The Farm, Chaco Canyon and farewell to New Mexico

dateline: Grand Canyon
Some of this is out of chronological order because we were busy living instead of writing, and the photos took a very long time to download from the camera. [Some photos are taken from my iPhone and others, the ones which took so long, are from our Sony digital camera.] We also want to thank everyone who's visiting the site and commenting or emailing us with comments. It's fun to have the connection to home.

Kaibabs not withstanding, here is the only jackalope we have seen on the trip. I guess they've moved to South America. It was situated on the corner of a large furniture and decorative arts shopping area in Santa Fe, not far from our hotel. Postcards have also been scarce (in Farmington, only Walmart carried them; sadly we didn't visit there). After another delicious breakfast at Chocolate Maven, whose staff also packed sandwiches for our supper, we left Santa Fe in caravan with Moria, Crystal and Wink to El Guique. On the way we drove through San Juan Pueblo, native land, and a very pretty town in the river washes. That afternoon Steve conveniently was working at the Seeds of Change farm and Moria showed us around. It is the most well organized and beautiful farm I have ever seen. There are no livestock, but the fruit trees were well maintained, the irrigation system organized [right], fields plowed, the greenhouses tidy and the offices/ seed area [above right] professionally managed. The farm is an old one in the Rio Grande valley and has terrific water rights. Still, it is arid farming in the high desert, and the nights are still too cold for seedlings to be outside yet. Alice found Santa Fe to be challenging because of the elevation and the hotel room stimulated allergies. So, with sunblock, hats, medicine, plenty of clothing coverage and staying in the car, caution prevailed and all was well. Moria also showed us some petroglyphs up the road from the farm, probably from Pueblo people. As in Chaco, spiral patterns were frequent. Do spirals mean water is here?

Saying goodbye with promises to converge on San Mateo in a year, we drove north to Abiquiu and turned toward Farmington at the dam (earlier picture). This, too, was beautiful juniper/pinyon forest land and we drove by the road to Chaco Canyon where we had visited on Sunday, March 23 with Sarah and Tory. We felt we had a good experience of the beautiful landscape of northern New Mexico.

We arrived back at Farmington on Wednesday night, where Sarah and Tory graciously put us up for one last night--we had another good conversation, this time with the addition of their friend Simon, born in Albuquerque, and whose Chavez family has roots in New Mexico going back hundreds of years. He still manages their historic family farm south of Albuquerque, as well as working as an industrial safety educator.

So here are some impressions of Chaco Canyon taken by Jim. The first is a view of Pueblo Bonito, the largest of the complexes in this canyon. The second is the largest kiva with Sarah and Tory on the rim to give you an idea of the monumental scale of these buildings. Finally below left is Alice's favorite, Jim's shooting through the doorways at Pueblo Bonita. A midday day visit at this time of year without cloud cover is very sunny and reminded Alice of being at UC Irvine, where she never went outside between 10am and 2pm. We had been warned about possible cold temperatures, but there was nothing remotely like that this day.

Sarah and both Torys, younger and elder, were unfailingly good humored, humorous, thoughtful and very hospitable. Here is a charming photo of the Teofanov/Larsen duo standing before their front door, designed by Sarah [photo credit from T/L archive]. It meant a lot to reconnect with them, and we hope to see them in Seattle before long.

Seeds of Change, Mrs. Bobbs's garden and Albuquerque Jim

Dateline: Grand Canyon, Friday 3/28

Our Tuesday morning in Santa Fe dawned early, but as usual we did not, to have a delicious breakfast at Chocolate Maven, a bakery/restaurant we found using TripAdvisor. During the noon hour, we met Steve at his workplace, Seeds of Change [right], where he coordinates seed growers and works on product development. He seems in his element, and showed us around, with the high point being the darkened seed room, which contained a ton of potential energy. Steve continues his quest to help feed the world's people in a healthy, delicious and sustainable way.
We then met up with Moria, Cryssy and Wink in the downtown of Pueblo Santa Fe, for lunch at Pasqual's [left]. This satisfied our desire to experience southwestern food at its source, in a town that was established five hundred years ago.
We made up a fun party in a dining room festooned with Chagallesque murals in a very Santa Fe style, chiles and other items that hung from the ceiling. Nothing extravagant, but very playful, and the food was terrific--mole negra, red and green chiles, prepared expertly and very fresh: enchiladas with even vegetarian fillings! Wink took Steve back to work, and the rest of us proceeded to Moria's client's garden, where Moria is head gardener for a large and traditional Santa Fe house and grounds owned by the charming Mrs. Bobbs [Alice and Moria right].

We learned that the house, in the genuine adobe style, was built in 1939. Thick walls, beautiful wood for the windows, doors and ceilings of boards supported by logs. Very distinctively styled, with a Steinway grand piano and many unique books written in the southwest over the past hundred years or so: Mrs. Bobbs had owned a bookstore, and responded to our deep interest in these rare volumes. [The Garden library above]. Moria was apologetic about the garden, still some ways from spring opulence, but it was beautifully laid out and filled with clever hardscape, much of it created by local artists. Some flowers such as crocuses were already blooming, and we were glad to discover the garden model railway [above] and a very large labyrinth [left]. The staff will be placing the labyrinth's tiles out soon, stored over the winter to avoid freezing. A new shipment of roses had arrived, and the three gardeners were busy with pruning and preparations. Sensitive to the very large garden's history, Moria adds her own distinctive artistic vision and practical knowledge of garden planning and execution, including xeriscape. The large property, located in the old, nearly downtown part of Santa Fe cleverly has wells and two lots in the municipal accounts so that staff can water 6 days a week instead of only three. Santa Fe, of course, has water rationing. [Fractal spiral with labyrinth at right.]
Later, we experienced Santa Fe rush hour traffic, as we navigated around an unfamiliar city with the car's usually reliable nav system, collecting a quiche, vegetables and other things for our second dinner at Steve's and Moria's, en famille with Cryssy and Wink. We saw many beautiful images of Mrs. B's gardens at different times of the year, when the various plantings are at their peaks. Dinner was a collaborative effort, with trips outside to see the river, garden, and the improvised potting shed that will someday be a more established greenhouse.

While Moria was showing Alice slides of a recent trip to Costa Rica, others were up to no useful purpose in the dining room, with much laughter of the sort that kept getting to the next (lowest) level. Beginning with a wacky plot to ride down the road to experience the toughness of dive bars in New Mexico's largest city, while anticipating our 40th high school reuinion next year, we began to riff on the building of a new legend, Albuquerque Jim. The rhythm of this phrase led to song expressing the hair-raising fearfulness of this icon of power and mystery, and the tale got to be very tall indeed, tall enough for all of us to confront our classmates of long ago without fear of embarassment. [Crystal and Wink, above, anticipate the next ridiculous plot.]

Much about the sidekick bull kaibabs, steroid fortified, and tied up with the origin story in a mysterious way. Kaibabs are a subspecies of Abert's squirrel, found only on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, for whom the Kaibab National Forest is named. These are gracile creatures with white tufted tails, but in our lexicon they took on a menacing mien. We traced the evolution of Albuquerque Jim with glee, from an invertebrate to humanoid via the intercession of the great bull kaibab and his similarly huge and fearful fellows, who pulled Jim's stagecoach. The legend will likely grow, including the amazing appearance of the now-legendary secondary sex characteristics. Crystal wondered whether Paul Bunyan got his start this way. Late into the night, we could not stop laughing. [Steve, Moria and Cryssy admit it's hopeless.]