On the day after the solstice, the sun shines through high thin clouds. The longest night is past.
Happily, I see that President Biden has signed a new executive order to protect old-growth forests. That's a step in the right direction; now if they can slow down logging in mature forests, we'd have a chance at reestablishing some of the forests we've lost in the past centuries and create habitat for wildlife.
Politically, Colorado has ruled on The Former Guy's eligibility to be on the GOP primary ballot. A SCOTUS appeal is certain.
A suggestion on Oprah's inspirational e-mail this morning was to write about what you'd tell your younger self. Should time travel become commercially available in 2024, I'd like to tell my 18-year old self to always vote Blue and be politically active before and during the Reagan years. Not only might that msg have kept me in a career in the life sciences, keeping Ronald out of the White House could've derailed the GOP trends that we see fully manifesting today.
Meanwhile, happy Festivus, everyone. Don't forget to put up your Festivus Pole, have a wonderful Airing of Grievances, and an injury-free Feats of Strength.
Another turkey day has passed, and with it, our freezer is full. I've been eating bird with all the fixin's for 4 days straight. Today Caro will finish the turkey-vegetable soup that she started with the carcass yesterday.
In a change of pace, friend Debbie is coming over this afternoon with her Kitchenaid pasta attachment. Our target is Jamie Oliver-style homemade pasta. I've got the '00' flour, a bag of semolina, and a dozen eggs. Photo essay to follow.
With all that said, I am incredibly thankful. I have my health, my beautiful wife, paid for house and cars, and a steady retirement income. Caro and I can enjoy so many things together: gardening, walks along the acequias, British tellie.
I'm lucky enough to be engaged both at Sandia (still helping with legacy apps) and a the BioPark. The latter has been particularly rewarding. As the Plant Identification Specialist, I'm a taxonomist, the plant label guy, and able to curate a small herbarium. I'm finishing up year 9 as a docent and have enjoyed it immensely. The Nature's Notebook phenology group continues their weekly work and I like the 2-weeks-on/2-weeks-off schedule. It certainly keeps one aware of the cycle of change throughout the year. Atop all that, the BioPark keeps my brain from fossilizing.
I am also thankful for the bonsai community. Sadly, we lost John Egert, our exceptionally gifted sensai. I'm guardedly optimistic that my two 'Autumn Flame' Euonymus will pull through. They're safely in the garage or inside the cold frame. With temps now hitting the lower 20's, it's just a patient wait until spring and regrowth.
Also waiting for spring are the turtles. Terrance Turtle and James Tiberius Turtle are asleep in their bunkers. Fluffy the feral cat often takes to napping in the sun on top of the turtlearium. She seems to like the mesh that covers the turtle pens. Le Sommelier Stella visits whenever she can and we have to work to keep her from getting Fluffy's food. After all, Stella gets fed at home while Fluffy is just a wandering cat, scrounging up whatever she can find in the dumpsters.
I continue my Ingressing--I assume that the spatial aspects are somehow stimulating to my aging brain. The Candelaria Village sign is now a portal that I can reach without driving. That said, Ingress on my bicycle is a great excuse for some exercise.
The boys are coming over for a Carcassone afternoon later this week. That should be fun. I'm thankful we're all still here. It's always distressing to learn of the passing of a co-worker, a friend, or a celebrity of one's youth.
Finally, I'm thankful for the wee bit of weather we got over the weekend. The snow, however brief, was lovely and the moisture much needed.
I attended the NM Rare Plants Technical Council meeting today. This was the first with the new director and was held in the Botanic Garden's Atrium. About 60 attended, much to my surprise.
One message that I came away with is the obvious: Without conserving plants, there can be no animal conservation. Habitats begin with plants and water.
Another take-away was that by protecting rare plants, we protect entire habitats and the more common plants in them.
Yet another obvious point is that you can't conserve what you don't know you have. Plant and wildlife inventories, monitoring threatened species, and maintaining shared information sources are required.
Which gets me to my conclusion, we need more field botanists. There just aren't enough of us to do all the work that needs to be done. The 60 of us in the room today were a huge majority of the working botanists in the state. USFS has empty slots for many of its botanists for district forests in NM and AZ. We need decent funding for these positions and then an educational pipeline. Young students need to learn about botany, get energized about the plant world, and find a path towards a university or technical degree. Outreach into rural and indigenous communities needs to broaden.
Only then can we do the hard work that climate change will demand of us. Only then can we repair our broken world.
Towards the end of October we headed south then west to the Bear Mountain Lodge and a 4-day weekend away from the house. The journey took us over Emory Pass with its twisty switchbacks going from Upper Chihuahuan Desert to spruce-fir forest. The next day we drove up to the Catwalk near Glenwood for a picnic and a hike up the slot canyon with its reconstructed bridgeway.
At the lodge we enjoy excellent food despite the rather funky but comfortable cabin we stayed in. Here's the view of the full moon from our dining table.
.jpg)
Every now and then my distant past life comes bubbling up to the present. While in the Desert Conservatory the other day, I came face to face with an old friend from grad school: Neobuxbaumia.
It's a columnar cactus from southern Mexico and was one of the big guys that I studied at the University of Arizona. Superficially, it resembles a saguaro, but the spination and ribbing is different, as are the flowers.
This specimen was still in its shipping crate. Even so, up until very recently, it had been blooming. When the fruits mature, I'll try germinating some seed.
_______________
Across the walkway in the Mediterranean Conservatory, the Queen of the Night, Epiphyllum, has bloomed. It was already mid-afternoon, so I was surprised that there were even vestiges of the flowers left.
These were about 8" long and must've been gorgeous the night before. The entire plant was covered with dozens of the spent blooms.
The NY Times published a lengthy article on the term "eco-anxiety" today. I must say that climate change and biodiversity loss is often on my mind, but it doesn't approach anxiety levels. Perhaps that's the problem -- we need pervasive, widespread, in-your-face reminders of how bad things can get. Maybe only a climate disaster per week can move us (and by that, I mean our governments) to take action.
Of course, when bought politicians won't act, money talks in other ways. Insurance companies have taken note of the huge losses they take when hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, blizzards, and heatwaves impact not just a community, but entire regions. When insurance becomes unaffordable, people will have to abandon their high-risk properties, no matter what state and federal policies are. FEMA can bail people out only so many times.
Switching subjects, going back in the NY Times, there's a great article on pressing plants... by Margaret Roach, of course. Worth a read (no paywall on that link). And I learned a new word: exsiccation.
This weekend brought a trip up north to Los Alamos for their annual Bear Festival. Friday evening was the Eat Like a Bear dinner, which included a lecture by sister-in-law Doc Ramsay.
Little Schlepp got to meet some old friends...
and make new ones...
Along the way, we noticed a door off of the birdwatching area in the back of the Nature Center: Herbarium. We asked Jennifer, a PEEC volunteer, about it and she gave us an impromptu tour.
It turns out they inherited the specimens from LANL and other sources back in 2005. Since then, it's been growing as people add to the collection. There are on the order of 3000 sheets stored in their herbarium.
We didn't have much time to linger, but Jennifer has put me in touch with others involved in the PEEC herbarium. I'm sure there will be opportunities to collaborate.
Even small efforts to re-green urban areas can bring back lost species and fuel the entire food web... https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2688-8319.12259. The NY Times even had a prime write-up on Miyawaki forests.
Meanwhile, U.A.E. is stepping up ahead of COP27 being held in Dubai with a huge influx of funding... https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/18/united-arab-emirates-eye-popping-climate-fund-00111736.
Pono is a Hawaiian word for “just, righteous and balanced.” I just learned that today from a NY Times article written in the aftermath of the Maui wildfires and the loss of Lahaina. It resonates deeply with me in terms of environmental justice and stewardship.
Here's a passion flower to symbolize our faith that Maui will rebuild better, embracing the Old Ways yet bringing forth a sustainable future.
_______________
More breaking news on wildfire closer to home... Black Feather Fire in the San Pedro Parks Wilderness. Haven't been there since 1970.
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/adventure/beauty-under-fire-the-san-pedro-parks-wilderness/article_9f337542-3f7d-11ee-ae60-dbe5dd1c0315.html
A couple weeks back the three boxes of metal plant labels that Maria had ordered arrived. Corby Knight and I took a whack at get some of them in the ground last week. We were frustrated by the surprisingly stony ground.
The double-pronged labels will take a mallet and a stout wooden stake to pound a pair of pilot holes before I can get most of them in. This afternoon I'm going to take another whack at them.
Meanwhile, Maria contacted me regarding a request by the North American Japanese Garden Association (NAJGA) to help out with some photography of stones for their next newsletter. Tomorrow will be a pleasant day to see what I can turn up.
A sad day today. The mobile vet comes and we must say goodbye to our last kitty. Sir Henry du Grey has been our companion for so long we've lost count--perhaps 18 or 19 years. An alley cat that Lydia, a secretary at Sandia found, we didn't know when he was born.
A playful kitten, he played and leaped and had boundless energy. He was never as good a climber as Stella and he largely stayed off the tables. But he loved to climb up at night and lean on my left arm at my keyboard as I typed. He would nap on my chest after lunch. And he loved to sleep, cuddled up on Caro's arm.
We almost lost him several years back when he climbed the back juniper and jumped down into a neighbor's yard. That yard didn't have a tree to climb and the wall was too high. Only after 4 days of searching and a blizzard of lost-cat flyers did the neighbor's kids find Henry and called us.
Paddy was younger by several years and we always thought Henry Cat would go after Bella. But Paddy's seizure disorder robbed him of a comfortable old age. Now Henry is the last cat.
Outside, we'll still have the neighbor's cat, Le Sommelier Stella, and the fluffy orange and grey feral cat. Henry is the last of our indoor cats and the eleventh that Aztec Animal Clinic took care of. I'll have to write an e-mail to Dr. Bouchet, who helped us care for Henry during final his illness.
More than half blind, Henry suffered from a luxated lens in his right eye that diminished his vision. That was five years ago. Then later, the pressure in his left eye became uncontrollable and he lost that eye after many treatments at VCA. Since then he's adapted by moving slowly and carefully, since he sees only vague outlines.
Henry's intestinal lymphoma has been gaining on him slowly. He's gone almost 2-1/2 years with chemotherapy, steroids, and nausea meds. Lately we've doubled the steroids and his appetite and his weight bumped up, but gradual weakening condition betrayed him. Walking is difficult and he often loses his way. He can now longer get up on his favorite chair in the sunroom. For some reason, he no longer wants to sleep on the bed with us. His poor bowel control and incontinence have taken a toll on our rugs and his fur. He can't really groom himself, although he does clean up as best he can after eating. We've been feeding him any flavor of canned food he wants. Lately he's favored meats with lots of gravy and soft rice stirred in.
I will miss him so. After caring for him so diligently for so long, my mornings and evenings will be empty. No more trips to the pharmacy for his prescriptions. No more stocking up on every flavor cat food. No more feeding him on his favorite chair in the sunroom. No more brushing out the mats of hair that he can't reach. No more carrying him to a comfortable place to nap in the afternoon.
Well, that time has come--I've hit the big 7-0. Frankly, I'm surprised I survived this long.
Could've killed myself a couple dozen times with all the crazy mountaineering and rockclimbing adventures I've been on. My record was a 110' slide on Glacier Point Apron. Spent a bitter cold night on Blanca Peak after I donated my down parka to Larry, who had just survived a 500' ride in a wet slab avalanche. A 300 lb. boulder missed me by inches and slammed into Ken Ewing behind me on our belay ledge.
Then I traveled internationally to more than a few places that were terrorist targets. Had dinner at a restaurant in Ankara only to have it blown up a day later (there's a story here). Hosted a training workshop for the IAEA in Mumbai a month before some crazies from Pakistan raided the harbor and torched the Taj Hotel. Deb, Rebecca, and I had just had drinks there, admiring the Gates of India out the window. Dodged events in Cairo and Amman, slid past protests in Vienna, but had a grand time in Venice for Carnival, twice.
It's been a wild ride.
It's been since the wildfires of May that I last posted. Now that 2023 is well and goodly upon us, I'd better get with the program. One of the easiest ways to write blog posts is to make use of the latest "cool thing": ChatGPT. Here goes...
Input: Write a short blog post about 2023 in the Albuquerque Botanic Garden
Output:
The Albuquerque Botanic Garden is set to have a fantastic year in 2023! With the arrival of spring, the garden will be in full bloom with a variety of beautiful flowers and plants. The Garden staff has been busy preparing for the year ahead and have planned a variety of events and activities for visitors to enjoy.
One of the most highly anticipated events of the year is the annual Spring Plant Sale. This event, which takes place in April, is the perfect opportunity for gardening enthusiasts to purchase a wide variety of plants and seeds at great prices. From succulents to annuals, the Spring Plant Sale has something for everyone.
The garden will also be hosting a number of educational programs and workshops throughout the year. These programs, which are suitable for people of all ages, will cover a wide range of topics including gardening, horticulture, and sustainability. Visitors can learn how to create a beautiful and sustainable garden, or take a class on how to identify and care for different types of plants.
In addition to the events and activities, visitors can also simply enjoy the beauty of the garden during the year. The garden features a wide variety of different landscapes and environments, including a desert garden, a Japanese garden, and a butterfly garden, visitors will be able to experience the beauty of nature in a variety of ways.
2023 is shaping up to be an exciting year at the Albuquerque Botanic Garden. With a wide range of events and activities, visitors will have plenty to see and do. Whether you're an avid gardener, or just looking for a relaxing place to spend the day, the Albuquerque Botanic Garden is the perfect destination.
Not bad. The paragraphs about the spring plant sale and educational programs/workshops is not factually correct, but that never stopped an AI bot.
Have a great 2023.
