Weird Happenings

Other Dimensions

We seem to be in some sort of weird vortex here at the Tumbleweed Crossing. Non-living objects seem to disappear and then appear when ever they want to. Either that or there are little mice, or gremlins, or elves, (or possibly aliens) that move things around without the consent of the owners. Take for instance – I had some vegetable seeds left over at the end of the growing season last summer. I put them were I was sure I would remember and be able to find them to plant this spring. And I did find them about the first of March, but decided it was too early to plant them. So I put them – well I was sure I had put them in the plastic bag of new flower seeds, and garden gloves that I bought about the same time. Only by the time I wanted to plant them in April all I could find were the new packets of seeds. I looked and looked and looked but could not find the old seed packets that were already open. I decided that they had accidentally got thrown out in the trash, and bought some more. Only the very next day there they were in the bag of new flower seed. There is no way I could have over looked them that many times. Some how they went to the other dimension and returned or the gremlins have been playing tricks again.
And there was the day that hubby couldn’t find a part to his table saw. I knew he was in the garage doing something, but what. When I finally went out, he said he had been looking for the part for a half an hour but couldn’t find it. I took a quick look, pointed at some thing on the workbench and said, “Is that it?” Disgustly he picked it up, and said, “I know I looked there a dozen times.”
Take the time I was looking for the can of black spray paint that I was sure I had just used minutes before. It was nowhere to be found, nor could hubby find it. I gave up. I bought another can a few days later and finished my project. A couple of days later there were 2 cans of black paint setting on the shelf.
Every year at tax time, when we finally finish, I put the copies of all the papers where I am sure I can find them next year. Come the next year they are never in the box that I am sure I put them in. After tearing the house apart to find them I discover them in another box that is the last place I would have ever put them.
Do you have this problem? Do your small inanimate, non-living objects move around or just disappear from right under your nose never to be seen again, or else be moved to strange places? Do you ever think that you might have gremlins, or spirits that are playing tricks on you? Let me know by leaving your comments.

Iris

I have hundreds of purple iris blossoms. They make for a nice show around the base of my trees. But ----- what happened to the fancy colored iris I used to have? I used to have all different kinds of colors from dark brown to golden brown, and bronze, to verious shades of blue and purple, and whites, with blue and purple, and even yellow. Some of them even smelled like the color. A certain brown smelled like root beer, and a special yellow smelled like limon. Now they are all puple with a basic iris smell.
Again I ask - What happened? I know a lot about raising iris and lots of other flowers but this is something I can't find out anymore information about. Did they all revert back to the old-fashioned purple iris? That is what seems the most likely. It is my understanding that all iris came from a common purple color but years of selective breeding has produced hundreds of beautiful colors. I used to have quite a few but now none of them ever bloom.
If you have an opinion on the disappearence of my fancy iris colors please leave a comment and let me know.

***%+)#($*&%^computers

Why would we like to play, email, publish, and just plain goof-off with such obstinate, willfull, stubborn, ornery, hellish, mind-of-their-own critters as computers? and telephones?

I am really, really wondering why we ever invented these horrible machines. First I thought it was something wrong with my computer even though it is only about a year old. Then I thought it was a problem with the server, which was part of it, but not the only reason I couldn't get onto the internet and stay on the internet. I was playing a yo-yo game, or so it seemed. I logged on, server kicked my off, I logged on, server kicked me. And on, and on, and on. Finally I realized I was having problems hearing people when I made phone calls on my landline phone, and they were having problems hearing me. There was way to much static, buzzing, and un-identified noise for even way out here in the desert boondocks.

So I called my phone company who told me it was a power surge from the electric company. Being very iliterate conserning phones, electic, and sure I thought that might be reasonable considering we did friquently get power surges here. In fact I had alreally been having long phone calls with the electic company about fried coffee pots, sterios, and fish tank lights which had not been very benifical. So I called the power company who said there was nothing wrong with the electic. Next I called the phone company back and was told it must be that my phones weren't working right. I bought a new phone. It didn't work either since I still had static on the line. I put up with it and tried using a different server. Didn't any work better.

No luck, except bad luck.

So back to the phone company. This time they agreed to send someone out to check. He came. Fittled with the outside box and even climbed the nearest pole and said nothing wrong, to call back if the problem pressisted. It pressisted. I called back. Another man came out. He wanted to know if the first guy checked the jacks inside the house. I said no. He said he should have. He did. Didn't really find anything wrong but changed them to new ones anyway. Still had static. He climbed the pole outside the yard. Then he went and climbed one down the street about a mile. Don't know what he did but he fixed the problem or for now the phone seems to be working. And my server has been letting me stay on line for longer than 30 seconds.

I heaved a big sigh.

?(*&)$%^#+++

Now I can't send emails on my hotmail account. It won't let me type in the compose section. I can type everywhere else, but not there. So of course I can't even send a complaint to hotmail. And of course my hotmail account is what I use for this blog.

I'm screaming and tearing my hair out now.

And my son is calling saying his truck won't run.

Hot Air

So you got me started on hot air balloons anyway, didn’t you? Ok. Did you know that Albuquerque, NM is considered the hot air balloon capital of the world? Did you know that the Albuquerque Hot Air Balloon Fiesta is held here every October? Well now you do. Which is why we have hot air balloons frequently flying over our home here at the Tumbleweed Crossing. Now don’t get me wrong there is nothing really wrong with hot air balloons. In fact seeing one or even 300 in the air at a time can be quite an awe-inspiring site. I still like watch them and to take pictures of them. But in their own place, which does not include my home. And again don’t get me wrong there are a lot of very nice, considerate, responsible, balloon pilots who wouldn’t want to infringe on anyone else’s privacy. But then there are the pilots who don’t care. Most balloonist are intelligent enough to understand that not everyone wants a balloon flying over their home at 7:00 a.m. every morning. Most pilots are thoughtful enough to follow the rules and regulations set down by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration). But others don’t. Which is why I frequently (3 or 4 times a week, if it’s not to windy. One good thing about wind is it keeps the balloons from flying.) get woke up by the dogs bouncing on my bed and barking as a hot air balloon comes flying over our house.
Balloonists say that their balloons are a ‘quiet’ sport/recreation. Not so. Not if you have good hearing and your dog has better hearing. Hot air balloons are kept aloft by heating the air in the balloon with propane gas. Every time the pilot hits the propane burner to add more hot air to the balloon it makes a very loud hissing noise – like a super-huge housecat hissing. I can hear this hissing noise when the balloons are as much as a half mile away, and my dogs seem to be able to hear it before the balloons can be seen as a tiny speck on the horizon.
Ok, you say, so the dogs bark for a while. Well it can take that hissing balloon as long as an hour to fly from where ever it is coming from, over our property, and then to disappear to where ever it is going.
And to make things worse is the matter of what horses or other livestock think of balloons. Now you have to remember that horses, ponies, and mules are animals that are food for other animals in the wild. Another words they RUN when frightened. And balloons frighten them. Wouldn’t you be frightened if a UFO descended from above near you? The horse is more scared than you would be in the same situation. I have heard of horses that became so scared they injured themselves and had to be killed, if they didn’t kill their self outright, and others who were crippled for life.
Thankfully my horses seen to ignore the balloon as long as it goes flying on across and doesn’t try to land nearby. I have had pilots that wanted to land in my field right next to the horses. How thoughtless could they be? Are they really that lacking in judgment? Yes, many of them are, especially if they don’t know anything about horses and livestock.
I have had balloonist think it was funny to see animals running in fear from their balloons. I have had balloonist make a game out of seeing how close they could come to my trees and pull the leaves from the tree. This is one very dangerous game for the balloonist and me. I have seen the chase crews (people in pickups, and other vehicles that follow the balloon to where ever it lands) brake every driving law ever invented.
All I ask is that hot air balloon pilots and their friends try to understand and respect the fact that they are flying over my home. It is were I live, and where the animals I love live. To those pilots that do understand and show consideration for me and what is mine –
I Thank You.

Other Blog

Any one thats interested can visit my other blog at

http://ponytracks.myblogsite.com

It contains more information on my horses, dogs, and cats.

I really would like to get more visitors to both of my sites.

And don't forget to visit my sponsers.

Flowers

My flowers are trying to bloom. It can be a difficult and exhusting chore for a little blossom when trying to bloom in a windy, dusty, hot desert. The daffidills and tulips have already been blown away. The iris are trying. At least they are doing better this spring than they did last year. I have lots of the old fashioned purple blossoms but none of my fancy yellows, whites, blues, or browns seem to have survived the move of 2 years ago. The peach tree I put out last fall tried to bloom and did have a few but they, too, were blown away, as were the orinaminal flowering cherry, and Bradford pear. Now the Black Tartarian Cherries seem to have faired a bit better. And leaves on all are nice and green and growing. Like the Tartarians, my Redbud trees are blooming their tiny, pale purple orchid-like blossoms and the leaves are starting to appear. Hope the cottonwoods, vitex, and althea remember to come back, too.

Of course you may wonder why I try to grow flowers in the desert. I have to admit I just can't help it. Somehow the yen to grow things was passed down to me from my parents as it had been passed down to them from their parents and so on back for who knows how many generations. When the first warm days of spring bring the songbirds out to sing, and the bee's to buzzing I can't help but find a few left over seeds from last year, and eagerly run out to plant them with hopes for a fruitful vegie garden with lots of flowers mixed in. I planted a handfull of morning glories, marigolds, four-o-clocks, and sunflowers this morning. I have hopes that they will sprout and grow.

Tornados

OK. Enough already. I have decided that Mother Nature is playing very naughty tricks on New Mexico this year. Not only did she loose spring somewhere far away from us, she has now replaced spring with a several tornados. Now for those of you who don't live in NM you might like to know that we don't have very many tornados here. And usually when we do they are small ones that don't do much damage, if any. But we had two, count them, 2 tornados over the weekend. There were at least two and may have been more, but there were only two caught on video that touched down. Did you know a funnel cloud has to touch ground to be considered a real tornado. That is according to the new channels here. There were serverl sightings of funnel clouds near the Albuquerque area but only two were seen to touch down, and thankfully didn't do any damage. Of course the funnel clouds and tornados were followed by rain, sleet, and hail. Some of the storm did do damage to a small strip mall that was being re-roofed and it didn't get finished in time. Plus a lighting strike caused a power outage in a lot of Rio Rancho for a while. All of this was on Saturday with the first tornado. I didn't see anything but the rain and hail as I was warm and cozy in my livingroom watching a bit of TV as I waited for the storm to pass. Now yesterday on Sunday the other torando was spotted by the Channel 13 news crew and photographed as it passed to the south of Albuquerque near the town of Belen. Again it didn't do any damage as it touched ground in a vacent field.
But enough is enough. Thank you very much, Mother Nature, but we have had our share of tornados and do not want any more.
I consider New Mexico to be one of the saver states to live in when it comes to natural disasters, and calamites. We have very few tornados, only minor earthquakes, (so far), and no hurricanes. We do have some bad rain and snow storms from time to time, along with sleet and hail, and lighting strikes are common, but over all it's not a bad place to live.

Helicopters

Have I mentioned that I live at Tumbleweed Crossing? And that all kinds of things have developed a habit of making this a crossing point. That includes helicopters. Now it doesn’t bother me when the big military helicopters do their training maneuvers new here over part of New Mexico’s uninhabited desert. In fact I am proud of the fact that my state has a lot of military people here. I don’t necessarily support the war in Iraq, but I do most differently support our troops that are over there. What I don’t support is the TV news helicopters that make this community a turning point when they are flying around over the big metro city of Albuquerque doing the traffic reports at rush hour. There is no reason for them to come this far out over the desert (we are at least three miles from the nearest school, or about six miles from the nearest shopping area, and it is a small one) and away from the highways, and freeways, and major streets, mall, shopping centers, and schools. Is it another way to get a few minutes of ‘off the air time’, or is just an excuse to fly over a community where they’re not wanted? I have talked to some of my neighbors and they feel the same. And don’t get me started on hot air balloons. They are even worse.

Spring: The Lost Season

So it started out as a bad day. And it hasn't gotten any better. This afternoon it is in the high 60's and will probably reach 70 or 72 degrees this afternoon. Now how can that be this early in the year? Just two days ago there was a light frost when I got up. On that same day there was a TV report that there was as much as two feet of snow in Denver, Co. Denver isn't that far from us. A week ago Raton Pass in northern New Mexico was closed because of snow. Which meant that there were was no traffic moving either north or south from Denver to Albuquerque or vice versa. What did that mean? That the motels, hotels, cafes, gas stations, and any other kind of bussness, in the area of Raton Pass, that catered to travelers was thrilled.
Now we have heat. There are many places that don't know what the four seasons are: Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring. Places like - Florida, Hawaii, Alabama, south Texas, southern California, southern Arizona, and even southern New Mexcio. But according to all the information I can find the Albuqueque, N. M. area is supposed to have the regular four seasons. Some how Mother Nature always forgets. She is prone to leaving out Spring. Does she loose Spring somwhere along the line? It certainly seems like it. At my home we have many cold, cold days of winter, followed by a windy season, and then we jump right in to Summer. Hot Summer.
I ask all my readers to keep this thought in mind. If you should run into Mother Nature in your travels, please tell her that those of us that live here in Albuquerque would really like her to find Spring and return it to it's rightfull place between Winter and Summer.

Biscuits and Molasses

I may be a lover of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness but mornings do not fall into any of those categories. They are in a category all by themselves. One I shall call YUCK. As you can assume I am not a morning person. But – having a large collection of pets demands that I get up and take care of them each and every morning. Believe me you never get a day off from morning feedings of four horses, three dogs and five cats. As well as a fish tank with four fish in it. This morning I was awakened as usual by the dogs at 7:00 am. (I never set the alarm clock anymore unless I need to get up earlier.) I put the dogs out, and poured a cup of yesterday’s coffee and heated it in the microwave. Having a yen for biscuits yesterday I had made some for supper, which meant there were some left over for breakfast. I don’t normally eat breakfast this early, but I was a bit hungry and thought why not since there were biscuits. Having more of a yen for something different (or else reverting back to childhood when biscuits and molasses were a staple for either desert or breakfast) I pulled out a jar of molasses, poured several tablespoons on a saucer, added a big dollop of margarine (with a thought that real butter would have been better) and promptly dropped that molasses and butter loaded knife down the side of my robe. Now a raggedy purple robe is not improved by the addition of gooey, sticky molasses and butter. But there it was never-the-less. I picked up the knife, dropped it in the sink, took off the robe and dropped it in the washer, added a bit of laundry soap, set the cycle to pre-wash and returned to my bedroom to pull on the required jeans and sweatshirt for the day. Returning to the kitchen I decided to make another try at breakfast. There was still enough molasses on the saucer so I added another bit of butter. Mixed it up and stood at the cabinet slopping dry, hard biscuits in sticky molasses and butter. After a few minutes I needed the addition of a swallow of coffee to get the mess down. So I took a drink and it promptly went down the wrong way and I thought I would choke to death. Of course there were no other humans home to help me, and the dogs just sat staring at me hoping I would drop biscuits on the floor for them. I did survive, as the writing of this blog will prove. But I can tell it is not going to be a good day.

The Crossing

I wonder how I came to be living at a Tumbleweed Crossing. It may have something to do with the fact that I was born in the desert. I have been asked if tumbeweeds the only thing that cross here? Diffently not. Many, many things cross here. My property is a corner lot where two roads come together making a crossing. Lets call them Tenth Road and I Road. There is lots more traffic here than I expected when I moved here about two years ago. The roads are dirt road but seem to be a major intersection for our little rural community. All day there is a stream of cars, pickups, construction trucks, prpane trucks, utility trucks, motorcycles, and frequently ATV's.
Each morning about 7:30 when I feed the horses I see the high school age girl from next door run out just in time to catch the school bus. An hour later her younger brother and sister catch a different bus. There is a man who jogs by going west on I Road every morning about 11:00 am. About 10 minutes later he goes by again but going east. In the afternoon the kids come home from school and walk their little poodle up and down the road. Friquently some other girls from a few roads over ride their ponies by.
Wildlife find Tenth and I Road a favorite crossing site, also. We have lots of rabbits, both cottontails, and jack rabbits. Coyotes sing to us each night as they hunt for their rabbit suppers. There are lots of birds including doves, quail, sparrows, curved bill trash, hawks, owls, and a buzzard that floats by now and then.
I find myself crossing here as I come and go to work, or the store or where ever. Maybe someday you'll find yourself at Tumbleweed Crossing.

Windy Day

Its been a windy day, and the tumbleweeds are blowing every-which-a-way.
That's why I call it Tumbleweed Crossing. Big, supper big, and even little, dry, brittle, stickery tumbleweeds have been blowing through my yard all afternoon.
The dust, and sand was so thick on the wind that I couldn't see the neighbors house not more than 100 yards away. It has slowed this afternoon but supposed to come again. That will mean more tumbleweeds will come. Leaving more of their tiny sticker seeds to sprout and grow into more tumbleweeds.
It's a never ending cycle.