Silver City New Mexico

i love silver city.

i told the folks last night, at the potluck in the back yard of william's solar powered home (he actually sells power back to the grid), that the reason i'm on the caravan is so i can visit this wonderful place again! carol, the woman who organizes our visit, made sure (as she did last year) that there's plenty of vegetarian food and vegan stuff too. she billeted us, two here, three there, one here .... so we slept well.

brianna and i stayed with rinda, the llama lady. she lives about 10 minutes out in the sticks (as we used to say in rural alberta) where there are more stars at night than i ever remember seeing. apparently we're several thousand feet above sea level, and when you look on the nasa photos this is one of the only dark sections in the united states.



rinda and brianna and i talked about the wisdom of using grey water rather than well water to flush toilets, about building south facing dwellings with lots of windows if you don't have solar like william does. we were up early to help feed the lovely gentle llama creatures, and then she dropped us at carol's for breakfast. there's soymilk! and fruit, and granola (some of it gluten free), sprouted bread and yoghurt and eggs for those who want that. carol's a wonderful hostess/organizer! we're just waiting for the others to emerge from their sleepy places. we've got a bit of time today because our next stop, el paso texas, isn't all that far away. it feels so good to sleep soundly, and have a relaxing morning in a rather more temperate zone than the deserts of arizona which are just scorching hot. they scare me, with their lack of water and their excessive heat. it just doesn't seem a natural place for humans to dwell.

i'm not sure what the weather is 'supposed' to be here today, but it looks like another dry day. (funny, that 'supposed' to be thing about describing weather, as if we humans can dictate what is best. in spanish weather is described as 'it makes rain,' or 'it makes sun,' as in 'hace lluvia,' or 'hace sol' - from the verb hacer - to do, or to make. as if there's something bigger than us humans that dictates what the weather's 'supposed' to be. which, of course, there is. and i'm not talking about the haarp weather control project). it's traditionally monsoon season int these parts, but they've had an exceptionally dry month which is of particular concern since they depend on the summer rains to get them through the winters. there are wildfires ablazing, unfortunately. as we drive through texas we'll see lots more desert, and heat.

people who complain about the rain, from the pacific northwest, ought to move here, or at least visit with eyes wide open. when i told rinda, last night, that folks where i'm from describe the rain as 'bad weather,' she was thunderstruck. i explained that i can commisserate, if the people are homeless and just trying to survive, but it perplexes me how housed people, who live in one of the greenest places on the planet, so persistently complain about the life affirming rains.

here are some more interesting links:

an el paso cuba caravan supporter's blog.

photos from silver city new mexico.

An environmental activist on B.C.’s central coast said Tuesday he has resorted to direct action to raise awareness of a consortium of U.S. and Canadian scientists planning to launch a massive seismic program aimed at unravelling the geologic secrets of the Coast Mountains.

The Doctor Who Became Public Enemy #1 - Robert Huish — THE MARK
By Robert Huish
After receiving a medical scholarship from Cuba's Latin American School of Medicine in 1999, Dr. Castillo returned to the Garifuna to build the clinic. Today, it provides affordable and accessible health-care services to 20000 people. ...

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