Gettin' cooler

I think maybe it's time to switch the system from "cool" to "warm!" Yesterday was an overcast day (rare, here) and it was kind of chilly.

We got to the gem and mineral show in Silver City ... lotsa rocks, lotsa rockhounds. Interesting, though.

I've reached the point where I put on my eyes and ears in the morning and take them off at night. The hearing aids are starting to buzz and beep, so I've sent them off for maintenance. And the glasses I got a few months ago don't fit right, so I've scheduled a new appointment in Las Cruces to get that fixed. Comes with getting old, I guess.

While we were in Deming to find an audiologist, we went by the Mountain View Cemetery there to photograph a couple of headstones. What interested me most was the series of little concrete plaques with "Desconocido" (Unknown or Stranger) inscribed on them. Not new, either. It appears they were burials that were relocated from an old cemetery in another part of town, ones that no longer had legible markers and, apparently, no records of who they were.

We were part of a VIP tour of Fort Bayard ... gave us a chance to see how much deterioration has occurred just since we started photographing the buildings last November. Sad! There's a big celebration this coming weekend - Fort Bayard Days - which promises to have kids' events, Buffalo Soldiers and other living history enactors. Should be interesting and fun to photograph.

And sometimes the most interesting living things downtown on Farmers Market day is a dog with beautiful eyes!

This weekend was one of the two big musical events for Silver City: Pickamania! Mainly bluegrass, some old (musicians and songs), some young (musicians and songs) and two beautiful afternoons of free music in Gough Park. How pleasant!

Two musical instruments were raffled and the picture is of the handcrafted mandolin, being held by Faye McCalmont, executive director of the Mimbres Region Arts Council. That's the organization that puts together the Blues Festival and Pickamania! and a dozen or more other, smaller events around the area and I can't heap enough praise on them! MRAC has been a key part of all the community development projects we can see that have taken place in the last 20 years or so ... art, music, public sculpture, school programs, youth-in-art programs ... you name it, they've done it (or are about to!). Wonderful group and they mobilize SO many volunteers to make things happen. tv