Life on the homestead. Life in Taos.

Haven't written for a while. Been feeling down with little money to invest in Our Place. It's hard to sit at home when we want to be out on our land building. We did pick up a bunch of metal barrels off of Freecycle, which Richard wants to turn into biochar and rocket stoves. We took the barrels out to the land, but didn't do much else. I meditated on the serenity as a Raven circled our work area.

Life in Taos goes on in the weird ways it normally does.

New business on the Mesa

There is a new bus out on the Mesa, called The General Store Bus. Wonderful. We did not stop in, but signs say they carry pet food, firewood and car parts. And pizza. Competition for the ice cream/coffee/burger bus?

This past week I went on an adventure of sorts, wildcrafting with a local herbalist.

Mullein--first year

On our day trip, I got to see the beautiful trees. Fall is here. I can no longer turn a blind eye to the snow that is coming.

Aspens in the Ski Valley

Today, while at home on the 'Stead, I followed Fluffy around. He's my giant Cochin Buff rooster. Reminds me a little of my tiny Cochin Napoleon from the Colorado homestead. I miss that fiesty little roo. (He died mysteriously one morning. Sad, sad day for me.) Here in NM this past week or so we lost one of the ducks to some mysterious illness. One day they are fine, the next day, stiff as a board, lying in the yard. No amount of research has yet yielded an adequate answer.

Fluffy Pants/Fancy Pants the Roo and Guadelupe the lonely duck.

While I play with my chickens, the always inquisitive llamas stick their noses into my business. Or, maybe they are just saying hi.

"Hey, whatcha doin'?"

And an ultralight airplane soars overhead as I watch the hot air balloons rising over the hills (Taos Gorge balloon rides). Interesting morning.

 Ultralight?

Also caught two snakes in the mudroom this past week. Bull snakes, but they do a fine impersonation of a rattlesnake. Caught on two different days. One huge one...about five feet long, and then a tiny baby about a foot long. An angry baby--hissing and striking at the glass of the jar we caught him in. He puffed his head up into a diamond shape, and he is so lucky he did not have a rattle nub on the end of his smooth tail.

Snake medicine.

I have decided to take an herbology course when the funds come in.

Sold a painting. An original no less. Not much money, but enough to buy 20 bales of hay for the llama boys. Stocking up for the winter. The next art sale goes for propane. Or maybe to register the trailers. Or the van. So many choices. Buy some art here!!

Just another amusing week in northern New Mexico.

Another entertaining week in magical Taos

This past week we went to the Blue Moon/labyrinth/Regeneration ceremonies at the New Buffalo Center. We took the back road across the mesa and down into the gorge and crossed at the John Dunn Bridge by the hot springs. It is pretty down there. I haven't been down there for like eight years or so. The Hondo Valley seemed incredibly green. More so than I remembered when we used to live there.

View of the gorge and Rio Grande from John Dunn Bridge road.

New Buffalo is wonderful. It's very green with gardens full of growing vegetables. I guess Bob, our host, took corn directly from the garden and then the ears went into a boiling pot of water on the kitchen stove. Wish I could have tasted that fresh from the garden corn on the cob. Richard and I were fasting, so we did not partake in the wonderful  food that everyone brought for the potluck. We took gluten and dairy free zuchini bread, which Richard made, and the kids loved.

Turns out our children were the only kids there, until much later when another boy arrived, and so they became the center of the ceremony honoring the youth in our community. We walked the labyrinth with the little ones. The labyrinth was quite large and located in the field below the Barn, or formally the house Richard and I started building ten years ago and gave away seven years ago. (Long, sad story, fraught with emotion.)

My son visiting with the Crystal Skull. Barn house in the background.

One of the most exciting things...well, there were many, was the arrival and presentation of the crystal skull that some kind man brought. Being an anthropologist, I was interested in this very old and rock like petrified item. It looked like the skull of an ancient woman, which the man claimed it was. It also looked like a rock, which it also was, being thousands and thousands of years old. Very interesting. It certainly lent an air of mystery and awe to the event.

The sun set in an amazing show of color as the big, old, full moon rose in the east at the same time. Pretty incredible. The kids were pretty good, considering the ceremony was much longer than we can really expect them to sit still and be focused. They didn't do anything too strange, and I never even alerted our host and former neighbor Bob about my daughter's autistic condition.

The most fun was back in the remodeled community room at New Buffalo, where we had a drum circle. It never ceases to amaze me how incredible the drum parties are in this town. There was a harpist, the man who does the maintenance on the Earthship we live in, and guitarists, and everyone else was just free styling it on the drums. Wonderful. The kids loved it, picking out different instruments from the basket on the shelf behind our built in bench.

Drum circle and music at New Buffalo.

New Buffalo used to be a hippy commune in the 1960's. The movie Easy Rider has a commune scene in it based on New Buffalo, although the setting was staged in California for the movie. The first time we lived in Taos, we bought a small piece of land and the old commune dairy barn from the original owners, who were still there at the time. We turned the barn into a house...a much too large house we couldn't really afford, and so it eventually was sold off to the current owners. Bob bought New Buffalo around the same time and has since turned it into a thriving, community based learning and sharing center.

So our Blue Moon celebration was interesting with the fasting, the old emotions welling up over seeing the barn after so many years, the crystal skull, the kids being the honorees, and the time and place all coming together to create a magical evening. Thank you Bob.

This week, I also got to sit in the gallery where the Arte de Descartes XII show is being held. All of the artists were supposed to volunteer some time to help manage the hours of the gallery during the show. I spent my four hours studying the art, making tiny house plans for one of our cabins, and occasionally talking to potential customers.

That's my recycled wood art piece: Safariarte.

Out on the land Richard got the window put in the pallet shed and put on a door from the stack of glass doors and windows we took out there. We have been moving these glass panels around with us, hoping to build something with them. It looks like we will use them in our house. We also cleared some more sage in the location where our 20 x 20' house/cabin will be.

Pallet shed with window and door.

Richard held his chicken processing class this past Saturday, which was a success for the two folks who came. He plans on doing another in a few weeks to eliminate the many roosters we have in our flock.

Processing chickens.

Also next weekend (September 15), Richard is holding a canning class our here at the Earthship. Hope to see lots of people at this one. Food security is so important as the craziness in our world continues. If you are in  and around the area and want to come, please contact me in the comments. Also, anyone interested in the art, contact me. I will pay for half of shipping if anyone wants to hang this piece in their kid's room.