Santa Fe Winter Day

                 We’ve had snow for the last couple of days — and shoveling to go along with it.   

                            This afternoon the fog embracing the top of Sun Mountain lowered 

                            to enclose the whole neighborhood. 

                                An unusual scene — snow thick enough and vicious enough

                                to hang over the edge of a small roof.

                                      Cheers.

Always Secure Your Ladder

After a spell of cold weather, today we were blessed with a sunny mild day.  Perfect opportunity to finally get the remains a very large bag worm nest out of the top of an aspen — it came late in the summer, during a second wave of bag worms, and was too high and too hidden by leaves to get out of the tree.  

First step was to lash the ladder to the tree —especially important with a thin rather flexible trunk.  Next to the top of the ladder: the working end of a long range pruner.

             Sun Mountain in the background

  Could just reach it with the long range pruner fully extended

Seeing it close up explained why it had never fallen out of the tree on its own — the wall of the nest was so thick it probably would have remained in the tree for months.

                             Another View

All of the coming summer’s foliage is clearly visible — some of these fat buds are so advanced, the catkins are starting to show.

                                                                   A sumac, also with nice buds

Jet Frog

Here’s the sculpture I mentioned.  The base started out as a piece of ash or something like that — what ever Christopher Murphy had laying about his shop. First I stained it dark and then applied the many coats of paste wax.

Chamber Pot in Cyberdom

Over the Christmas holiday, Gavin re-configured our internal Wi-Fi network.  One result was that even more white boxes and a snuggle of white cords ended up beneath the bench in the dining room near the front door.

We stopped at The Raven (formerly Recollections), a consignment/antique store, to see if we could find something in which to hide the electronics.

Of all things, we found a small cabinet that was used originally to hold one’s chamber pot.

First I tightened up the side door hinges by the old trick of adding a section of toothpick to holes which had grown too large.  After a session with Christopher Murphy, the hinges were even better after being reset and a stop was added to the front door.  In the floor of the cabinet a hole was cut to allow wire and plug to reach a wall outlet.  Then I filled a crack and various nail holes.  The rear top decorative piece was removed and reglued to make it sit tight to the top of the cabinet. Finally I applied several coats of good paste waste.

From holding a chamber pot to holding electronics — a nice transition to the 21st century.

First Time in Santa Fe

Several decades ago when I awoke one morning at Beechfield House in Wiltshire and looked out the window, I was astounded — everything was covered with a glistening white glaze.  I learned that it was a hoar frost.  Perhaps due to the unusually dry air in Santa Fe, I have never seen one here.  

But a few mornings ago we were greeted by a Santa Fean attempt.  In these photos you can see how the frost, unlike in England, does not cover everything.  Still it was quite magical.  And gone by early morning.

Top of tree next to master bedroom porch

Looking west

Looking WNW

Front Gate

File Under: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

A recent “simple” project that unintentionally became more complex and costly than originally planned.

Christopher on left; Philip on right

Christopher and I set out to remove pungy (aged soft wood no longer holds paint properly) stops from the bottom of several windows.  

Christopher on left; Philip on right

By the time we finished, five of six windows were cracked — just the tiniest bit of excess pressure on the glass and: CRACK.  

The windows are still water tight, but the vacuum seals are destroyed, meaning the windows will fog up in cold weather.

Installing wood filler

So now, instead of just replacing bottom stops to improve the existing windows, we are replacing glass in five windows and all of the stops — getting the stops out to insert the new glass installed often results in cracked and broken stops.

Patricia’s office windows after extensive scraping, wood filling, sanding

New oak stops, primed and awaiting installation

Windows restored and awaiting new glass

- Philip

Hiking

Today Patricia and I joined a group of photographers to hike in Bandelier National Monument, specifically in Frijoles Canyon.  The outing was organized by David Halpern, a photographer who’s been establishing the Artist-in-Residence program there for the past year.  The last time Patricia and I spent real time in the canyon was in 2011 shortly before the devastating Las Conchas fire.  Thus, we could see the change and tremendous damage caused by the flooding that followed the forest fire. 

The walls of the canyon were formed by volcanic eruptions over a million years ago; most of the pueblo structures date to two eras stretching from 1150 to 1600.  To learn more about Bandolier, just Google it.  It’s a very special place; if you ever have the opportunity to visit Bandolier, don’t pass it up.

The group.  Note the several rows of holes in the walls — they held logs which supported the structures at the base of the canyon wall.  These structures faced the river that flows through the Canyon; a couple of miles downstream it joins the Rio Grande.

    This photographer recently had a single woman show of her photographs in Switzerland

     Gives one an idea of the force of the flood waters that ravaged the floor of the canyon

     One of several ladders one climbs to reach the Alcove, carved into the canyon wall.  

                                                      Patricia on one of the ladders.

If you look closely you’ll see one more of the ladders (it’s in a vertical position, center of the image, about 1/3 down from the top).  The Alcove itself is in the shade above and to the right of the ladder.

                  Two more huge wood dams caused by the flood.