Birds of Santa Rosa

I thought I'd post a few pictures of some of our birds. These aren't my best pictures, but it will at least give you an idea of some of the varieties we have here in Santa Rosa.

This is just a little brown bird, but I liked the pose.


These are red winged blackbirds and they're everywhere here. I'll try to get better shots later on. These are pretty interesting birds, with a NOISY call. Bird books say it is similar to a kazoo, but I like kazoos a bit better . . .

These guys are pretty territorial and have the ability to hide their color when they enter a new territory, till they feel safe. They're quite large and I particularly like seeing the flashes of bright red and yellow.

A dove, a pigeon? He just sat there for the longest time, begging me to take his picture.

The previous camp host built these bird feeders and it sure seems like the birds expect them to be filled!


And here's a final shot of one of our finches. I just liked this photo.


Hopefully I'll have some hummingbird pictures to post sometime soon. I seem to have forgotten how to take their pictures, these little buggers are fast!

Life is Good.

America's First Road Trip

I find it interesting when folks come into Cholula Red and say "Wow, you have a TV".

The truth is, most modern RVs have televisions. Even so, there are a lot of RVers who comment that they "never watch TV" or "I use my motorhome to get away from things like TV, I like to commune with nature".

I say to each his own, but I admit that I like TV, at least some of it.

But more than that, I like DVDs.

Movies, documentaries, television series and an assortment of other entertainment that is available any time we might like to view it. All of it without all those annoying commercials, HUZZAH!

So, as in the past, I'm going to share one of my favorite entertainment choices.

Today I'd like to introduce you to a small jewel titled Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip.

This is a gem of a production, first shown on PBS in 2003 and directed by Ken Burns. We stumbled on it quite by accident, but the words America's First Road Trip certainly piqued my interest.

This wonderful documentary begins in 1903 with a fifty dollar wager. The deal is that Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson and his steadfast companion Sewall K. Crocker take a bet that they can drive a 5o horsepower Winton Automobile from coast to coast. Now keep in mind that in 1903 there was only one hundred and fifty miles of paved road in the entire United States.

Also, gas stations were unheard of. And maps? Well, let's just say that Triple A was years in the future.

Narrated by first class talent including Tom Hanks, Adam Arkin and Tom Bodett, you are transported back to a time before interstates, pollution and urban sprawl became the norm. Jackson and Sewall have to contend with all kinds of mishaps, but meet the challenges with humor and good grace. The letters to Horatio Jackson's wife are particularly endearing.

This documentary is a rollicking good time and I can hardly believe I had never heard of it. Have any of you? Can you recommend any others like it?

If you've never seen Horatio's Drive, I recommend you take a look, you surely won't be disappointed.

It kind of makes you want to hit the road!

Life is good (and so is this film).

Kitchen Goodies

As most of my regular readers know, I like to cook.

Now cooking in the rig is not really a challenge, but I have to pretty much stick to basics, gew gaw wise. I don't have my Cuisinart, and my pans are pretty basic (Geez, who would have thought I could get along without my fish poacher?).

And for a long time, I did without a crock pot, using my pressure cooker instead. Then last summer, while out cruising yard sales, I spotted an almost new crock pot for just $3.00. Since we were camp hosting at Manzano at the time, I figured this would be practical since we had electricity and a casita, so I could just set it up outside and not have to deal with it in the rig.

And this worked so well, we decided to take it along with us when we left Manzano and we've been using it ever since.

Till a couple of days ago when I dropped the lid and watched as it shattered into a gazillion pieces . . .

What to do?

I started researching slow cookers, and came across the Nesco Roaster. I remember these from my childhood when my Mother had a big old roaster that we would set up on the back porch at holidays so the oven would be free for baking other goodies.

But this Nesco Roaster was something different. At six quarts, it was the same size as my crock pot, but was so much more versatile! You see, apparently crock pots heat from the bottom, whereas the Nesco Roaster has a heating element that covers not only the bottom, but also the sides of the pot, in effect turning it into an actual oven, as well as a slow cooker.

Well, this just sounded too good to be true, but I did some research and decided to bite the bullet, so to speak.

Boy, am I glad I did!

Since my concern is using this as an extra oven in addition to a slow cooker, the first thing I tried is bread, and I'm happy to report that this was a huge success. Then I tried a couple more batches of Apple Bread and right now I'm baking up a batch of root vegetables (potatoes, onions, carrots, garlic, some cabbage and everything else I have sitting in the fridge).

So why bother to use this appliance when I have a perfectly serviceable oven here in the rig?

Because I can use this outside! And when the thermometer reads over ninety degrees, I LOVE the idea of using an outdoor oven instead of heating up the rig. And I still have a perfectly usable crock pot.

When it comes to kitchen appliances, multitasking is a serious plus.

Life is good.

New Mexico . . .

I just finished a book called Cottonwood Saints and let me say that it was a most enjoyable read.

I'll back up a bit here and say that I've been reading a lot about New Mexico and lately have been trying to focus on fiction that takes place in this area. Stories rooted here have a definite flavor that I appreciate. It seems that the land of New Mexico is a character in most of these stories, as much of a force as the people about whom the authors write.

They remind me of the writings of John Steinbeck, who wrote so often of the area of California where I was raised. In my younger years, I marveled as I read such wonderful prose about places that were so familiar to me.

That said, in recent times, it seems that the California of which Steinbeck wrote and which seemed so much "mine" was slipping away. This was one of the reasons we decided to explore other areas of this fine country.

Now, as I read stories like the Lightning Field: Travels In and Around New Mexico and Cottonwood Saints, once again I am discovering this sense of wonder that I thought I had lost.

And it feels glorious.

Life is Good.

Cast Iron Cooking

While we were camping at Leasburg Dam outside of Las Cruces, we were right next to historic Fort Selden.

At Fort Selden, there's a great Ranger that demonstrates authentic outdoor cooking. His name is Dave and he's just a hoot.

In addition to his many demonstrations, Dave also offers classes in Cast Iron Campfire Cooking. You have to come up with at least six participants and make an appointment then you're good to go!

So could I pass this up? Absolutely not!

So I put together a group of friends, including my wonderful new friends from Las Cruces, who we met while we were at Bosque del Apache last winter. Thne I went to talk to Dave to discuss the menu. With this program, you have a choice of soups (we chose split pea), a bread (beer batter), an appetizer (chicken stuffed sopaipillas), a main dish (spareribs with sweet potatoes and corn) and a dessert (cherry cobbler) plus campfire coffee.

All this for just $15.00 per person, what a deal! And if you get more participants, the price goes down!

Just a note here, there are LOTS of photos in this entry, so they may take a while to load. As always, you can click on any photo for a larger version.

So our morning arrived and around 10:00 (our choice) we moseyed on over to the Fort where we got our first look t our kitchen.

Dave had the coffee going, as well as a nice fire. We would use a combination of hard wood and briquettes during our session.

We started out by generously applying a rub to the ribs, then browning them on the fire.
After browning off the meat, we caramelized some sweet potatoes. These would be the base on which we would finish off the ribs.

To prevent burning during the long cooking session, we removed the sweet potatoes and placed corn husks (which we had soaked in water for a few minutes) in the bottom of the pan. These would provide a good cooking bed for the rest of the pot.

Then we added the sweet potatoes and the ribs and over the coals the pot went.

In addition to all the other wonderful food, we were treated to fresh churned butter, which had been churned the day before during another food demonstration. YUM!

After the main pot was up to heat, Ranger Dave put a rack on the veggies and in goes the meat. Then it's all covered up with a tight fitting lid.

Dave has a metal work table off to the side, just to make things a bit easier (bending over all day can be a bit of a chore, although I'm not sure if the pioneers had this luxury). We then moved hot coals on to the table so we could set the pot on top of them to roast. This is the reason old time cast iron pots have legs, so you can either put them right into the fire or over coals.

So the pot goes over the coals, then we put more coals on top of the lid (which has a high lip just for this purpose). With the coals on top AND on bottom, we have a perfect oven.

Next we started the sopaipillas. We all helped make the dough and here's Norton assembling the pies.

Aren't they luscious looking? Filled with chicken and veggies they're ready to to be fried up (in lard, just like those old timers!).

In they go! The oil is so hot they immediately begin to sizzle and cook in just a matter of minutes.
Now Dave starts the beer batter bread.

He's been making bread so long, he never needs to measure, just eyeballs the whole thing. Wow, he's just like those cooks on the Food Channel!

OOPS, I forgot to mention the split pea soup. We made this with salt pork, onions, celery, dried split peas and water. Very tasty and quite pretty.

Now it was time to add fresh corn on the cob and whole jalapenos to the ribs, which by now were smelling so good we could hardly control ourselves.

By now, everything is really coming together and it's time to start dessert. Here's Jan pouring in the cherry pie filling for the cobbler.

The topping is quite loose and piled on top of the cherries. Now it's ready to cook.

Here's our pots, stacked up to take advantage of the coals and heat.

Sort of an early version of the double oven.

Here's our Beer Bread, just out of the "oven". With the fresh churned butter, this was so delicious.

When the ribs were done, this is what greeted our eager eyes as we removed the lid. The colors and aroma were just astounding.

Isn't this beautiful?

And this meat was just as tender and juicy as could be, absolute perfection

This was such a wonderful adventure, I would definitely recommend this for anyone who's in the area of Las Cruces.

Dave was a font of knowledge about all kinds of cooking, but his knowledge of cast iron fireside cooking is astounding. He also has an encyclopedic knowledge of cast iron cookware.

To top the day off, we all got a booklet about cast iron cooking along with the recipes we made that day. AND we each got a $10.00 gift certificate to Sportsman's Warehouse, making our meal and class a paltry $5.00. What a deal!

Do we know how to have fun or what?

Our life is good.

More Pictures

While there's not a lot to write about today, I do have some pictures I wanted to post.

I got up early this morning and took this just as the sun was coming up over the lake.


Then it seems like I didn't do much the rest of the day, just visited with a lot of folks, which I do enjoy. It was really hot today, around 100 degrees, so we were both quite lazy. Fortunately there is usually some sort of breeze which makes it seem not so warm, but still we stayed inside for the hottest part of the day.

When it started to cool off, we moved outside and it was just beautiful. We've set up bird feeders and slowly but surely they are beginning to come. It seems like some places they find the feeders immediately, but at others, it takes them a week or so to find the food.

As the sun sank lower in the sky, it became more and more colorful.

Have I mentioned how much I love the open skies of New Mexico?


In just a matter of moments, the entire sky behind the rig filled with the most wondrous color. . .

Which quickly transformed itself into this.


Just a few moments later, we started walking the loop, and I noticed a view that I've missed up until now. This is taken looking through some bushes, across the lake to this mesa off in the distance.. You can just see a bit of the lake in this photo, but I loved the look of this photo. It kind of reminds me of an old Kodachrome postcard.


And just so you know, I haven't neglected the hummingbirds this summer. So far we have two feeders and two birds, but no pictures of them yet.

Life is Good.

the Various Johns . . .

Regular readers know I am a huge movie fan.

Short of slasher films, there are very few I don't like, but what I really love are the old classics. The ones where you say "They just don't make em like that anymore."

Now that I've said that, I must confess that the are some classic movie stars which I don't quite get.

And for the longest time I just didn't get John Wayne. He seemed to always just play John Wayne, or so I thought (ashamedly admitting that I probably had never sat through an entire John Wayne film).

Then I saw the Quiet Man, and my whole opinion changed.

Not only is it a wonderfully crafted film, beautifully shot, subtly acted, but it also boasts an exceptional script. This film opened my eyes to the John Wayne- John Ford dynamic, and what a fine pairing it was.

So I started watching lots of John Wayne films. Some were definitely better than others, but the man certainly delivered on screen. Both Terry and I particularly like certain of his westerns, including Red River, the Cowboys and the Shootist. Then there are those which he made with John Ford.

Since we've been spending so much time in the Southwest, we've found that we enjoy fine western movies more than ever. With that in mind, I've been looking for a selection of three films known as John Ford's Cavalry Trilogy.

These films include Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande. After searching various libraries, Movie Galleries and Blockbusters all over New Mexico, I finally decided to break down and purchase them through Amazon.com. Then I figured we could have ourselves a little western/cavalry marathon.

So of course, even though I ordered them at the exact same time, they all shipped separately with the last one arriving just today, Hurrah!

Then I took at look at today's lineup for Turner Classic Movies . . .

As proof that great minds think alike, tonight, they are showing, in order, Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande!

Oh well, I guess if this is the worst of my problems , I can truly say that my Life is Good!

(Reviews to follow, I'm off to the movies.)

Santa Rosa - And Garlic!

Every morning I wake up and am so pleased to look out my windows, the views here are glorious. The truth is I love the open skies of New Mexico.

I remember years ago speaking with a friend who had moved to Hawaii. She said that what she loved were the incredible open skies. I sort of said Yeah, Yeah, but I was still infatuated with the redwoods of Northern California. And while I still appreciate their beauty, I am just tired of being closed in, not seeing the horizons.

I love New Mexico.

So when we went for our morning walk, I took the camera and took a few photos of the campground for the blog.

When we first step out of Cholula Red, this is our view. I do love these trees.


Here's a wide view of the campground. I really like the layout of this park, lots of open spaces. While every spot doesn't have a view of the lake, it's never far out of sight.


And as I mentioned yesterday, the flowers are just coming out. This is the first cactus blossom I've seen this year (and it looks a lot nicer when you click for a larger version).

This is just a shot of one of the campsites. As you can see, very roomy and again, look at that sky!


And here we are back at our campsite. We've put out the hummingbird feeders but have only seen one hummer so far, hopefully we'll get more as they discover the feeders.


And now I want to talk about something completely different.


When we were in Albuquerque, we had the luxury of Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Costco, what a wealth of choices for someone who likes to cook!

At Costco, they were sampling this, just sprinkled on some plain pasta.

Well, it was just so tasty I had to try some, and am I ever glad I did. This stuff is just wonderful.

So far, I've used it on pasta, we've made garlic spread with it, flavored a pot of beans (Yum!) and used it on fresh green beans, EXCELLENT!

If you see it in the store, you might want to pick it up, I like it a lot.

Yep, Life is Good.

Oh What a Beautiful Morning!

I woke up this morning to find a light rain had fallen. While that's sometimes not the best of news, it just washed everything clean and sparkling and I had to take a few pictures.

This is what I saw the very first thing this morning as I opened the shade.


And when I opened the back shade, this is what greeted me, Off in the distance you can see Santa Rosa Dam. This thing is HUGE.

When I finally got up (I'm quite lazy these days) This is out our side windows. These trees are so beautiful, we're not sure but we think they might be Russian Olive trees. All the tiny flowers are coming up and it really looks like Spring here in Santa Rosa.


And I must apologize, these pictures were taken from inside the rig through rainy windows, so they're not as sharp as I would like. Also, the dark windows distort the colors, but I still wanted to share our view with you. I'll try to take more pictures later when the weather is a bit "brighter".

This is indeed a lovely park.

The rain stopped early with the sun intermittently peeking out, but it's cool and a perfect day to cook!

Last night I set a pound of mixed beans to soak, so today it will be a long slow cook in the crockpot. There's just something so soothing about a big old pot of beans, don't you think? I'm always trying different ingredients, today I'm playing with heat, some chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce, a new cilantro dip I'm trying, we'll just have to see how they turn out.

{Well crapola! during the long cooking, I looked at the beans when I should have just let them simmer and I broke my crockpot lid! When we first started traveling I was sure I wouldn't need a crock pot, but I found this one for $3.00 at a yard sale and it has been a great thing to have when we stay for a while. I guess I got my $3.00 worth out of it, but now I have to decide on a new one. Amazon, here I come!).

Anyway, before the crock pot fiasco, I looked around the rig and discovered we had a bunch of apples that were going soft, so I got on the internet looking for apple recipes and came up with this recipe for Apple Bread.

After doing a bit more research, I decided to replace half the oil with butter, half the white sugar with brown sugar, triple the cinnamon, add about 2 tsp of fresh nutmeg (and if you don't use fresh nutmeg, you really don't know what you're missing), add in another cup and a half of apples, replace the walnuts with pecans, and just for the heck of it, throw in about a cup and a half of Craisins.

WOW! Here's the loaf out of the oven . . .

And here's the moist chewy goodness of the inside.

You'll notice the recipe makes two loafs. I almost only made one, but thought it would be nice to have enough to share, and boy am I glad I did!

This one is a keeper.

And now I'm off to bake a fresh loaf of bread to have with our bean soup for dinner, YUM!

And before I go, here's one final shot, taken after the sun had come out and the sky had blued up a bit.

We're going to like it here.

Life is Very Good!

Going Back in Time

Well, here I am again, and while we've been busy doing boring things lately, there is quite a backlog of pictures so here we go!

We found Leasburg Dam to be a truly lovely place to camp. Our spot was out in the open, with a beautiful cactus garden to one side and a view of the mountains to the other side.

We put out our bird feeders and within a day, we had literally hundreds of birds. Since we had the garden to our side, the birds would hang around in the bushes and take their turns at the feeders.

It was a wonderful thing to see, and unfortunately I didn't get a whole lot of pictures, but I'll share what I did manage to shoot.

We had LOTS of finches.

While this shot isn't anywhere near as sharp as I would like, I liked the composition so I thought I'd include it here.

I was playing around with different lenses and got this shot. While I know it's not exactly the right way to use a lens, I liked the look of it. This was the view out of my bedroom window every morning.

We had so many Silver Cardinals, everyone was commenting on how lovely they are. Remember to click on any of these photos for a larger image. They look much better in the larger versions.

Leasburg Dam State Park sits on a bluff above the Rio Grande River and it is a sight to behold. After spending so much time in the desert, it was such an amazing sight to see all this water, not to mention beautiful green fields.

These next two shots of the Rio Grande were taken from the day use area at Leasburg Dam. While the rive is quite wise, you can walk across the whole width and never get wet above your knees!

One more shot of the mighty Rio Grande.

One day as we were driving into town, I was literally struck by these fields of harvested alfalfa. After so much desert, it was like my skin just drank in all the green.

One more shot of the green, I just couldn't resist.

And here's one final shot out of my bedroom window. This was our view every evening.


I will be posting a few more Leasburg Dam/Las Cruces blogs in the next week or so.

While there, we attended a Cast Iron Cooking Class, Pioneer Days at Fort Selden and had a lovely afternoon at the Las Cruces outdoor mall, so stay tuned for full reports.

And for now, we're relaxing and enjoying the beautiful weather here at Santa Rosa.

Life is Good.

. . .Hello!

Yes, we're still here.

As regular readers know, we were both sick for a spell, then we left Leasburg Dam State Park, had car troubles, went to Manzano Mountains State Park, stayed one night, got evacuated due to the Trigo fire, moved to Mountainair, stayed one night, started packing up to go back to Manzano, were told we couldn't return because of the fire, decided Albuquerque was the answer, decided it was time for a new toad (LONG story which I don't even want to get into, so don't ask),finally found a new toad (don't EVER try to buy a car in New Mexico, the pickins are slim), now have a 1998 Subaru Forester BUT we can't afford to put the tow equipment on it for a while so we came to Santa Rosa State Park to sit a while, were approached about camp hosting, found out that we wouldn't have to clean toilets or campsites or work in a Visitors Center, (basically just be social and help folks out), so now we are committed for at least a month!

Is that the longest sentence you've read in a while?

Whatever, it's my story and I'm sticking to it.

And it looks like once again I can truthfully write that Life is Good.

Well Again . . .

I would like to thank all of you who have emailed and called.

The truth is I got sick, and then Terry got sick, so we've been lying kind of low.

In the middle of this, we moved, spent a night at a Wal-Mart, moved to Manzano, spent one night, got evacuated due to the Trigo fire, spent a night evacuated, thinking we could go back the next day, started moving and got told we couldn't return and FINALLY ended up in Albuquerque at a Passport America Park, where we are currently hibernating.

Soon, we'll be back among the living and I'll post all kinds of stuff . . .

I am feeling much better and Terry is almost 100% so once again, I can truly say that life is looking good, or at least better.