Last week, I hosted an annual party for a Boy Scout (now known as Scouting America) troop at our neighborhood swimming pool. I am an adult member of the group, Troop 66, which was originally founded at our church almost 125 years ago by the legendary southern New Mexico Missionary Hunter “Preacher” Lewis.

I joined because a good friend had asked me a few years ago if the troop could have a party at the pool during the summer months. As pool members, we are allowed to have a couple of parties each year at the facility. Having been a Boy Scout myself years ago when growing up in Ruidoso, I thought it would a nice payback for me memorials as a scout and it would be more “official” if I was a member of the group that was using the pool.

Many of the adult troop leaders wear the official Boy Scout uniform shirts at these events, so I thought it would be appropriate for me to have one as well. I purchased one at the official scouting store and my wife quickly festooned it by sewing on a myriad of official patches, including one identifying our troop number, council membership and my role as a member of the ambiguously named ” Troop Committee.” (Full confession — I’ve never actually attended a meeting of that committee.)

And by the way, my wife says I look good in a uniform.

I wore my shirt to the pool event Thursday, discovering that I was the only person wearing one there. I stood out like a sore thumb, but I carried on and did whatever I could to make sure the event ran smoothly.

After the event, I had volunteered to pick up the two large bags of trash that had been generated and drop them off at our church’s lightly used dumpster. When I arrived at the church, there was white sedan with California plates in the parking lot with its hazard lights flashing and its motor running.

Curious, I went up to the car and saw a person partially slumped over behind the steering wheel. There were two yapping Chihuahua dogs in the seat next to the person and the back seat was crammed with what looked like luggage, blankets and pillows. I knocked loudly on the window of the vehicle, but got no response from the person inside. Assuming the worst, I called 911 and they dispatched a fire truck with EMTs to help determine if the guy was just sleeping, passed out or possibly dead.

The EMTs were more persistent than me and after several louder raps on the window, the man inside awakened in a stupor while both Chihuahuas yapped away furiously. One EMT determined that the door of the vehicle was unlocked so he opened it and began asking the driver questions.

The driver first mumbled that he was waiting for his wife to come back from somewhere unspecified. The EMT then asked him if he had been drinking, to which he replied “no” in an unconvincing manner.

After discussing it with the EMTs, who inquired about who owned the property, we decided to let him sleep off his drunken stupor in the parking lot, hoping he would stay off the road and not endanger others until he sobered up. I figured he was on a cross-country trip and began drinking and finally had enough sense to stop and sober up before continuing.

It was at that point that I remember that I was walking around in my Boy Scout shirt, looking for all the world like the nerd I was at that moment. I’m sure the EMTs thought I was some kind of wacko who got his thrills from wearing a uniform and looking for opportunities where I could look official and try to save people. I’m lucky they didn’t field test me for drinking or arrest me for trying to impersonate an officer or a 12-year-old Boy Scout.

Since then, I’ve been wondering how their conversation about me went when they drove back to the fire station. I’m sure it wasn’t flattering.

And I’ve also been thinking that I’ll be a bit more discreet in the future when I wear my official scout shirt.

In 1927, a 13-year-old orphan of Aleut-Russian descent, came up with the design for the Alaska state flag. The simple design featuring the big dipper and the north star in gold on a dark blue flag, was submitted by Benny Benson to the Alaska Department of the American Legion, which had conducted a design contest for the then territory’s flag.

Like New Mexico’s iconic red Zia on a yellow-gold background, the Alaska state flag has consistently been picked as one of America’s top ten state flag designs because of its elegant simplicity and meaning.

What made me think about this was the discovery of a dead “official state insect” on the grounds of our church earlier this week. The insect was the tarantula hawk wasp  (Pepsis formosa), which became the state’s official insect because of a project by an elementary school class in Edgewood, NM.

The class had discovered that New Mexico was one of a few states that did not have a state insect, so students began researching for a candidate. After looking around for something that was unique and creepy at the same time, the students came up with three choices, then asked other students around the state to vote for their favorite insect. The tarantula hawk was the students’ choice. It is a giant wasp that laid its eggs in the living body of a tarantula spider — both common species in the high desert climate of New Mexico. And to make things even creepier, they discovered that a sting from the wasp is said to be the most painful sting of any flying insect. (Luckily, not many human stings are recorded because the insect does not sting unless provoked or it finds a suitable tarantula scuttling along the ground.)

They are very large and have a rather imposing presence with orange colored wings and a black almost blue body. A predominant feature is the extremely long stinger at the end of its abdomen. The dead insect I found at our church did not appear to have a stinger still attached, so it may have delivered that weapon earlier.

American entomologist Justin Schmidt created the Pain Scale for Stinging Insects with the help of variably willing or unwitting test subjects. He once described the tarantula hawk’s sting as “instantaneous, electrifying and totally debilitating.” Schmidt has also in the past suggested that when stung, the only response is to “lay down and scream.”

Fortunately, the pain seems to go away in about five minutes, according to sources in my search.

One writer about this insect said its life cycle “sounds like the most gruesome horror story Hollywood could make up.”

To begin the cycle, the tarantula hawk wasp looks for tarantulas, which often come out from their underground burrows after Southwest monsoon rains to look for mates. After spotting one, the wasp makes a quick attack on the otherwise gentle spider, paralyzes it, lays a single egg in the body of the spider and then drags it off to a nest where the baby wasp will then hatch inside the body of the victim. The body of the spider — still living but still immobilized — then feeds the baby wasp when it hatches.

So thanks to the kids at Edgewood Elementary School, we have a really creepy insect specimen that was adopted by the New Mexico Legislature in 1989. And ironically, a group of students from Alaska heard about the New Mexico school’s insect project and traveled all the way to New Mexico to watch the legislature vote on the official state insect.

I suspect they didn’t trade one of their state’s flag for a live tarantula wasp.

In 2017, someone accidentally flew the Nebraska state flag upside down at the capitol in Lincoln for 10 days before someone noticed the error.

It’s understandable. It’s a busy state seal placed over a dark blue background that looks like state flags from several other states that seems to have been designed around the same time.

I imagine this conversation from state flag designers of that era:

“I know, let’s put our indecipherable state seal on a safe dark blue background,” says one.

“Yeah, sounds cool. Maybe we can plaster a conestoga wagon on it too so it shows our pioneering history,” the co-designer responds.

We’re fortunate in New Mexico to have a flag design that is consistently ranked in the top 10 (most of the time top five) designs of all state flags.

The iconic red Zia symbol over the yellow gold background is a simple and elegant expression about our state. And as I’ve said before, it’s pretty much foolproof. If you hang it upside down, no one would notice. I’m sure if it was accidentally hung vertically, there’d be a quick adjustment.

I’ve written previous posts about our flag. The New Mexico Secretary of State’s Website has this historical information about it:

In 1920, the New Mexico Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.) advocated the adoption of a flag representative of New Mexico’s unique character.  Three years later, the D.A.R. conducted a design competition, which was won by the distinguished Santa Fe physician and archeologist, Dr. Harry Mera.  The doctor’s wife, Reba, made the winning flag design with a symbolic red Zia on a field of yellow.   In March of 1925, Governor Arthur T. Hannett signed the legislation, which proclaimed the Mera design as the official state flag.

But it could have been much worse. The original state flag was designed by self-appointed New Mexico historian Ralph Emerson Twitchell, a prominent figure in the early years of New Mexico’s statehood. Said to have been a member of the infamous “Santa Fe Ring,” Twitchell came to the state from Chicago in 1882 or 1885 as an attorney representing the Santa Fe Railway. He became enamored with New Mexico and later began writing what was then considered to be the definitive book on New Mexico history. The enormous two-volume “The Facts of New Mexican History” weighed 20 pounds. Over the years, the luster of Twitchell’s book has faded a bit, with current historians questioning some of his facts.

And at some point, Twitchell submitted the following mind-boggling design for the state’s official flag:

There are so many weird things about this design. First, the moniker “The Sunshine State” was usurped by Florida in 1949 and then made official in 1970 before New Mexico could officially claim that wording. Although “sunshine state” had appeared on New Mexico license plates as early as 1932, the New Mexico Legislature never got around to adopting that wording. The more appropriate wording “Land of Enchantment” had been used by a state tourism agency starting in 1935, but it was not officially adopted until 1999. The great seal of New Mexico (which is actually a pretty good design that I’ve written stories about previously) is displayed in what would be an awkward spot in the lower right hand corner of the flag — even smaller and less visible than the one on the forgettable Nebraska state flag. The main color of the flag may or may not be turquoise. (It looks more like a teal green to me, which does not seem to represent anything New Mexico other than a scrub juniper or dark-colored sagebrush). The American flag on the upper left hand corner has 48 stars (which you have to assume would be updated as more states were added to the union.) The “47” appears to designate that New Mexico is the 47th state to be admitted to the union before Arizona. — a number that many people would find confusing without knowing our history. And then for some strange reason, the words “New Mexico” seem to have a typographic anomaly of shrinking in font size as one reads from left to right.

Twitchell may have been widely acclaimed for his historical work, but I think we can all conclude that he should have stayed away from graphic design. And some current historians apparently think he should have stayed away from writing about New Mexico’s history.

Frequent reading of the Albuquerque Journal’s “Business Outlook” section provides fodder for my brain to turn the mundane into a blog.

For example, there’s always the Restaurant Inspections section which provides some cringeworthy details of why certain eateries have been shut down. Consider these:

“Person in charge unable to provide records…”

“Unlabeled spray bottles containing cleaners misrepresented as sanitizer…”

“Observed staff failing to wash hands…”

“Vomit observed in men’s restroom toilet…”

“Orange mold-like substance in debris buildup on ice machine…”

There are also interesting items included in the “Patents” section. Many of the inventions are far to complex for me to understand. Like this one:

“System and method for a digitally beamformed phased array feed.”

Then there’s one that’s pretty straightforward for my brain to grasp:

“Calf nursing cradle.”

And this kind of scary one:

“Systems and methods for immersing spectators in sporting event and evaluating spectator participating performance.”

I envision some sort of brain probe attached to your head when you go to enjoy a football game and are forced to initiate a crowd wave when the fourth quarter gets too boring.

And then there was this one, which I will let you ponder, without my warped interpretation:

“Systems and methods for positioning an elongate member inside a body.”

Remind me in the future to always check first with my good friend Jim Libbin, retired Acting Dean of the New Mexico State University Department of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences before I post anything agricultural related.

He thankfully called me out on the errors I made in post earlier this week regarding New Mexico’s cattle ranking against other states. The source I found on the internet, which was not verified, said New Mexico ranked No. 11, but it was not clear exactly what that meant.

According to Jim, it was the ratio of cattle to humans in each state. South Dakota ranked first, with more bovines than people. In New Mexico, it turns out there is approximately six-tenths of a cow for every human.

I was surprised when I saw that New Mexico was ranked higher than Texas in the chart, but it’s because of that state’s much higher population than the Land of Enchantment. According to a National Agricultural Statistics Service source provided to me by Jim, Texas had approximately 12.2 million cattle, compared to New Mexico’s measly 1.2 million bovines.

Jim also notes that our cattle number are higher in part because of the large dairy industry in the state.

“The only difficulty with the cattle inventory number is it incudes dairy cattle in addition to beef cattle, and New Mexico has a bunch of dairy cattle,” Libbin said. “We’re #22 because of dairy cattle, we would probably be in the high thirties, down with Nevada without the dairies.”

I’m glad to have all of this clarified. And by the way, in addition to 12.2 million cattle, Texas also has more than 160,000 oil wells and more than 83,000 gas wells. Which explains the rich odors we occasionally get when the wind blows from the east.

By just one place, New Mexico missed being in the top ten among states of something I never quite thought about.

While browsing the internet this morning, this surprising statistic showed up unexpectedly on Instagram.

So according to this non-sourced post on Instagram, New Mexico is 11th in the nation for the number of cattle in the state. According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there are approximately 1.28 million cattle in the Land of Enchantment. Below is the information straight from the USDA website as of January 2005.

Livestock Inventory New Mexico

Cattle, Cows, Beef – Inventory ( First of Jan. 2025 )	450,000
Cattle, Cows, Milk – Inventory ( First of Jan. 2025 )	240,000
Cattle, Incl Calves – Inventory ( First of Jan. 2025 )	1,280,000

I was really surprised that we had more cattle than Texas. But having experienced numerous trips through Nebraska to visit my wife’s family farm while passing seemingly endless odiferous feedlots, I was not at all surprised that Nebraska was ranked #2 in number of cows.

At least at this point, bovines don’t appear to outnumber humans in our state, as is apparently the case in South Dakota. According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, New Mexico’s population is estimated at 2.13 million. That means there is one cow for every 1.6 persons. Luckily, my cow quota is in a feedlot or dairy farm miles south of where we live, although I’m occasionally reminded of their presence when we get a southerly breeze.

And although I have no way of verifying this, I do suspect that there are more jackrabbits in New Mexico than there are humans. A drive along one of our less traveled rural roads will confirm large numbers of squashed bunnies and confirm my suspicion that there are lots more out there who had enough sense to stay off the roadway when a vehicle is approaching.

My wife recently suggested that before I write anything historical about New Mexico in my blog posts that I should check first with our very good friend Cheryl, a retired librarian at New Mexico State University and a great researcher and diligent fact checker.

I mention this because of a recent blog about the big shootout that occurred in old Mesilla in 1871 that was triggered by conflicting political views. I learned about it from an article written by noted New Mexico historian Ralph Emerson Twitchell and included in a book edited by author Tony Hillerman.

After I had written about the incident, based on several sources, Cheryl sent me an article that appears to be the definitive piece on what became known as the “Mesilla Riot.” Cheryl has provided follow-up information about other blog posts I’ve written in the past, which are always appreciated.

The article, “Shootout in La Mesilla,” was authored by four men and a woman who called themselves “The Fat Boys Historical Research Group.*” Although the article confirmed the basic facts of what I had written, there was much more detail about the actual day the shootout happened, along with a look at what had led up to the incident.

A quick recap of the incident:

As the 1871 general election campaign got underway, a group of Republicans and a group of Democrats clashed when their marches during dueling political rallies on the plaza in old Mesilla on Aug. 27, 1871, confronted eachother. The two groups were marching in opposite directions and when they met, neither group budged or blinked. A skirmish ensued and by the end, nine people had been killed and an estimated 40 or 50 more were wounded. I drew my own conclusion that the Democrats were probably marching to the left around the plaza (counter clockwise) while the Republicans were marching to the right (clockwise). The article confirms I was right about that assumption.

I had at least three readers ask me who won the election a few months later — a obvious question that I forgot to answer. According to the article, the Democrats overwhelmingly won all their races in Dona Ana County during that election. Cheryl’s discovery of the Fat Boys article helped me close that loop.

I also found two interesting anecdotes about the shooting that day in which two different people were spared serious injury from bullets because of some random metal they were carrying.

In one case, a member of a band supporting the Republicans was shot. According to the article, a bullet struck the musician’s flugelhorn and he was “only stunned and he shortly gathered his horn and ran home for cover.”

And a groom who had unfortunately picked this same day for his wedding in Mesilla was shot in the lower rib cage by a random .36 caliber bullet when the clash started.

“Fortunately, the young man was only stunned and bruised,” the article says. “By chance, the bullet had only penetrated his vest and coin purse and torn a small hole in an 1851 copper one-cent piece…”

What I also found interesting was the names of many of the participants in the event. I read an article several years ago about the lyrical Hispanic names that were once common in New Mexico but are no longer seem to be in favor. This story seems to have many of these names:

Apolonio Barela, Felicito Arroyo y Luera, Tiburcio Lopez, Florencio Lopez, sisters Magdelena and Isabella Lopez; Rafael Bermudes, Mariano Barela, Cristobal Ascarate, Jose de Jesus Baca, Perfecto Armijo, etc.

And finally, there was even a small song written about the event, apparently sung to the tune of “Marching through Georgia,” which the Democratic band played on that fateful day. The song made fun of the Republicans, many of whom reportedly ran away to Asencion, Mexico, after the skirmish. It goes like this:

(Spanish)

Las Republicanos se van

Se van a La Ascencion

Porque las Democratas

Ganaron la eleccion

(English)

The Republicans are going

They’re going to Ascencion

Because the Democrats

Won the Election

*According to my internet search, “Fat Boys Historical Resarch Group” has no website. If you look it up online this is what pops up:

“The Fat Boys Historical Research Group is not a formal organization with a publicly accessible website or a well-defined structure. However, the name “Fat Boys” appears in the title of a book series, “On the Road with the Fat Boys,” which focuses on the history and geography of Southern New Mexico.”

I’ve always said that you can tell a true long-time New Mexico resident by the fact that they stand outside to watch when it’s raining.

We’re getting some rain this morning, a bit of an anomaly for the first week of June — at least four weeks before the usual summer monsoon rains start. While walking my dog in the lingering sprinkles this morning, a man walking his dog playfully asked me: “What’s this wet stuff coming down from the sky?” It was a sign of New Mexico weather humor rooted in acknowledgement of our dry surroundings.

My wife and children have always suggested I might have been happier in a career as a weather forecaster, where my nerdiness about atmospheric phenomena could have had a full run. With today’s rain, I allowed myself to venture into that topic, wondering about historic rainfall amounts in the Land of Enchantment.

From what I gleaned on several sites, including that of the National Weather Service, 1941 was the mother of all rainfall events in New Mexico since weather records were first captured beginning in 1849.

The total precipitation that year was 26.25 inches, compared to the statewide annual total of about 14 inches. The graph below, from the National Weather Service website, shows the detail of average rain amount by year. As you can see, 1941 was an abnormally wet year.

Rainfall between May and September of 1941 was so abundant that Elephant Butte lake was filled to capacity by the end of the rainy season, according to the NWS. That source also says there were 28 weather related deaths and $3.5 million in property damage (an equivalent of $55 million in today’s economy.) A ranch in San Miguel County recorded 203.6 inches of snow during the winter and Cloudcroft recorded 106.7 inches of snow.

I found this interesting account from a man who as a child lived in the Sacramento Mountains near Cloudcroft that summer.

“Stock tanks with dirt dams were overflowing so we could go swimming if we accepted the cold water and the floating cow chips,” he said “Grass was so tall in some meadow areas that we could not see the white-face calves even when they were standing.   Deep mud meant that the ranch pickup could not get us into town for weeks at a time.  Two bad-tempered old jersey cows provided milk and cream so we made ice-cream with hail from the tin roof,  the only ice available on a ranch with no electricity.”

The nearby mountain community of Whitetail, on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, recorded 62.4 inches of rainfall during that summer.

That year, Las Cruces received almost 20 inches of precipitation, more than double our average 7.5 inches of rain and snow.

Try this link if you want to learn more about the record 1941 season. There’s all sorts of technical discussion about what forces were at work to bring the record rains, some of which I kind of understood, but likely not of interest to most of you.

Weather.gov > Albuquerque, NM > NWS ABQ – 1941 Extreme NM Precipitation

So with rainfall starting in early June, hopefully we’re in for another record year of precipitation in Las Cruces and New Mexico. Hopefully, however, it won’t so much that we have floating cow chips in our streets.

I know, it would sound better if the squirrel was a mole, so I could say “Holy Mole.” But no, I spotted the actual ground squirrel that has been “ventilating” the otherwise lovely grounds of our church, St. James’ Episcopal in Mesilla Park these last few days.

Not only has it dug several holes, but it also left a rather large mound of dirt at one of the entrances or exits of its labyrinth of tunnels on the church grounds. What was interesting to me was that the “dirt” was actually fine sand, like you find at the bottom of the Rio Grande when it goes dry in the winter when water is stored upriver at Elephant Butte reservoir.

During the time I’ve lived in Las Cruces, I’ve heard many times how the course of the Rio Grande has changed in the broad Mesilla Valley. At one time, the river was east of present day Mesilla. I’m told that its eastern banks were near western edge of the New Mexico State University campus where the terrain begins to rise up toward the Organ Mountains. St. James is located not far from that part of the University, so the evidence of river bottom sand seems to confirm that our church might have been under water if it had been built there 150 years ago.

According to the “Old Mesilla” website, the river at one time divided the town of Mesilla and Las Cruces. There was even a barge that connected the two towns. Mesilla was the original hub of activity in the Mesilla Valley, but got outhustled by the new town of Las Cruces. The story goes that Mesilla landowners who heard of plans to build a railroad through the valley priced their land too high so the route was changed to run through cheaper land about two miles east through Mesilla Park and Las Cruces.

The Old Mesilla website also notes that there was frequent flooding of the valley from the Rio Grande in the 1800s and that at one point, two branches of the river surrounded the village and left it an island. Also left behind were marshy areas which were a perfect breeding ground for mosquitos. In the 1870’s, the marshy areas turned into a swamp and there were outbreaks of yellow fever and malaria from the swarms of mosquitos. The website says “more than 50 Mesilla residents died as a result.”

The River again changed its course in 1885 to its present location, but apparently there was no guarantee that future flood events would cause damage to the low lying village and the river would change course again.

That was all resolved in 1907 when the Leasburg Diversion Dam was constructed as part of the Rio Grande project and the river was permanently channeled in its present location. Four years later, construction began on the Elephant Butte dam as part of the program to control flooding and provide irrigation water for the Mesilla Valley into Texas. The mightly river, often called the “Rio Bravo” has now been pretty much tamed.

But thanks to the squirrel, who I hope we can eventually capture and relocate, I’ve finally seen actual evidence that the Rio Grande once flowed near my home in Mesilla Park. And I’m glad I don’t have to worry about the river flooding my home, although I do still get annoyed by mosquitos every summer.

For some reason that we can’t explain, the hollyhock flowers we have on the east side of our house have exploded into more blooms than we’ve ever seen before from the humble plants that are honestly really close to just being weeds.

We planted some of these years ago and have had a few stragglers show up every year, but not in the number that decided to be so boisterous this year. One of the darker red varieties came from seeds that I took from a spectacular hollyhock plant growing in the front of the historic San Francisco de Asis church in Taos years ago. The others were from seeds gathered here and there from friends and neighbors.

Since the flowers showed up so abundantly this year, I decided to do a little more research on hollyhocks and found some interesting things. They are known as alcea, part of the mallows family. There are more than 60 varieties of hollyhocks and more than 4,200 species of mallows. Unfortunately, one of the most degenerate of those species is okra, which I personally believe should be banned from the earth — but that’s another story. Hollyhocks originated in Asia, where they are still highly valued today.

Most hollyhocks have a two year life, with the first year establishing leaves and a good root system, then the second year showing off their blossoms. When the seed pods dry, they scatter hundreds of seeds on the ground, many of which will spring up the following year.

We’ve always finding hollyhocks around our yard in places we never planted them, like in my wife’s vegetable garden. We left the plant there because hollyhocks are known for attracting pollinators like bees, butterflies and hummingbirds which help spread pollen to make my wife’s annual corn crop produce some mildly edible ears.

The first hollyhock to bloom this year was another volunteer, which wedged itself between our driveway and the dry streambed in the front of the house.

As a kid, I remember my sister making hollyhock ladies, which my wife did as well. There are lots of sites on the Internet on how to make them in several varieties.

I also looked up hollyhock lore and discovered that in New Mexico, they are often called Las Varas de San Jose. Here’s an article I found on the interenet:

In New Mexico, hollyhocks are called “Las Varas de San José,” representing St. Joseph’s staff which, according to legend, was transformed into hollyhocks. According to a legend, God turned St. Joseph’s staff into hollyhocks to signify his approval of his marriage to Mary. 

According to sources on the internet, planting hollyhocks near the entrance of your home wards off evil spirits. Another source says they offer strength and endurance.

I also found a reference to hollyhocks on a website called “The Witchery Arts.” It claimed that the flowers “are a positive influence to the witch’s garden, along with fairies, bees, butterflies and white magic.”

I think most flowers are seen as having a positive influence on one’s home and garden — well with the possible exception of deadly nightshade. I think we’ll leave that out of our garden and let Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings give it exposure from afar.