DOWN AROUND MY PLACE 2

OK, I went back to the default settings on the camera. the pix turned out better. I reckon the camera is smarter than me. Well, for the pictures. I dunno, maybe for a couple more things.

This is the area in which I live. Hostile environment, no water, thirty-five miles from the Mexican border.




Coming back from the range last week I stopped on the road five miles south of town, a mile or so west of the two-lane that runs down to the border, and shot these pix.

I posted on this a few days ago; here are some detail pix and my usual excellent commentary. There are a lot of people that died without ever hearing my voice. Don't be numbered among them.

North: overlooking sorghum fields stripped after harvest. That mountain, elevation 9750 ft. is about 25 miles north of town. The highest elevation in our part of the state. Ruins of a fort there from the Indian days, Butterfield Stage Lines ran past there as well.
 

South: These mountains 30 miles south are on private ranch property, beyond them the border. All the ranchers down that way can tell stories about illegals desecrating the land, wrecking windmills and wells, ripping fences and gates. The ranchers like AKs. Cheap and cheery, they make good, uh, varmint guns.

East: More mountains, poppies bloom on the south slopes in Spring; mountain lions and ibex up in there, hunters get after 'em and realize that a 200yd shot means a half mile up & down to get the carcass. Needless to say they usually leave them where they drop. The coyotes don't mind. The determined ones bring back the head if there is any kind of rack. A state park, some rock-hounding, several homes in the gap between the big ones to the right (rugged) and the little (gentler). Kinda remote, more than half an hour away from a loaf of bread. Beyond the mountains gets you to Texas eventually, with miles of salt flats in the way.

West: Red Mountain some 20 miles west, so called to differentiate it from Black Mountain, not in the pix. Black Mt. has a lot of lava rock which lends the color. Red Mt. has, um, dirt and rocks. Beyond the mountain Arizona a couple hours away. We have prevailing west winds all year long and in the Spring, when the land is pretty dry, we get strong west winds pushing dust that will close highways, local roads, even the interstate (I-10) and bring us a lot of Arizona real estate (airborne). The dust storms are enough to make grown men cry, women tremble, children run and hide, dogs to bark and horses to bolt in sheer panic.

A local joke: one day the wind stopped blowing and all the chickens fell over.