White Rabbit...

...White rabbit, white rabbit!  

Another month has come and gone.  At least I've made the proper magical incantation as the first words spoken (and written).  They say it brings good luck.  I think we need all the luck we can muster.  

December is here and with it we've finally had an official first freeze at the Sunport.  In a few hours I'll be back up and out in the Cottonwood Gallery for Nature's Notebook observations.  I've got miller mitts, phone touch-sensitive gloves, scarf, and the rest of the kit ready to ward off the chill.  

In Wisconsin, my cousin spent yesterday digging out from 10" of new snow.  A friend in Oshkosh sends photos of a white world.  Chicago's airports are a mess.  New Mexico?  Maybe some serious snow in the highlands, but for now, the famous "snow hole" appears to be keeping the precipitation away.

 

They say it's a fast moving storm and it'll be gone by the time I'm out in the field.  Let's hope that the current administration is "a fast moving storm" and gone by next November.  

Inconvenient Truths

Autumn has taken a turn towards winter.  Temps are expected to dip into the low-mid 20s in the early hours of Tuessday morning.  Fortunately, it'll be near 40° when we're out in the Cottonwood Gallery for Nature's Notebook on Monday.  Similarly, it'll be about the same on Tuesday evening when we're heading out for the River of Lights.

The BioPark is operating under its winter scheduled and is closed on Monday during the day (but open in the evening for RoL).  We'll have the entire place to ourselves.  Let's see what wildlife takes advantage of the quietude to come out.  

Meanwhile, yesterday the White House rolled out a new web feature:  its list of "Media Offenders."  Such a blatant disregard of the First Amendment is outrageous.  Even TCF's cheerleaders at the WaPo and Grey Lady are on the list.  One might assume that Bondi will soon be instructed to prosecute each instance on the list.  

I for one see the list as a badge of honor for the media included there.  It's not a wall of shame but a role call of First Amendment defenders.  I expect a strong response on this morning's political television.  More to come.

In Today's Ecological News

I read with distress that Africa's forests have gone from being carbon sinks to carbon sources.  Researchers found that between 2000 and 2010, tropical forests sequestered carbon, but since then have been releasing more than they capture.  Forest loss like this has inspired Brazil to create its TFFF (Tropical Forest Forever Foundation) to combat tree loss, but is it too little, too late?

Also in environmental news, pundits are still trying to put an optimistic spin on COP30.  I remain unimpressed.  Tronald Dump's administration continues to undermine not only democracy in general, but environmental protections specifically.  The Endangered Species Act, a landmark piece of bipartisan legislation, now includes "economic factors" in evaluating listed species and critical habitat.  That opens the door egregious abuse by those with the financial resources to basically bribe the system to discount inconvenient endangered species.  

And speaking of endangered species, we learned this week that threatened species will have fewer protections than endangered ones.  This overturns long-standing policy that treated both the same in terms of protective actions.  

A likely endangered new species of Aphyllon

 

I am Thankful

So much to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving and so much to be distressed about.  The oddest thing is how normal the day to day is while democracy is being torn apart by those in power (or those who cede their power to autocrats).  

The house is warm, electricity flows conveniently to lights and appliances, water appears at the flick of a tap.  This computer connects me to the greater world from a comfortable chair.  In retirement, we can spend a day in our yard among our beautiful garden, preparing the beds for winter (finally).  Birds sing in our trees and cranes fly south overhead.   

But TCF continues to rail against his perceived enemies.  Sitting Senators state the Uniform Code of Military Justice and are condemned for it.  Two National Guardsmen are shot in DC and are critically injured.  ICE continues their inhumane methods to reach their artificial body counts for deportation.  Red states continue to gerrymander districts to the GOP's advantage.  The economy sputters along, held up largely by $$ spent on LLM data centers.  Grocery prices creep upwards while morale among government workers plummets.  COP 30 ends with a depressing lack of political will to overcome the forces of greed who extract and lay waste to the very world that sustains us.  Humanitarian aid is cut off and hundreds of thousands suffer or die.  The rich get richer at everyone else's expense.  

The holiday boycott of Target, Home Depot, and Amazon has begun.  Who knows if it will make any noticeable impact?  We enter the dark, cold months when it will be hard to gather the tens of thousands of protesters to match the enthusiasm of the second No Kings march.  Fingers crossed that Albuquerque keeps a Democratic mayor.  

But I remain thankful.  I've learned that our Nature's Notebook group will be part of next February's Urban Tree Care Conference.  The forecast for Monday's observations is partly cloudy with temps in the 40's.  We watch, measure, and record.  

In the kitchen, I am thankful that my experiment with whole-berry cranberry sauce worked well.  Sweet potatoes are baked ahead of a whiskey-inspired casserole.  The turkey is defrosted and a compound butter awaits.  Friend Debbie will be joining Caro and I for dinner in the afternoon.  

Ty and his family are busy hosting a gathering up in Chamita.  Nirankar's pregnancy is continuing apace.  Ric and McGoey are staying in touch regularly while Kent stays busy with his projects.  Others in our circle of friends are well, or at least on the mend.  The various parts of Clan Horak are doing well despite concerns in Charlotte for Hannah.  The weather in Wisconsin is probably dreadful this morning, but people there are used to it.  Kathie and Blake are enjoying Las Vegas.  So much is going right.  

Winter?

Still waiting for a serious freeze.  2:30 a.m. and only 36° outside.  

But today was chilly with a high only in the 50's and a steady north breeze that put an edge on everything.  Luckily, all I had to do was make a run to the dentist and then swing by our storage unit.  Let's hear it for climate control!

The weekend's storm brought a healthy amount of rain, some cloudy days, and pretty much knocked all the leaves off the Chinese pistache.  A few neighborhood mulberries and ash trees are clinging to their fall foliage.  Marcescent cottonwoods will probably still be decked with brown leaves in February.  Even the Ginkgoes have finally dropped their leaves, but the Cleome and Salvia are still in flower. 

The fireplace in the living room is a welcome bubble of warmth on cold mornings and cool evenings.  Indoor exercise is becoming the norm.  Of course, the television is giving us problems now.  That'll be the thing to debug later today.  Harrumph! 

Autumn Acequia Walk

We're on track in ABQ for the warmest fall on record.  Here in the North Valley, we've not had a killing frost, although basil, Coleus, and tender Hibiscus have been nipped.  The turtles are deep underground and I mulched their bunkers last week.  A couple bonsai-in-training are in the little plastic pop-up greenhouse, but the door has been left open so they get some hardening off.  All the hardy bonsai are still outside.  The old Ginkgo out in the open has lost its leaves, but the two younger ones remain lemony yellow.  The 'Autumn Flame' Euonymus is bright red.  Even our canas are still blooming and there are buds on a hardy Hibiscus.  The Cleome shows no signs of slowing down and is a glorious riot of white blossoms.  

With that sort of background, you can understand why we were eager to get outdoors today ahead of Sunday's storm.  We may not get much rain, but things should cool down from our record-breaking mid-70's.  

Our target was the acequia just north of Los Poblanos, opposite the service entrance.  The west bank isn't weedy at all while the east bank was heavily overgrown.  Following the path north along the Griegos Lateral, it eventually turns a corner, heads east and meets up at a 3-way intersection as the lateral from Matthew Meadow splits off to the north and Tinnin Acres. 

There we turned south along Eakes Road past amazing contemporary mansions and old adobes that probably date back a century or more.  The trees were glorious, some shedding their yellow leaves in the light breeze, others having gone bare.  But most were in their autumn finery.  A splendid walk indeed, if only one and a half miles.  

Murmurations

Today's National Phenology Network webinar is about newsletters.  I sometimes consider writing something on a more regular basis, maybe a Substack.  

The natural science news of the day is the massive solar flare.  On Tuesday it resulted in an aurora that was visible (barely) in the middle of Albuquerque.  The Kp index was 8.67! A repeat was predicted for Wednesday and we were on hot standby.  Unfortunately, it was much weaker with a Kp index of 7.3.  If I'd had the energy, I would've driven north to get a better view far from city lights.  There were reports from rural New Mexico of pretty solid red washes across the sky.  

My buddy Ric was following my aurora-chasing antics and he reminded me that the International Space Station was going to be visible overhead.  Right on schedule it appeared, crossed the NW sky, and faded out as it entered Earth's shadow.

Fall color has been tremendous this year.  Maybe it's due to the long, mild autumn and helped out with some much-needed rain in Sept.-Oct.  We still haven't had a killing frost and the official ABQ weather station has yet to record first freeze.  

My 38-year old bonsai Ginkgo is out in the open and its leaves turned first.  The younger Ginkgoes in training pots under the Chinese pistache are about 2 weeks behind and still holding on to their leaves.

Fallen Ginkgo leaves collected and brought inside.

Ginkgoes behind the still-flowering Salvia and mums.

The forecast is for a cold front rolling in over the weekend, but it's a maritime one, so not particularly cold and possibly wet.  We need the moisture.  

In other non-botanical news, the government shutdown is over with 8 Dems folding.  The base is furious.  The only good I see is that the GOP now fully owns the huge increase in health insurance premiums and that Adelita Grijalva was sworn in to the House.  The Epstein discharge petition has hit 218 and how the entire House will be on record as pro or con pedophilia.  Hide and watch.