July 26, 2023: Hot time, Summer in the Country

This is my mantra of the week. There is no doubt in my mind that where we live molds our culture and our behavior. One of the sillier ways I see it is in the obsession so many urban folks have with wearing black. Do they know that black became popular in part as a way to hide the ubiquitous coal dust that coated everything in the 1800s? Before that, black was rare (expensive to dye, so only for the wealthy) and for widows and funerals, but designers and dressmakers in the Victorian era were unable to fix the stained chintzes and silks their customers brought back, so there was a campaign (started in Paris, I believe, then quickly spread to London and NYC) to make black popular. And it never slowed down. The dirt found on farms can wash out more easily, so it never caught on in rural areas……landscape and culture. (There’s a great article about this in an old NY Times, but it won’t let me link it here)

For those who live in a landscape where nature is non-existent, or at least well-subdued and groomed, the culture must evolve as anthropocentric (1): humans as the center of all things. That’s what it looks like to most (but not all, of course!) city-dwellers. Nature represents at best only retreat, vacation, or occasional beauty, at worst a scary and dangerous place needing subjugation. Whereas, in a landscape where you are tiny and nature is everything, the culture becomes increasingly biocentric (2), and that musk thistle Alan and I deplore becomes as important as ourselves.

Yesterday, I spent the day in Pagosa Springs while the truck was in the shop. I hung out at the Root House Coffee Shop, which serves great stuff and has lots of comfy seating, then took a 5 mile walk along the River Trail, through downtown and then south through the wetlands, stopping every little bit to wet my head and feet in the San Juan River, as it was above 90.

Unfortunately, they were unable to fix neither the truck horn nor the back up camera, so the day was pretty much a bust, but I did enjoy the river.

In the meantime, Alan installed the second-stage Regulator, which essentially regulates the main Regulator. Who’d think that propane could be so complicated? He did get the dryer hooked up, and has made good progress on hot water.

On Sunday, we took the day off for a drive to escape heat in the AC of the truck and visit a friend in Ensenada. We explored the Los Brazos area, a lovely winding road up to the Los Brazos Cliffs, with many summer homes and cabin/RV resorts. There’s no public access in the area, which was disappointing. Then we went through Heron Lake State Park, stopping at the lake to let the dogs cool off. Zane jumped, dove, swam and had a blast. Clair sedately waded along the edge, never going deeper than 3″. She really does not like water. We found the Rio Chama Trail, a 11 mile out-and-back hike along the river, and plan to go back once it cools down a bit.

The prolonged drought has made us more aware and nervous about water. We decided to install a second rainwater cistern. It holds 1600 gallons and will catch roof water off the front of the house. A contractor will be digging the hole and hauling sand to level it in a few days. Our other cistern, which holds 1100 gallons, is down to about 400 gallons. This is our drinking and cooking water. The well is doing a great job for everything else, still running at 5 gallons/minute, which is a lot of water for this part of the Southwest in the middle of a long, hot, dry spell.

We have a lot of musk thistle in the arroyo, grown 6′ tall from seeds washed down in the flash floods. Alan and I are not fond of musk thistle, as it is prickly and competes with native grasses, but bees and hummingbirds love it, and it provides homes, food, and pollen for both, so we are learning to like it more. (Practicing Biocentrism?).

After refinishing the hearth with epoxy (in last post), I decided that I liked the results so much I wanted to do more. So I spread a bunch of the stuff on the rock that holds up our stair stringers. (The adobe floor alone is not solid enough to hold up that kind of weight). I decided to make a diorama of it, and turned it into a little lake, complete with a rhino and frogs.

Pray for rain.

(1) https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/anthropocentrism#:~:text=Anthropocentrism%20literally%20means%20human%2Dcentered,or%20in%20their%20instrumental%20value.

(2) (https://study.com/academy/lesson/biocentrism-in-environmental-ethics.html#:~:text=Biocentrism%20is%20the%20ethical%20perspective,and%20protection%20of%20the%20environment.)