The Kruse Chronicles Continue in Cocoa, Florida

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 15:21:00 +0000

We have moved to Cocoa, Florida. We are working on things inside the house so we haven't been able to fully move in. Updates coming.

Early Morning Elk and Sunset

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 04:03:00 +0000

Nothing is more magical than waking up and finding a couple hundred very large elk sleeping on your property. Going out onto the deck the sounds of males clacking their antlers as they "fight" is a really neat sound but the females make a mewing sort of sound that doesn't sound like it would come from them! Not sure which I like better.

After the elk have gone over the ridge to the valley below, hours later, the skies offered up a beautiful sunset. Puerto Rico had wonderful sunsets...New Mexico had wonderful sunsets and in the winter months our Colorado house has wonderful sunsets.

What a Difference a Year Makes! These are the "before" House Photos

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 19:07:00 +0000

This time last year we were looking forward to moving into our new house BUT asbestos had to be removed first. The house is 30 years old and had popcorn ceilings throughout. In this housing market there is no bargaining to be had but if we have to sell the house at some point the market may be different PLUS who wants to live with asbestos? There is also radon in most houses so we needed to get that done as well. We did get a few thousand from the seller but it was $10,000 to get the asbestos out and then you are left with a bare ceiling that needs texturing and paint. We had some fake beans removed and a hanging kitchen cabinet taken out and these left gouges and holes that needed repair.

Line of holes from where the cabinet was (cabinet blocked the views and was wayyyyyy up there!

There was also some kind of bizarre sponge painting in the kitchen area and awful wallpaper in the bathroom. Downstairs had burlap bags as wallpapering (not really but looked like it - cat scratching post walls). All of this had to go. So in addition to the ceiling getting textured and painted we went for it - we had the wallpaper taken off, burlap walls taken down, and the entire house painted inside. There are still baseboards and window moldings and other wood items (doors) to be done but I can get to them later).

Lots of wood in the house - really old dark 70's style stuff. We couldn't move in while the asbestos removal was being done so we did some work removing junipers outside. I would drive a carload of our stuff from the rental and stuff it in the garage then work in the yard. Once the inside texturing and stuff was being started I could freely go in and out but it was stinky, a mist of paint, workers and stuff I just didn't want to see. The race was on...we had to find someone to rent the rental we broke the lease on, but couldn't move in our house yet, but were paying a mortgage and rent (which is the same as our mortgage) so it was stressful to say the least after the previous year being super stressful. Once the ceilings were done I could get started on sanding and painting all the dark oak cabinets in the kitchen. After going back and forth on wall and cabinet colors I went with a couple different greys and it has worked out well. This hanging cabinet was taken out. All the nasty old lights were removed and Jeff put new ones up (more decisions). It took forever to find drawer hinges for the cabinets.

So things were MOSTLY done when we found a renter to move in in February and had to get out. We had to move chickens, cats, and the rest of our stuff while painters were still painting. We had one room finished the day we moved in and the cats stayed there, we slept in there and painters finished up upstairs and finally a week later had everything done. What a relief to have the house to ourselves!

The chickens had to get taken from their "house" in Lyons, put in the car and then needed somewhere to be at the new place. We bought some extra chain link to at least have part of their pen made before the moving day. It was quite tricky dealing with them. We should have just had them in the garage and made our lives easier but painters were working from there. It all worked out and everything looks quite different now. There are still things to do but we have learned from all our other houses (4) that if it doesn't happen in the first few years you don't get to enjoy the changes!

While I was monitoring the painters and driving stuff to the house I removed a majority of these junipers. They were 4 feet high with trunks a good 8-10 inches across. Nasty things. We removed a hedge of them at the front of the house as well. There was a hidden split rail fence inside them that we took out too (once we discovered it). Haven't done much else on the outside but another year is here...

Glad to Kiss a Crappy Year Goodbye! Why I haven't done any blogposts...

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 04:08:00 +0000

Sooooo. Where to start. When Jeff lost his job we not not especially happy to be leaving New Mexico. It was never a forever place but we had a lot more we wanted to explore and had finally started making friends and finding things to do and explore. I was in a rock grinding groove (with George Franzen as an awesome mentor) and had started making jewelry. Rio Grande Jewelry Supply is in Albuquerque and I didn't realize there really aren't places like this any where else. They have supplies but also offer advice. So I especially was not a happy camper to have to move.

When Jeff got the job offer we came up to Colorado and the greenness and water and trees and animals were very good things so we started to get excited. Then came the problem of my having to stay in NM to get the house ready to sell and Jeff having to stay at AirB and Bs while starting a new job and trying to figure out where we could live with 4 chickens and 3 cats. When that got figured out the house still didn't have an offer. It was 3 months before I could move up and even then the house didn't have an offer. That meant that I had to drive the long drive back to NM every few weeks to clean, water and haul crap up here. Not pleasant times. So then we got an offer on the house and it was probably one of those trips down that I overdid things and the health troubles began. Part of it.

So I don't know if I'll ever know the cause or sequence of events. At some point I apparently tore my hamstring and my gluteus minimus and medius muscles and hip labrum and didn't know it (how that is even possible I do not know). Then at the rental in Lyons Colorado I was tending the garden one day, stood up and knew something was not right. Then I was turning the compost and got stung repeatedly by yellow jackets and my leg swelled up (never had swollen after years of fire ant bites) and I couldn't walk on it for a week. Over the course of a week maybe I just could not bend at all. I cried continuously and couldn't get my foot up to get in the bathtub. Could not bend to sit down, stand up, clean cat boxes, pick anything up off the floors etc etc. I am not usually a whiner and have a high pain tolerance. Couldn't find any position to be comfortable in. Soaks didn't do anything. I cried continuously and if that was how things were going to be I didn't want a life like that (sounds melodramatic now). I went to the doctor on my birthday and got kicked to orthopedic people since it was a bending thing and after X-rays, injections in my tendon sheaths, waiting for MRI approval and getting the MRI they found the torn stuff and trochanter bursitis but that did nothing to help things improve. Non-steroidal anti inflammatory things did NOTHING. I was sent to physical therapy that kind of helped. After screwing around with the ortho people for three months and really just wanting to be dead I went to a rheumatologist and that is when things improved. She did not look at me like I was crazy when I told her I went from highly active to not able to go down two steps in a week. She ran about 15 tests to rule things out and before I got home had the results of two of them, c-reactive protein and sed rate, and told me the numbers "got her attention" and to go immediately to pick up a prescription...take it...and call her in two days. Literally 5 hours later I could sit in a chair and stand up with crying. Night and Day. That prescription was prednisone which I am still on today, for over a year now.

So after ruling out rheumatoid arthritis, multiple myleoma, celiac, ankylosing spondylitis, chrohn's, pernicious anemia (still not officially ruled out) and a slew of other scary cancers and things, the test results and my fast response to prednisone pointed to Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR). What is it? An autoimmune disease that supposedly won't be "chronic" but lasts 1-3 years and can come out of hiding years later for another round. The ONLY thing it responds to is prednisone which doesn't cure it but masks the pain so you can function. It also makes you fat (which you already are since you can't do anything because it hurts), gives you weird fat pads in odd places on the body, makes you even less able to deal with stressful things, and can give you diabetes, osteoporosis and serious problems that luckily I have not experienced (except osteopenia that hopefully will resolve if I can move more). It is not uncommon especially when you have an autoimmune problem already, which Hashimoto's Hypothyroidism is (I have had that for 10 years) . It affects the shoulders and or pelvic girdle. It might be viral but they are not sure. But in the investigation and ruling out of things it was determined that I had all kinds of irregular CBC stuff. I had a B12 deficiency, was anemic (not iron deficient but another kind of anemia), D deficient and had blood cells the wrong sizes and shapes and amounts. I was also running a low grade fever and had been for months (figured this out after I looked at visit notes from appointments with the orthopedics person). The low grade fever is another sign of the PMR thing. I was having trouble eating - it just wasn't comfortable. This doctor did a stomach ultrasound. She had me have an endoscopy and colonoscopy to find out why I was anemic. Also to biopsy things to see why I wasn't absorbing nutrients. All that showed up were the "itis es," gastritis, esophagitis probably from the prednisone I was on (was on it for a couple months before these tests). She was convinced I had celiac since it explained a lot of the deficiencies but that and pernicious anemia were not found. So I started getting B12 shots every month. Continued with the prednisone. Upped the D3 I was already taking. Then I had another test for the part of the intestines the colonoscopy couldn't get to. Still nothing. In a month the sed rate went from 78 to 28 (should be 0-10) and the c-reactive protein had a similar drop. After I started the B12 shots a lot of things improved.

Then came the reduction of prednisone. That went fine for the first 6 months until we/I had serious stress - bought a house, had to break a lease and find renters, had to coordinate asbestos removal and painting/texturing in the new house and coordinate moving chickens (they have to be put somewhere once they are out of the car) and cats and stuff. Then we had lots of decisions once we were in the house. We couldn't take our time because Jeff's family was coming to visit and we had no drapes, curtain rods, no extra bed, cabinets weren't painted, no knobs, no towels etc etc. Extremely stressful. Plus part of the family arrived on Easter Day. I had a relapse aka "flare." So I was pretty much back to where I started with the prednisone. At some point my migraines became super scary and I really thought I was going to die so Jeff found a migraine clinic and I started going there twice a week. Fast forward to now.

So a year and 2 months later I still get B12 shots and my blood work is normal. The anemia has resolved, the D is in the low normal range but everything is pretty much on track. I have gotten the prednisone down to 4mg which is 1 mg lower than where I was last January. I am reducing slowly and trying to keep stress at a minimum so I don't "flare." I am getting botox for the migraines and have a new inhaleable migraine med that is wonderful and the migraines have reduced in amount and are not feeling like migraines at all. No drooling, throwing up or vision problems.There is no way to tell if the PMR is gone yet. If I get symptoms as I reduce the prednisone I have to bump it back up by 5 and I really want to be off and get my life/body back.

So now to the new saga. I finally had a good day in July, almost a year exactly from when symptoms first showed up, so I took to my new roller blades. I was like a dog with its head out the window...I felt free for a moment with wind in my hair and the freedom of movement. Until I fell. Didn't hurt much, no road burn...no bruising...but on my arm near the armpit didn't feel quite right. A dull ache in the armpit especially when I did things, so I would stop for a few days then over do again. I kept doing all kinds of rock grinding and jewelry sawing, all kinds of yard work, we were still enclosing the Poultry Palace chicken runs...after 6 weeks I remembered how I didn't feel all the other torn muscles...how I was on prednisone (which makes you feel like a superstar because you don't feel pain) and decided to get it checked out.

Different orthopedic place. I had good range of motion, but I told the doctor about my other unfelt injuries and how I was on prednisone and he did an MRI. I had a high grade tear of one of my rotator cuff tendons and most worrisome was that my bicep tendon subluxed out of the bicipital groove - something physical therapy will not improve or fix. Surgery was scheduled for 6 weeks later. 4 days before surgery, after mentally and physically preparing for living in a sling for 4-6 weeks and not being able to do anything with that arm, insurance denied the claim and pulled the preauthorization. They wanted me to have a steroid shot (which the doctor did not do because I am on oral steroids) and to go to physical therapy (which he didn't send me to since it would not put the tendon back in the groove). I found out on a Thursday when the surgery center cancelled me as we headed out for a 3 day trip prior to the surgery. So when we got home the letter was in the mailbox and I called them. I found out I had 12 days to resubmit but 4 of the 12 days were over since they count the weekends. I got a cortisone shot and went to PT for 3 sessions before I had to fax crap to them since the rest of the days were a weekend. The whole time I called every day to give them updates. I had to get the shot, send PT notes and my record that showed I had the shot. After I sent stuff I got a call the next day that it was approved. Now I had to wait another 5 weeks to get on the schedule again.

Anyway, I had the surgery on November 29th. Lucky for us it was in the 2018 calendar year and my year-of-hell insurance out of pocket expenses were met. I had zero pain after surgery. Turned out to be a full tear of the supraspinatus rotator cuff, partial tear of the subscapularis rotator cuff, SLAP tear of the labrum, subluxed bicep tendon, and bone spurs. So after ropes and screws, debridement, grinding of spurs and a tenodosis (they cut the bicep tendon at the shoulder, cut a chunk off, sew stitches through it, made a bone tunnel all the way through the arm bone, feed a "button" with stitches through the tunnel to the other side and open it like a molly and tighten the tendon into the hole) things are pretty good. The biggest problem was the ridiculous "pillow" sling. Thankfully that was only for 2 weeks and the regular sling for 2 more weeks. I won't even get into that or the mental anguish and feelings of isolation and abandonment...enough said.

The sling is off, I am doing some exercises and starting PT. I can clip my nails, brush my teeth (if I lean down) and take a shower with the arm hanging. Can't raise it yet but this part will go fast if I don't blow it and do too much. By spring I can probably be doing my rock grinding and jewelry making and maybe some light gardening. I WILL NOT be overdoing. This has made me realize I am not 50...I have to reign in what I do. I need to preserve my body for my pets, jewelry making and light gardening. I will not be doing all the heavy duty shit around the house or even sport stuff the way I did before all these problems. Maybe everything will resolve and I will get back to normal healthiness in another year. I really hope so because I have never been this bored before.

So now that things are resolving I can make regular blog posts and hopefully I can enjoy Colorado this year and see things and more importantly DO things. Maybe I won't hike more than 2 or 3 miles ever again (still have butt tendon problems that may be a separate issue from the PMR) but I should be able to bike, hike a little and get out and see stuff. So check back for glimpses of Colorado. Who knows how long we will be here.

Rocky Mountain National Park

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Sun, 28 May 2017 12:42:00 +0000

It is a big undertaking moving pets and stuff but you can't spend every waking hour getting situated...time to get outside! We took a drive up to the Rocky Mountain National Park for a short 4 mile hike. We picked a short hike without much elevation since it is starting up pretty high already. We went to Bear Lake and then branched off to a waterfall. We didn't get all the way to the top of the waterfall we don't think since there was still snow on the trail and because of it we didn't know where the trail was! Beautiful views...lots of water....lots of animals and nice sunshine!

Lots of Changes for the Kruse's

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Fri, 26 May 2017 03:01:00 +0000

There have been lots of things going on over the last few months. Jeff lost his job at Honeywell (which he hated) in September I think? They had sent him to Redmond for 6 weeks and when he got home started yet another (twice yearly tradition I guess) round of layoffs and his number was up. This kind of sucked at the time since we had no intentions of leaving New Mexico for another few years and there really aren't any decent jobs in New Mexico. None the less he went on some interviews and pretty much exhausted all New Mexico options. Any thing I could get wouldn't have benefits or pay well enough for us to stay so we started thinking of options of where to go.

Once you have lived on the West Coast you really can not be anywhere else. It is almost like a whole other country. I grew up in California then moved to Washington State which at the time seemed a little backwards. The west coast is so much more progressive than the rest of the country any where is a step back. If we had gone to NM straight from Washington we would not have been happy but since we were coming from Puerto Rico it was a step up. I met Jeff and we lived in Washington for over 20 years before the weather got to me. Traffic got so bad that I didn't want to go diving any more since it took longer one way to get to the dive site than it did to do the dive. As options of where to go next we narrowed our choices down to the part of Nevada closest to California, Tucson Arizona, Colorado or Eastern Washington. Turns out there was a job involving batteries and space in Colorado that was perfect for him, he applied, got an interview, we drove up for the interview and he got the job!

That is when reality struck. Reality hit fast when he had to start the job in three weeks. We put the house on the market. He had to go up to start the job and did the AirB&B thing for a couple months while trying to find a rental. The number one priority was for us to keep the cats and chickens. Eventually we will probably buy a house but the prices are crazy-high here (maybe it is the legal weed?) Prices are even higher than Seattle area houses I think and definitely much more than in NM. We didn't think we would find somewhere that would let us have the chickens so I arranged to "board" them at the Lyons Farmette which is close enough to Longmont where we would probably end up renting. On Jeff's way to meet the owners and introduce himself he saw a FOR RENT sign which ended up being the place we rented! We could have all three cats AND the chickens!

So here we are in Lyons, Colorado...on the route to Rocky Mountain National Park in the Front Range of the Rockies. The town reminds me a lot of Duvall, Washington in its size and arrangement but it has a lot more progressive stuff going on. It is noisy - mainly cars and the river noise (anything would be after Placitas NM) but the trade off is we can walk everywhere, are close to lots of parks, are renting on a kayakable river (getting out at our house will be great), are close to organic locally sourced food and restaurants that serve it and have a surprising amount of wonderful food choices a lot of which are vegetarian and vegan. There will be a lot of folk and blues festivals in the summer which might be nice too. Boulder Colorado is a half hour to 40 minutes away and EVERYTHING is there. If we could afford it that would be THE place to be. More on that later after we head that way this weekend! For now here are some animal photos from "out the door" (in the house looking out the window). We had never seen a black squirrel before...it is wonderful to have trees, green, water and mammals! We even have a couple "Squirt" rabbits.

Ojito Wilderness Area

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 02:20:00 +0000

I have been terrible about blogposts since I have discovered the ease of Facebook. Since moving to New Mexico we have been busy actually doing things and nothing is fucked up so things aren't as humorous to write about! So what have we been doing? Lots of things. The main things are hiking, exploring the state, raising chickens, doing lapidary work (grinding stones) and I have started learning to work in silver.

This post is about one of our little hikes. The Ojito Wilderness Area is one of the many many hiking/biking areas an hour or so away. It is out near San Ysidro in the Cabezon area. We have been out that way many times and even though areas are only mere miles from each other they can be hugely different landscapes. We had visited this area before but it was in the snow and we wanted to see it without snow. One of the features is the hoodoos which are only in a small area and no where else out this way. Very interesting. I have become enamored with New Mexico skies, churches, ruins and twisted trees. Here are some of the twisted trees we encountered.


Besides the trees themselves (which are ancient) I love shadows of things. With the bright light here I was thinking of a series of "anti" things - just the shadows...not the actual things themselves. A non-portfolio of sorts.

Beside the twisted trees there are hoodoos which are formations of dissimilar materials that erode differently and make it look like rocks are balancing on other rocks etc etc. Very cool stuff. Bisti Wilderness is a major hoodoo area we have not visited yet so we found these which are closer to home.





We finished up with the hoodoos and drove over to a dinosaur trail. A dinosaur skeleton was found and removed from the end of the trail a few years ago I believe. We didn't see any evidence of the dig but did find some petroglyphs. Petroglyphs are ALL over the state by the thousands. We encounter them everywhere!

Caving again, Chiricahua Crystal Cave

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Thu, 17 Nov 2016 23:57:00 +0000

Its been a while since our last blog post so here we go.

Scott Christenson, chairman of the Sandia Grotto graciously led a grotto trip to the Chiricahua Crystal Cave. Thank you Scott! Not only did he lead the trip but he picked up the key making he and Sam's drive 8 hours.

I'll keep it short. It was fun and hard! We were all very sore after 8 hours in the cave. It was Type 2 fun. The kind of fun that gets better when your done. We hurt. It was a sporty cave with many chances of falling to your death if you screwed up but they were easy rock climbs/stemming. We went to the bottom, Scott opened the second gate, an amazing feat to get through with one bar remaining. Only Katrina could have joined him if he did not remove the second bar. We made it to the Pelican room in about 3 hours.

Katrina and I met Scott C, Sam, Michelle, and Scott O at http://www.rodeocottages.com/ in Rodeo, NM 6 hours from here. We got up at 7:30AM and leisurely got ready for the day. We drove into the stunning mountains a 1/2 an hour away and parked. A short hike up to the cave gate was scenic.

No vertical gear needed but hand lines in a few places would be nice. If your a decent rock climber this is no problem. There was not much belly crawling but there was a lot of squeezing at funny angles. Rout finding was tricky but Scott did an amazing job!

The cave was different because it was like being in a geode. There were Quarts crystals all over the calcite walls. Something we never saw in PR.

We could have gone back Saturday morning but we were so sore that no body did! Instead we drove home taking a detour through Silver City and the Gila forest.

Below are a bunch of pictures.

Scotts signing one cave register.

Some local NM caving

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 20:31:00 +0000

A little bit of local NM caving.
4/24/2016 Windows of the Earth. This may have been underground but it was a "cave" made by an artist by digging out the sandstone. Tours are given but it's expensive for what it is. Also, the company really dropped the ball on our group tour. It's a woow woow hooty snooty kinda place. You can't do drop in's so IMO it's not worth the time to get there and the $25 person for the tour.

It was just a few rooms with some neat carvings on the walls. It was nice but the other carved caves are nice and what the pictures are from. Why do they show us the nice pictures of the other caves when we cant go to them? Bait and Switch.

5/14/2016 Buckman Cave.

Looking down the abyss. It's about 80' to the midd level but there is another 30 - 40 feet to drop to get to the bottom level where the back door is.

Lois negotiating the rocky obstacles.

Someone coming down. From the lower level it took 125' of rope.

Exiting the back door. The cave can get cold so bring a sweatshirt.

This cave was impressive. The walls were about 10 to 15 feet apart with the celling 200 feet above. Worth seeing but a vertically sporting cave. The front door is a exposed scramble. To go from the mid level to the lower level we all did it with descending gear but it can be climbed down with a hand line but only for good rock climbers.

Then to get to the main part of the cave you have to squeeze and stem down a 10 foot drop. I literally had to exhale to make the squeeze. On both trips there was someone not willing to do it. Someone has died here because they went the wrong way over the rock rather than try the squeeze.

This trip took all day even though the cave may only be 600' long.

5/21/2016 AJ Cave.

AJ Cave is one of the newer caves they found at El Malpis. The meeting for the South West Regional cave organization was held in Bonito Canyon near El Map Park. The parks Cave manager along with other park personnel worked with us to select a proper working project that many of us could assist them with.

The project was to survey the Moss gardens of several lava tubes. We got to visit a few caves that are normally off limits.

Moss gardens are cool!

They are very special. They are a type of moss that lives in the Artic! Its special because this is the desert!!! The lava tubes create small environments for them to live in. The lava tubes are cold year round. They have ice in them. They are also humid. Moss needs sunlight so the moss can only live near the entrance or under skylights.

This lava tube had interesting minerals.

There was some squeezing here and there in very sharp breakdown.

A very rare calcite formation in a lava tube!

There are over 450 lava tubes in the park and not to long ago you could visit them but now they changed the rules and only let people in 3 of the caves there. Its very frustrating. The only way we can visit some of these caves is to go during the week on a work trip and even they you may just sit there at the entrance and not get to go in.

The grotto is working on a MOU so we can do work at some of these but it is very slow going.

Lots of nice ice formations.
It was cold in the cave.

5/29/2016 Tripple Engle (GypKap)

Tehnuka, Blake and I were the only ones this GypKap trip. I had planned on going Saturday and Sunday but because of possible travel for work I was only able to go on Sunday and Monday. Monday didn't happen because rain moved in Sunday afternoon.
Blake got the ranchers permission to visit Triple Engle Cave. Saturday Blake and Tehnuka visited this cave only to the first drop and they saw baby coyotes in one of the entrances but we did not see them Sunday.

The drop required some careful stemming to get down. I went first and since Tehnuka was light I had her stand on my shoulders to navigate down the 10 foot drop.

Once down she and I continued on for about only 20 minutes. Blake waited for us at the top of the drop. I had to turn sideways to fit through the meandering passage. It was slow going because of a few inches of water in several spots. We tried to keep our boots dry.

The Gypsum was interesting. The picture above is "Chicken wire" gypsum. Very cool.

There were a bunch of dead baby rabbits in the cave. Poor little guys. They did smell a little.

We saw a couple of spotted salamanders in the cave.

We left the cave and went back to the cars. I went across the road to look at the other entrance to the cave and got lucky to see this owl. It was supper nice to see!

Back at camp we saw the rain coming and also on our phones we could see red and purple storm cells coming our way.

The caves are sinks so that's were the water goes and besides that just a little rain turns the roads to mud making it impossible to pass. We are many miles in the middle of no where. There is nothing around!

So we got out before the rain and headed north towards home.

There was no rain about an hour north near Vaughn so we stopped to check out some leads. They didn't pan out but they were still neat to see.

You can see there is nothing around!

The most dangerous part of the trip was almost stepping on this guy. The wind was blowing all the time very hard so we didn't hear him. He moved just before we were about to step on him.

We stopped in Santa Rosa for Subway then finished the drive home. I spent about 9 hours in the car for 1 hour of cave time.

6/5/2016 Buckman Cave.

I went back to Buckman cave with Aimee and some others to check out the front door entrance. The front door requires a short exposed scramble up the cliff.

A sign greets you. It probably should be more strongly worded as there are many places to fall.

It requires some fair skill climbing up and down rocks. Two places are tricky. The climb down from the mid level to the lower area that leads to the back door and the tight 10 foot stem to the main part of the cave. One person has died there.

Since everyone but me had harnesses we decided it was safer to rappel from the mid to the lower level.

Here Aimee is setting up a rope. Ana helped me with an improvised harness made from the webbing I had with me. It worked well and I borrowed a rack to rappel down. Once you started to descend you could see that it could be climbed down easy enough except for the last 8 feet. From there is an old hand line that people use.

Here we are waiting for our turns squeezing up through the back door. There are several climbs and squeezes you need to be able to do to get out.

A view of the canyon with rain in the distance.

If I could keep caving like this I might call it "caving" but with no caves planned till October (Monday Alabaster trips don't count) I'll forget how to cave. Maybe there will be some more trips planned at tonight's Sandia Grotto meeting.

A recap of my visit back to Puerto Rico in March

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 22:44:00 +0000

March 19^th I met my friend Rob and his friend Laurel in San Juan for a fun filled week caving and diving. We picked up our rental car from National at the airport and drove across the island to our condo in Isabella. We quickly unpacked and got our Scuba gear together. We meet David and Julio at El Natural for a nice dive. The water was supper clear and warm. Thanks David for bringing the tanks!

The next day we had an exciting caving adventure planned. We got up relatively early and meet at Panaderia Lourdes. The standard meeting location for caving in the Camuy area. We got our gear sorted out in a nearby park before heading to the cave. What made this an adventure for us was that we planned on passing two 40 foot sumps with scuba gear at the end of the known cave. This was no small feat getting all the gear to the end of the cave. We rappelled down into the cave and had to pass the tanks and packs through many climb downs.

The cave is not visited much and has nice formations in spots. It’s a river cave but since it was the dry season and not much chance of rain that day we were safe from the caving flooding. We had to crawl through many green pools of muddy water.

Finally at the end of the known cave we got to the first sump. Anthony and Tom got all their dive gear assembled. Anthony went first and could see the way on. Tom was next and he pulled a 100 foot rope through the first sump and secured it on the other side for us.

Now it was Rob’s and my turn. We only used a dive mask, regulator, and tank. No fins, Bouncy control vest, or other scuba gear. The plan was to just pull ourselves along the rope. At this point the visibility in the water was about 6 inches. Rob and I went in side by side. I was crammed against the left wall and by the time we got 10 feet in my regulator was being torn out of my mouth. Since my left arm was pinned I had to let go of the life line in my right hand to put my reg back in! Once the reg was back in my mouth I grabbed Rob, shook him, and started pulling him back out.

At that point I was done! Rob went through the first sump a couple of times cleaning up some old line but didn’t go any further than this first sump. I just couldn’t handle the 6 inch visibility in a small cave passage.

Anthony managed to get a little further than Julie did last year but again since he was alone he did not get out of the water to push the “dry” passage beyond.

We all had a great time and got out of the cave and packed up just before dark. We then had the most difficult time of the day trying to find a place to eat. We wound up eating from a Gua Gua (dirty food truck) on the side of the road.

The next morning we met Tom at El Messon in San Sebastian for a bunch of caves on and near the Tanama river. We had a nice jungle walk seeing snakes and visiting more than 6 caves. The Tanama river is spectacular. We wound up eating at La Famila.

Tuesday morning again we met Tom at El Messon and then Met Bro in Lares. We had planned on visiting several big caves but because of the later start and some issues with parking we were only able to visit Dos Ojos and Dugon. Both of which are big caves. Laurel and Rob got a sampling of what Cueva Cucaracha is like except with breathable air.

Wednesday we took it easy with the caving and only did Cueva Sorbetos. Sorbetos has mind blowing helectites and soda straw formations. We got back early enough to met with Tom and David for another scuba dive at El Natural.

Thursday Laurel and I took Rob to the airport. From there we drove back and visited with the owner of my old house in Moca. I had hoped to see the two cats we left with the new owners but sadly Blanco had some health issues 6 months ago and had to be put down. RIP, or Smokey as he is now called is still around but I couldn’t find him in the short time we were there. Doug rents out the down stairs as an air bnb on occasion. They are doing well and enjoy the house. It was nice to see it again.

From there we drove to Toni and Gerds in Guanica. We stayed there for the next couple of days. We did some kayaking, windsurfing, and snorkeling along with just plain visiting. We had an early flight Sunday morning so Saturday night we stayed at the airport hotel. We had dinner with Toni and Gerd at Chilies in Ponce and then drove to the airport. We were able to participate in blinky blinky on the way.

Chickens for Eggs (pets), for Eggs (pets) - yah

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Tue, 29 Mar 2016 16:42:00 +0000

So we somehow got the idea to get chickens. I don't know when it happened or why, I didn't even eat eggs until a couple years ago, but here we are getting chickens! Since we have an acre and there are no covenants saying we can't have them we decided it may be nice to have fresh eggs and some new pets toddling around our space. The next place we live we may NOT be allowed to have chickens so we are going for it! Since there are coyotes and great owls and bobcats (we have yet to see one) and only one dog that runs loose for an hour in the morning we have to have them in an enclosed area unlike in Puerto Rico where they are almost wild! To spare our neighbors (and Jeff) the crowing and to spare me cracking open a fertilized egg we decided to get sexed chicks. This is supposedly 95-98 percent accurate but we won't know for a few months. By then I will be attached and it will be an awful thing to have to part with someone (it better not be Sweety...if she turns into a he we will get a crow collar)! We will cross that bridge if we have to. I have read the My Pet Chicken and Barnyard Chicken websites non stop trying to learn about coops and health and everything else. The dog run turned catio turned straw bale garden thingy is now being repurposed as a chicken area. The area for them to roost will be raised and they will sleep inside at night and during the day they will run around the 10 x 10 dog run. It is covered to provide shade, enclosed with hardware cloth, doodaded out with perches and dust bath bins and a chicken swing will be coming when they move out there. We thought we'd get four. Chickens are pretty addictive once you start looking at the different kinds and what their eggs look like and stuff. There are many different kinds of chickens with different sizes and personalities and egg laying abilities and egg colors...who knew?

After doing a fair amount of research about the chickens that were coming to Tractor Supply, Dan's Boots and Saddles, and Village Mercantile in Corrales I decided on the Mercantile because they had the kinds I wanted coming in on the same day with the exception of the Brahma. Dan's Boots and Saddles had the Brahmas coming in a week later. I read that you want to get your chicks pretty close together so the pecking order gets established, because of size differences (I had no idea how fast they get big) and heat requirements. We wanted a variety of egg colors, docile chickens since they will be pets and ones that can stand the heat and cold we have here. At first we were going to get 4 but then I saw some other varieties....realized someone may have to go if they end up being a male and unfortunately chicks can die due to undeveloped organs or diseases in their first 4-5 weeks. At that point it would be harder to introduce another baby to the group so I ended up picking 6!

We have an Ameracauna - nothing special to look at and not the most docile birds BUT they lay green or baby blue eggs! We have a Gold Wyandotte because they are spectacular looking and very docile and excellent layers. I got a Barred Rock because they are supposedly nice birds and they are nice looking. I wanted a Buff Brahma because they are little dinosaurs...9 pounds with feathers on their legs and feet and very very friendly. It ended up that the Buff ones didn't come in but the Light Brahmas did and our little puff ball is now getting gorgeous snow white feathers!!! Very exciting. These guys all lay various shades of brown eggs. While chatting with the chicken lady I got talked into (yah, that was a hard sell) a Welsummer (dark chocolate brown eggs with spots) and a Black Austrolop (her favorite most personable chicken). So there you have it...6.

So here are some photos of their enclosure and of them in their little hot tub brooder inside the house. We tried the garage for about an hour but it was way to cold out there and since we have to redo carpet and some sheetrock in the water damaged room we turned it into a chicken bedroom!

The leveled and covered dog run is ready for hardware cloth and the addition of the "coop" part of the structure. Below Jeff is working on the sleeping and nesting quarters for the girls. The back walls will drop down so I can hoe the dirty shavings out and into a wheelbarrow. We don't have the perches or ventilation worked out in this photo.

We decided to make their entrance a little comical...the cut out is the door their ramp will come to. A door will shut from the outside once they are in. The vinyl is so the plywood doesn't absorb all the pee and it will make cleaning easier. Here are a couple of the day old girls. Nutmeg is the Welsummer on the left and Midnight is the black and yellow one. She will turn into a jet black girl with a green and purple shimmer to her feathers (supposedly - hope she keeps some of the cute markings on her face).

This one is "Trouble." I liked her inquisitiveness and her markings. Her puffy cheeks make her an Ameracauna and even though she was in with the day old ones I am thinking she is a little older...she has gotten much bigger faster and has more feathers! She is a stinker already.

Here's "Honey" the Light Brahma with her feathered feet at one day old!!! She is really sweet.

This is "Sweety" my favorite. She is the Barred Rock and has the best personality! She lets me hold her and falls asleep in my hand! Sweety and Honey are my favorites.

The chick on the right is the Pepper the Gold Wyandotte. You can't tell from this photo but she has little gold dots where you would expect ears.

They are all a couple weeks older than these pictures and their feathers are coming in . You can kind of tell what are going to become but they morph so fast you can't really tell!

Work continues on the outside abode that they will live in in another 3-4 weeks.

Baker Mine in Deming NM

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 21:59:00 +0000

Jeff and I joined the Albuquerque Gem and Mineral Club on the monthly field trip which was to the Baker Mine, in Deming NM in search of geodes and thunder eggs. We don't know what we are looking for which makes things interesting, but it is a way to get outside and get to places that are usually off limits for people. Deming is not somewhere that was on our radar. We have a lot to explore and Deming is a good 4 to 4 and a half hours away. Little did we know the interesting things that are out there! Jeff left a little early and we started the drive Friday at around 4:30 and got there around 8:30 or so. We had a hotel reserved which made things nice. We checked in and then headed to the meeting place in the morning. We then joined the caravan out to a rock shop to see specimens and then on out to the claim. It was 45 minutes of driving on a good two-track out in the middle of nowhere to get to what essentially is just a big pit. Everyone was excited and we all scrambled into the pit with our shovels, rakes, rock hammers, picks and buckets. You plant yourself near a wall or on a pile and then just sift and rake and pull round globs out of the ground for hours! What a strange and addicting thing to do. After a while it all looks the same, and with the geodes or eggs you may never know what is inside unless you can get someone to cut them open for you! I smacked some open and my best specimen broke into a few pieces - blue opal...wish I hadn't done that! After about 5 hours we showered and ate and went to bed. The next day was scheduled to go even further away to a rhyolite site. Unfortunately I had a terrible migraine in the middle of the night and was not up for it. We instead got a later start and went to Rockhound State Park where we got rhyolite specimens. We didn't have time to go to Rock City which is a park on my radar for photo opportunities...next time I hope! At 3:30 we headed home and went through some interesting (maybe) towns. Didn't make it to Silver City either. Here are some photos of the general landscape and a few taken in Hatch (famous chilis) I hopped out of the car for!

Lapidary Lab

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 04:09:00 +0000

Where ever we live we try to capitalize on what the place has to offer. In doing that we find ourselves doing things we never ever would have thought of doing. When I first moved to Seattle from California I never thought "oh, I think I'll learn to scuba dive in 50 degree water." Ended up doing it from 1990 until we left for Puerto Rico in 2007. Not only did I dive but I photographed everything that lived in Puget Sound (never thought I'd do underwater photography either). Did I foresee selling my photographs? Nope but I did that for 7 years also. Kayaking...didn't do that until I met Jeff. We did ocean kayaking, river kayaking and even played kayak water polo! In Puerto Rico the big new thing was caving. Best thing we ever did so we did a lot of it! We also tried surfing and did a lot of diving and some kayaking. Well now we are in New Mexico (never thought we'd live here). There isn't any diving, we don't have kayaks yet (not many bodies of water to kayak on), caving has turned out to be a bust (dust holes and too many permits required and just not fun) but there is a lot of wonderful hiking and there are a lot of rocks!

We needed to expand our activities. I am a Master Gardener so I have that in the spring and summer. Jeff has been trying to bust into some caving but it has proved difficult. I decided we should try the Albuquerque Gem and Mineral Club. This has turned out to be our new big thing and it is great! I have always been interested in the natural world. Anything animal, plants, fossils and of course rocks! This club is very organized (I am not really a club person) and best of all there is a monthly rock collecting trip that usually goes to a private claim someone has at a mine. These trips bring us to places we wouldn't otherwise have access too and brings us to remote spots in New Mexico that we would never have a reason to go to.

The next logical step was to do something with our treasures. We have some nice big minerally rocks that are "yard rocks." We have a lot of nice smaller things we have collected because they are neat and we like them - these are currently in a woven basket where they can be seen as the sun moves across them during the daytime. Other specimens are in bottles or placed around the house. Soon we will build a shelf in the courtyard so they can move outside but for some nice pieces we are having them cut and we take them to the lapidary lab!

So here is the deal...as a member of the club we got to had to take a 4 hour course about the Natural History Museum and its Lapidary Lab. Upon completion of the class we got a volunteer badge that gives us access to the lab as well as museum programs, discounts, free admission etc. The lab has a trim saw and all the sanding/polishing wheels used to turn rock into cabochons which are basically domed polished stones ready for use in jewelry. For 5 dollars a session (4 hours) we can use all the equipment AND we get free instruction by club members who know how to do this stuff! In addition to that there are club members who can cut large rocks into slabs which is what we can use in the lab.

My first session was myself and the instructor. Carolyn makes jewelry herself so I learned how to make my first cabochon with her skills and perspective. I picked a slab to cut and proceeded over a couple sessions to make a cabochon. It isn't perfect but it is pretty good. It is really fun taking a piece of rock and turning it into a shiny smooth object.

I thought the rock looked like it had a little bird sitting on a stump so I selected that section and made my thing. I still and some stone left so I made some smaller pieces for earrings maybe.

The next session Jeff came along and it was with a different instructor - Joel. He gave us each a slab of candy cane rhyolite (we couldn't make it to that field trip).. Jeff and I roughed out our cabs and even though they were from similar slabs our selections made them polish up to look very different. Joel made a smaller cab from the same slab and gave it to Jeff - the part he selected came out very different too.

Jeff lucked out on another session when a piece of a what looked like a grey stone was left on the table. Jeff made it into a circular cab and it is a really pretty blue in the light. I started working on a greenish slab. I am making two cabs. I may use some of what I've made in jewelry but at this point it is just fun to see how the rock will look polished. It is kind of meditative to do ... standing at a wheel grinding rocks into shapes with circular motions and water and pressure and rock smells. Definitely fun.

So for me the next step is to take some jewelry making classes so I can do stuff with them. We are wondering what stuff should/could be tumbled rather than cut. We are looking forward to the next trip which is for thunder eggs and geodes which I guess we smack open and then grind and polish one side of? Not sure what we can do with them but we'll find out. Jewelry making classes will be a good winter activity and give me something to do inside when it is cold and dark out. When spring arrives though it'll be gardening and more gardening. At some point we will have a box of polished cabs and we'll have to get more particular about what we take the time to work on but for now it is great just to see what things turn in to! We like exploring new areas of New Mexico and the geology is pretty awesome here. Hiking is wonderful and rock collecting/lapidary work has proven to be yet another thing I never would have thought I would end up doing!

Cieneguilla Recreation Area

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Sun, 13 Dec 2015 19:54:00 +0000

Jeff and I wanted to get out of the house and do a little hike. It was cold on our mesa and we figured it could be windy everywhere or maybe we could find a small protected pocket somewhere. Jeff had a hike in mind but we had to find it first. We drove up toward Santa Fe (about 45 minutes north) and were following directions in his book but still couldn't find a real trail or parking pullout so we opted to do something else. This something else turned out to be a very nice surprise! Not only was the weather really really nice but the spot was spectacular! We ended up at the Cieneguilla Recreation Area on a trail you might as well call THE petroglyph trail. Albuquerque has amazing petroglyphs at 3 locations that are considered one park. There are thousands at those sites and just like here you can walk right up to them. This spot though has really spectacular ones and lots of them.

We started up the trail to the top of the bluff. It was a typical trail for here. We got to the top not having seen any obvious petroglyphs. We went atop the mesa and peered over the edge at a farm and saw a few pecked into the rocks so we opted to climb down to take a look. There were petroglyphs all over in the densest concentrations we have seen. They don't appear to be as worn as the Albuquerque ones. Just like Albuquerque though these are pecked into basalt. The view from on top of the bluff was of a couple mountain ranges and Santa Fe way in the distance. Snow capped the peaks and it was really pretty in the bright sun.

At some point I will have to research the meaning of the things. For now though it is enough to have seen them.

Deadman Peaks: Continental Divide Trail

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 01:57:00 +0000

Yesterday it looked like the wind was minimal and as always that sun was out. Perfect day for a hike! The most difficult thing about hiking here is deciding where to go. We have a couple books, there are meet-up hikes and so many places everywhere that the decision-making is what takes time. We settled on a hike with "minimal shade" since it is winter...something around 5-7 miles (that's long enough for me) and something under 2 hours from home. The Continental Divide Trail is out near Cabezone on the road toward Cuba. It involves driving around a bunch on two track dirt about 35 miles from the nearest food/gas. The trail itself is over 3,000 miles long.

We got directions from the book Albuquerque 60 Hikes within 60 miles by Ausherman. We have done quite a few hikes in this book to lesser known sites like yesterday's...we didn't see a single person on the hike and only saw two trucks out there miles away. According to the book the unusual red rocks we saw were called "red dog" and are the result of low-grade metamorphic changes in mudstone due to coal seam fires. There were lichens all over the rocks and hoodoos and layered rocks and mounds of very thorny cacti. The only way you would know there was a trail was if you noticed the cairn piles. This trail is out there!

Jeff is the teeny tiny orange dot on the top of the "Deadman Peak."

Hiking is always interesting here. The geology makes things very interesting but mainly it is the light....boy is there light and it changes how everything looks hour by hour!

Bingham NM - Blanchard Mine Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 05:48:00 +0000

A couple months ago we joined the Albuquerque Gem and Mineral Club. I am not a club fan and I really dislike "meetings" but this group has some nice presentations and they have a once a month field trip to hunt/collect rocks and minerals. We took a trip to the Blanchard Mine where one of the members has a claim specifically to remove minerals. He has had the claim since 1987 and has pulled a lot of nice specimens out of it. Once a year he leads a trip and lets club members collect. We hear it is the most popular trip of the year. This is probably for a couple reasons - nice specimens AND you can get four wheel drive vehicles right up to the mine (rocks are heavy) AND it is only 1 1/2 hours from Albuquerque. All plusses.

We left the house at an ok hour (not too early) so we could get there by 9:30. When we arrived there were already 15 or so cars lined up. By 9:30 36 cars were there all signed in and we headed further up the two track dirt where we hopped into 4 wheel drive vehicles. Up we went. Around 20 people were allowed into the mine for about 1 1/2 hours. We were in the first batch. Mines are a lot more interesting than I originally thought they would be. This was our second mine (Galena King was the first)). The outside of mines usually have mounds of interesting rocks and minerals. Inside there are usually lots of minerals all over the ground and big chunks or streaks of stuff in the ceiling and walls. We were told not to hammer anything out over shoulder height. It was overwhelming to pick through what was on the ground...we really don't know what we are looking at at this point.

Jeff went to the end of the shaft (not far) and I plopped down just inside the mine not knowing where to look or what to do. I sat in a pocket and just started to look at things. I am glad I stayed near the entrance...it made it easier to move my couple big "yard rocks" out. Things are heavy. Then I started to chip away at some streaks and gather up smaller pieces.

The cold temperature mellowed into a nice sunny windless afternoon when we exited the mine. We spent a couple more hours banging on rocks outside the mine and digging through piles in search of more treasures and waiting for a ride down. On the ride out someone pointed out a really long rock wall from ancient times. We would not have seen it.

We did a slight detour on the way home to check out the Apache Wetland area but it was the Crane Festival and I was grumpy and didn't want to deal with all the photographers and people heading out to wait for sunset when the whooping cranes fly in. I want to see it, but next year we may go ahead of the festival when no one is there. We drove home and admired our treasures!

Minerals found in this mine include: angle site, barite, bronchantite (green), cerussite, fluorite (lots), galena (gray cubes and heavy), gypsum, linarite (royal blue that we didn't find...maybe a couple dots of it), calcite and a bunch of other stuff. Originally it was mined to process galena ore then barite and fluorite. It was not a successful mine. It is in the Oscura Mountains on the eastern margin of the Rio Grande rift in fault block mountains. It is really neat to get to visit spots like this that we would not be able to go to on our own. It is way out in the middle of nowhere with nothing near it!

Ghost Ranch Abiquiu

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 17:48:00 +0000

We wanted a day trip to try to find some fall colors. The leaf change seemed to be later this year than last but we figured a drive-around in the mountains would be pretty. We headed the Jemez Mountains but since we had gone all around there the weekend before we diverted toward Santa Fe. Ghost Ranch is somewhere I had been before but Jeff hadn't. There are several day hikes in very nice red rocks. Georgia O'Keeffe spent a lot of time here painting. The light in the South West is amazing and inspirational for many painters and photographers! The "ranch" is now a spiritual retreat of sorts offering all kinds of expensive workshops.

We got there a little late in the day so the only hike we could fit in before dark was the chimney peak hike. It is short but not too strenuous and does have great views of the surrounding landscape. We headed up with only a few other people on the trail. There are great hikes all over the South West. I will never get tired of red rocks and "painted" hills. There were moments of great light hitting the rocks if you were looking at the right moment. This area is 1 1/2 hours from our house so it makes a nice day trip!

Day of the Dead Parade - Albuquerque South Valley

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 17:28:00 +0000

A month or so ago we headed off to see the Day of the Dead Parade in Albuquerque's South Valley. We had not been to this part of town (not the best) and I really like Day of the Dead stuff so off we went. Not knowing the area the directions gave about where the thing started and ended we were unclear about where we were going.We didn't want to stand around forever so we didn't go early...but still managed to get there "in time" and enjoy the thing. First off...we are not big into parades or gatherings that are large but here in NM things are really calm, polite and there just aren't huge crowds anywhere. After going to the biggest thing the state offers (Balloon Festival) and having no problems we are giving large interesting events a chance.

We got to the area and there was some traffic. We did the detour and were channeled into an area with limited parking so we left and parked a short walk away. The sun was really bright and every one was walking around made up like fanciful skeletons in sparkly dresses or skirts or hats and ties etc. The people going to the parade were at least if not more interesting than the people IN the parade. NM is an area with a mixed population that blends well. People are just people here. The parade included some of the local Native American Tribes, a lot of different schools and different communities. It was a little too political for us. There were groups holding photos of missing people in Mexico...a group of bicyclists representing those killed while riding their bikes here...school organizations with things to say about testing etc...The basic parade was all about really old cars, marigolds, skeleton people and animals and some floats. There were Native American and Latina Dancers and lots of cool costumes.

The parade route came with direct sun at the people's backs (hard to photograph and see since it was very bright) and the streets were lined with people. In a way it reminded me a little of Puerto Rico only it was quieter. Venders came around with ice cream and stuff and there was an area for Day of the Dead themed items. We watched cars and trucks and trailers come by full of skeleton people and it was interesting! The BEST parade we ever went to was in Puerto Rico - the 150th annual parade in Ponce. The best and most costumes ever. This was a lot easier and calmer to be at though.

Galena King Mine

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 18:25:00 +0000

This is a little delayed (all right, a lot delayed) as a post but here goes... Jeff is still trying to go caving here in NM even though it is a nightmare getting permits, permission to go on land, and everything seems to be 6 hours away and gated. I gave up since I have no tolerance for groups that blab about doing stuff but rarely DO stuff. I have a rule that the activity has to be at least as much time as the time to get there. I want to keep my Puerto Rico caving adventures intact since caving there was the most exciting and wonderful stuff I've ever done! Going into a short dust hole here just isn't on my list of enjoyable things to do. That said, a speaker came to the cave group meeting and gave a talk about the Galena King Mine. They mainly wanted help to install a gate across the openings and maybe get someone to rappel down a shaft to do some exploration. The gates are now up and as of today no one has even tried to explore or drop the shaft.

We met the Friends of Galena Mine people at the Kirtland Air Force Base and proceeded to get the background checks needed to be able to cross the base onto private land to enter the mine. It took an hour or more for everyone to get the paperwork and then off we went! We drove across the base and then loaded up the ATVs with cement, buckets, water etc so we would have supplies to close up the entrance to the mine. It was pretty warm out and sunny. We hiked the mile or so up (it is at 7,000 feet) and waited around ready to help. The group was around 10 people or so. The mine is private and people had somehow been finding their way in to break off minerals and haul them out. I am not sure where they would come from but the gate project was an effort to preserve the history of this mine and its booty. There is a nice group of people working on preserving the history here. They are also getting University students involved in the preservation and study of the mine.

This mine is small. We stood around a bunch and tried to be useful. We got some background information on the mine that I don't remember much of. It was first mined around 1910 for galena (type of lead) and later for fluorite. We were there to help out and take a tour hoping to see some of the fluorite veins. There was a temperature drop and it it started to snow! Weather is really unpredictable and 30 degree temperature shifts are pretty common. We did not, however, come prepared for this! I huddled inside the dusty shaft waiting for gate progress to be made so we could go in further and see the thing and get out of the cold! Several people left and in the end only a few of us were there to tour the thing.

Mines are not like caving. This one wasn't anyway. There is no climbing, route finding, water, etc. What WAS interesting though were the veins of intact fluorite. We went into the bottom entrance. The bottles here are set up so you can tell if a person or animal has entered (or may still be inside) the cave. With the dust you would be able to see bear footprints easily or people prints.

The total mine would take 15 minutes at most to walk through but we tried to stretch it out looking for cracks and crevices and holes (none). There was one spot at the end of the mine that had exceptionally large veins of purple fluorite in the shaft. We spent some time looking at that area and also taking some chunks of the stuff that had fallen (we had permission). Minerals are really neat! The fluorite was purple and almost bluish. At one point a black light was used to see show the mineral in a different way. We exited and headed up to the top entrance. There were mounds of white fluorite at its entrance. Flourite loses its color in sunlight. Still though, the white/clear stuff was neat too. We took some samples when we were done before heading out. We had some nice biggish chunks to carry out. Galena is very heavy and a small chunk could be 7 or 8 pounds! Once you find something though you just want it and keep walking (and resting) to get it out!

The best part of this trip was the nice people (and the little mouse a couple photos up) . I personally have a problem with the "don't share information" and "restrict access" mentality but I can understand it. It was the same thing with diving spots in the NW and even Puerto Rico is restricting access to its caves to "preserve" them. How many people actually get off their butts and explore stuff like this any way? The other nice thing is that we got pretty fired up about the minerals and have joined the Albuquerque Gem and Mineral Club which actively goes out rock and mineral hounding every month. The trips are to private mineral stakes or require permits but the group is with it and active. It'll let us visit places we wouldn't otherwise see in the state and start our extensive rock and mineral collection. We are even going to build a special shelf in the courtyard to display our finds. So as always we find ourselves doing things we never thought about...which leads to more things we never thought we'd be interested in. Not quite the level of excitement and physicalness we enjoyed (loved and hated) in Puerto Rico but some pretty neat and interesting things to do!

Arizona Trip - Meteor Crater and Petrified Forest National Park

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 03:16:00 +0000

On the way to Sedona Arizona we passed a few things we thought would be interesting. On the way back we broke up the trip with a night in Holbrook so we could visit the Meteor Crater and Petrified Forest. They were kind of side trips off the highway and definitely deserved a day on their own! First stop was the Meteor Crater. This is the "world's best preserved meteor crater in the world" and they did a nice job with a narrated walk to the rim. An asteroid traveling at 26,000 mph hit earth here about 50,000 years ago. The hole is a mile across and about 2 and a half miles in circumference and over 550 feet deep! It is a huge hole! At the bottom there is a mine shaft and a bunch of stuff too small to see. We heard about a lot of the history of how they figured out what made the hole and all about different people who staked claims and made a hypothesis about the hole's origin. Very interesting. The interpretive center is nicely done with a movie and great displays.

Next up was the Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert. We went at sunset and then again in the morning when we had more time. The light was much nicer in the morning. The park has all kinds of "painted" hills and neat geology that are part of the Chinle Formation dating back about 200 million years ago. The trees are conifers, about 12 species, and are trunks only. The area was a large river basin and the trees were carried a long ways before settling in what is now the park. They look pretty weird because all the pieces look like they have been sawed into chunks. The silica/quartz mineralization fractures cleanly, which is why all the chunks look like they were cut and placed here. The longest single tree in the park is 141 feet. The colors of both the desert and the wood were amazing!

The Southwest is full of interesting and beautiful landscapes to explore. There are badlands and hoodoos and arroyos...vast open landscapes...big skies in all directions!

Sedona Arizona

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 02:19:00 +0000

We have some great friends! Mike and Sandy have a condo in Sedona and they invited us to stay for a week. We have a lot in common - we are all from Seattle, Mike did all the art fairs I did (he stopped about when I started), Mike and Jeff are both engineers and both he and Sandy are Master Gardeners (like me). Mike also is a photographer. We drove down on Tuesday passing what looked like a bunch of neat stuff. It took about 6 hours and when we arrived we went out to eat. It was really nice knowing where we were going to stay and Mike and Sandy knew all the places to see, hike, and eat.

The first day was kind of cloudy so we spent it walking around town going in and out of art galleries. The second day Jeff and I headed out for a hike ourselves. We all rounded up for a second hike to Devil's Bridge which was pretty neat. The entire landscape in Sedona is just gorgeous! There are many trails within a few miles of the condo. We headed out for dinner afterwords.

The next day we all went on a hike along a river. Jeff and I continued on for almost 10 miles. I had a slight mishap slipping on some rocks. My elbow immediately grew a large horn that was scary. Even now it is tender and all bruised more than a week later! I survived though and the camera wasn't damaged! At the end of this hike there were all kind of neat reflections in the river that I tried to photograph with limited success! We spent that night in the hot tub relaxing and later watched a movie. Very pleasant!

On Saturday we all headed out on the road trip home. The plan was to visit the big meteor crater, book into a room in Holbrook, continue at sunset to the Petrified Forest then back to the room for the night. I'll post Saturday's excursion separately. This trip was 6 days away from the kitties, the house and routines. It was a nice thing to do with great friends that are easy to be around. Arizona is a really neat place. We enjoyed Tucson last year and Sedona did not disappoint. Both places are a long drive away but totally different landscapes. There is a lot to do here in the South West!

Animals in the Yard

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 04:01:00 +0000

It is really nice to have a variety of birds and other wildlife around. From every window I can see the bird feeders and bird baths and for being a pretty barren landscape there is a surprising amount of life. Puerto Rico surprised us with its LACK of living things and NM surprisingly has a lot of life. I don't know what I expected from the desert but it wasn't this. But actually we are in "high" desert which is different. In 30 minutes we can be in mountains with huge trees and running water.

The courtyard was originally going to be enclosed with gates and wire mesh along the bottom of the sculpture so rabbits wouldn't eat everything. I had the wall builder turn one of the cinder blocks so the holes made a doorway into a "rabbit room" where rabbits could freely come and go and munch freely where we could see them. Every one uses the rabbit room doorway - birds, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes. They can freely get in any where but that doorway is grand central station! Different times of day and different times of year bring different things. This time of year the hummingbirds are starting to leave. We used to see 12 at any time at the feeders chirping and fighting and now maybe 2. I had no idea there were so many different kinds...different beak shapes and lengths and sounds. We are also hearing all the coyotes now at night and are finding poop and tracks so we know they are around. All the scaled quail have grown up and the other day I saw 3 separate "armies" of scaled quail marking across the property to the doorway. 35 of them! The horses are still around - at least one herd. It is magical when they come around.

These are the "bubbles" of scaled quail when they were little. Now they are all quite large and they all still come around walking on top of the wall single file!

We haven't seen many snakes despite everyone being freaked out about rattlesnakes around here. Pretty sure this was a bull snake. He has a den under one of the junipers and sometimes comes out and goes under the rock that is part of the wall.

Here the quail are bigger and escaping the 90 degree sun by hanging out in the rabbit room doorway!

How cute is this? a chipmunk eating a grape!

Winter and Smokey eyeing the chocolate mint. Sultana expecting treats and Ghost just giving me his smile.

How many people get to open their door and find baby horses zonked out in their yard? Winter was resting in the snakeweed and Smokey was just out of it. Watching and caring for the animals is my favorite past time. This year there are loads of juniper berries which will bring in more birds. The pond will be a good water source and we will continue to put out feed for every one...

After Work Hike

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 03:22:00 +0000

After my stint working for the BioPark I have been frantically trying to get the courtyard situated before winter sets in. All of a sudden stuff has started to turn colors and the day to night temperature shift has been from upper 80s to 50s! I have made the realization that all the little seedlings I have been carting water out to are going to be eaten by jackrabbits and rabbits and mice once it is cold so....we haven't really done much out and about stuff! I have been encircling my seedlings with chicken and rabbit wire. Then the pond project started. Yard stuff is settling down and the weather is just about perfect now so I can join Jeff after work for 3 or 4 mile hikes while there is still light to do it! This hike is about 10 minutes from the house. There is one patch of really red soil with lots of trails. We just park and walk.

We started the hike about 5:30 which is what I call the "beautiful light time." The light here is amazing. The landscape turns all shades of pastel from lavender to pink to peach to deep red and orange. There is always light even in the winter which is perfect for someone like me who needs it. Anyway, here are some photos of what is basically our backyard...the base of the Sandia Mountains. We live at about 5,600 feet.

These blocks down below are really huge. We hiked down around them and then climbed up to leave a different way. Straight out is Albuquerque.

It got a little dark on our way out. As the sun set we trotted back to the cars, took off shoes and did the super long 8 minutes back to the house! Sooo nice to have nice hiking so close.

Progress In The Courtyard

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 22:27:00 +0000

When we bought our wonderful house it was winter. The landscape here in winter is filled with beautiful light but kind of frozen beige dirt. Our house was kind of plopped down and the previous owner hadn't done anything outside at all (a small amount near the front door which is really the "back" ) - I call the front the view part we gaze at all the time!

We knew we wanted a courtyard but questions about size, location, height etc were things we couldn't answer since we hadn't lived here long enough to know sun patterns, wind direction etc etc. Anyway, here are a few shots of the house before we did anything.

I wanted some elevation changes, swales for water collection and it takes a lot of "rock" to make courtyard areas and pathways etc. We also thought it would be good to put in a low spot and buried pipe for the "epic" rains that mainly occur once a year or something.

After laying things out with hoses and making lines for height etc etc the design was made, courtyard constructed and then the inside contouring started. I found uses for extra beams we had bought for the catio and came up with the design as things went along. Here are some shots of how it is evolving.

The fake rock river has a pipe under it so if collected water gets too high (doesn't absorb fast enough) it will flow away.

These steps lead up to the built in sunset watching bench.

We are out here at the table every night since the sun sets on the other side of the house and it is shaded. I also like coffee out here with the nifty morning light - my favorite!

Inside this little triangle there will be "birds of paradise" bushes that are about 10 feet. They aren't like the heliconia but are rainfall only, pretty leaf with red and yellow profusions of flowers and will stay low enough so we can still see the mountain from inside the catio. I'll be pretty. I want to get compost though to raise the area a little.

This is the bench area. When you sit here you can see the snake shape of the wall and also the cool sculpture.

The bunny/bird/chipmunk room is where all the action is. You can see it from the kitchen table, the built in bench, the master bedroom chair, the patio spot. Grand Central Station with multiple scaled quail, the chipmunk and lots of rabbits shooting in and out the opening I made for them!

This small tree (vitex/chaste) will get to be a smallish nicely shaped tree that gets covered with lilac like blooms all summer long. The shade will be welcome and it is deciduous. Last but not least there is the catio. Awesome view from sitting in the chairs. Cool shadows, very private, out of wind and I am spending a lot more time out there than I thought I would!

So I will be putting a compost mound alongside the dry river to be planted with native grasses, ice plants, agastache, salvia and some permanent barberry and cottoneaster. Right now I just have dill and pumpkins and zucchini while I work out the permanent stuff. For fall the mound will have carrots and winter veggies. I have planted chocolate flower, scabiosa, four o clocks, salvias, russian sage. Sunflowers have been deposited by birds and the chipmunk. Inside the dog run area I have straw bales with pink bumblebee tomatoes, raswayna tomatoes, black zebras, strawberries, squash. There is a black knights butterfly bush that will soon overhang the rabbit room and things are looking good! I have MANY small seedlings dispersed over the acre that are slowly growing and as long as they don't get eaten this winter and they don't freeze in epic weather it should start looking quite a bit different this time next year.

House Stuff - The Wall

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff and Katrina Kruse) — Mon, 25 May 2015 04:42:00 +0000

When we bought the house it was gorgeous on the inside but the outside was a little lacking. Like a lot of houses here it was just plopped down on desert which looks like a lunar landscape. Many houses have courtyards with high view blocking walls and many have low walls you can sit and still see over. It gives a little bit of privacy and integrates the house into the landscape a little more. We wanted a low wall we could see over so we could see rabbits and coyotes and the horses. I want to do some gardening which is a challenge here with mice, kangaroo rats, rabbits, jackrabbits, horses, coyotes etc etc. Walls won't keep everything out but at least are a deterrent. Everything is hungry here and looking for shelter. Here are some before photos of the house when we bought it in December.

You can see it was flat flat flat with nothing on it. Boring. Even the side courtyard had dirt flat up to the stucco. I set about contouring the whole thing to get some variation, create rain collecting swales and create planting areas. I am pretty good at getting a "big idea" in my head and then setting about doing it changing things as I go along. I may start something and realize the natural land requires something a little different. Once I kind of figured out where stuff should be and where the views were I started thinking about a wall. I did NOT want a boring half-circle like everybody else has or a boxy squarish space. I wanted organic and flowing.

Here is what I ended up doing...the first shot shows the side courtyard...I bermed up the dirt and made a planting bed, made a rock swale and path.

This was before the color coat was put on the wall. I shows the new view from the front with the flagstone patio almost done.

A bird enjoying the bird/rabbit room of the courtyard...

I have to take some better photos but this gives you an idea. I added a flagstone patio. I contoured the land so I could make an upper and lower area. The wall has a lot of nice curves in it so I could create the bench "sunset viewing" room, the rabbit room (holes in the bottom that rabbits and scaled quail and everyone uses...) doubles as a bird room and out the front the wall has a gap where a sculpture will go so we can still see the ground which is where the action is! The built in bench is nice, the flagstone turned out well (difficult and I will never do it again) and around the corner is where the straw bales for veggie gardening are but it will be a chicken area next spring! The wall is higher on that side since the neighbor's house is closest on that side and the wind comes from that direction a lot. We also had a shade structure built but that is another post. Now I get to dig some more to make the dry river a little deeper..make an overflow pipe for it, buy and move more rock (river rock), have the sculpture built, plant plants, figure out how to irrigate, and I started working. At least the job only goes until August and gardening can go through November! So that's a quick update on house stuff! Not so lunar anymore and once I get some plants in it'll be much better! Here is a rugosa rose I planted today.

Horses can reach over and get a drink or eat the quail block (or I can feed them Dobbins treats from on the bench)

Stuff in progress...