It feels like it’s rained here every day for a month. Maybe it has!
Outside right now (about 3:00 p.m.), it’s also 54 degrees, and no way will it ever get to the predicted high of 76. I have a hot fire going in the woodstove, only partly to dry the laundry. This would probably be a good time to say that we’ve been here for 10 years now, and except for standing all afternoon in the direct sun in the plaza of Taos Pueblo on San Germino Day (in late September), I have never been of a condition that could even loosely be described as “hot,” except for one summer we lived in town in a silly condo built by someone with a half-baked “passive solar” concept: there were huge windows on the south side, all right, but no overhang, so that the summer sun tore straight into everything. One had to close all the blinds and live in a cave to keep from roasting, and who would want to do that in New Mexico? The dynamics of it made no sense at all.
On the garden front, I haven’t seen many grasshoppers yet. That’s a good thing, because for the last few years they’ve eaten everything I planted. Last year I put in vegetable plants at noon, and they were gone — as in vanished — by suppertime. No doubt the evil little buggers have all drowned or died of exposure this year, so I shouldn’t complain. Oh, what the hell: yes, it’s cold! At this altitude, if the sun is blocked by clouds, you’re going to be chilly in July, so even if no rain hits the ground, it can still be too cold to sit outside and have that 5 o’clock drink. All very interesting, living in the mountains. I remember being absolutely hammered by hot, humid summers elsewhere, and here you count yourself lucky to catch a glimpse of one as it whistles by.
But I would like to wear a short-sleeved shirt sometime this year, and so far, it just isn’t happening. You know, though, I hardly own a decent short-sleeved shirt.
Wonder why that is!
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Its been cold in Taos? I was up there from Phoenix last week exploring San Antonio Mountain and it didn’t seem that cold. In fact, the weather seemed heavenly when compared to the blast furnace of Phoenix in early summer.