Hiking the Boyd

Gorgeous morning for a hike. We started out a little after 9 and were at the saddle just south of the Boyd about 10:30. Then the weather started to change -- temperature dropped, wind started kicking up, and we watched the weather roll in from the west. Hike home was much easier and we made it before the rain passed us over. (it is raining not as I write this)

Hikers were Miley, Phillip, Annie (black spot Phillip has his hand on), Stu, Belle, and Rosie off to the right. This is a Bataan prep hike -- Only about 6 weeks from Bataan! Must get registered soon and see if we will hike with 2 or 3 this year.

Other news: Jake has started his semester well, Q is working hard here. Stu will travel to see Jake swim next week in Seattle for conference swim -- he has been instructed to bring back crab. I am heading to Delaware at the end of the month to visit the parents. Will bring back crab? Not exactly the same thing.

I am 7.5 months into my year cycling challenge. The ride home feels easier all the time, and I am learning to avoid the places where tire-shredding glass lives. I made it through the worst of the cold and the shortest days, but the windy times lie ahead!

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Holiday

Thanksgiving has become my favorite holiday of the year.

Good friends gather a nearby house for good food, music, conversation. Each year we all have more gray hair, more wrinkles, but more stories to tell about how we got them. We started doing this when kids could still be carried to the car at the end of the day, and now we send them out for errands (but not yet to re-stock the wine stores).

And Jacob is about to start on his way home, so this year he will add stories about his travels and time away.

Peace.

Update on the Talavera Explosion

Investigation continues in Talavera house explosion

By Jose L. Medina/Sun-News reporter

Article Launched: 11/07/2008 12:00:00 AM MST

LAS CRUCES — On a day when the cause of last month's house explosion was expected to be revealed, investigators instead were back at the blast site armed with a search warrant.

The Oct. 23 explosion destroyed a 4,400-square-foot home valued at $723,000.

The homeowners, Kimberlee and Paul Hering Jr., have hired an attorney who said Thursday he doesn't understand why the warrant was obtained when his clients have been "totally cooperative."

Officials on Thursday disclosed they had asked for the warrant and returned to the scene of the blast at 4852 Deadwood Camp Court, east of Las Cruces in the upscale Talavera neighborhood.

"The search warrant in my opinion was unnecessary," Las Cruces attorney Lyle Wood said, "We've met the investigators out there, I have not personally, but the Herings have met them out there on several occasions and given them free reign to look at whatever they want to."

The Herings, on Wood's advice, have declined to take a polygraph test.

"I believe they are the victims, victims of an accident, an accidental destruction of the property," Wood said.

"They're victims, they have no reason to be treated as suspects or persons or interest, whatever they call them," he added.

The Herings were out of town at the time of the blast. No one was injured, although several adjacent homes sustained damage, officials said. Paul Hering is a former agent of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.

Wood said the warrant, served Thursday, is the second obtained by investigators. He did not know what was contained in the first warrant, but the second warrant sought to examine the home's propane lines and the propane tank.

The home, which sits on 1.6 acres, had been up for sale for several months, according to Joe Martin-Howell, the listing agent with Steinborn GMAC Realty. In addition to the home, a large RV, valued at $350,000, was completely destroyed.

County officials were closed-mouth as to whether the Herings were now suspects in the blast and would not elaborate further beyond issuing a news release.

"The (news) release says everything that I'm allowed to say," county spokesman Jess Williams said.

Williams earlier said the cause of the blast could be revealed as early as Thursday. Since that didn't happen, the cause won't be disclosed until the latest evidence is processed.

The site still is considered a crime scene until foul play can be ruled out.

The Doña Ana County Sheriff's Department has been heading up the investigation, with assistance from several state and federal agencies, including the FBI.

Jose Medina can be reached at jmedina@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5447

A 2:30 explosion rocked the neighborhood

15 minutes after the explosion. The home is burning. Emergency vehicles are still arriving, and thru binoculars, it is clear that the walls were totally knocked down from the explosion.

The fire has gotten bigger from what it first was and the smoke keeps turning black. There have been what sounded like a couple of secondary explosions, perhaps as small propane tanks might have exploded.

Water just got turned on the flames. Nobody at home could have survived.

Moments later, (3:06 am), water from the pumper truck arced over the flames from the north.

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Update, from the Las Cruces Sun News:

UPDATED: Massive explosion levels home near "A" Mountain, home reportedly owned by former DEA agent (9:36 a.m.)

Sources: home owned by former DEA agent

Sun-News report

Article Launched: 10/23/2008 06:18:59 AM MDT

Investigators rummage through Thursday morning's house explosion... (Photo by Shari Vialpando)

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LAS CRUCES - An early morning explosion leveled a home near "A" Mountain Thursday. The home, according to sources who spoke to the Sun-News on condition of anonimity, is owned by a former Drug Enforcement Agency officer. According to the Dona Ana County Assessor's Web site, the property at 4852 Deadwood Camp Court is listed under the ownership of Paul A. Hering Jr.

No injuries are reported, but the home is a total loss and federal investigators have been called in.

The Dona Ana County Sheriff's Department and the Dona Ana County Fire and Emergency Services Department are on scene and waiting for daybreak to beging investigating the massive home explosion in the Talavera area east of Las Cruces.

No injuries are reported.

The explosion occurred at about 2:30 a.m. at a home on Deadwood Camp Court, according to Dona Ana County Spokesman Jess Williams.

The home was totally destroyed, and some nearby residences also were damaged.

Officials say it is the worst explosion they have seen in recent memory.

Police and fire investigators will conduct a full survey of the blast radius at daylight.

Some nearby residents were evacuated as a precaution while the investigation proceeds. Access to the area is closed.

As is standard in an explosion of this magnitude, the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have been notified and may send investigators. The New Mexico State Fire Marshal's Office will be involved in the investigation.

The cause of theexplosion is unknown at this time. The house was unoccupied and for sale. The house was valued at approximately $850,000. There is no fire burning on the scene.

The American Red Cross has been called in to support firefighters and law enforcement personnel on the scene as the investigation unfolds.

Las Alturas, South Valley, New Mexico State University and Talavera Volunteer Fire Departments responded.

Check back throughout the day for more information as it becomes available.

The Las Cruces Sun-News will provide updates as they become available.

And from KFOX in El Paso:

The destruction was said to be immense, with debris scattered over a wide area. A number of surrounding homes also suffered damage as a result of the blast. Despite the damage, there were no reports of injuries, although some neighbors needed to be evacuated as a precaution.

Green, crawling things, and lot's of 'em

Talavera has been invaded by caterpillars. The ones that don't get smushed will become white-lined sphinx moths. They are everywhere!

They pop under the tires of my bike (gross) -- it is impossible to avoid them but entertaining on the long ride up the hill to try.

From an article in the Sun News: Dr. Carol Sutherland, New Mexico State University Extension Entomologist, said the following.

This is currently a hot topic in southern New Mexico. She explained, "When monsoon started this year, the rains just kept coming at the right intervals. Seed in the soil bank sprouted, providing food for the caterpillars and the little worms had a real buffet. They probably succeeded better than any natural enemies and now, about five to six weeks after hatching, they are ready to move on. The hordes are mature caterpillars leaving their pasture, looking for whatever is right to stimulate pupation. Sometimes the hordes can get so dense that they cross roadways, making them slick as cars squash them."

She identified the caterpillars in this case as "the mature and nearly mature larvae of the white-lined sphinx moth, Hyles lineata."

The larvae have been feeding on native evening primrose plants and related weedy native range plants, doing little permanent damage to the wildflowers or to landscapes and gardens. The adult form of the white-lined sphinx moth is a large dark brown moth with pointed forewings that is often seen at dusk sipping nectar from flowers. These moths are often mistaken for hummingbirds because both are similar in size, both can hover and both are easily heard humming as they visit flowers.

The Sun News had the entertaining little video below about the mothy dudes.

Road-be-gone!

In one of my earliest posts, I wrote about being one of the first cars across the new bridge out to Talavera. The road has been a persistant problem -- it washed out in the rainy season , and no fixes seemed to help.

So in came a bridge! And under flowed the mud! And as the water arose, the road washed away yet again.

The water that flowed over the bridge left mud on the road. And took away some asphalt. The guard rail is just hanging between a couple of the anchors.

The Boyd after the fire

This burned area is about half way between home and Dripping Springs, still west of the worst of the burn. The fire must have been was cool, as fires go. The yuccas in the photo above are burned (they look like short, black stumps). But the live foliage on the yucca did not -- it is there, even if it has since died. This area was south of a road that acted as a firebreak at least in this area.

Thursday (off work), I plan to walk into the Boyd to see how the massive old hackberry trees fared.

We interrupt this vacation...

Actually, we do not interrupt this vacation. Stu and Mel are still playing in Cozumel as Jacob deals with the conflagration about 2000 yards from the homestead. Photo above is from today's Sun News, which, oddly enough, never arrived. This ridge burning in the photo above is visible from the house -- indeed, it is not much farther than a mile.

The latest update is that BLM is fighting the fire. The Sun News reported that 130 people were there, and Jake says that there are only about 4 hot spots visible as of about 8 pm Las Cruces time. It was an exciting day -- he watered things around the house and had stuff (read: pets) ready to go in case an evacuation was called for.

Jake says that most of the smoke has moved on, the dogs have calmed down, and he is keeping a responsible eye on things.

Thanks to all our good friends who called and offered Jacob help. We cannot thank you enough. He is handling everything beautifully and reassuring his parents that they do not need to cut their vacation short.

More on the fire tomorrow.

Update (6/18): The around here fire is pretty much out, although we watched some glowing spots from the porch last night after we got home from Mexico. The fire is not out yet, but it moved east and is now on the Missile Range, where access is a real problem.

Bridge to Talavera

Stu and I were the third car across the new bridge this morning!

(In Southern New Mexico, you take your excitement where it comes...)

This bridge has been years in coming. When we first moved to Talavera, 3.1 miles of the road from town was dirt. Back then, fewer people were willing to drive to Talavera, and our area grew slowly.

A couple years before the millenium, the road was paved, bringing an explosion of development to our area.

As the area developed, runoff from big desert storms increased flow down the main arroyo that leads into town. The road was not designed to handle the flow, and the road regularly washed out where the arroyo crossed. We watched for years as the county graded, rip-rapped, regraded, repaved, and re-rip-rapped the area, only to have the next storm again wash it all away, leaving exposed utilities and dramatic cut banks by the side of the road.

So no more speculating on the extent of the damage each storm brings as we drive into town. Unless, of course, Mother Nature again figures out how to best the efforts of the humans who keep trying to win... Will let you know!