The backyard maple is still with us, megadrought be damned.
The arborista with the tree service we use recently sent out a customer-tips newsletter about balancing responsible water use and tree care. Top of her list? “Plant better trees.”
The trend has been hotter and drier for many years. I don’t see drought conditions going away. There are plenty of shade trees that are not water-hogs and many desert trees that complement your landscapes. Cottonwood and maple are so out of fashion in drought conditions.
Sigh. Naturally, we’ve got this doddering old maple that endures an amputation or six every fall. And there’s a giant-ass cottonwood across the arroyo.
We had a beautiful maple in the front yard back in Bibleburg. Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Defense Regiment) loved that tree, when he was still an indoor-outdoor cat. He’d take up a position in the crotch of it and make himself look even longer than he was, like a giant furry albino alligator.
Once a killer hailstorm hit that tree like Spooky working out with its Vulcan minigun. Maple-leaf salad all over the front yard and porch. Tree bounced right back, maybe even better than ever.
But it rains and snows in the B-burg. Or it used to, anyway. A tree can get a little love up there, whether it’s Earth Day or not.
Mad Blog Media 
Nice image with good color. Something that invokes an “Out of Albuquerque” description to me. I know you have a lion around the place somewhere. Say Hi to Meyrl for me. I suppose though, that thinking of you I’d need to revise the cast and have Jack Nicholson (kind of like in Goin’ South) as the costar.
I hope your bastion of physique-ness is recovering and you are back on the move.
Gracias, señor. Lions around here for sure. But so far we’ve only seen bobcats. And not Goldthwait, either.
After three days of short walks I went for a short ride, and now I have a couple longer ones under my bibs, so I guess I’m on the road to recovery … which certainly beats a road to nowhere.
A fine tune on Earth Day. You probably know that David Byrne is a velo aficionado. Here’s to hoping that all of us continue to enjoy our own roads to nowhere.
Every day should be Earth Day. I don’t like these once a year things, another of which is Bike To Work Day. Makes it seem like on the other 364.24 days one can say “Fuck it, start the Hummer and go out for a big steak”. And too often, that’s the case.
Who even knew it was Earth Day? I snapped the pic of the maple because I liked the sunrise in the background, went back inside, and noticed that today was marked as such on Herself’s Colorado Japanese Chin Rescue calendar in the kitchen.
Clearly, I and my maple tree are part of the problem. Where my Hummer at?
Who knew indeed. I’m not sure why it even crossed my mind, to be honest. I guess I was a little irked at things. Still have that lung malfunction, so sitting around stewing. What, with the “climate crisis” and all that? And all people care about is expensive fucking gasoline? Mebbee we do need a world war…put enough smoke in the air and we can slow down global warming a whole lot!!!
I probably wrote more about climate in the Santa Fe New Mexican over the last few days than the New Mexican did. All in the comments section with this guy Mark Caponigro from NYC. We often chat back and forth in the comments section, spewing more vowels and consonants than there are in the actual articles themselves. I guess that is what feebs do after retirement. Sit and rant.
I got an email from the Hawaii Bicycling League a few days ago (I’m a life member) saying there was going to be a big rally for bike infrastructure in Honolulu in conjunction with the LAB. I had not heard a peep out of BikeABQ or Bike Santa Fe so I emailed both. BikeABQ board guy Keith Stubbs emailed back and said there was nothing doing down there, just an email petition drive. Bike Santa Fe never replied.
It was actually supposed to happen yesterday and I wondered why not do it on Earth Day. Earth Day? What’s that? Earth Day is sooooo seventies….if it isn’t on your cell phone nowadays, it doesn’t exist.
I agree about the dramatic shock about gas prices. WTF did folks think was going to happen. That the biggest loser president in history was going to wave his magic putter and everything would be fine and dandy? Maybe in his own mind. With fortune gas prices will go up a whole lot more and wake this country up. It’s a fucking shame that so many people have to die because americans have their heads up their cell phone asses. It’s so easy to understand how demented leaders gain power and control a country.
Yes, it would be nice if a whole lot more of us thought that as well (Earth Day every day). But even a whole lot of green liberals find it difficult to overlook their screens while driving their Subarus down to the coffee shop before driving to the parking lot to meet up with their pals for a ride, run or litter pickup detail. Hummer? Steak? Add in a little Eagles music about a dark desert highway and that sounds like a good Night Gallery screenplay.
What, me worry?
My favorite Nation cover of all time:
And to think we believed back then that this was as bad as things could get.
I remember that cover. Indeed, today’s politics looks back at that and says “oh yeah, well hold my beer”
I’ve stopped receiving your dispatches in my inbox for some reason.
Hm, weird. You show as subscribed on this end. Have you checked your spam/junk folders? Your mail filter may have developed a sense of taste and/or a flair for literary criticism.
Not in spam. I just re-upped myself though and the email notice came in. So, not sure how that happened.
I think this happened to someone else before and reupping proved the solution.
As for the cause … your guess is as good as mine. “The wonderful thing about the dancing bear is not how well it dances, but that it dances at all,” as the fella says.
Stop it with your Captain Kangaroo references.
They call me “The Son of Mr. Green Genes”:
Yea, things are worse, much worse. What Bush did harms us and many others to this day. What we do in the next decade will harm two or three future generations of our fellow human beings, maybe even threaten their existence entirely. “The world is in a tangle. It’s time to make change.” I am not optimistic. I assume that’s obvious around this here pickle barrel.
This assumes that we have another decade, and/or two or three future generations.
And you thought you were not optimistic.
I think Harlan Ellison got it right. It won’t be nukes or climate change that does us in. It’ll be AI.
Click to access I_Have_No_Mouth_and_I_Must_Scream_-_Harlan_Ellison.pdf
“I Have No Mouth” is one of my favorite tales from Ellison Wonderland, along with the “Star Trek” episode “The City On the Edge of Forever,” which locked the famously cantankerous writer in a steel-cage death match with Gene Roddenberry.
Speaking of A.I., John Gruber at Daring Fireball flags this piece by Nilay Patel at The Verge, “The People Do Not Yearn for Automation,” in which Patel argues:
Patel goes on to observe:
And how they’d like to keep living them without ending up as five doomed characters in a Harlan Ellison story, thanks all the same, Brainiacs.
You and I must both be pretty warped characters. That’s a tough short story to read.
Haw. I have read many a weirdo in my day. When I was a teenager I was addicted to science fiction, and there were plenty of original thinkers in that bunch.
Ever read “The Stars My Destination,” by Alfred Bester? That’s a keeper. Also, “The Weapon,” by Frederic Brown. Surprise ending in that one. One of his stories was adapted into a “Star Trek” episode. A.E. van Vogt wrote some outlandish tales with roots in the Celtic legends of the Selkies.
Don’t get me started on H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, or Michael Moorcock. And Robert A. Heinlein got majorly weird towards the end of his run. If you’re too weird for me, chances are you’re just plain too friggin’ weird, period.
Hey, if I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream ain’t enough for a night’s work, the flick version of Dalton Trumbo’s “Johnny Got His Gun” is free and available on Youtube. Similar plot, worked out in WW I form.
I saw that as an undergrad when it came out. Don’t think I can stomach it twice. I can’t drink that much any more in one setting.
We have spoon rests like that.
Did somebody say pickles?
Yessir, a whole barrel of them. Big, fresh, whole, and cold dill pickles! If we can get all the coffee cups and soda pop bottles off the top, and move the stools back, we can open it up and spear us a tasty one. It’s just what these troubled times require. Patrick just got them in yesterday, and if we can get him to take off his apron and grab a guitar, the jam session will start. Foots be tappin’ and floorboards be creakin’ by dog.