December 2

Little Kenny sat through a 5-6in. snow last night!

 

December 13

Winter snows have covered the ground around the house in the last couple of weeks. Several different kinds of birds are now coming to our feeders and watering dishes in flocks and coveys. They will stay together until spring when their hormones make them not so congenial with each other.

Other birds who come are canyon tohees, curve-billed trashers, house finches, white-crowned sparrows, a rufous spotted tohee, juncos, western bluebirds, western scrub jays, common ravens, American robins, red-shafted northern flickers , Eurasian collard doves, mourning doves and a cooper's hawk. (Sometimes the hawk has a quail supper!)

Hungry mouring doves	Hungry scaled quail

December 16

Susan and I decided to get out for a drive after the snow storms. We drove north to the White Rock Overlook which looks over the Rio Grande not far from Los Alamos. Looking north the snow covered Truches peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains are visible in the distance with Black Mesa on the San Ildefonso Pueblo in the mid-range. Looking south the Rio Grande cuts its way through the Jemez Mountains. The temperature there was about 31 degrees, but no wind. Very pleasant!

 

December 21

Jupiter and Saturn's position in the night sky came together as the "Christmas Star." They appeared together from the vantage point of the earth and will not do it again for 400 years! We are lucky to have been able to have seen it from our back porch. Jupiter is the larger and brighter of the two.

 

Normal view	Telescopic view

 

December 22

Christmas lights on the Santa Fe Plaza

December 31

Susan and I took our last long lunch drive of 2020 today. We first drove to Madrid and walked from one end to the other on the main street. Some tourists, but still not much open. Then we drove south on Hwy-14 to a high point in the road next to the San Pedro Mountains where we ate our sandwiches, chips and cookies. We could see Cabazon Peak and the Jemez Mountains to the west from where we were parked. After lunch we drove down Hwy-14 to Cedar Crest where we picked up a slab of Bar-B-Q pork ribs to bring home for our New Years Eve supper. We went farther down the road to Tijeras and then back through the Galisteo Basin through Stanley, Galisteo and home. It was a wonderful day and we saw lots of beautiful scenery!

January 10

Roadrunner behind the cholla	Sleeping doves

 

January 17

Beautiful Sunday afternoon, so Susan and I took a lunch drive. Today we went north on I-25 to the Hwy-3 turn off at Ribera. We drove down to the little community of San Miguel del Vado. Lots of history there:

1. It is the community where the Missouri trader, William Becknell met don Pedro Ignacio Gallego with and his Mexican troops and several hundred pueblo Indians. The community is were they were taken after they met at Puertocito de la Piedra Lumbre (a small gap in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains known today as Kearny Gap about one mile south of Las Vegas, NM) since none of them spoke the other's language. There was someone in the village who spoke French that they had to use to communicate.

2. It was the pricipal crossing of the Pecos River where the Mexican government collected custom taxes from the American traders coming in on the Santa Fe trail.

The San Miguel Catholic Church is there and now has a posting demonstrating a sign of the times on the entrance gate. "No mass till further notice. Pray for Father Moses as he has contracted covid"

 

We drove on through Villanueva down to I-40 to Clines Corners and back home on Hwy-285.

 

February 9

Took a really nice drive north on I-25 to Watrous where we turned off on Hwy-161 toward the Sangres. Ate our sandwiches next to the Wildlife Refuge along the way. Saw very few cars on the road to the little Hispanic ranching town of Golondrinas. We came back home through Las Vegas.

Watrous' history is tied to the Santa Fe Trail where the Cimarron Cutoff met the Mountain Branch. It lies in a spot where the Mora River flows so there is always water at that point.

The Truches peaks of the Sangres in the background

February 16

Big time snow, wind and cold temps. Low yesterday was 5.7 degrees.

Snow drifts	"Little Kenny" in the snow

 

February 22

We took a short drive south on Hwy-285 just to get out after the big snow. Not too far from the Lamy cutoff is the remains of the old Spanish church at the ruins of the old San Cristobal Pueblo. The pueblo was one of the large Southern Tewa pueblos that was in the Galisteo Basin in the 1400-1600's. The Spanish build a church there which is the only above ground building left from the estimated 1,645 room pueblo.

View of the Pueblo church from highway	Remains of the Pueblo church close up