September Morn

Dawn is just striking the hillside behind the house ... the birds are starting to come to the pool for a drink, then preening themselves, doing their morning wake-up activities.

And I'm realizing it's been a while since we checked in! One of the big days for us was a trip to Kingston and Hillsboro, on the east side of the Black Range and west of Truth or Consequences.

Someone had asked us to take pictures and measurements of the Percha Bank in Kingston, so it made a nice day trip (he's doing a scale model of the facade). While there, the owner came out and we got to visit with him and he took us inside. He said Kingston now has "20-odd residents, mostly odd," but it once was a city of 7,000, before the silver crash in the 1890s. The painting shows the size of the town in its glory. The vault was put in place, a little shelter was built around it, and then the bank was built around the vault and its housing!

There really isn't much to Kingston today; this is one of the main sidestreets! Virtue Street, which is on the other side of the main drag, does have paving for a block or two ... there used to be a bordello at the end of it.

Down in Hillsboro, we enjoyed the specials at the Barbershop Cafe (open three days a week in what appears to have been a saloon).

Our explorations led us to the windswept cemetery above Hillsboro, where I was deeply moved by the handprints and the wrench in this monument to "Dad."

There was also a monument to a Medal of Honor holder, a Buffalo Soldier from Iowa who went on to be a local resident and, allegedly, a member of a local outlaw gang. He had an interesting 60 years!

We visited again the old jail and courthouse, probably the most photographed buildings in Hillsboro.

On the way back, we also visited the cemetery above Kingston, where another soldier who was awarded a Medal of Honor in the Indian Wars is buried; this one was born in Ireland. This cemetery is sprawling under the trees and pretty much untended.

Back in Silver City, we got down to the Fiesta held by the Catholic Church (lots of activities for kids, including this roping bale).

It's chili roasting time and we've taken the plunge and gotten into it. This roaster was outside the food co-op. We've processed some fresh-roasted chilies and tried drying some ... not sure how that's going to work out!

Finally, we had a good time downtown last night at the First Friday event, was a tasting tour of 15 eateries. We made it to 11 and enjoyed all of them. Two we had never been to before and two we've only been to once before, so the goal of getting people to visit the downtown stores was accomplished with us. There was a good group playing music at the side of one of the stores and everybody was moving to the beat! tv