Month: December 2022

Today, I took a walk with the dogs. To my right, the arroyo dropped 30′ to a shelf of cottonwoods and scrub oak. A thin ribbon of water wound its way down canyon.

To my left, the cliff face rose 600′ to a high mesa. “Monero Man” (a stone figure) lives up there in the rocks, but is hard to see from this angle.

It was quiet. There was no wind, no planes, no birds. Dead quiet. Even my footsteps were hushed. The dogs trotted ahead. They were suddenly on high alert, hearing something out of my range; channeling ancestral Dingo pack behavior: ears up, hackles up, tails straight out, gaze swinging left and right looking for any disturbance in the quiet. On patrol. Hair rose on the back of my neck.

A loud crash exploded from the scrub oak near the creek, 50 yards away. I caught a quick glimpse of an elk butt before it vanished into thicker brush. The bushes shook and branches cracked. The dogs stood stock still, turned to face this potential menace. A flock of small birds and a dozen ravens and crows emerged from the cottonwoods, cackling, cawing, and squawking as they rose into the air, angry that their afternoon nap was disturbed.

For 15 seconds, the noise was cacophonous, as the birds reacted to the elk. Then, just as quickly, the elk stopped moving, and the birds settled back into the bare branches with a few loud complaints. Overhead, a red-tailed hawk cried “kree! kree!”, circled once to check things out (anything yummy down there?), then took the currents up to the top of the cliff. All was quiet again. It happened that fast. The elk was likely just getting comfy.

The dogs looked at me, as if asking if there was something they should have done. I gave them a treat, and we continued our walk in the December light.

Whoever said that winter was boring?

Alan and I did not set out to make a political statement when we moved to 4Fords. Our motivations were much simpler: to simplify our lives, which had become quite overwhelming at our lovely home in Bayfield, what with complex and expensive upkeep and projects, to save some retirement money by cashing in on the real estate boom, and, most importantly, to put our lifetime of skills and knowledge to the test of living comfortably off-grid and environmentally more lightly on the land.

The verdict is still out, but, so far, we seem to be making headway. Recently, Alan put the finishing touches on our indoor composting Envirolet. We have an indoor toilet after 15 months of outhouses! A red-letter day, (if it works properly!) and one that makes me think about our relationship with water.🚰 That’s where our actions might be seen as political.

It is highly likely that water will become the next “resource grab”. It’s already happening in Arizona, where Saudi Arabians were given (by the Bureau of Reclamation) thousands of acres of alfalfa fields with *unlimited* water rights. They sunk deep water wells to irrigate them. Those wells are causing surrounding, older wells (wells that belong to long-time farmers) to go dry. The alfalfa is being shipped to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia does not have enough water to grow their own alfalfa. They are essentially taking the water (and land and produce) that Arizona desperately needs and putting farmers out of business. In the middle of the worst drought in thousands of years. That stuff pisses me off. https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2022/08/11/saudi-firm-fodomonte-pay-arizona-groundwater-use/10271103002/

87% of Americans pay for their water from municipal water systems. Many of those are for-profit organizations (although it’s almost impossible to find out which ones, according to the GAO). The rest of us have private wells or haul water in big tanks that live in the bed of a pick-up or on a trailer. At least 25% of that clean, sanitized water is flushed down our toilets: https://fm.okstate.edu/energyservices/energymanagement/blog/money-down-the-toilet.html#:~:text=The%20toilet%20alone%20can%20use,average%20water%20consumption%20per%20day.

50% of irrigation comes from groundwater wells. And 20% of those are at risk of running dry. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/millions-of-groundwater-wells-could-run-dry/ The second largest subdivision in the US (Aspen Springs in SW Colorado) has no water. http://www.aspenspringsmetro.org/Did-You-Know-.html (Aspen Springs). Residents must buy their water from a nearby commercial well company, and are at the mercy of their prices.

Interestingly, New Mexico encourages residents to “capture” water for personal use, while Colorado considers water to be a resource best managed by the state. You can only save 110 gallons in Colorado off your roof, where cisterns holding thousands of gallons are common here in NM. New Mexico’s motto seems to be to keep the water where it originates. Colorado’s seems to be to control the flow downstream for maximum profit. I love Colorado, but think they may have this one wrong.

Here at 4Fords, we have developed an almost sacred respect for water. We are lucky to have 2 sources: our well that produces 4 gallons/minute, but is non-potable. Good for rinsing dishes, washing hands, and laundry, but not for gardening, cooking or showers…yet. As I have mentioned before, we (….read Alan) are working on improving that by installing big, commercial-grade filters in the well-vault. Our other water is currently stored in an 1100 gallon aboveground rooftop rainwater cistern. It is working out perfectly. Insulated, it has not frozen in the -8 degree nights yet. Filtered, it makes wonderful drinking water. We pump it into an indoor tank every 2 weeks, which gravity-flows into the bathroom and kitchen sinks.

How many of us think about where our water comes from and the work it takes to get it to our tap? We tend to take it (and waste it) for granted….I know I did…..but it really is a complex luxury. Should it be a for-profit business, or is it a human right to have clean water?

Alan and I want to wish everyone a peaceful, joyous season. We embrace the cold, enjoy the short days, the long nights, and the opportunity to relax and slow down for a few months.

Blessings to you all, and may any merit we have created in this year of turmoil and joy be for the benefit of all sentient beings!

Not sure what happened to November, other than a lovely Thanksgiving, but December is here, like it or not! To celebrate, Alan and I took a hike on the Kitchen Mesa Trail at Ghost Ranch. We didn’t make it to the end, as Clair de Lune wasn’t able to hop up the steep chimney (Zane Gray scrambled right up), but I wanted to share some photos of this beautiful place.

In other news, we have made some progress here at 4Fords: check out the finished solar inverter closet on the back porch, built to keep the dust out. Alan wanted to buy a British Telephone Booth for it, but we couldn’t find one. (The other door goes to the Cold Room.)

Having a working composting toilet has been a wonderful step forward in the process of renovation. So far, it works great, but takes some getting used to for sure. Strangely, we both still enjoy using the outhouse during the day. But at 3 a.m……..

Zane Gray sprained his neck about 10 days ago. For several days we had to carry him everywhere and hand feed him. The vet put him on steroids, sedating meds and anti-inflammatories, and he’s been healing well, as you can tell from the photos of our hike today. We’ll need to be more cautious when playing with him; he LOVES to do acrobatics.

Finally, for you gold-panning fans, here’s an interesting pic from another hike we took last week at Hopewell Lake east of Tierra Amarilla.