I’ve been waiting for days for this red tulip to bloom. I think it would have bloomed today if it hadn’t gotten frozen last night. The white tulips are in a protected area so they are thriving.

 

A came across a couple of articles on google news about the Dixon Apple Farm’s lease issues with the State Land Office: http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s2581329.shtml and http://www.KOB.com/article/stories/S2581497.shtml?cat=500 The first four photos are from our pilgrimage to Dixon’s with Susan and Lois in 2010. The fires and subsequent flooding wiped out the Mullane’s home and all the structures associated with the farm. Apparently 75% of the trees survived, but the farm was devastated. The last photo is of white daffodils.

The follow is a response I wrote to the articles about Dixon’s farm:

On the issue of the Dixon Apple Farm lease, there’s no arguing schools could use the $2.8 million the Mullane family is asking to help cover the damage to the farm from fire and floods last year. Yet public schools are bottomless pits when it comes to needing money, and considering the billions of dollars in deferred maintenance in New Mexico’s schools alone, $2.8 million becomes a piddling amount. To paraphrase Jesus — public schools will aways be with us. But the Dixon Apple Farm, which is such a unique part of New Mexico’s heritage, will not. Is it right to hasten the farm’s demise over $2.8 million and say “it’s for the children”?

Land Commissioner, Ray Powell, also does not believe the State should use tax payers’ money to subsidize the Dixon Apple Farm; but is it really a subsidy?  The Mullane family has made improvements to the land for decades, and the State should compensate them for those improvements. Yet if one insists on calling the $2.8 million the Mullanes are asking for “a subsidy”, subsidizing farms with tax payers’ money, if the tax payers approve or not, has been a passion of federal, state and local governments for as long as most people can remember. New Mexico’s farm subsidies have averaged $36.1 million a year over the past 15 years and totaled $38.4 million in 2009 and $20.5 million in 2010(1). In the tradition of farm subsidies, is $2.8 million really too much to help Dixon’s Apple Farm?

Since the apples that come from Dixon’s farm are unique to the area, maybe they should be considered endangered species. The State of New Mexico has no problem spending millions of dollars to protect silvery minnow and other threatened and endangered species, but from the way this lease issue is being reported, state officials don’t care to preserve one-of-a-kind endangered apple trees. Tying to preserve the Dixon Apple Farm, like protecting the silvery minnow, would be of great benefit to New Mexico.

Dixon’s apples are world famous. There is New Mexican history and heritage tied up in the Dixon Farm, and people will line up for miles to buy Dixon apples at harvest time. A trip to Dixon’s was a fun, social and entertaining event that became an annual tradition for many people in New Mexico and visitors from other states. Not only is Dixon apple orchard a farm, but it’s a destination and provides entertainment to thousands of people. New Mexico paid large sums of money to the film industry to make movies and TV series in New Mexico over the past several years. I believe one can argue that the film industry did not produce entertainment as wholesome as the Dixon Apple Farm or benefit New Mexico as much as Dixon’s.

The Dixon Apple Farm holds a unique place in New Mexico’s heritage, is endangered, historic, and not only offers world famous apples, but also tradition, entertainment and educational opportunities to anyone willing and able to travel to the farm. State officials should consider the Dixon Apple Farm a treasure that is worth trying to save.

(1) 2011 Farm Subsidy Database http://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=35000&progcode=totalfarm&regionname=NewMexico

 

 

 

 

 

As far as Friday the 13ths go, today lived up to it’s name. “Les choses sont contre nous” big time today. Construction issues forced the closure of Corrales Road this morning, which made us run late. But then most everyone was running late today. Then we kept forgetting things, among them my computer that I discovered I had left at the office when we got home. I could have left it at the office, written a bitchy blog with no photos, and passed the Friday the 13th vibes on; but the photos must go on, so I drove back into town and got my computer.

 

More flowers are blooming as the weather warms. Although, both of our amaryllis have faded.

 

 

 

The lilacs are blooming. This one is named Sensation. When I applied a blue filter to the daffodils, they turned black. Puck was doing a major “roll in the dirt” performance for me tonight. Kitties don’t understand why we shower, get all wet and waste all that water when we could simply roll in the dirt like they do.

 

 

I had my monthly port flush this morning, and what I was expecting to be the usual flush, check to see if it returned blood and then inject Heparin to keep it clear for another month, became an ordeal. The inside port went as normal, but the nurse could not get blood return from the outside port. After eight syringes of saline, having me cough, raise my hands above my head, wiggle around, and dance the cha cha a few times she gave up and ordered “Cathflow” from the pharmacy. Cathflow is kind of like Drain-O for catheters. It took around 15 minutes for the pharmacy to prepare the Cathflow, and then I had to wait another 20 minutes for it to work on the clog before she could finishing flushing the port and “heparinize” it, so between the Cancer Center being busy this morning, and having to “roto-rooter” my port, the 20 minutes I was expecting to spend at the CC this morning turned out to be an hour and a half.

 

We went to the Easter Service at Central United Methodist Church yesterday. The service and music were fantastic with the choir and chamber orchestra. The old hymns were quite moving and the Hallelujah Chorus at the end of the service was unbelievable.

I thought it would be fun to try some stacking and stitching on a full sanctuary. Well, that proved to be quite a challenge for me and the software. The first two photos are made of stacked images of four perspectives (two high and two low), with a high and low from each side stitched vertically, then the two resulting vertical photos stitched horizontally. I attempted three upper and three lower photos, got them stitched horizontally and vertically for each side, but it was too much for the panorama software to stitch the resulting right and left sides together.  The last photo is one of the video cameras they use to tape the service in front of one of the stained glass windows — an interesting juxtaposition.

 

 

Most people have Easter bunnies, we have Easter Spiders. This little jumping spider hopped onto the counter and looked at me with its adorable puppy dog eyes while I was doing the dishes this morning. Speaking of puppy dogs, a dog adopted Tristan and David. His name is Avid. He’s really a sweet puppy. One of their neighbors had adopted him, but he wasn’t working out for them. Avid sensed something was up, so he jumped the fence and sought out Tristan. It’s interesting how animals often know who to go to when they need help.

When I went out at 3:30 am to turn in the irrigation water, the moon was beautiful — it sat in the heavens occasionally peaking through the clouds as they passed under it. While I was on the ditch bank, the clouds opened up for a minute allowing me to capture the scene. It was a good sign, as I finally got enough water to cover all the areas we irrigate.

We had a busy day today. I repaired one of the drip systems first thing this morning, then we went to the 8th Air Force Historical Society luncheon. The presentation was on the declassification of Area 51 in Nevada. It was fascinating, and all the secrecy during the Cold War was for the building and testing of the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes. One thing I found really interesting is that the SR-71s were built out of titanium, which the US had to get from Russia. They said it’s still secret how they got the titanium during the cold war.

After dropping Tristan and Laurie off at Tristan’s so they could plan Easter lunch for tomorrow and then buy the ingredients, I picked up a fuel pump for the truck. I replaced the fuel pump first thing after I got home, got the truck running, then unloaded the tree trunks and branches that have been in the bed for months. After that I cleaned the gas tank and fuel lines on the mower, got it running, and mowed the irrigation ditches and a bunch of weeds.  I worked on the rototiller, and got it to start for a few seconds several times, then I discovered the fuel line is messed up — so replacing the fuel line will be my next mechanical project. I messed with the drip systems again, but they need more attention than I had time for after fixing the truck and mowing.

 

The moonrise last night was beautiful. The wisteria is blooming, and so far holding up against the morning frosts.