A Day in the Kitchen

Yesterday had an early start as the delivery men for our new washer showed up at 7:40.  That set me up for an early cuppa coffee and a trip to the market for a few baking supplies.  

By 11:00 I had my high altitude-adjusted version of King Arthur Flour's London Fog tea cake in the oven.  Then it would take another 90 minutes to cool down enough for glazing.  

I took advantage of that time to hit the Co-op and snag some wild-caught salmon for dinner.   Lemongrass, ginger, parsley (subbing for cilantro), and chili jam made up the remainder of the ingredient list. 

By then it was time for Caro and I to deliver the tea cake slices and some flowers to Jane for her birthday.  Between Caro's lingering cold and Jane's stomach upset, there wasn't much socializing, but I hear via txt that the tea cake was a success.  

Dinner was one of Jamie Oliver's 15 minute meals, but our version took 75.  Our wild rice / brown rice blend cooks slowly.  I also roasted a head of cauliflower and served that over an easy remoulade sauce.  Then the salmon patties took a quick 6 minute trip to a dry skillet.  The raspberry-chili jam was the surprise ingredient that worked particularly well.

Autumn Color in the Garden

I was out in the Botanic Garden yesterday placing the new QR-coded labels on plants.  It was a splendid (if abnormally warm) day.  Zelkova leaves fell like orange snowflakes in the slightest breeze.  'Autumn Flame' Euonymus were indeed flaming. Cottonwoods were heading towards peak goldness.  Ginkgoes had finally turned their unique lemony yellow.  The bald cypress was a stunning burnt orange.  

Ginkgo and cottonwood behind River of Lights display piece

'Autumn Flame'

Serviceberry, Amelanchier

Ginkgo and Take-Akari

More 'Autumn Flame'

Past the pond

Still more color

Shumard oak, Quercus shumardii

The back path

Croodling through the gardeners' "spy route" between the Sasebo and the Cottonwood Gallery turned out to be a riot of color with smoke trees glowing in the late afternoon sun.  With November and the return of standard time, the sun stays low in the sky all day and makes for golden side-lit views everywhere.  

A brilliant day.  

November Elections

Normally, off-year elections would hardly get a glancing mention on the news.  But this year is not normal.  Every pundit is watching local elections, especially in NY, NJ, VA & CA, with an eye towards gauging the Dem/GOP power balance.  With the shutdown in full swing and rapidly approaching the 35-day record from TCF's first term, one wonders which side will blink first.  Needless-to-say, a Democratic Party run will energize them and probably give the GOP pause to really negotiate.  

SNAP benefits went away and possibly are back at 50% levels, possibly with a weeks-long delay.  After all, 50 states plus various territories will have to modify their benefits distribution software.  Will have to up our contribution to little food libraries.  Already upped our donation to Roadrunner Food Bank.

Health insurance also is on the line.  ACA rates have been published and sent out for open enrollment.  How long before that makes an impact?  Many folks won't look at the numbers until the last week.  

Despite all this, life in my lane goes on apace.  Still consulting at Sandia and getting paid to label plants at the Botanic Garden.  Tagging the newly potted plants in the Lebanon Garden is my current task.  Will get back to the Lark labels with QR codes next week.  

All the tender plants are safe, like the Croton above.  But a few stragglers have been left to fend for themselves:  a couple canas, hardy Hibiscus, the Black Lace elderberry, and a geranium.  I'll probably move the geranium into the cold frame and then bonsai it next spring. 

Samhain

The thin spaces are at their closest tonight.  Tomorrow is Samhain and the Celtic cycle commences.  We had 2 groups of trick-or-treaters for 4 children in total.  They each scored huge handfuls of candy.  

Meanwhile, the shutdown continues, although a judge ruled that TCF has to release emergency SNAP funds.  We'll see what happens.  Health insurance premiums skyrocket and perhaps Head Start will have to close down.  Must ask Ty about that. 

Work at Sandia continues at my usual low level of effort.  Labels are going out into the Lebanese Garden.  Yesterday's early Halloween party saw us dressed up as a warlock with his familiar. 

The brimstone buns came out well.  

Fall has been gentle this year.  The garden is glorious and all the tender plants have moved to shelter.  Last night's freeze nipped the tops of Jane's basil, but I got enough mint today for a good batch of almond-mint-olive-feta pesto for Moreish Aubergines.  

The gold finches have been noshing their way through buckets of niger seed.  The other finches have been enjoying cracked sunflower kernels.  

Heists

A quiet Saturday morning with coffee and a personally delivered English muffin (butter and orange marmalade, thank you very much).  They'll be a run to the grocers and then some plant labeling at the Garden later on.  

For now, the topic is heists.  

Quote du jour re:  Louvre jewelry theft:  "Considering the loneliness epidemic and the anti-intellectualism we find ourselves traversing as a society, it’s nice to see a group of friends get together and make museum plans for a Saturday morning."  

The convicted felon continues his grifting by announcing the donors list for the new ballroom.  Amounts were not specified, so we don't know who's first in line at the presidential favors table.  But the deed is done the and East Wing is gone.  A perfect statement of what FELON47 is doing to America:  tearing down a functioning, historic government to replace it with gaudy, corrupt bunce of sycophants.  

Ditto for his demand that the DoJ pay him $230,000,000 for damages caused by his indictments.  The domestic emoluments clause of the Constitution clearly make this illegal and the entire top level of DoJ needs to recuse themselves for the obvious ethical conflict of interest.  

For the photo tax, here's a sculpture seen at the ABQ Museum on our last visit.

Another Estimate

 One other data point that I can add to the discussion of Saturday's "No Kings" march:  a direct count.  I took a 10 second video pointing directly across the street as marchers went by.  See how many people you can count walking past. 

I counted 39.  That's 234 per minute or 21,060 in 90 minutes.  We walked among the crowd from 12:00 starting at 6th & Central down to 2nd & Copper, then back up Copper to 6th St by 1:30 while the group continued to march by.  We never got to the head of the march and never saw the tail of it either, so we don't have a good time estimate for the complete group.  

If anyone was up at the front and can tell me how long it took to complete the circuit, that would be helpful.  21,000 is certainly in the realm of numbers I calculated from the drone footage yesterday.  

No Kings 2

Which of the simulated crowds best match that seen by drone today? If 3.5 persons/sq m, then we're talking about 28,500 people on Central for No Kings 2.

And finally, my CrowdMap polygon, refined to include the crowded sidewalks near 2nd St.

This item https://ash.harvard.edu/resources/the-resistance-reaches-into-trump-country/ from Harvard's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation published on the 16th would have estimated the turnout today to be [ABQ metro population] * 0.65% protesters.  That would've been 5953 if the metro pop. is 916,000.  We easily tripled that value with my low-end estimate, which means we're turning out 1.95% of the population.  My middle-of-the-road estimate of 24,000 puts us at 4x or 2.65%.  That means the magic 3.5% isn't out of reach.  

After the June 14th No KIngs, it took until August 12th for a solid analysis to come out -- https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/08/new-data-shows-no-kings-was-one-of-the-largest-days-of-protest-in-us-history/.  I look forward to their deep dive into numbers from yesterday. 

Autumnal Goings-on

The equinox has passed quietly and temperatures are cooling down, albeit slowly.  Terrance has stopped eating, but Tiberius still has an appetite.  Bike rides are pleasant.  There's water in the Rio and in the ditches.  

Political protests are in the wind and old friends from Lake Elsinore are coming for a visit.  Roger Guinn might be passing through town.  Sadly, Annie's Soup Kitchen is closing.  

Nature's Notebook this morning was extremely pleasant after the hot days of data collection this past summer.  No ants to speak of.  No rain (until late afternoon).  Lots of interesting phenophases and time to catch up with Sheila, who I haven't seen since August.  

Tuesday (tomorrow) Maria and I will discuss what to do about labels for the plants in the new Lebanese Garden.  And I still have about 200 of the Backyard Refuge labels to get in the ground.  

Also in the news has been my experiments over the weekend with croissants.  I call them a success, though not as light as some store-bought.  By my calculation, there were 162 layers.  

Fall is in the Air

We've had a low morning temp down to 47° in the past week.  While it's time to start thinking about winter homes for the tender outdoor plants, the forecast has low temperatures only in the 50's for the next 10 days (and only down to 60° for one night).  

While the old Ginkgo is starting to take on a faded green as it thinks about lemony glory in a few weeks, the ones under the Chinese pistache are still quite green.  Amazing how much protection that tree gives the plants beneath its branches.  

Meanwhile, Ty and family head to Cabo San Lucas, BCS and are likely to get some stormy weather.  Tuesday and Wednesday will be wet and windy due to Tropical Storm Priscilla moving by.  She could be a strong Cat 2 hurricane by then.  A potential Hurricane Raymond is about 10 days out and it could make landfall on Baja as a Cat 3. 

Here in ABQ, not only fall, but balloons are in the air.  Day 1 of the Balloon Fiesta was blown out due to high winds aloft that continued until late evening.  Sunday, however, was totally calm and even the complex, large special shapes got off the ground.  

Backing up to Friday, we were in Los Alamos for Barbara Ramsay's funeral mass.  Then we drove home through the Jemez.  Not much color on the east side, but near the Valles Caldera and points west, things were glorious.  

Risotto

Inspired by an episode of "Jamie's Italy," I whipped up his sausage risotto.  Turned out quite well, if I do say so myself.  I was surprised at how well the Nebbiolo went with the dish.  Together with my standard focaccia from a King Arthur Flour recipe and a small side salad, it was a tasty meal.  

 

Labels and Steam

Tonight's post is being written while a delightful heavy rain is falling.  Tropical systems off the west coast of Mexico have been feeding late-season monsoon moisture up into the state.  We need the water.  

Backing up 12 hours, Ric & Kent came over and we went down to the Railyards to view the Santa Fe 2926 that was under steam today. 

She's a great hulking beast with 80" drive wheels.  Rumored to hit speeds of up to 113 mph, we're looking forward to the day when this locomotive will make passenger runs up to Las Vegas, NM for overnight stays in that town's historic hotels.  

Earlier on Saturday morning, there was the follow-up to yesterday's plant labeling.  I updated my spreadsheet and created a map of label locations of the 21 placements.  Each red dot represents a label in the ground.  

All in all, a productive day avoiding political news.  

Labeling Resumes

Last week the owner of Lark Labels (another Karl) met up with Curator of Plants, Maria, to deliver the latest box of 232 labels in the new style.  These are single stakes with scientific name, a common name, a QR code, and the image of a chickadee on a branch.  

The QR code takes one to a web page that references the Valle de Oro Backyard Refuge Program.  That makes lookup for me particularly easy in the field if there's any question about a particular plant's identity.

So the day before yesterday I moved the heavy box with all the labels wrapped in gangs of 5 from the Education Building out to the Herbarium.  Jeffery, the HDRG gardener, helped me find cabinet space.  Curiously, the labels were packaged alphabetically by common name.  

Then yesterday I gathered up my kit and began the task of getting labels in the ground.  Because of the way they were packaged, it was necessary to open up each packet of 5 to see what was in each group.  Then I would sort them into groups based on known location:  desert areas, front gardens, Cottonwood Gallery, etc.  A good fraction of them went into a pile with "no immediately known location."

As I worked up batches of 5 or so, I'd head out into the garden to track down the precise locations.  To my pleasant surprise, the single stakes were much easier to get in the ground than the previous two-pronged "staples."  Because the new label format is currently so sparse in the Garden, I made an effort to choose locations that were in high traffic areas.  Maria and Matt (Northside Assistant Director) will have to come up with some general signage to indicate what the new QR codes represent.  

There were some frustrating surprises.  What I thought was a deodar cedar near the Rosalee Doolittle area, probably is a Cedrus atlantica.  I'll have to ask about that one.  Also, I was unable to locate a scarlet claret cup, Echinocereus coccinius.  Everything I found was an E. triglochidianus.  Also, by relying on Backyard Refuge names, we've ended up with some taxonomic oddities.  Few will notice except the occasional professional passing through.  

At any rate, I was able to get 20 labels in the ground.  At each location, I took a photo of the label and its corresponding plant, perhaps a closeup of bark and leaves, and a general location shot.  I'll spend some time this weekend extracting the EXIF location data from the images and updating my label inventory spreadsheet.  

It was definitely a good day to get outside and avoid the news.  Tariffs, lawsuits, federal retribution, Jimmy Kimmel aftershocks, and hurricanes in the Atlantic have all combined to make the larger world a scarier place.  

The Passion Flower

In a few minutes we'll head down to the HOA Ice Cream Social.  Should be a nice "feed the mosquitos" event.  Nice to see all the neighbors, though.  Afterwards, its back home for gourmet crêpes.  No news tonight; it's nothing I want to see.  

After a quiet day of laundry, cooking crêpes, and turtle feeding, I read reports about the hagiography of Charlie Kirk at his funeral today.  It definitely has the feel of a Horst Wessel moment and there's even a thing called the "Horst Wessel Effect" now.  

The many Christ references from a whole host of administration attendees is particularly upsetting since I find those making the statements are especially non-Christian in their behavior.  When was FELON47 last in church?  His statement about " I hate my opponents, and I don’t want the best for them" is particularly telling.  I suppose as a registered Democratic Party member, I'm already on his shit-list.  That he hates half the country and says so is damning.  TCF continues to play the ultimate victim while claiming to be the ultimate success.  The hypocrisy is stunning.  

I'm tossing in a passion flower, just to remind people (nobody reads this blog, anyway) about the actual passion of Christ. 

Beyond Lebanon

What a curious name for the new garden at the BioPark, "Lebanon and Beyond."  I keep wanting it to rhyme, "Lebanond and Beyond." All in all, it's a young garden with its new plantings all spaced apart as per the instructions.  

Right now all the hardscape features seem too large and out of scale:  3 giant arches to nowhere, a towering chimney, and a hulking dark brown arbor.  With only young plants, it looks ridiculously out of proportion.  I hope I'm around in 15 or 20 years to see the cedars taking form.  

I took the docent training yesterday and it was an hour of minimally useful lecture and 90 minutes in the gardens themselves.  Cesar's talk about the Lebanese Garden proper was informative and helpful.  

Of interest for the herbarium, I see that the queen of the night is about to bloom, but someone or something is snatching the lotus blossoms before they can mature to fruit.  

Of interest for my plant labeling gig, the Lark labels have arrived.  It's 232 days until National Public Garden Day and I've got a list of 232 plant labels to get in the ground.  I'll be a busy boy until first frost. 

It's Always Something

As my friend Ric would often say, "It's always something."  And today proved the rule; the grinder pump has gone out.  First came the electrician because the breaker was not resetting.  Now I'm waiting for the honey wagon to clean out the pump itself, which is completely full.  On top of all that, it's raining, not that we don't need the rain, but it sure doesn't make working on a plumbing problem any easier.  

On the national front, the Kirk shooter is now in custody.  Turns out he is the eldest son of staunch Trump supporters.  Cryptic notes inscribed on the ammunition that he used points to a person with deep connections to some shadowy parts of the Interwebs.  Hide and watch while we learn what motivated his attack.  

Beyond all the above, I've got buy-in from Colin, the Heritage Farm manager, to take a shot at a BioPark conservation proposal.  It would be a local incubator project dealing with biodiversity, regenerative farming, and soil/water conservation.  If it weren't for tonight's plumbing problem, I'd be working on the proposal this weekend.  We'll see if I get a chance tomorrow or Sunday. 

As for a cover photo, I'm turning to the plants we found at Osuna Nursery this afternoon.  The idea is to get some late season color as well as to replace two sickly cascading Euonymus.  There will be some significant planting and potting in the week ahead.  

Terrorism, Lebanon, Fluffy, and Moss

Today a likely lone-wolf assassin shot and killed an outspoken MAGA activist and political commentator in Salt Lake.  Three weeks ago the head of the FBI office there was let go.  The FBI has been well purged by DOGE and a large percentage of their remaining agents are now working on immigration.  Is there any counterterrorism/domestic anti-terrorism capability left in the US government?  

Before all this hit the news, I was down at the BioPark listening to the Ghattis's talk about Lebanese history in NM and their thoughts about the new Lebanese Garden.  More training to come, but here's a glimpse of the plantings, still under construction.  Ribbon-cutting is Oct. 2nd.  

And in one more dispiriting note, Fluffy the Feral Cat has gone missing.  Last Friday she wasn't interested in her food and she hasn't been seen by us, our neighbors, or our wildlife cams in 5 days.  :-(

Just to finish on an "up" bit, at least the moss on the Ginkgo and the limber pine is doing well.  I'll be able to harvest it for the next Mothers Day Show.  

Using Our Voice

Paul Krugman published an interview with Michael Mann this morning.  It contained the following words of wisdom:

“What do we need to do to turn back this assault on science and reason and democracy and everything that we might hold dear?” There are lots of specific things that we can do right now that we should be doing, but more generally, “what's the big thing we can do?” The big thing is reclaiming our politics, right? That means turning out and voting, voting for climate-forward, science-forward politicians. It means using our voice, in every way possible, to combat against this parallel universe that the Right has created in the podcast world. We talk about social media, and the weaponization of Twitter by Elon Musk.

So here's my image for the photo tax, a Lesser Goldfinch snacking on Gomphrena seeds.  The Gomphrena is getting long and leggy, but I'm so glad we left it for the seed-eaters.  

 

The Pruning

Last Wednesday was a yard-work Wednesday with Baldo.  The #1 project was the elm trees growing in the no-man's land between the Candelaria Village wall and the Matthew Meadow wall.  This 15" wide space is no doubt a safe haven for wildlife and gives Fluffy Cat a shady place from which to watch our backyard, but it's also a catchment for elm seeds.  

The feral trees that grow there are now 4" in diameter and can grow 15 feet in a season.  It's nearly the equinox and our sand cherries, not to mention the black pine, are being shaded.  

So armed with loppers, saws, cordage, and ladders, Baldo and I ascended the raised bed and wall to do battle.  The result:  a huge pile of green wood and leaves that filled his truck to overflowing.  

The result is stunning.  Now sunlight can reach the beds along the south side.  Fluffy has been avoiding the drastic change, but she stays nearby despite the upset to her shady roost.  

The 2-story house behind us is now somewhat visible, but the sand cherries and the pine are doing a fine job of shielding that view.  At least we've avoided a large leaf-drop from the elms this fall.  

And continuing the theme of  'trees' today, I note with happiness that the Cottonwood Gallery of the Botanic Garden has at long last reopened.  Our little phenology group of Nature's Notebook has had special permission to continue making observations, but now the public will be able to see this area.  There are still some scars from the construction, but overall this should be a good place to have conversations about climate change.

Pacific Northwest Visit

Now that we've survived the trip, it seems like a whirlwind in the rearview mirror.  First class to SEA-TAC, the shuttle and ferry to Whidbey Island, then four days of beach combing, forest bathing, and NW cuisine.  

Then we took the rental car to Edmonds via Deception Pass.  Beautiful drive for the first half, then I-5 craziness for the second.  Explored the shoreline, wetlands, markets, and a wedding.  

Then, just like that, we're back on the ferry to drop off the car, followed by one last bumpy shuttle ride, a long wait in the airport, and the flight home.