Wherefore Art Thou, Dear Moisture?

(doggies trying to leap thru the deep snow, in the track made by Rhett...)
On our ride yesterday, we saw the very last remnants of the ''big'' snow of mid December 2008.... ice-hard clumps hiding in the shade of north facing junipers. Our Christmas snow pretty much amounted to nothing, even tho it was gorgeous and put all of us in the Christmas Mood!

It was about 14 years ago that the drought here in northern NM really began; we had a couple of Gift Wet Spells, but always back to drier than normal for even the Semi Arid Desert where we live..... After 98% of our lovely pinons died, signs of life started to crop up everywhere........ tiny baby pinon trees coming up everywhere! Thankfully they got a good start with the HUGE snows of Dec. 2006, and the gloriously wet spring of 2007! We did have a huge flood on Mother's Day 2008, and a REALLY huge one in September.... but as usual, they were Gully Washers and most of our precious water ended up in the Gulf of Mexico..... at least the skeeties were kept to a minimum!

Some folks laugh when we show this video of one of the biggest floods in the Galisteo River (Creek), but they live where REAL rivers live! Check out the flood, and then see what the riverbed looks like 99.999% of the time, nice horse tracks trailing along in the drying-up caliche (adobe with lots of minerals....).

SO, here is the youtube of the Galisteo Flooding last Sept; TOTALLY took out our water gap--usually only takes about 1/4 of it, but not this flood... the entire thing got washed out! Darling Tom spent a few hours putting it up again, at least for now........


On days like this, I love going back to watch some of the BIG SNOW movies and pics, just to remember how lovely/wet/cold/difficult it was...... ALL January 2007, Tom spent plowing snow...EVERY DAY!!! And ALL Feb. 2007 he spent grading driveways, removing mudpiles, fixing ruts.... EVERY DAY!!

Rhett Slogging Thru Deep Snow -- on our way to feed the neighbor's horses; she was stuck in Madrid NM with her mom....

Is this REALLY the Road to our Ranch??

And WHY was Tom walking around nearly waist deep in snow??



Sometimes we think of our LOVELY 1880s barn BEFORE it collapsed under the weight of those 4 feet of wet snow........

If you have alergies to juniper pollen, DO NOT watch the Pollen Smoke Whinny is rustling up!! Moisture = Pollen

You COULD do what Palin did........