Monsoon season meanderings

After the first storm of monsoon season this week helped douse some of the fires in the Gila National Forest, I went up into the Black Range/Sierra Diablo to celebrate the clearing of wildfire smoky air.

As storms go this one was in the minor leagues, only 0.3 inches and no attendant drama, but I will take any precipitation gladly.

Hopefully now some of the little pestilences which have been visited upon the shala will abate. I’m talking especially about you, little red ants, who invade every year as the heat builds before the monsoons come. They have been especially troublesome in kitchen and bathroom this year. Mostly they are benign, going about their business in a parallel existence until accidentally disrupted or threatened, then they have quite a fiery bite. Of course, out in the garden, the moisture has also stirred the no-see-um biting gnats and mosquitoes to blood lust too. Fortunately mosquito season, like monsoons is short here. Cold nights returning will vanquish them by October.

Up the mountain, all the animals were out enjoying the freshly rinsed air and new growth.

Deer and rabbits bounced around on all sides, and the middle of the road too, while a squadron of javalina (white collared peccary) were so enjoying a particular green bush they hardly noticed my presence.

It’s also Madame Moonflower’s ( Sacred Datura, Datura wrightii) season.

I’m glad to live in the place this gracious Lady Of The Mystery calls home.

After a little walk in the mountains I dropped down the other side to Silver City. I met two happy fellas outside a bakery where I foraged an amazingly delicious loaf of green chile cheese bread.

The mood was celebratory.

Mandatory fire evacuations were being lifted in a cacophony of public safety alerts on phones all around, throughout the day.

Sidebar: yes, though it probably won’t make you comfortable , I highly recommend the well crafted book I listened to on this journey, shown on the above screen grab from my phone which was primarily to show the kind of PSA which kept arriving throughout the day. Related to this, and not shown, was the unofficial (off duty?) T-shirt I spied on a team of hotshot women firefighters when I visited one of the area fire camps to deliver snack bars and hydration treats: “ You want it darker. We put out the flame.” ** Huge gratitude to ALL the firefighters who do what they do despite federal defunding and deliberate (criminal) understaffing of parent agencies. The spirit of response to a calling to serve, of readiness was profound in firecamp on this morning. Hineni.

In Silver City I walked the streets a bit, admiring a flower filled garden with attendant hummingbirds and a very lovely garden gate.

Of course I always enjoy the architecture of the historic downtown Bullard Street.

Sadly the 1934 El Sol Theatre building, magnificent facade notwithstanding, now seems to house a real estate agency while this other building is more cryptic about what goes on behind those pastels and pretty curtains.

The vintage mannequins in the ground floor window displays seem always freshly dressed in vintage clothing but the doors to this establishment are never open (to me). Another kind of intriguing mystery which I am glad to live with.

Just across the road and up the street, in a thrift store, I found a treasure to take back for Cafe Paradiso: a beauty of a rusting old hurricane lamp with what is possibly the original glass, gone pink now with age.

Some online research turned up this entry in a wholesale catalogue for the Chicago based Buhl Stamping Company dating from 1900. I also found online auction sites offering this kind of lamp for more than ten times the price the thrift store wanted.

En route out of town, before heading back over the mountains, I stopped at Whiskey Creek Zocalo plant nursery to invite two hybrid sedum siblings, Dragon’s Blood and Firecracker, home with me. I was driving right past the entrance and monsoon season is a good time to plant….and yes, I do just love new plants. Having evocative names helps, which I am sure the plant marketing company who employed the horticulturist who created these patented (copyrighted?) hybrids is well aware. I came to discover later that one even carries a “no vegetative propagation “ warning online. Am I criminally responsible that a piece of sedum which accidentally dropped over there, took root and grew? Ah ownership of living beings (can that even be a thing?) combined with creative/intellectual property rights makes for a very complicated conundrum.

And so we circle around back to this week’s recommended reading, and ideas around greed, wealth and all those careless people. And this lovely, currently somewhat shadowed, land.

**You Want It Darker - Leonard Cohen 2016

If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game

If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame

If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame

You want it darker

We kill the flame

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name

Vilified, crucified, in the human frame

A million candles burning for the help that never came

You want it darker

Hineni, hineni

I'm ready, my lord

There's a lover in the story

But the story's still the same

There's a lullaby for suffering

And a paradox to blame

But it's written in the scriptures

And it's not some idle claim

You want it darker

We kill the flame

They're lining up the prisoners

And the guards are taking aim

I struggled with some demons

They were middle class and tame

I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim

You want it darker

Hineni, hineni

I'm ready, my lord

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name

Vilified, crucified, in the human frame

A million candles burning for the love that never came

You want it darker

We kill the flame

If you are the dealer, let me out of the game

If you are the healer, I'm broken and lame

If thine is the glory, mine must be the shame

You want it darker

Hineni, hineni

Hineni, hineni

I'm ready, my lord

Hineni

Hineni, hineni

Hineni