acequia

Acequia Off Vista del Valle Road

acequia in Taos, NM

Another great photo taken with the iPhone 6s Plus!

Now that is one very happy willow tree. Imagine having your roots growing close to an irrigation ditch all your life—talk about a metaphor! It’s a significant thing here in the terrible high desert when the mayordomos open the gates and let the water through. The surroundings become electrified and alive—more than anything else, this [...]

Wild Cherries and Acequia

wild cherry tree by the acequia in Taos, NM

Water flowing from right to left, view is to the ENE »Buy This Photo!«

This is about where I was standing when I took the photo in the previous post. That’s a wild cherry tree blooming by the acequia. The cherries are tiny but taste just like the big ones in the stores or sold at the orchards in Velarde, but you have to get them before the western [...]

Acequia Close-up

acequia in Taos, NM

Current flowing right to left

Behold the mysterious acequia! (See preceding post) Otherwise known as the “ditch”—as opposed to a “mother ditch,” which would be wider and deeper—the surviving remnants of this colonial irrigation technology brought to Spain by the Moors are still massively important to agriculture and everyday life in northern New Mexico.* Too bad this section wasn’t properly [...]

Taos Spring 3

spring in Taos, NM

Transformation

This is “down by the acequia.” Water is running high in the ditch just beyond my feet here where you can’t see. The reddish shoots are willows that the ditch cleaning crews usually cut down, but this year I haven’t seen them yet. I don’t know what the blooming tree is. The dark one in [...]

Golden Wet Leaves of the Gods

cottonwood leaves in clear water in New Mexico

Most of these are underwater. Can you tell where the surface is?

A little voice told me to take my camera with me on my hike today, but of course I didn’t, so naturally I encountered three tarantulas! The third one was the biggest I’ve ever seen, crawling along the bottom of an arroyo. At any rate, that’s why you’re looking at those underwater leaves in the [...]

Browse ARCHIVES

Browse CATEGORIES

Latest Posts