's Notebook observation day.  Sheila is in Connecticut and Marcia is out recovering from knee surgery, so I substituted for them with Allison.  It was cloudy, cool, and raining lightly.  We forewent the paper notebook due to the rain and just took notes with the NN app on my phone.  Afterward we filled in the paper record from the digital one back at the Ed. Bldg.  

It was only in the midafternoon that the moisture from Tropical Storm Alvin finally arrived in force.  Back at home, it rained 1.6" in half an hour.  Fluffy the feral cat was thoroughly soaked in the backyard.  No matter how we try, we can't tempt her to enter the sunroom where she could be safe, warm, and dry.  

More rain is on the way for tomorrow and Wednesday, but the exact timing keeps changing with each iteration of the forecast.  

The Acequia Walk

With the temperature forecast to be in the 90's, we hit the trail early, well... early-ish.  By 10:30 we had parked where the Pueblo Acequia crossed Green Valley Rd. and headed north along the west bank of the ditch.  

We were soon on a gentle path along side the gently flowing irrigation channel.  With each passing minute, we got a different view into the backyards and pastures of different homes.  

Some were old adobe structures, some run-down antiques, others modern and sleek.  There were classic red barns as well as large modern ones featuring elaborately painted scenes.  

Old cottonwoods lined the ditch banks and provided dappled shade.  Their gnarly bark spoke of decades of survival.  Most Rio Grande cottonwoods live somewhere between 80 and 120 years.  These giants should be nearing their end of life, but appear strong and healthy.  Perhaps the annual flow of irrigation water has caused them to have deeper, stronger roots and tougher wood.  

A side note:  tonight a strong geomagnetic storm is expected, but the sky is cloudy.  Moisture from Tropical Storm Alvin has arrived to block the view.  Although we need the moisture, it'll likely just tease us and drizzle enough to make Nature's Notebook a mess in the morning.  We'll see.  

Niwaki

For $35 one can rent a 14-foot fiberglass ladder from Frank's up on Stanford.  With Baldo's help and his truck, we were able to manhandle it into the backyard for the annual tune-up of the black pine.  

Two and a half years ago in October 2022, Richard Vigil and I spent a day tip pruning and shaping the tree with bamboo poles in the style of the niwaki at the Botanic Garden.  Last spring I gave it a trim using a 12' ladder and now it was time again.  

While the lower branches have had some die-back, the upper canopy is starting to look good.  For now, I'm not doing much on the lower part of the tree, but that can be reached with my 6' step ladder if its candles start to elongate latter in the season.  

Meanwhile, the rest of the garden looks very good, thanks to Caro's diligent work.  Snapdragons, Buddleja, lilies, and a host of annuals are brightening the space.  Mercifully, the mosquitos are quiescent, especially the pesky Egyptian ones.  

All in all, the garden is a refuge from the daily insults coming out of Washington.  The courts are moving sooo slowly that it's very frustrating.  I can only imagine how this feels for those whose lives have been directly and negatively impacted.  So we tend our trees and flowers, help Jane out with the vegetables in her backyard, and somehow act normally in such abnormal times.  Protests will have to wait until June 14th.