Moving back to Toas...the Universe is talking to me

My own silence weighs on me with the burden of a necessary self-examination. Trust your intuition, even if it appears there are no options. When your body and emotions are telling you something is not right, when your kids are acting crazier than normal, and your dog/puppy has turned into a psychotic attack dog, when your house plants are suddenly all sick and dying, and the recently (past two and a half years) quiet parrot has started screaming like a banshee again, when you're afraid to go outside and feel like a prisoner in a strange house, maybe it's time to listen to what the Universe is saying.

We moved the farm to New Mexico over the past two months. We are just outside of Taos in a place that is not unfamiliar, but strange with the taint of money. Is all of Taos like this? I just don't remember. Maybe I didn't care.

Tipped trailer, surprisingly not damaged...except the hitch.

On the move, I wrecked the trailer on La Veta Pass...flipped it on its side on a patch of ice...thought I was going to flip the car too, but managed not to. And as we came to a stop facing the wrong direction on the wrong side of the road, facing the guard rail a few feet away, my adrenaline shooting through my veins, it did not occur to me how close to death I had brought my children and myself, but how that damn pass seemed to have it in for me. It was on the other side, heading up from Taos that I hit a deer some years ago and trashed the front end of my Xterra to the tune of five grand. Lucky for me no one was hurt in either of my La Veta Pass adventures, but I sure have a hard time driving through there now without a full blown panic attack coming on.

E-ship shell, sage and Taos Mountain

But now we have landed in northern NM and the weekend we had to build a chicken coop was one of the coldest all year. The arrangement we have now puts the llamas and chickens some miles away at another property until we can build them fences and shelters here near the house we are renting. They are in the shell of a burned out Earthship on the north side of Taos, but you can't see them from anywhere, unless you are really looking for them.

Passive solar chicken coop in Earthship shell

We managed to get the coop built and everyone arranged, but it still took several lights for warmth and a few weeks for our hens to start laying normally again. I guess they are traumatized too. We did lose a few to coyotes, I'm guessing. All we found was a mess of feathers that might have once belonged to one of the four missing hens. Now, the chickens are guarded by llamas who are enclosed with electric wire.

Nothing is ideal, but we are getting by. We have found a few egg customers already and Richard touched base with some old co-workers at the Corps.

Taos is Taos...so much the same but with more people now. There are places built up here too, just like in the big cities. There are kiddie car shopping carts here too, but some of these have their own bumper stickers, reminding the young drivers to treat everyone with kindness. There is an Occupy Movement here too, but I have not met anyone or gotten involved yet. It seems I'm too caught up in the drama of my own life. I was reading Howard Zinn's A Peoples History of the United States... and got way too angry with the founding peoples of America to continue, convinced that we are now in some strange tenant farmer situation, and I'm angry and disappointed at the elitist, judgmental folks who run the world. (Yes, I have been examining my anger issues and trying to release my need to draw these situations into my life.) It would seem that 1% of the white and powerful, the rich and corrupt, have been doing bad in this country since it's very beginning.

I am driven more than ever now to find a community of like-minded folks who want to be the positive change this planet needs to survive the coming downfall of the powerful American reign. I think a lot of the west gorge area and the mesa where people seem to make their own rules. I long to meet and talk with some of these open minded folks to see how their community differs so vastly from the mainstream world where resources are hoarded and people are exploited to gain more.

We are still searching for our piece of land to build our little sustainable farm, and I'm afraid that the place we are now is not really doable for more than the very short term. It is an emotional minefield of some variety, and the energy is wrong. I'd love to have some peace and not have to worry about my dogs and where Richard left something, and how the llamas and chickens are so far away.

Since we moved into this house, I have been dreaming of Paris. Weird. At night I dream of moving to France...packing, getting on a plane, making all of the arrangements. Can't figure it out. When we lived in Portland, Oregon for a total of four miserable months, I dreamed of Africa. I never did figure that out either, but I'm guessing it has something to do with being in an unhappy situation and looking for a way out.

I certainly don't want to offend anyone, and hope I don't, but when the kids, the dogs, the bird, the houseplants and my dreams are all telling me that something is not right, shouldn't I do something about it?

Maybe the Mountain is testing me again. But you know what...I won't be chased off this time. It doesn't even matter. I won't go back to a house that is on the verge of falling into an old mine shaft because of earth tremors caused by fracking. No way.

I made it back to my beloved NM and I'm not leaving. Stay tuned though. We may end up out in the sage sooner rather than later.

This is my new kitchen view.

An Arroyo Seco sunset through trees...another view  from the house.

Nothing beats a New Mexican sunset when the sky is on fire and the day goes out like a fresh painting. I have come home to the land of art, where every scene is a magnificent creation by the Master Artist.