by rakeeter On playas
This month I attended a Playa Field Day provided by Ogalla Commons at the civic center in Amarillo. Over the last 10 years or more, I’ve attended several of these field days but it had been a while since I’d been to one. They are usually held in other cities around the Panhandle, so there is a drive involved but this one was close and several presentations on the program looked interesting, so I put it on my schedule.
Continue reading “February 2023”by rakeeter 
Our balmy early January weather was interrupted by snow that crept onto the plains in the wee hours of the 24th and continued most of the day, though at times the flakes were minute. There was a time about midday, when the flakes were large and showy, silently drifting down onto the snow-covered ground. The flakes were building up on the trees, too, especially the pines and junipers, giving them a most pleasing aspect. No artificial Christmas tree ever looked better. The snow had a good moisture content and amounted to about of a quarter of an inch, which is not nothing in this part of the world.
Continue reading “January 2023”by rakeeter 
A good ol’ cat shuffled off this mortal coil, or this small piece of it, earlier this month. Cookie (possibly not his name then) was a local personality for the better part of two decades, just about as long as we’ve been back in Amarillo. His origin is not clear. He belonged to a neighbor living in Quadrille Park across the street until the man passed away and was a frequent visitor to SA. When Zfam moved to Quadrille Park, they brought with them their two cats (and two dogs), one of which was a tuxedo cat like Cookie, named Elmo. Before we got to know Cookie, Joyce was outside and saw what she thought was Elmo. She began talking to him in a companiable sort of way until she realized the cat wasn’t Elmo. Cookie was allowed by his owner to come and go as he pleased, and he would wander across the street frequently. I usually try to discourage stray cats I encounter on the place, often chunking a twig, tennis ball, or whatever else comes to hand at them but I never did that with Cookie. Maybe that was because he seemed friendly.
Continue reading “December 2022”by rakeeter 
Of the nearly 100 agave americanas (century plants) growing in the decorative area just east of 2005 driveway, to date I have harvested 98. The first one I moved, I planted in my front yard. The remainder I planted on the caliche mound (53) and the rest I potted in plastic pots left over from previous plant purchases. I don’t know the origin of the original plant. I suppose Mom and Dad planted it in the area of the old juniper Dad and I brought back from McBride Canyon. It was an interesting piece in a driftwood sort of way and went well with the big chunks of flint we had previously liberated from the flint quarries before the National Park Service made the Alibates Flint Quarry National Monument. Along with a couple of fair-sized chunks of dolomite I don’t know the origin of, and some red yucca planted there, these items made a kind of picturesque grouping. The flint and dead juniper date back to my prepubescent years. That is, their presence on SA dates back that far. Even the juniper is much older than that. Over the years, the agave and yucca proliferated and between that and the weeds, the flint and juniper were all but obscured.
Continue reading “November 2022”by rakeeter 
A full moon followed me as I travelled to Cimarron Canyon State Park (CCSP) in the Sangre De Christo mountains of New Mexico and provided enough light to read by in the dead of night when I reached my destination, or so it seemed. I used to like to go on a ramble in October, after work around the place was less pressing and I was ready for a break. For the last several years (not counting last year), Joyce and I would stay in hotels but prior to that I had car-camped by myself since Joyce had no interest in doing that. I had purchased a tent-like enclosure for the Pathfinder, so that when the rear door was opened, I was able to stretch out in my sleeping bag while still being protected from the elements. As the fall approached, I wondered if I still wanted to do that. The idea appealed but I knew the reality might be different, so I finally settled on CCSP as a not-too-ambitious proof of concept. Thus did I hit the road and set up camp in one of the CCSP camping areas.
Continue reading “A brief visit”
