Funny how these are called diaries. That dates back some.
This is a diary. It's about my life, today, maybe last few days. Also about a lot of stuff I've been thinking and writing about.
I hope y'all appreciate this.
Cold finally came in this week. My pecan tree usually yellows her leaves before dropping, but she didn't get to that during this warm fall, before the hard frost the other night. Now leaves are dropping like mad, all still pretty green.
The cottonwoods in town more or less yellowed first, though. They do it nicely.
I brought out both of my electric heaters. One is a pillar carbon element heater; I use that first. It's energy efficent. The other is a little floor model with a fan. I only use them both when it's down into the 20's.
I live in two rooms mostly. I have another house where the kitchen is. It's complicated. I don't heat that house beyond using the oven. It's natural gas. Natural gas has its problems, too. Go ask TxSharon about that, if you don't agree.
That's why I don't run hot water heaters. When I need some hot water, I heat it on the stove.
The electric heaters are likely coal-driven. New Mexico electricity runs off coal mostly, as I've been told. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
That's why I stay mostly in a couple of rooms, and put tarp and/or blankets over the windows in the winter.
I'm down to one refrigerator now, though I kept the other one as a backup. My electricity bill should probably not be more that $50 per month any time soon. If it is, I'll work on this more.
I don't have an air conditioner. I have an attic fan and I use other small fans in the summer. The summer temps get up to 110oF here at times. This summer may be bad, what with the La Nina. La Ninas tend to run hot and dry here in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
We have city wells that come from runoff from the mountains to the west, although recently the city has worked up the Double Eagle project to augment them from the Oglalla, which bothered me. The Oglalla is a fossil aquifer and it's not going to last forever; plus draining it can lead to land subsidence.
Carlsbad is a city greedy for water. The history of this can be read in the book High and Dry by G. Emlen Hall.
This is an excellent read, as is Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner.
I'm currently reading In the Rainforest, by Catherine Caufield. This book was published in the 1980's, and highly recommended by E. O. Wilson. The author addresses, among other issues, how the Amazon region is being ecologically destroyed by money-making interests.
This book was published 25 years ago, and reading it, I am deeply saddened by the obvious fact that much has gotten worse there since that time.
Great books like this so easily become forgotten, because they are not the newest releases. I encourage any readers here who care about water management issues, especially in this country, to consider reading these excellent books.
I don't have an ending for this essay. I don't think there is any possible ending for such essays, other than to ask people to please be open to all of this reality. To please listen, and not feel threatened, and please try to think about it all and help. And to not assume that anybody here is out to get you. We are just trying to help you.