Solstice celebration

Sunday's Solstice marked the longest day of the year, when the day sprawls out, light overwhelms the dark, and it is possible to play outside long after the usual limit to when one can have fun. Weekends in the summer in our seasonally driven town evoke a more rural experience - you must reap the harvest of the abundance that visitors bring from Texas, California and places farther down the road - so my partner and I finished our respective work gigs and scrambled to organize ourselves for a little trip down to the river. We loaded gear into the back of the truck, strapped the canoe to the roof rack, and I drove my car down after a quick return to the house for the necessary cooler.

Down in the canyon south of Taos we dropped off the car for the later shuttle back to the put-in and then made our way to the Taos Junction Bridge, which straddles this part of the Río Grande Wild and Scenic River. There, we made quick work of unloading the canoe and hauling gear out and into the craft, organized the load, and had a Lagunitas Day Time IPA cracked before we'd even left the beach. Oh, and of course we zipped ourselves into our PFDs (personal flotation devices), before we departed.

The Río Grande has been flushed with water, contrary to its typical meager June flow, because rains fall and irrigation has slackened in the wheat fields of Colorado. It was 1,700 + CFS (cubic feet/ second) on the Solstice, but at this time of the year it can dwindle to a quarter of that. For our purposes, the flow carried us along with minimal guidance when the water increased speed at constrictions, and we helped ourselves along, paddling through the flat water. This stretch of the newly designated Río Grande Del Norte National Monument has long been called the Orilla Verde, and it is mostly a float with several class 2 rapids, meaning these places require some maneuvering around obstacles and present faster current.

The first of two rapids we had to negotiate is named Gauging Station for the CFS gauging station that is evidence you have nearly arrived. Generally it's a descent along a tongue of water narrowed by numerous rocks, but at this water level our canoe hurtled along in the rowdy waves, most rocks submerged to form holes to be avoided. My partner, an experienced boater, guided us into the slower water of mid-river eddies formed by rocks above the surface, and we managed to reach the bottom not only unscathed, but upright and barely wet.

Although Father's Day or Solstice celebrants crowded the launch and all the places where brush had been trammeled back, we had the river to ourselves. Well, we were the only self-conscious animals to be found on the water. Dusk, at 7:30 on the longest day, is a perfect time to float the river, uncrowded except for the increased activity of these creatures, who are more welcome than humans after an intimate day guiding them in a raft or giving them massages.

Our first sighting was a four legged: a slender buck with stubs of antler covered in velvet, who watched us in return with limpid and curious eyes. We heard the crack of beaver tails on the surface, but they eluded our sight until the sky's hue dominated rose rather than blue. Once, we watched as someone dragged a flowering branch into the reeds, and guessed it to be a beaver.

The river corridor hosts many species of birds - we saw Western tanagers, ducks and geese with fuzzy, pint sized entourages, swallows and kestrels - the most dramatic of which is the night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax). I watched a bird land river right several hundred yards downstream and thought I saw the gangly, long legs of a heron, but when we approached that spot, we saw the chunky, penguin-like body of a night heron, feathered black and white, sporting feathery tendrils from its temples, red eyes turned black in the gloom. It posed, unconcerned with our proximity, and we were the ones who startled when another slap resounded next to us. We turned and watched as not one but two beavers swam upstream, their sleek bodies leaving little wake, except for a trail of bubbles to mark their passage.

At that moment, we reached the top of the second rapid and were quick to turn our attention to the choppy wave train ahead. The canoe crested waves several feet high and slapped a few when they hit off rhythm. Cool water leaped up and into the boat, playful as a child who splashes in a puddle. Once successfully through, we raised our paddles in a boater's high five and marveled at the encounter: night heron - so odd and beautiful - along with the elusive beavers spotted and a fun rapid that challenged but did not overwhelm us.

As we neared the take out, we praised the Solstice in all its glory. Late on the river, fauna to encounter, and the day transmuted into dusk, then dark. Time spent together with my partner in play and wonder. The waxing crescent moon arced above, and Venus and Jupiter came into alignment with our celestial neighbor. The río continued to flow toward the sea, part of the circulatory system of the planet. Summer has begun.

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Vegan, revisited

During high school I learned about the the dire environmental costs from and brutal treatment of animals on factory farms, and this marked the first time I tried to become a vegetarian. Fifteen years on the planet, oldest of five children, working class parents and resident of a small rural community - none of these contributed to success in weaning meat from my diet. For six months I ate whatever had never had eyes, excluding virile potatoes, and that generally meant an endless selection of iceberg lettuce salads, canned corn and the blessing of the farmer stand and tomatoes, cucumbers and Ohio sweet corn once June arrived.

Six months later, I left to live in Belgium for my junior year and bid au revoir to the moral high ground in order to be able to integrate with my host families without reservation. That year I ate whatever was offered, and took comfort in knowing that the cows and rabbits I consumed had lived their days in fields and bush rather than feed lots and pens.

It wouldn't be until I lived in a college dorm that I shifted my diet to vegetarian again. At the ultra liberal Antioch College that I attended for a year, I found a plethora of like minded folk who included lacto-ovo veggies like me -I ate eggs and ice cream with gusto - along with vegans who eschewed any products of the labor or life of animals. A year after I dropped out of that school I moved to an organic farm in Newburg, Maryland for the duration of a growing season, April to November.

On the farm, part of the worker's wage included all the food you cared to eat, essential since there was no minimum wage for farm hands then or now and we made $4.25/ hour. We lived communally, simplest after 10 and 12 hour days in the sun and doing the kind of physical labor that sculpts your body into a lean mean working machine. Each day one of the crew was responsible for preparing lunch and dinner, and since half of the people there were vegan I became one by default (except for pints of New York Super Fudge Chunk hidden in the recess of the freezer and eggs benedict during trips off the farm). My body leaned out, my mind cleared and despite the exhausting work this marked the healthiest period of my life.

I remained a vegetarian until I was 26 and playing rugby in another incarnation as a college student in New Mexico. I started craving meat; the oddity of having my taste buds aroused by the scent of blood after almost a decade of revulsion toward factory farming could not stop the need. So, I ate meat, and still do, choosing sources I know have been raised locally, humanely and organic whenever possible, with the assumption that I'd stop again some day. That time has arrived.

I have this mysterious abdominal pain that has taken up residence under the lower ribs of my right side, where liver and gallbladder do their digestive work. Western medicine hasn't revealed the culprit, not through several ultrasounds and blood work, but a DOM (Doctor of Oriental medicine, who uses acupuncture and herbs to heal) identified stagnation and imbalances corresponding with the loci of suffering, my unhappy liver and gallbladder. Last week, I gave notice to the pain and started taking Free and Easy Wanderer (anti stagnation), quaffing cleavers and chamomile tea, and eliminated as much saturated fat from my diet as I can manage. The easiest way to do the latter is to eat a vegan diet - no meat, dairy and eggs - and one that excludes the fattier elements, such as coconut, nuts and chocolate. No toxins, either, so goodbye to beer, wine and tequila.

The upsides to the 'deprivation,' as I sometimes call this minimum two month commitment? I feel better, clear mind, emotionally balanced, and the extra padding I've been collecting for the past few years is diminishing. The pain in my side is more intermittent than constant, and that is a relief, as chronic pain wears you down near to misery.

Best of all, I'm relearning how to cook food beyond meat and carb fare. I already love to spend time in the kitchen, and now I eat almost exclusively from what I've prepared myself. Already I've made cauliflower and millet mashers, roasted beet and sweet potato chickpea burgers, chips from beet and radish greens, and spiced and unsweetened breakfast cookies with carrots and gingery applesauce. Today's culinary agenda includes empanadas and a pinto and plantain stew garnished with roasted parsnip slivers.

Temporary vegan life means fun with cookbooks, raw ingredients and well-being.

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