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Cow Manure Theft

I may have stolen manure today. I was told, several years ago, that I could come get some compost from the bio-digester energy company ‘anytime’.

By ‘several years ago’ I mean 2014. 

I didn’t take them up on it. A PTA member called them last year and had permission for the school to go get some, but then the school said they weren’t allowed to use it because it’s not a proper commercial product. But I thought ‘well they said we can have it – let’s go get some!’

Today we went. I couldn’t find anyone to ask/tell about what we were doing.

I went to the spot where, in 2014, they were dumping the finished compost and took some. But the pile was still heating up, which made me think that maybe this wasn’t the finished compost and was I maybe rooting around in their ‘stuff to go into the digester/sarlacc pit’ pile by mistake?

The ill-gotten compost
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France – Narbonne

France Trip – Summer 2018:  I need to learn to take photos of all my adventures, not just things that are pretty.  We arrived in Narbonne and had one day there before we were to head off up the Canal du Midi to Carcassonne. This was our best chance to be close to the Mediterranian, which I had never seen, so we drove out to visit the beach.

No photos from me because when we got there, there was a pretty brisk offshore wind that was blowing sand everywhere and I didn’t want to risk getting sand inside my lens/camera.  The beach was a long, shallow sand beach and the water was a perfect temperature.

The excitement happened on the way back – in a crowded intersection in Narbonne (when we’d made a wrong turn and we’re trying to get back on course using the GPS) we were hit in the right side passenger door by another car.  Yay! Rental Car! Our car had some dents in both doors but the other car.. the whole bumper fell off.

The other driver asked us to follow him, to his home, as it turned out, where we were invited inside and had the fun of filling out accident report forms, in French, with the help of his family none of whom spoke much English and we did not speak French.

We had some questions about WHY he had a stack of accident reports in his home and HOW his entire front bumper fell off (and he had a bunch of twine handy to tie it back on – had it already fallen off??) But he was so very friendly. It’s a bit of a mystery, but the insurance is sorting it out.

Once we finally made it back to the canal it was time to move onto our boat for a week of travel up river to Carcassonne.

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New Mexico

Back in the fall I took one day to make a loop through the Jemez.  This is a favorite day trip of mine and each time I get to see a little something new.  This time I took a side road up to see some tunnels through a steep pass that I’d never been out to see before.

Here’s a deep red mud puddle after a rain.

One of my favorite petroglyphs on part of Bandelier.

More petroglyphs

Friendly spider crossing the road

Albuquerque knows how to do sunsets

The color on this truck was amazing: no editing!

Fall colors in the Jemez

Final sunset with the city lights below

Mountains near the train tunnels