Totally self-serving

OK, so what I have to say in this post has no meaning beyond patting us on the back. Having said that up front, let me get on with it.

Yesterday a fellow with an accent that was obviously not learned in West Texas came into the Visitor Center. He wanted a 'back-country permit' that would allow him to use the River and maybe camp along the Santa Canyon (on the US side). He seemed to be aware of rules and regulations about using the River and back-country camping. So, taking his $10 fee, I issued him the permit. Only then did he tell me that he wanted to fish in the River as well. So, instead of issuing an additional piece of paper, a non-fee fishing permit, I simply hand-annotated his permit as a 'license' allowing him to fish wherever he wanted.

Today, Thomas, returned to show me the photo of the large carp he had fished out of the Rio Grande, and then wise to the health of the River, released it. I told him that had he not produced a picture I would have doubted his veracity as few if any 'fisherman' end up catching anything.

He and his family had returned to the Visitor Center to be a part of the audience for my demonstration about making an adobe brick. Altogether, there were 27, about equally split between adults and children who spent 45 minutes at the demonstration, my helpers were the kids. Having children there is always a real hi for me and I so do my best Mr. Rogers impersonation, sans sweater.

In minutes the kids were up to their elbows in clay, water and horse poop to hand-mix and knead the mud mixture into the consistency of biscuit dough. Once again, with all the kids crowded around the wheelbarrow, I had only to do the final kneading and mixing and placing the globs of mud into the mold. Thus, again with breath to spare, I could address the adult audience with bon mots about sun-dried brick making and the linguistic origin of the word 'adobe.'

On the way down the hill to view the oldest adobe building in the Park, The Alvino House, one of the boys, Leon, said something that made me guess that his mother tongue was not English but German. When I asked him, in German, if he could speak that language, he responded, "Ja, das kann ich sprechen. (Yeah, I can speak that.) Thus I learned that his father's accent, while only scant, was Teutonic.

When we came back up the hill from viewing the oldest adobe house, Leon and his brother, Jonas, wanted to help me clean up the wheelbarrow and the mud mess. While taking their time with the clean-up, they fashioned a few tiny 'bricks' and made a miniature mud house.

When they were finally finished, they brought me their completed workbooks, with what they had learned about the Park, to qualify them to receive a Jr. Ranger badge and embroidered patch. Their Dad, Thomas, told me that they had about a dozen such badges and patches from other National Parks in the Southwest.

So when I 'swore them in' as Jr. Rangers, I didn't ask them to take the printed 'Jr. Ranger Pledge' on the back of their workbook. I said to them, "You have already taken the Jr. Ranger pledge a dozen times, so I am asking you to take a unique Ranger pledge, auf Deutsch, in German. Then I asked them to raise their right hands and repeat after me: Fuer meine Mama und Papa, ich verspreche ein hilfreiches Ranger zu sein. (For my Mom and Dad, I promise to be a helpful Ranger.)

A video was recorded by their Mom and their Dad said, 'If they deny that they have promised this, we will have it to show them.'

As I turned to go back into the Visitor Center, the Dad pulled me aside and said, "We have not introduced ourselves. My name is Thomas and my wife is Sandra. I am an officer in the German Air Force, serving duty in El Paso. See that truck over there. I bought it when we came here three years ago. We use it only for our vacations. I have driven it more than 45,000 miles to nearly all the National Parks in the west of the USA. We take all our vacations to visit the National Parks. Are you going to be here next year at this time?" "We'll, we haven't decided," I replied, "my memory is not as good as it once was in answering visitor questions." "You must return," he said, " in all the Parks we have visited, we have never met a couple like you and your wife." He extended his hand and gave me a sincere handshake. He then went into the Visitor Center so that he could personally say, "Auf wiedersehen," to Jane.

Just when both of us thought our time had about run out ...

Travelers and Nomads

Last week it was the couple from Russia who appeared to qualify as 'having traveled the farthest' to visit Big Bend National Park. This Thanksgiving Day-Weekend it was the six guys from Hong Kong who agreed with me that there were very few deserts in Hong Kong.

Before I continue, let me remind you that Thanksgiving weekend is one of the three busiest of the year, competing with Christmas-New Year, and outdone only by 'Spring Break.' During the latter two weeks, all the schools in Texas are 'on break' at the same time and it is difficult to find a place to lay down a sleeping bag in the entire Park.

On a typical day, we have 16-30 visitors in the Visitor Center here on the far West side of the Park. We like to say that we are not the end of the world, but you can see it from here. Thanksgiving Day there were 75 visitors. Yesterday, Black Friday in the rest of North America, 121 people chose marveling in the wonder of a National Park to contributing to the tyranny of Capitalism and the Wal*Mart embarrassment. By the way, I don't think that the Waltons are monsters, but then Adolph Eichmann was not either. Think 'the banality of evil,' as in the description by Hannah Arendt.

But, back to visitors. The honors for recognition, since I am the Master of Ceremonies at this moment of awards, goes to Josh and Lindsey and their four children, ages 2, 4, 6, and 8. Daddy, Josh, is a teacher and Mommy, Lindsey, is one too but she dedicates her abilities to home-schooling.

They owned a house but were having trouble paying off the mortgage and the student debt, so they sold the house to concentrate on becoming free of the school loans. For nearly two years they have lived in a tent; 'as big as this room' said the eight-year old, telling me about their life and indicating our Visitor Center. Daddy goes to his teaching job from a nearby State Park where their tent is pitched. When they have stayed the limit allowed campers in one park, the pack all their belongings into the Dodge caravan and re-establish a new home.

While Mommy sat catching up on some self-time, reading alone in the richly upholstered chair in our Book Store, Daddy sat on the similarly cushy sofa there, piled upon by his kids, reading kids' book after kids' book from our bookshelves. The children learned that 'Josephina Javelina' isn't a pig but is a 'collared peccary' and doesn't like being referred to as a pig. They liked the 'Who Pooped in the Park' book too, a favorite of kids and quite informative about scat and tracks on the trails. "Lizards for Lunch' introduced them to the appearance and appetite of the Greater Roadrunner, who probably cannot outrun Wiley Coyote, but that makes for a good cartoon.

Having brought two little boys on a whirlwind camping fortnight to the Southwest in the early 1970s, Jane and I were somewhat awestruck by this semi-nomadic family. Their commitment to the well-being and education of their children was exemplary. Their dedication to being debt-free was both remarkable and enviable. May such tribes of nomads increase!

It's been a quiet week ...

It's been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone Big Bend National Park. Visitors are moping in to the Visitor Center, hanging around a lot more, looking at the historical display information, asking more questions. But a gloom hangs over it all. No one seems to be really enjoying themselves.

One of the most frequent questions is, "We were told that November is an excellent time to visit the Park; is this weather unusual? How long will it last?" When I respond, "Two days ago, when I clicked on the weather on the Internet here, it indicated that we had 0% change of precipitation, but the visitors to whom I gave that answer frowned when they walked out to the parking lot in rain," they look at me like I'm some kind of incompetent. They then say, "You're a volunteer, aren't you!"

Well, yes I am, but the honest-to-God Rangers as well as the volunteers with more experience than we have haven't the slightest hint of more expertise than we have on this subject.

What was going on when we arrived in late October in a light rain has only gotten more so. Yes, September and October are the wet months in the southwest Texas desert, but rain on in to November is a real exception. A week ago it was 98 degrees on the Visitor Center porch, but Saturday of this week, it was a drippy and dreary 37 degrees.

I usually grin from ear to ear when I tell folks that we come down here because this is the best place to spend a winter in Ohio. Some of the charm has been washed off that cleverness. In fact, when it was so cold and wet on Saturday, I cancelled the adobe demonstration, not that anyone would have shown up in any event, but in case one or two did, I had no intention of mixing horse manure, clay and cold water, by hand, and blathering on about 'green construction' in arid climates in a hoddie and fleece jacket.

We spent yesterday, Sunday, running around the apartment, cozy in our slippers and sweats, reading a bit, napping and lazily working on the transcription of an oral history interview. The Oral History Project is what we are to spend one day each week working on, but we don't sit for eight hours at a time listening and transcribing. We dribble the task out to relieve the tedium of it.

One of the busiest times in the Park is Thanksgiving weekend, so after these few days off, the rest of the week will probably not be so quiet. Since we are scheduled to work in the Visitor Center each Thursday, Friday and Saturday, this year none of the holidays are leisure times for us. Thanksgiving Evening, the Ranger who coordinates volunteers is hosting dinner for all of us. She plans to bake the bird and the rest of us will bring the sides-dishes and desserts.

It has nothing to do with anything but as I typed that last word in that previous sentence, I remembered that 'stressed' spelled backward is 'desserts.'

Hope y'all have a pleasant Thanksgiving!

PS-
Electricity just went off as I'm finishing this blog. Will have to publish it later this afternoon. It is not unusual to lose power for short periods- winds I guess play heck with power lines.

Surveillance of the Surveillers

Although the NSA probably already knows it, from monitoring my emails, I haven't told you about my assignment for today, if I choose to accept it. (Since the assignment did not come on a self-destructive recording, but in an email, I have time to consider it and the mission is not impossible.) The Park Archaeologist needs photos of the housing units built for the Border Patrol agents who live around the corner from our apartment.

The Archaeologist does not usually monitor such recent human habitations as housing units constructed only a year or so ago. But whenever changes to any structure are proposed anywhere in the Park, the Archaeologist needs to weigh-in with an opinion.

It seems that the Border Patrol wants to replace the rather attractive cedar board fences, already in place, with some kind of steel wire-mesh and rock enclosures. Apparently the BP housing units at Presidio, Texas, have already been re-fenced. I suppose that in a hot-spot like the Ojinaga, Mexico - Presidio, Texas crossing, there might be a possibility of shots being fired at BP residences, but truth be told, BP agents here seem to have to invent ways to keep busy.

A BP agent did die here in the Park a year or so ago, but his death was caused from a fall into an arroyo when he was carrying equipment for monitoring that caused him to lose his balance. In other words, while he did die in the line of duty, it was more of an industrial accident than one would expect from being in harm's way.

So before we take off to appear like we are just going to work at the Visitor Center, I'll snap a few clandestine pics of Homeland Security buildings. My hunch is that the Archaeologist will make his recommendations based upon his aesthetic sensitivities rather than any sense that our neighbors need additional protection.

Unless there have been instances of BP housing units coming under fire, my best hunch is that this is one more piece of evidence that the Department of Homeland Security has several pork barrels of money they do not know what to do with. I have a suggestion: there are folks who could use some help with re-financing their homes due to Federal and other malfeasance long before we need to spend any money on re-fencing remotely located houses.

I'll let you know if I get one of those letters telling me to cease and desist this kind of cyber-chatter. No, wait, if I get one of those letters, I'll be prohibited from letting anyone know, yikes!

Good to have you back!

Alpine, Texas, 110 miles north of the Park, was today's destination. It is an altogether pleasant drive. The trip is through desert, past a couple of bentonite mines, Kokernot Mesa, Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area and a moment's stop at the Border Patrol road-block 10 miles out of Alpine. After verbally assuring the young BP officer that we were indeed US citizens and learning from him that he was from Port Clinton, Ohio, and had attended Ohio State, we proceeded to Brewster County's Seat.

As an aside, to save you going to Wikipedia, bentonite is an absorbent aluminium phyllosilicate, essentially impure clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite. The absorbent clay was given the name bentonite by Wilbur C. Knight in 1898, after the Cretaceous Benton Shale near Rock River, Wyoming. There are different types of bentonite, each named after the respective dominant element, such as potassium (K), sodium (Na), calcium (Ca), and aluminium (Al). Experts debate a number of nomenclatorial problems with the classification of bentonite clays. Bentonite usually forms from weathering of volcanic ash, most often in the presence of water. However, the term bentonite, as well as a similar clay called tonstein, has been used to describe clay beds of uncertain origin. For industrial purposes, two main classes of bentonite exist: sodium and calcium bentonite. It is used for drilling mud, as an absorbent, as a water barrier, in cosmetics and for medicinal compositions.


We arrived, as we had notified her by phone, to take Celestine Amatulli out for lunch at her favorite place, La Casita, a very popular Mexican restaurant, not one of many in a chain, of course. 'Chele' as she is known by family and friends, is the daughter, now in her 80s, of the town constable, Feliz Valenzuela, who was gunned down by a Sotol smuggler in Terlingua, Texas, in 1938. We had recorded her oral history and copies of numerous family documents and photos two years ago and she's been one of our best Texas friends since. The pollo y queso quesadillas (chicken and cheese quesadillas) were excellent and the perfect lunch.

After lunch, our next stop was at the Ace Hardware to purchase a 'Swiffer' and its wet/dry components to serve to keep the apartment relatively Texas-dust free. We bought a tortilla press as well so that we can continue to get better at making our own corn tortillas. Jane wanted the Swiffer stuff; I was interested in the 'Tortilladoro.'

Porter's Safeway is across the street from the Hardware. An hour or so and two carts later, we had enough victuals to stock the pantry and fill the fridg and its freezer compartment to last a couple of weeks.

About half-way through the checkout, a man's voice from behind me, at the next checkout lane, said, "You are back, I see." I turned to see who the voice was and said to a total stranger, "Yes, back at the Park; it's the best way that we know to spend a winter in Ohio." He smiled and said, "Good to have you back."

In the truck on the two-hour drive back from the grocery run, Jane said she thought she had seen the fellow in the Visitor Center, but his was an anonymous face so far as I was concerned.

Both Jane and I have been asked just why we have returned year after year to this remote Park in southwest Texas desert, to give thirty-two hours each week for three months, for no more compensation than a place to park our trailer or, this year, an apartment unused, except by mice, spiders and scorpions for months before we arrive.

I think I just said why.

House Slippers on the Dresser

But I thought house slippers went on the floor right beside the bed. Well, they do usually. We've decided though that it is better to place your bare feel on the floor, after carefully looking at where they are to be placed. Then one can reach the slippers from off the dresser and not have to worry about crowding a scorpion with your toes.

We had not given that strategy all that much thought until the other evening. As she walked in the dimly lit hallway to the bedroom, Jane started to reach down to pick up a dust ball. The dust ball picked itself up, curled its tail menacingly arched up over its back and scampered under the closet door.

When I moved the bag in the closet that contains our small hand-sweeper, the scorpion, about three inches long if its tail were to be stretched out, was on the wall just above the base-board. A swat only knocked it to the closet floor where it retreated into a crack too narrow for its escape, I mistakenly thought.

So, in addition to this apartment being a Mouse Motel, it is also a Scorpion Sanctuary. That latter status is afforded the creatures only because they move fast and can squeeze into the tiniest places.



Scorpions are predatory arthropod animals of the order Scorpiones within the class Arachnida. They have eight legs and are easily recognized by the pair of grasping claws and the narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back, ending with a venomous stinger. Scorpions range in size from 3.5 in (Typhlochactas mitchelli) to 7.5 in (Hadogenes troglodytes). Our Texas variety, The Striped Bark Scorpion (Centruriodes vittatus) gets to be about 3.5 inches as an adult. If I can get to a little one on the floor in our apartment, I try to prevent its maturity.

The little rascals are nocturnal, hiding in cracks and under stuff in the sunlight, to avoid whatever might find them tasty. They do have an unusual characteristic though. They glow in the dark! Well, at least if you shine an ultra-violet light, like a black-light, on them, they appear fluorescent greenish in color. As is apparent in the picture above, not ours, it's from Google Images, one of these could look like a dust ball in dim light. Our fellow volunteer, Bob, left his hand-held black-light at the Visitor Center, so I'll bring it home today to scan the dark corners of our habitat.

Scorpions of our Texas variety prey on small insects, even tiny lizards and such but can ingest food only in a liquid form; they have external digestion. The digestive juices from the gut are egested onto the food and the digested food sucked in liquid form. Any solid indigestible matter (fur, exoskeleton, etc.) is trapped by tiny hairs in the pre-oral cavity, which is ejected by the scorpion. In that they consume only liquid food, they resemble the scruffy, guitar-playin' ole boys we see on the porch at the trading post in Terlingua (our nearest town). Those guys don't have any apparent stingers but most of their nutrient comes in liquid form from tall brown bottles and aluminum cans with labels like "Lone Star" and "Tecata."

I have to admit that I have a characteristic or two in common with scorpions. They can consume huge amounts of food at one sitting. They have a very efficient food storage organ and a very low metabolic rate combined with a relatively inactive lifestyle. Unlike me though, this enables scorpions to survive long periods when deprived of food; some are able to survive 6 to 12 months of starvation. Also unlike me, if you'll excuse an excursus into bowel habits, scorpions excrete very little; their waste consists mostly of insoluble nitrogenous compounds such as xanthine, guanine and uric acid.

Interesting as all this may be and as fascinated as you've been learning about these arachnids, I think you'll agree that the fall infestation of Asian Lady-Bugs in Ohio is much preferable to having slippers on the dresser and scorpions on the floor.

Mud and a Measure of Fun

Finally the weather realized that it has been in southwest Texas for the past couple of days and managed to stay relatively cloudless and in the upper 70s and 80s. It was bright enough yesterday afternoon for me to lay aside my brown, billed cap (which I do not wear with the bill askew or backwards) and don instead the broad-brim that resembles one issued for safari work. I had to toss it aside though in the middle of the adobe demonstration.

Yes, it was Saturday again and time to show visitors how to make sun-baked brick. The sun-baked part had good evidence from last week's specimen standing there, on its side, having been turned a couple of times to allow it to dry well enough for picking up and stacking.

A phone call right after we opened the Visitor Center at 9:30am had alerted me to anticipate a Ranger family with a 6 year old and her 4 year old brother in my audience. Knowing for certain that I'd have kids to mess in the mud with me actually made me eager for the demonstration. So, as soon as Jane was comfortable with a half hour or so of lone duty, I drove the Fire Blue F-150 to the corral for the bucket-full of horse apples and then on to the abandoned road to the river, three-quarters of a mile from the corral, for the tub of clay-silt. This time I had sense enough to leave the tub in the back of the pick-up where I loaded it by shovelful instead of trying to heft a hundred-weight of damp clay into the truck. You are right, I am not as dumb as I look. (You needn't say, 'You couldn't be,' as I've already heard that.)

Just before the Ranger family arrived, two white vans pulled into the parking lot and out tumbled about ten elementary-age boys. The boys raced to the picnic tables and claimed places well before their four male advisors got there to signal the time for opening knapsacks for lunch. Seeing that my anticipated audience had not arrived, I walked to the far end of the ramada (that's what a roofed shelter/porch is called here) and told the advisors that if the lunch ended in 15 minutes, they had arrived just in time for an adobe brick-making demo.

Just before the 1:30pm demo start-time, 6 year old, Lucy, and 4 year old, Isaiah arrived with their Ranger dad, mom and tiny baby brother, Samuel. I later learned that the Ranger family outing had been eagerly looked forward to by the children as it was a reward for especially good behavior and smiley faces on the behavior chart the past week; a chiminea fire with s'mores was to climax the occasion when they got back home in the evening.

So with a dozen kids, horse manure, a tub full of silt-clay and a hose without a nozzle on its business end, my boringly dry lecture about a building process with minimum impact upon the environment in arid climates became a party. I had only to ask once for help to have twenty bare hands and arms plunge with mine into the mixture. One boy watched, at first expressing disgust at getting his hands in horse poop, but within a moment there were a dozen hands-on, or hand-in, the project. Lucy elbowed boys aside so she could plunge in too.

I did have to express and enforce the only rule of the afternoon, "No throwing the mud on each other," even before all the clay was even moist. That was when I had to toss my safari hat aside too, as the adobe masons beside me became more and more excited about the process. All of us really got into it.

Over the giggles and chatter of my fellow adobe experts, I had no trouble explaining the tensile strength of this home-made construction material and the arcane origin of the word 'adobe' from the Arabic and Coptic to the adults in the gathering. By having no trouble, I mean that I was not gasping for breath like last week with mortar hoe in hand shoving the heavy mud in the wheelbarrow. The kids made my day! The 'Building Green' demonstration by Volunteer R.Payne, as described in the Park's weekly announcement, had become an event to rival celebrating a birthday at "Chuck-E-Cheese."

As the boys helped me lift the mold from the wet brick, they wanted to imprint it with their hand prints. One boy said, "Let's mark it with 'BC' for Baptist Church." That's when one of the adults introduced himself as pastor from Marathon Baptist Church. When one of the Anglo boys inscribe the 'BC,' it occurred to me to say, "How about 'IB' too, for Iglesia Bautista de Marathon!" Immediately one of the Hispanic boys incised that proud identity.

Lucy and Isaiah had brought along re-cycled plastic containers to mold their own brick for taking home for drying. The boys from the Baptist Church at Marathon, Texas, seventy miles north of the Park, took home some new knowledge and a healthy measure of ethnic pride. These kids did indeed make my day.

Where Y'all From?

The visitor was from Austin and her knees were troubling her so much that she choose to spend time with us in the Visitor Center while her two companions took the hour hike into Santa Elna Canyon. She was a delightful conversationalist, so we really enjoyed her company.

One of her remarks was quite thought-provoking: "Visiting out here, I've realized again that there's so few people in West Texas that they don't get in one another's way. That's why they are so friendly when you do run into them or when they gather. They're just glad to know there's folks that can be counted on when the need arises."

I think I've read somewhere that the rituals of bowing in Japan are a way of keeping one's distance in a very crowded and compact population confined to an island. Apparently community is not simply a matter of numerical conglomeration on either a small island or in an area so expansive that Brewster County Texas is bigger than a couple eastern seaboard States.

Neighborliness needn't be a function of nearness. A disposition toward friendliness needn't be determined by proximity.

Visitors

"That will be $13.17, with tax," I said as I reached for a bag in which to put her refrigerator magnet of a Park vista and the postcards. When she handed me two twenty-dollar bills, I knew she was either a very new resident to the USA or a foreign visitor. As I placed her items and the receipt into the bag and handed her her change, I asked where she was from. "Switzerland," she answered. "Ja, aus Schweiz," I replied. She immediately relaxed as she said in English, "You speak German!" "Nur ein bischen (only a bit)," I said.

She turned to smile as she left the Visitor Center. "Auf weidersehen," I offered. "Ja, auf wiedersehen. Danke schoen," she said. "Bitte schoen," I replied.

Although I speak very little German and have an even more limited vocabulary in Spanish, if I sense that a visitor's mother tongue is either of these, I try to show them that I respect their culture by so simple a gesture as greeting them in a way familiar to them at home. It has worked each time, except when I said 'Good-bye' in French to one lady last year and she turned to lecture me on the poor French translation on an interpretive sign outside. My explanation that the translation was not my responsibility did little to satisfy her insistence on the purity of her language.

Later yesterday afternoon, I had trouble identifying the accent of the two couples who had questions about the identity of a black bird with which they were not familiar. One of the women said that she knew they were not 'Corvids.' So, I could tell her that the only members of that family here were Ravens and that no, whatever she saw in 'parking lots and cities, wherever there were people' were not Crows or Ravens. From her description of the color or males and females and the gurgling calls of the birds, Jane and I told her she had seen Grackles, probably Great-tail Grackles, since the Boat-tail Grackles are in Florida and the south-east coast.

Finally stumped about the heavily accented English in which the couple addressed us, I asked where they were from. "Poland," they said in a duet.

What I lacked in language to make these Poles feel welcome, we were able to make up with our knowledge of the local bird population. They were so satisfied that the woman returned moments after they left to ask one last question about a good trail to take. When I told her the "Lost Mine Trail" in the mountains and then they could enjoy dinner in the Chisos Mountains Lodge, she was delighted saying that my suggestion would make the other couple happy too as they were more interested in food than in a hike.

The visitors we had experienced the night before at our apartment were not so welcome. Two mice in one closet in one evening, stiff in the traps when we got up that morning. And now again this morning, just before I've sat down to type this post, I emptied the trap of yet another mouse. Our hospitality is past growing thin with these creatures. Visitors are always welcome and made to feel so. Rodent invaders will be confronted by my inalienable right to bear traps.

An Old Man Tries His Best

On Saturday, Nov. 9th, I offered my first demonstration of the season to visitors at the Castolon Historic District. At 1:30pm each Saturday for the remainder of the season, I'll show folks how to make an adobe brick in a 'program' that the Park publicizes as "Building Green."

The materials for this demonstration include horse manure I collect from the corral not far from our apartment. The earth I use for the 'mud brick' I dig from an old roadway, closed for more than a decade, that once led to a crossing to Santa Helena, Mexico. Since 2002 that informal crossing has been closed and any violation is closely monitored by resident Border Patrol agents. In the fall of 2008, our first season in the Park, that old road was covered with several feet of silt from a devastating flood. The clay silt is now my source for the mud I need to make adobe.

The word 'adobe' has been basically recognizable in a number of languages for the better part of 4,000 years. An ancient Egyptian language when translated into a later Coptic word is 'tobe.' That word was taken into Arabic to become 'al tub,' meaning 'mud brick.' Probably during the Moorish period in early Spanish history, 'al tub' became 'adobe' and so we have known it ever since.

When the Hebrew Scriptures tell us that Moses and his people were forced to make bricks without straw, it probably means that they were required to harvest the grass-like binder using their own resources rather than the Pharoah's troops collecting it for them. It is unlikely that they could have made mud bricks without any kind of plant binder. The straw, grass, fiber assists in the uniform drying of the bricks; without the straw, the bricks would have dried so that they cracked.

"Building Green" is a good description of the process of making and using sun-baked bricks because the materials are easily at hand and really are a means of recycling what is not difficult to obtain. Clay, sand, plant fiber and water are all one needs to build structures that can last for thousands of years, or if neglected will wash back into the earth in a lifetime. So long as an adobe, sun-baked brick building is roofed properly and plastered/stuccoed on the outside of its external walls to resist the occasional rain of its arid desert context, the structure will last almost forever. In 2003, a public building in Iran made from sun-baked bricks, suffered extensive damage from an earthquake; it had served the public for 2,500 years before the quake brought it down.

Here in Big Bend, the oldest building is the 'Alvino House,' named for its resident from 1918 until 1958, Alvino Ybarra, who, with his wife Teofila Luna, raised a number of children in the adobe house originally built in 1901. Alvino Ybarra was the operator of the steam-driven irrigation pump used to provide water for the large farm operated here at Castolon by Anglo rancher, Wayne Cartledge. The 'Alvino House' was restored and rehabilitated in the 1990s by expert adobe masons from across the Rio Grande from the village of Santa Helena, Mexico. These Mexican neighbors and volunteers from across the tiny village, gave their time and skills to restore an historic part of Big Bend National Park. A decade later, they and their fellow-villagers were no longer welcome to cross the Rio Grande where they had for more than a century because of our need for Homeland Security.

Jane watched from the porch of the Visitor Center as I explained the process of mud brick making to the handful of visitors who had gathered at the appointed time in the Visitor Center parking lot. Quipping as I went that I had learned my trade of mixing horse poop and mud by being a preacher for forty years, I dumped in the gallon bucket of horse apples, stirring them into a gallon or so of water in the wheelbarrow to break up the clumps. Then I hefted shovelfuls of the clay silt I had earlier brought in the large tub in the back of the Fire Blue Ford F-150. When I thought the mixture had about the right balance, I began shoving and retrieving the masonry hoe, with the broad blade and two holes, through the thick mud.

Using muscles I had forgotten were in my arms and shoulders, I shoved and drew the hoe back and forth. Sweat began to dampen by forehead and I thought, "I don't remember this being this difficult last year." My narrative began to come between the labored breaths and soon Jane was looking from the porch as though she expected me to collapse red-faced and exhausted from the effort. Not one to admit being unfit, out of shape and certainly not willing to look like a feeble old man, I shoved and breathed, barely able to say the word 'adobe' in a single breath.

Finally, the 'mortar' was the consistency of bisquit dough and I shoveled it into the mold. Unable then to bend over and pull the mold off the slab of mud, I enlisted another volunteer, Bill Marvin, who with his wife, Patty, had come to observe my demonstration. Together we lifted the mold and there on the pebbly gravel of the parking lot was the first of this year's abode bricks.

I find myself panting as I write this, in anticipation of another dozen breathless Saturdays.

A Joyous Meeting in the Parking Lot

When I managed to depress the crown of my wristwatch so the time could shine out in the dark, the glow told me it was 4:30am. The noise from outside the bedroom window sounded, at first, like a children's party with delighted chirp-like chatter. I soon recognized that it was coyotes yelping, even though in the unlighted parking lot they were not visible.

In previous seasons here at Big Bend, I've heard the yelps and yips of a gathering of coyotes punctuating the desert darkness. Unlike wolves, coyotes do not hunt in groups, instead are solitary predators that sometimes will pair-up to run prey to exhaustion. I'll have to research the Internet to learn why coyotes gather, announcing their congregation quite noisily.

I went back to bed wondering just why there was a pack of them just yards from our window making such a racket. Of course, having no recognition of their individual voices, I couldn't determine the size of the crowd. I drifted off assuming that it was yesterday's all-day rain that resulted in the coyote cacophony. Visitors were disappointed that the cold rain had spoiled their few days in the Park. They did not appreciate my suggestion that they could take  some satisfaction in the recognition that they had experienced the desert under very unusual circumstances. A fog-shrouded landscape with puddles beneath the creosote brush is not exactly the scene they wanted to preserve.

My assumption though, was that the coyotes understood the benefits of the dreary day. It meant that the soaking and shivers they'd put up with would bring life that would sustain them and their pups. The possibility of being able to put food on the table for your family is cause for rejoicing. A promising future is reason enough for any creatures to gather to celebrate.

Cloudy with a chance of sunshine

On October 30th we drove into Big Bend National Park for the first time in our six years of service on roads wet with rain. We have enjoyed late winter or early spring rain showers in the desert, but have never seen it like it is this season. When we left in early February 2013, we drove through vast areas of West Texas with even the cacti and creosote bush dead or dying from the several years of drought.

This visit, though, introduces us to a very different desert. With the rains that have been frequent this fall, beginning in September, the parched landscape has turned, if not lush, at least lovely. Mesquite and creosote bush are green shrubs. Grasses along the roadside, most the invasive Buffle Grass once encouraged to graze cattle that the desert's natural grasses would not support, have grown to fruitful seed-heads. Even the ocotillo, a thorny plant that usually looks like clumps of six-feet tall dead sticks, is verdant with its thick covering of tiny leaves. The guayacan is decorated as though for an early Christmas with its holly-like berries. Cenizo, sometimes known as 'purple sage' is living up to its name with an array of lavender bouquets.

Yesterday the sky was robin-egg blue with but a few puffs of clouds on the horizon, but we've awakened this morning to a foggy, dreary day with puddles in the parking lot from the rain that lasted the entire night. Next spring the Park will be a veritable greenhouse when the yucca, agave, lechugilla, send up their central flower stalks and the cacti compete in exploding blooms.

For the time being, campers are being drenched in their tents and hikers are hunched under hoodies, taking shelter next to huge boulders. Coyotes look like wet dogs and the male tarantulas appear to be staying in until their courting can resume in the sun. We'll probably be bored in the Visitor Center today, as few will choose to explore the Park with their windshield wipers beating a dull rhythm.

Wildlife Up Close

Once again, the abundance of wildlife in Big Bend National Park does not take long to make itself known. Although in the few days we have been here, we have not seen a bear, coyote or mountain lion, we are not without creatures to view.

It is the breeding season for tarantulas, The brown hairy males the size of one's fist march across roadways as they search for mates. They are large enough to be seen by alert drivers, so not all that many are spider roadkill.

Of more immediate interest to Jane and me though, are the mice. We do not have to leave our apartment to enjoy them. Well, 'enjoy' is not exactly the best choice of words.

Jane was ready to turn around and head back to Ohio when we unlocked the apartment at Building A644B, our assigned housing for our three months of volunteer duty. We were greeted by a living room/kitchen/dining area, bedroom and bath thick with months-long accumulation of spider webs, dead bugs, desert dust and desert mouse droppings. We could not light the LP gas range nor the water heater. The toilet had no water in tank or bowl and both were crusty with the flaky remains of the dissolved solids that are characteristic of the unfiltered water that comes from Big Bend Park wells.

Those of you who know Jane realize that though she was not given a middle name at birth, she has adopted one, "Tidy." By the second day of our residence, she was showing a much lower level of stress and the apartment was beginning to look like we might be able to live here for a while. My polite but uncompromising complaining to the Park's Chief of Administration about our residency not having been anticipated was met with sincere apology and the promise to remedy the gas/plumbing problems immediately. He was a man of his word and before we got back to the apartment four hours later, we had hot water and a toilet that worked.

Jane's next priority was the wildlife which were way too up-close and personal. She quickly laid aside her 'observe but do not molest' demeanor and set out a trap line for the residential rodents. Three days later, the Deer Mouse local population is down by three. They apparently scampered into the closet where they were all caught, but the hole that leads to the crawl space below the apartment is large enough to accommodate their travel by a tiny Tonka Truck.

Today I have been assigned the job of finding materials at the Maintenance Building to patch the passage-way from crawl space to closet. I intend to take the responsibility quite seriously since the Trans Pecos Rat Snake we have living under our porch may decide that his hunting ground would be as fruitful inside as out.