(no subject)
07.05.04
Thoughts of Thursday past remain stalled in my mind and I'm having a hard time getting around them. Nothing significant yet still they remain. I had the rare opportunity to work alone. While I like working with the guys on my crew, I still look forward to those rare days when I can work alone. Especially the type of work I had to do - mainly surveying. This involves a lot of walking around and looking through a clinometer ¹. Normally, if I have any solitude, it's because I'm strapped in the cab of some piece of beastly machinery or filling out some type of paperwork.
So I left the other guys to their work and singing a butchered John Denver song, I walked up a wash to begin my day. This particular wash is one of the main outlets for a massive canyon and this far out of the mouth of the canyon, it is a deep cut in the alluvium of the bajada ² heavily vegetated with gigantic Ironwoods (olneya tesota) and Palo Verde (mainly cercidium microphyllum). The largest of the ironwoods likely predate the European invasion of the southwest and it's quite possible that they were sprouting when the last of the Hohokam were leaving the area. The bajada itself is rather amazing, supporting a dense Palo Verde forest and on the eastern end, a Saguaro forest that rivals some of those found in Saguaro National Park. I could go on and on, but let it suffice to say that the sense of wonder and amazement I feel for this place never seems to leave me. Gary Snyder's "Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there." makes perfect sense here.
At the right place, I climb up the banks of the wash to begin my work. It was easy enough. Shooting grade and placing adorable little pink pin flags. I don't want to be in touch, so I no longer carry the two-way radio and except during public comment periods of plans I am working on, nobody ever calls my work phone, so I'm left to my thoughts and the "ha-ha ha-ha haha" song of the Gambel Quail. This summer has been remarkably mild, the mellow and dry heat a comforting thing. I finish my work quickly and before I leave, I have a slightly apologetic chat with the few trees slated for major pruning. I point out to them that this time I'll actually be able to bring a barrel of water in and give them a good slug of water. Little consolation, I suppose, but it's all I have. I don't want to build a trail in this area at all, but damnit I had no say in the matter and el sendero de las culebras de goma y chingados chingaderos de madres has to go through and the constraints of topography and dictates of engineering puts it right through the branches of these trees. I take a few mature seed pods from the drooping branches; I'll start them growing in a few weeks when the summer rains set in.
Before I can head back to the others, I need to examine the deeply varnished rocks on the slope to the north for petroglyphs. I want to make sure I'm not going to take people too close to a pristine site. I see no glyphs but I keep heading up this side canyon. I try to rationalize why I am heading up the steep canyon slopes, telling myself that the mountain goddess demands a sacrifice in order for the project to proceed smoothly and since there are no nearby hikers to "lose" the sacrifice will have to be in sweat instead of blood. Shameless confess: I simply want to walk alone in the late morning heat. Besides, I hardly ever take a lunch break.
See, I love to walk. But you all know this.
I have so much more to tell but I've wasted most of this long weekend reading (everything from web garbage to my current book "Deconstruction as Analytic Philosophy"), sleeping, and doing nothing. But if I had time, I'd love to tell you what I saw and what I thought about.
¹ The standard, and rather worn, line from me when Brother Bob (a co-worker) is giving a talk about gradients and introduces the clinometer is, in a grizzled voice, "Ain't the clinometer the sensitive spot on a woman?" Yes, quite puerile. At any rate, for those of you that don't know what a clinometer is, it is an instrument that measures "vertical angles" The particular model I use reads in degree and percent scales. Here, look at a picture: clinometer. While it's not as accurate as a transit or an abney level, it's quite a handy and useful tool. Hopefully, you get the point. Go back
² A bajada is "A broad, gently inclined slope formed by the lateral blending of a series of alluvial fans, and having a broadly undulating profile." In more simple terms, it's the big sloping plain that you see at the base of mountain drainages. As far as I know, as a term, it is mainly used in arid land geomorphology/geology. If you want pictures, I imagine have some. Let me know. Go back
Thoughts of Thursday past remain stalled in my mind and I'm having a hard time getting around them. Nothing significant yet still they remain. I had the rare opportunity to work alone. While I like working with the guys on my crew, I still look forward to those rare days when I can work alone. Especially the type of work I had to do - mainly surveying. This involves a lot of walking around and looking through a clinometer ¹. Normally, if I have any solitude, it's because I'm strapped in the cab of some piece of beastly machinery or filling out some type of paperwork.
So I left the other guys to their work and singing a butchered John Denver song, I walked up a wash to begin my day. This particular wash is one of the main outlets for a massive canyon and this far out of the mouth of the canyon, it is a deep cut in the alluvium of the bajada ² heavily vegetated with gigantic Ironwoods (olneya tesota) and Palo Verde (mainly cercidium microphyllum). The largest of the ironwoods likely predate the European invasion of the southwest and it's quite possible that they were sprouting when the last of the Hohokam were leaving the area. The bajada itself is rather amazing, supporting a dense Palo Verde forest and on the eastern end, a Saguaro forest that rivals some of those found in Saguaro National Park. I could go on and on, but let it suffice to say that the sense of wonder and amazement I feel for this place never seems to leave me. Gary Snyder's "Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there." makes perfect sense here.
At the right place, I climb up the banks of the wash to begin my work. It was easy enough. Shooting grade and placing adorable little pink pin flags. I don't want to be in touch, so I no longer carry the two-way radio and except during public comment periods of plans I am working on, nobody ever calls my work phone, so I'm left to my thoughts and the "ha-ha ha-ha haha" song of the Gambel Quail. This summer has been remarkably mild, the mellow and dry heat a comforting thing. I finish my work quickly and before I leave, I have a slightly apologetic chat with the few trees slated for major pruning. I point out to them that this time I'll actually be able to bring a barrel of water in and give them a good slug of water. Little consolation, I suppose, but it's all I have. I don't want to build a trail in this area at all, but damnit I had no say in the matter and el sendero de las culebras de goma y chingados chingaderos de madres has to go through and the constraints of topography and dictates of engineering puts it right through the branches of these trees. I take a few mature seed pods from the drooping branches; I'll start them growing in a few weeks when the summer rains set in.
Before I can head back to the others, I need to examine the deeply varnished rocks on the slope to the north for petroglyphs. I want to make sure I'm not going to take people too close to a pristine site. I see no glyphs but I keep heading up this side canyon. I try to rationalize why I am heading up the steep canyon slopes, telling myself that the mountain goddess demands a sacrifice in order for the project to proceed smoothly and since there are no nearby hikers to "lose" the sacrifice will have to be in sweat instead of blood. Shameless confess: I simply want to walk alone in the late morning heat. Besides, I hardly ever take a lunch break.
See, I love to walk. But you all know this.
I have so much more to tell but I've wasted most of this long weekend reading (everything from web garbage to my current book "Deconstruction as Analytic Philosophy"), sleeping, and doing nothing. But if I had time, I'd love to tell you what I saw and what I thought about.
¹ The standard, and rather worn, line from me when Brother Bob (a co-worker) is giving a talk about gradients and introduces the clinometer is, in a grizzled voice, "Ain't the clinometer the sensitive spot on a woman?" Yes, quite puerile. At any rate, for those of you that don't know what a clinometer is, it is an instrument that measures "vertical angles" The particular model I use reads in degree and percent scales. Here, look at a picture: clinometer. While it's not as accurate as a transit or an abney level, it's quite a handy and useful tool. Hopefully, you get the point. Go back
² A bajada is "A broad, gently inclined slope formed by the lateral blending of a series of alluvial fans, and having a broadly undulating profile." In more simple terms, it's the big sloping plain that you see at the base of mountain drainages. As far as I know, as a term, it is mainly used in arid land geomorphology/geology. If you want pictures, I imagine have some. Let me know. Go back