Pie Town is about 100 miles west of Socorro. There are two restaurants there, one on the north side of U.S. 60, and the other on the south side of U.S. 60. I have eaten at both of them, and have tasted both restaurant's pies. I prefer Pie-o-neer's pies. It was where Annie took me last year just after I got to Datil and her ranch. The festival had been the weekend before I arrived.
The place was full and nearly everyone was having pie and coffee. Some were first eating green chile stew which is served everywhere in New Mexico. It was chilly outside, and I had encountered intermittent rain as we climbed from 4000 feet to near 8000 feet, crossing the Continental Divide just before entering Pie Town. The owner was in the back with several others still making pies, while her wonderful friends took orders, poured coffee, and made sure everyone was happy. Who wouldn't be happy?
I sat down and started eating my pie, which was peach, and was my breakfast/lunch combined. Two young women had just gotten their pie and were looking for a place to sit. I welcomed them to my table. They lived in Albuquerque, and had been coming down for several years. We had a nice talk and I told them about the upcoming Socorro Fest and the Festival of the Cranes, both of which interested them very much. They were off across the street to the craft fair. I wasn't interested in it, and went out on the porch and bought some hand picked apples, of which I had one when I got home. It was crisp and sweet.
Matilda and I left this time headed east on U.S. Route 60. Just before the restaurant I had noted a graveyard of old windmills...
There are windmills all over New Mexico, as there are anywhere there are farms. Most don't operate anymore, and just stand silently, vestiges of earlier times. There are several here in Lemitar that are working, and it is neat to see them turning in the wind.
There has been plenty of rain in this area, and the hillsides have a gray-greenish tinge to them. The wildflowers are blooming again, mostly yellow, but I could see sweeps of violet blue in the fields, along with white and red. I thought about all the green hues I was seeing. The colors were amazing, and I understood why - green, in any color - is easy on the eyes.
All the along the route we drove there were hillsides and fields covered in yellow flours. It reminded me of New England in the fall, when the oak leaves would turn yellow and the maples red. And even if it was cloudy out, it was bright and lovely. The same was true here, but with wildflowers, not deciduous trees. And those wildflowers were out and in abundance, the most prevalent were yellow - different flowers and different yellows...
At one stop, while I was looking at the wild flowers, and picked a few of the yellow for my vase at home, I saw caterpillars, lots and lots of them. I hadn't seen so many caterpillars (excluding the gypsy moth caterpillars in Massachusetts) since I was a kid in Iowa, where we saw lots of caterpillars on the milk weed, and which would become beautiful butterflies. In fact, once or twice we would carefully cut off the stem they were on, put them in jars with holes in the lid, where they would make their cocoon, and eventually make their way back into the world as a beautiful butterfly. It was awesome to watch. Then we would set them free.
But back to the caterpillars I saw. I spied about a dozen coal black things on the flowers and when I went up close, they were not some kind of disease, but were caterpillars...
There were also lots of these guys, but they blended in to the leaves and stems...
As I was taking photos I was also collecting various wildflowers to add to my rock collection in Matilda. Now she has her own beautiful flowered rock garden. I collect rocks wherever I am - rocks that I just like because of shape, color, kind...and I put them on a shelf next to my steering wheel so that I can see them...after I had set up and taken a photo of the flowers tucked in them, at another stop I found a different wild flower, a white one, so I added that also. And if you look closely, in the back is a dried blue one that I picked last year!...
There is even a beautiful piece of jade, in the form of a heart, that my daughter Kat gave me a couple of years ago. It is the flat piece at the bottom left. That heart has gone with Matilda and me everywhere.
Between Datil and Pie Town the mountains in the north have wonderful shapes. They are called the Sawtooth Mountain Range, and are a result of volcanic ash 40 million years ago. They have been compacted over the years, and have these wonderful shapes...
They run across the Continental Divide.
Going through Datil, we came to the Plains of Agustin, which I may have talked about before in another blog. They are flat with very little growth other than grass, and you can see herds of cattle and sometimes pronghorn deer mixed right in with them. The only trees one can see for miles around are those next to a ranch home or barn. About mid-way on the Plains, is the VLA - Very Large Array - on both sides of the road, sentinels of radio waves in space. There was one of the sentinels very close to the north side of the road and I stopped to take a picture...
I turned to take a couple of pictures of some plants and scared up a long eared rabbit, who hid in one of the bushes close by. I never saw him again. But I reached down to pick one of the wild flowers and found that it was some type of cactus...
At the same time I took a picture of what looks to be bushes, but they are clumps of wild flowers that will blossom yellow. They are everywhere...
I turned back to get into Matilda and once again looked at the nearby array. It had moved its position to the sky and I hadn't even seen it!!!...
In fact every one of them had simultaneously moved to the new position. It was magic...but I think someone pushed a button.
Going backward one day, Friday morning, before meeting the Lunch Bunch, I met the owner of Frolicking Deer Lavender Farms, which is in Datil. I wanted some lavender plants. Since they do not allow anyone to come to the farms (due to some bad behavior on the part of some visitors), he told me he was coming into Socorro and would meet me and bring the pots. I suggested the Manzaneras Coffee House near the Plaza...
Near the blue door which you can see, is a small strip of ground between the concrete parking places. In this strip, someone has planted the cutest cactus garden. I am sure it is one of the employees...
We have had very interesting weather here...for the first time since I have been here - nearly one year to the day - we have had two and half days of clouds, with female rains. The farmers will be very happy because of the severe drought. Today it is still cloudy, but it is getting brighter, and I expect the sun will be out shortly. The temperature has also dropped, and last night I could sleep with my top sheet covering me. First time in about three months!
I see the sun shining outside my window as I type, so I am going to put on my old sneakers, and go out and plant my lavender. But first I leave this political cartoon for you. It was in the Socorro bi-weekly newspaper - El Defensor Chieftain...
Go Obama!
Life is good!
I love you all,
Sally
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