Miss Mantis Models

Miss Mantis models
On a sunny sunflower
Sassy she can be

Miss Mantis hitched I ride on me as I made my way from the car to the house through our sunflower forest. I felt something walking around on the back of my arm giving me little love pinches. After I put down a load of books, my briefcase and some framed pictures I was taking inside, I looked at my arm, and there was Miss Mantis enjoying the ride. I put her on a plant on the deck until I got everything put away. I walked back out to the plant, and she was there waiting. I put out my hand, she hopped onto it and I took her out to a sunflower where she was a very good model. I didn’t want to leave her in the plants on the deck because the cats would get her. I had to rescue a praying mantis from the kittens few nights ago.

Reflections On Being Fried

Three eggs reflected
Were feeling completely fried
With sunny sides up

Morning

Evening

Cooking

We put up a fifth sack of green chiles on Friday afternoon. I made burritos with green chiles, pinto beans, rice and potatoes, and a pot of green chile stew with the same ingredients. I put most of the burritos in the freezer. I will take them for lunches during the week. I will also put the green chile stew in serving sized containers in the freezer.

Making green chile burritos and green chile stew is easy, and it’s a feeling, but here’s the approximate proportions of each ingredient:

Green Chile Burritos

  • 2 quarts of chopped green chiles (look for Bueno frozen flame roasted green chiles or 505 Hatch green chiles if you can’t get freshly roasted green chiles. You can substitute poblanos or Anaheim green chiles. You could add roasted jalapeños to spice up the poblanos and Anaheims).
  • 3 cups of pinto beans, whole or smashed. I smashed them. (we use Anasazi pinto beans from Adobe Mills in Colorado).
  • 3 cups of rice (whatever type you like).
  • 3 cups of boiled, chunked potatoes.
  • 2 cups of shredded cheese (optional. I used Mexican four cheese blend).
  • 1 1/2 onions chopped and sautéed.
  • Whatever seasonings you like. I used a handful of Italian seasoning sautéed with the onions, and a handful of garlic powder. I don’t use salt when I cook.
  • Large flour tortillas or wraps (start with 30 tortillas or wraps, you might need more or less depending on how much of the mixture you put on each tortilla).

Mix the cooked pinto beans, rice, chunked potatoes, sautéed onions, spices and green chiles in a large mixing bowl and stir everything together until the ingredients are evenly mixed. I mixed the shredded cheese in with the other ingredients. The cheese is optional or it can be added on top of the mixture before wrapping the tortillas. Spoon the mixture onto a tortilla or wrap. Fold the short ends first and then the long ends.

Green Chile Stew

  • 2 quarts of chopped green chiles
  • 3 cups of pinto beans, whole
  • 3 cups of rice
  • 3 cups of boiled, chunked potatoes.
  • 1 1/2 onions chopped and sautéed.
  • 1 cup chicken soup stock (optional)
  • Whatever seasonings you like. I used a handful of Italian seasoning sautéed with the onions, and a handful of garlic powder.

Wash the potatoes, add just enough water to cover the potatoes. Boil the potatoes until they are fork tender. Pull the potatoes out of the water (don’t throw out the water), and cut the potatoes into chucks (they will probably fall apart as you cut them up). Put the chunked potatoes back in the water. Add the pinto beans, chopped green chiles, rice, chicken soup stock (if you choose), and seasonings to the potatoes and stir to mix well. Add more water if needed. Reheat until hot, but not boiling.

Hi There

Hi there!
You look like you live in a world that’s upside down
Everything is turned on its head
Nothing is the right way up
It must be dizzying
Living a topsy-turvy existence
Where you can’t tell reality from illusion
And so many others are delusional about their senses and beings

Barbara Price 1923 – 2021

My mom passed on today. She would have turned 98 in October. I saw her two weeks ago. She was lucid, but her body was failing her and her system was starting to shut down. She entered hospice last week, and she was more comfortable the last few days of her life.

I made the photo of her at her computer ten years ago and put it together with a photo of her when she was 20 years old working in a radio station. In those days most of the music was live, but she could record the performances by cutting records. She had a collection of 78 rpm records that were mostly commercial recordings, but among the collection were several records that she had cut during her years at the radio station. Most of the records she cut were glass platters, but she had some records that were vinyl on aluminum platters.

She had her Ham radio license when she and my dad started dating. My dad was really into radios, especially Ham radios, so while he was working on getting his Ham license he used her call. When they moved to New Mexico in the early 1950s they got consecutive call letters of W5ADX (dad) and W5ADY (mom). Dad was on his radios to the day he died. I don’t remember mom talking on the radios, but she kept her license active while my dad was alive.

I forget what her formal education was, but she was a good typist and worked as a secretary for the elementary school out here in the mid ’60s. Then she worked as a research tech for the Lovelace Foundation doing experiments on smokers, before she went to work for the YWCA in downtown Albuquerque in the late 1960s. She retired from the YWCA in the mid 1980s.

She volunteered at the Corrales Library after she retired. She read all books by all the local authors, and everyone who used the library knew her. She was active in church all her life, also. She took to computers like the radios of her youth, and had email and the web to keep in touch with friends and family.

Sunrise

Sunset