Send in the Clones

One of the joys of field work is the discovery of unique life forms. These "four sisters" live about a quarter mile from the main trail that encircles "A" Mountain. Usually barrel cacti grow as individuals, but twins are not an anomaly. Quadruplets of this fine quality are indeed a rare occurrence. Barrel cacti in the Chihuahuan Desert are not nearly as large as those found in the Sonoran Desert, probably because the Chihuahuan Desert receives its rainfall primarily during the summer monsoon season--unlike the Sonoran Desert, which has two distinct rainy seasons, summer and winter--and because the Chihuahuan Desert is a higher and cooler desert.

Resident Rodents

Several readers of the blog have commented about the photo posted for my profile; it isn't big enough, they say, to discern any kind of detail. So, for their gratification, I am posting the photo in a larger format. These readers also want to know more about the resident packrat population here at COC. In something akin to trench warfare, we have tried to keep the critters' numbers to a minimum here at the center. We haven't murdered any, of course, but we have tried to landscape in such a way as to discourage their nesting habits. We have taken out ornamental Rosemary bushes, trimmed low-hanging pads on the prickly pears, pruned the sage and desert broom to remove shady spots for lazing around during hot summer days. Despite all of these efforts, however, the packrats are still around, living on the perimeter of the grounds. They are smart, resilient creatures that do their best to avoid interacting with the human animal. Unfortunately, they are hosts to "assassin" or "conehead" bugs (aka "kissing" beetles) that can be a nasty parasite for humankind. One thing the packrats have going for them: they're cute as hell.

Probing Desert Skies

The A.B. HaBoob Observatory sits high atop "A" Mountain, groping the desert sky for celestial objects. The observatory is named for Professor HaBoob, known as Abie to friends and colleagues, who left Saudi Arabia to come to America in his quest to discover heavenly bodies. Unable to reach his ultimate destination--Hollywood--he settled for El Paso, Texas, where he had an unfortunate encounter with the lawman Pat Garrett. One night in the Acme Saloon, Abie attempted to spit chewing tobacco--something he had never attempted before--into a brass spittoon at the edge of the bar's foot rail. Unfortunately, he missed and hit Garrett's newly-polished black leather boot instead. The lawman drew down on HaBoob, but the wily professor distracted Garrett by citing a little-known fact about the ancient Greeks: they used to test their eyesight by seeing if they could spot a dim star directly beside one of the main stars in the handle of the Big Dipper. Outside in the street, while Garrett tried to see the minor star, Abie slipped into a back alley, eventually fleeing up the Rio Grande to Mesilla, New Mexico, where a realtor told him about the vacant land on "A" Mountain. The professor bought the land for the site of his new observatory, and the rest is history.

Desert in Bloom

Spring is a wonderful time to be a researcher here at COC. Because the vast Chihuahuan Desert is so austere, any change of color is instantly noticeable. When the mesquite trees begin to leaf out, their slender bright green leaves are like a splash of paint on a brand new palette.

When the flowers on the claret cup hedgehog cactus suddenly appear against a dun green background, they're as striking as any red roses you've ever seen.



And when the desert marigold reveals its sunny face, the brilliant yellow is almost more than the eye can bear.

Transport

Every institution needs reliable transportation, and COC is no different. We rely on a 1998 RAV4--which we jokingly refer to as the COCmobile--to help us trek across the rugged Chihuahuan Desert terrain. Chappy, who's something of a contrary, calls the vehicle "RAV-E-Shank-Car." As you can tell, she hails from a different era. The COCmobile has been to three of the four great American deserts: the Chihuahuan, the Sonoran, and the Mojave. She's been particularly invaluable on remote trips into the Big Bend country of West Texas, notably providing reliable transport up the rugged paved road through Green Gulch and into the Basin area of the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park. Research Associate Becca especially likes riding in the COCmobile, eagerly pressing her face to the windows to see what new adventure lies around each corner, often leaving nose imprints on the glass.

Independent Research

The staff here at COC are encouraged to do independent research, but only Research Associate Becca takes the suggestion seriously. Here she is (in the middle distance in the photo at left) conducting research on her own. Her main area of interest is the jackrabbit, but she has a fervent preoccupation with all manner of desert flora and fauna, especially rodents (which worries me a lot). Becca is the newest member of COC, coming aboard about five months ago. We sent her to training classes about a month after she was hired on, but she didn't do well in school. Her instructor said that Becca was too much of a class clown, and didn't take lessons seriously. The teacher told me personally the very last thing you want to hear about somebody you have high hopes for: that Becca had "potential." Unfortunately, good help is almost impossible to come by nowadays, and you have to work with what you've got.

Take Chappy and George, for instance. When they first came to COC they did extensive fieldwork. They were invaluable in advancing the institution's mission. But now they never venture out, and they spend most of their time in their offices doing nothing. Since our budget is tight, and we pay them next to nothing, we can't afford to let them go.

Then there's Dr. K., who's the major fundraiser around here. If it wasn't for her, there'd be no COC. Other than that, though, it's hard to figure out what she's doing with her time. More than once we've caught her sitting at her computer playing crossword puzzles or Free Cell. If she suspects that somebody's watching, she quickly closes the game and pretends she's working on articles. (An interesting aside: Yesterday afternoon, Dr. K. returned to the center in a foul mood. She had stopped by the grocery store to purchase one item--ground beef for dinner--and had had a mild confrontation with the checkout clerk, who had given back the wrong change. Pleased with herself for confronting the clerk, Dr. K. walked out of the store without her package, and drove all the way back here before realizing it. When she told me about it, I could hardly keep from laughing. When I mentioned it to the others, Chappy said, "Who goes to the store for one item and then leaves without it?" "Dr. K.," we all said in unison.)

Fieldwork

Much of COC's work is done in the field near "A" Mountain, just outside of Las Cruces. "A" Mountain is so called because of the huge A at the mountaintop. Historically, "A" Mountain was first discovered by the Don Juan de Oñate expedition which, in 1595, had moved out of Mexico across the Rio Grande to claim all of New Mexico Territory for the King of Spain. Two members of the expedition (purportedly Francisco "Poncho" de Leon and Jesus "Chuy" Hernandez) saw the A on the mountain and remarked surprisedly to each other about the likelihood of finding such a large vowel on a mountain in the New World. Because they were in trouble with Oñate for previously fraternizing with a couple of Manso Indian women on the north bank of the Rio Grande--near present-day El Paso--the men were reluctant to point out the letter to their comandante. But to these two men the mountain would always be called Montaña "A" (pronounced "Ah" en español), later Anglicized to "A" Mountain, the name by which it is currently known.