It is cloudy out today.  It's unusual to wake up to a totally sunless day here.  In the next few days we are expecting hazy days as the smoke from the Arizona forest fires comes through the area. 

A huge huckleberry tree outside in the backyard is leaking huckleberries everywhere, and when I go out to water my tomato plants I can't help but walk on them.  Unfortunately I can't harvest them because the tree stands about 50 feet in the air and shading my little adobe house.  The birds naturally have a field day in the branches, including pooping purple all over the walls and on Matilda.  She isn't even parked near the tree!  I now remember to wipe my shoes on the concrete threshold, before walking into the house, as the old rug there getting stained with huckleberries which have made their way in on the soles of others.

I remember our first family reunion on Block Island.  Frank was just a baby.  Huckleberries were in season, and Mother would go out and harvest them.  We had huckleberry pancakes, huckleberry pie, huckleberry muffins, as well as dishes of fresh huckleberries with real cream! 

Casa de Serenidad now has brand new windows.  They were installed on Wednesday.  A joy to behold.  Double paned, thermal windows.  Pella windows made in the good old US of A!  Iowa, in fact.  What a concept!  Here is one of the old windows right next to where I am writing.  It had the air conditioner in it, and the night before the windows were installed one of the panes in it fell out!  Maybe it knew it was being replaced the next day...The window below it is the replacement...and below that is one of the new windows in my living room...

What a difference the windows make.  Everything is air tight.  All windows can be easily opened and shut.  All windows have screens.  And because of being thermal and with added technology, they all filter out the bad rays from the sun, as well as keep the house about 20 degrees cooler than outside, without A/C or fans.

We have had some very interesting weather over the past couple of weeks, culminating last weekend with heavy rain, hail that literally covered the roads, and thunder and lightening.  I took a picture of the wet road outside the house just to prove that we had rain...I also called Edna and had her listen to the thunder! 

In Magdalena, a small Category 1 tornado touched down, fortunately not doing any real damage.  Tornadoes are not a common occurrence around here. I hadn't heard about it until I heard a woman telling someone about it.  She lives in Magdalena and was about 200 yards away from it.  When I saw her outside the store, I talked to her about her experience.  She told me she was scared sh--less, but her husband stood in the doorway and watched it!  Craziness, I say.

On Mother's Day I went to Socorro's Sedillo Park to attend the Annual Mother's Day Pow-Wow, sponsored by the Alamo Navaho Reservation which is outside of Magdalena.  It started on Saturday, amid rain and hail.  Under a huge tent were a huge number of people in their lawn chairs, watching the proceedings, with many of them already to participate in the dances which would take place throughout the afternoon.  All the participants lined up and entered the tent when called, until the entire center was filled with men, women, teenagers, and children in tribal dress, ready to dance.  It was awesome and the outfits were beautiful.  

I took a picture of a gentleman who struck up a conversation with me. He was a Cherokee.  He was in full dance regalia with a ton of bells sewn in circles around the pant legs.  He told me he traveled all over, now that he is retired, and just loves to dance.  He did tell me what his dance is about, but I can't remember what it was. 

 Many of the dance participants wore numbers and were being judged, either by their peers or by a jury - I don't know which.  There were also a number of drum circles in various corners of the tent, each with one big drum and ten or twelve men sitting around it drumming as various groups were introduced. 

It is worth noting here that the participants are not wearing "costumes" or "uniforms" as many people would like to say.  Rather, they are wearing various tribal dance outfits for the different types of dances being performed.  The men had elegant outfits made up with different types of feathers. The women had beautiful colorful dresses, many with silver objects sewn on them, like the picture above.  All were in moccasins and were wearing some type of headdress.  Unless you ask permission to take pictures, it is not appropriate to do so.  With the two pictures above, I asked permission from the man and the woman with the little boy.  It is a sign of respect.

All the kitchen cabinet doors have been taken off and awaiting paint.  And I am procrastinating.  I did wash them down, and deglossed them.  Next is prime and paint.  I guess I am "Waiting for Godot."  I plan on getting them primed this weekend, and then drive to Los Lunas to pick up a gallon of the paint I am using.  One pint "ain't gonna" do the job!


Anne is now in the local nursing home in Socorro,  called Good Sam's (Good Samaritan Society).  I have been to see her a couple of times.  She has lost weight, and is a little foggy at times, but knows me and everyone else who has visited her.  I brought her some of my oatmeal raisin cookies and a bag of Jolly Ranchers for her birthday, which was the 12th.   I kind of expect that they may still be on her dresser in her room untouched, but I do hope that she has had some.  I know she loves oatmeal raisin, and one of the nurses told me that she isn't eating much, and sleeping even less.  She is in a room with a  102 year old woman who stays in bed most of the day.  Anne fortunately gets up and dressed, and gets out of the room! 


Because of all the rain that we have had, the cacti all around are blooming.  The blossoms don't last very long, but are brilliant and beautiful to see - these two next pictures are of a "tree" that to me looks like a yucca but it is huge... the second one is some type of cacti that I have seen before but never seen in blossom...

Inside and outside of my front wall, I have what everyone around here calls wild hollyhocks..

Apparently they come in lots of different colors, but this apricot/orange color is the most commonly seen.  I haven't pulled them because I like them.


I have two different types of cacti growing around my home.  One is a prickly pear cactus "tree".  I trimmed it back because it was so full of dead branches and now being rewarded with gorgeous magenta blossoms...

The other type of cactus is in three different locations around my home.  One huge grouping is outside the wall, on the east side.  Most of it was covered up by weeds and such, and I spent some time pulling and cutting down, along with getting thorns in my fingertips, even though I wore leather gloves, with garden gloves inside of them!!!  I still have much to do in that area.  Then I have two smaller clumps of the same cacti within and without my backyard...

When the installers were here putting in the windows, one of them found all these small eggs lying randomly on the ground outside of my western wall. He put them all together thinking they had fallen from nests in the bushes.

At lunch yesterday I showed the picture to my friends, and it was the general consensus that they were quail eggs.  "But I have never seen even one quail around here," says I.  And I know that they travel in groups.  I was told that they are out early morning and late at night.  "But if one leaves random eggs around, who is the designated sitter???"  No one could answer that conundrum.  This grouping of eggs still remains, but I have spotted one which is tucked away in debris outside the wall.  I am sure the eggs that were picked up and put in one place will not be touched, but I am wondering about that single egg.  Hmmm! 


I streamed a really good movie, a sleeper, from Netflix called THE SECRET LIFE OF WORDS.  And I watched THE IRON LADY with Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher.  Meryl did an outstanding job, I thought.  Tonight I am going to watch THE DEBT which just came today.  


Yesterday I went to the library and picked up two more of Steve Havill's books, and am already about half done with one of them.  Also I am reading THE ANGEL OF DEATH by Caleb Carr.  I had read his first one, THE ALIENIST, which was great.  Both books have the same group of characters in them, which is fun. They take place in NYC in the 1890's. 

Between the two Carr books I read FUGITIVE PIECES by Anne Michaels.  Another interesting novel, very lyrical.  I seem to have read five or six books within the past four months, all written about different aspects of people's lives during Hitler's reign of terror in Europe. 


I leave you all with this poem, which I wrote.  I considered it a Haiku, but I was told at one of the workshops I attended at the NM Poetry Convention, that it was not a Haiku in the strictest sense of the word.  However,  I LIKE IT!

Still. Silent. Watching.

Ancient desert saguaros

Keep watch over all.

Sarah Atwell Williams 

April 2012

Life is good.

I love you all,

Sally