Ring of Fire

It turned out to be a pretty mystical experience.Those once in a life time things that we remember. Quite literally. The day started with us being removed from our house, for an open house. I had high hopes for the stars alignment to fall favor on us too. But I feel like I've been lacking in the karma department.

Note to self: work much harder and giving out good... but not just to receive the good... to give the good.

So we headed up to Sandia Peak. I didn't quite realized there would be so many people there. As in from all over the country and world. Europeans, Asians, Eastern Europeans. For New Mexico, that's a pretty big deal.

So we passed all the huge telescopes and headed down the path to walk for a bit.

Oh but not too far. Too many distractions. Furthermore there were humming birds to check out.

As the visitor center, gift shop, snack bar placey there is a spot where the hummingbirds come and will land on you. Who woulda thought that would even be possible. Taking a picture of it is close to impossible though. But thanks to digital cameras, I was able to try about 10,000 times before getting one that was decent.

But the day progressed and we headed back to the valley. Over to the fields in our neighborhood to watch the eclipse with friends and neighbors. We went to the middle of the fields, but in the back of this photo you can see a really abnormal number of people lined up along the edge to get a glimse of the coming eclipse.

 Oh I simply love this picture of my sweet Lola. It just seems right.

 Here, she is doning the eclipse glasses, trying to navigate when wearing them causes essentially complete darkenss unless staring at the sun.

 Azalea found her crawdad remains in the mini-ditch.

 It was sometimes hard to focus on the eclipse when there were perfectly good toads and lizards to catch. (and release)

 Here is one view of the birding telescope that was set up to capture the eclipse on the cardboard box set up behind it.

 And with my eclipse glasses in front of my camera, I was able to capture some pretty awesome pictures of what was going on.

 I was also able to capture some crazy kids.

 And capturing the toad. The kids were thrilled with their joint effort in having it.

 Here is the other side of the said birding/eclipse scope for viewing the eclipse with out looking at it. Cool.

 Oh the air. The light. Everything got eirily dark and spooky. Like a dream was happening. Like you didn't know what to expect, and it would all be ok. Like there was a mystery about to be solved. It really did feel like the stars were aligning.

 And the community. Everyone was in absolute awe. More than the overused Awesome. Simply complete awe.

 Again the light in the sky. The eclipse in full effect, with out the glasses over the camera. A little tricky to take this photo since I couldn't really look in the camera either.

 Burn, burn, burn. The ring of fire.

 She even noticed it.

 On the projector.

 Blue belly skink "in paradise", no not the after life, paradise, the either playing dead or euphoria paradise. He ran away moments later into the fields.

 It's not just about the eclipse.

It's searching for something unknown and mysterious and amazing and loving every moment of it.

Weekenders

A little delayed here, but over the previous weekend we went to the farmers market, got some honey on the comb, held some chickens, got a neon sock frog, biked through the fields, checked out the community gardens, attended a tea party, window shopped, caught blue belly skinks, crawdad fishing on the ditch, and gazed at the big ole super moon.

Goat Love

So this is not about us this time... Just marking some sweet happenings in our hood. My dear, old (not in age, but in time) friend and neighbor has been working her family towards independent sustainability. Last fall they got 2 new goats and on March 31 one of their ladies had two little baby boys.

This is not actually the mama, but the other adult goat trying to keep the little babes out of her triangle house.

The sweet little babes made it in though. How could they not. I mean really. Other goats can recognize ridiculous cuteness.

So after a short little stint, the babies moved onto another family and the milking began...

Coming out of the pen, she knows just where to go.

Mama goat has a nice big udder and doesn't mind getting milked. She gets a special nutrious treat, special for the milk production, while she gets straped to the the platform.

Nice thick, rich milk.

One pint. 2 cups. Everytime. (she topped it off after the pic to make it a full 2 cups) Consistancy in amount is important to get the white gold flowing.

Hecklers in the crowd.

So a shot from afar. I just love that the playset is right next to the chicken coop and the goat pen. It wasn't planned that way, but all the silly energy flows together.

So after the fact, the milk gets strained.

Poured through to get out dirt and particles.

And holy smokes! This picture is a sad representation of the delicious ricotta cheese that was made out of one the batches. Sweet yumminess and from right around the corner.

A carrot.

Gardening is minimal this spring due to our hopeful move. But we had a surprise leftover in the unused raised bed. What looked like a little weed, wasn't. I gave it a little water and it perked up a little and turned out to be a carrot. Not much of one, but a little exciting for our carrot lover, since we didn't know it was coming. So this is it.

We take what we can get around these parts.



Pump Tracks

Note the balloon rising by the mountains. Yes, it's New Mexico.

Heck ya.

My little girl is a walking contradiction of the best possible kind. She is going to drive the world wild one day. I really know she will.

She tagged along with brother to the local dirt bike park, and she did pretty good representing her sex.

Wearing a mini skirt, flower tights, a purple bike with streamers and a basket in front. Not to mention a butterfly helmet. She took to the dirk bike park like it was her business and it made no difference that not only she was the youngest kid there, but the only girl.

She wanted to wear heels, but I made her change.

This dirtbike park has about 10 different tracks, or courses, ranging in difficulty level. Tigo and his friends went off to the more difficult levels after getting some good practice on the first run. But I kept Azalea closer in on the first track, mostly because I'm a nervous nelly.

So she goes out pretty slow at first. One of the things is that once you get going you are supposed to get enough momentum that you don't need to pedal, just "pump" the bike, to keep it moving. But she needed to pedal a little. So she would go around the first. And then stop.

Tigo going for a ride.

The second time around she totally wipes out. Bike on top of her. I tell her good job, you did great, let's get a breather. Meanwhile, I'm thinking to myself that she wants to high tail it out of there. But we move over to the bench to rest for a moment. Then I ask her what she wants to do now.

"Let's go."

"Lets go where?"

"Let's go do it again."

She totally rocks.

Yes, she does.

Oh and then, after many more falls and recoverys. Each time I tell her she did a great job. Finally she turns to me and says, "You keep telling me that I'm doing a good job falling down. Is the point to get hurt?"

Bring me my lucky dragon

I've fallen a bit behind on the interwebs of late. This portion at least. I've had BIG plans for the year of the Dragon. The last time the Year of the Dragon came around, my world was pretty much rock and altered and shocked into another world completely. And in all honestly, I thought my world had ended at first. But of course it just took me a little while to realize, it was just forever changed.

Of course that was the year that Lola was born. Yes that means that she'll be twelve this year. Crikey!

So I'm not sure my world could ever be rocked again like the birth of my first babe, but I'm totally looking for some good change right now. As our nice President might say, Change we can Believe in.  Yeah, but change that might happen a little quicker than ending wars and fixing the financial crisis.

So Elmer has started a new job, and I am starting my new sewing business. And our house is still for sale, (and I'm secretly, though not anymore) glad it hasn't sold yet. And we are starting down a new road in this year of the dragon. Trying to figure out what happens next.

But one thing, I'm not going to be as passive as I've been. I'm going to make these things happen. Or at least try.

But first thing. I've got to get all these stinking germs, viruses, bacteria, bugs, colds and stupid stuff out of our lives for now. So we can get moving for reals. For reals.