Another bluebird.

Bluebirds.

For some wonderful reason, the canyon is full of bluebirds these days.

Bees also love a Mexican sunflower.

Morning in the Jemez mountains.

What a lovely morning. There was a very soft light as the ipod woke itself at the appointed time. With it’s connection to the main stereo system, this little miracle of music found my designated pick, and quietly began to fill the room with a soft, but eventually swelling choral masterpiece.

With my head still on the pillow, I looked out our window, towards a dimly moonlit mountain, and saw tiny tail lights working their way around this ancient and gigantic neighbor. Their journey places the mountain between us, and their lights are soon gone. I suppose those lights were 15 to 20 miles away.

I looked past the top of the mountain and saw Venus, so rightly called the morning star. We are on a ledge of the canyon, many miles from the lights that will rob your view of the night sky. Our night sky is dark except for stars, and the morning star blazes forth with undiminished glory. No mere mountain can block its view. The light that greets my eye this morning has travelled over twenty-three million miles, and now illuminates this small portion of the Jemez mountains.

It is quiet enough to hear the gentle breathing of my wife. Thirty eight years of waking up beside her. I am indeed a rich man, surrounded by treasure no vault could contain.

I slip quietly out of bed. There are two things this house needs every morning: coffee and a fire in the wood stove. Mornings in the mountains can be cold, and it will be my pleasure to provide coffee to warm the inside, and a bright fire to warm the outside.

An arial acrobat.

When I pulled this picture from the camera I was surprised at the position of the wings. I believe the camera has captured something we can never see with the naked eye. These guys are small miracles of flight.

Hummingbird enjoying a "Mexican Sunflower".

The hummingbirds love this flower.

On the path to where I saw the "Christmas Elk".

This was written in late December, 2006. We live in the Jemez Mountains of Northern New Mexico. I have been back for about 4 months since having my aorta valve exchanged for a fancy mechanical replacement in August. With my new valve, I am back to hiking about a mile up the large mesa behind us, to the spring that supplies our water. A few days ago, Barb and I rounded the last bend and ran into a magnificent bull elk standing near the spring. His rack had 12 points, and was at least 5 feet across. I judged his weight to be in excess of 650 pounds. He seemed very old and tired. He moved his huge frame behind a few trees, but they weren’t sufficient to hide such a magnificent animal. We quietly looked (I believe) into each other’s eyes from 50 yards away. I thought about the old battles he must have fought and won, the harems he had gathered and guarded, now a king soon to fall.

Late yesterday I went back to the spring, and the old monarch had gone down for the last time. I turned around and quietly departed. I guess it doesn’t make sense, but I had hoped he would make it past Christmas.

But life is complex. I saw a young mountain lion a few weeks ago. It is likely that close by were his sibling and mother. This great elk will probably provide a wonderful feast for the mountain lion and her two large cubs which claim a fifty mile range across our mountain. Perhaps a Christmas feast, if you care to use your imagination. What has the elk provided for me? That question might take a long time to fully answer. But I am going to draw my family closer than ever. I think I will enjoy the warm fire a little more. And I will try to remember that all of this is precious and temporal, God’s gift to each of us. I want to remember that the life we are given is not meant to be trivial. And each Christmas should be more precious than the last.

A winter's view of Mount Redondo from the hot-tub.

Weather coming in from over Redondo.

This was taken from our deck looking nort towards Mount Redondo. The mountain is a very important factor in our weather.

Pictures in the Jemez.

A foggy morning in the Jemez mountains. This picture looks north from our deck.

Our little Jemez Cabin.

This is our little guest house/cabin in the Jemez. There are two rooms, with a fireplace, deck & 3/4 bath.

Married for thirty-eight wonderful years.

My left arm fits across your shoulder as we lie in bed each night.
I have grown an old man’s tummy, and there is a place for it up against the small of your back.
You sleep so peacefully, my body at your side, my ticking heart a comfort to your dreams.
We married young, but I had looked for you for years.
Life had worked on me to form a serious demeanor, and I searched in earnest for you.
Despite my youth, I somehow knew-everything else depended on this choice.
 
I will claim one great strength-a sense for what is beautiful and permanent.
You are beautiful, and will always be beautiful-your beauty is permanent, and my eye will never cease to see that beauty.
There was a day I knew that I must ask-a day that you said yes-and I have walked in beauty from that day.
And it was true, as I knew it must be. Everything depended on that choice.

A long goodbye.

I can say a long goodbye from my small piece of the mountain.

We have said goodbye many times, my lovely, strong and independent girl. We have our little understandings, no delaying the inevitable. And so we didn’t drag it out. But now that you have pulled away, I needn’t hide how hard it is to say goodbye. You cannot know that I hurried to just the right spot, that I shielded my eyes against the sunrise, settling for the smallest glance, the weakest clue that all went well.

Because I know just where to look, I see the metallic flash of the rental car, daughter and granddaughter riding together. They are traveling a twisting rock-dirt road, beautiful but unforgiving. No safety barriers, and no second chance for careless mistakes.
I see another flash, and now I know this new mom, my daughter, has taken her little one safely through the switchbacks. Now I see you again, just a little silver dot, headed down the highway.

I watch for the dim, small flash of taillights, and there they are. That little flash of red tells me that your dear mother, my little daredevil of many years, now wise and cautious with this precious child, decided to slow down just a little for the sharp turn at Battleship rock. Good girl, I say to myself, still slow to know, at my heart’s deepest level, that my little girl is a grown woman, with a miracle of her own, strapped tightly in a little car seat.

No safety barriers indeed, and now you are gone from sight. There will be nothing between you and the mountain, just the way you always wanted it. And I am so proud. My lovely, strong and independent girl.

View of Battleship Rock from our deck.

The elevation at our house is about 7,200 feet. Battleship rock lies to the north, just past Humming Bird music camp. When Barb and I first came to New Mexico on bicycles, we got as far as the park at Battleship Rock before our time ran out and we had to get ready for the long bicycle ride bak to the airport in Albuquerque. This was the beginning of our love for Northern New Mexico.

In anticipation of a new life and being a grandpa.

In anticipation of a new life and being a grandpa.
And to our kids-who, so often, live too far away.

We plant our feet and try to stand,
sometimes on rock,
but sometimes sand is what we find,
beneath our feet, between our toes.

The rock is stable, safe & true.
But sand can move-it swirls and flows.
Sand can polish, sand can hide-
the smallest crack lets sand inside.

Do you like sand,
or is it rock that fits your mood?
We stand on both,
we smile, we brood.

There is a secret to the sand.
It’s true it blows across the land,
but it returns, and you will find
it nestles in the rock from which it came.

Sand and rock-
these are our lives.
Sand and rock and we survive.
So what is grandpa, sand or rock?

Grandpa says, “I have been sand, I have been rock.
Where rock is needed there will be none so sure as me.
the little one may nestle in my clefts,
and she, her mom and dad
will have whatever I possess that they may need”.

There will be time to swirl and flow.
Time for me, and time for them.
But they will always have a rock,
me and grandma, strong and true.

“There is a secret to the sand.
It’s true it blows across the land,
but it returns, and you will find
it nestles in the rock from which it came”.

Bathed in sunlight.

Santa Fe ballon festival.