This week I got to be on balloon crew!
The weather was perfect for flying. Hardly any wind at all, and not a cloud in the sky. When I pulled up to the launch area it was still dark out, and overhead was a balloon flying low. Every time it used its burners the entire balloon lit up from inside. It was an astonishing and gorgeous sight. The balloon dangled a bunch of sparkly lights from its basket.
I asked about that balloon. Everyone said, “Oh, that’s dawn patrol.” As if it was nothing.
Dawn patrol is not nothing. It began at Balloon Fiesta in 1978. The balloonists, who have to have a special license to fly dawn patrol, take off in complete darkness, and fly until it’s light enough to see the landing sites. Other balloon pilots use the dawn patrol to see the various air currents - their speeds and directions at different altitudes. It’s really dangerous, flying dawn patrol - you can’t see where the ground is before the sun comes up. Nor can you see power lines.
But spectators love the dawn patrol. The flight control tower at the Albuquerque airport has actually relayed requests from planes in the air for the dawn patrol to light up their balloons so that the airline pilots can point the balloons out to their passengers. Too cool for school.
Anyway, this was my second time attempting to be useful on balloon crew, so I noticed a lot more things than I had been able to take in the first time. Like how many safety features there are - stainless steel cables hooked in precisely perfect ways that keep the basket affixed to the burner apparatus. Fire blankets, in case there’s fire in the air.
I’m not sure I appreciated, last time, how enormous the “envelope” is. That’s what the actual balloon is called. Here’s a photo of the balloon I was crew for lying on the ground, prior to being inflated. Look at the length of that envelope compared to the people!
And here’s a balloon inflating next to us:
Once it’s in the air, you can tell how big it is when you see the basket - which has full grown humans riding inside it - and see how small the basket looks compared to the rest of the balloon.
My favorite thing from this episode of balloon crew was probably the moment when the balloon, fully inflated, rose up above us. The entire crew, at this point, puts all their weight on the side of the basket, to keep the thing from flying off without anyone piloting it. So, there were several of us on each side of the basket, and everyone was looking down - as if they were looking inside the basket. I wanted to look up! I wanted to look at the balloon! Of course, we had inflated the balloon in a sandy parking lot. So as soon as it rose up above us, all the loose gravel and dirt that it had gathered while it was on the ground rained down - on my face! (Ha! Next time, when I see everyone else on balloon crew looking at the ground, I’m going to look down, too!)
Here’s a photo of the balloon back on the ground - we've begun the process of deflating it. In this photo you can see that the very top of the balloon is actually separate from the rest of the envelope. By pulling on those lines that you see attached to the center section, the pilot can let hot air escape from the balloon, which will then cause the balloon to lose altitude. In this balloon that top portion is decorated with a Zia.
The Zia is an ancient symbol, representing the sun and the four sacred obligations: to develop a strong body, a clear mind, a pure spirit, and a devotion to the welfare of others. I love that symbolism. It is featured on the flag of the State of New Mexico.
In farm news, Rosa got bred this week, and Big Red is still alive!
That chicken is a marvel. She’s gotten completely accustomed to us picking her up and carrying her to sit in the yard, or putting her back into her nesting box. She is having a hard time sitting up now, so we generally prop her up on a brick. You kind of have to tuck her useless legs underneath her just right. But, she seems to be interested in everything, and has a great appetite. What a strange journey she’s on.
My soap website is finally launched. What a huge hurdle it was getting the website all hooked up so that it could take money and tell me to send people soap. All I wanted, when I started on this journey, was to figure out a way that our goats’ milk would not go to waste. In the State of New Mexico, it is illegal to sell goat milk for human consumption. So, I thought, if I learned how to make soap from their milk, we would have a way of using the milk that we couldn’t drink or feed to our animals.
It’s been an enormous project, and I’ve gotten much better at making soap since the beginning. My first batch of solo soap came out looking a bit like lard with maple syrup poured over it.
The things I’ve learned, though, about the soap that is available commercially, have been sobering. So, I’m pleased to be able to offer soap that is environmentally friendly in every way. Including packaging and shipping.
Anyway, if you’re interested, check out my website: SerenaSoaps.com.
My cousin’s grandson, Zach, did the photography. I think he’s brilliant. You can find his website in the FAQ section of my website (at the bottom of the home page).
Here’s a photo of sale soap:
And now I'm hard at working perfecting shampoo bars! No more plastic bottles! AND I've got the essential oil that is a recreation of the 1970s Herbal Essence shampoo that I adored. What could be better?