New Mexico, Segunda Parte

Okay, lets see if I can speak about New Mexico without using "desert" as my sole descriptor and without Blogger blowing up in my face as it's been wont to do lately.  And....go!

At the farm I discovered that mesquite--the wood often used to grill or smoke delicious meats--looks like this:

It was growing all over the farm and when they made us dinner all they had to do was go over and kick off a few dead branches to add to the grill.  It smelled great and also made a lovely fire to see each other by as we ate. (You can't make a fire on the ground out there because the wildfire risk is so high.  There are plenty still burning through the woodlands as we speak.)

 

Here, also, are pictures of the indoor kitchen (in a camper). The milk-house, and an outdoor bath area with a solar shower.

And let us not forget, the donkeys that guard the goats! They were extremely sweet and approachable, but Pat (our adorable farm-hand tour guide) said that was partly because he'd spoiled them with carrots that morning. :D

 

I learned so much from my visit to the farm and can't wait to see what they have in store for next time.

Before we left the homestead we stopped to take a closer look at the Rio Grande:

Then we went for a quick bath at the Riverbend hot-springs (a gorgeous place also owned by the farm-owner) where you can walk from the natural hot mineral-springs down a stairway into the ice-cold Rio Grande.

After re-warming myself in the hottest pool (boy did it tingle!), Heather and I got dressed and hit the road to our next adventure!

New Mexico, Una Parte

On our first day in New Mexico Heather and I drove from Albuquerque to Truth or Consequences, a town known formerly known as "Hot Springs".  Decades ago they changed their name to that of a popular quiz-show that promised to fete any town willing to do so.  The show did so for many years and the town still has a festival every year to celebrate the name.

On our drive to T or C we stopped at a rest area and found this sign:

And this spiny, lovely, and also edible, prickly-pear cactus: 

Both served as reminders that we were about to go trodding through a desert and should be sure to mind our tootsies. (Unfortunately the closest I ever came to a live snake was at the Living Desert Museum. My oldest son was very disappointed.)

The farm in T or C was fascinating.  It's owned by a man whose goal is to one day make it completely self-sustaining and they're making great strides toward that goal. Currently they have a windmill that pumps water from a 200 ft deep well they drilled themselves, solar panels that provide more energy than they currently consume, and an Earthship that could weather almost any natural disaster: 

The picture above is of the inside of the Earthship.  Earthships are buildings made of discarded tires and rammed earth, usually set into a hill. Seen from the outside it looked like a hill, in fact, rather like a hobbit hole...in the desert.  The interior ceiling, as you can see, is decorated with a beautiful lava rock collage and formed of a cement-mix the owner created himself to withstand just about any sort of doomsday.  The floors are made of papercrete molded over more tires filled with rammed earth.  It was a comfortable place brimming with artwork, painting nooks, and collections of odds and ends picked up at various places around the property, such as seashells, Native-American pottery shards, arrowheads, and fossils.

There was also an ancient mortar and pestle as well as another grinding stone both found on the property. As demonstrated by Heather:

The garden there is currently being planted and it was amazing to see how they've managed in a desert: by uncovering fertile soil beneath the sand.  They are right now working to install a drip irrigation system to make it more efficient and less wasteful.

As you can see by the bench pictured above, and the very usable stairs (not to mention the Earthship) they've found old tires to be an extremely useful and frugal commodity!  

For meat and milk, they keep goats. They make cheese and yogurt as well as a delicious and healthy shake (we very much enjoyed) made from whey (a byproduct of cheese-making). 

We arrived at the goat enclosure moments after a pair of baby does (female dairy-goat kids) were born.  Their plaintive bleats were captivating--perfectly pitched to tug at heart-strings. You can see the babies cuddled up between the fence and the trough in the picture above.

There is so much more to tell, but since Blogger is being troublesome (I couldn't even log in the past three days!) I'm going to save the rest for another post (or 2 or 3).  Thanks for reading! :D