Imagine walking into Stone Moth Canyon

At the far end of the trail you pass beyond a ridge and can no longer see or hear any signs of the city. No houses, no traffic noise, not even the tinkle of the popsicle truck. Thankfully, no litter.  Just the trail and the volcanic basalt, and the markings. The canyon has a low, continuous hum. Bending low, you realize it is the sound of small bees.

Imagine the petroglyphs scratched into the black basalt are symbols of moths. Hundreds, thousands of moths marking the boulders. You would have to climb in and around the stones to spy moths on every side, even on the top to be viewed from high on the ridge. What do the moth symbols mean? Who made them? Why?

We can only guess at the meanings of the petroglyphs in Albuquerque's magical National Petroglyph Monument. We can only be open to the wonder and the connection to those artists of so long ago. Are there moths painted deep inside caves? Are there moths in the art of indigenous peoples of Africa, Australia, even the polar regions?

Thank you to the moth-makers whose images I edited onto the basalt of the canyon. They seemed like images across millennia. Here are a couple sites that intrigued me as I went on this imaginary hike:

• Capturing Similarities in Rock Art
• Rock Art Database

The petroglyphs below were made 400 to 700  years ago. Most were made by Native Americans, but a few were made by early Spanish settlers in the area. They are very young compared to the estimate of 20,000 years old for the Lascaux cave paintings.

This one is my favorite. It seems to tell a tall tale of long-billed birds eating lizards and snakes. A person with big feet walked through the story!

When I see the hand symbols my thought is always, "I am. I make."

Keep making.

© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

Where's Waldo wildlife photography

Took a crazy number of photos on my two day trip, trying to catch bees, lizards, ground squirrels with fluffy silvery tails, and jack rabbits on the go. I saw more jack rabbits on this trip than ever before. They pop up, zigzag off at great speed, then freeze completely blending into the vegetation.

Back home I've downloaded the photos and fired up the Photoshop. Let the search begin! There are about seventy images that must have some creature in them...

1. A cooperative Painted Lady butterfly at the Elena Gallegos Picnic Area in the Sandia foothills. The million dollar views up there cost one dollar admission weekdays.

2. Also at the picnic area, a jack rabbit. Yes, there really is one hiding in this photo. Hint--it's on the right half. Out of all the photos, this is the only one I where I can spy Waldo.

3. Piedras Marcadas Canyon of Petroglyph National Monument was full of jack rabbits. I'm not making this up.  See half a dozen of them in this photo? Me neither! Remember the olden days of film cameras? My photo failures would have cost a fortune!

4. My walk in the canyon was accompanied by a constant low hum. Bees! Big, small, tiny, all very busy and not the least interested in people. The petroglyph symbol lower right looks like a bee to me.

5. Turtles at the Rio Grande Nature Center State Park.  Three more dollars well spent to see this nature center and learn much about the ecology of the Rio Grande River. Walked the Bosque and River trails, and had enough sense not to attempt hummingbird photos.

  

 6. The lizards were surprising willing to pose for pictures. Note the blue-tailed juvenile.

I wish all the moth-makers of the Moth Migration Project could visit this enchanting state and experience the creative refueling I always find. And good luck with the jack rabbit photography!


© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

Thanksgiving losses, gains, and late hits

Tonight I'm thinking about my blog muse, and feeling very, very grateful for her encouragement to try the new-fangled concept of blogging back in '03. My dear friend Juliet, who shall remain nameless, thought I might enjoy trying a new creative outlet. She volunteered her early techie support, cheerleading, and the courage to read pretty much everything I sent out into the blogosphere. From this distance it's clear we were new friends then, just a couple steps up from acquaintances, what with "friending" not even a THING yet in that primitive era.

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday having won that title when the Fourth of July became too nerve-wracking as a mom. All Thanksgiving asks is that we spend some time in mindfulness and gratitude. Everything else is gravy.

Thanksgiving does not insist on family, togetherness, football on tv, front yard football leading to dislocated collarbones, long-distance travel, TSA security checks, belief in the Pilgrims/Indians legend, agreement about cranberry or stuffing recipes, aprons, crockpots, brining, yams, family storytelling, or table decorations crafted by children out of toilet paper tubes. Family storytelling is preferrable to political arguments, though.

Over a lifetime I've observed Thanksgiving in many roles. I've been the mother, the child, the grandchild, the grandma, the host, the guest, the cook, the communication hub, the in-law, the parent without custody for the holiday, the parade balloon, the quarterback sack, all alone in nature, the charity case, the hospital kitchen worker, the sandwich generation caregiver, the griever, the teacher, the listener, the organizer, the raker, the pitted black olive thief, and the recorder.

The first Thanksgiving after losing a parent will be difficult, Dear. The pieces don't fit, the floor seems slanted, all conventions are off, but the family stories  bubble up from a long-plugged well. It's all good. The thoughts of many will be with you and your family. I'm thankful for you.


© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

29

Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday, the Woolly Mammoth lived in a forest all by himself under the name of Fargo, dude.
































© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Ketchup brass

In this year of the monkey I am attempting to clean a brass lid with ketchup. Bob Vila told me to. So far the results are not terrific, but I will persevere. Naturally I am wondering about the term "brass monkey".

Much of the nation will be extremely cold this weekend, what might be called "brass monkey weather", while I'll be having lunch on a park bench soaking up the vitamin D. For a century and a half the weather has been torturing brass monkeys, freezing parts off here, and melting others off there. No ketchup was involved in this colloquialism.

Adding to my unease is my inability to locate the small figure of three wise monkeys from Grandma's dining room whatnot shelf. Surely I stored See, Hear, and Speak No Evil in a logical place, and don't call me Shirley.

If the ketchup doesn't do the trick, I could try salsa. But then what would I put on my breakfast burrito?


© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Firing the imagination

Book reviews with bacon, what could be better? Library Journal and Kirkus reviews of Christopher Rothko's new book* about his father's art kicked me to make my first ever bucket list. No plans to kick the bucket anytime soon, but I was reminded that I've wanted to visit the Rothko Chapel in Houston. Being unable to breathe in Houston, the horrible drivers there, plus little details of work and finances have kept this goal on the hazy someday list for a quarter century or so.

The baker's dozen items on this evening's first bucket list draft are pretty tame. I still hope to visit Crystal Bridges in Arkansas with my old buddy, Library Janie. Caring for elderly parents have postponed this for years now, first mine and now hers.

Six destinations surprised me with a common theme:

1. Ashfall Fossil Beds in Nebraska in honor of my mother, and a site on Smithsonian's Evolution World Tour
2. Mount St. Helens should be doable with a son in Oregon.
3. Knossos on the island of Crete has fascinated me since about 1966 along with
4. Santorini/Thera in the Aegean Sea
5. Iceland
6. Krakatoa 

Never realized I was a frustrated geothermal volcano seeker until now!

If I actually learned my demise was looming, I would ask to have bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs with salsa, fresh-squeezed orange juice, bottomless hot black coffee, gooey cinnamon rolls with pecans, and hash browns with mushrooms and bell peppers served on a screened porch every morning. It would be a fine countdown. Oh and maybe some watermelon and cantaloupe balls, not to be greedy.

© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

How to make tamales: Step 1

First you have to fly into LaGuardia late at night to beat the rotten weather and flight delays arriving on Wednesday. Watching the chaos of the passenger pickup confirms that you have entered an alternate galaxy.

Be sure to have some turkey left over from the big feast. Drive through tunnels and urban canyons to Sur La Table for the cooking class. Learn to chop onions the RIGHT way:

Push the pause button. You will have to return to these instructions in a later post. In the meantime, practice your chopping technique. A sharp knife is essential.

© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder

Goldilocks and the three dragonfly larva

Huevos rancheros for breakfast lately, but not with green chile sauce. Green chile is starting to look a lot like dragonfly larva camouflaged at the bottom of the pond.

My two favorite things about my new job are brainstorming nature education programs and doing pond dipping presentations. Few things delight me more than sharing the life cycle of dragonflies with visitors. I meet the nicest people huddled over a tub of duckweed and squirming midge larvae.

So it was just right when a family with five little stair-step boys in matching orange striped shirts and baseball caps came to the pond dipping. The oldest would have been glad to take over scooping critters out of the wetlands with my net. The youngest was recently out of diapers, but could catch tiny mosquitofish with his fingers. Yes, he tended to squeeze the little fishies a bit too (lethally) hard.

This group of little guys, plus a dad, grandpa, and an uncle were the perfect audience when the pond dipping began to look like Marlin Perkins attacked by a crocodile on "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom". I had just identified and shown them a tiny damselfly larva when the smallest dragonfly larva captured and ate it. Then a bigger dragonfly larva caught the little one. After quite a "wrassle"* the big one ate the little one. The kids in striped shirts were looking through magnifying glasses and eating this up! It was real life, not a video game.

Wee baby dragonfly larva with snail

Mama dragonfly larva

  

Big daddy dragonfly larva

Just right damselfly larva

REALLY big green chile dragonfly larva

“I bet, with my net, I can get those Things yet!”

*Wrassle is an infrequently used spelling of the word wrestle, which is defined as to tussle with or physically fight with someone.

© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder