Here we are, passing the outskirts in the hills surrounding Cusco, Peru. Route 3S, going under various names. Highland Road (North) (Longitudinal de la Sierra Norte)Highway, climbs out of Cusco in broad switchbacks.
View of terraced fields from route 3S through the hills above Cusco, Peru. “In the South American Andes, farmers have used terraces, known as andenes, for over a thousand years to farm potatoes, maize, and other native crops.“
“Terraced farming was developed by the Wari culture and other peoples of the south-central Andes before 1000 AD, centuries before they were used by the Inca, who adopted them. The terraces were built to make the most efficient use of shallow soil and to enable irrigation of crops by allowing runoff to occur through the outlet. The Inca people built on these, developing a system of canals, aqueducts, and puquios to direct water through dry land and increase fertility levels and growth. These terraced farms are found wherever mountain villages have existed in the Andes. They provided the food necessary to support the populations of great Inca cities and religious centers such as Machu Picchu.“
Reference: “Terrace (earthworks)” Wikipedia
Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
The scenes at Cusco’s Saturday Market were fascinating. The shooting was through a clean bus window using a handheld Canon EF 70-300 f/4-5.6 L IS USM lens mounted on the Canon dslr 1DS Mark III.
“Inka S.R.L.” is a agriculture company full name INDUSTRIA DE ALIMENTOS E INVERSIONES PERU INKA SRL specialized in ELAB OF OTHER PROD. FOOD.. It was created and founded on February 2, 2002.
Very early for these children…
Quechua people or Quichua people, may refer to any of the aboriginal people of South America who speak the Quechua languages, which originated among the Indigenous people of Peru. Although most Quechua speakers are native to Peru, there are some significant populations in Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Argentina. The woman center left sports traditional fabrics of her pants and shawl.
Onions and garlic, potatoes? Wild potato species can be found from the southern United States to southern Chile. The potato was originally believed to have been domesticated by Native Americans independently in multiple locations, but later genetic studies traced a single origin, in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia. Potatoes were domesticated there approximately 7,000–10,000 years ago, from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. In the Andes region of South America, where the species is indigenous, some close relatives of the potato are cultivated.
Potatoes!!
Maize, also known as corn in North American and Australian English, is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago.
I caught these participants of the Cusco, Peru, Saturday Market as our bus progressed toward Machu Picchu during our daytrip to that ruin. The shooting was through a clean bus window using a handheld Canon EF 70-300 f/4-5.6 L IS USM lens mounted on the Canon dslr 1DS Mark III.
A group of Quechua vendors during the Saturday Market of Cusco. A seller of baked goods is taking a break while, in the foreground, a woman prepares an order of greens used to feed guinea pigs, a staple of native Peruvian cuisine.
In this post we start the day of my posting “Family Trek“, July 19, 2008, when, well before the sun rose at 6:23 am Mountain Daylight Time (the Navajo Reservation observes daylight savings, the rest of Arizona does not), Pam and I were at the Spider Rock Overlook.
Most visitors to the canyon make use of a system of roads and parking lots next to strategic views. There is the White House Overlook we visited our first day, July 18, to hike from the trailhead into the canyon. There are also, on the south side of the canyon:
Tsegi Overlook, taken from a Navajo word that translates directly to “between the rocks” and usually refers to a deep canyon with steep cliffs.
Junction Overlook above the point where Canyon Del Muerto (see my posting “Sun and Shade, Canyon Del Muerto”, and Canyon De Chelly intersect. There is an Anasazi ruin in the south-facing cliff across the canyon.
Sliding House Overlook, another Anasazi run across the canyon.
Face Rock Overlook, to view the eponymous formation.
Spider Rock Overlook, the most stunning rock formation.
Click any photograph for my Online gallery.
Looking east from the Spider Rock overlook, Canyon De Chelly.
While getting ready I scoped out the location for interesting visual tropes. Utah Junipers are exceptionally hardy shrubs, stressed individual plants grow into compelling forms shaped by hardship. As the sun rose, this specimen emerged from the gloom and caught the first sun rays.
Click any photograph for my Online gallery.
A distressed Utah Juniper on the edge of Canyon De Chelly overlooking Needle Rock a few moments after sunrise.
The grandchildren and I hiked the 0.6 mile trail through old growth forest to visit a bog. In the 1830’s there was a village named Chicago along Gracie Road, which gives it the name we have today. The Chicago Bog is home to many carnivorous plants, including sundew, the pitcher plant, and more. The deepest depth of the bog is about 7.2 ft. The bog is along the Phillips Memorial Trail, which can be found on Gracie Road. Lime Hollow Nature Center, Cortland, New York.
Listen to the Wood Thrush and other bird song in this short video.
A dragonfly landed on the log, in the above images, lying at my feet. This male Chalk-fronted Corporal (Ladona julia) is a skimmer dragonfly found in the northern United States and southern Canada.
Chalk-fronted corporal dragonfly
Juveniles of both sexes are light reddish brown, with white shoulder stripes and a black stripe down the middle of the abdomen. As they mature, males develop a white pruinescence on the top of the thorax and at the base of the abdomen, while the rest of the abdomen turns black. Females become almost uniformly dark brown, with a dusting of gray pruinescence near the base of the abdomen; a few develop the same color pattern as the males.
Chalk-fronted corporals often perch horizontally on the ground or on floating objects in the water as you can see it doing here. They are gregarious for dragonflies and are commonly seen perching in groups. They readily approach humans to feed on the mosquitoes and biting flies that humans attract.
We noticed a large patch of buttercups growing in a sunny patch along the trail. Petals of these buttercups are highly lustrous owing to a special coloration mechanism: the petal’s upper surface is very smooth causing a mirror-like reflection. The flash aids in attracting pollinating insects and temperature regulation of the flower’s reproductive organs.
Mesquite is the Sonoran Desert smell carried by distant rain, omnipresent and humble, a survivor with tap root extending 190 feet down to draw on the water table.
Prosopis is the scientific name for about 40 species of leguminous trees. Present in North America since the Pliocene era, mesquite wood has been dated to 1300 BC.
I found this flowering mesquite bush in Finger Rock Canyon of the Catalina Mountains outside Tucson, Arizona.
They are thought to have evolved with megafauna in the New World. The loss of North American megafauna at the end of the Pleistocene era gave way to one theory of how the Prosopis spp. were able to survive.
One theory is that the loss of the megafauna allowed Prosopis spp. to use their fruit pods to attract other organisms to spread their seeds; then, with the introduction of livestock, they were able to spread into grasslands.
The plentiful legumes that develop from these flowers are edible when cooked. The shape and color of the seeds can be understood from this empty seed pod that happens to lie near a tarantula burrow.
An excerpt from an interview by Diane Frances Wills of our father Thomas Francis Wills for a seventh-grade assignment about 1971. I did some editing to correct the date based on historical records and my father’s military records (Michael Stephen Wills).
Thomas enlisted for
the navy one day after his 24th birthday, September 25, 1939 and
served 6 years and a few weeks until October 7, 1945 having experienced the
Battle of the Atlantic (American Defense Medal) and liberation of the Philippines
(WWII Victory Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic Pacific Theater, Philippine
Liberation Ribbon). Here is his
description of an incident from that time:
Thomas Francis Wills, Ocean View Beach, Virginia, 1940
1 Year, 6 months after my enlistment in New York City, March 1941, on the USS Upshur two days out of Boston on its run to Reykjavik, Iceland delivering mail and supplies to the marines stationed to prevent the Germans from establishing a base. Steaming north we got word there was a gale blowing in our path. We all became apprehensive. I asked Bill Rogers, the radioman, about the approaching storm. “Say, Bill, I see by the weather report we’re heading info some rough weather. How long do you think it will last?”
“Yeah, according to the latest weather report it is a regular Northeaster and we can expect a couple days of rough winds and high waves, also very cold weather. We’ll have to secure everything topside so it won’t blow or be washed overboard. We can also expect very little in the way of normal meals except for maybe coffee and sandwiches.” On such a small ship the cooks can’t prepare meals in such weather.
USS Upshur, 1940, the ten-man crew, including Thomas Wills, is on the bow
As we approached the storm zone the sea got rough and the wind started blowing. Soon we were well into a horrible storm. The sky got dark and gloomy, full of dark bold clouds. The ocean rough, choppy and black. The rain started coming down sharp and harsh, cold and icy. The rain cut through your body like piercing arrows, it chilled your bones.
Sometimes I thought the ship was going to sink, the waves and the wind were so strong. The bow would go bluntly into the water. The ship listed sideways, seeming to almost rolling over. The waves carried our ship up, then go out from underneath sending us crashing down. This happened over and over, endlessly.
I was on duty in the radio shack and had to walk the whole length of the ship from my sleeping quarters. Many times, I almost went overboard, the wind was so strong. I could lay on my stomach but it did not help because I could still slide through the railings. I would freeze to death in five minutes in that water. I hope I never had to go through that again, seems like yesterday. All we had to wear was a sailor suit, not too warm. I’d just get all soaked.
My shipmates and I, a five-foot eight-inch boy of 25 with dark brown hair, had to be calm and keep doing our normal scheduled duties, because we learned you can’t get panicky or else you will put your whole ship out of order.
The storm went on until the end of night. I thought the storm would never end. It felt as if it lasted a week. At that time no other ships sailed with us, so there was no possibility of help. Nobody fell over the side or was drowned.
After that, a German U-Boat launched a torpedo at us and missed. We searched, tried to sink them without success.
Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
On my fourth morning, after I awoke to am immense silence, my first photography subject was the lone dry juniper you see below.
Then the dawn lit up the far mountains. You can view a larger image these mountains at dawn in my previous blog, “Superstition Wilderness Dawn.”
A Lone Dry Juniper
This is a photograph of that juniper tree, dryer than most, being dead. I take it to be a One-seed Juniper from the thick growth of branches and the strong rounded aspect of the crown. I captured this photograph from a tripod mount using a Kodak DCS slr/c with a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens.
Looking into Reavis Creek Canyon from Lime Mountain
I used the tripod to bracket this shot on the left and right for the following panorama.
The Reavis Creek Canyon from Lime Mountain while still in shadow, morning
The Spirit of Elisha Reavis
From this vantage you can see my route into Reavis Creek Canyon and Reavis Falls taken on the first afternoon of the expedition. That first morning I loaded up 65 pounds of food, supplies and photography equipment and headed out from the Reavis Trailhead on the Reavis Ranch Trail. This was one of the trailed used by Elisha Reavis to ride a favorite burro and a string of 8 to 15 burros loaded with vegetables he sold to various communities throughout central Arizona. See my blogs “A Ride to Reavis Ranch” and “Apple Orchard in the Wilderness“for views of the paradise (as of the early 21st century) where Elisha Reavis, lived and prospered in the latter part of the 19th century where he lived his 70’s.
This his mountain valley, using a perennial creek, Reavis cultivated and irrigated about fifteen acres of land by himself with chickens, turkeys, hogs, burros, two horses and several dogs. The horses, teamed together, pulled a shear plow, disc and leveler. On April 9, 1896 Reavis was preparing of another trip to Mesa, to buy seed potatoes, and was found by a friend a month later on what is now the Reavis Ranch trail, to the south and west of his valley, near what is now called Grave Canyon were friends buried him.
Past the Dry Juniper and Down
102 years later, I headed up the Reavis Ranch Trail, over the ridge of Lime Mountain and past this dry juniper in the same spirit as Elisha Reavis if for a different purpose.
Two Bar Mountain is only part of this view taken the evening of Day Three, my solo expedition to Reavis Falls in the Superstition Wilderness of Arizona.
The view encompasses most of the four day expedition, being the climb into the lower Reavis Creek Canyon from which I camped. I spent one entire day walking up the valley to the falls.
The patches of yellow on the far slopes to the left and into Reavis Valley are Mexican Poppy (Eschscholtzia californica) blooms.
To find lower Reavis Creek Canyon, look for the prominent cliff formation in the very center of the image. Follow the end of the cliff down to a dark shadow. The western canyon wall creates the heavy shadow. As you move to the right, in the image, the shadow becomes wider because the canyon wall becomes higher.
The view also encompasses a 2005 solo expedition over Two Bar Mountain using the Tule and Two Bar Ridge trails into the Superstition Wilderness around Pine Creek. See my blog “Racing the Sun” for an image Two Bar Mountain with the path of (most of) two days of that expedition.
An interesting feature of the full size image (lost in the small-scale reproduction of this blog) is the host of enormous saguaro cactuses marching up the sides of the canyon to the left, thinning out and ending on the western walls of the canyon (the slope directly beneath my viewpoint). Our course, each cactus is perfectly still, casting a huge shadow, and seems very tiny. The nearest is a mile away. We are seeing in this thinning host the lower Sonoran in transition to the upper Sonoran life zone.
All of this in one view from Lime Mountain. Here is another, taken just as the sun set.
Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 