Juneteenth, 2022: Uitwaaien

Literally: “Outblowing”, the Dutch activity of spending time in the wind, usually by going for a walk or a bike ride.

There’s been a lot of Uitwaaien around here these past 2 months as there’s been more wind than I’ve ever seen in the Southwest. Coming from all directions, soft, hard, night and day. Up to 60mph. Even more than the sun and heat, it’s dried out the grasses to the point that by June 8th there wasn’t a speck of it living in the valley. The wind covered everything in a thin layer of dust in a matter of minutes to be blown away by the next gust. The dryness has bought out a plague of grasshoppers, who thrive the drier/hotter/windier it is. We’ve spent many hours out in this wind hiking, walking, and working, moving between loving its energizing wildness and sound to hating its killing everything and creating monstrous wildfires. Uitwaaien. The world is indeed outblowing.

Finally, the weather pattern broke. For 4 days now we’ve had rain, about 3″ of it, mostly soft, gentle drizzles (female rain in Navajo culture). Yesterday, though, we had a real gullywasher! (Male rain, although Will called it “Samurai Rain“). Hoo-wee, the hail came, the wind, lightning, and more than an inch of water in about 30 minutes. The ditches, the arroyo, the yard were awash. We had just decided to take a walk, thinking it would tempt the rain to fall, and our ploy worked! We had to run to take shelter in the shed across the road.

More rain is coming, and suddenly we’re in Monsoon Season. What a relief from worrying about fire. Now we can worry about flash floods! Much more pleasant.

In other news, we spent 4 lovely days in Denver. I’ve decided that being in the city is a series of marvelous interludes of fun (family, wedding, party, food, a great AirBnB) interrupted by episodes of traveling through the 9 circles of Dante’s Hell (driving around Denver). To be an urban dweller in Western American cities means being much better than I at repressing those episodes. We brought Alex and Will back with us for a visit, which is one of those special grandparent pleasures! Love being a grandparent.

3000′ (10 acres or so) of elk-friendly, cow-deterring fence is nearly built. The crew has been doing a great job in the wind and heat and should finish by Wednesday. It is our first major step in repairing decades of erosion surrounding the house. Within a couple of years, we should see much more riparian plant life along the arroyo. Alan’s finishing a job in Pagosa, then we will start on the big solar array. The well is pumping filtered water all the way to the house, but still needs some tweaking before we can start really relying on it. In the garden/greenhouse our potatoes, beans, onions, tomatoes, basil and peppers are doing great! Boy, did they love the rain. The grasshoppers destroyed the sunflowers, though.