Occupation of Independence

What would my kelpie, Coffee Girl, do if she were free to bother a horseman? Would the horse rear up and kick off the rider? I used to worry about it. One day this fellow was walking this young horse on Gabbie's Ridge. It seemed like a good chance to test Coffee Girl. She ran up and sniffed at the horse a little, while the horse kicked slightly at the dog. No harm done. Both were rather calm about the whole thing. What a relief. I suppose horses grow up with ranch dogs around here. I'm glad to see a horse culture hanging on in the West, although just barely. For the most part, the economy seems based on retirement housing and healthcare.

It was a quiet and contented life here in the Little Pueblo of the New Mexican highlands. But several friends saw this former RV Boondocker and Explorer as living in a Fallen state, by degenerating into a sedentary lifestyle without the usual excuses of old age, bad health, or domestic servitude to a woman. One pair of RV-based interlopers brought some embarrassing news -- embarrassing because it shows how lazy I was about studying the rules of early IRA withdrawal. By invoking the SEPP option, an IRA owner can make penalty-free withdrawals before he's 59.5 years old, with a couple catches of course. But the catches aren't bad. Prior to this knowledge I was hunkering down to make it to age 59.5 without making any early withdrawals. Perhaps it was just a matter of pride. Early retirement is a serious game in beating the System, and eating a penalty for early withdrawal seemed like a defeat. There was something about it all that suggested a battle between Good and Evil,

It's a guy thing, I guess. Or maybe this Gambel quail is just trying to warm up instead of looking macho.

Whew! I just completed a 27-page questionnaire for serving on the jury of a Federal case in which a conviction could lead to the death penalty. Since I live 100 miles from the courtroom and have no way of getting there, I expect to be passed over. Still, I had to fill the questionnaire out completely and honestly. As a libertarian, more or less, it pains me to admit that the System did a fair and just job with the questions. In fact you could write a long essay in response to many of their rather philosophical questions. Typically they gave two lines for the response, but what else could they do? I have never served on a jury before; this trial is expected to take 6-8 weeks. Naturally I don't want to serve. Gee, would they let a juror carry a netbook into the jury box and write essays about the judicial system? Who knows what answers on the questionnaire the System is looking for. My guess is that they're looking for the lack of anything that either side objects to, rathe

Eric Peters is not my favorite pundit. He actually likes cars. One of the reasons why this blog is anonymous is that I don't see why readers would be that interested in me personally; in contrast, ideas and opinions are -- or at least can be -- more interesting. But in this case a brief autobiographical note might be called for: I grew up in a small town in the industrial Midwest, back in olden times when there actually was industry in America. Small town culture completely revolves around the automobile, right down to the conception of children. It often seemed that the bigger moron a person was, the more they worshiped cars. My parents, on the other hand, were indifferent to the contraptions, and spent as little as possible on them. Peters's editorial today was excellent. It brings some universal aspects of American government and society down to earth, by discussing car loans and the car shopper mentality. It is seditious. That's what we need a lot more of in th

I was mountain biking along a scenic ridge the other day when I was startled by some large and noisy animal on the ground, just a few feet in front of me. A deer would have been a good guess. There is nothing exciting about a deer , but I didn't want myself or the bike to get kicked by those snapping hoofs. It was no deer. It was a large owl that took off from ground level. Well, we've all seen an owl at one time in our lives, but I've never seen one that close. Its big head reminded me of a small football helmet. I didn't see the specific place where it landed, but it might have been at the tree where a half dozen small birds started screaming bloody murder. It certainly would have been a pleasure to photograph this owl, but it would have taken a helmet mounted video camera. I knew of a mountain biker who did that. Long-suffering readers know that I am always railing against the perverted aesthetic of nature that is common in our society. I know what made this ow

Actually there is no tale today. But it was good to get my first photograph of quails after being startled by them a thousand times. My dog has gotten quite fond of charging into bushes to flush them out; she looks like a bowling ball scattering the pins. There is a small dust storm after this, but I'm not sure if the cause is the dog or the furious beating of quail wings. The male half of the Gambel quail couple in on the right.

I am still grateful to the lady who explained to me that introverts are certainly capable of enjoying human companionship and conversation, but they feel drained afterwards. Then they need time alone in order to recharge. In contrast, extroverts actually feel stimulated and charged up by human interaction. At the time I was a bicycle tour leader and experienced proof of her theory on every tour. This anecdote ties in with my recent role as a host to other RVers who are traveling through the Little Pueblo. It wasn't totally accidental: it is spring after all, and the seasonal sybarites of Arizona are headed north and east. But my goodness, three visitors in one week! Life has become a social whirl and I'm exhausted. It was especially fun to meet a younger RVer, Glenn of toSimplify.net , who is even younger than I was when I got started in this racket. Of course, he is cheating: he is still working. Seriously, it is interesting to see the internet result in qualitative chan

It still feels strange to cycle in shorts instead of long pants. Could a transition from cold to hot really happen so quickly? Maybe you have to sense nature primarily through the skin to appreciate this. At any rate, after the ride over the Continental Divide -- practically in the city limits here -- I was relaxing with a coffee at my favorite shop downtown. Swallows were putting on quite an "air show". They are real hot shots; the original "Top Guns". About ten swallows were constructing nests at the interior corners of a concrete roof. This was the first time in my life that I've seen such a good example of this, and just think, it was Mother's Day! How do they cling to hard and vertical concrete surfaces? Do they have suction cups on that tail? While facing these little hot shots and photographing the crap out of them, my back faced an interesting sculpture and water fountain. ("Interesting" to a guy who usually doesn't appreci

After visiting the dilapidated old hospital the other day, my visitor and I wandered over to a geologic oddity in our area, where a codgerish RV friend was camped. (And a high quality campsite it was.) Due to the sybaritic sleeping habits of a couple members of our conversational quartet, we arrived too late to get really good photographs of this interesting pile of giant boulders. My first question at the visitor's center was: why here and not ten miles away? Well, cuz this is whar the rocks iz, the volunteer guide answered. (I rolled my eyes.) Let's try this again: what is so special about the local geology that spectacular rocks are found only here , and not over the entire local area? Actually I'm just having some fun at the volunteer guide's expense. After a slow start he cranked up to give good explanations of how a local volcano deposited a layer of volcanic tuff over the area. Then they vertically cracked and eroded until most have disappeared; only in th