May

[patinagle]

Busy month!

Garden catch-up: the oaks finally leafed out about two weeks ago. Everything's awake now, and I've planted tomatoes. Planted nasturtiums, too - first time I've grown them. Boy, are they enthusiastic! Mama's redbud tree has a new set of leaves and looks very happy.

The black-headed grosbeaks have arrived, and so have the goldfinches. Many band-tailed pigeons also. They keep knocking down the window feeder.

Couple of days ago I saw a very large snake by the raised beds. The back half of a very large snake, that is. The front half was already down a burrow at the end of said raised beds. I think it was a bull snake - sorry I didn't get a picture, but it was impressive.

We spent the long weekend in Cloudcroft, a pretty little town in the Sacramento Mountains of southern New Mexico. Ponderosa forests, green everywhere. Amazing lightning and pouring rain. When the sun was out we hiked in some old railbeds that are now hiking trails, and saw a couple of old trestles that were built when the area was booming in the lumber industry. Here's a picture of a trestle that is, ahem, no longer serviceable.

Amazing how much work went into building these things. These timbers are huge, two feet thick at least. There were over 40 trestles on the run to Cloudcroft. All fallen into ruin less than 200 years later.

Points in The Race:

20 for stories (pile to send back out)
16 for novels

36 total

2 pages written (still a busy month)