Cop Car's Beat

Halloween with Lawrence Welk's crew

New Mexico - What a treat!

Endeavoring to enjoy myself while showing Elegant Friend the beauty of New Mexico, I embarked from home in Derby at about 7:30am (Central Daylight Time) on Friday, 10/14/2016, to pick up EF. About 10 hours later we checked into the Residence Inn Marriott - Albuquerque Airport. We spent four days and five nights, there, leaving on Wednesday, 10/19/2016 at about 6:30am (Mountain Daylight Time). We arrived home, last evening, at about 6:30pm (CDT) - weary, but having had a wonderful time. All told, we drove 1940 miles in 41 hours (actual driving time including twice when we sat for 10 minutes awaiting our turn to traverse construction along Highway 54), averaging 30.4 miles/gallon of gasoline. Forthwith, some photos. These (below) are photos that EF and I took using my camera.

Day 1, we prowled around my old neighborhood then, when it was late enough (10am), we went to prowl around Old Town Albuquerque. Unlike the forecasted weather, it was unbearably hot! EF took photos on her iPAD, of which I have none. We photographed my previous residence and the old church in Old Town.

Day 2, we drove to Santa Fe which, its being Sunday was crowded with throngs of tourists and their vehicles. We went by to see Elder Brother's former residence which, it turned out is now on the market. The house cannot be seen from the street (unpaved), but here's a photo of the entryway. EB lived in the Pygmy Forest, around the corner from the state's governor's house.

EF particularly liked the color of the Scottish Rite Center in Santa Fe.

Avoiding the throngs that clogged the square, we visited a museum featuring Spanish Colonial Arts. Somehow, I had misread the description on their website while planning our journey and thought it featured Spanish Colonial architecture. Instead, it was mostly religious stuff. EB enjoyed that more than I!

From Santa Fe we drove to Taos, visiting Harwood Museum of Arts. I've no photos from Taos, but lots of photos from our journey along the Rio Grande on our return journey to Santa Fe, along the highway to Albuquerque, and the stunning sunset in progress upon our arrival back at the Residence Inn.

Day 3, we drove down to San Antonio (NM) to the Bosque del Apache to do some birding. Absolutely, it is the wrong time of year to see anything, but we enjoyed being out in the wild. We didn't keep a listing, but I recall our seeing Great blue heron, Sandhill crane (one, lone!), See's phoebe, Lesser goldfinch (western), Northern harrier, Roadrunner, White-tailed kite (two each - previously known as White-shouldered kites - unusual for NM), Red-tailed hawk, Swainson's hawk, Baldpate (duck - not sure current name for it), and assorted lbbs (little brown birds). During the right times of year, there are tens of thousands of migratory birds.

Day 4, we went back to Old Town Albuquerque to browse through the Albuquerque Museum of Art & History and about 15 art galleries. Having time to spare, I took EF up to Sandia Crest. She took lots of photos up at the crest and I took one of her!

View to the north:

Views to the west:

The view to the east:

No matter how wonderful the trip, it is always good to come home. In my case, Hunky Husband always assures that he, the house, and the lawn are in tip-top shape for my arrival.

Water in South Central Kansas

Joared of Along the Way and I have been trying to figure out how we can help one another with our respective water situations (see Water, Water, Maybe Gray Water Too). In a comment to the Water, Water posting, I told Joared that our little city now buys its water from Wichita, Kansas. Below, for Joared, I'm reproducing an exposition on a tack that Wichita is taking to smooth out the water supply peaks and valleys during drought and flooding conditions. I believe that Wichita is actively re-charging the equus beds this year. Although in recent history our normal annual precipitation amounts to about 29" or 30", we have received about 50" so far this year. [Correction from Hunky Husband, "For  2016 to date we have received 59.8" at our house."] In 2008, we received a total of about 50" or 55" of precipitation.

The below information comes from the United States Geological Society (USGS) website.

Equus Beds Groundwater Recharge Project

Schematic of the artificial recharge process Introduction The water supply for the city of Wichita, south-central Kansas, currently comes from the Equus Beds aquifer and Cheney Reservoir. Because these sources are not expected to meet projected city water needs into the 21st century (Warren and others, 1995), artificial recharge of the Equus Beds aquifer was investigated as one alternative to meet future water-supply demands. An additional potential benefit of artificial recharge includes preventing degradation of the water quality of the aquifer by saltwater plumes from the Arkansas River to the southwest and the Burrton oil field to the northwest (Ziegler and others, 1999). Phase I of the full-scale artificial recharge project began in 2007 and continued through 2012. For Phase I, the water pumped directly from the Little Arkansas River is treated to reduce sediment and remove atrazine before being recharged to the aquifer through recharge basins; water pumped from wells in the riverbank does not receive additional treatment before being recharged to the aquifer through recharge basins or wells (Debra Ary, city of Wichita, written commun., 2012). Phase II recharge facilities withdraw water from the Little Arkansas River and treat the water using ultrafiltration membranes and advanced oxidation techniques. The treated water can then be recharged into spreading basins or recharge wells throughout the area and stored in the aquifer for future use. Phase I has a design capacity of 10 Mgal/day. Phase II became operational in April 2013 and has a design capacity of 30 Mgal/day. Total construction costs for Phase I and II are about $247 million. Map of Operations for Equus Beds Groundwater Recharge Project Links to the City of Wichita Aquifer Storage and Recovery Program: http://www.wichita.gov/ http://www.wichita.gov/Government/Departments/PWU/Pages/WaterQuality.aspx For additional information, please write or call: Andy Ziegler U.S. Geological Survey Kansas Water Science Center 4821 Quail Crest Place Lawrence, KS 66049-3839 Telephone: (785) 832-3539 Fax: (785) 832-3500 Email: GS-W-KS_equus@usgs.gov

Because I like fall color - and we are starting to get some!

Kansas is not known for its fall color - mostly because, as is true in much of Colorado, most of Kansas has trees (where there are significant numbers) that produce yellow and brown leaves in the fall. Loving the color of sugar maples as I do, when we moved here, I had one planted in our front yard. It is starting to change into its fall colors.

Six days later (10/10/2016):

And, 10 days later, still (10/20/2016): I missed the full-color tree by being on travel! 

Progress in the yard & woods

As you well know, we've been subjected to six or seven "flash floods" this summer, among them a couple that were higher than we'd previously experienced on this property. FYI: Every cubic foot of ground within miles of us, is completely saturated from all of the rain that has so far graced us, this year - AND -we're expecting another flash flood later today. Flash flooding plus 2.5" to 5" hail plus 75 miles/hour winds is our forecast in which the weather people say they have high confidence! [Credit my own, personal weather guy (Hunky Husband) for getting the latest to me!]

Before we get inundated, again, and before my cleanup work gets undone, I thought I would brag about some of the progress I've made in the past several days.

The first two photos show the major/minor flotsam that was deposited at the boundary zone between our back lawn and the woods.

This photo (below) shows the boundary zone as it appears this morning - following my cleanup efforts.

Just within the woods is a rather clear space in which we buried our last two cats (graves marked by upright concrete monoliths). The next photo (below) shows that area before cleanup. The next photo shows that area following my cleanup efforts. Note that the log in the background of the second photo is just beyond our property line.

As a result of the various flash flood events, we were left with five major piles of flotsam in the boundary zone between the grassland on our property and the woods on our property. As of this morning, I have finished my cleanup efforts on the two piles nearest the house. Below are photos of the larger of the two. The first two photos (below) show the pile in early July and late September. It hadn't really changed a whole lot.

The photo, below is a view of the area that is into the woods from the pile in the above two photos. Originally, I had formed a brush pile in that area of which most had been swept away in the flooding. This is the area in which I "rebuilt" a brush pile from the flotsam in the large pile - plus from the area surrounding my brush pile.

This photo (below) shows a broadside view of the flotsam pile as it appeared in early July.

The last two photos (below) show the area of the flotsam pile as "cleaned up" to rebuild my brush pile, and the brush pile, itself.

To give you an idea of scale: the brush pile is at least two feet taller than my height (5' 5"). Fortunately, Archimedes and I are old pals, so I was able to move logs that weighed much more than my weight (classified info) and the lengths of which extended several times my previously mentioned height. I should tell you that Hunky Husband is more than willing to help; but, I take it as a challenge to avoid interrupting whatever he may be doing!