Life in Espanola, New Mexico

I am driving into Santa Fe (45 minutes) for daily cancer radiation treatments. On the door of the Cancer Center they have a big sign which I will try to remember to take a picture of when I go in for Monday's treatment. It says it is a gun free zone and it also mentions no knives and I can't remember what else. Isn't that the dumbest thing you have heard of?

My mechanic told me that the town where I live, Espanola, New Mexico, is the heroin capital of the United States. It is a crossroads of major thoroughfares going in all directions. While working out at the gym, I heard the janitor talking on the phone, telling someone he is doing Community Service. Of course, when he hung up, Bob the blogger had to inquire of the man as to why he was doing community service. He told me that he started doing heroin at age twelve and continued for thirteen years, living homeless on the streets. He was arrested for armed robbery. He hastened to add, "Not a bank, but I should have." Instead, he robbed his drug dealer. He has been serving nine years at various New Mexico prisons and just got out. Why various prisons? Because he got into fights. Now he is a very friendly guy with a girlfriend, house, job, and faith in a "higher power." Please include him in your prayers.

After the gym, I drove to Walmart. There is a homeless man who helps people push their carts in the parking lot. He also brings carts back to their reserved areas. A few days ago I had given him the number of a Christian Outreach program in Western New Mexico. He called the number I gave him but they had no vacancies. Today his right eye was all puffed up and closed shut because someone jumped him last night and took all the money he had been saving for a week. I offered to take him to a hospital, but he did not want to go. I gave him some money and bought him a Coke and told him I would call the Christian Outreach people. I did, but there was no answer so I left a message on their voice mail. Please keep this man in your prayers. He is a really hard worker. He doesn't have a job because he has no I.D. of any kind. He says he was born in Albuquerque and was adopted at an early age. He says he was "kicked out" at age thirteen and has been living on the street for the last twenty years.

Drugs and illegal immigrants pouring into New Mexico

Brian Hayes reports in borderpac.org,

New Mexico’s new, Trump-hating open-borders governor has taken radical actions just to spite the President — but the results are proving disastrous for her own state, and likely nation as well.

Trump deployed National Guard and U.S. Army troops to the Mexican border to deal with a huge increase in illegal entries in January.

In act of what she called “resistance” against the president, New Mexico’s Democratic governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham withdrew 118 National Guard troops from the state’s southern boundary.

She said she did it to counter what she called Trump’s “charade of border fear-mongering,” and as a “protest” against Trump’s move to ban “transgendered” troops from the U.S. military.

The results have been nothing short of disastrous, with drug smuggling activities “exploding” since her deranged move.

As the NY Post reported, Mexican drug cartels and possibly terrorists have been thriving in New Mexico since two border patrol checkpoints were shut down as a result of Lujan Grisham’s Guard withdrawal.

Just two weeks after the governor’s reckless action, Otero County declared a state of emergency. Otero County Sheriff David Black said Monday that he saw some $60,000 in deadly drug shipments in April, up from $3,500 in January.

Black said he now has just 44 gun toters to oversee 6,628 square miles of lonely ranchland and pistachio orchards nestled among national parkland and Holloman Air Force Base.

Now the lawman said he has to deploy his own overworked forces to stop drugs such as methamphetamines, heroin and fentanyl from coming through his territory, which is home to some 65,000 people.

“We’ve lost our second line of enforcement,” said Otero County DEA veteran Kyle Williamson, 52.

“Are cartels capitalizing on the confusion at the border? Yes, they are!” Williamson told The Post. “They are using it as a cover to move drugs, which are coming through legal ports of entry. If your drugs are coming through legal ports of entry, you need lines of defense.”

Williamson said his team recently seized 44 pounds of fentanyl — “enough to wipe out all of New Mexico, Texas and the entire state of Chihuahua.”

Most of the deaths from opioid addiction in the U.S. are from fentanyl which is coming in from our southern border. Most are NOT coming from drug companies and bad doctors, and most people who need the drugs do not abuse them. The problem stems from illegal drug buys.

Couy Griffin, chairman of Otero County’s Board of Commissioners, who spearheaded the move to declare a state of emergency last month, said the situation is dire. In addition to drug traffickers and migrants, Griffin fears that terrorists take advantage of the abandoned checkpoints to sneak into the rest of the country.

“We have got to secure our border, period,” said Griffin, 45.

Drug cartels moving huge quantities of drugs into New Mexico

In American Greatness, Liz Sheld reports,

After two checkpoints were shut down in New Mexico, the presence of Mexican drug cartels is surging in the state. The checkpoints were shut down in order to deploy New Mexico’s resources to El Paso, Texas to help with the influx of migrants trying to enter the U.S. from that location.

...The situation in New Mexico isn’t just a problem for the Border Patrol, the DEA is suffering as well. Since October of 2018, a staggering seven tons of marijuana and nearly half a ton of methamphetamine have been discovered in the area. The vacant checkpoints are facilitating drug smugglers moving their cargo into the United States. “We’ve lost our second line of enforcement,” said Kyle Williamson, the Drug Enforcement Agency’s special agent in Charge of the El Paso Division and a 30-year DEA veteran.

“Are cartels capitalizing on the confusion at the border? Yes, they are!” Williamson told The Post. “They are using it as a cover to move drugs, which are coming through legal ports of entry. If your drugs are coming through legal ports of entry, you need lines of defense.”

...The state’s Democrat governor has pulled 118 National Guard troops from the southern border but Black thinks that might change soon. “We give it six months for the crime statistics to start rising here,” he said. “And believe me, all of this is coming to a town near you, all over the country.”

Read more here.

Back in New Mexico!

When walking in New Mexico it is hard not to fixate on the sky, mesas, and trees, but don't forget to look for cacti lurking near your feet!

Escorts

The place where we live is down a steep hill. When I leave to go back up the hill, there is always a raven waiting to escort me for the next mile. Quickly he is joined by six other ravens, and they seem to enjoy their role of guiding me safely past the cows and horses. They dive and climb and swerve from side to side.

Today we have a blue sky, so I am thinking of my friends in Colorado, while enjoying the New Mexico landscape.

Blue sky

This is more like the Colorado mornings I enjoyed for over 40 years. Blue sky, with just a hint that white clouds might be coming later in the day.


In New Mexico if you are not careful, the clouds will come right down to grab you, even at a football game.

A few photos

Since I moved to New Mexico recently, I will be out taking pictures to see things close up. Today when Sara got home from school we took a walk.

There are three main kinds of trees on the property, but I can't tell one from the other. Help! Juniper, cedar, or pinon? Here and there I see a ponderosa pine, with which I am familiar, from having lived in Colorado the last 47 years.

Well let's start with some open pasture; but don't scratch your back on this cactus.


Don't forget the horses! Son Jon takes the cover off the hay, so they can get some nourishment.


I love sunflowers. Have you ever wondered why they hang out mostly along the roads? Well, sometimes around a pile of rocks.


More later.

The first morning

When I got up this morning, these horses were the first thing I saw.

Then I turned a lttle to my left and saw the rows of zucchini, butternut and pin pan squash.

That last squash is not one I was familiar with. This is what a pin pan squash looks like when ready to eat.

I went downstairs and turned the corner, and there was a mama cow and her baby.

I walked out to get a closer look at the plants, and there was what I needed to start my day. Seven varieties of lettuce perfect for a mixed salad.

I turned and there was Shamus, waiting for me to throw a small rock, so he could chase after it.

Shamus is the daddy of eight newborn puppies, with whom I am sharing a room. I'll have pictures of them soon.

Spring Break in the Land of Enchantment.

I am thoroughly enjoying Spring Break with my kids. I am also enjoying the clear blue skies around Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Santa Fe itself, though, is a different matter. The capital city of New Mexico is known for its adobe architecture. Every building in the city looks the same. After a while that must have an effect on the people who live there. Conformity in architecture surely leads to other conformities. You have to drive outside Santa Fe to see some individuality in the architecture. Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised to read that I prefer individuality.

Think of New Mexico, and you think of Indian reservations. The touristy area of Santa Fe is in the center of town, I think, called The Plaza. There you can see Indians displaying their jewelry, paintings and rugs in the shade, where it is not warm. All are wearing heavy sweaters and coats. In the middle of the area is an ugly monument to the killing of Indians in the 1860s.

Being a politically correct city, of course, means no plastic bags. That has been the law here for about a year, they tell me. The cashier at Walmart was not happy about it. I asked him why, and he said that the paper bags are just harder to load than the plastic bags were. Not that the elitists are one bit concerned about the feelings of a Walmart cashier. Yes, I shop at Walmart, because I buy a lot of produce, and their prices are definitely lower.

We finally had enough of the Plaza when the woman walked by with her dog in dreadlocks, as we were viewing some paintings of a female artist, who modestly claimed that her art came directly from her soul. And, yes, you read that right, it was the dog who had dreadlocks.

Did I mention that there are no cops in Santa Fe? No, in big letters on the sides of their cars, it says PUBLIC SAFETY AIDE.

The sky is rapidly clouding up, so I'm hoping we may see one of those famous New Mexico sunsets tonight.