Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, NV

Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, Nevada

I assume that Daddy passed the schooling he had in Amarillo, Texas as he was transferred to Nellis Air Force Base outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. We moved there the summer I was seven. The first house we lived in was off of the base but within a couple of months we moved to a house on base on McCarran Blvd. With in weeks we had moved to a larger house just down the street at 17 McCarran Blvd. It was to be our home for the next four years.
We lived on the last or depending on how you looked at it, the first row of houses on that edge of the base. There was a barbed wire fence about a hundred yards or so behind the house and then a quarter of a mile or so of desert with the air field where the Air Force planes landed. So what we could see from our back yard wasn’t much but it was a whole lot of not much. It was Nevada desert. It was flat with some sage brush but not even much of that. Then we could see the blacktop air strips where the planes landed and usually some of the planes. Or my parents could see the desert and planes. I couldn’t. Even though I told my parents I couldn’t see the planes they couldn’t believe me. And we had been cautioned never to go out there. Then I was told I had to walk down to the corner of the street and cut across part of that desert to a barracks that was to be my temporary school building for the second grade. Apparently the grade school was too small to have all the classes in it so we were to use that barracks that year. My parents thought that would be better as it was closer than the school itself.

The first couple of mornings Mother got Sarah and Janice ready, Janice in a stroller and walked with me to school and then picked me up. When she figured I knew the way, Mother would take me to the corner of yard point down the street and say go to school in that two story building right down there. And I would say I couldn’t see the building. Mother would say that I had to be able to see it. She was convinced I was just being stubborn as I didn’t want to go to school. In my class was a little black girl that lived farther down the street from the school than I did. Mother saw her walk by each morning and watch us arguing. She told me to follow the girl to the school. Instead the little girl came over, took my hand, and said she would take me to school. It seems she told Mother that she would make sure I got there safely. Mother thanked her and watched us walk off hand in hand. With in a few days Theresa and I were best of friends. I was thrilled to have a friend who could see the school and walked with me. I think I must have been able to see fairly well up close but anything at a distance was very blurred and fussy if I could see it at all.


What never made since to me when I was that age and even then made me very mad at my parents and at Theresa’s parents is that they wouldn’t let us play together after school. I was told I couldn’t go to Theresa’s house and she was told she couldn’t come to my house to play. We couldn’t understand why. But I could go to my white friend’s house that I didn’t like as well. It made no since. I remember that Mother would tell me that it just wasn’t done that way. When I would keep asking why she
never could come up with a reason that made any since. She would say it was because Theresa was ‘different’ to us; she was a ‘colored’ child; white children and black children shouldn’t visit at each others homes. I couldn’t understand that especially since we went to school together, and the teacher treated us the same. It seems I had a younger teacher who was a really good teacher.
In fact all my teachers there at the grade school on Nellis seemed much better and nicer than a lot of the teachers I was to have later on. I am sure that teachers on military bases must have been better paid than other places and I believe that teachers in Las Vegas and Nevada were paid better than in other states at that time. Maybe they are now, too. I couldn’t say. I don’t remember her name but she was a good enough teacher to realize I needed to have some tutoring if I was to keep up with the other students in school. It seems I could read to her some when we were on a one to one basis but in a group I was too shy to read out loud. Even Theresa couldn’t help me then. By the end of the year the teacher recommended to my parents that they have someone tutor me in reading and writing. I was way behind the other kids on my reading and writing ability. Of course they couldn’t afford to pay some one to tutor me and they were sure I was just being stubborn again. Instead they bought a third grade reader for me and all summer, each day; I would have to read a few pages to my mother. Somewhere I still have that boring little book. I say little. It wasn’t that little, being what I would guess to be about a hundred pages or so, with lots of short stories. But the stories were on the boring side to me. It was a way to keep Sarah entertained, too, as she would sit and listen while I read. By the end of the summer I had read the whole book at least twice. And my writing was better. As well as having the reading lesson, Mother would have me sit and write the words from the book. At the same time she was starting to teach Sarah how to write a few things. She was about 3 by now.
When school started for the third grade I had to go to the actual grade school instead of the barracks. Again Theresa and I would walk together but this time we had to walk almost the opposite way and a little farther. This time we had to walk to the end of our street, turn right and walk a couple of blocks to the school. For some reason walking this didn’t bother me as bad as having to walk out on the desert did. I knew to go to the end of one street and then to the end of the next street. I felt I couldn’t get lost as there was always the street to guide me. But in the class room it was different. I don’t think Theresa was in my class that year. And I had an older teacher, she seemed real old and mean to me, but probably wasn’t. But on thinking back she must have been a good teacher. She was the first to realize that I really couldn’t see. I wanted to sit in the back of the room due to being so shy. Only I guess I wasn’t doing my lessons because I couldn’t see what was the teacher had written on the blackboard. So Mrs. Stevens moved me to the front row. I hated that, but she worked with me until she was sure I couldn’t see. Then she talked to the school nurse who did a quick, easy eye test. Then both of them had my parents come in and talked to them. Mother said it explained a lot to her, but Daddy was skeptical. Anyway they took me to an optometrist and with in a week I had a pair of glasses. Why it took so long I don’t know as Mother always wore glasses and I think Gram had to have them, too.
But for me wearing glasses was freedom. I could finally see. I could see the barracks school that had eluded me for so long. I didn’t feel that I would get lost if I got more than ten feet from my parents, or a friend. I could see the blackboard at school and read what was written on it. And best of all I discovered books. With glasses I could read better and found that I liked reading and that lots of stories weren’t as boring as the ones in the grade school readers I had to read for class. Best of all I could see the television better. Roy Rodgers became my hero, along with The Lone Ranger, Rin Tin Tin, Fury, and Lassie and any show that had horses on it. My hidden love of horses was starting to get stronger and stronger.
By the end of the third grade, as my rapidly growing ability to read grew, I was going to the school library and discovered books on horses. They were children’s books but still they were books on horses. There were a few non-fiction books and I devoured them, but it was the fiction books that were stories about a young person and a special horse that really held my interest. These were the little books that were less than twenty or so pages. Some times I was disappointed that I could read them so quickly and the story would be over. It would be sometime in the forth grade that I would start reading the longer stories. Some of those books would be 100 to 200 pages long. There were several different series of books about teenage boys or girls and their horses. Of course most of the horses were that special stallion that only that one young person could handle and ride. Which was really a dumb thing to write as most stallions are so totally unsuited for even a teenager. Stallions should only be handled by a professional horse person. I remember one series of books about a boy, and a palomino horse. Another about a mare named Desert Storm, and of course, everybody’s favorite The Black Stallion series of books by Walter Farley. I even joined the The Black Stallion Club and still have the letter and button with a stick pen on it to wear that I got as a member. When the movies came out I was afraid that they wouldn’t do justice to the books that had so inspired so many people to want a horse. But I don’t think they could have been done any better.
With all the books and TV shows about horses I wanted a horse or at least I wanted to take lessons to learn to ride a horse. I remembered the pony rides I used to enjoy when we lived in Pampa when Sarah was a baby. But either there wasn’t a place to get riding lessons on the base or my parents considered it to expensive. So I was offered ballet lessons. I didn’t really want to do them but I had been fond of watching ballet on TV so off I went to ballet. First off I didn’t like the teacher, and I didn’t like any of the other kids that were taking lessons. I felt that they all looked down on me because I knew less than they did. And I couldn’t seem to learn the moves. The teacher said I was too stiff, and didn’t want to try. She flat out said to Mother and me that she didn’t think I could lean to do ballet. Then my parents did some checking and found out that the only thing the teacher taught was one little Irish jig that wasn’t really ballet and never anything else. Ballet lessons were out of my life. And because of my experience with dance lessons my sisters were never allowed to have them.
It was in the third grade that I discovered Girl Scouts. Turned out Mother had been a Girl Scout when she was a girl in Silver City, NM. She agreed to be my Girl Scout leader so that we could have a troop of Brownies. There are never enough adult leaders for the number of girls that want to be Girl Scouts. I think that being in Girl Scouts was the best think that could have happened to me. I was to continue through school. As a Brownie and having a Mother who should have been a teacher I learned so much. It taught us responsibility, friendship, teamwork, and of course fun and laughter. We learned math with the ten cents dues we had to have each week, we learned cleanliness and neatness with the uniforms we wore each week. We learned to ignore the rude comments made by our school classmates who were not in either Girl or Boy Scouts when we proudly wore our uniforms to school. There was not so much of that on the military bases as there is in civilian schools probably due to the fact that uniforms are a part of life. Military brats, as kids are sometimes called see and expect their parents to wear uniforms. Girl Scouts taught respect for our country and all people regardless of color as did the military. I fell in love with carrying the American and state flags in ceremonies. In forth and fifth grade I was in Junior Girl Scouts, and could wear the green uniform of what I considered the real Girl Scouts instead of the brown one the Brownies wore. I earned every badge I could. Mother had moved up to be a Girl Scout leader with me, too. And my younger sisters were always included in everything that went on as my parents didn’t believe in babysitters.
There are times when I think about living in Las Vegas it seems as if someone was always sick. Janice had to have her belly button hernia repaired when we hadn’t been there very long, and Mother had a hysterectomy in the first year we were there. Gram came and stayed with us to take care of everyone when she had it. Then there were all of the rounds of measles, and chickenpox, and flu. I would catch the flu or measles at school and bring it home. About the time I was over it Sarah and Janice would come down with it. And there was the Christmas holidays. Several years while we were there Aunt Wanda would come to see us for Christmas. I can remember going to the airport to pick her up on Christmas Eve. And every time we had the flu or a cold. Once we were all sick including Daddy which was very, very rare. I remember we got tinkertoys for Christmas and Aunt Wanda made this really neat ferris wheel out of them. Poor Wanda, no wonder she decided to get married and not come any more. She married Uncle Dale Dickson while we lived in Las Vegas, and they eloped from California, came to Vegas, got married, and didn’t let us know until they were back in California. They came to visit the next year after their daughter Denise was born.
Since we were living in Las Vegas close to our relatives in California we went to San Diego, CA several times. Aunt Elnora and Uncle Alfred had my girl cousins, Lynda and Shirley by now. Trips to the ocean were lots of fun. Especially after that long drive across the desert to get their. On one trip, possibly the last trip during this time period, my cousin Jerry and I were allowed to take bikes and ride around El Cajon, CA all by our selves. Something I couldn’t do while living on an Air Force base. There was a used record store we went to where I bought a .75 recording of Ring Of Fire by Johnny Cash. Somewhere I still have it.
Not long after we moved to Vegas my old parakeet, Tommy, died. We had friends who lived on the same street with the last name of Zamora. They let their pair of parakeets raise some babies. Mac, as Mrs. Zamora was known as, gave us one of the little birds. He was a lighter shade of blue than Tommy had been and we named him Morry since the Zamora’s had given him to us. Morry was the gentle, sweet bird that Tommy hadn’t been. Morry would come out of his cage, fly around, sit on people’s heads and shoulders, and he learned to talk. I remember he could say Pretty Boy, Morry is a Pretty Boy, Hello, and Shutup. Seems as if there were other things but I can’t remember them. Morry would live for about four years and then die of a tumor on his chest after we moved to Tampa, Florida. I have had lots of birds since but Morry was the best bird I ever had.
We were living in Las Vegas, or at least sort of, considering we were actually on the Nellis Air Base near Vegas. So for entertainment, on occasion, Daddy would take us for a drive down The Vegas Strip. I don’t know if The Strip still actually is now, but back then it was THE place to go in Vegas as that is where all the casinos and big hotels where. Of course none of them where as big as they are now. But they sure seemed like it to us back then. I can still see in my mind the drive down that street with all those bight, neon lights. The big cowboy waving, the Stardust with its big gold starburst and all the others. There was every color under the sun or at that time in the night sky. Sometimes, especially when we had relatives visiting we would stop and walk up and down the street. Us kids could look into the casinos from the big doorways but we weren’t allowed to go in. I don’t think we really understood exactly what all the hoopla was about, although Daddy would let us play the penny slot machines when we went to the grocery store sometimes. Yes, there were penny and nickel slots even in every store in town, or so it seemed. I’m not sure it was legal for kids to play them but I don’t think anyone ever made us quite and of course Daddy was with us when we did it.
There were lots of other interesting places to see in the Las Vegas area. Daddy always took our friends and relatives to see the sights when they came to visit. We would go to see Boulder Damn or Hoover Damn which ever it was being called at the time. It, like all other high structures, would make me dizzy and leery of looking over the edge and down to the water. We took the tour down into the damn a couple of times. That elevator drop was a duzzy.

http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/

We would go to see Death Valley and Scotty’s Castle, which was more interesting to us kids. Scotty’s Castle was this fantastic Castle out in the middle of the desert that had been build by a prospector when he found gold. But he never told where the gold mine was. Every once in a while he would take his burros and head out into the desert. A few weeks later he would come back with another load of the gold. Scotty died with out ever telling where the gold was. No one has ever found it that anyone knows about. Maybe that is because he was actually being financed by a multimillionaire from back east. This was even of more interest to us since our Granddad Green had been a prospector when he and his family lived in Silver City, NM. The castle was very unique. You could take a tour through it and dream about how it would be to live in a castle in the middle of one of the hottest deserts in the world. http://www.outwestnewspaper.com/scotty.html http://www.pbase.com/surfnmoto2/image/55371701
We spent four years in Las Vegas, four very hot years, although it seems I was able to except that heat and handle it a lot better then than I do the not-quite-so hot summers of New Mexico now. In the summer it was about twenty feet out to the mail box from the front door. My sisters and I would play a game of seeing if we could go out to get the mail while we were barefoot and not chicken out and have to come back into the cooler house before we had reached the box and taken the mail out. One of the stunts Daddy liked to do when we had guests that weren’t from Las Vegas was to tell them it was hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk and then prove it. Yes, in the hottest part of the day it was hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, and of course then Mother or I had to clean the egg and a bit of grease off of the sidewalk.
As I said we lived right on the edge of the desert and ever once in a while we would walk out into the back yard and find a desert tortoise had come visiting. Some of the tortoises were smaller and some of them were the huge, old monsters that must have been out on the desert for a long number of years already. Thinking back to the size of some of those tortoises they may have been easily fifty years old or so. I remember that some were large enough I could sit on them and ride. Some of them had numbers or names carved into their shells and some had paint on them. When I asked to do it to a turtle one day Mother said no and explained to me why it wasn’t good for the tortoise. She would always give me a handful of lettuce, bread or some other vegetable to feed to them. Usually I would offer them a bowl of water but very seldom would they drink it.
Nellis Air Force Base is considered the home of the Thunderbirds. If you don’t know the Thunderbirds are the elate flying group of jet planes that the Air Force uses for publicity. The Thunderbirds have only the very best pilots and consequently only the best of mechanics to work on the jets. My dad was one of those jet mechanics while we were at Nellis. The Thunderbirds were the world’s first supersonic aerial demonstration team. (boy that’s a mouthful to say) and would frequently be gone to another place to put on one of their fantastic shows. When they would come back to Nellis they would frequently put on an impromptu show for the base. Since we lived on the last row of houses before the stretch of desert with the landing strips beyond we would have one of the best views of the show. We watched them do their formation flying, bomb bursts, and other demonstrations. http://thunderbirds.airforce.com/
Living on a jet base we were quite used to sonic booms. In fact we were so used to them we could usually sleep through them. Sometimes it was hard to convince visitors that when they heard the sonic boom the jet was already gone to far to see it. People would hear the blast and look up thinking to see the jet but it would be gone and they only thing to see was the conn trail where it had gone through the sky.
Later on when I joined the Navy I was still just as fond of the Thunderbirds but was fond of the similar jet team that the Navy had, the Blue Angles.
My sisters and I have always felt that the best symbol of true “Freedom” for us was the sight and sound of a jet plane.
Here in Rio Rancho we don’t see or hear the military jets very often, even thought we live near Kirtland Air Force Base. But we do see the great, big military helicopters. Frequently they fly across the desert to the west of us on training missions.
On the 4th of July this year I was thrilled to be outside when four stealth fighter jets swooped out of the west and flew directly over me as they went on east. They were going slow enough and low enough I could actually see them.
It was sometime not to long before we left Nellis that my parents got me up at what I thought was a horrible time of about five am to watch John Glenn’s Mercury spacecraft launch from the Space Center in Florida and to come down a few hours later after the first manned space fight in the United States. At that time I was half asleep and most things on TV were considered fictional so it didn’t make much since to me. It didn’t take long for me to realize it was an important part of history as I was to hear more and more about space exploration. My dad always thought that going into space was important for the world but he never cared for the sci-fi shows that were to follow like Star Trek. I don’t think he ever realized that the imagation of Star Trek and the shows to follow influenced so much of science and space flight, as well as computers.
After the first two years at Nellis my friend Theresa and her family moved somewhere else. I really wish I had been able to be better friends with her and to have kept up with her when she moved. I wonder how her life went, where she might be now, who she might have married, did she have children, a career? Another friend I had was Karen Carpenter. She and her family lived nearby. Karen and I went to school together and were allowed to play together after school at either her house or ours. When Karen’s family had to move they were over weight according to the amount of family goods, furniture, and household items the military would move for them. So they had to give up some of their stuff. Back then garage sales were unheard of, so they gave things to friends. Karen had a desk that was close to being an antique even then, and her parents made her give it up. I don’t remember where the desk came from originally but she didn’t want to give it away. Her parents insisted and she finally was persuaded to give it to me. I promised her I would always take good care of it and I have. I still have it, and it is in the same condition as it was when I got it. I wish there was some way I could let her know that. Karen and I exchanged a few letters after she moved but not for long. The desk looks to have been hand made not factory made. It is about four feet tall, two feet across, and a foot wide. It has a drop down desk front with a few pigeon holes in it. I used it all the way through school, including college. It isn’t used much now but still sits in my bedroom with important papers and things in it. When I was about 23 or so, the pigeon hole area came loose a bit and an old postcard fell out. The postcard had a photo on one side of three women who looked to be sisters and there was a note on it. It was dated for 1901 and had a one cent stamp on it. I remember Mother saying that she would never make her daughter give up a nice piece of furniture like the desk.
At least once each winter we would drive up to Mt. Charleston near Las Vegas.

http://www.inetours.com/Las_Vegas/pages/Mt_Charleston.html

It was a high enough mountain that there was snow in the winter time. We thought it was such a treat to get to drive up there and see the snow, play in it, and throw snowballs at each other. Sometimes we would go on picnics there in the summer. Once we took another couple and their two children. I don’t remember their names or if the kids were boys or girls. Seems it was one of each but I could be wrong. Daddy took us way out on the desert and then up along the edge of some high desert country that may have been were he went deer hunting each fall. I remember he seemed to be enjoying scaring the guests we had brought along as we went up a switchback to the top of a ridge. There were a few stunted pines and junipers on top and we walked out to the edge of the ridge where we could see out over the desert and over to another ridge some distance off. Daddy handed me the fieldglasses and said to look at the other ridge. I could barely make out the shapes were some horses over there. Daddy said they were wild horses. I was thrilled at being able to see real wild horses even if I couldn’t see them very well.
One year while living at Nellis we went to see our grandparents in Colorado and then in Texas and on the way back we went across to Mogollon, NM near Silver City, NM and went camping at a place in the mountains called Willow Creek. We really enjoyed the camping experience learning a lot about being in the woods for more than a couple of hours. Mother taught us how to cook over an open campfire even if she did do most of the cooking herself. We were taught how to build a fire, caught our first little trout fish, cleaned them with Daddy’s help, cooked and ate them. We rescued a baby robin that had fallen from a nest that was low enough we could look into it and put the baby bird back. The baby bird pooped on Jan’s hand when she held it and it so disgusted her that she has remembered and talked about it ever since. It is amazing what young kids remember all their lives. Daddy took me for a long hike, just he and I, which I really enjoyed and we saw a deer while we were out. We learned about how to track animals, especially the pesky chipmunks that were everywhere in the camp. We had to make sure to always put all food back into the car after every meal if we didn’t want chipmunks raiding the food boxes. Of course we named them Chip and Dale as the Disney cartoon characters were favorites of ours. One of the worst things about the trip was that it rained every afternoon and we had to wait it out in the tent or in the car. So boring when we wanted to be out exploring. My parent’s love of the southwestern mountains was passed to us with this trip and others like it. I don’t think Jan or I would have married the men we did if they hadn’t had that same love of the outdoors that we had.
During the time we were in Las Vegas there were two events that seemed very important to me. 1960 was the start of a new set of year numbers. No more 5’s. Since I was born in 1951 it seemed important as I had never lived in a year that wasn’t in the 50’s. I remember thinking about it and realizing that as far as history was concerned it wouldn’t be that long before we wouldn’t be writing the 19 part and would have to write the 20 part. One day I asked my mom if I would be alive to see the year 2000. She assured me that I would be, so I asked if she would be and again she said that she would be. When I asked if Daddy would be, she said she hoped so and that he should be but there was no way to know far sure as it was a long time off. Did she know something even then? Daddy made it to December of 1999, and Mother made it to September 2003.
The other event that was so important was when Hawaii and Alaska became states in 1959. There had not been a new state since 1912 when Arizona and New Mexico became states. There hadn’t been a new state in my lifetime and my birth state of New Mexico had been the 48th state. So that means there have been no more territories that have asked to become states since 1959. Janice and I have developed a habit that when things aren’t going real well for us, we say that we are going to run away to Alaska. Of course we have never had the guts or money to actually do it. Someday we hope to actually visit our last state. I had the change to visit Hawaii in 1972 when my husband Lee was stationed at Pearl Harbor. Who would have guessed it when it became a state and I was living in Las Vegas, NV.

Desert Plants

It is only a few minutes until we were far enough from town to where we couldn’t even see any houses. We spent many an hour on the desert during the day and night exploring all the roads that criss-crossed the mesa; and still do. Most of it had been owned by AmRep at one time or still is and the big eastern company had made dirt roads with some street signs many years before we moved there. I think they thought that they would be able to sell lots and lots of housing areas like the one where our home was. Those roads aren’t used by any but those that want to explore the desert. There are more homes scattered over the desert now, but then there were very few.

The whole area is covered with desert sage, saltwing bushes, tumbleweeds, some wild flowers, and juniper trees with a few of pinons which is the state tree of New Mexico. Pinon meaning pine in Spanish. The pinon on the desert is a small, usually stunted, short needled pine tree that takes a long time to grow. Many people, especially the native Indians, and Mexicans have family outings in the fall to gather the pinon nuts that fall out of the pinecones produced by the pinon trees. Pinon nuts were a staple in the diet of many of the southwestern Native Americans. The nuts are a favorite of most desert critters like squirrels, deer, and birds. I don’t care for them overly. They are a kind of mealy, not sweet but not bitter nut. It is thought that people can get hanta virus from eating nuts that have been stored in the nests of packrats, and mice, so you need to be really careful when collecting or buying them

The juniper trees are more numerous than the pinons and most of them are very old all the way too ancient. Some botanists think that many may be several hundred years old. Most are what are called alligator junipers due to their very rough bark. Most of the juniper wood is pitted with sand because of the blowing sand on the desert and are hard to cut with an ax or even a chainsaw. It is a horrid shame each time one of these old trees is cut down as many are when houses are built. I know where there are several where the trunks have been rubbed by the cattle until the wood is very smooth and looks polished. Our desert junipers in NM can live on less water than about any plant except many a cactus.Another reason everyone is so sure the junipers have been here for so long is that if you are lucky and know what you are looking for you can find rocks that are actually petrified juniper tree. I have quite a collection of the ones I have found. Some quite large but others are very small. This kind of petrified wood isn’t as pretty as the ones found in the Petrified Forest in the northeast corner of Arizona but it is still petrified wood. Because the bark on the juniper trees is so rough you can usually tell a piece of petrified wood because it has kept the shape of the tree bark.


There are many cactus on the desert but the most common is the cholla. There are lots of different kinds of cholla but this one is the only one I know of in NM. But I don’t its correct botanical name. Some people call chollas jumping cactus thinking the spines will jump at anyone that gets near the cactus but that isn’t actually true. They will rub off on you at the slightest little touch which makes people think they have jumped at them.


Other cactus are the pricklypear with yellow blossoms that you can make pricklypear jelly out of the editable fruit in the fall. You need to gather the fruit with tongs, (Indians usually used two sticks) then cook them in a pot of boiling water to soften the stickers before putting the fruit through a sieve to get just the juice for the jelly. Mother taught me to eat the fruit while in the desert by rolling the fruit on the ground to get rid of the stickers, blow of the dirt and sand, cut open the fruit and eat the juicy pulp inside the skin. This fruit is loved by just about all desert animals.


Another cactus I frequently find is several different types of claret cup cactus. Most are round or short upright, about 3 to 8 inches, of very sticky cactus. I keep several in pots by the house. They all have shades of red or orange blossoms in the spring. There is another cactus similar to the claret cup but with beautiful shade of purple blossom.



There are a few century plants on the desert, a plant that is kin to the yucca and lives for a very long time. It is said that they don’t bloom until they are a century old, and die after blooming. Usually they are twenty five to fifty years old. After blooming they put on baby plantlets and then die. They only bloom once. The stalk that has the small blossoms on it can get up to twelve feet tall and you can almost watch them grow they grow so fast.


The small native New Mexico yucca is very common on the desert and will usually bloom each spring. The yucca is the state flower of New Mexico. The Spanish called them the ‘candles of the lord’ as the white blossoms shown well even at night.
http://www.netstate.com/states/symb/flowers/nm_yucca_flower.htm
The ones on our desert here don’t usually get over about three feet tall but there are the really big ones in the southwestern part of the state. The big ones will grow in Albuquerque and Rio Rancho if you get one from a nursery and are very lucky not to over water it or under water it when it is first getting started. There is a nice bunch of them on Southern Blvd. in Rio Rancho.


Another of my favorite wild flowers is called Indian Paint Brush. It is a low growing plant usually found on the desert with bright orange flowers. For the life of me I can’t see why it is called a Paint Brush as I can’t see any resemblance to a paint brush at all. My mom used to say you had to have a lot of imagination to see the paint brush.

Animals on the Desert

There are lots of animals on our high desert mesa as well as plants. Rabbits are what are usually seen the most. There are both jack rabbits and cottontails. The jack rabbits have such long legs and can run very fast. Some of them look as tall as a medium size dog when they are running. Jack rabbits are actually hares with their young born fully furred and with their eyes open. They make a nest like area under a well shaded bush. The desert cottontails prefer as much protection as possible from predators having babies under rocks, in abandoned prairie dog holes, or a shed or building if they can find one. Cottontails are born with eyes closed and no fur. Coyotes are the main predator of rabbits. You may never see a coyote on our desert but with a few hours spent out at night you will probably hear them. Coyote howling is eerie, spooky, causing shivers to run up and down their spines to some people while others say it reminds them that there is still wildlife and wild country even this close to towns. I think it can be a cool, thrilling sound but at the same time can be very similar to a pack of dogs. Coyotes aren’t that big usually about 45 to 50 pounds at most. They don’t just eat rabbits, but help keep down the amazingly large amount of mice and rats that live in the desert – kangaroo rats, field mice, pack rats, and prairie dogs are just a few, plus there are several types of ground squirrels.

There is a large ground squirrel that would remind you of a tree squirrel, and there is the tiny Harris ground squirrel that looks like a chipmunk but with a lighter coat and stripes.
I remember one time when Lee and I had driven out across the mesa to get away for an hour or so as we frequently did. We drove up on a little rise with a good view to the west and watched the sun set. Lee turned the radio on in our old Scout and we sat listening to a few songs as the trees, rock and sand faded waiting for the stars to shine. In that hazy light of dusk we both spotted a coyote sneaking up on us. Neither of us spoke and we sat perfectly still waiting to see what it would do. It came almost up to the truck, nose up and smelling, and ears cocked as if listening while at the same time it was trembling with fear and ready to run at the least movement or sound from us. After a few more moments it simply turned and disappeared into the dark. The only thing we could figure that would have caused it to act like that was that it couldn’t figure out what the music was. Most coyotes are familiar enough with trucks and cars to ignore them but the music may have intrigued it.


There used to be a small herd of antelope that roamed across the desert and a couple of times we saw a deer. Badgers used to be common and once we saw a raccoon. Several times we saw porcupines but kept our distance from them. We have seen bear tracks. Once we had Dustin and our nephew, JJ out and saw some really large bear tracks wondering down an arroyo. Several times bears have wondered into Rio Rancho and had to be tranquilized and moved to a better place. Once a cougar was in someone’s backyard. I have never seen a bear, or cougar or bobcat on the desert but have seen them in the mountains. Last year there was a photo taken of a bobcat up a power pole. A few years ago a young bear managed to get into downtown Rio Rancho and walked into a doctor’s office causing a quick evacuation of everyone there. Someone got video on a cell phone of this one before Fish and Game was able to get there and tranquilize it and take it some place better for a bear. http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/may/18/bear-captured-rio-rancho/


We see lots of hawks, owls, and on occasion an eagle and a few buzzards. Our desert seems to almost be on a migration flyway for birds. We see lots more birds in the winter than in the heat of summer. Curved bill thrush, mockingbirds, sparrows,

roadrunners, and a few other birds are here year round. When we first moved to Rio Rancho hunting doves and quail on the desert was common but as the town grew and a few people moved onto the desert it was stopped as so many would be hunters didn’t have enough since not to shoot toward houses and people.
The roadrunner is our state bird and is a very strange bird in my opinion. They are fairly common and can be seen just about anywhere in town and out on the desert but I have never seen them in the mountainous areas. They run more than they fly, only seeming to be able to fly a short distance before dropping to the ground and running again. They probably weigh several pounds and are up to 18 inches high at their full height. As well as long legs, a long body and tail they have a long, sharp bill that I have heard they can use viciously if caught. As much as you see them running along the roads and highways I have very seldom seen dead ones that look like they have been hit by cars. Roadrunners are a kind of predator bird eating lots of mice, rats, other birds, lizards, and yes, they do eat snakes including rattlesnakes. Once I watched a roadrunner jump from branch to branch as if climbing stairs to get to the top of one of the spruce trees in our front yard that were

by then about twenty feet tall. There were several sparrow nests in the top and the sparrows were going crazy trying to drive off the predator bird as it inched its way toward their nests. Not wanting to watch the roadrunner eat the baby birds that I knew were in the nest I opened the door and walked into the yard and under the tree and asked the bird what it was doing. It took off and glided back down to the street, ran a few yards and turned and looked at me with a mad expression on its face. I knew we had too many sparrows and it was only natural for the roadrunner to eat some, and the bird probably had babies of its own it was trying to feed but I just couldn’t watch the mayhem that day. When we moved farther west onto the desert just out of Rio Rancho town limits, we didn’t see as many roadrunners as I would have thought but do see them more in the winter. One roadrunner learned there was water in the heated water buckets for the horses. Another spent a night in our hay shed once when it apparently got accidentally locked in. It was glad to get out the next day. It is possible it was after the sparrows that roost in there and nest there in the summer, much against my wishes.
Recently I let all three of our black cats, Jade, Murphy, and Wiley, out for their morning run about 8 am. As I watched they started stalking a roadrunner that I hadn’t seen when I let them out. The big bird was sitting on a stack of three cinderblocks with a piece of plywood on them that we use to sit our little grill on when we fix hamburgers. As the cats sneaked closer the bird decided to fly up into a small cherry tree nearby. I thought about grabbing the camera but before I could the

bird flew down and took off at a run up through the horse pen that attaches to our backyard. Wiley, one year old and the youngest of the cats we have now, took off after the bird at a dead run. I only got to see them for a second before they were out of sight but it was like watching an old cartoon of the Roadrunner and the Coyote only Wiley was playing the part of the Coyote. No, he didn’t have any better luck catching the roadrunner than the Coyote ever does. The cat chased the bird across the horse pen, through the fence and across the road. Thankfully there were no cars coming when they crossed it. About a half hour later Wiley came home, wanted into the house, and kind of flopped down on the floor as if he was very tired and degusted after his fast but futal experience at chasing a roadrunner. I think it may have been the first roadrunner he had ever seen as we don’t let him out very much.
There are lots of reptiles on the desert. I really like lizards and horn toads, but don’t care for snakes even though I know they are necessary to help keep down the rodent population. There are also lots of odd insects. Mostly what are seen are scorpions, tarantula, centipedes, and ants. All insects seem to have a stinger attached to them but usually if you leave them alone they will leave you alone.