Christmas, December 25, 2006 8:26 PM
Busy day, beautiful sun and of course it starts with coffee outside. Katie and Ed drove up as I was putting the hot water on.

Slightly cool but the sun is warm! Katie looks and listens for lizards, her primary prey in the wild.

As I promised yesterday. I did find the Hoboken or Pima Indian grind holes. I have been told that these are approximately 1500 years old. This area of the Sonoral desert had Hoboken presence for possiblity 10,000 years, at least the petroglyph style date back 10,000 years. Right: Exactly 90 degrees to the right (due south) from the bicycle in the above picture, about 15 yards is a small low bluff over looking the bend of the river here. Five grinding holes, metates, can be seen here. The deepest is pictured below. I measured it yesterday at 15 inches.

This gives you a feeling of the drop off all around the metates. I sat here for over an hour today. It is nearly still here even though the breeze was blowing at the top of the hill just a few feet away. It was warm and comfortable and you can see in many directions. This is the place to have coffee and conversation. I'm sure that is exactly what they did, except for the coffee.

Can you imagine how many years it would take to grind enough seeds to sink 15 inches into bedrock? The largest hole is about 11 inches wide at the top.

Good night chickies. I am used up today, and I look forward to a long sleep and coffee in the desert tomorrow morning. I hope everyone got what they wanted, and in some cases, what they deserved - no, that's small. What would Tiny Tim say? "and god bless them, everyone." Not bad for a communist/socialist angnostic maybe atheist spirtualist shaman, hey what?

Christmas, December 25, 2006 7:02 AM
Merry Christmas to those free chicken readers that celebrate it. There is much to talk about today, and many many pictures. I went back to the ancient Hoboken encampment and took pictures of the five metates (grain grinding holes). I took many pictures of the petroglyphs as plan to put a CD together for anyone who wants it. Some local artists use the symbols in crafts and art works. I really need my brother's Nikon digital to do justice and to give me sufficient information to bring out the patterns. Photoshop can alter the contrast, and manipulate the colors to make it easier to see the patterns, but I have to get more pixels in the shot. Brother will be here tomorrow at noon.
I also attended the prime rib dinner that Dave (Cyber Cafe) held yesterday, Christmas eve and joined a disparate eclectic group of desert rats, vendors, friends, and new friends met. The prime rib was excellent, and the price was only $12.99. Otis (Pizza Otis) brought a bottle of wine for the table, and as most of you readers know, I drink about a glass of wine per 6 months. I have half of a water glass and started singing Silent Night. Oh boy.
Oh, Ed put a picture of my trailer on his website. Mostlydogs.net in the blog section. Don't forget to click on his google ads at the top of the page (show schedule), they feed the bulldog.

Projects continue. I'll write no more about the little emergency solar project until my panels arrive and TJ's test are done. I hope to have some pictures from TJ of the panels and his tests in the next few days (OK TJ?). I will spec out the middle sized solar system that I think most of you should create if you can afford it. I'm pretty sure that there is a Christmas Essay percolating in me, and it is something about the lonely, other choice people who make up the free chickens I meet here in the desert. I'll have it later, I think and hope.

Give me a Christmas wish today please. One of three things Turn and tell someone how you really feel, no bullshit, but expose yourself. If you can't do that, then tell someone what you like about them. If you can do that, and it was too easy, then do the hardest thing of all, tell someone what you like about yourself. Every single human is a survivor. Every single human has something magnificent about them, try to find it today. Last, if you can give a small but wonderful treasure to a child today, someone who hasn't the wherewithal you do, wouldn't that be cool? Do you remember how important presents were to you when you were young? And now most of us chickens are so fucking rich. Pony up!
You say you're not rich??? Hmmn. The definition that the world uses for the wealthy is something like this. You must meet these four conditions, then to the rest of the people on the planet you are the wealthy ones.
1. You have more than one pair of shoes or sandals.
2. You have a way of getting around besides your feet - even a bicycle.
3. At one meal during the day, you have a choice of more than one food.
4. You have another complete set of clothes besides the ones you are wearing.

On to pictures from yesterday. Since it is all about me, I'll start with a morning walk. Ed showed up with Katie at my trailer and we went for a little walk that ended up at a nearby abandoned gold mine.

The morning started with this walk and ended with a great prime rib Christmas eve dinner with friends. That's my plate to the right.

Here John is looking at my Barsik stick. Many of you know the story so I'll just summarize. I lost my cat within 2 days of showing up in Q last year. I was devastated. I search 10 hours a day putting my hand in every hole in the desert. After that I searched for remains - his fur, anything. I hurt my back searching and soon could not use my right leg well, so I limped out and cut a pale verde branch that was dying, and made a stick to use as a crutch. Looking for the cat and that stick became intertwined and my back recovered, but the stick has meaning for me. I sanded the mold off of it from being in the back of the canopy while I was in Eugene for six months and even though it is special, it isn't very pretty or straight. What to do. I liked how it feels and how it springs when I walk with it because of all the bends. Now there are drying cracks in it too. Last week I met John and saw the work he does, which was gorgeous. So when he showed up at the meal, I got the Barsik stick out of the truck and here he is groking it. He has a good appreciation of the importance and I trust him to do right by Barsik and the stick, and the story.

Here is my attempt to photograph a walking stick that John has created for Jesaka, who is sitting just past Ed to my left. I'm holding the camera out to the right in front of Otis' face to get the walking stick in the picture. Not totally successful, but perhaps you can see enough of it to see how beautiful it is. It is hickory with six coats of varnish, feathers, horse tail, and leather. John was talking orbital sander and brush sanding for the cracks (no idea what that means). Two weeks. I'll have pictures of the process if John allows as I'll be back working with Scott on my satellite dish next week.

I've got to take a break and eat breakfast, get the laundry in off the line and hang the whites. Even free chickens have to wash their clothes. As Dianne asked me, can't you just go to the laundry? Sure, but what would be the fun in that! Later the metates and pictures of the ancient Indian encampment. Happy Christmas morning chicklets!

Sunday, December 24, 2006 8:09 AM

The desert beauty is often hidden. From State Road 95 off to the east, looking back towards me, you would never know that there is the entire valley beneath my feet, complete with petroglyphs and grind holes going back 1500 or more years. Only being in the wash can you find it.

Yesterday the home made bracket broke, but I made it without problem back to the Airstream. I will make the new one from the large solid tent stake you see below and that should take care of that, even when I tow the trailer in the desert.

Much to do today, a couple pictures from yesterday below. Here's an excerpt to a freechicken I wrote this morning regarding where I am on the cheapest/smallest solar project. TJ and I are designing a low end system for all free chickens to use when the power is interrupted - expect more and more of that as time goes on. We know you can put in a $20,000 intertie system with battery backup (maybe $10,000 more) and end up with a total difference being that you can also run your vacuum, hairdryer and 52" TV. We are thinking that most of the freechicks we know would not/could not/should not spend that much. If you have such sums extra (yes I'm thinking of you, real estate flipper chick) I recommend that sock most of it away in survival gear first, second in nitrogen packed open pollinated seeds, then gold, then guns, ammunition and finally liquor. No I won't defend any of that at this point. Just read the links in preparation and put your thinking caps on.