The Caprock

If we drive north towards Tucumcari, NM, we are crossing the relatively level High Plains region, or Llano Estacado.  In December the fields are golden and uniform and dotted with cholla cacti and a few black cattle.  And then suddenly there is a narrow band of pines and junipers, and a steep drop of about 1000 feet in elevation.  And then the plains continue on again, flat and monotonous, for as far as the eye can see.  This is the Caprock Escarpment.

We spent this past Saturday walking around amongst the trees, rocks, and arroyos of the Caprock.  The escarpment is composed of caliche (hardened deposit of calcium carbonate) and the exposed rock cracks and fractures in blocks or sheets.  About halfway down the escarpment at our location there were big oyster fossils.  It is always fun to find evidence of sea creatures on mountains and in the deserts.

Nice photo of dry seeds lying in the little cup of an open prickly pear fruit, back-lit by the low winter sun.

Bitter Lake Nature Walk

It was an overcast day, although hardly cool in temperature.  The morning had brought a little rain and all of the plants seemed to be reveling in the moisture: leaves softer, petals perkier, berries brighter.  Here are some photos of yesterday's visit to Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

Mummies and Burros

Saturday morning, nice and early, a couple of the boys and i drove out to Ned Houk Park to hike. A grass fire had been through the back fields of the park some time early this spring and it made for really easy walking. Where normally there would be 6-18 inches of dry grass and spiky weeds, there was bare sand, with grass nubs, and yuccas with the all the dry spines singed off so that they looked kind of like pineapples.

Along a fence line we found the dry carcass of a dog or coyote and i had to take photos. This grizzly scene was later counterbalanced by a paddock of cute little old burros.

She's a Beaut

What a terrific visit we had over the last month with our kin in Canada! I collected some fun animal stories for the blog, too. : -)

So the etsy shop is open for business and i'm back in the workshop creating pretty glass beads. Stop on by and see what's new.

I'm an entomologist in one of my personas, and here's a picture of a cool critter that we collected last night in our New Mexico neighborhood. Littleknown fact: beetles are the dominant form of life on earth. One of every five living species is a beetle, and one fourth of all animals in a beetle. The Order Coleoptera (beetles) is the largest order in the Animal Kingdom, containing a third of all insect species.

This particular beetle is called the Palo Verde Borer (Derobrachus geminatus). Some sources site this species as reaching 6-8 inches, but i'll have to see that to believe it. This female is therefore a wheenie at 3.5 inches but it's the largest i've seen. Around here it is a pest of elm trees. The larvae, which must get enormous, feed on the roots of the tree for a couple of years and then dig a tunnel up to the surface and emerge to mate in late July.