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.

Some people decorate a tree

yes



The best way to predict the future...

...is to invent it. - Alan Keys

I so love a to take advantage of a bargain. Or maybe it's having grown up by DC where I could hope on the metro and go see some of the best museums in the world for free. Either way the first Sunday of the month at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History has free admission to New Mexico residents. So... that's where we were on the first Sunday of the month. At least Tigo, Azalea and I were there. We've been there a bunch of times but somehow missed the technology room stuck back in the corner, just past the Space Exploration room.

Turns out, Bill Gates and friends spent a good amount of time hanging out in Albuquerque while he was typing away to become a the richest of the rich.

Well, I'm not sure that the first computer game was invented here, but we still got to play it. Tigo and Azalea attempted to blow each other up with out being sucked into the sun's gravitational pull.
Um. That happens everyday, with out the video game...

 He's definitely a future programer.

 Order pizza. Pick it up. Go to party.

She was good. 

I 'm not as smart as I look.

 It's being invented right now. Right here.

Must keep remembering this.

 I was always thinking about the future as a kid. When you are a kid, you think anything is possible.

-Paul Allen.

True dat. I gotta keep thinking like a kid.

Anderson Fields

If you could hear this blog post instead of see it, your experience would be much different.

Rather if you could just be there with your eyes closed and hear the crazy sounds of the Creeky Door Cranes. That is what I would name them if it were me. You can hear them with out seeing them. It seems as if the birds could be miles away and the faint sound of creeking noises. It's an eerie sound actually. But beautiful at the same time.

Ok, so you can hear a little bit of what they sound like.

 Yes, the sky really is that blue.

 Really rather majestic creatures. The way they land. Their communication with each other. One sets off a cue, the others look around and decide if they should act. There definitely seems to be a leader in each pack of birds. They come and they go.

Winter in our neighborhood means that the Sandhill Cranes are here again. They love to stop over and feed at Anderson fields.

There has been a lot of effort put into keeping them here. A lot.

The fields are tended to and grown and kept in a widely water unwise way to keep the birds migrating through Anderson Fields.

People are ridiculously protective of the birds and don't mess around about letting anything happen to them. If someone sees you with out your dog on a leash, you might think the end is near with their reactions.

On the other hand, there are coyotes in the fields that have had more than one for a nice meal.

And they are off again.... Can you hear them coming your way?