Sunday, July 17, 2011

Living My Life: It's a tough job but somebody's got to do it

July 17, 2011

There’s really only one thing anyone wants to read about: Something about themselves or that could be about themselves, or something that’s going to help them live their lives – which really is still about themselves. We’re a selfish bunch, we humans – but all living beings are. It’s the only way to ensure survival of the species.

What I’m here to tell you about is how I live my life. Everyone’s life is fascinating in the hands of a good storyteller, but some of us live different enough lives that no matter who the storyteller is or how she tells it, the story carries itself.

So here I am, a mature woman (sorry, I may never grow up enough to be a senior), raised conventionally, who turned out… different. The reasons aren’t really important now. (That’s one of the great things about having sufficient years under the belt – you start looking at the big picture and realize the small stuff is just that. You finally get to focus on what’s important and best of all, because you’re old enough, there’s no one around to tell you to pay attention to all those pesky details).

But I digress – I tend to wax philosophical but I’ll try to cut that down to a minimum. What I’m trying to say here is that my life nowadays is different enough that it might actually be meaningful - or at least entertaining - for others.

How different could it be, you might well ask. Here’s a partial list. You decide.

  • I’ve lived in a straw bale cabin for about 13 years. That is, a house made of straw bales and not much else. None of that plaster stuff covering the straw, so wind tends to blow through. Birds nest in the walls and a resident four foot (and growing) bull snake keeps the chick population under control. My house does have a roof (it leaks), and doors and windows though, and someday I guess I’ll get around to the plastering. I love my little place (700 square feet and no interior walls) - snakes, bugs, birds, wind and all.
  • I have no heat other than a wood stove. Sometimes in the winter if it’s really, really cold and I’m too lazy to get up during the night, it freezes indoors. Potted plants don’t do well in my house and it can get annoying when I don't have anything liquid to brush my teeth with in the morning, but somehow these winter issues feel more like challenges than problems.
  • I don’t have real indoor plumbing, unless you include a hose poked through a wall with a garden spray nozzle delivery system as indoor plumbing. For years I heated water on my wood stove (or propane kitchen stove), but this year I made a solar hot water system and it works great when the sun’s shining. My shower involves a big pot holding suitable temperature water and a quart-sized ladle to get the water on my body. It works just fine, and I suppose someday I’ll fix it, but I'm in no hurry to fix what ain’t broke.
  • No indoor toilet. No outhouse, either. The old chamber pot system works just fine. I compost the results.
  • Off the grid – the nearest electrical lines are a mile away. Solar power has its drawbacks, but the great benefit is no monthly utility bill, and for a low-income person, that’s great.
  • No cell phone service. Maybe that’ s not such a big deal – after all, plenty of people live in little hollows where there’s no service. But I’m happy there’s no service.
  • Nearest neighbor is a mile and a half away. And that’s too close in my opinion.
  • Nearest store is 30 miles away. Almost far enough.
  • I live in the Southwest, so when it rains it pours. My little valley floods periodically and I can't leave for a few days. That's like vacation time for me.
  • I’ve been self employed almost all my adult life. From house painter to dude ranch wrangler to technical writer, I’ve somehow avoided 9-5 jobs almost the whole 4 1/2 decades since I left my childhood home. I don’t always have a lot of money, or even enough money, but that means I improvise. I do as much of the building and repair work by myself as I can. As for the rest – does it really matter if it gets done?
  • I care for six horses now – down from a lifetime high of around 50 at one point in my past. There’s no shoer nearby these days, so I deal with horse feet myself. There’s no vet nearby, so I treat the horses myself. And if needed, when the time comes I move a horse (or dog or cat) on to the next plane myself with my trusty .38. It’s a hard job, but it’s an ultimate act of love.
  • I have little to no social life. After my husband died suddenly over ten years ago, I’ve lived alone. I found I don’t need a man in my life. I’m not helpless. I’m free to become a hermit if I want or do anything in the world I want to do. I love it.

So there you go. I little strange, but perhaps stranger even is how much satisfaction I get from living my chosen lifestyle.

I dream of even greater independence – I’d like to fully raise my own food, for instance – and I’ve been working towards that it seems forever. I’m in no rush, though - it’s the journey towards self-sufficiency that holds the fascination for me. I’m not so very good at all of it, but in the end, who cares? I don’t want to wait for perfection to do what I want in life.

Next: High Summer

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Quemado Independence Day Celebration

QUEMADO 
INDEPENDENCE DAY 
CELEBRATION 


SATURDAY JULY 2, 2011 

· 11 a.m. ParadeTheme: Thank You Fire Fighters
· 11 a.m. Senior Bake Sale
· Noon BBQ(Quemado Fire Department)
· All Day Vendors around town


SPONSORED BY AG COUNTRY PROPANE 

BBQ meat by Matthew Massey 


Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Open letter to NM Gov. Susana Martinez on AWSA projects and protection of true stakeholders

June 21, 2011

Office of the Governor
490 Old Santa Fe Trail
Room 400
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Email:  Susana.Martinez2@state.nm.us

Subject:  AWSA projects and protection of true stakeholders

Dear Governor Martinez:

The Interstate Stream Commission (ISC) has been authorized by the state of New Mexico to assume responsibility for the design, construction, operation, maintenance, and replacement of projects for waters designated available by the Arizona Water Settlements Act (AWSA).  To that end, people of the four counties of southwestern New Mexico for which the AWSA waters are available have been working since 2004 to develop projects to submit to ISC. 

It is the ISC’s mandate to apply the best available science to consideration of these projects, taking into account the ecological impacts of the proposed water uses while also considering the historic uses of and future demands for water in the Gila Basin, and the traditions, cultures and customs affecting those uses.

Unfortunately, what is and should be a relatively straightforward legal process has been distorted beyond functionality by non-stakeholders who were given “rights” to participate in the process by your predecessor.  Mr. Richardson added a level of bureaucracy through the creation of a stakeholders group that included individuals who are not water rights holders and who therefore cannot be directly impacted by AWSA waters decisions.  AWSA project process development has operated through stakeholder group consensus, thereby effectively providing the non-stakeholders with veto power.  These non-stakeholders were further aided by Richardson’s environmentalist-group-supported declaration that AWSA projects could not include planning or consideration of construction of dams on the Gila and San Francisco Rivers.  Since the only realistic way to have water to use during dry times of the year without cutting into downstream flow is to trap and retain it during times of extreme flow, such as during flood or snow melt, Richardson essentially blocked the most logical and potentially viable projects that could be submitted to ISC for consideration. 

The intent of the AWSA was to address the legitimate water use needs of the four county area of New Mexico.  The people who hold existing water rights are the true stakeholders impacted by the ISC’s choice of projects, however these very people for whom the water was intended have to compete with non-stakeholders for projects, and ultimately for the water needed by water rights holders to live and thrive today and in the future.

The AWSA is not about creating healthy watersheds so as to possibly produce more water or about conserving water, as important as these issues are.  AWSA is solely about finding beneficial uses for 14,000 acre feet of water annually.  It is essentially a “use it or lose it” proposition with a 2014 deadline.  Consensus veto power and non-stakeholder opinion have no place in ISC's AWSA project evaluation or decisions.

Governor Martinez, with your support the ISC can make wise decisions about projects for the stakeholders of the four county area.  I strongly urge you to instruct the ISC to resist the pressures of non-stakeholders with respect to ASWA waters.  Furthermore, I urge you to instruct the ISC to not consider proposals submitted by the US Forest Service, no matter the merit of the projects, given that the AWSA water was meant for New Mexico water users, not federal agencies.

Thank you for consideration of my comments.
Sincerely,
  
Lif Strand
Quemado, NM

CC: 
Estevan Lopez, ISC Director estevan.lopez@state.nm.us
Jim Dunlap, ISC Chairman   Waterjim1@live.com
John D'Antonio, State Engineer  john.dantonio@state.nm.us
Craig Roepke, ISC Deputy Director  craig.roepke@state.nm.us

Monday, May 23, 2011

Sourdough cinnamon raisin bread - WARNING: non-dietetic!

I tried a new recipe for sourdough cinnamon raisin bread that I have been taste-testing all morning (in the interests of research only, to be sure).  I got it from http://vegannomnoms.blogspot.com/2009/03/sourdough-cinnamon-raisin-bread.html

As you might be aware, I’m not into cooking, but I have this thing about sourdough – I don’t know why but I feel compelled to succeed at making a great loaf of sourdough bread.  I have set my handicaps:  Little patience for kneading, no cheating with electrical appliances, and, oh yeah, no oven.

That’s another story, the oven thing.

Anyway, now that my stomach is full of mildly underbaked sourdough cinnamon raisin bread, I have a new challenge:  Getting the baked-on sugar cement off the pan.

See,  I didn't follow the recipe exactly – I always preach following exactly the first time I make something from someone else’s recipe but in fact I rarely do that myself.  In this case I didn't have brown sugar (well, I probably do have some but I didn't look very hard for it after a cursory glance at the front of the shelves).  I also added a little dried lemon zest I had - I like the citrus taste in cinnamon rolls I enjoy at one particular local restaurant and thought that citrus might be a nice addition to the bread.  The result is pretty good but I think orange would be better. 

As for the sugar cement - the recipe calls for sealing the edges of the dough when rolling it up after sprinkling the dough with the sugar/spice mix.  I didn’t do much of a job kneading and maybe the recipe doesn’t call for enough flour (or maybe I didn’t measure the liquid part accurately – it eyeballed about right, it seemed to me) but for whatever reason, there was a lot of sugar leakage.

That didn’t seem all that important at the time.  I got a hint when I went to pick up the loaf to put in a bowl to rise and it started falling apart.  And after being left to rise overnight, the dough was kind of sitting in some sweet liquid broth – from the raisins?  Don’t know, but I poured some out.  Guess whatever it was, it had a high sugar content so now I have baked sugar cement on the bottom of the pan.  Also, as I mentioned above, it's undercooked – the recipe called for preheating to 450 and baking at 400, I preheated to 400 and ended up baking at 375 more or less.  That’s because I’m using a stove-top camping oven that just doesn’t like getting much higher than 400.  Like I said, that’s another story.

Meanwhile, the bread still is yummy - with all that cinnamon, sugar and raisins, how could it not be?  

Thursday, May 19, 2011

AWSA New Mexico Water for New Mexicans

This is a call for help. Please pass it on if you agree!  Please act if you are willing!

The Arizona Water Settlements Act of 2004 allows for an additional average of 14,000 acre feet of water to be developed in New Mexico from the Gila and San Francisco Rivers as well as $66M up to $128M for project development. People have been working since 2004  to develop plans for use of the water and money in the four county region of Catron, Grant, Luna and Hidalgo counties.  The Interstate Stream Commission has developed a two tier application procedure for projects (actually Tier II is still under development).

It is important to understand that by law this additional water use cannot impact the downstream water rights.  Since the water cannot cut into the downstream flow so as to reduce what people downstream are entitled to, it is obvious that the only way to get the water is to trap it during times of extreme flow, such as during flood or snow melt.

The problem is that the environmental community objects to dams and diversions on the Gila or San Francisco River.  The result would be that there is no way to keep water in New Mexico and the water continues on to Arizona.  This is not water that would be taken from wildlife habitat or farmers downstream - it is water that is flooding away to either just evaporate or end up in the ocean.  Environmental groups are urging their members to send letters to the State Engineer, the Interstate Stream Commission and others to promote their cause.  I probably don’t need to tell you the importance of keeping the water here, but suffice it to say that water = life. 

If we are to live here in Southwest NM, we must have water, too. Why should only people downstream of us have it to fill swimming pools, wash cars and water lawns while many of us are not even allowed to have faucets outside our houses to fill a dog's dish?  If we let this opportunity go now, it will probably never recur. 

Without going into the Act any deeper at this time, I am simply asking to you to send an email letter to Mr. Estevan Lopez, Director of the Interstate Stream Commission, Mr. Jim Dunlap, Chairman of the Interstate Stream Commission, to Mr. John D’Antonio, State Engineer, and/or to Governor Susana Martinez.  I am pasting an example letter you can work from or develop your own.  Note: this letter was supplied by Vance Lee, Chairman of the Gila/San Francisco Water Commission.  More info can be obtained at http://www.awsaplanning.com/AWSA_Home.html

Mr. Lopez: estevan.lopez@state.nm.us
Mr. Dunlap:  Waterjim1@live.com (email address corrected 05/20/11)
Mr. D’Antonio:  john.dantonio@state.nm.us
Governor Martinez:  Susana.martinez2@state.nm.us

-------------------- sample email letter ---------------

May 19, 2011

Mr. Estevan Lopez, Director
New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission

Dear Mr. Lopez:

In regards to the Arizona Water Settlements Act and the effort of the Interstate Stream Commission to determine use of the additional water and money, please consider this as a request for the Commission to make every effort to base its decisions on keeping the additional water in Southwest New Mexico.  It is unacceptable to continue to allow water that can be made available for use in New Mexico to continue to flow downstream into Arizona.  I am confident that there will be acceptable proposals via the application procedure in place to develop the additional water and to put it to beneficial use.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

[Name]
[address]

Monday, April 11, 2011

Catron County Commission Demands Wolf Incident Investigation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE        

RESERVE, NM.  “The wolf issue is one of the biggest problems the county has faced,” said Catron County Commission Chairman Hugh B. McKeen to Tod Stevenson, Director of New Mexico Department of Game & Fish at a regularly scheduled public meeting on Wednesday, April 6, 2011.  With Mr. Stevenson were RJ Kirkpatrick, Assistant Director NM Game & Fish; Jim McClintic, Chairman New Mexico State Game Commission; and Dick Salopek, New Mexico State Game Commission.  An audience of nearly 100 people attended the meeting.

In late January a formal complaint was filed by the county with NM Governor Martinez regarding a wolf depredation investigation that occurred on January 18, 2011.  Catron County contends that NM Game & Fish wolf biologists Ellen Heilhecke and Mischa Larisch allegedly sought to influence or change the official investigation findings of Sterling Simpson and Armando Orona of US Wildlife Services during an on-site investigation as to the cause of death of a cow. 

“Influencing or attempting to influence the findings of another agency’s official investigation brings up a lot of problems,” said Catron County’s Wolf Incident Investigator, Jess Carey.  “The credibility of the game department wolf biologist is now lost.”  Simpson and Orona did confirm that the cow was killed by wolves, with Carey concurring.

“Other findings of confirmed wolf kill have been changed to probable in the past,” Carey said.  “How can you change documented evidence?”

Stevenson confirmed that Larisch did call and relay a message from Heilhecke to the Wildlife Services personnel while the investigation was in progress, but denied that any impropriety occurred.

“My staff said they did not say that Wildlife Services should modify the finding from confirmed to probable,” Stevenson said.  “My folks called and said there were feral dogs in the area to take into consideration.”

“There were no feral dogs on this ranch,” Carey said.  “Last year, several miles away, a neighbor was letting his house dogs run loose, but that problem was resolved.  Mr. Simpson concurred:  There are no feral dogs out there”. 

At the conclusion of the meeting, Catron County Attorney Ron Shortes stated that he agreed with the Commissioners’ and Carey’s call for an independent, third party investigation of the incident.

“I think you have a conflict of interest when you say you have an obligation to facilitate this Mexican wolf recovery program vs. your constitutional obligation to the people of NM to protect wildlife,” Shortes said.

“While an independent investigation is needed, my ultimate feeling is that you have a bunch of good people with the New Mexico Game Commission and NM Game & Fish trying to do their best, but I’m wondering if they’re trying to do too much,” Shortes said.  “They’re assisting the recovery program on one hand, trying to protect wildlife on the other – is there any possibility of trust while that’s going on?”

After a show of hands to see how people in the audience felt, the Catron County Commissioners voted unanimously to go ahead with their request of Governor Martinez for a full, independent investigation of the incident.  Director Stevenson volunteered to provide a synopsis of the progress of the investigation by April 15, 2011. 

“Catron County has taken a no-wolf stand,” McKeen said.  “I’m requesting that you take a no-wolf stance, too.  It’ll do us all good – we’re not only concerned about livestock but wildlife, too.”


Contact: 
Bill Aymar, Catron County Manager                               
PO Box 507
Reserve NM  87830
(575) 533-6423 
ccmanager@gilanet.com



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Monday, March 21, 2011

New CritterWalls Stickers!

Good day! We have entered a new season, and with Spring comes three new stickers from www.CritterWalls.com.
These stickers are in the Fairy World line, joining the two Unicorn stickers.  The first two are round panels with beautifully detailed images of fairies and foliage by the incredible artist, Dede Lifgren.  The third is a step in a new direction, looking through a shuttered window to see a Cinderella type carriage drawn by white horses heading towards a turreted castle.
Fairy Woodland (detail)
Fairy Woodland depicts a fairy deep in thought, sitting on a lush green leaf, fairy dust all around her illuminating the mysterious woodland foliage.  18" in diameter, retail price $29.95. http://www.critterwalls.com/fairywoodland.htm


Fairy Sleeping (detail)

Fairy Sleeping is our own version of Sleeping Beauty.  Illuminated by the glow of her own magic, a tiny fairy dreams away on the back of a patient cottontail rabbit.  18" in diameter, retail price $29.95. http://www.critterwalls.com/fairysleeping.htm

Castle and Carriage (detail)
Carriage and Castle lets you look through a wooden shuttered window, past colorful flowers, to a view of a carriage that you know a fairy godmother had something to do with.  Is there a princess in the ornate, pink carriage pulled by a team of white horses?  Is she going to meet the price at the ball in the turreted castle on the hill?  37" x 24", retail price $29.95.  http://www.critterwalls.com/castleandcarriage.htm

We have more stickers in the works in the Fairy World line - I know you'll love the whole Fairy World line and all CritterWalls stickers.