ADD ELDER

So, Here I am... Retired. Go Figure. And not starving. Technically I am retried early, a full year yet to what Social Security calls full retirment age. I am with family and a loving spouse. I am residing in Albuquerque New Mexico, USA. After 42 years in Oregon, 4 years in college in Santa Fe, and 18 years growing up in chicago, Illinois. I am not neurotypical - (or possibly anything else typical) I do have a good dose of Attention Deficit Disorder on board. It is not getting any better with age. Not much does. So this blog will be very random. And honest, because anything else is too much work. There will be typos - don't bother using the comments to tell me about them, if you know what is supposed to be there - it works. I don't have time for attempts at perfection I had another blog - 2006-2023. It was a bit preachy. Some people like that sort of thing. This will have more gardening. A place for me to document what is going on. You might meet my motorcycle. Some random th

    I have recently come into an abundance of time. It is actually a little disturbing.  So, I have started re-orienting myself in my safe place – the garden. Blooming things provoke joy in me.   We’ve got just over a third of an acre, 16 thousand square feet, minus the house. Living here before us; 13 trees, a few shrubs, a trumpet vine, and some prickly pear cactus. The ground is sandy and abundant with small stones – not clay,  and not the caliche concrete that causes gardeners here to despair. It seemed to me to be ripe for enrichment. Good soil can be made from sand.   Then I put a shovel into it.   Our home is on what used to be a mesa overlooking the Rio Grande flood plain. Of course, humans have built all over the plain, and on the mesa – out as far as the eye can see. We are on the edge, between the two, and our lot slopes down.    When they built in 1962, they must have leveled the lot - somewhat. My shovel found out how they did that. River ro

    Compost wants to happen. It just does. Entropy is a rule of our world. Things rot, and rust, and age. And out of this decomposition come new life. A year ago I received stewardship of a yard. The ground was sand and rocks (with plastic 6-12 inches down under 2-4 inches of river rock. People said "Oh, you have the good soil"  These people had apparently never seen soil. I guess there is calcium deposits called Caliche that are like concrete.  My ground is alkaline, but not like that. My ground grows some very tough weeds, but they die without seeming to affect the earth. Nothing alive in the ground except sand fleas.   Fortunately I was raised right, and know what to do - COMPOST! I knew that a compost heap would simply dessicate, not rot - it is too dry here in ABQ.  So my first effort was this dalek shaped composter.  In went such greens as I could find, kitchen scraps mostly, browns from the yard, and some horse shit.  I did compost, slowly. It also created a Mousie con

Fall 2022 I bought a 5 dollar tub of red wigglers, saving them from being lizard food. They were alive but sluggish having been kept in a fridge for who knows how long.  Census showed 47 live worms. I made them a home in a 2 gallon bucket. The bottom layer was 3" of shredded paper, 5 inches of good, light homemade compost,  topped with wet newsprint.  I added the worms and all their media, which has some castings in it.                                                                                                                              Food was kitchen scraps. It was Halloween so lots of pumpkin innards (not seeds) for a while plus anything going bad in the fridge  like the parsley here. The worms became active and then were very hungry. They were eating their own weight in food every other day.  The best foods were already over-ripe and breaking down. Favorites were rotten fruit, and green leaves like spinach.  They slowed down after a bit and I set a regular feeding sched

  Pueblo Dogs do not care if you think they should be behind a fence or on a leash. Pueblo dogs have more liberty and dignity than that.Their ancestors were a breed apart - small and smart and fast. They come and go as they please. Their great, great grandmothers were the ones who lived by and on the county road when the first cars came. Pueblo dogs sometimes chase cars, but they love to chase motorcycles. Different theories of chasing are exhibited. The most popular is to amble along the road side, all nonchalant, until the bike comes right along side them and then lunge in with the bark and the bite.  Some try a super stealth method and lay on the ground, aimed at the road but pretending to sleep - but their lunge is at ready, make no mistake. Some dogs cannot hide their excitement and plan. They are farther back, but poised, back legs twitching, watching, gauging your speed and theirs, breaking into a run well before the road. Pueblo dogs are rarely alone. They hang in familial or f