Kaffeeklatsch

June Hews

Kaffeeklatsch

Our Origins

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            Truly, one of the greatest climates on earth remains clearly on display most days on a national weather map.

            Yessiree, bub!

There is no need to mention names because too many people have already found it and it needs no more mob attention. The tell-tale graphic, however, is always there as summer daily high temperatures in the characteristic deep V that plunges so far south are consistently cooler than environs east and west in the same latitudes.

            Enough said, eh?

            June Hews

            Having said that, though, June and all of its disagreeable conditions has arrived.

            Temperatures up to 104° are pounding the upper Chihuahuan grasslands we manage. Hot winds blow in your face from every direction except when you are in a pickup creeping along a two track on liquified dirt in a following gale. Then it is at your back enveloping you in a suffocating cloud of dust.

            It is seasonal drought time.

            Water is critical, and everything bad that can happen will happen. Thursday morning, we found a float off a valve inside a float box. The demand has been so great that the constant volume of water apparently pulsed the float to the point it unscrewed itself. Six inches of water level from a 30,000-gallon storage was on the ground.

            It could have been a lot worse and replacing it at this time is almost impossible.

            On Wednesday, Bunch sent Audie over from Animas and we pulled two wells. One, our big main well, has lost flow at the extreme terminus that is another big storage. The fear was the column pipe was perforated due to the high corrosive nature of that well’s water. The entire length of what was galvanized pipe was replaced with PVC. The second well, a well and set of pens we call Monterrey, has not been pumped in a number of years since an already weak pump slowly reduced to nothing (and the previously mentioned main well more than supplied the reduced flow). It was replaced with a new pump and plugged back into a solar rack.

            It is pumping less than three GPM, but that adds to supply when conditions are this critical.

            The point is every day is a new adventure in another repeat of a long line of a dreaded June. Hot, windy, dry and rapidly diminishing forage quality are all challenges of this first month of Southwest summers.

            The Monsoon … cannot arrive soon enough.

            Our Origins

            When it is time to go home, though, the drive out of our north end on the county road has continued to follow a routine. It’s coffee time.

            It is the only time of day other than early morning that something hot tastes right. Even at 100°, the warn, dented, and familiar vacuum bottle is pulled from its place alongside the driver’s seat and opened. The paint is gone in places, but I would not want anything other than that favored container for that one short cup of coffee, the second of the day.

            The contents are brewed and flavored the same way every day, too. The whole process is a ritual. It is part of this heritage. It is as western Americana as any component of this way of life.

            At a long ago visit to Calgary and the Stampede, we visited a museum in Cochrane that devoted at least part of the exhibits to the pioneering cowmen of Alberta. As we wandered through the displays, we could not imagine how those early arrivals could exist through those first winters. Holy cow! There was also an interesting corollary that was new to us. Cowboys visiting different ranches in those early days learned about the ownership and at least one feature of their way of life. It was like a neon sign flashing on their barn doors. It was not just the way they spoke the king’s language. It was more foundational. The cowmen that originated from England drank tea.

            The Texians drank coffee.

            Kaffeeklatsch

            My grandmothers wielded much, much influence over many things. Seldom does a day go by that I do not think about them in one way or another. So many things they taught us. So many lessons we learned. So many fixed features of our being they influenced.

            Drinking coffee was one of those learned experiences.

            The best of times was when they ruled the kitchens of our youth. They were always the first up in the dark of the mornings. As the lights came on so did the stoves and the pot of prepared coffee was started. Those were the days when percolators were as familiar as any household appliance.

            Every day was the same whether it was a morning when the thermometer was indicating a January freeze or cool 56 degrees after a nighttime July monsoonal shower. The pot was soon perking, and familiar cups were lined up waiting to be poured.

            There was no television then. There was a radio, but it was not turned on until later in the morning when the signal strength was strong enough. Verbal communication was the order.

            We talked to each other. The day was planned, and events or news was shared.

            When the cups were filled, the adults drank it black. At the mouth of Bell Canyon at Cliff, the kid’s cup was prepared by Nana loaded with real, fresh cream and sugar. Her reminder was always the same.

            That’s just the way you like it.

            She was the one that made sure that happened. The truth is that's the way it is still prepared when poured into that battered thermos for the eventual ride home. Otherwise, it is poured and left black.

            Golly, those were the best of times … our world could certainly use a dose of that this morning.

            Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Heritage!”