Greetings!
It has been several weeks since I posted anything- and alot has been happening. So this may be a bit long and I hope you can hang in and bear with me.
First, Spring has arrived here in central Maryland in a big way! The first week in April saw record high temperatures that soared to the low 90s...which caused a big acceleration in the trees leafing out and the blossoms arriving. Not only did the famed cherry blossoms peak a good week earlier than predicted, the maple leaves are fully leafed out two weeks sooner than normal, the usual early May azealias are here, the red bud and dogwood, which typically follow one another, are in bloom simultaneously...
Since then, temperatures are back to what we would expect this time of year, upper 50s and low 60s. My garden is liking this just fine: the peas have doubled in height in the last two to three days, the asparagus are coming up faster than we can eat them, spinach, swiss chard and lettuces are growing like....well, weeds....and the tiny kale and broccoli seedlings that I set out in early April are beginning to look like pre-teens. The potatoes (red Kennebec and Yukon Gold) are beginning to push curled up green leaves through the soil, the blackberry canes which were barren canes a few weeks ago are bushy and leafy, and the canes in the new raspberry patch I began a few weeks ago are beginning to show little sprouts of leaves telling me that the compost and loving care I bestowed on the plot is beginning to make a difference. I feel like a mother watching her babies grow up - each with different habits and requirements. Back in the basement under grow lights melons, squashes, tomatoes, peppers and basil are ready to go in the garden once they are hardened off. Yet my experience tells me to be prudent and wait until the last danger of frost is passed....about May 5th around here.
April 9 to the 13 John and I traveled to northeastern Arizona to visit what I was to come to learn was the epicenter of Navajo culture: Canyon de Chelley (pronounced de Shay) situated on an 18 million acre Navajo reservation. The Canyon is incredibly beautiful with astounding rock walls,beautiful colors, fields, orchards and pastures that are cultivated to this day by the local Navajo...farming in the traditional ways. However this canyon is home to a terrible history which I was to slowly learn during the three days we were there exploring this amazing monument to beauty . A bit of history here: the Canyon was first occupied by the Anasazi ('the ones who came before) about 300 or 400 A.D. They built numerous stone dwellings situated safely about the canyon floor protected from the seasonal flooding that would course down the Chinle Wash....which meanders along the canyon floor depositing valuable nutrients.In addition, they carved sacred symbols and drawings on the walls of the canyon which are easily seen today. The Anasazi left abruptly in around 1200. The Canyon was occupied by various others groups/tribes until around 1650 when the Navajo drove out the others and settled there making it their home.
The many tribes that occupied various parts of the southwest warred upon one another for hundreds of years, taking each others' land, stealing their livestock, burning their encampments. I have no romantic illusions about native Indian culture. However, what the U.S. government did to the Navajo is unspeakably cruel. In the 1860s the U.S. government, in the person of Kit Carson, drove the Navajo out of the canyon, destroying their homes, crops and peach orchards and forced them to walk 300 miles west to Fort Sumner. 8500 Navajo, those remaining alive, were detained there in horrid conditions only to be freed in 1868 to return to their home, or what was left of it. Today we would call this terrorism...or genocide.
This was my first exposure to native American culture , an experience filled with paradox. Modern Navajo culture is an interesting blend of traditional practices and ways of life married to contemporary American culture: Burger King, pizza joints, a Coca Cola plant is a prominent fixture in the tiny town of Chinle a mile or two from the opening to the Canyon. Rural Indian poverty is very evident. Lots of public housing, lots of trailers, lots of debris and trash laying all over. Yet what struck me, and was hard to understand, was their ways of caring for their live stock. The animals, based on tribal regulations, are allowed to 'free range', seen grazing along roadways, medians, parking lots. Yet other animals, horses, sheep and goats spend their entire time confined to small round pens, hanging out all day with no place to roam. Certainly they were fed yet no place to move, to be the herd animals Nature designed them to be.As an outsider seeing this for the first time it was hard to witness and I don't begin to understand the practice.
Next stop: Sedona, 'red rock country'
