The nation next week will largely ignore National Newspaper Carrier Day, which takes place on Sept. 4. As print circulation of newspapers plummet, the number of hardworking folks who get up at 2 a.m. to make sure the remaining loyal subscribers to a daily newspaper have a copy lying in the driveway, when they arise, is also decreasing. I still subscribe to the local newspaper and have an excellent carrier. She places our paper on top of the brick mailbox each morning to make sure it doesn’t get wet when the sprinklers come on, or an early morning thunderstorm sweeps through. Bless her.
The...
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I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings, go for a ride
Doing the garden, digging the weeds
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?
When I’m Sixty-Four — The Beatles, from “Magical Mystery Tour
I have long anticipated poaching those lyrics on this day, though I haven’t been in a hurry to arrive here. No sense rushing matters. But today, Aug. 23, I turn 64. To continue lyrical larceny, what a long strange trip it’s been.
Sixty-four. Jeez....
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RIO COSTILLA, NEW MEXICO — This 10,000-acre park near the Colorado border is filled with lush pasture through which the Rio Costilla — Spanish for “rib” — meanders its way down from the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, eventually joining with the Rio Grande del Norte. The park is a portion of what originally was a much larger Spanish land grant in what is now northern Taos County. It is part of an 80,000-acre tract owned since 1942 by the Rio Costilla Cooperative Livestock Association.
Fat black Angus cattle graze alongside the banks, while anglers cast lines into the swift-flowing...
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RIO GRANDE del NORTE NATIONAL MONUMENT, EMBUDO, NEW MEXICO — The river that forms part of the boundary between Texas and Mexico begins its nearly 2,000-mile journey into the Gulf of Mexico in south-central Colorado. As it enters northern New Mexico, the raging river cuts through 800-foot gorges. Those gorges are located on nearly a quarter-million acres of public lands in Taos County that were proclaimed a national monument in 2013 by President Obama.
We have arrived on a Sunday afternoon to hike from the rim of the gorge to the confluence of the Red River and the Rio Grande del Norte. This...
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In the past three-plus months, I have made numerous trips to the city’s Compost Site. At first, it was to carry off tree branches and brush sheared off during the May 8 storm. The tree-cutting crews cut and hauled off the heavy stuff, but I opted to save money by loading up Big Red, our 1965 Ford F100 (still for sale), and making the trip cross-town. There is no charge to city residents, though commercial crews must pay.
After the storm, mountains of tree debris appeared at the site, brought in by dozens of tree removal crews and private citizens. As I unloaded a pickup bed of branches, invariably,...
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