Harvest Ramblings For the October Blogparty over at Gaia’s Gifts, hosted by Darcey Blue
Nights are cold, and the big down comforter is already on the outdoor bed. Although we’ve been having occasional rains, the plants are withering from the cold, shrinking back to their earthen bed with alarming speed. We’re scrambling for the last [...]
Earlier today, Rhiannon and I took a little walk up the wash looking for acorns and cherries. It was beautiful canyon morning with mist lingering along the cliffs and mountaintops, as the river sang loudly from between its banks. We’ve been receiving generous amounts of rain each night and the river has been slowly rising [...]
Home again, no thanks to the insane traffic and almost getting smushed between a semi-truck and trailer with an exploding tire on the interstate. About the time part of the exploding tire bounced off my windshield and the rest of it slammed into my front bumper, I was really ready to never see a highway [...]
Mornings are cool, with a breeze that rises from the river and sings through the Pines. The sun comes up lazy and slow to peer through drifting clouds and Oak branches. Yellow flowers abound, the tiny gold stars of Wild Lettuce and the rolling curves of Mullein blooms. I sit in the river and let [...]
It finally happened! The oppressive heft of rain waiting to happen broke though into a gentle, unsteady storm that’s been coming and going all afternoon and evening. The season is still building, and fullblown torrential downpours are somewhere in the near future. And now we’ll even be able to breathe without all the smoke hanging [...]
Every afternoon the clouds roll in, and every evening the smoke fills the air. It’s a thick haze that smells like charred Juniper and melted Pine sap, and turns the sunset a rusty gold. There are fires burning fiercely a hundred miles away in several different directions, and the late afternoon winds bring us a [...]
There are fat, dark rainclouds crowding the sky and laying out shadows of birds and junipers and Rhiannon on the swing, long legs pumping the air. Monsoons are coming, and in spite of the work it means, I pray for a wide river and sweet, muddy ground. Thunder rumbles and shakes the air, and tells [...]
The Comfrey is in full bloom, the sand is too hot to walk barefoot on and the birds start serenading at about five in the morning – it must be summer! One benefit of the long days and scathing heat is the ability to cook many of our foods in the solar oven. Ours was [...]
The weather has finally turned truly hot, and in the late afternoon the air hangs heavy and dense inside the cabins. This is the time of year when we take all our eating out of doors. Early in the morning Loba starts a small fire out in the stone circle to cook breakfast on and [...]
As much as I love all local foods, there’s something truly special about wild, totally uncultivated food growing right at my feet, and in the case of the Wild Grapes, dangling right above my head. There’s a vitality to be had in wild river-grown Watercress that the best cultivated varieties can’t even compete with. The [...]
The snow and rain earlier in the week have made for rapid green growth throughout the canyon bottom. I was down by the river this evening playing in the plants and gathering Horsetail and couldn’t help but snap a few pictures of the absolute glory of spring in the Gila. It’s just the beginning too, [...]
Well, this is how I know I’m not in the desert. The desert is indeed nearby, but this canyon is nestled into the Mogollon Mountains, being the southern most extension of the Rockies and the beginning of the Sierra Madres. It started raining last night, cold rain that got me out of the outdoor bed [...]
The road to faery is lined with flowers and butterflies and paved with quartz-studded volcanic rocks. We (Rhiannon, student Stacey and I) hiked the arroyo today, up through the faery grounds and into the narrow, wetter paths where the Wild Valerian, Mountainspray and Gooseberries grow. Armloads of Beebalm were gathered and I plucked the last [...]
Here in the Gila, on the border between mountains and deserts, rivers and grasslands, countries and peoples, we are still very much immersed in the old ways. Hispanic wisdom, hardbitten mountain man sense and Native knowledge retain their hold. Bear fat is a cure-all here, nearly everyone knows how to use at least one plant [...]
Walking home through the forest I hear spring’s first songbirds trilling and wheeling above. They move rapidly from tree to tree, making nests and announcing territory. I step carefully along the path, watchful for the newly blooming pink Vetch flowers that crouch close to the ground and peek out from under pine needles and fallen [...]
