Photos: Around the ranch

Last week it rained 3/10". That brings the precipitation up to nearly an inch since the first of the year, meaning it's dry, dry, dry. It also means when it rains that the soil turns to snotty clay-mud. I had been out of town that day when I came home to 'running the slick', as I think of it. The two mile of unimproved two-track from the county road to my property is always a challenge when there's been even the slightest bit of rain (snow's not quite as bad until it starts melting). So nearly a third of an inch of rain was quite enough to make my pulse rate rise, because I just do not like having to walk home in the mud (something I've done quite often enough, thank you very much).

I know where all the places are that cause trouble. The ones where I have to drive slow or risk spinning out. The ones where I have to be moving along at a good clip or I'll sink in. And then there's the spots where nothing works, and last week I did a bit of slip-and-slide. I managed to not get stuck and only had another minor slide after that. By the time I got to my gate I was feeling pretty proud of myself.

Until I saw a mass of wire trailing behind my car.

For all the cattle fencing out here in the West, you'd think cows would stay where they're supposed stay, but they don't. They're always seeing better graze on the other side of the fence, and they rarely meet a fence that they can't get through if they really want to. Consequently there often will be long strands of barbed wire curled into a coil or a wad of crumpled field fencing out in the middle of a pasture, the result of a cow going through a fence and taking the fence with her.

I must have slid over one of those wads, which hitched a ride on the drive shaft of my car.

 

I didn't even look at it till today. Partly because I was busy, partly because I knew that even using bolt cutters I was going to end up in a bad temper working the wire off. It was a trial, let me tell you. Trackers are little cars with not a lot of clearance underneath - better than a sedan, mind you, but not like a truck. There wasn't much room to maneuver plus there was dried mud in just enough places to fall into my eyes and ears whenever an arm or shoulder bumped up against it.

Stuff like this is pretty normal for out here in the middle of nowhere. A person has to be able to handle little things by herself or else she should live in a city where help is just minutes away. But she doesn't have to like it.

Is there an emoji for a snarly face?  If so, imagine it inserted here.  I don't do emoji.

Here's a photo of PJ Kitty (Papa J) in the alpenglow a couple nights ago. Makes me feel better just looking at him.

And here's a sunset photo from the next night. The delicate silhouette of the juniper against the flaming sky gets to me.

San Augustin Water Grab: A Battle Won But Not the War

A Battle Won But Not the War
Cathie R. Eisen
Walking Water Consulting
PO Box 133
Nogal, New Mexico
April 8, 2012

Across the southern states a battle is raging for our most precious resource. The value of water has reached a premium, and it will only increase with time. As the cities and counties of the west continue to grow, so does the need for new water sources to support their ever increasing demands. While the quest for oil is on the forefront of everyone's mind, dollar for dollar, water is by far more valuable. We can live without oil if necessary, but we must have water to survive. During the past few years, several applications have been submitted to the State Engineers Office in New Mexico for the purpose of tapping into the deeper aquifers, waters which were previously deemed unusable and were until now unprotected from such requests. One by one, they have been protested and denied. This is not the end of the effort. Future legislation will support these requests as our cities continue to grow along with the residential demand for additional supplies; water for sanitary and domestic water use is and always will be a priority to developers and communities. The health and welfare of the masses could easily trump the livelihood of the rural ranchers. They are few, rural residents are many.   More at Glenwood Gazette... 

SAN AUGUSTIN PLAINS WATER GRAB MOTIONS TO BE HEARD 02/07/12

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, February 03, 2012

SAN AUGUSTIN PLAINS WATER GRAB MOTIONS TO BE HEARD

SANTA FE, N.M.— After four years of delays and false starts, the State Engineer is finally hearing motions to dismiss an  application to take 54,000 acre-feet of groundwater annually from Catron County. The application, filed by a New York based corporation, is being protested by over 200 residents who live in and around Datil, NM – an area known as the San Augustin Plains. The residents fear that the San Augustin basin that supplies their wells with water and contributes flow to the Rio Grande and Gila River stream systems will be decimated if the application is granted. The New Mexico Environmental Law Center (NMELC) represents over 80 Protestants.

NMELC filed a motion to dismiss the application one year ago. “The application must be thrown out because it does not comply with basic New Mexico law,” said Bruce Frederick, NMELC Staff Attorney. “The corporation’s application seeks a permit to use or sell a vast amount of water for any purpose within seven New Mexico counties.  Under New Mexico law, however, the corporation was required to identify exactly how and where it intends to use the water, and its failure to do so means that the State Engineer cannot consider or approve its application.”

WHO:  New Mexico Environmental Law Center

WHAT:  Hearing before State Engineer addressing motions to dismiss the water rights application

WHERE: Socorro County Courthouse
                200 Church Street
                Socorro, New Mexico, 87801
                575-835-0050

WHEN:   Tuesday, February 7th, 10:00 a.m.

INTERVIEWS AND IMAGES ARE AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

www.nmelc.org

CONTACT:
Juana Colón
Wk: 505-989-9022, ext. 21

The mission of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center is to protect New Mexico's natural environment and achieve environmental justice for New Mexico's communities through legal representation, policy advocacy and public education. The New Mexico Environmental Law Center’s attorneys have handled over 100 critical cases in low-income and minority communities fighting pollution and environmental degradation. The NMELC charges few, if any, fees to its clients, most of who are from Hispanic and Native American communities. The NMELC celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2008. Membership and gifts help New Mexico communities protect their natural environment and their health from toxic pollution, the degrading effects of growth and liabilities created by irresponsible mining. Call Sebia Hawkins, Director of Development 505-989-9022, ext. 27 for more information.

###

Wood Stove Comfort

Copyright © Lif Strand 2011

I’ve just come in from feeding the horses and splitting some wood.  Yesterday it snowed briefly and never got above 48°.  I built my first fire in the wood stove.  I used wood that had been sitting stacked next to the stove since this past spring when I let the last fire die out, so it was plenty dry and fast to ignite.

The wood stove is my only source of heat in the house.  I hooked up a propane wall heater a while back but when I tried it, it leaked and no matter how many times I reconnected everything I couldn’t get it to stop leaking.  So wood still remains my heat source. 

Trust me – wood heating is a lot of work.  I’m a lazy person.  The two don’t go together all that well if the person in question expects to stay warm when it’s blowing and freezing outside. 

It occasionally freezes inside my house, too.  As a result I have no house plants, just those potted herbs, veggies and flowers that I’ve brought inside to keep them going a while longer.  They only last till the night I insufficiently stoke the wood stove before retiring, or when I go away and just let the house get as cold as it is going to get.

Lest you worry, the cats and dogs all have fur coats and deal with the occasional frostiness inside my house just fine.  I don’t.  Trust me on another thing:  If you’re sitting around a blustery winter evening reading, you need a wood stove to keep you warm.  Quilts, furs, fleece and down won’t keep your fingers, your nose or your toes warm enough.

Thing is, there’s so much work associated with wood heat.  Oh sure, you can get yourself  a paycheck from a 9-5 job and just buy split wood, get it delivered and stacked - but my boss is me, and I don’t get paid enough by me to spend money on the multiple cords of wood I need to get through the cold season. 

My best intentions are to cut early and the wood will be dry by the time I need it.   I choose trees on my own place that have been hit by bark beetles or are just fading away because of drought – I not only get wood for the stove but also provide a better environment for the remaining trees while making my land more wildfire resistant.  My best intentions rarely ever pan out. 

Remember my boss?  She just doesn’t ever seem to give me a break.  Work, work, work – I wear out the lettering on my keyboard keys all the time (good thing I’m a touch typist).  Typing does not = a stack of wood.

And there are so many other reasons for not going out there and cutting wood – don’t want to do it when it’s hot, can’t do it during fire season, and when it starts raining, I don’t want to do it then either.  Right now, October, is a good time of year for cutting wood, though it won’t all be as dry as it might be before I really need it in winter.  I really should be out there with the chain saw today – but I think I’ll take it into town instead and get it tuned up and sharpened.  I’ll cut wood another day.  Probably, like last year, in the dead of winter.  Hey, logs pull down the hill much easier on snow!

Even if I cave in and buy wood (it could happen!), that’s not all there is to a wood stove.  There’s splitting the wood, carrying it in every day (twice a day if it’s really cold), cleaning out the ashes regularly, sweeping up all the wood debris and dirt that falls off the logs, climbing up onto the roof every so often and banging on the stovepipe to knock the creosote off the walls and of course, stoking the fire regularly enough that all the work yields a warm house in the dead of winter.

And yes, it’s worth it.  There’s something about the heat from a wood stove that is very different from any other heat.  It’s as if it reaches out to something in my very being and touches my core with comfort and security, not just physical warmth.  When it’s snowing and blowing outside and there’s a cheery blaze in the wood stove, enough logs in the burn chamber to last the night and a stack of wood nearby to build the fire up again in the morning, when I turn out the lights and see the yellow flickering light cast by the flames through the vents in the door and I feel that warmth on my skin all the way to my bones, I know all’s right with my world.

 

Baseboard heaters just don’t do that for me.

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 

www.catroncounty.net/quemado 

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

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

# # #