Paula posted her resolution for the next year yesterday,  and today it is my turn.   I have been AWOL from our blog for a few years,  leaving it for Paula to carry the weight of publishing stories about our exploits.  She does it very well, and I appreciate her enthusiastic presentations and detailed descriptions.   I have been mostly silent on all fronts during this period.   I think it may be simply that I disagree and do not wish to dwell on my disagreement. “Disagree about what?” I hear you ask, though you probably are not asking. But just for the sake of argument, let’s say you did ask. Well, I can pretty much tell you: I have been against the current thing, a statement that is no longer in common parlance, I’m afraid, and, therefore, no longer the current thing.

I won’t phrase this as a resolution since that is so much the current thing,  but I am,  at this time and for as long as I am , back in communication.  I actually started posting my essays, though a bit more formally and less flippantly, a couple of weeks ago by reestablishing my presence as the Contrarian Conformist on Substack.   If you are interested,  you can access my ramblings here, and if you would like you can subscribe by entering your e-mail and get future posts. The topics I discuss therein are outside the scope of this blog, so I’ll merely say that I am currently examining possible answers to Don Corleone’s question to the heads of the Five Families: “how did we let things go this far?”

Today, we joined a group of fellow “pilgrims” for a New Years Day hike on the west side of the Rio Grande.  I do not mean “pilgrims” in the general sense that we are all pilgrims in life, but because we are associated with the local chapter of American Pilgrims on the Camino, for which Paula is one of the coordinators. I use the term as an indication of our relationship through that organization. It was a chilly,  almost cold, almost warm, bright winter day with plenty of sun and clear skies. The parking lots at the trail head indicated that the trail was particularly popular today, though it was not hard to get a sense of isolation in the bosque, even with a group of twelve people.   

Winters on the Rio Grande are usually fairly dry,  and this year, more so than normal.  We have been in a drought, though it is not immediately apparent by the water level in the river.

The high water level is due to the release of water from upstream reservoirs so that the State can pay a portion of its water debt to Texas. Water is life, they say, and Texas has a life of its own. One of our fellow hikers asked whether Texas will share any of it with Mexico. I don’t have an answer for that question, but if one is to look at a Google Earth view of the US/Mexico border, one might have a fairly good idea.

We are having a great year for migratory birds, with many cranes, geese, and ducks feeding and nesting along the river.   Paula and I went to the Bosque del Apache preserve near Socorro a few weeks ago and there were many more crane this year than last year. This year we have not failed to see any when walking trails on the Rio Grande, passing them in small flocks as we walk up and down the river bank.

One of my favorite sights is watching cranes in flight, though since I have not been able to catch such a view on a photograph,  I can only provide a photo of them wading.

Until later……