I think the Xeric Landscaping site has its permanent mascot, it's my memorial to the wildlife lost to Tucumcari's xeric - so - far walkway and exercise park. I've written to you about the Walkway & Jogging course near my apartments and how they used a xeric tree for a privacy screen. The rocky mountain juniper make a good windbreak, too, and as long as they leave the field "natural" there are a bunch of great grasses and wildflowers. Currently, it's XERIC TO THE MAX.
There's also a rabbit on the field. Everytime they mow, with either mowers or their tractor, the rabbit gets hypertensive. I asked the young people who mowed it a couple of months ago to organize a herding party and do a yippie yhi ho ki ay type of action on the rabbit, to get him off of the walkway and away from the fenced in area. They laughed. It was a good joke.
Except to the rabbit.
I stopped three children from chasing it and throwing rocks at it, but like the snake I've reported on in my poetry area, I'm afraid the rabbit's days are numbered. I'll be putting up a couple of posters to see if I can attract enough people to herd the rabbit out of the fenced in area to a natural field nearby. The rabbit tries to get to it every time they mow the field, but doesn't know how to get over the fence like the Paisano, our bird does. The road runner is bigger.
Weather!
I set out to see if I could determine how and why our weather predictions appear to have improved. I'm not sure I answered that questions, but I do have a better idea of how our weather is produced and I thought I'd share my research with you. I've also learned a couple of things which may benefit Xeriscapers, especially if you haven't bought your place yet.
In the last century we used to say the average temperature has increased about .5 to 1.5 Fahrenheit degrees (.3 to .8 degrees Celsius) since the late 1800s. That was last century, way back there in the 1900's when we were estimating.. The final figures are in and our average temperatures bumped 3 degrees. The prediction for the rest of this century is 5 to 9 degrees increase in average temperature.
Decreasing the use of fossil fuel energy is said to be one way to combat global warming. I burn gas in an oven although on most days I can have 450 degrees anytime the sun is out by using a solar oven. If you haven't investigated these devices, you may want to take a look at Edmund's Scientific. They have one and although we haven't designed our houses for them, they're one way to lower our use of fossil fuels. Another method available to me because of where I live which may not be available to you, is wind energy. Tucumcari is in one of the wind energy belts, and I'm planning on putting up a couple of wind turbines.
