Paseo de las Montanas

The day started rather chilly with a breeze from the West. After my breakfast waffle, I spend the morning playing on the computer. Created the web site page about my visit to the Very Large Array.

I was ready for a bike ride today. Checking the Albuquerque bicycle map, I decided to check out the Paseo de las Montanas Trail. I parked at Jerry Cline Park - Louisiana & Constitution. Rode the bridge over I-40 and climbed the trail.

Knew that the trail would mean lots of climbing as the trail runs East-West. Several times I stopped to take photos, drink some water, and rest my legs.

When I reached the intersection with the Embudo Recreational Trail, I knew my legs were about shot. Just short of 3 miles, I called it quits, turned around to coast back down to the car.

Getting back at the park, I was feeling pretty good. Rode a little way past the car. That took me under Louisiana. But, not ready to resume climbing - so rode back to the car and called it a day. Salad day, so I ended the afternoon with salad and bacon cheeseburger at Applebees.

Snow is Melting - a Lot

With the snow melting, it means standing water. Sure glad I have the fenders on the hybrid!
Unfortunately, some places the standing water covers a layer of ice. That's what we have in the tunnel under the railroad on the Lake Manawa Trail. This afternoon there was a good 2 inches of water over the ice. Very slippery walking the bike through the tunnel.
Still have to watch it under bridges - specially those of us with slick, skinny tires. Otherwise Lake Manawa, Indian Creek, and Western Historic Trails are in good shape.
Rode from Wabash Trace Trailhead to the Trail Center. Westbound via Lake Manawa. Return via S 16th and Harry Langdon.
Overdressed today. Could have shed a layer. Bright sunshine and mid 50s. Breeze from the SSW. But who could complain - its only mid February.

Green Screen

Those of you with larger lots may see little need to plant trees and shrubs for privacy, but where houses are crowded onto quarter-acres, there are some of us who find a green screen is not just a nicety, but is essential for sanity. Two pecans, probably planted in the late 1970’s, shade the right half of the back yard.

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When we first hauled our 100-plus pots to this house in the summer of .., that part of the yard looked and felt leafy and private, but late that fall the leaves fell, revealing not only the bare boughs, but the surrounding roofs, walls and windows. This depressing vista proved that almost everything along the fences of our adjoining yards was deciduous – pecans, crepe myrtles, ash trees, oaks, tall Mockoranges… even a magnolia ID’d as evergreen turned out to be a deciduous saucer type instead. So the next spring we added some broadleaf evergreens along the back fence, and also planted young trees on the treeless left side of the yard. When we’re sitting outside, it's not exactly our own little kingdom, but the loquat helps, and the six-foot ‘privacy fence’ makes a good background, and the greenery will fill in eventually.
While we’re waiting for that sense of enclosure to develop, let’s see how tall everything is now.
Our idea is that once these crepe myrtles get their crowns above the fence line, they’ll soften the horizontal line of the wood, and their irregular branches will break up views of roofs and house walls. The tips on the left one stretch to 6’ 6” now, and the right crepe myrtle has just hit 6-feet. By the end of this summer we may be able to tell whether our theory will work.

Halfway between the crepe myrtles is a tiny evergreen with potential. This is Pinus pinea, the Italian Stone Pine. I bought it at some garden club sale at Zilker Park a couple of years ago, and it's supposed to do well here. At the time it was an unbranched sapling, about 10” tall, growing in a plastic tube for $1. Now it has branched out, and reached the amazing height of 17”. This pine is seen in classic Italian paintings, and is the source for pinenuts. Who could resist an Italian classic for one buck?
You've seen our Magnolia “Little Gem’ folded over in the ice photos.
'Little Gem' was measured at 56” last February, and it has grown some, but not much, to 60”. But as you can see, there's more than 4" of new wood on the individual branches: Apparently, when the weight of January’s ice fanned the tree branches outward, some of the height was transmuted into breadth.
This loquat was a foot-tall seedling with a few leaves when I got it in ... It’s been in the ground for over a year and has reached 9’6” tall, and can actually cast a little shade on the patio. It's also branching out, so it's starting to look like a real tree, instead of a sapling.

Diva-of-the-Dirt Buffy gave me another foot-tall loquat seedling in spring ... I keep moving it to larger and larger containers, while occasionally taking off the bottom leaves. This loquat is now 35-inches tall.

We need beauty and fragrance as well as privacy, so we planted a small, evergreen shrub in the Triangle Garden. It's called Texas Mountain Laurel, botanically Sophora secundfolia, from the pea family, totally unrelated to the Eastern Laurels. At 26” inches tall, this slow-grower won’t make much impact for awhile, but it has a few flower buds!

In this photo from .., you can see what we hope for this spring.
We had three mountain laurels at our previous Austin house, and took a closeup of the beautiful, fragrant purple- blue flowers. The fragrance is described as grape Kool-aid or grape bubble gum.
It might be easier to catch the fruity fragrance once the flowers are at shoulder level rather than near our knees.
Do any of you grow Michelia figo, also called Banana shrub? It’s related to Magnolias, and the small flowers really do smell like bananas. I bought a one-foot, one-gallon plant in fall .., so at 38-inches, it’s done well, but will have to do a lot of growing if it's going to reach the fence top. Off to the right there are two unseen evergreen shrubs, a 40" Loropetalum, and a 30" Podocarpus, sometimes called Buddhist Pine.
Last February I remembered to measure the camellia and recorded it as 55” tall. So what happened – a year later it measures only 54"!! Since the branches show new growth, I guess this is another case where the shrub is now growing outward instead of upward.

Philo estimated the larger Pecan to be 40’ tall, and it's probably been here a quarter of a century. But we don't need our plants to be 40-feet tall - eight or ten will do, and we like watching things grow, so we'll try to be patient as we wait for our green & private Eden to develop.

Bicycle Trails Calendar - PreOrder

The addition of Bicycle Trails calendar will be going to the printer within a day or two. Reserve your copy by contacting me at photos (at) TomWinfield (dot) com.

Calendars are $15 plus $3 shipping (Iowa residents add $1.05 sales tax). Omaha/Council Bluffs can save shipping by picking up your copy locally. Contact me about where/how.

The skiers are taking over!

New snow and warm temperatures this final weekend in June brought out the most skiers I have ever seen on Rainier. The DC, Emmons, Winthrop, and Fuhrer Finger were all skied. The ski conditions were great for the most part. The snow was firm but somewhat punchy down to 13,000 feet. Conditions improved as the snow softened and became less wind- affected. There was good corn skiing from about 11,500' to about 10,000'. The snow became heavy and wet below that altitude. Above is a photo of one of those skiers descending the Cleaver. Although the skiing can be fabulous, be realistic about conditions and your ability, and be sure to be "on your game", as exposure to cliffs below can severely impact your outing in the event of an uncontrolled slip!

Conditions and weather have combined this week to give us stable weather and great climbing. Climbers summitted via the Disappointment Cleaver, Ingraham Direct, Fuhrer Finger, Kautz Glacier, Tahoma Glacier, Liberty Ridge, Winthrop Glacier, and the Emmons Glacier. Of course, the warm weather has its downside: rock fall and ice fall have increased exponentially, and a few routes have started to melt out... notably Gibralter Ledges, which had seen quite a few ascents this year.
--Adrienne Sherred - Photo by Andy Anderson

The Great Wall of China

...as it's known in our family. More prosaically, it's the pipe taking water down to the power station at the Killin end of Loch Tay.

A couple of days later, all is clear. The power station can just be seen among the trees by the loch shore.

More Charlotte Mason Wisdom

My beautiful daughter with her second son, Landing
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“This duty of devout meditation seems to me the most important part of the preparation of the mother or other teacher who would instruct children in the things of the Divine life.”
Charlotte M. Mason.

Tortilla Flat, AZ - Population 6

We leave Lost Dutchman and head to Tortilla Flat - population 6

We pass through Canyon Lake on the way



Sure wish we had that Amphicar!

We arrive at Tortilla Flat

and turn into the campground and find a nice site.

It's all about the view! Bet it's even better at the top of that hill.

Lets find out



Birds eye view of Tortilla Flat



A good place to just sit and contemplate

Apache Trail down below

Looks like Canyon Lake is just over the hill

Worked up an appetite so we head back down to Tortilla Flat for lunch.

Inside the Bar the walls and ceilings are covered with $1 bills, when we were here in 2000 there was $35,000, now there is $200,000. The bar stools are saddles - not very comfy but fun.

And they had fun with the ladies room

The food was great, time to rest up for our trip down Apache Trail tomorrow!

Till Later,

Meanwhile, we keep on Trek'n

Melissa and Gary