Musings

Yesterday I ended up having to ride Pi in the outdoor arena. Normally I would have enjoyed that — there was a cool breeze and the thunderheads were starting to build, but the footing in the outdoor was scary rough for a dressage horse. My friend Dorothy and I finally gave up and went for a trail ride around the fifty acre property. Pi was _such_ a good boy. He’s going to be a delight for some junior or amateur rider.

After a quick lunch Carl and I took the truck and trailer and headed up the High Road to Taos toward Truchas to buy trees to quiet the nosy neighbors. We hit some heavy rains between Pojaque and Espanola. We turned on the wipers and watched the rubber shred so we stopped to buy new wiper blades. We then started up the winding, two lane road into the high mountains. Of course we missed the turn to Tooley’s Trees, and had to struggle to find a place to turn around in the small town of Truchas. We finally found the turn and reached the tree farm.

It was wonderful. It rained slowly the entire time we were there, the clouds hung on the mountain peaks like soft knitted gray blankets. Once in awhile the sun would break through for a brief moment, and strike this hollow in the mountain that shone like gold. We were at 7900 feet, and the air tasted like a sharp champagne. We picked five Limber pines, and two Ponderosa pines. And because we had dug an extra hole I decided it would be a crime not to plant something so we bought a sour cherry tree. I foresee many pies in the future. This nursery specializes in the preservation of heritage fruit trees so that these strains are not lost forever. These are trees that have fallen out of favor because the fruit doesn’t ship well, and the fruit isn’t “pretty” — as in perfectly shaped.

We left the farm around six pm and continued to drive through the rain. On the freeway just before our turn off we met the typical New Mexico gully washer. Slashing rain, hail that sounded like someone was popping corn on the roof of the truck, the rain forming a grey sheet that reduced visibility to maybe ten feet. And then, of course, our wipers decided to quit working. We pulled off on the side of the road until the worst had passed then headed for home. After the rain had slowed to a drizzle the wipers suddenly decided to work again. *sigh* We reached home to discover that, in that inexplicable way of rain in New Mexico, our house hadn’t received one single drop of rain. It was… annoying.

Now the geek admission. I have an adapter that you plug into a lighter, and then you can plug in a piece of electronic equipment. Carl had stayed in Albuquerque until midnight to get the Harry Potter book and the audio book. We were desperate to start the book, but reading aloud on a winding road would have had one of us hurling. So we wrapped the seatbelt around my Bose player, plugged in, and listened to the audio book while we drove. We listened to another disc last night before bed. I won’t say anything because people are frantically reading. It’s hard to think there won’t be another book in this universe. I know the universe doesn’t make any sense, but I love it and the characters Rowling created. So all you other Potter fans — happy reading.

Melinda

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 8:35 am and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.