Enjoy the Southwest - seasonally

Each area of the United States provides its inhabitants with a unique lifestyle.  What images come to mind when you read the words "Southwestern Lifestyle"?  Do you see people dressed in cowboy boots and hats, desert landscapes, and bowls of salsa and tostadas?  Perhaps, but a glance beneath the surface reveals so much more about life in the Desert Southwest.

I was born in El Paso, Texas and have made that city my home all of my life.  El Paso is located on the United States/Mexico border in the Chihuahuan Desert.  It is a bilingual, bicultural city. Even though I love to travel to far off lands, one of the best parts of a trip is coming home. When I am gone, I miss our mountains, the dry air, spectacular sunsets, and spicy food.

Life in El Paso can be enjoyed in varied ways, depending on the season of the year.

Yes, we do have four seasons in the Desert Southwest!  They may not be traditional seasons with snowdrifts in December, showers in April, and welcome sunshine in July, but every three months, we have an opportunity to enjoy changing weather and activities, including preparing special dishes for friends and family.

Winter will arrive in less than two weeks. We are already experiencing frosty nights and cool days.  What a great excuse to build a fire in the fireplace in the early morning and drink coffee. Winter brings the promise of a Christmas season with customs from both sides of the border. As the weather cools, I feel an urge to spend the afternoon in the kitchen, making red chile sauce for enchiladas by hand with an old-fashioned vegetable press.  My thoughts go to homemade tamales.  Should we host a tamale-making party this year or order them from a local bakery?

Spring arrives earlier in the Desert Southwest than in other areas of the country.  This season does not greet us with gentle rains but rather with strong winds that howl interminably. In the springtime, I begin dreaming of a yard full of fragrant flowers and a garden full of tomatoes and herbs.  I wait anxiously for the projected last frost date, usually around April 1st.  Mother Nature has occasionally tricked me, however, and brought one last snowstorm in April.  I make special dishes for spring holidays, like Irish-American Soda Bread on St. Patrick's Day and Eggs Delmonico on Easter.

Summer is a very long season in El Paso, lasting from approximately May through September. And how hot is it?  Darn hot!  As soon as the sun dips below the horizon, summer evenings can be enjoyed outdoors at festivals, musical entertainment, and sporting events. Thirsty hummingbirds begin appearing at the feeder. Summer is the season for crisp salads with homegrown tomatoes and guacamole made from plentiful avocados.  I use the weather as an excuse to make up a three-ingredient recipe for Coconut Ice Cream.

By the time summer releases its fiery hold, El Pasoans are mentally and physically ready for cooler weather.  The yard needs a fall clean up, and pears need harvesting before birds peck at them all.  Autumn is greeted locally with a burst of activities — church bazaars, Renaissance Fairs, and, of course, football.  I can finally bear to turn on the stove and oven in the kitchen again.  It's time to plan a Southwestern Thanksgiving Dinner with chipotle cranberry sauce and pumpkin chiffon pie.

Four seasons with unique weather, food and activities make for an enjoyable Southwestern lifestyle. If you are interested in reading more about living in the Southwest, I have recently published a book — Seasons and Seasonings of the Southwest, available on amazon.com or Create Space for $12.00 ( and soon to be available on Kindle).  I have written short creative non-fiction pieces and included recipes for each season of the year.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome! Happy Holidays to all, Southwestern or otherwise!

               

  

  

March Winds are Back with a Vengeance

Grumpy, grumpy, grumpy.  That's what I become as March winds make an appearance in my home town.  I wrote the following piece about the wind quite a few years ago, and, sadly, it is still relevant today. If the howling winds are driving you to distraction where you live, perhaps I can get a little sympathy from you!

The phrase ‘spring winds’ may conjure up feelings of a soft breeze against your face on a warm day-but not in El Paso, Texas.  For most of the year, our weather is enviable.  We laugh as we walk out the door in January, tennis rackets in hand, while the Weather Channel is announcing another cold front from Canada moving down into Michigan.  We speculate as to how our friends who recently moved to West Virginia are affording their heating bills this winter.  We plan intimate outdoor suppers in front of the kiva fireplace in the patio in mid-December.  But when March blows in like a lion, El Pasoans begin fearing the worst.

Maybe the winds won’t be as bad this year.  Or maybe they won’t last as long.  Or maybe we are just imagining how awful they were last year.  “My parents told me they remember the winds being around until June one year,” moans a pessimistic friend of mine.  The morning weather caster skips over the current prediction of a 75 degree day to warn us, almost gleefully, that 50 mile per hour winds are on the way, and will probably last a week.  The city hunkers down.

I decide I had better get my errands done quickly.  The receptionist at the veterinary office makes the usual small talk while ringing up the charge for the dogs’ medicine and then asks if I have heard today’s weather report.  I have, and we exchange ideas about how soon the winds will arrive.  The older lady at the feed store hands me my sack of dog food and asks if it is getting windy outside yet.  I tell her no, but that I am sure the wind is coming.  We both shake our heads at the futility of trying to control the weather, and, I suspect, our advancing ages as well.  The young, efficient cable TV installer gets his job done at our house without much chit-chat, but he can’t resist a parting comment.  “Guess those winds are going to kick up pretty soon, huh?”  Yes, I guess they are.

The spring winds in El Paso are inescapable.  They howl relentlessly for what seems to be an eternity.  Dust is everywhere-on the furniture, on the desks at school, on the dashboard, and in your eyes, nose, and ears.  Contact lens wearers switch over to coke bottle lens eye glasses.  

And El Pasoans get testy.  Grocery checkers hand over sacks without even bothering to wish you a good day.  School teachers contemplate early retirement as students stare out the window at the flailing branches.  And the winds are incredibly loud.  TV sets have to be turned up even louder, and cell phone users on the street search for a protected corner to answer their innumerable calls.

Life is put on hold.  Everything except the bare necessities of life must wait until the wind stops.  Vegetables for the garden have to be started inside in small containers and left there, getting leggy, until the winds stop.  My husband Wayne and I often remind each other of the spring we flaunted Mother Nature and planted the garden early.  The winds blew so hard the next day that they snapped the tiny seedlings off at ground level.  The garden just disappeared overnight.  No use cleaning the swimming pool either.  It’s full of black mud and debris. 

Ugly scene, huh?

See the bag on the fence?

Plastic bags fly around the city until they impale themselves on tall ocotillo plants or thorny mesquite trees.  Homeowners hope the trash will just keep blowing into someone else’s yard.

           

I asked one of my college students from New Jersey how he was enjoying life in the desert southwest.  He said he loves the weather.  “But how about our winds?” I inquired, expecting to draw out his true feelings.  He said they were no problem, because El Paso is the only city in which he has lived where he can wear sandals all year long.   “You could never do that in New Jersey,” he assured me, sticking out both feet to show off his comfortable footwear.

I’ll have to keep that in mind when the 50 mile per hour winds wake me before the alarm sounds in the morning.  Maybe I’ll put on a pair of sandals before I head out the door to face the elements.