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- Go to Knee Deep in June, Souvenirs from the Desert
maj, ok, shall google it. Lucerne Valley sounds like ice cream and cookies
to me.
Yes, native clays can direct an artist, as they want to do only what They want to do and you must follow or dump them. I used some whites from our valley river banks and have found it to be 'too natural', a hoot, no? I like my things unnatural, upon occasion.
We have that one big meteorite fall in northern Arizona. They charge you $750 dollars to go look at a hole and buy souvenirs. ( Am I exaggerating here, it didn't feel like it when I wrote it !?!?) If they had taken the proceeds and had done something slightly scientific with them, to call me back in, but they haven't, I would stop there more than once every forty years. It is a big hole, tho'.
Three story water slides have better viewing platforms. I was really impressed that first time when five years old, however. "Wow, that's a big hole, Daddy !" "Sure is, baby," was his scientific explanation of the phenomenon. I had to go back home and look it up in the library to find out anything at all.
posted by
benzinha
on June 13, 2004 at 10:07 AM
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She still has her kilns in the high desert, but mostly does oils.
The native clays were, er, interesting, but tended to direct her work instead of her doing so.
Doesn't everyone in the desert have rocks they found lying about?
Her mother/my grandmother had a "glass garden"; people would put crystal peices out (sugar dishes, etc) and some would turn shades of lavender to purple in the intense, high-ultraviolet sun.
Many other meteorites have been found in the dry lake. Google "Lucerne Valley"+"meteorites".
posted by
majroj
on June 10, 2004 at 4:53 PM
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minning? No breakfast brain food as yet.
posted by
benzinha
on June 10, 2004 at 12:04 PM
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maj, your auntie worked in clay like me ?!? An old friend of my father's
came to visit us and showed us geodes and other fabulous things in our desert around us, he was a rock hound, too. Mom's garden today is full of the rocks that he carted up from Mexico to bring to us, fabulous things. He was 85 years old, down there minning for gold and found some and had his trucks hijacked on their way to be sold. Another interesting story, as he had run away from a nursing home that his kids had placed him in. So many stories, so little time......
posted by
benzinha
on June 10, 2004 at 12:03 PM
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B, the desert and my father and grandfather taught me
to collect all sorts of rocks and to question how the earth got to where it is today. We/I picked up volcanic ash bits, garnets, fossils, white quartz, iron ore, even meteorites and twenty year old expended bombs and aircraft cannon slugs from a dry lake bed. Looking for rocks, I saw the life there as well.
No, I never sought my fortune there in the soil, but my cousin did a little "dry washing" for gold, and my aunt collected clay for her kilns from the dry lake beds.
posted by
majroj
on June 9, 2004 at 11:38 PM
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JadedM, did you see that maj called them 'garnets'? I never knew that.
Maybe that's what they are and maybe you have some in your area to sit and to find.
posted by
benzinha
on June 8, 2004 at 12:02 PM
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bridget, memories of childhood are my refuge, a place to go and be happy
again, forgetting the bad, or remembering the bad in a funnier light and moving on to the deliciously, magically good parts and hovering there instead. Thanks for reading me and commenting.
posted by
benzinha
on June 8, 2004 at 2:01 AM
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Temple, June just grabbed me and ran away with me into the past.......
I remembered those children and their adventures and just had to write it all down, for others to remember their childhood meanderings. Thanks for the compliments. Sorry that you had a bad day. I had a bad week, everything, absolutely everything went wrong that could go wrong and I wondered which of the gods I had offended and been cursed by....it passes and life becomes good again and we forget the travails and trials, no?
posted by
benzinha
on June 8, 2004 at 1:58 AM
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JadedM, maybe you and your daughter could search for some !!!
posted by
benzinha
on June 8, 2004 at 1:54 AM
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Talion, thanks. I have no time, no time !!!! Just need time to write.
posted by
benzinha
on June 8, 2004 at 1:53 AM
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Ah, yes the smells, maj, but did you collect rubies to raise a fortune?
posted by
benzinha
on June 8, 2004 at 1:52 AM
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Benzinha
You have such a great memory, and such a lovely way of describing things and making them our memories, too.
posted by
Holy_Grail
on June 7, 2004 at 8:38 PM
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Beautiful Abuelita, you never fail me.
I've had one of those frustrating, tedious days where nothing goes right and you want to throw something. Feeling misunderstood, sad, and overwhelmed I say...bah...I'm to upset/grumpy/blue to read. My inner self says...read Abuelita. I was taken away, back to my desert childhood, not as hot as yours, but barefeet on just about anything...white blond hair, deep brown skin (good for an Irish girl, no?) and wet and/or dirty all summer long. We had a strawberry patch in the backyard, and my sheltie would dig out the strawberries in the summer. So, I would have to go eat them all first. Mom would put them in big bowls with milk and sugar. Ah. Thank you my lovely, for the escape and the happy summer memories. You are a rock star. Love to you and your mom. :)
posted by
Temple
on June 7, 2004 at 7:20 PM
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I agree with Talion. You have a beautiful narrative voice - I'd like to read it more often.
I'm going to have to go look up sand rubies now... never heard of them before.
posted by
JadedMind
on June 7, 2004 at 7:04 PM
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Benzinha
This was really great. My only complaint is that you don't write more frequently!
posted by
Talion
on June 7, 2004 at 4:16 PM
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Ach, and the smells.
Water on hot "sand". Heck, water on hot rocks. You could smell the grass as the aroma baked off. Dogs with hot sand in their fur. Blacktop that had baked off the "tar" smell but still had a distinctive faint tang.
Those little garnets are pretty cool. My grandparents' area had a small mountain that produced them, mostly red, some green.
posted by
majroj
on June 7, 2004 at 1:56 PM
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Tapsel, childhood is always sweetest in memory......thanks for reading and
commenting and for letting this post remind you of your childhood daze.
posted by
benzinha
on June 7, 2004 at 12:53 PM
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It is always fun to read of the past.
Even though your clime and adventures were different than mine, your Blog takes me back home to my childhood.
posted by
TAPS.
on June 7, 2004 at 12:41 PM
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