This installment is chock-full of pictures and notes on a variety of things.

Mystic Bluffs Fly-in

Our neighbor, Cindy Crawford, owns a piece of land near Ramah Lake, less than a mile from our home. She is a pilot and built a dirt airstrip there, which she calls the Mystic Bluffs Airstrip. Each year she and Perry Null, her co-sponsor, invite pilots of small planes from anywhere in the country to a fly-in, and this year it happened on the weekend of August 21.

About 25 small planes from all over began floating in Friday evening and Saturday morning. The folks here in Timberlake put on a wonderful breakfast on Saturday, and then the pilots engaged in a number of exercises and contests, including a flour-bombing competition. It was wonderful fun for us locals, and the pilots loved it. Here is a link to an excellent article by one pilot who was there: http://blog.aopa.org/vfr/?p=2371.

Along the Ancient Way

This year’s Ancient Way Fall Festival took place October 3, with tents and booths and events along both sides of Highway 53 near the El Morro National Monument. It included the last farmers market of the year; Zuni, Navajo, and other artisans; contests for the prettiest chicken and the weirdest vegetable; Zuni Dancers and folk music and bluegrass; brisket and gourmet Zuni pizzas and home-baked desserts; blacksmiths and tarot readers and cake walks. Hundreds of people had a great time.

It is called the Ancient Way Fall Festival because it is on Highway 53, which has been designated by the State of New Mexico as The Ancient Way Arts Trail and Scenic Bypass. The highway overlays a road going back thousands of years. It was the traditional route between the Pueblos of Zuni & Acoma, and the route taken by Coronado’s expedition. The conquistadors came along looking for treasure, and cavalry and settlers also traveled the route, heading west.

Here are a few pictures, including one from an earlier final farmer’s market.

An Explosion of Sunflowers

Normally the rains don’t begin until the middle of July but we had great rains this year, beginning the first of June. The flowers and grasses grew lush and abundant, especially the sunflowers, which painted large swaths of meadows and hillsides bright yellow.

Here are pictures of Reuben the burro in a field of cowpen daisies taken by Kathleen Haldeman, a rainbow taken by Zachary Frederick; my wife, Lucia, beside Zachary on his horse; and my favorite picture of Lucia and me, taken by Nancy Dobbs.

Two final notes: First, the Rainbow House is still for sale. Here is a link to it’s write-up:
Click This Link

and here is a video of our beautiful home: Click This Link.

Second, the poem in my last entry, Do You Remember the Light, is available in my recently published book, Vanishing Point. The book is available on Amazon. Click This Link

Because this blog is running long, I won’t tell you about the huge sparking shooting star we saw on the night of the lunar eclipse, or Lucia’s wonderful book, Breaking Eggs (also on Amazon), or the singing toads. I will leave those for you to conjure up with your rich imagination.