The backyard maple is still with us, megadrought be damned.
The arborista with the tree service we use recently sent out a customer-tips newsletter about balancing responsible water use and tree care. Top of her list? “Plant better trees.”
The trend has been hotter and drier for many years. I don’t see drought conditions going away. There are plenty of shade trees that are not water-hogs and many desert trees that complement your landscapes. Cottonwood and maple are so out of fashion in drought conditions.
Sigh. Naturally, we’ve got this doddering old maple that endures an amputation or six every fall. And there’s a giant-ass cottonwood across the arroyo.
The Turk standing watch in 2008.
We had a beautiful maple in the front yard back in Bibleburg. Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Defense Regiment) loved that tree, when he was still an indoor-outdoor cat. He’d take up a position in the crotch of it and make himself look even longer than he was, like a giant furry albino alligator.
Once a killer hailstorm hit that tree like Spooky working out with its Vulcan minigun. Maple-leaf salad all over the front yard and porch. Tree bounced right back, maybe even better than ever.
But it rains and snows in the B-burg. Or it used to, anyway. A tree can get a little love up there, whether it’s Earth Day or not.
Somehow I’ve managed to bollix my back again, possibly the upshot of doing a wee bit too much of what’s supposed to be fun and good for me.
P’raps at my advanced and ever-accelerating state of disintegration it’s not smart to follow a 120-mile week with a few days of caroming various cyclocross bikes and a rigid mid-Nineties 26er off rocks in various calibers while rolling the foothills trails? Plus a trail run and adding a couple elbees to the ol’ dumbbells, like a dumbbell?
Well … you know what we say about “smart” and Your Humble Narrator — rarely seen together, like Clark Kent and Superman, and without all that useful Kryptonian super-strength and invulnerability, too.
Anyway, shit took me right out of the game. I never know precisely what triggers this old injury, acquired in college while delivering appliances for beer money. And there’s no curing it, not since we headed south from Bibleburg and my miracle worker Doc Lori took that long road west.
So when it pops round like the taxman, a cold-calling insert-your-home-improvement-project-here rep’, or a chirpy acolyte of the Campus Crusade for Cthulhu, I just wait it out. No sudden movements, no heavy lifting, and definitely no bicycling. A little gentle stretching, a few equally gentle walks, spasms working their way up and down the carcass looking for structural weaknesses, and, inevitably, finding them.
A severely restricted news diet is a must as well. Ping-ponging between the hysterical laughter of disbelief at the countless teensy weenies being so fiercely trodden upon and a shrieking “Follow Me Up to Carlow” rage (up with halberds, out with swords, etc.) is not a balm for the slowly recovering organism.
Thus the lack of recent bloggery. I’m feeling much better now, thanks. Though I can’t remember where I parked my halberd, goddamnit. ’Twas a nice Rivendell model too.
They say that money Can’t buy love in this world But it’ll get you a half-pound of cocaine And a 16-year old girl And a great big long limousine On a hot September night Now that may not be love But it is all right. — Randy Newman, ‘It’s Money That I Love’
Don’t touch that dial! No, seriously, don’t touch it. Eeeyeeww.
I see Prince Maybelline, putative Heir to the Golden Escalator, has managed a rare double in the 2026 Foreign Policy World Series, failing to end a war and queer an election.
Sucks to be him. If there’s ever a Marvel movie about this administration, and there shouldn’t be, I figure Johnny Depp plays the prince in full Jack Sparrow makeup. Stellan Skarsgård will of course bring his Baron Vladimir Harkonnen chops to the role of Addled Shitler, but with an overlay of Evil Otis Campbell from the Bizarro World version of “The Andy Griffith Show.”
And now Shitler is beefing with the pope? He’s a huge fat bastard for sure, but I don’t think he can make the weight for that bout, no matter how many Unhappy Meals he inhales between fat rails of Adderall.
The start of Tramway’s descent toward Interstate 25.
Never fear, I’m not back on the sauce. This drop taken was down to the bosque, for the first time this year.
It was a lovely day, if a bit windy — high of 80°, 65° when I started — and if I’d had my wits about me I could’ve finally ridden my age (in kilometers).
The Rio lacks a certain grandeur.
But I didn’t. After inspecting the state of the Rio Grande below the Gail Ryba bridge (still fluid, in a not-so-solid fashion), instead of pulling a U and heading home via the Paseo/North Diversion/Osuna-Bear Canyon trails, I noodled back to the ranch through Old Town to Odelia-Indian School and the Paseo de las Montañas/Tramway trails. Wound up 8 miles short of a birthday ride. In kilometers. Which is kind of like kissing your sister.
The Bosque Bandido never materialized, but I did notice a John Law parked on the gravel at trailside. We exchanged waves. Didn’t ask to see my papers or nothin’. Which was fortunate, because all I had on me was an elderly iPhone 13 mini, a water bottle, and a stick of Clif Blox. It would’ve been off to County Clare for Your Humble Narrator.
“Ireland? But your honor, my client’s bicycle doesn’t even have fenders!”
“Tough titty, counselor — he should’ve thought about that before his great-granddaddy came here to occupy a barstool that by rights belonged to a nat’chal-borned American. Next case!”
The good news is I missed whatever it was Melania thought she was up to behind the pestilential lectern, where nobody could see the rug burns on her elbows and knees, and that “Property of Satan’s Slaves’ tat’ on her ass.
Isn’t it about time we started relocating some of these Trumps to gilt-free cages in the swamps, deserts, and desert swamps of Wottalottaland, Lower Slobbovia, and Spaminacanistan? I mean, Christ, Boss Hogg is bombing anything he can’t steal, Melanoma’s doing this feeble impression of Richard Pryor’s “Now are you gonna believe me or your lyin’ eyes?” bit, and now Barron wants to start dealing speed in Florida?
Dude thinks he’s being cute by calling it “yerba mate,” which I think is Guarani for “murder tea.” Wait until he hears what the Cartel calls it. “Gringo failing to swim across the Gulf of America while wearing 300 pounds of chains, a jukebox, and a burlap sack,” is what.
See if you can get mommy and daddy to join you for that dip in the shark tank, kid. Your ould fellah could certainly use the exercise. Driving the golf cart and having people killed ain’t getting it done.
• Addendum: Artemis II made it home safely, and about 20 minutes after they were bobbing around in the Pacific off San Diego, boom! We got our first hummingbird of the new year at our feeders. Winning!
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