This past Sunday I went down to Bosque Del Apache to see what was what.  The weather here has been very dry and rain is very much needed.  The rangers finally got permission to start flooding several fields and filling up the "lagoon" last week, in anticipation of the arrival of the sandhill cranes, snow geese, and all the other water fowl.  

As I started my drive around the tour loop, I first stopped at the lagoon and walked the boardwalk - this was the first thing I saw...

Last year at this same time, the lagoon was full, and I took pictures of the many turtles and fish in it, as well as a blue heron and several other birds who were fishing!

As I walked farther out on the boardwalk, there was water, mostly on the far side where white pelicans had taken up residence while they rested up for the rest of their trip...

Further along on the drive, I came across four mule deer on the side of the road munching away.  One of them was a teenager and still following his mother...

The rest of the drive around the loop had no wildlife appearing anywhere.   The colors this year are not as bright as last year, but combined together they present a beautiful scene...

Leaving the loop and going back to San Antonio, I spied a wonderful sight and there they were (and they weren't there when I drove by them going to the Bosque - about a hundred sandhill cranes feeding in the fields and making their gurgling sounds.  Then by fives and tens and twenties they began flying off, probably to the area which is being flooded now, and where they fly in for the night, along with many ducks and snow geese.  The snow geese have yet to put in an appearance...

Down the road not far from this scene was another field which was being flooded.  There I had seen coming in lots of ducks, so I stopped on my way out to take a picture.  I can't tell you what type of ducks they are, but they were slurping away and bottoms up, just like ducks...

There has been a number of events going on here in my little part of the world.  And I will relate some of them to you, not necessarily in order however.

The night of the Harvest Moon I drove to the Bosque del Apache to watch the moonrise and the sunset.  In spite of some clouds, I got some really nice pictures of both...one of the moon pics looks very much like a watercolor...

The sunset was also spectacular...

There is an Alpaca farm in San Antonio, NM.  I had never seen or petted alpacas, and the owners were having an open house, which was outstanding.  The people around here are so open and friendly, and always smiling.  I love it.  The first alpaca that I saw was by himself.  He and another in another fenced in area were males and the sires of the group...

The owner of the farm came right up to me and welcomed me.  It is her son who fell in love with alpacas and persuaded his parents to let him raise them on their farm.  I believe she told me he started off with four, and now has a pretty good group.  

Alpacas are raised for their wool.  They are sheared once a year, and the wool gets carded and spun into yarn.  They were selling some of their yarn, which was all natural colors.  I purchased a few skeins for Kat.  

Alpacas also have their own toilet for peeing and pooping, and they don't do this anywhere else.  In the following pic you can see a very wet spot in the middle of the fenced in area.  That is their bathroom...

The owner of the alpacas stayed in the area where the moms and little ones were, watching the children feed snacks to them, and pet them.  I think he was also making sure that they didn't get spit at by a disgruntled alpaca who didn't think he was getting enough of the snacks...

 The farm also has two Newfoundland dogs who love people, so they had put them in another area.  I spied one of them standing in the alpaca's drinking water, on the other side of the fence.  He was so cute...

The first show at the Tech Macey Center was the Official Blues Brothers Revue.  It was wonderful.  Everyone was singing and dancing was encouraged.  We clapped and sang and danced where we stood.  High energy and feel good music.  If you see them advertised where you are, it is worth it to go see them...

I can't tell you why this is sideways.  It doesn't appear that way in my albums.  However, I have tried to rotate it several times and it still appears like this.  Oh, well, I am sure Kat or Phil could tell me what I have done, but you know what?  I am not going to stress over it.  It is what it is!

On the first Saturday of October and April, the Trinity Site is open to the public.  A friend and I drove out to the White Sands Missile Range where the Trinity Site is located. It is only about 25 miles from San Antonio, NM.  The entire area for miles and miles is all restricted property of the U.S. Army, where a lot of testing and experiments take place.  Everything has to be shut down when the site is opened to the public.  And as you drive in, there are posted signs restricting photography only to the Trinity Site area.  

We drove for several miles and then were shown where to park.  The first thing I saw was Jumbo...

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Jumbo was built in Ohio and brought to the Trinity Site by train and a specially built trailer with 64 tires to move it to the site.  It was originally intended to have the plutonium bomb suspended in the center of it.  However, that plan was scrapped, and Jumbo was placed under a steel tower about 800 yards from ground zero.  The tower was totally destroyed but Jumbo remained intact.  In 1946, the Army detonated eight 500-pound bombs inside of it.  Because it was standing on end, the blast blew out both ends of it.  Now it stands at the entrance to ground zero.  

We walked out 1/4 mile from Jumbo to the fenced off area where ground zero was.  On our way out there were a couple of tables discussing and showing the radiation still around the area.  The first picture are radioactive rocks called Trinitite.  The second picture is showing a man demonstrating a detector for radiation...

We walked into the fenced in area and saw the obelisk placed on the exact spot where the bomb detonated.  It was kind of an awesome moment for me to think of what that bomb means in the history of mankind, and to also realize that the following bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a month later, would be bringing my father back home from the Japanese Prison Camp on the same island as the bombings...

The bomb was on a 100 foot steel tower at ground zero.  Here it was placed in a small hut for final assembly. I always thought that the bomb was dropped, but it was stationary on the tower at the time of detonation.  The tower was vaporized by the blast.  Here is a picture of one of the tower's exposed footings... 

Interestingly enough, the crater the bomb made was small, only about 4 feet deep and 240 feet in diameter.  It was subsequently filled in, after the Atomic Energy Commission took away a substantial amount of Trinitite, a type of rock made as a result of the explosion, where the sand was taken up into the fire and melted and became a glassy type rock, looking greenish.  You can see it around but there are signs about which ask that no one take it from the area.  But....I saw several people pocket rocks, and I am guessing they were Trinitite.  Frankly, even though it isn't really harmful, it still is radioactive.  Here is a picture I took of Trinitite on the ground...and yes, I placed the pieces that way...

On the fences were pictures of the detonation and people who were involved with it.  I took photos of every one of them, but I am only including a few here...first the detonation...

A photographer took a picture of this soldier looking into the crater after it detonated.  We noticed that his name was not there.  We wondered what had happened to him...I wonder if he may have died from radiation exposure...

Here is a picture of the area where the men working on this project lived...

In the middle of the fenced off area of the Trinity Site was Fat Man, the casing that carried one of the two bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki...

Liz and I walked back to the car and headed back for San Antonio, NM where she had parked her truck. As we headed out, there was a mound of sand on my right.  It once was a bunker where men could observe the test, and is now covered up by sand, either intentionally or by the wind.  You guess which!

Now for some extra trivia...This is the sign of the Buckhorn Restaurant in San Antonio, NM, where Bobby Flay took on the chef to see who could make the best green chile cheeseburger.  Bobby Flay lost in the subsequent taste test.  I haven't had one yet, but very soon, very soon...

 Can you identify this? 

Probably not, so I am going to tell you.  No, it isn't a spider.  No, it isn't a worm.  It is the seed pod of the screw bean mesquite tree.  See, now you have learned something new, and it is always good to add one new thing to your brain each day.

Several times over the past several months I have seen what I call quarter rainbows.  There has been rain in the mountains or showers around the area, but the sun is still shining in most places, and then I see a quarter rainbow...Very neat I think, don't you? Not the greatest photograph I have taken however...

Do you remember last year when Mike, Edna and I walked up to participate in the ground breaking for the Familia de Segrada Mission Church that had collapsed.  Here are a couple of pictures of it now.  The first photo shows the trusses and roof going on.  That is now completed.  The second photo I just took two days ago.  The men are there every day at 7AM working.  The hope is that the church will be finished for New Year's Day, when the Fiesta is held...

This past Saturday I was in charge of the bake sale for the Friends of the Library, who were having their bi-annual Book and Bake Sale.  We did pretty well with the cookies and things.  I think the Book Sale netted considerably more.  It was fun.  Then I went over to the Socorro Fest Harmonica Contest, held in the Capitol Bar on the Plaza.  It was the first time I had ever stepped inside it.  It is very old and historic and the bartender told me that over its lifetime it has burned down three times.  It was fun to sit at the bar and sip a glass of beer and listen to the harmonica players, and then to Blue Monday, a group of five guys who normally play at the Buckhorn on Monday nights.  

I have been doing a lot of reading and streaming of Canadian TV series.  In books, I have finished CUTTING FOR STONE, A NAZI OFFICER'S WIFE, and THE MYTH MAKERS.  I am currently reading A PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, which I picked up at the book sale.  I have never been able to read James Joyce, and don't know if I will get through this book, albeit it is not a long piece.

I love the Canadian TV series.  Their characters, like those of the British series, aren't necessarily beautiful creatures.  And I have been loving DA VINCI'S INQUEST and THE BORDER, my two most recent shows which I still have not finished.  

That's about it folks.  Our lunch group meets every Friday at a different restaurant each time, and we kind of rotate the restaurants around the area.  I have started with a singing group on Mondays late afternoon, which is fun.  My poetry group meets tonight, and I have two new poems to read.  And speaking of poems, I have submitted four of mine to a poetry contest.  Kind of out of my box, but I was able not to talk myself out of doing so.  I continue to volunteer down at the Bosque del Apache, helping to organize a mass of papers covering about ten years.  The AAUW along with the Socorro Historical Society hosted two different lectures on the Titanic.  The first was about the Titanic as well as a personal account from a professor at Tech whose grandfather was a steward on the Titanic and went down with it.  Very interesting.  The second was the account of two local women who took the Titanic Memorial Cruise from Ireland to New York.  That too was very interesting.  

As you can see there is a lot to do around here.  

Life is good.

I love you all,

Sally