It's been a while

It's been a long time since I have contributed to this blog. One Little Farm died when we were in Alamosa and decided to sell the critters and move back to the city for real jobs. We just weren't making it in the rural towns and neither Alamosa County nor Taos County would let us live in our Amish built camping cabin (shed) as a tiny house. Restrictions.

We moved the cabin to our Taos land and sold the Alamosa land and used the profit to pay off the cabin, our car and move to Pueblo, Colorado.

We rented a house from a slum lord for a year and then bought an old Victorian in the artsy part of town. My husband and I both had assorted jobs, but nothing that paid well enough to continue our work on our Taos land. Our stay in the city was supposed to be an opportunity to get our finances under control and slowly work on the land in Taos as a sustainable destination.

Until this last week, nothing has happened in Taos. We have gone down there a few times and painted the cabin, sided the pallet shed and painted it, and cleaned up some garbage (or rotting, weathered building supplies). We have battled the resident pack rat and filled in coyote burrows under the cabin.

Recently we took all of our solar supplies to the local solar guys to have them build us a workable system that is up to code and legitimate. It is supposed to be done next week. We will then have a "power wall" which we can plug the windmill and batteries into and run electricity to our shed and camping cabin. We need to get our water catchment system set up too. When those things are in place, we can go and stay there for the two weeks the county will allow.

Taos land buildings 2018

Meanwhile, one of us is working in New Mexico and one of us is working on the house in Pueblo. We both got our Masters degrees...him in Sustainable Community Development and me in Cultural Resource Management (I will pretend it is more related to anthropology than it is).

Victorian house sitting room remodel 2018

Sometimes I do art, but not lately. I still homeschool my kids. Mostly I work on the house when I do anything productive.

Front garden 2018

I do have a nice garden and am trying to build a food forest on the 6000 square foot lot.


So far I have plum, apple and peach trees, raspberries and strawberries, onions and garlic, chives, lavender, rosemary, and echinacea. I planted catnip in a pot for my cats. We rebuilt the raised beds with the same boards we originally bought when we were living in the Earthship outside of Taos. I plant annual veggies in the raised beds every year. The beds take up most of our front yard which is the only place we get enough sun to grow anything. The back yard is shaded by the house and half of it is cement...the remainder of an old garage or carriage house. I long for more space and fewer neighbors, but it is what it is.

I miss my llamas.

I have been writing on Medium.com since January 2019, hoping to finally make one of my artistic pursuits a reality that makes me some money. I have yet to make any money, but I am enjoying the writing and reading other writers' work. Medium is a great venue for writing and publishing.

I am thinking about starting another blog about my journey with the old Victorian house, but for now, I write on Medium. You can check out my work here.

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.

Pelicans, magpies and hummingbirds...for the birds, man!

I saw the Pelicans two more times. Both times with binoculars, and even Richard was there to witness the last sighting, on another lake just outside of Florence. That time there was only one majestic bird, looking a lot like a swan, except for the beak. Self-sacrifice, but also recognizing EGO and holding it at bay long enough to let the higher self shine through.

Also checked out my Crowley tarot deck (Yeah Susan, I have one too...although it has been a long time...synchronicity) and sure enough as my friend Susan, from Taos, reminded me the Pelican sits there with the Empress, the ultimate Mama and woman of power and strength (I will make it through this).

And one day I saw a single magpie, which I have not seen in these parts...odd, considering the geography, but right on, considering the meaning: anger, which boiled and bubbled inside of me one day last week until it exploded. I do regret that, although it is better to release it than to hold on to it.

We sold the goats. All of them. Richard could no longer milk them. although he tried and twisted his back the few days he did it--the result was another day on the floor or in bed or in the recliner, immobile. I tried too, but maybe not hard enough. It took me too long and they inevitably lost patience with me and started to squirm, lifting legs and sticking feet in the milk bucket...throw the whole batch away and try again tomorrow. I lost patience with trying. And I could not leave my little children alone so long. I chose the mom role rather than the milk maid.

Goats going to their new home

Another deciding factor: the kids, who have lost all control of themselves during Richard's down time. Is it the excitement of seeing Dad (on the floor in the living room), or something else? A little nagging voice in my head reminded me of how I used to call them my ADD babies when they were in my womb (how they twisted and tumbled), but the tantrums and the bouncing off the walls, the shrieking and running for the roads when outside, the general craziness begged to be examined. So I did a little research on ADHD, which they might be and found something even more disturbing...so  many of their behaviors matched mild cases of Autistic children. Either way, they appear to be on the PDD spectrum or the autistic spectrum. What can I do, I thought? Remove all dairy and gluten from their diet. Should see results in as little as three days or as long as six months. GFCF here we go! Don't need the goats anymore anyway.

The people who bought the whole herd were the same people we bought the three mamas from two years ago. Crazy. They love them already and will take very good care of them.

Richard went back to our Naturopath, who is a remarkable healer, and he walked out of there upright and better than I have seen him since this all began. He did have an MRI, which we don't know the results of, but we are trying to avoid a surgery, and instead are focusing upon spiritual matters. Messages from the Universe come in all forms.While he tries to figure out his issues, I'm trying to work through mine too.

I also sold my 23 baby chicks off to various people. Without the CSA (we sent all the money back to our shareholders), we don't need so many chickens. Eggs are backing up in my fridge.

I've been angry and frustrated. I can't get the gardens ready fast enough. I can't be the mom, the maid, the house cleaner, the cook, the masseuse, the gardener and the stable boy. My head is spinning and my body is so sore. My back is starting to hurt. Hey, maybe I should just sell the llamas too and head to NM and begin again. I search the internet for cheap properties...and Richard gets worse, his legs hurting and cramping (fear of moving) every time I talk of moving to NM.

Stuck back in my cage. I still have my llamas and 20 old hens and three entertaining roosters, two wandering guineas (more neighbors report them in their yards), and no money to hire help. Life is so good right now I can feel it transferring into my body...if something doesn't give I will be on the floor next to Richard. A comedy of errors indeed!

Maybe farming is not for us.

Ah, summer is coming and in rolls the chaos that usually arrives with the heat.

One of the estimates I got on finishing some of the projects (I have been trying, but just can't get it all done) was from our old friend with the Earthship...such a great man, and so spiritually aware. We decided to enlist his help for as much as we can afford...I think we need his wonderful energy as much as his construction expertise. Maybe the llama earthbag barn will get finished before it falls down. Yippee!

We walk blindly through our lives, creating a reality we don't understand or know how to relate to, unaware that we hold the power deep within to change it all.

The hummingbirds are back, buzzing me as I do my outside chores...there's meaning in that too, I know.