Keep The Porch Light On ....or not?

 For years, since 1980 or so, we, the neighbors, if you can call us that ‘cause we live so far away from each other, relatively; well…..we helped each other build our houses some and raised our children and horses and dogs together and fell in love with the land in unison; the land and the beauty around us was and is the “great leveler” of our differences, be they political or some other diversity….well, we neighbors have been threatening to “shoot out” ______’s personal streetlight.  That is quite a statement to make and so it begs the question of : why?  I will try to make it clear somehow; shed some “light” on the subject (read as in flashlight…) 

Despite our basic fear of the dark, there is another aspect that bears understanding, which is that lights often glare in our eyes and cause discomfort.  When we are talking in the parlance of these issues, we talk about the viewshed as the basic  common item of interest.  Anything that interferes with the viewshed, or that which we look at, or “pollutes” the charm of the landscape, be it dusk, dawn or the other variations of light quality and quantity….is, in fact, a detriment to our quality of life.  Some of these things shock us into wanting to “shoot” them  out and get rid of the offender.  When the offense adds up by having more and more of them, then you are no longer, for many practical purposes, nestling in the charms of the country; you have brought the city out here with you, often unbeknownst to yourself.  The phenomenon happens in cities in the southwest, like Phoenix, where the people are trying to get away from their allergies of the Midwest of East  but just can’t help but grab that Colorado River water and irrigate and plant…….more flowering plants and trees; bringing, ironically, back to their lives the things they were trying to get rid of.  This is the case with light pollution. 

I had read somewhere something written by  a astonomer.  He or she stated that the amount of light that people have seen through telescopes for all these centuries till now is, actually, measured in lumens or whatever, less than the amount of light that can be put out by a flashlight for a few seconds.  Despite the need to factcheck this is speaks great volumes on the light that is constantly competing with the night skies.

Why do we care?  It all depends on our sensitivities and sensibilities.  In terms of the viewshed, the light from a lone high wattage, uncovered porch light begins to make it so we cannot view the glory of the stars at night or see that sublime line of the mesa as it greets the sky.  We must avert our eyes and in one way  or another we are forced to stare at the light (or have it “stare” at us) all night long.  Put in another way, it is extreme for not much good reason.  It is like the neighbors’ dogs barking all night; they may be used to it but it is, like cigarette smoke, putting to test their right to do something with our right to be left alone.  It tests their “need” for a sense of security and convenience with the greater “need” to keep what we bought and paid for to come out here.  Some things fly in the face of history and reality as we “knew” it, such as the  two lights up on the mesa line now, far away, but perched, for a few years now, on the edge of the mesa.  You would think this is not such a big deal, really, but think of it; there is a line of unspoiled Landscape  of Glorietta/Rowe Mesa that can be seen from Galisteo, past the Lamy turnoff, going north and then past Eldorado and along the Old Las Vegas Highway and up Glorietta Pass and down that long slope to Las Vegas and now, from Galisteo to Las Vegas, these are the only lights (read break and “pollution” of the “viewshed”) that can be seen in that, perhaps, 75 mile run.  Does one person have the right to change that sublime beauty?  I really don’t know, but it does make one wonder.  One could try to reframe it like I did with the constant din of traffic that dominated my friends property near I25 and pretend the vehicles going by are like the ocean with waves constantly coursing and crashing on the beach somewhere.  After a while, though, it just feels like what it is.  Turn it off, por favor.

Grand Opening for Last Gallery On The Right

Roads, Roads, Roads...

One of the neighbors mentioned that  her cousin from New York City (or some such place) was visiting for a while, watching the place while she was gone and seriously asked her, "What is wrong with the people over her; they are always waving their hands at you when they drive past, or am I doing something wrong?"  Which brings up an interesting observation by some of us rural folks around here, which is that people don't hardly wave at each other anymore these days, like they used to (and like they do up around Reserve, I noticed last year).  Must be the city folk out here again, polluting the  beauty of the place, again.  Now I must admit that sometimes some of us go overboard, like my wife who waves at everyone from the passenger seat, confusing even the hardcore finger lifter.  When I got out here many years ago, I developed a system of "waving" based upon some subtle observations and some natural inclinations:  a nod of the head is the basic acknowledgement, then one finger (the pointer) raised on the steering wheel is a friendly gesture like the nod, the hand (still on the wheel) raised is a pleasant hello, two hands is real "hello", the hand and arm up off the wheel is for someone you know pretty well (maybe waving somehow), and the waving hand out of the window is for special friends. The peace sign is to remind us that there was a 60's. There are various variations on these approaches.  To ignore is basically rude in the country (I think).  But, to give a little on this, none of this is obligatory, just cool.

Starting here maybe we can move into a few basic categories to look at. They fall basically into this, for some of us: Roads, Roads, Roads.  Then there are Lights, Weeds, Noise (music), Water (creeks), Floods (flash), Manners (needing help), Style, Animals (pets and livestock), Wildlife, Fences, Aesthetics and Attitude.

Roads:  Driving on and maintaining a dirt road is an art.

1. A dirt road is a very changeable thing.  It is very sensitive to anything that you do or don't do to/with it.

2. Anybody that drives on it can positively or negatively affect it; sometimes it is just one driver at one time that can help/hurt it.

3. A dirt road can be maintained just by certain ways to drive on it.

  So here is the basic scoop:  To start with we need to understand the bumps and dips in a dirt road.  How they are or grow is of great interest to us who drive on it.  Now you may have noticed "potholes" or dips in the road.  These look like the road sunk in there, but that is not the case, really.  A pothole is often created by a simple depression in the road.  Then it might fill with water or get muddy sometime.  If a vehicle drives right over the pothole that is a little pond or muddy, then the wheels and weight and speed will cause the water and some mud with it to "splash" out from the little hole, making the little hole just a little less full of water and mud.  The dirt that is splashed out is now on the road and the pothole is bigger.  Once it is bigger, then it holds more water (creating more mud, etc.) and will splash out more stuff and the pothole gets even bigger.  It does not take long for the little depression to become a huge road event.  So, how do we prevent this?  It is easy: just don't drive through the pothole when it has water showing in it or is wet or muddy and, especially, do not drive fast on it.  Sometimes, when it is wet around the hole, you can drive in a way that pushes some dirt back into the pothole, helping to close it up.  A little gravel in a bucket , put into the hole can help a lot. 

Now that brings us to another scource of dirt roads: washboard roads (sometimes called corduroy roads).  They are the little series of bumps in the road that  look a little like lines across the road or a series of road waves.  They are really irritating and are caused by ignorant people in their sometimes silly cars.  I call it the "BMW and Empty Pickup Truck Syndrome" , having watched it first up in Tesuque, in Pacheco Canon, thought about it and then did some research.  It is sort of like this: a little high torque (spinning out) car whips up a dirt road, spinning out and pushing away little divits of dirt (or a truck with no weight in the rear) and it also starts small and gets reinforced once the problem starts.  It often happens on during drought conditions, they talk about,  I guess because the dirt can be spun out all the more easily.  Those little ripples somehow are like big waves and they go DEEP and are very hard to get rid of.  So, if your in a hurry neighbor is scooting along in his city car or non working car, you can bet they are creating the washboard effect.  That is why we talk about driving slowly on a dirt road.  Then, probably few people know this, but one can "work" on the road just using a vehicle, if, again, you catch it in time.  When the road, often in the spring or after lots of rain,  starts to get rutted,  then one can, first, try not to drive in the ruts, or wait till the road is frozen (both sides of a winter day)or less goopy to drive on it (plan things out) or wait till it is just starting to dry up and one can drive just at the edge of the rut and "push" the dirt into the track with the wheels. Or, if you have the right conditions and/or a 4 wheel drive, one can break down the ruts by zig zagging across them, again pushing the dirt into the ruts.