Snake Farm

It turned out we made our trek to the top of New Mexico just in time on Wednesday.

Over the last two days the weather has taken an unusual twist and turn, with clouds and generous rain down here at 7000 feet, after a long summer’s draught. And when we woke on Friday morning, once the cloud cover cleared, we could see the first snow of the season up on the summit where Slave had “grazed” just 36 or so hours earlier. Not sure that Mistress’s tender tush would have felt  inclined for worship if parked in a snow bank. Or that these humble hikers would have taken on that challenge in the event of snow and ice.

“Sorry, left the pitons back in River City, Mistress”, would have been my lament.

So we woke with still sore thighs in Friday, reminding us of that long slog up and back, and making us all the more grateful for a little extra time in bed, doing what is our highest and best use, particularly for our readers here at the UCTMW media empire.

We were also glad finally to hear from our Senior Correspondent, Donna, back from her investigative reporting adventure to La Domaine. We are counting on a comprehensive accounting, Donna. And feel free to do it like Aisha, teasing it out over several episodes rather than getting to the good parts post haste. After all, we  want to get our money’s worth from all that extravagant tab you ran up on the company Amex card.

But what does this have to do with snakes, you might be asking?

Well one thing that has kept Mistress and her loyal Slave up past our normal bedtime these last two nights is the “Big Barn Dance” music fest, just down the road on the grounds of our local roadhouse. It’s an annual event that the hassle of tending to high school girls has never allowed us to attend, until this year.

Out here there is an amazingly vibrant music scene. Lots of genres. But the one that gets us going is what could be described as “Western Americana”. The Barn Dance drags folks in primarily from Texas, Colorado and New Mexico, with a few folks who hale from Nashville too, but are more rootsy C&W, not the kind you hear on the radio.

The performers are the grizzled, cranky, drink and live a little too hard  types you might recall from the movie “Crazy Heart”,  filmed in these parts, but with all the scars and festering wounds of the heart that you can’t make up in a Hollywood screen play.

The audience shares some of the same characteristics, skewing older, little glamour, lots of grit. And plenty of cowboy hats and boots.

Thursday night we saw Mentor Williams, a local, way past his prime as a performer, who is still cashing royalty checks from his big hit “Drift Away”. He did a song he wrote for Alabama called “When We Make Love”, which had the corn-pony sentimental feel of Barry White with a cowboy hat, chewing tobacco.

One artist in particular hit our fancy last night, an old Texas refugee of the New Riders of the Purple Sage, named Ray Wylie Hubbard. He made no excuses for the upbringing that produced his quirky, hard scrabble story songs.

“A few years back I figured it out. I came from what we now call a "dysfunctional family". But in those days people just said the Hubbards always were fussing and drinking a lot.”

One line from his song “Drunken Poet's Dream”, nailed someone close to home:

“I gotta' woman who’s wild as Rome. She likes being naked and gazed upon.”

“He’s got you down, Mistress.”

She did not disagree.

Then there was that Snake Farm song. About a girl he "dated" who worked on a snake farm. It turns out the folks sitting beside us knew old Wylie Ray from down in Texas. Nice folks, though by River City standards their teeth could use a little work.

“Yeah…. Pretty funny…. His wife really did work on a snake farm for a spell. Now SHE had some funny stories.”

You have to listen. “Snake Farm. Sounds kind of nasty. Snake Farm. It pretty much is.”  And it rang a peculiar note of déjà vu for me.

Now call me crazy, but I had just told Mistress about a strange dream I had the night before. All this New Mexico rain had caused the flora to go a little crazy. Vines were popping up all over that were about an inch thick and had eyes and mouths like snakes. You hacked them back, but they just kept growing back, multiplying, thicker and nastier. By the time I woke up, our house was surrounded by the damn things, and we were thinking about making a break for the car. Until we saw that these “vines” had somehow wrapped themselves around our Volvo tires.

Dang.

Now where does this stuff come from. I’m thinking Nilla' and all her stories about tentacle sex. There was one just this week.  Never been much of a turn on for me (sorry ‘Nilla), but you can’t cover everybody’s kink everyday, can you?

Maybe you can write a Snake Farm story for us?