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.
The Turk standing watch in 2008.
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.
And the crowd, while still heavy on gray hair (and no hair), seemed to have more young people than did the previous editions.
A couple of smiling young folks from the Party for Socialism and Liberation buttonholed us, passing along a flyer for a May Day rally and general strike. The Democratic Socialists of America said they’d be around, but once again, no confirmed sightings.
But emcee Robert Luke seemed to have some trouble generating a solid call-and-response from the throng, which really didn’t get fired up until special guest speaker Stacey Abrams brung the heat. (Respect to the band ShyGuy, which tore up a stout cover of Green Day’s “American Idiot.”)
It was the march that put a smile on my face. The 3-mile route from the park wound north on San Mateo, east on Montgomery, south on Louisiana, and back to the park via Comanche, and we flat filled our half of the road, singing, chanting, and waving at passersby.
One group of youngsters could really sing, at one point tackling Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” with enthusiasm if not 100 percent accuracy. Lots of horn honking, most of the single-digit salutes involving an upraised thumb, and only one small, semiorganized group of dissenters at the far side of Comanche and Louisiana, with a sign that said something like “No Commies or Socialists In Our Neighborhood.”
I sang, “I am a commie, and so is your mommy” at them. Not as melodious as the kids, but what the hell, I ain’t Bruce Springsteen. Anyway, you know the rule: While smashing the State, kids, keep a smile on your lips and a song in your heart.
50,000 people? That’s what they say. …O, indeed. Our body politic, our choice.Stacey Abrams was in town to campaign for Deb Haaland (photo by Herself).Come back, Woody Guthrie. …The march was epic. I thought we were near the front until we turned from San Mateo onto Louisiana. The front was turning onto Comanche.Props to the Party for Socialism and Liberation. They keep meeting the people where they are.
68° yesterday, maybe 63° today … hoo-lawd, this ain’t no way to run a climate, bruh.
It’s barely February and we already have juniper, ash, alder, elm, rumex, and willow pollen blasting us in the nose-holes like ICEholes pepper-spraying citizens.
This makes for fine cycling weather, of course, as long as you’re not drafting someone clearing his beak. The tuque and tights go back in the winter-duds drawer. Ditto the capilene base layers. Out come the short sleeves and arm/knee warmers because, hey, you never know.
But one of the days we’re gonna twist a faucet to fill a water bottle and get nothing but a fart sound, pffffbbbbbffflllhhhh, maybe a little puff of fine sand.
Boy, is Assos ever gonna make bank selling stillsuits.
“Albuquerque? You’re gonna want the Paul-Muad’Dib Signature Model. How much? Ho, ho. If you have to ask, you can’t afford it. Can I interest you in a Liet-Kynes hoodie and a gallon jug of Kwisatz Haderach sunscreen, SPF 666? And maybe a Kleenex?”
Doesn’t look like we’ll be needing the ol’ kiva fireplace in the master bedroom for a while, if the long-range forecast is any guide.
Actually, we’ve never needed it, nor the bigger one in the living room neither. We both got our fill of wood-burning Back in the Day®, when we lived at 8,800 feet in frosty CrustyTucky and tossed big chunks of aspen, cedar, piñon, and oak into the Lopi fireplace insert faster than ICE Barbie’s masked goons throw brown people out of the country, only with less horseshit and gunfire.
Here in scenic cosmopolitan Duck!Burg, a couple-three thousand feet lower and more than a few Fahrenheit degrees higher, we manage to skate by with fossil fuels. This keeps Your Humble Narrator away from chainsaws, always a good idea, especially in these dark days. Will he do an injury to himself or someone else? Stay tuned!
The chainsaw always made me nervous, actually. What I liked was splitting rounds with the ax, another implement that should probably be under lock and key for the duration. The chainsaw is long gone, but I still have an ax, a couple smallish camping hatchets, and a few handsaws in case I need to dispose of a body … uh, of some downed limbs! Tree limbs!
Goddamnit, this is what comes of reading the news of a morning. Some days there just isn’t enough coffee in the world.
But it does look like we will have oddly springlike conditions for the near future, and so instead of burning wood or anything else, I can expend a few calories on the old bikey-bike. And without all the heavy-weather gear, too.
At this rate, an old white guy could find himself browning up enough to get deported. I hear South Sudan is lovely this time of year.
Albuquerque shows its small-d democratic contempt for the royal pain in its ass.
O, the hate, terror, and anarchy were fierce Saturday at the No Kings thing down on Central.
We saw young and old and in between; placards, flags, and banners; bicycles, scooters, and wheelchairs; T. rexes, frogs, and Statues of Liberty; walkers, talkers, and watchers. The odd pooch delivered a few remarks. No, not me — actual dogs of various breeds and temperaments.
“Liberty, autonomy, equity.” Sounds good to me.
At least one drone was aloft to document the sheer size of us. I don’t use Facebook, so if this link doesn’t work for you feel free to blame that putz Suckerberg. The local blat went with “thousands,” so as an old inkstained wretch naturally I’ll accept that as gospel.
It wasn’t much of a story, but a crash shut down I-25 near the Lead-Coal exit just as the march got under way and I expect the weekend crew at the Journal was busier than Rep. John Block of Alamogordo, who, when asked to comment for no good reason of which I can think, immediately stuffed both feet into his mouth — no easy thing, even for a Republican, because his piehole was up his asshole with the rest of what I assume is his head, if only for the position it occupies at the top of his neck.
But I digress. We were talking about hate, terror, and anarchy, yes?
I saw one hateful sign. I’ll confess it made my top-10 list. It read: “Hey, Trump, I’m not getting paid to be here. I hate you for free.”
While we’re in the confessional, I’ll also cop to hating the “Hey hey, ho ho” chant. We haters, terrorists, and anarchists need more poets on the front lines.
Hamas never showed. Well, I remember when Dan Fogelberg didn’t show to open for the Eagles at Red Rocks, so it ain’t like they were getting a cherry. Instead we got Tom Waits, who just happened to be in town and available. No, not in Albuquerque — at Red Rocks.
I did see one dude wearing a black bandana as a mask. Could’ve been an anarchist, I suppose. Maybe just a victim of late-stage capitalism and fall allergies, like me.
The dude waving the anarchy flag, now, he might have been the real deal. Looked to be a solo act, which is a dead giveaway. But it was a really pro-looking flag, which implies some degree of organization.
“We don’t kneel down.”
I should’ve snapped a pic but you don’t want to be taking surreptitious photos of anarchists, even if you’re wearing a red Marx Brothers T-shirt (Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Karl). That’s just the sort of shit an elderly undercover cop would wear. Yeah, that old dude, over there, with the yin-yang earring, Ray-Ban shades, and Carhartt boonie hat.
Mayor Keller was there, as were other political types shilling for various candidates. But mostly the crowd was regular joes and janes like Herself, Your Humble Narrator, and a friend and neighbor, all of us marching counterclockwise around downtown Duck! City, (nothing but left turns, natch), chatting and chanting, singing and dancing, gleefully asserting our rights as citizens, not subjects.
The only royalty we saw was a family trooping along wearing cardboard crowns from a well-known burger joint. It’s not for me, but hey, this is still a democracy. Anyway, the Burger King is miles better than that tinpot tsar who thinks he’s the big cheese. Cheaper, less greasy, and easier to dispose of once you’re sick of it.
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