It was our bi-monthly trip to Silver week, and this time, we stopped for breakfast on the way.
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| Living Harvest Bakery |
I had known about this bakery ahead of our arrival here, and a coworker confirmed it was a fine place to grab a bite and enjoy a good cup of coffee. Some of the online reviews had noted that it is run by the church and that proselytizing might occur. While it is true that it is run by a Christian Fellowship, and there are scriptures writ into the tabletops and framed on the walls, there was nary a peep from any employee, not even a “God Bless” at checkout. There were also large maps of the USA and one of the solar system on the walls, so if you believe that simply having to lay eyes on such things is shoving Christianity, cartography, or astronomy down your throat, well then this may not be the place for you. If you believe that shoving a decent, inexpensive All you can enjoy!!! breakfast buffet, a large selection of locally-roasted coffees, and delicious fresh-baked goods down your throat is your thing, then you would be happy. We were!
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| Chocolate Pinon coffee in the morning breeze. |
After a few phone calls and a stop at the San Lorenzo Post Office, which turned out to only be a USPS blue curbside drop box, we headed in to take a walk on Silver’s iconic Dragonfly Trail.
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| Almost too bright to read the signs. |
The Fort Bayard trail system has many pathways from which to choose, but we were only interested in the 3-mile Dragonfly loop.
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| No water crossings on this one. |
The trails are well-signed – mostly – and much of them are completely exposed.
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| scant shade, but nice trail. |
The highlight of this particular loop is the famous dragonfly petroglyph for which it is named. That, of course, was the only part of the whole trail system that was not at all signed, and we blew right by it at the two-mile mark. Maybe we’ll go back again sometime, and maybe we won’t. We haven’t been having the best of hiking luck on our go-to-town days, especially since we have to save grocery shopping for last to ensure we get our vittles back home before the long car ride takes its toll. In future, it looks like we will only do town stuff on town day, and save the outdoorsy things for other days. That said, we did enjoy the trails here (much more than Boston Hill) and would recommend them for both walking and biking.
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| Back at home base on an evening stroll. |
Our big hike of the week was a partial repeat with an extra loop added.
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| They are in this pic, I swear. |
Instead of following the trail across and into EE Canyon directly as we did the first time, we continued on out to Little Creek.
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| A big guy at a little creek. |
This water crossing did not involve wet feet for once!
After stone-hopping over the creek, we came into a simply gorgeous piney woods.
One of our very favorite topographical features is a wooded meadow, I think for me it’s because it is such a contradiction. This was also a flat, smooth, semi-shaded portion of the hike, and therefore, fabulous.
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| Do my shoulders look burned? |
Even with sunscreen, even with partial shade, I managed to sustain a bit of sunburn on the tops of my shoulders. Stupid southwestern fireball! At least it was a good hike overall, and I probably got a little vitamin D out of it.
I don’t get a lot of time on my work days to devote to my project which was, as you may or may not recall, working on the Native Plant Garden. Add to that the fact that it is the wrong time of year to plant anything here, and add to that a lack of extra personnel and dedicated funds, and it becomes clear why the NPG hasn’t seen much progress.
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| It was, in fact, a very, very dry floor, but it was the only sign I had! |
I did, however, have a whole scheduled project day this past week, and I started clearing out the already-established pathway so that gravel can be spread in eventually. The park already has the gravel, and our maintenance guy said he’d bring it down in the backhoe when I gave the go-ahead. As you can see from the above photo, it will be a little while before I can get it all cleared.
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| Eventually, this will be the refurbished hummingbird & butterfly box. |
I only worked the first part of the day due to heat and the fact that I didn’t want to overwork my hands or back. It also gave me the afternoon to do some plotting on graph paper. Graph paper!!! I love graph paper almost as much as I love a wooded meadow. Anyhow, my plan is to have things to a point that the next volunteer(s) to take up the NPG mantle can get to the business of actually planting.
Meanwhile, just up the hill…
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| Guess who finally showed up? |
COMMENTS
Chasing DirtI definitely won’t get to the planting stage during our stay. Autumn is the best time (I think, still researching!) We are allowed to dig native plants from the area for the garden as long as we keep a record of what/from where, and part of my paper plan will include which ones and likely areas to find them — all that hiking pays off again 🙂 That seems the most expeditious and cost-effective method as well. One of the plant tags I found in the ground was from Rockhound S.P., which made sense because they were having a plant sale when we were there a few months ago! I’m also told that there is an area of “good dirt” just down from the VC, and I will make a WRITTEN NOTE of that in my plan. Word-of-mouth seems to be the preferred but notoriously poor form of communication in these parts.
Your hike in the piney woods looks beautiful and shady! That is a very cool photo of the wildflowers and soft-focus you in the background. Do you happen to know, are those wild bee balm (monarda spp.)? How sweet that your little Rufous Hummingbird buddy showed up. He’s so beautiful! I see that there’s a hummingbird festival in Mimbres on July 27-28…just in case you have time or interest. I would love to be there!
Chasing Dirt Why is there no little sign pointing to that petroglyph?! Those trails were so well-marked otherwise, that was just weird. I had forgotten about your Mysterious Stranger on the Boston Hill trails. We did like the area, but it was too darn hot on our day there, and we didn’t have a good route planned for our walk.
Those piney woods were stunning. I wish I had known about them a few weeks earlier when this very cool traveling archaeologist (think Indiana Jones) was asking about a good place to string his hammock for an overnighter. I
Yes, ma’am, those purple flowers are bee balm! They will definitely be included in my Native Garden plans, too. 🙂 I love that photo, too!
Oh, those bossy little Roofies! I’m hoping to get better pics of them and the broad-tailed before we leave. Their gorgets are positively blinding in the morning sun. I did know about the upcoming festival, but unfortunately, those two days are my work days. Naturally!
Both of you are great looking Trail pointers 🙂 and yes we too had breakfast there on our way to GICL and White Canyon.
We too almost missed the Dragonfly and the signage was not obvious,
thankfully I was looking for a spot to pose and voila, there it was on
the side of the rocks.
I’m sure the next person will thank you for your detailed map of the
garden, will that include arrows on where and what to plant? I almost
forgot what a graphing paper is, and the last time I used that was high
school!
Chasing Dirt Those copper hummies are so pretty and so bossy! LOL I’m hoping to get an even better pic of one with its gorget flashing in the morning sun. There is pandemonium at the feeder a few times a day.
I am jealous you got a pic by the petroglyph! If we hadn’t already been almost done with the trail by the time it dawned on me that we’d passed it, we would’ve searched a bit more. Oh well, it was still a nice walkabout, and there is plenty of time for us to go back if we decide we must find it.
Yes, my garden plan will show which types of plants to put where and list their proper care. Hopefully, being natives, once they are established, they should be relatively care-free. You know what they say about the best-laid plans, though.
How could you forget about graph paper?! It is one of the best kinds of paper in the world, so neat and orderly. 😀
Chasing Dirt Are you saying Gluttony would be one of the many, many reasons? 😀