Right Turn at Albuquerque©

The Anniversary Cave

2010-06-04T21:48:00.000-07:00

Jon and I spent our 6th anniversary in Kokopelli Cave in Farmington, NM. It should be one of the seven wonders of the world--a 1250 sq. ft. cave blown out of the sheer cliff face, fully furnished and stocked with all manner of food, drinks, and amenities. It was the perfect, romantic way to celebrate our six years together!

After our one-night stay in the cave, we visited nearby Mesa Verde national park to see the amazing ancient cliff dwellings of the Anasazi.

We spent our remaining evening in lovely Durango, Colorado, a perfect way to end our sixth wedding anniversary.

Musical Inclinations

2010-04-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

Two of several reasons we've been so busy (and not updating the blog):

I'm taking fiddle lessons while Jon is enrolled in guitar. We've also been practicing and teaching ourselves at home from online video tutorials and sheet music. It's such a blast, we're wondering why we didn't pursue music this passionately earlier in our lives. Our first round of lessons ends in just a couple of weeks, and we'll miss them!

We experienced the unifying power of music last night when my family came over to celebrate my mom and dad's 50th wedding anniversary. We had a small, informal family dinner at our place (BBQ ribs and potato salad with celebratory champagne!), and I broke out my fiddle to play a song I had been learning all week for the occasion: Auld Lang Syne. The song couldn't be further from an anniversary song (look up the lyrics sometime), but it's such a beautiful song on the violin and it's in my songbook, so I couldn't resist playing it for them.

As I played (despite the screeching and missplaced notes--I'm still learning), I watched everyone's face relax and their eyes wander off into distant places in their minds. But nothing was more gratifying than to hear my mom begin to softly sing along--in French. Apparently, Americans aren't the only ones who sing this song each New Year's Eve. And my mom said that during WWII, people sang it to each other as a way to say "we'll see each other again". It was so moving to play along with my mom's sweet voice.

Then my brothers took a stab at playing my violin--which was pretty funny--and Jon broke out his guitar, which prompted my brothers to participate in showing him a few chords, since both of them are proficient in guitar and bass. The evening became a serenade of various instruments and my mom and I listening to bluegrass tunes I want to learn to play on the fiddle someday from my iPod in the other room.

As Leonard Bernstein is credited with saying, "music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable." Last night, it certainly brought our family together in a delightful way we've never experienced.

Name Our Farm!

2010-04-19T14:42:00.000-07:00

We're ready to register our farm name in the state of New Mexico, and we'd like your help!

Here's the backstory on a few name candidates we've come up with. Vote in the poll provided below the backstory!

A few facts about the farm:

produce only, driven by market requirements and our ability to grow (so far we've grown watermelons, cantaloupes, tomatoes, Japanese eggplant, herbs, chiles and sweet peppers, beans, cucumbers, and squash)
we'll be a local provider, not national (within 100 miles of the farm)
we use organic practices but are not certified organic (at least not right away)
not only do we plan to sell our own produce, we'd like to also distribute for other local farmers

Name Candidates:

1. Thunderhead Farms - We always marvel at the enormous thunderheads that accumulate in the big skies of New Mexico during summer growing season.

2. Que Sera Farms - After the song "Que Sera, Sera", "what will be, will be". With farming, so many elements are out of our control, and each season is a miracle. "Que sera" is also a great life philosophy--have faith, let go, and live in the present.

3. Maximus Farms - As many of our friends know, Maximus was our first pet together (a very fat cat), and we moved him to the farm from San Francisco. He's since passed, and we've entertained the idea of naming our farm after him, designating a % of any proceeds to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah.

4. Cat Scratch Farms - Just a funny name, and indicative of our two current cats. Again, % proceeds would go to the animal sanctuary (which we plan to do no matter what we name the farm).

5. Labyrinth Farms - "A thoughtful path to better living." We were married in San Anselmo at a seminary that featured a meditation labyrinth. The labyrinth became a symbol throughout our wedding festivities, and we plan to build a small one on our farm. Labyrinths symbolize spiritual focus and make for cool (and memorable) designs. Many small farms feature a "corn maze" or labyrinth for kids to run through during harvest festivals, and we could incorporate something like this into the farm.

Please vote! Also, comment with your own ideas. We'd love to hear them!

poll by twiigs.com

The Sound of Silence

2010-03-04T18:59:00.001-08:00

It's been a long time since we've updated the blog. Busy times! Jon has been researching and writing articles for the Health Fitness Professionals Network in addition to preparing for Spring projects on the farm, and I've continued to be overwhelmed with work at Autodesk--but better busy than unemployed!

We're also trying to decipher and wrap up our tax return (like everyone else in the U.S. this month) while trying to figure out what we want to do when we grow up. It's been long days and long nights at our desks, eagerly awaiting the first budbreaks of Spring....

And just Monday I made the delightful discovery of finding already-flowering crocuses while accompanying the cats on their daily outing in our courtyard. Then I noticed that all of our other bulb flowers have started to break ground. If you have a garden and haven't planted bulbs--they are the most gratifying display of early Spring after a long, desolate winter. Can't wait for longer, warmer days!

Sabbatical Recap VII - Playing in the Desert

2010-01-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

One of the highlights of my sabbatical was an overnight camping trip near the Chihuahuan Desert in southern New Mexico. Jon and I decided to do the overnight trip on one of the two days the Trinity Site is open each year, so we could stop by the historic site and learn more about the Manhattan Project and the first atomic test detonation on July 16, 1945.

So, we packed the car and took off for the long, six hour drive through Socorro, the Trinity Site, a gorgeous area called the Valley of Fires (a sprawling valley of ancient petrified lava that's really something to see), then off to Alamogordo to head to our campsite at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park. It rained on our way through Alamogordo, one of New Mexico's dramatic, Indian Summer thunderstorms that lit the brooding sky on fire and cooled off the 80-degree temperatures.

We arrived at our campsite after the rain, and a couple hours before dark, just in time to set up camp in the waning daylight. The campsites around us were abuzz with activity: families setting up their tents or hooking up their RVs to a water source, walking around to orient themselves to the grounds and exercise their dogs--until suddenly Jon and I noticed that the campground became very quiet. Everyone had disappeared, and we realized that we were the only ones left on the grounds. We joked that perhaps incognito G-men from the nearby White Sands Missile Range stealthily abducted them and that perhaps we were the rejects.

I walked to the ranger station to see if anyone was still on duty, but it was closed. Instead, I found an announcement on the bulletin board that a full moon was to rise that night. Everyone had gone to a 7:00 storytelling about native American moon folklore at the group shelter. Apparently the park rangers do this for every advent of a full moon at Oliver Lee park, and it's such a great idea. Too bad we missed it, but we certainly didn't miss the drama and the glory of the full moon slowly making its grandiose entrance over the Sacramento mountains escarpment, shining brighter than any flashlight ever could. It was so close to the earth, its light shone nearly like daylight well into the wee hours of the morning--and it was fabulous. We toasted the moon with a glass of wine while cooking our dinner over an open fire and retiring to a game of gin rummy by moonlight.

In the morning we cooked breakfast, packed camp, and took a quick hike up part of the Dog Canyon trail, the main attraction at Oliver Lee. We didn't make it very far into the canyon before deciding to turn around as we were running short on time, but by all accounts it's a New Mexico hike you don't want to miss. On our drive out of the camping area, we were greeted by a tarantula wandering lost in the road, perhaps to tell us, "y'all come back now, ya hear?". This was the first time either of us had encountered a live tarantula in nature, and it was the crescendo to an already fascinating trip.

After our short hike, we headed to White Sands national monument to play in the blinding gypsum dunes for a couple of hours before making the long drive back home. Growing up in New Mexico, I only had one opportunity to visit this unique place in all the world but was thwarted by a haboob-style sandstorm, and being only 12 miles away this time around, I didn't want to miss even just a short visit.

Mid-way home, we had the pleasure of stopping at Laughing Sheep farm near Lincoln, New Mexico, to stock up on grass-fed beef, pork, and elk--the latter for dinner that evening, thanks to the fine cooking skills of our dear friends and neighbors Karen and Jerry. After communing with nature as we had that weekend, it was fitting to sit down to a well-cooked meal that was itself well-fed.

Some people travel the world on their sabbaticals--a wise and wonderful choice--but I chose to explore local treasures, and discovered that I am none the poorer.

Happy New Year! 2010

2010-01-08T11:32:00.000-08:00

We wrapped up a wonderful 2-week holiday season with a New Year's Eve "Around the World" party with friends Scott and Chere who drove all the way from the Phoenix area, and our neighbors Jerry and Karen, before they left for their second lives in SE Asia this week (sniff, sniff).

For the party, we prepared several small dishes from around the world, accompanied by their local libations. So, for Ireland Jon made shepherd's pie (technically, he made cottage pie because he didn't include lamb) and paired it with Guinness and Irish soda bread. For Italy, we arranged fancy salumis and artisanal Italian cheeses on a platter, and for France we prepared my mom's traditional New Year's Eve French onion soup, paired with a 2008 Beaujolais.

From North America, we had deviled eggs, French onion dip with Ruffles, and a local microbrew from Albuquerque (Marble I.P.A.), and blue tortilla chips with salsas and guacamole with Coronas to represent Mexico.

For Asia, Jon and Scott (who doesn't like fish!) prepared ahi tuna sushi paired with sake to represent Japan, and Jerry and Karen graciously presented us with Southeast Asian delicacies such as Laotian and Thai jeows (spicy dips) with purple Cambodian dipping rice.

At midnight, to ring in the New Year, we "flew" to Russia and indulged in whitefish caviar on seaweed rice crackers with crème fraiche accompanied by sparkling wine (Gruet, from New Mexico). Finally, we traveled to South America with chocolate Brigadeiros (a type of Brazilian fudge), displayed with a bowl of floating candles, to honor a Brazilian new year's tradition.

What a great way to ring in the New Year, but it's time for moderation again. Gotta go--all this writing about food made me hungry!

Sabbatical Recap V - Books I Read

2009-12-23T09:24:00.000-08:00

I know it's the holidays, and I should be writing about wintertime glee (and I'll get to those posts), but I've saved several draft posts to savor and recap the short-lived seven weeks I had off earlier in the year (a.k.a., sabbatical). While I didn't physically travel much (save for a brief trip to California), I did manage to take a journey in reading, catching up on a book I've been meaning to read for years, as well as being introduced to a new author (to me), a new way of eating, and an education in art.

Books I Read on Sabbatical

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. Although I was an English major in college and read a good deal of modern American literature, I had never heard of Wallace Stegner, a legendary American short-story writer, historian, environmentalist, professor, and novelist. It's not a dramatic novel with lots of blood, sweat, sex, and tears, but a quiet novel about the subtelties in a lifelong friendship between two couples. One would think, with a topic like that, the book would have been a snoozer, but I couldn't put it down. Stegner writes descriptions as if you were in the novel yourself, witnessing the characters first-hand as they win their victories and make their mistakes, and living the story as it unfurls.

Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body's Natural Ability to Heal Itself by Dr. Alejandro Junger. Aside from my early education in the wisdom of the Bible, I've read a few books I can say have fundamentally changed my way of thinking about taking care of the everyday business of life, among them How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (don't knock it before you read it! Everyone should take a refresher on this book in the 21st century) and Die Broke by Stephan Pollan. Clean is another one of those books that reset my basic understanding of something we all typically do about three times a day (EAT!) and the effects of our modern lifestyles and environment on our bodies and overall well-being.

Clean prescribes a healthy three-week cleansing program to reset your body's rhythms while balancing physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional activities in a demanding lifestyle. And the best part about the cleanse: it's not just water and grapefruit--it involves real food everyday to uberboost your health. After the three-week program and continuing some of its principles in my everyday diet, I haven't felt or looked this healthy in years!

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. I remember when this novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 2001, and I've been wanting to read it ever since. Eight years later, I finally picked it up and embarked on the amazing 656-page journey myself. I took two months to finish the novel, but it was worth every page. There were a couple of slow parts in the journey, but I savored every minute of this story about two young Jewish cousins--one American, the other Czech--during WWII in New York City, the rise and fall of the superhero comic book era, and the dawn of the nuclear age. In some places, the novel reads like a comic book itself, and takes you on a colorful, forbidden escape. Most of the novel, though, is a metaphor for life, love, art, sexuality, innocence, and childhood, peppered with the perils of war and the power of hate on the stage of world history. Most authors would be taking on too much to tackle all of these topics in one novel, but Michael Chabon nails it in a single bound.

Smile of the Buddha by Jacquelynn Baas. This was required reading for one of my art classes during sabbatical, and it was a pleasure for me to learn about artists such as abstract expressionists Agnes Martin and Ad Reinhardt, and Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi. The book explores the influences of Asian thought (particularly Buddhism) on modern-era European and American artists, thus the title of the class I took, "Bridging the Gap". Each week, we read about one of these artists and how Eastern thought influenced their work. After discussing the chapter in class, we'd emulate the artist's work using their principles and techniques. Each week was a meditation and helped me slow down during the first few weeks of my sabbatical.

It's rare that I have the time to even read one book in a month so if nothing else, this sabbatical allowed me time to expand my library and stretch my thinking.

Sabbatical Recap IV - Adventures in Art

2009-11-27T08:00:00.000-08:00

I spent a good deal of time in the art world during my sabbatical, and for that, I am grateful. Not only did I visit local museums to appreciate others' art, but I had the opportunity to enroll in a couple of art classes: another monotypes class at New Grounds Print Workshop in Albuquerque and a unique course called "Bridging the Gap", with celebrated local artist Deborah Gavel.

Deborah's class was about bridging the gap between Eastern and Western ideologies in art and thinking through using the five senses. For example, in one class, she had us work with encaustic (melted) beeswax to evoke our sense of smell. In another class we worked with precious metal clay to exercise our sense of touch. She had us work with subtle shifts in color to use our visual senses. Next week we'll be going to a video art installation in Santa Fe to engage our sense of hearing. We never figured out how to do taste, but we did talk about creating art with food. An intriguing idea....

We read the book Smile of the Buddha and talked about each chapter as a class once a week before getting into our work. Each class was a meditative exercise for me, and transported me to a calmer, more thoughtful place in my creativity than I had experienced before. I thank our friend Shelby for introducing me to the class and to Deborah, who was a fantastic guide through what I find to be complex terrain--the world of art.

The book introduced me to artists I may have heard of but knew nothing about: Jasper Johns, Agnes Martin, Ad Reinhardt, Constantin Brancusi, and others. While I didn't like all of their work on the printed page, I was particularly inspired by Agnes Martin. One evening, Deborah brought in a guest speaker to our class, Mary Lance, an award-winning film producer who had interviewed the elderly Agnes Martin in her Taos studio before she passed away a few years ago. Mary compiled the interviews into a movie called "With My Back to the World", which we had the unique pleasure of viewing in class that night. After watching Agnes paint and hearing her views on art and life ("I’m very careful not to have ideas, because they’re inaccurate" and "when we are born we are full of ambition and ego, but as we get older we begin to understand that we have to adjust"), something switched in me. The simplicity, honesty, and innocence of her work inspired me. This piece is my tribute to her gentle, thoughtful, lonesome soul:

My other piece from Bridging the Gap class may not show as meditative or calming, but the process of making it was. I'm calling this piece "Red Tornado" because it represents a recurring nighttime dream about tornadoes that I've had for decades, while also representing the turmoil of the daily struggle we all experience. This piece originally began as a grade-school collage project cut from old magazines and glued onto cardboard, but as we continued to work on the pieces, more and more layers of media, such as encaustic wax, string, fabric, and even precious metal clay pieces, fused into them. To me, it was the process that was the art, more than the finished piece itself, although I'm rather pleased with it and want to continue to work on it.

I also pulled out some old pieces to reminisce about classes I took in San Francisco, where I first learned to paint. Here's the first reductive charcoal piece I completed in Nina Wisniewski's "From Drawing to Painting" class, which started the evening after 9/11/2001. It was my very first painting class, and appropriately so, as I had been completely changed by the events of that dreadful day in human history. The class was an emotional haven for me during that time, and perhaps because of my heavy, contemplative heart, new channels of artistry opened up within me that I didn't even know I had. I'd like to do more of these reductive charcoals now that I'm looking at this really elementary piece again....

During my time off, I also enrolled in another beginning monotypes class. I didn't feel as inspired as I did in my last monotypes class. I felt more whimsical, and ended up producing a chain of nautical pieces, which goes with my longing to be near the ocean during this sabbatical:

I also relished the opportunity to visit local art museums and galleries: Bright Rain Gallery in Old Town Albuquerque with my mother, Albuquerque Art Museum with my mother-in-law during her visit (an artist in her own right), I even joined the Georgia O'Keefe museum in Santa Fe as a member after taking a long, languorous tour of the museum again for the first time since it's opening day more than 10 years ago, when I lived just off Canyon Road in The City Different. I also watched the made-for-cable-TV movie about Georgia O'Keefe, starring Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons. She had such an intriguing yet complicated and somewhat sad life. I suppose that's true of so many great artists. Perhaps that's why I can't seem to produce anything "great"--I'm too normal and happy. :-)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

2009-11-26T00:00:00.000-08:00

We are so thankful, as always, for our families, our friends, our home, our pets, our livelihood, and our lives. What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving? Leave us a comment and let us know.

God Bless Us All!

Sabbatical Recap III - Solvang to Santa Barbara

2009-11-20T09:09:00.000-08:00

I think the tiny California town of Solvang made a cameo appearance in the cult wine movie, "Sideways", but I otherwise didn't really know much about this charming, Disney dwarf-esque village.

Solvang lies among a trifecta of three famous California wine regions: Santa Maria Valley, Santa Ynez Valley, and Santa Barbara wine country. Because of its location among world-class vineyards, sprawling farmlands, and abundant orchards, it's downtown is replete with wine tasting rooms, a regular farmer's market, and incredibly delicious restaurants, delis, patisseries, and ice cream shops.
The town's heritage is Danish, and the architecture is an amusing dwarfish and European. When we arrived in Solvang, the weather was perfect: sunny and balmy, in the high 70s, and barely a breeze. Everyone walking on the streets was laughing or smiling. The lush, green trees and landscaping were perfectly manicured. For a minute, we thought we might have driven through a black hole into somewhere like Stepford, Connecticut.

Solvang should be a food photographer's paradise. The colors of the fresh vegetables, fruit, and flowers were stunning. I hope to paint some of these photos someday....

We topped off our visit with a delicious ice cream cone from one of the local shops, before heading off to Santa Barbara, the last stop of our California stay.

Sabbatical Recap II - Cambria, CA

2009-10-25T14:45:00.000-07:00

During the first week of my 7-week sabbatical, we traveled to the San Francisco Bay Area to see friends and family. During the second half of that trip, we indulged my inexplicable craving to be near the ocean by driving solo down part of the California coast, and stayed in Cambria, "where the pines meet the sea", a super tiny, quaint beach town with a row of hotels and motels along the beach. This was the view from our hotel room for two nights:

Once we arrived, we were very excited to indulge in fresh, local seafood and fine wines from nearby Paso Robles wine country. While all the guidebooks said that the Sea Chest restaurant was the best seafood in town, we were disappointed by the menu when we stopped by to check it out (most of the seafood was Atlantic or imported vs. local!), so we ended up on the oceanside patio of the Moonstone Beach Bar & Grill both nights of our stay, and we weren't disappointed. The food was deliciously prepared and very fresh, and nothing could beat dining on the oceanside patio and listening to the waves roll in. It was a perfect paradise, and we hope to make it a habit to visit the area regularly.

The first night of our stay, we slept with the windows wide open to get the full experience of sleeping near the ocean. Funny enough, as exhausted as we both were, neither of us could sleep because of the sheer ENERGY bursting through our windows from the ocean. It was the strangest sensation: a delightful insomnia. I've read that the ocean emits a ton of positive-ionic energy, particularly along beaches where the waves crash in. I don't know about all that, but I know what I experienced that night, and it was pure, blissful, positive ENERGY. I don't know how else to describe it. We didn't sleep much that night, but the second night we drew the curtains over partially-opened windows, and we slept through the night like content kittens to the sound of gently rolling waves.

Cambria is an immediate neighbor to the town of San Simeon, the home of Hearst Castle, the ridiculously sprawling estate of the late newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. We didn't stop by the Castle on this visit as we have toured it before, but if you're ever planning a trip to the area, it's definitely a don't-miss attraction.

Cambria is also near a town called San Luis Obispo, at the heart of Paso Robles wine country. Paso Robles isn't as easy to get to as Sonoma or Napa, so it's not quite as popular, but the wines from the area are excellent.

Because it's much warmer than other California wine regions, the wines in Paso Robles are typically heavier, red Rhone-style wines (like Syrah, Grenache, Petite Sirah), but sophisticated winemakers in the region also turn out some great Bordeaux varietals and blends (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec). We took a day to visit several wineries and found that there are two halves to Paso Robles wine country: the west side and the east side. We found the wineries on the west side (closer to the ocean) to be more sophisticated and concerned with quality rather than just getting tasters drunk, as on the east side.

We visited Denner Vineyards, Tablas Creek, Justin Vineyards & Winery, and Tobin James, with a stop in San Luis Obispo for lunch and some olive oil tasting. Olives, artichokes, citrus fruit, and avocados grow rampant in the area, so farmers' markets and olive oil tasting are among the region's attractions. I've never tasted oils like wine (smelling aroma, tasting, and evaluating in a designated tasting room) and it was a pleasant surprise. My favorites were the high-quality extra virgin olive oils, and oils infused with local citrus oils, such as lemon and mandarin orange. Needless to say, we took home a bottle of local olive oil to enjoy on our salads and countless other dishes.

Cambria was among the most relaxing and enjoyable memories I'll entertain from this sabbatical. What a hidden gem!

Follow Me...

2009-10-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

If you like this blog or just like to check in with us from time to time, make sure to become a Follower. What's a Follower? It just makes it easier for you to keep tabs on your favorite blogs by adding them to your Reading List in Google (or gmail, or other Google applications you may have).

On this blog, we write about our life here on a small New Mexico farm, our daily observations about moving from San Francisco two years ago to a tiny little rural town, Jon's farm projects and musings, Val's art projects and musings, trips we take, interesting (hopefully) or cool things we see or do, and much, much more!

You can see our little, but hopefully growing, Follower community in the newly added "Our Blog Followers" gadget to the right. Click the "Follow Blog" button at the very top of your browser page and become part of our posse. Happy trails!

Sabbatical Recap I - Burlingame to San Francisco

2009-10-17T07:34:00.000-07:00

Meandering through the streets of our old neighborhood in Burlingame, California, enjoying the sweet, warm yellow light of an autumn afternoon, stopping at Weimax Wines & Spirits for a couple of fine wines to bring to Jon's sister's house for dinner later that evening, discussing with the wine shop staff how great New Mexico champagne is (and perhaps how they'll now carry it because they keep hearing about how wonderful and tasty it is!).

Afterward, driving into the mysterious, claw-like fogbank hanging over the hills approaching San Francisco, visiting the newly renovated California Academy of Sciences ($50 admission-ouch!) and marveling at the green rooftop, complete with grass, maritime skylights, weather detector...and plunging inside to float among luminous jellyfish, an albino alligator, and so many other undersea wonders. Felt a little guilty about eating sushi just afterward at Hotei on 9th Avenue, but also reveled in feelings of the past, when we shared dating bliss at many a sushi meal in that neighborhood just seven years ago....

Report from Sabbatical, Day 28

2009-09-27T20:21:00.000-07:00

It was my intention to chronicle each day of my 7-week sabbatical, but after Day 1, I found that I enjoyed being away from computers so much, that I couldn't even bear to update our blog! It's been just the break I needed, since I typically spend most of every waking day on a computer for work and social catch-up (and just general surfing around).

So now we're on Day 28, with three more weeks and some change to go. It's been a restful, relaxing, and reflective month off so far. Unlike some of my coworkers who understandably opt to travel to distant, exotic places, I've chosen the "stay-cation" variety of sabbatical, with the exception of an 8-day trip along the California coast that helped kick it off.

Jon has benefitted from my time off, too (when I'm not nagging him about house projects, working out, and eating right). We truly kicked off my sabbatical by harvesting and selling our produce at our local farmer's market, then enjoying the California trip, and most recently playing in a golf tournament for the Susan G. Komen Foundation to support breast cancer research.

On my own, I've taken two art classes (but haven't produced anything noteworthy...), completed some small home projects, and have had the distinct pleasure of reading a few books. One of those books is titled, Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body's Natural Ability to Heal Itself. Not that I'm sick or anything, but I've felt "off-kilter" for years, having serious trouble sleeping, often feeling fatigued during the day, and just not feeling at the top of my game. But WOW--this book and its program really helped infuse new energy into me after just 7 days of the 3-week program. While I'm now completing week two of the program and haven't lost any weight, I feel like a million bucks. I've tried to follow the program to the letter (with a few inevitable "mishaps" along the way), which meant that I also engaged in some new physical activities and other behavior shifts as well.

For example, I found a nice little yoga studio in Albuquerque near the airport (not too far of a drive, about 20 minutes), so I've taken up yoga a few times a week to help me with my breathing, posture, strength, and overall sense of well-being. And with my Massage Envy membership (thanks for introducing me, Linda!), I've managed to use my banked up time to get a massage nearly every week in September. Aaaaaahhhhhhhh.

I haven't been completely wrapped up in myself, however. We've spent some time with family and friends as well: celebrating my dad's 76th birthday, having neighbors over for an Oktoberfest celebration in our backyard, sharing cherished meals with friends Jerry and Karen, and sipping beer at our haunt Chama River Brewing Co. while listening to the delightful details of our friends' Shelby and Ethan's European cruise.

Jon and I haven't done as much hiking and camping as we had intended, but we plan to do a hike this week before the weather gets too cold. Next weekend, we may camp near White Sands National Monument, as the Trinity Site will be open to the public for only one day, as is customary only twice a year. The following week, Jon's family is coming to visit The Farm for the first time, so we have much work to do to prepare for their visit.

Perhaps because of all the time on my hands, I've become very introspective during this sabbatical, pondering where I am at this time in my life and where I might want to be headed--with family, career, and spiritual, physical, and emotional well-being. I've made some good progress with all this time to ponder and engage in new activities, new behaviors; now the challenge is maintaining momentum once it's time to go back to work.

More to come on my sabbatical musings in future posts....

Sabbatical Day 1: Organization, Restoration, Rejunvenation

2009-08-31T21:51:00.000-07:00

I have seven weeks off from work. Seven incredible, precious, fragile weeks. I say precious and fragile because I'm so achingly aware of how important every minute of each hour of every day of this "free time" is. It's hard to believe Day 1 is already over! But Jon and I accomplished much on this first day, mostly running errands and getting our house in order before taking off for the San Francisco Bay Area for time with family and friends.

After spending a few days in the Bay Area, we're driving down the California coast on our own to get away and reacquaint ourselves with one another, with a time we shared before work was so invasive and a mortgage introduced itself into our otherwise unburdened life. The time when we had adventures together--HOORAY! This will be our first unfettered trip together since we moved to "the farm". We're incredibly excited, but also eager to return home afterwards to wrap up harvest season, work on some long-overdue projects, and explore our own backyard--both literally (as in, the farm) and figuratively (e.g., the state of New Mexico).

There is at least one overnight camping trip in our near future, and one trip to Taos for a storytelling festival. Otherwise, I intend to regularly go to yoga and play golf, and I enrolled in art classes several months ago to keep me on track to completing some art projects I've been looking forward to for years. And I intend to catch up on sleep, eating healthier, and getting fit again. A tall order in seven weeks!

Now, the trick is continuing any new, healthy habits after returning to work in late October.... Any and all advice on how to do that is appreciated!

Harvest 2009

2009-08-17T19:41:00.000-07:00

Production is looking up at the Ashe farm (still looking for an official farm name to start our "business" next summer, selling to farmer's markets, schools, etc. Stay tuned for a poll!). Last year we had less than half the planted area we have this year, and harvest time is at least twice as busy. Because we planted a bit late (June vs. May), our harvest is later than others in the neighborhood, but that's not such a bad thing--we missed any early frosts and hail and are now enjoying the abundance for missing those harsh conditions.

Here are pics of one day's harvest these days. August and September will be busy months!

In the photos: Japanese eggplant, yellow hot peppers, pickling cucumbers (which, by the way, make AWESOME half-ripe pickles, my favorite!), yellow sweet pear tomatoes, Chadwick cherry tomatoes, Lady Godiva squash, yellow bush zucchini, and monster radishes! You can also see the watermelon and honeydew melon patches ripening for market next week. We have about 40 melons on the vine so far, and we broke into one of the honeydews last night--a phenomenal experience, like nothing we've ever tasted from a store....

And the flowery, honey-like AROMA that emanated from that melon both before and after we cut into it--if we could bottle and sell that smell, we would be set for life!

Wordless Wednesday: Watson Loves Greens (Don't Worry, They Were on Their Way Out)

2009-08-12T07:30:00.000-07:00

Cat's Got Your Toe

2009-08-06T21:56:00.001-07:00

Poor Watson had an accident on Friday and broke or dislocated a toe on his back paw, poor thing! I was interrupted by howling, blood-curdling screams during a conference call Friday, but couldn't immediately find where it was coming from. I thought Alma (our other cat) and Watson were in a bad fight, which they NEVER do, or that some wild animal snuck into our home and was attacking Watson. It was a horrible, distressful sound.

When I finally understood it was coming from the closet in our office, I was even more confused. I flung the door open, and there was Watson, frantically swinging by one back leg, his little claw stuck in one of the joining corners of our metal shelves.

Jon rushed in to help, and as we tried to grab Watson, he panicked even more, scratching and biting us so ferociously, I felt like he would break one of the bones in my hand. Jon finally managed to hold him while I tried to jimmy his bloody claw out of the shelf. I finally had to yank his foot free, which was not pleasant, and he screamed even more, flying out of Jon's arms and limping badly around the house, continuing to scream and bleed. It was just horrifying.

We also had visitors in town from California that day--our friends Laura and Paul--who were already waiting for me to finish my conference call when all of this happened so we could go out to lunch on this, their first day of their first visit ever to New Mexico.

So, Jon rushed Watson to the vet while I stayed behind to finish my conference call and to go out with Paul and Laura. I felt so guilty leaving Jon and Watson behind, but Jon is a great Kitty Dad and made sure Watson was well taken care of (poor Jon also experienced one of the worst storms we've ever had here in Bosque Farms while I was out galavanting around with Laura and Paul--he SO deserved a beer!).

I know it's sick that I'm smiling in the photo above, but Laura and Paul asked me to say "cheese" as they caught me comforting poor little Watson after he came home quite drugged from the vet. He's doing better now, nearly a week later, but he's still on sedatives and antibiotics since he started getting a fever over the weekend. Please say a prayer for our little guy, that he'll be able to walk (and terrorize Alma) normally again!

Spooky Sweet Savannah

2009-07-29T08:34:00.000-07:00

I had a few days off in June and decided to spend them visiting my good friend Karen and her husband Danny in Savannah, Georgia. They've lived there for nearly two years now, so it was great to finally see how they're doing, after their move from Colorado Springs.

The architecture and lush green flora is so remarkable in Savannah, the result of an enterprising, colonial English general, James Oglethorpe, who founded the colony of Georgia and mandated that the city of Savannah situate itself into a grid organized by "town squares", each surrounded by a roundabout, each square with its own unique history and personality. The resulting town is one of America's most pleasurable to stroll.

I had never really known anything about Savannah except what I've seen in the movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (and Forrest Gump, also filmed in Savannah), and that I really, really love the name, "Savannah". But when I arrived, I learned that Savannah is truly a magical place.

Karen and Danny actually live in a suburb of Savannah called Pooler, but Karen has the unique opportunity to work in downtown Savannah at the Telfair Museum of Art. We spent a lot of time downtown, but before our first foray from Pooler to Savannah, Karen and Danny made sure to stop at a local nature preserve, home to hundreds of huge alligators. The alligators weren't shy and were free to roam on the roads and paths we took through the preserve. It was unnerving, to say the least, but it was amazing to watch the locals fearlessly plop right into the water to fish in the same waters the alligators wade.

We visited the Mercer-Williams mansion, owned by the actual Jim Williams from the movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" (shown below), which was one of Mr. Williams' wildly successful renovation projects. Williams contributed a good deal to Savannah's regentrification in the 1960s-80s as a celebrated art and antiques collector and dealer.

Savannah is a haunted city, if not with souls, then with stories. We took one of the many walking ghost tours one evening, and enjoyed elaborate stories of colonial and turn-of-the century betrayal, scandal, piracy, and human trade that all ended badly. Our guide was probably even more animated than most as it was a pub crawl tour with drinks served at each stop. He didn't refuse any drinks himself....

Karen graciously took me to nearby Tybee Island Sunday afternoon for a leisurely stroll along the beach and a dip in Atlantic waters. We planned to dodge crowds of paparazzi who should have been there to ogle the set and crew of Miley Cyrus' upcoming new movie, but delightfully, we didn't see many people at the beach that day. Only small families like this one, burying their children in the sand (see body-less head, below).

Karen and Danny were amazing hosts and tour guides. They took me to every possible nook and cranny they knew, from the historic Bonaventure cemetery (final resting place to many famous writers, notable Southern families, and civil war heroes) to a 300+ year-old oak tree that is still growing and thriving, to a quaint neighborhood oyster bar called Pearl's in the heart of Savannah's marshes.

Touring Savannah was like devouring an enormous, Southern, pecan praline: the rich history of the place was nearly cloying, but I just couldn't get enough.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-07-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

Wordless Wednesdayish

2009-07-17T07:14:00.000-07:00

Wordless Wednesday

2009-07-08T08:31:00.000-07:00

HELP US DECIDE!

2009-07-04T09:36:00.000-07:00

From time to time, we need a little help from our friends. We have a few poll questions we'll be asking you in coming months, and here's the first: we have an opportunity to travel in September/October this year for Val's sabbatical (Autodesk ROCKS!), but we're stuck on where to go. Yes, we fully acknowledge that this is a great problem to have. :-)

The sabbatical is six weeks, but due to the company closing the week of Labor Day weekend, we have an extra week off for a total of seven weeks! We'll be in the San Francisco Bay Area over Labor Day weekend for Jon's family reunion, and Jon's immediate family is coming to visit us on the farm during the final two weeks of the sabbatical, just in time for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in October.

So, that leaves us with a few weeks off to play with. We do plan to be home a couple of those weeks to tend to the farm and take painting classes, but we've been saving up for whatever trip we decide to take, and these are the options we've narrowed down within our budget range. Take a vote and help us decide which trip you'd most like to read about on our blog!

poll by twiigs.com

Progress Report from the Farm

2009-07-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

Our vegetable garden is burgeoning this summer! Here's a look at the honeydew, watermelons, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and herbs sprouting around the farm:

Jon left a patch of weeds in the far southeast corner of our melon patch (upper left in the photo below) to remind us what the area used to look like before all his hard work. What is now our vegetable planting area used to be covered in 4-foot weeds like these!

And the sunflowers are now blooming in our flower garden in the front. The hollyhocks are petering out, but Alma still enjoys sunning her paws beneath the leaves....

Wordless Wednesday

2009-06-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

A few words on this, our first "Wordless Wednesday" post: I'm stealing this brilliant concept from our good friends the Luceros, so I beg their forgiveness and permission (and the same from whomever they may have borrowed "Wordless Wednesday" from--teehee).

The Long, Strange Trip

2009-06-20T11:37:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, my mom and I set out to Denver to visit my brother and sister-in-law, Jean-Noel and Linda, in their cozy abode. I checked us in to our Southwest flight the day before, and we arrived at the airport two hours early, all set and ready to go, when I noticed the screen at the gate flashing that our flight had been delayed FIVE HOURS (Unfortunately, I had turned off my cell phone that morning as I took the day off work. Had it been on, I would have received the call from Southwest's automated flight status service...drats!).

I went to the gate agent to find out why we were delayed: extreme thunderstorms in Texas that shut down the Dallas airport, where our plane needed to land before coming to Albuquerque to pick us up. I joked that we could get to Denver sooner if we drove, and the agent looked at me frankly and said, "yes, you probably could". So, we did.

And the trouble only started at the airport...

We went back to my folks' house to borrow my dad's car for the trip. After a quick stop at Hasting's Entertainment in Albuquerque to purchase some sale CDs for the long road trip ahead (e.g., the Jerry MacGuire soundtrack, Willie Nelson B-sides, Miles Davis in Paris, Ella/Lena/Sarah/Billie, and yes, Dolly Parton), we headed north for what would become a 10-hour trip (it should have only been seven).

After passing through Santa Fe and Raton to cross the Colorado border, we made our first stop: Rino's Italian Restaurant in Trinidad, CO. You may remember from a previous Denver roadtrip post that Trinidad was once regaled as the sex change capital of the world.... Well, apparently it's home to eccentric restaurant owners, too. Once we returned home and I looked up this quaint little joint on TripAdvisor, I found an anonymous review that summed this place up perfectly: "I know it sounds schmaltzy, but the combination of good food at a reasonable price and singing waiters, mostly in Italian, made for a very enjoyable dinner." Couldn't have said it better myself.

Then there were the storms, a huge deluge on our approach into Westminster, the Denver suburb where Jean and Linda live, and a string of violent ones all along the drive home. At some points, we literally couldn't see a foot in front of us, and other cars were drifting into our lane, nearly driving us into a ravine. But, somehow, we survived....

We had a great time in Denver, visiting Jean-Noel and Linda, and enjoying their home, their garden, and their terrifying yet adorable dog, Lily (don't let the photo fool you--she's a whole lotta whoop-ass!).

We toured around 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver that Saturday, strolling by the D & F tower, once the next tallest building in the U.S. next to the Empire State Building in New York, according to one report I saw online. Earlier that day, Linda took me to the gym where she teaches weight training and aerobics so we could do two--count TWO--workout classes on Saturday morning. Needless to say, I was pooped by Saturday evening.

In our downtime, we watched a couple movies on their incredible 50" HD TV: Doubt and The Dark Knight, both so apparently real on that high-def TV, my dreams were especially vivid that night.

The weekend went by way too fast, and before we knew it, Mom and I were on the road again. This time, we only made one or two quick stops for food and gas. In Springer, quite a few miles south of the Colorado-New Mexico border, we stopped at Russells' Truck & Travel Stop, where we wolfed down a 6" Subway sandwich and then strolled through the unexpected 50s road trip museum, decked out with vintage cards, cardboard cutouts of 50s stars, and old gas pumps, gumball machines, and other memorabilia. It was a pleasant surprise before we drove into another overwhelming thunderstorm....

Kicking Off the Los Lunas Farmers' Market

2009-06-17T20:46:00.001-07:00

June 16th was the first day of the Los Lunas Farmers' Market, just 6 miles south of our place. We've signed up to be vendors later in the season when our watermelon, honeydew, cucumbers, radishes, and beans mature (if they make it!), but Tuesday we went to the market as customers.

It was a fantastic turn out for Day One of a brand new farmers' market; they had a bluegrass band, several vendors (many we recognized from various Albuquerque markets), and the Master Gardeners Program volunteers selling plants--oh, and DELICIOUS Italian Ice. We rode our bikes the six miles to the market along the Rio Grande bosque with our friends and neighbors, Karen and Jerry.

The ride to the market was gorgeous: not too hot, not too dusty due to recent rains, but not muddy, either. The ride back, on the other hand, was rife with mobs of mosquitoes and flurries of cotton flying into our faces, noses, and throats. I was pocked with mosquito bites and hoarse from coughing and sneezing when we arrived home. But it was definitely worth the ride!

The vendors were amazing: a couple with a one-acre farm had already sold out of bushels of artichokes by the time we arrived but still had some Swiss chard and beets, which we purchased. Another vendor sold blackberry habenero jam, blueberry marmelade, and apricot jam, mostly from local fruit. Yet another offered frozen grass-fed and -finished beef and wild-caught Alaskan salmon and other fish (his sign read "The Fish Hugger"). Mr. Hugger also ensnared us in a long diatribe about the health and reproductive dangers of electro-magnetic fields (EMFs) and how carrying a small piece of magnetite can help deflect them. It was actually my fault that we got into that conversation, as I've been reading a lot about health and EMFs lately and for unknown reasons brought up the subject. My mistake....

Strange, drawn-out conversations aside, we plan to go to the market every week, if we can make it. The wild fish and grass-fed and -finished beef is definitely in our plans next week!

Pay Dirt

2009-06-06T22:25:00.000-07:00

I often joke that Jon's second home is an organic dump just a few miles north of us called, "Soilutions". I call it an organic dump, because they only sell certified organic material by recycling materials from yard clippings, feed stalls, landscaping projects, etc. More details are on their website: http://www.soilutions.net/.

The past month or so, Jon has arrived home with trucksful of native mulch, compost, and topsoil several times a week to dump into our new vegetable patch to help nourish and turn over the soil before we put in our plants (they're still in pots while we fix the soil). Today, I joined him at Soilutions to check out the scene, take some pics, and meet his "second family".

The reason we have to supplement our land with all this soil is because whoever occupied our land before must have used it as a construction dump. We imagine that they probably razed the previous house to the ground, dumped all the scrap into what we had planned to be our next vegetable patch, and probably didn't clean it up for many years. Jon has been digging for weeks, cleaning up countless cigarette butts, lighters, rusty construction nails, and pressboard around the areas we'd like to plant.

Needless to say, we're not planting in those areas until they're clean and new soil replaces whatever toxic mess is leftover. In order to apply for organic certification, we have to show that the soil has been "clean"--free from pesticides, chemicals, and waste such as what we're finding now--for at least three years. This farming gig, it's a journey....

So we'll plant this year's vegetables in the adjacent plot, which hasn't been polluted by construction waste. But we still need to churn in new soil and compost as the land hasn't seen irrigation or organic matter in decades. This is no small feat...we need all the good dirt we can get--plus, Jon just loooooves to play in it. :-)

Photos from a Farm

2009-05-31T20:47:00.000-07:00

Eerily early monsoon season...a monster compost tumbler...thirsty rain barrels that now supply most of our water for farming, gardening, and growing trees...sheep grazing on the pasture...sunflower seedlings...these are a few of our favorite things:

Fifth Wedding Anniversary

2009-05-31T20:46:00.001-07:00

Indeed, it's been five years. Five wonderful, crazy, exciting, never-a-dull-moment, challenging, rewarding years since Jon and I tied the knot. I realize that "tying the knot" sounds a little crass, but knots are a recurring theme in our marriage, starting on our wedding day.

The place where we married, Stewart Chapel at the San Francisco Theological Seminary just north of San Francisco, had a prayer labyrinth on its terrace that charmed us so much, we incorporated the design into many areas of our wedding: maps that were sent with our invitations, the wedding programs, our album, and other small touches throughout the planning, reception, and post-wedding activities. We're not sure if anyone noticed the recurring theme, but we became rapt with labyrinths as symbols of infinity, history, culture, peace, and--because it became our own personal symbol througout the wedding--love.

If you're unfamiliar with labyrinths, they look much like knots. The Celtic people of Ireland and northern France (our ancestors!) used labyrinths in their lore and ceremonies. While the Greek origins of labyrinths reveal stories of overcoming evil or solving puzzles, they have a spiritual history as well. Some cultures from the Middle Ages onward used labyrinths as a source of meditation and prayer, which is why many modern-day labyrinths are in churches and parks. When we bought our farm here in New Mexico, one of the first things we agreed to do was to somehow, someday, design a labyrinth somewhere on the farm. We haven't done it yet, but it's still in the plans.

No matter how labyrinths came into being or how others use them or perceive them, we favor our interpretation of labyrinths, and see our lives together as a meandering, spiritual journey within a safe harbor of love to enjoy together, forever.

Memorial Day Weekend: Decisions, Decisions...

2009-05-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

This weekend, while we take pause to remember those who have lost their lives in service to our country (whether we agreed with the mission or not), we also take what we consider a well-deserved break from work--corporate work, farm work, and round-the-house work. We've been pretty busy around the house and farm these days; it's nice to see things shaping up.

We enjoyed a lovely, albeit brief, visit from our friends Jennifer, Jonathan, and their 18-month-old son, Christian, earlier this week, which got us off to a happy start for this long weekend. Jennifer and I met the first day of first grade and have been very close friends ever since. It's magical to have a friend that's known you that long, and it was magical having them over, if even for a couple of days before they headed off to help with wedding preparations for their friends.

So, what does a 30/40-something married couple/no children who live on a 2-acre farm in Central New Mexico do for Memorial Day weekend? While it's no San Francisco, it turns out the choices are aplenty:

Albuquerque Wine Festival at the International Balloon Fiesta Park

Isotopes home games Sunday and Monday - Albuquerque's minor league baseball team (Triple-A partner of the Los Angeles Dodgers)

There are also various parades, fireworks shows, BBQs, fairs, concerts, and, of course, there's always the movies. We love the occasional theater visit and still haven't seen latest Star Trek or Terminator flicks. With the weather being unseasonably rainy all weekend (Vacation Val: Rain, Rain, Go Away! Farmer Val: Bring it on!!), what better time to check into a dark theater and watch some great action movies?

Enjoy the long weekend, everyone!

Life is Good

2009-05-10T19:32:00.000-07:00

In the midst of continually depressing recession news (wait--are we recovering, or not?), perhaps more pending layoffs at Autodesk this month, and whatever else you can watch on the 10 o'clock news--life is pretty good.

It's the small things that make life good these days: the weather has warmed up so that I'm able to post this blog from our back porch while watching the sun set on the majestic Cottonwood trees along our acequia, and inhaling the lovely smoke of Jon's BBQ chicken on the grill. Jon also prepared homemade pizzas for me and my folks last Friday (so yummy, and so gracious). And our cat Watson has been helping with home improvement projects: in this photo, the Fearless Feline is helping prep the dining room ceiling for fresh paint before we finish applying the last of the American Clay to our walls this summer. Finally, we enjoyed a lovely Mother's Day today, hearing that Jon's mom loved the chocolate-covered strawberries he sent her, and touring around Osuna Nursery with my mom before coming back to enjoy brunch on "the farm".

It's times like these with family and friends that we savor most these days, and we're looking forward to more good times this summer with family, local friends, friends visiting from far away, neighbors, and lots of local events and activities. Stay tuned to read more about our Summer of 2009 adventures!

Visiting Minneapolis

2009-04-24T20:42:00.000-07:00

This week found me in Minneapolis for the second stop along the eight-city Autodesk Imagine 2010 product launch tour. Minneapolis is the only stop I'll make on the tour. It's an interesting city--a midwestern sensibility and friendliness with a lively energy, and unique history and demographic. For example, The Artist Formerly (or Currently?) Known as Prince is from Minneapolis. Another example: Minnesota has a long history of Nordic immigrants; however, one of my cab drivers was a lovely, warm, friendly man from Somalia and informed me that there is a huge Somalian community in the Twin Cities area (Minneapolis and St. Paul are just across each other from the mighty Mississippi River)--more than 100,000 Somalians call the Twin Cities home.

When I arrived, I met my rather famous Autodesk colleague, Eddie Perlberg, for a delightful dinner of Spanish tapas at Solera. Eddie and I deliver architectural design visualization webcasts together for Autodesk. As usual during my travels, I spared no expense (neither monetary nor caloric!), and we indulged in such delicacies as poached salmon with apple-celeryroot puree, deviled eggs with blue crab and cumin, and chorizo-stuffed dates with smoked bacon, all paired with lovely Spanish wines.

Despite the overall friendliness of the city, I was accosted a few times by rather vocal and energetic homeless people. One couple stopped me in a skyway and approached me a little too closely, asking for money for a bus fare to Milwaukee (see photo above--24-hour skyways connect many buildings downtown to protect pedestrians from wind and harsh weather during long winters). I suppose since I've recently colored my hair quite brightly red, another homeless man on a bike stopped me on the street and demanded to know--several times, and loudly--whether I was a real red-head.

At 3:30pm on Thursday afternoon, after the Autodesk launch tour sessions wrapped up and before I had to catch my 7pm flight back home to Albuquerque through Denver, I took one of my customary, big-city solo walks along Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. A concierge directed me to the avenue for its lively sidewalk bars, cafes, breweries, boutique shops, and mega-stores (Target headquarters is on Nicollet Mall, and stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Gap have huge flagships along the well-populated pedestrian avenue), and I got lost in more than a few of the enchanting boutique stores and fresh produce stands that lined the street.

Nicollet leads directly to the Mississippi riverfront. The sidewalks were so thick with happy-hour imbibers in suits and skirts, I wondered whether anyone works in Minneapolis. But I've also heard Nicollet is famous for its Mary Tyler Moore statue, honoring the star frozen in her hat-tossing 70s TV show iconic opening scene, just during the climax of the show's feminist anthem: "You're gonna make it after all!" People who know me well know that I HAD TO FIND AND SEE THIS STATUE FIRSTHAND. After all, I was often compared to Moore in my early twenties, perhaps for my choice of dress, my toothy smile, or my naive "can do" attitude. Whatever--it was flattering nonetheless! Unfortunately, I never found the statue and had to rush back to my hotel to grab my bags and hail a cab in time for my flight.

I only spent two days in the City of Lakes, but it reached out and shook my hand in a warm greeting that eagerly welcomed me back someday.

Gutter Mouth

2009-04-21T20:24:00.000-07:00

Jon invoked alarming new swear words this week, all due to hanging gutters for the first time along our rooflines to capture the torrential rainwater we're expecting from New Mexico's annual monsoon season (usually July-Sept). This is a project we've been talking about since we first moved in more than 1-1/2 years ago, and I must say, he did a *stellar* job (see photo at left. Impressive, no?). It's not easy, and it's not cheap.

But it's worth every new swear word Jon has uttered.

The gutters will run along the rooflines of our home, our detached garage/workout room/tack room/barn (kind of a large structure), and the lean-to shed.

I don't have the exact calculations handy, but with even just one of these roof surfaces, one can catch a shitload of rainwater from even a very light sprinkle in the middle of a desert (Albuquerque only averages about 7 inches of rain a year). Forgive the swearing--it's contagious....

Anyway, the cubic feet of water we can collect from that small amount of rain will enable us to water our ever growing garden area all summer long and then some. If you don't believe us, well--we experienced it last year, albeit by collecting rain water from the roof in 5-gallon buckets and running them off to dump into our gargantuan water tank; however, if you need further proof: http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/.

Hey, we're not complete nut-jobs. Just practical. Viva el agua!

P.S. Credit goes to our friend Ethan for coining Jon's new moniker, "Gutter Mouth".

Welcome Spring!

2009-03-22T11:57:00.000-07:00

This weekend marked the beginning of Spring--hallelujah! The winter doldrums were getting to us...

But thankfully, we learned how to plant bulbs in the Fall to bloom very early in the Spring and usher us into our Spring Fever. Check out these early beauties:

We also invested some of our first homeowner tax return in a good dose of landscaping in our "backyard". This is just the small area immediately behind our house. Jon has been working very, very, VERY hard on the next iteration of our vegetable garden, which is becoming about the size of a farm...He's also planted our entire back acre with a nitrogen-rich cover crop called hairy vetch, which further nourishes the soil for our future plans to plant that area with lots of fruit and nut trees a couple years out.

Here are before/after pics of our backyard. Our friend Bard Erdington did a great job as he's just starting up his landscaping business. He wisely lined the pathways with recycled concrete that Jon had busted up from the old basketball court that came with our property when we bought it over a year ago, and it doesn't look half bad!

The planting area (dark areas) contains all native plants except the dwarf peach and pomegranate trees, asparagus, and artichoke plants. So exciting!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

We spent a lot of time on our front courtyard garden this weekend as well. Jon uprooted our old Kentucky bluegrass and re-sodded with a scary wonder-grass called Zoysia Grass. It will take a couple seasons to really take root and spread, but it should be gorgeous when it all comes together.

Last but not least, our buddy Lorrie came over Saturday to help us finally complete the American Clay walls we started in our living room last October. She's a PRO--Thanks Lorrie!

Next steps: We'll spend April and May starting and planting the wide variety of vegetable and herb seeds we purchased last month in the vegetable garden that Jon is preparing:

Pumpkin

Sweet Basil

Sunflowers

Squash

Radish

Chili Peppers

Celery

Corn

Blue Lake Beans

Zucchini

Chives

Eggplant

Onion

Shallots

Potatoes

Carrots

Leeks

Cilantro

Parsley

Dill

Broccoli

Watermelon

Honeydew melon

Fennel

Yay! Spring is here!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2009-03-17T22:22:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

Lots going on but, sadly, not a lot to time to share these days. Please stay tuned for our next post, coming soon!

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Val & Jon

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JON!

2009-02-22T04:37:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-16T10:16:00.000-08:00

I returned from a week of business travel Friday afternoon to a loving husband full of surprises. What a warm, welcome reception--a dozen roses and the surprise UPS delivery of a variation on a Claddagh ring, which I'll wear on my right hand with the heart pointing towards me ("someone has captured my heart").

It's still winter here, with temperatures dipping down to 19 degrees while I was gone last week. This means more time indoors, anxiously anticipating Spring. We spent the rest of the weekend preparing meals for each other, reading, learning, hiking among the volcanoes on Albuquerque's West Side, getting organized for the year ahead with our new desktop year planner, and excitedly choosing seeds from catalogs for spring planting: eggplants, peppers, squash, corn, onions, potatoes, you name it.

A simple, but fulfilling weekend. We hope you all experienced the same! Happy Valentine's and President's Days.

Spring Projects

2009-02-07T12:04:00.000-08:00

The weather is warming up here in New Mexico, and while storms are approaching next week, it's a nice preview into what's in store over the next few months. We have so much to do to prepare for springtime:

- Finish our indoor projects: American clay on the walls of our common living areas, replacing baseboards, and finishing a painting or two to hang on our new walls!

- Set up our guest house as my new art studio: we haven't used it since we moved here over a year ago, and the garage was completely uninspiring. The house has heat and a swamp cooler, so it will be more comfortable for artistic endeavors. Plus, there's a bathroom and a kitchenette where I can clean my brushes, etc.

- Set up gutters and water tanks for rain catchment on our detached garage and the house

- Choose vegetable and herb seeds for our new garden area in the back (4x the size we planted last year--we're growing, literally!)

- Read up on keeping chickens (for next spring--not this spring) so we can begin converting part of our horse barn into a roost

- Read up on preserving and canning vegetables so we know what to do with the huge harvest we'll likely have this summer and fall

I planted bulbs in December and can't wait to see them peek through in about a month. Apparently, it's the gardener's secret: sprouting spring bulbs give you some gratification while you wait for warmer weather to grow the rest of your stuff. I like this idea, and can't wait to see the tulips, daffodils, crocuses, and hyacinths peeping out to greet us.

That's all for now, folks. Until next time....

Artistic Release: Monotypes Class

2009-01-26T20:01:00.001-08:00

The past two weekends, I've (Val) been in a monotypes class at New Grounds Print Workshop & Gallery in Albuquerque with my brother, Brad. Since it's been a bit of a tough few months for both of us, it was nice to get our minds off things in a 9-5 Sa/Su art class. After a couple of classes, Brad and I headed to the local Irish tavern, Two Fools, where Jonathan met us one night to hear about everything we'd learned in class. It was a great way to start off an otherwise grueling year.

Monotypes are, as the name suggests, one-of-a-kind prints. In the most basic terms, the artist paints an image onto a smooth plate called a matrix, then runs it through a press on a piece of paper to create the print. Traditionally, artists sketch something original onto the plate without referring to another image (so, they paint from their heads--like improv Jazz). They can either run several plates in layers to create a final composite image, or paint an image all at once and run it. We learned all kinds of different techniques in the class: working with textures, subtractive painting, working with different additives to the inks, a technique called Chine Colle (Chinese collage), etc.

One technique we learned was to run the plate a second time on a different sheet of paper to get a "ghost" image, which I found to be the most fun. After running a ghost, I painted layers onto several plates and ran them over the paper with the ghost on it for different effects. You can see an example of this with the two different versions of this "conch":

While I've dabbled in oil and acrylic painting since 2001, I had never heard of monotypes. The medium thrills me because it satisfies my need to finish things quickly and completely (although I don't feel these prints are finished because we didn't have much time in class). It's pretty expensive to continue with monotypes since it requires access to a printing press (I'd have to join New Grounds as a member to use their printing facilities) and the inks and tools are costly. But to repeat that free feeling, to be in that kind of FLOW, it may be worth it!

Here are my favorites. The Asian-inspired print on the right was a class favorite and, during our final critique, even won the gallery owner's vote among the top 3 prints of the class (although she said it still needed some work or even a do-over to really pack a punch, and I agree whole-heartedly):

Hopefully, more prints to come!

2009: A Rough Start

2009-01-15T20:45:00.000-08:00

We're not accustomed to writing bad news on our blog, but these days it seems to be the prevailing news going 'round for us. Not only did we lose our buddy, Maximus, last Monday, but today my company Autodesk announced significant layoffs. My job is "secure", thank God, but I had to let someone go today, and like Clint Eastwood's Mr. Kowalski in Gran Torino says, "you don't want that on your soul."

I've lost some dear friends in this restructuring, friends who have shared with me political drama and angst and bizarre trips to places like Houston, Japan, Calgary, Plano, and Boston to do our work. We'll likely keep in touch to rehash old stories, but it's sad to have to move in different directions from here.

Needless to say, I'm draining a good bottle of Paso Robles Merlot right now, and hoping for the best on those 750 displaced Autodesk people who are swimming in the growing pool of U.S. unemployment. I'm also praying for our country and our global economy, that it rebounds from this dark, insidious corruption that is causing so many so much pain.

It's a tough day--a tough year--for the Ashes.

Maximus "Cat" Ashe: ca. 1993-2009

2009-01-05T09:38:00.000-08:00

Known by so many people. Known by so many names. Please say a prayer for our dear Maximus. Our old friend is suffering from acute renal failure and will be euthanized today. He lived 16 wonderful years and we are definitely blessed to have known him. I won't get sappy, but this cat was the best there ever was...and the best there ever will be. See you later Maximus. Godspeed.

New Year's Resolutions - Welcome 2009!

2008-12-28T17:00:00.000-08:00

This year's theme for us:

"Less and More"

- Less waste, more planning ahead

- Less sameness, more adventure

- Less naivete, more informed decisions

- Less sitting around thinking about it, more doing
- Less random television, more deliberate, edifying TV

Happy new year everyone!

V&J

Article #10: Why Food Matters

2008-12-28T16:39:00.000-08:00

This month, we published an article about why food matters--the crux of why we moved back to New Mexico to own land in a rural area.

The article is a brief amalgamation of all the reading and research we've done over the past year, also a summary of the many conversations we've had with the intriguing people we've met here and elsewhere, who are thinking along the same lines. Read on for why food matters not only to me and Jon--but to all of us.

http://featured.matternetwork.com/2008/12/why-food-matters.cfm

Science vs. Faith--The Great Debate

2008-12-28T13:16:00.000-08:00

Upon returning from a wonderful week of family and friends in the Bay Area, Jon and I decided to spend our first Saturday back home at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History. While I grew up here in Albuquerque, I think I've only visited this museum twice--and one of those times was in a little black dress for senior prom--so for me it was like visiting for the very first time.

We strolled through an exhibit that showed how the weather works (where wind comes from, the effects of different kinds of cloud formations, etc.), then went on to a coral reef photo exhibit, onward to stalagmites and stalactites in a simulated cave, an astronomy exhibit, and finally into the history of the universe--from the Big Bang to the dinosaurs to their extinction. This is where we started our Great Debate.

Not only was the museum like a new experience to me, but this was the first I had heard of the K-T Boundary and the Chicxulub asteroid impact, a theory for why dinosaurs suddenly disappeared from the earth. The theory is relatively new, surfaced and debated in just the past 30 years with additional theories surfacing since 2000, so I guess I had been so wrapped up in earning my English degree, getting a job, moving around, and living daily life, that I missed this one. Or, blame it on the public school system (truly, I don't remember learning about any of this in any of my science classes, and I paid good attention in school).

I had of course learned about the Big Bang, but the Chicxulub impact theory is different--it's not about the origin of the universe, rather it's an explanation for why dinosaurs suddenly disappeared. I didn't know that this one theory was so institutionalized as to take up a good portion of the science museum. Of course, this sent my mind reeling in the possibilities and what this all means to my belief system (yes, you could call me a subscriber to Intelligent Design, or Creationism: I'm open to learning about new scientific evidence and theories--I just believe a higher being could have been responsible for all of this. It's not impossible!).

So the Great Debate for me and Jon goes like this: science is almost like religion in that it takes some faith to believe in scientific theories. Like religion, science evokes so many questions for which we may never have the answers. Jon's opinion: science is fact. My opinion: science can take just as much faith as religion does, and isn't always fact. Scientific theories are disproven or change all the time (for example, the K-T boundary is now called the K-Pg boundary due to recent findings). There are certain laws of science that have been proven: Newton's three laws of motion, the Third Law of Thermodynamics, Avogadro's Law, etc., but when it comes down to it, science and religion are both ways for humans to make sense of how we got here, where time began, where it's going, whether or how it will end, etc.

These are the kinds of things Jon and I talk about as we stroll through places like the Natural History Museum. Call us boring, but it's really quite fun talking about subjects like these, with two different opinions. We agree to disagree so it doesn't get nasty; but we never end up feeling satisfied with each other's answers, so it keeps us going, keeps us learning.

With Jon returning to school in the spring to work toward his Earth Sciences degree (focus on hydrology), we'll likely have a lot more conversations like these. So prepare to be bored with more blog entries like this in 2009 :-)

On a closing note, while reading a National Geographic article on the Chicxulub impact, I found this quote from a scientist who controversially introduced one of several other theories than the K-T (or K-Pg?) event for sudden dinosaur extinction:

"This is more religion than anything else," [Princeton University paleontologist Gerta Keller] says. "A lot of people are so wedded to [the Chicxulub] theory that it seems that no evidence can ever convince them of anything else."

I guess I'm not the only one who thinks that science can be a religion of its own.

poll by twiigs.com

Traffic Cops

2008-12-21T20:07:00.000-08:00

We have been wondering if anyone reads our blog. We must admit, we haven't invested the time we used to in updating it because, well, we've been busy! And frankly with the farm dormant for the winter, we haven't been busy doing anything very interesting the past couple months, so we decided to start tracking traffic to our blog with Google Analytics. The results are veeeerrrrrry interesting....

So far this month, we've had 14 unique visitors with 16 site visits (Repeat offenders! Stalkers...), from three countries: the U.S., France, and Thailand. And yes, we know who you are....but not by name or IP address or anything. Just guessing by where we know our friends and family are.

It's seems so invasive to track our blog traffic, but it is truly interesting, and we're quite surprised even to have 14 unique visitors. So, the blog must go on...regardless of whether we have anything interesting to say, it seems.

Thanks for continuing to check in with us!

Article #9: Organics vs. Biodynamics - Good to Great

2008-12-14T17:14:00.000-08:00

In this article, Jon shares his latest research on biodynamic farming. Read on for Jon's thoughts on how we might plan to apply some biodynamic principles to the farm:

http://featured.matternetwork.com/2008/11/biodynamics-farming-on-sustainability-steroids.cfm

Article #8: To Organic or Not to Organic

2008-12-14T15:18:00.000-08:00

In this article, Jon explains what we would have to do for organic certification. No easy task....

http://featured.matternetwork.com/2008/10/organic-organic-certification.cfm

American Clay

2008-11-11T07:19:00.000-08:00

In an attempt to make our home cozier and add some color and texture (and to prepare for family coming for Thanksgiving!), we embarked on an American Clay adventure.

American Clay is a durable, all-natural clay wall covering that comes in several different clay-based pigments. We chose it because it looks so rich and claims that it further insulates your house and improves the value of your home. We started with the living room in Osage (a light, earthy, grey-green sage) and discovered how much time and effort it truly takes two rookies to finish a room (three coats including a layer of sand primer, then compressing every square inch with a wet sponge...). We chose to do it ourselves because the contractor quotes were outrageous, and it's fun to have a project like this to do together (or in Jon's case, maybe a little trying...teehee). So much for finishing all of our main rooms before Thanksgiving! But at least we'll have a nice living room.

Below are some pics of the work in progress. When wet, the clay is 10x darker than the color intended, and it dries mottled. Once completely dry (1 day), it takes on its intended color. We'll post more pics once the room is finished (hopefully next week!).

It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

2008-10-30T18:02:00.000-07:00

Check out our pumpkin art:

As you can see, Jon opted for a blood-thirsty "roadkill" pumpkin that has a taste for cute teddy bears...I chose Charlie Brown in honor of Jon's favorite cartoonist, Charles Schulz. Here's Chuck's inspiration for my pumpkin (a little tough to see, but you get the idea):

We had a ball carving these up at our friend Lorrie's house for her annual October pumpkin carving. When Lorrie and I were roommates in Albuquerque many moons ago (about 12 years, to be exact) I was among the first inductees into this, her annual festival. Some of the same people who were there on that inaugural night joined us again at this 12th annual fest.

Here's the gorgeous invitation Lorrie created for this year's party (she's quite an artist):

Since we'll be spending Halloween sanding and priming walls in preparation of applying American Clay in our living room this weekend, we really appreciated the opportunity to spend time with friends for this annual Fall ritual. Thanks Lorrie!

Introducing Watson

2008-10-20T11:10:00.000-07:00

This weekend we introduced a new addition to our home, Watson the cat. Watson persistently stalked my parents' house in Albuquerque for a couple days by clinging to their screen doors and wailing, etc., until they couldn't resist taking him in (and they are NOT cat people). Being a Maine Coon kitten (the most dog-like breed in the cat world), he was simply irresistable, and my dad even let him sleep next to his head (unheard of in the past--Dad was actually anti-cat until we moved back to New Mexico and he got to know Maximus and Alma, our original two cats).

While we had no intention of adopting another cat, my mom and dad simply couldn't take care of him in their older years (along with their dog, Beau), so we attempted to take him to a pet shelter but he charmed us into keeping him. We had him neutered and checked out at the vet Friday, and he's still full of piss and vinegar, as the saying goes.... He's definitely keeping our other cats busy and us continually amused (and bemused).

We named him Watson after Jon suggested the name for his love of Sherlock Holmes literature, and a neighbor who came to visit for coffee the next morning suggested the same name (random!). Seems the name was meant to be. It's nice having a kitten in the house to liven things up a bit--our two older cats had trained us into a quiet, slow routine, but Watson keeps us on our toes at all times.

Welcome kitty!

On the Road Again...

2008-10-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day of my new position at work. I'll now be a senior manager in field marketing. What does that mean? I'm still not completely sure, but I know that last week was a mountain of work in preparation for the new, and closing out the old. I can tell I'm stressed by the knots in my shoulders...Calgon?

Apparently I will be traveling LESS in this new position; however, next week will be a long trip as I fly to San Francisco Wednesday morning to meet my new manager and team, then turn around and fly straight to NYC Saturday morning to meet clients before filming them in a "town hall" style webcast on Building Information Modeling (BIM) in the construction industry. Huh?!? If you want to learn more, watch a similar webcast I helped with a couple weeks ago in a Scottsdale, AZ, studio.

I'm looking forward to this new role: it will be a new challenge in a different area of marketing than I'm used to. For most of my 12-year marketing careeer, I've been involved in writing and creating messaging or "spin"; in this role, I'll be responsible for launching campaigns and measuring their performance by how much response they receive, or more specifically, how many deals we close with each campaign. I hope I'm up for the challenge!

Article #7: A Sustainable Farm Prepares for Winter

2008-10-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

Read Jon's article on our winter plans for the farm:

http://featured.matternetwork.com/2008/10/sustainable-farm-prepares-winter.cfm

Article #6: The Experimental Garden Tent

2008-10-13T15:50:00.001-07:00

Jon's foray into building a tent to protect our first crop from the brutal New Mexico sunshine and fierce winds (and our initial squabble over the tent--which is black and very close to our house--not the most aesthetically pleasing structure!) is the feature of this Matter Network article.

http://featured.matternetwork.com/2008/9/the-experimental-garden-tent.cfm

A Bunch of Hot Air

2008-10-11T17:40:00.000-07:00

Our very good friends Natasha and Dario came to visit us last weekend from the Bay Area for the first days of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

Although there was a tragic accident this year, the balloon fiesta is usually an exciting event featuring 700 balloons and hundreds of thousands of people, and has been an annual tradition since 1972 (starting with only 13 balloons).

While I (Val) have attended the balloon fiesta many years as a near-native, there's something about hosting newcomers and experiencing their awe as they watch the first balloons go aloft in the crisp, bright October morning air. And, the balloon fiesta has changed so much over the years--it's now in a relatively new location and there are more balloons than I ever remember from years past.

The special-shape balloons are always a treat. Among our favorites: the Lucasfilms, Ltd., Darth Vader balloon (complete with Storm Troopers and light sabers), the "castle in the sky" (a tribute to the Henry David Thoreau quote, we assume), the ladybug on a flower, and who can resist Nemo?

We had such a fun time with Natasha and Dario (or Natario, as we call them) and we thank them for coming to visit us and share a great weekend full of reconnecting, stories, great wine, a relaxing spa day, and amazing steak! We love you guys!

And Now, a Word from our Sponsors...

2008-10-05T13:36:00.001-07:00

Until we can get our act together to update the blog this week (an update on a visit from our friends Dario and Natasha and photos from the International Balloon Fiesta), please indulge in some old creepy ads while you wait to hear about our latest zany antics.

Enjoy!

Onward to Cambodia

2008-09-21T17:47:00.000-07:00

Our newfound neighbors and friends Jerry and Karen are leaving next weekend to return to work in Cambodia. We will miss them dearly, as we have spent the summer sharing wonderful meals, stories, and most of all great company. While we're on our way to their place again this evening to enjoy a simple meal to end the weekend, we enjoyed a deliciously experimental meal at their home last weekend as well.

They invited us over for this experimental meal for Karen's yet-unpublished test kitchen article. We can't divulge any details here, but suffice it to say that it's related to a fascinating topic she's mentioned before, the food was miraculous (as usual), and it made us feel like we were on top of the world (I really don't know how else to describe it, particularly the effects of the fiery red Thai chiles the morning after...).

While these are poor-quality photos taken with my Blackberry phone, you can get the idea of the spirit of our dinners, particularly the exercise of documenting the many out-of-context quotes we've blurted during the many meals we've shared this summer.

We'll miss you guys K & J! Don't worry about the weeds, and keep the blog posts coming!

We've been busy...

2008-09-14T11:10:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay folks, but between Val's work travels, Jon's articles, our first vegetable/herb harvest, a local road trip, and travel to the Bay Area for a family reunion, we've been a little busy. Frankly, the last thing either of us wants to do is be on a computer! But blogging is fun, particularly when friends and family leave comments (hint hint...). So scroll below and enjoy the updates!

Article #5 in Our MatterNetwork Series - The Role of Community

2008-09-13T12:49:00.000-07:00

Tune in for the fifth and latest article in our series on moving from an urban lifestyle to rural, sustainable farming!

http://featured.matternetwork.com/2008/9/farming-it-takes-a-community.cfm

Article #4 in Our MatterNetwork Series - Farming Ain't Cheap!

2008-09-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

This installment goes into detail about the costs of setting up our rain catchment and rainwater irrigation system--which we haven't done yet due to lack of funds (donations accepted, of course! Wouldn't you love to help out your local farmer?!?) We also need the experience and a few good tips from experts before committing to laying down drip lines and installing gutters...

http://featured.matternetwork.com/2008/8/free-water-doesnt-come-cheap.cfm

A Family Reunion HoDown!

2008-09-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we returned to the Bay Area to attend a family reunion--Jon's extended family on his mom's side. It was great to see everyone, to be surrounded by aunts, uncles, cousins, and brothers, but unfortunately Jon's mom, sister, brother-in-law, and nieces couldn't make it due to illness. We're really sorry we missed them, particularly since his mom is the main connection!

Jon's brother Joe, his wife Michele, and our niece Christina graciously hosted us in their gorgeous new home in San Ramon, where we arrived Friday night to feel the 4.0 earthquake whose epicenter was just 4 miles north of us! (It seems that everytime I'm back in the SF Bay Area these days, the earth moves under my feet.) Or maybe it was the wine we enjoyed at the local watering hole (The Brass Door--apparently an institution, like stepping back five decades into a 1950s supper club).

Saturday we spent the day on the coast in Half Moon Bay with Jon's dad, catching up and listening to his great stories (and marveling about how much he knows about jazz. Incredible!). Since we were on the peninsula, we stayed Saturday night at our friends Dario and Natasha's home in San Bruno. We finally had a chance to spend some time with their 1-year-old boy, Gabriel, and had a blast with him.

Sunday was back to the East Bay for the reunion picnic in Moraga. Jon's extended Italian family is so big, we had to wear nametags to identify many of the people there that I'd never met and that Jon hasn't seen since he was a kid. I love huge families--we had egg races, water balloon tosses, and the usual dose of family melodrama. Life wouldn't be complete without it!

As usual, we had a great time although we missed seeing Jon's mom, sister, Roger, and the girls, and friends like Daphne, the Tarzons, and the Nees (who were out of town anyway). We'll be back before you know it, guys. Watch out! xoxo

Our First Harvest!

2008-09-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

On Labor Day, we enjoyed the first fruit of our labors from this summer (well, Jon's labors--I've been too busy traveling for work, unfortunately). The photo you see is a tiny sample of what we've harvested since--after the first harvest, the plants go on overdrive!

Jon chose to grow gorgeous purple bell peppers, five other varieties of sweet peppers, seven varieties of tomatoes (my favorites are the tiny, concentrated yellow pears and cherries--delicious!), string beans, and a few varieties of dark, leafy greens.

He planted pretty late in the season (mid-June, then again in late July), so we're having the latest harvest in the neighborhood. It's kinda living on the edge around here as the season's first frost will come any day now, so we are picking everything we can and saving seeds for next season.

So far from our daily harvests, we've made amazing fresh salads, roasted stuffed peppers, salsa, and gazpacho. The difference is like night and day between store-bought processed versions of these foods, and what has come from our garden. Maybe it's the knowledge of what it takes to grow these beautiful vegetables--or maybe it's the absence of pesticides, fertilizers, preservatives, and eating them fresh picked from the plant. Regardless, it's been heavenly.

And all of this is just from the small, 10x20 experimental area of our backyard. Imagine what we'll be able to grow on that back acre...can't wait til next season to expand and possibly get some chickens to help with fertilizer!

Labor Day: Bandelier National Monument

2008-09-02T13:07:00.000-07:00

For Labor Day, we drove about 2 hours due north to visit the cave dwellings and ruins at Bandelier National Monument. I visited the monument when I was about 5 years old and my family first moved to New Mexico. To see it again as an adult was even more fascinating: understanding that an entire tribe of people carved their lives into volcanic tuff cliffs instilled new wonder in the place.

On our way to Bandelier, we passed through Santa Fe to brunch at Harry's Roadhouse Cafe. If you ever pass through Santa Fe, this is an experience you don't want to miss--but be prepared to wait at least 20 minutes for a table.

Thai Cooking Class

2008-08-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

Thursday night I attended my first-ever Thai cooking class with our neighbor and friend, Karen. One would think she wouldn't need such a class--with her extensive first-hand experience with Thai, Cambodian, and Lao cuisine, she could have easily and gracefully stepped in for the instructor and taken over, but she didn't. Rather, the class was just a great opportunity to be with other foodies (Karen found the class through the Albuquerque Foodies group on meetup.com), and to better understand ingredients used in Thai cooking, not to mention enjoy a fabulous, well-prepared meal all for only $25.

The class took place at Albuquerque's Talin Market, an international grocery store that I've watched grow from a dingy hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese convenience store to one of the best international markets I've ever visited. The aisles at Talin now boast exotic ingredients and produce from all over Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Carribean.

As far as I can remember from my first stint in Albuquerque many moons ago (Talin opened in 1978), it was the place to go for strange ingredients required for recipes I'd concoct from obscure Asian cookbooks I picked up in used bookstores near UNM. Once I wandered two or three small aisles of foreign labels, whiffs of putrid aromas, and cluttered shelves, I'd find my prized bottle of fish sauce, usually caked with a quarter-inch of dust.

Now, Talin is an enormous, pleasant, well organized store with a modern production kitchen upstairs for demonstrations and classes. While they didn't serve wine with our delicious meal, it was restaurant-quality and authentic. We even ate our sticky rice by hand by rolling it into small balls and dipping it into chili paste, Lao style.

We made tom yum goong (spicy, tangy shrimp soup), som tam (papaya salad), and, my favorite of the evening, eggplant and shrimp salad. Two things I learned from the class: it matters which kind of eggplant you use (Chinese and Japanese eggplants are far more tender and less bitter than traditional, larger eggplants), and the trick to ordering or planning a perfect Thai meal is to balance the four key flavors of Thai cuisine: sweet, sour, salty, and spicy. If you have too much of one or two over the others, the meal could be cloying or generally just less exciting.

Thanks for inviting me to take the class Karen! It was truly a treat.

Technical Difficulties

2008-08-10T11:04:00.000-07:00

We've been trying to publish blog posts all week, since Jon's third article went live on MatterNetwork and we judged the parade for the Bosque Farms Fair, but we've experienced technical difficulties with Blogger. You can now catch up on our busy lives below!

On the Road Again

2008-08-10T09:47:00.001-07:00

Travel has picked up again for work, so I'll be on the go the next month:

Next week - Phoenix for a quarterly sales meeting

Aug 18-21 - Chicago for a customer meeting with General Growth Properties, one of the biggest mall and mixed use developers in the US. Then on to the Constructech awards dinner, where a couple of Autodesk home building customers will accept awards for using innovative technology to thrive in an economic downturn (ahem...that would be Autodesk technology. Shameless plug).

Aug 25-29 - San Francisco for an Autodesk quarterly marketing meeting (I promise to try to visit everyone possible, but won't have a rental car, so whoever wants to come meet me in the City--come on up!)

Sept 8-11 - Las Vegas for Autodesk's mid-year sales meeting

Bon voyage!

Go USA!

2008-08-10T08:05:00.000-07:00

US swimmer Michael Phelps won the gold last night and set a new world record! Go USA! We're off to an exciting, yet tragic, Olympiad....

Article #3 in Our Article Series on Farming: Reining in the Rain

2008-08-05T09:59:00.000-07:00

This month, Jon writes about harvesting rain water on our property for MatterNetwork.com. We've already received an encouraging email from a denizen of Delaware who just began to harvest rain from his suburban home with a couple of 55-gallon tanks, but, inspired by Jon's article, is now looking into more sophisticated rain catchment systems to capture more water. As his email states, "why didn't we all think of this simple solution earlier?" Amen, brotha.

Judging the Bosque Farms Parade

2008-08-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

First we were hipsters, now we're just hicks.

Jon and I were persuaded to judge the 61st Annual Bosque Farms parade, which runs just in front of our house each year. This was our first year watching it, and our realtor, a Bosque Farms Fair organizer, talked us into judging for prizes. We were reluctant at first, but we really enjoyed being involved.

Our realtor also roped in a couple of other newcomers to the neighborhood, so we made some new friends, Jeff and Jordan. Jeff spoke at the Village Council meeting a few weeks ago against the proposed zone change to allow a franchise assisted living facility to be developed on one of the beautiful farms in our neighborhood--when commercially zoned property is already available just a few lots away. He was the self-professed youngest guy in the room at the Village meeting, and he spoke persuasively and eloquently. We were happy to have the chance to meet him and his wife Jordan as fellow parade judges.

We forced our friend Karen to judge as well, as she was visiting from Georgia for the weekend. Poor Karen had no idea she'd be put to work during her stay (and neither did we), but she seemed to enjoy the parade. Our friends and neighbors Jerry and Karen also stopped by to heckle us. It was a breakfast party bonanza!

The best part about judging was the bribes. One of our neighbors showed up in the morning with a bag of tortilla chips and samples of her salsa and guacamole that she entered into the chile contest later that day, along with a homemade "Judges" sign (with an unintentionally backwards "J")made by her kids, who were in the parade. She wanted to make sure we voted for them in the Best Motorized Float category. The salsa was delicious....

Possibly the toughest category for us to judge was "Best Tractor". Our realtor warned us that the good ol' boys take this category very seriously, so we had to use our absolute best judgment. It was tough since at first glance they were all just green John Deere tractors, but as we looked more closely, each one exhibited its own utility and grace. We unanimously voted for the tractor performing a service by keeping its scooper lowered and picking up after the horses in the parade, although I really liked the old antique tractor.

We wrapped up the afternoon by attending the fair at the rodeo grounds down the street, marvelling at the enormous vegetables and handy crafts people entered for prizes. We also watched the Bosque Farms Fair Queen contest, where 12-16 year old girls handled their horses better than we could ever hope to drive a car. I missed the ladies' rolling pin throwing contest, but promised my realtor's husband that he could coach my throwing arm for next year.

It was a great taste of Village culture, and it was nice to be part of such a tight-knit community. Apparently the fair and parade are a huge deal in these parts, and we feel honored to have been a part of them.

Scientists Recreate Hidden Van Gogh Portrait

2008-07-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

This article brought out the huge nerd in me (as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog would say):

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-world/20080730/Hidden.Van.Gogh/

It' so...Da Vinci Code, ya know?

Vincent Van Gogh is also cited as a leader in the expressionist movement (which wasn't really a movement at all), very influential on my buddy Max and his German counterparts.

Poor Van Gogh didn't see a dime or a good review while he was alive, but now it's a race to find old paintings he painted over because he couldn't afford new canvases. Isn't that just the breaks?!?

I Wanna Be Like Max

2008-07-29T18:24:00.001-07:00

OK, maybe not literally...but my art teacher in San Francisco told me I seemed to paint in the style of Max Beckmann, a German expressionist painter from the first half of the 20th century (this thumbnail is his painting, "Party in Paris", 1931).

After reading the Wikipedia definition of expressionist (there really never was a formal movement called expressionism, but I guess it seemed like a good label for a group of artists with a similar style in a similar era), I'm not sure I could emulate Mr. Beckmann. There's no way at this point in my life I could understand the social upheaval and tragedy that he experienced to make him the painter he was, much less to "express" the emotions in his paintings.

But, I love his bold use of color and his strong, black outlines. I also love that he paints representations of reality without being too abstract (i.e., you can tell the people are people and their noses are where they're supposed to be on their faces, etc.), but he shifts the perspective so that his paintings aren't too realistic--the composition and the placement of things throws you off balance. His paintings are merely an expression of what he perceives as the painter. It's exactly how I think when I paint, and I hope to share my perspective of the world through painting even a fraction as well as Mr. Beckmann someday....

Still Life with Candles and Mirror, Max Beckmann, 1930

Our Cats Rock

2008-07-22T17:53:00.000-07:00

No matter if you're a dog person or can't stand animals at all...our cats Maximus and Alma (also sometimes known as Minimus) ROCK. here are the pics to prove it:

Art Can Wait...

2008-07-21T18:10:00.000-07:00

...at least 'til winter. I'm finding that there is so much to do around the farm and with work, I have no time for drawing or painting, even small crafts or household projects. So, I'm placating my creative inner-child by telling it that we'll get started when everything on the farm dies off after the first frost (usually late October to mid-November).

Posting this nude study I did a few years ago in San Francisco as inspiration....

The Village Council Filibuster

2008-07-17T22:06:00.000-07:00

Last night, we wasted 4 hours of our lives listening to an elected village official ramble on and on about useless nothings to try and obstruct a decision about a proposed zone change in support of a commercial development in our rural-residential paradise.

The development is an assisted living facility (part of a national franchise called Beehive Homes), and while Jon and I aren't opposed to having such a facility in our neighborhood, the Bosque Farms planning and zoning commission approved the application without seeing nary an architectural plan or schematic! Nary a traffic analysis! Nary a water use projection! Not to mention, nearly the entire community is opposed to the location of this facility (on 4.3 acres of dirt and pasture, formerly an alpaca farm), particularly when there is commercially zoned property available just 1/2 mile up the road near the main boulevard.

What we learned from last night's council meeting and hearsay about the planning and zoning meeting on Monday is that the land sale involves many close-knit cronies--good ol' boys (and gals) who are trying to turn a buck from the sale without regard to the future and sustainability of this wonderful community.

The good ol' gal on the council filibustered for nearly 2 hours to postpone public testimony. It was outrageous and disgusting. All we ask is that the council require the development company (who is applying for the zone change from rural/residential to "special use", which could mean lots of things) to present detailed visual and statistical plans to the public (hmmm...sounds like a case for Building Information Modeling!), to the planning and zoning commission (for pete's sake!!), and to the council before making their best informed decision. But because their loyalties seem to lie with the landowner over the constituents who voted for them, it looks like they will once again opt for unstrategic, aesthetically monstrous, poorly planned development. So typical of New Mexico politics....

Planting Trees

2008-07-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

I needed a break from an intense work-week today. So, Jon and I drove down the road to a native plant arboretum/nursery called Trees that Please in Tome. We had a few trees in mind, starting with shade trees (catalpas, golden rain trees, poplars) since we have not one tree on our 2-acre property yet(!), then fruit trees once we do some market analysis to figure out what might be in demand in 3-5 years, when the trees are mature.

And then, it was love at first sight....

When we walked into the arboretum, we were immediately struck by an enormous shade tree, about 30' tall, with delicate, fern-like leaves near the entrance to the greenhouse. When we asked what the tree was, they told us it was a New Mexico redwood, and it was only 12 years old. Imagine our surprise--redwoods in New Mexico! Turns out, they had a few more mature redwoods around the arboretum, each one more gorgeous than the next.

They then told us the story behind the trees: they're actually cuttings from the only two NM redwoods left standing in nature near El Paso, TX (Spanish colonists logged the area, once full of redwoods, to build their towns in the 1500-1700s). The founder of the arboretum was the one who found the lone trees over a decade ago, and he took cuttings to propogate them. They're now federally protected and the public can't even go to look at them.

We planted four trees in a row about 50 feet behind our house to create a private, shaded picnic area over time (another bonus to these trees: they grow very deep tap roots and thrive on high water tables like ours--no risk of the roots breaking up our house foundation).

They are simply gorgeous--I've never seen anything like them. We're so excited to have them, it's as if they're new members of our family. I never thought I could feel this way about a tree. Welcome, leafy friends!

5th Annual Lavender in the Village Festival

2008-07-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

This weekend we attended the 5th annual Lavender in the Village festival in a small residential-rural area of Albuquerque called Los Ranchos de Albuquerque (the ranches of Albuquerque). Reportedly, more than 7,000 people attended the festival, and it was more abundant and more stunning than we imagined it would be.

It was a warm day, overcast but not threatening rain, so it was easy to leisurely stroll from one shuttle stop to the next. The shuttles carried attendees around a 4 mile radius from the Los Ranchos grower's market to Los Poblanos Historic Inn & Cultural Center with their farm and lavender field, to Anderson Valley Vineyards and Casa Rondena Winery.

All the stops featured lavender-themed treats and music (I loved the local band at Los Poblanos, called Le Chat Lunatique: self-professed "filthy, mangy jazz," a la Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli). Los Poblanos opened their fields for U-pick lavender, and the wineries offered lavender-infused wine and sangria. Personally, I love the aroma of fresh-picked lavender but I can't get past its association with soaps and perfumes when I ingest it. Blech!

The grounds at Los Poblanos were amazing. Neither Jon nor I have had the chance to stay or visit there yet, so it was an extra-special treat. Our fellow fair-goers Jerry and Karen had stayed there before, and highly recommended it for a future overnight stay to really tour the historic inn and gardens. One of the highlights of the garden is the enormous LOTUS POND in front of the inn.

Who knew a lotus pond could thrive in a semi-arid desert?!?! Of course, they require loads of water daily so we're still wondering how Los Poblanos pulls it off while maintaining its status as a local organic CSA farm....(we would like to note that Los Poblano's CSA program isn't so local: we found out last winter that they ship produce in from South America and Mexico to distribute to their local CSA customers around Albuquerque. Doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose? Why wait for your weekly or monthly shipment, when you can just make a short trip to Whole Foods?)

Our final stop was Casa Rondena Winery, one of the two best wineries in the state. It takes a lot of money to source the best grapes, invest in the latest greatest equipment, and build a marketing machine that can promote and sell your wine, thus why winemaker and owner John Calvin has been so incredibly successful--and his wines are amazing to boot.

Formerly an architect by trade, Calvin pursued and achieved his dream of making wine in his hometown of Los Ranchos. Being an architect, he has a fine aesthetic and designed all the structures on the property himself. He's especially fond of Arabic design, and tries to incorporate a theme of cultural harmony across his property (like on the weathervane--kinda like U2's "coexist" campaign).

Calvin's tour was entertaining and informative, and Jon, Jerry, Karen, and I had a chance to talk to him by ourselves toward the end to get some tips on how we might start growing wine grapes on our own properties in Bosque Farms. There's nothing like the inside track from someone like this.

Later that week, as I was jogging along the acequia on our block, I noticed an enormous grapevine growing out into the walking path from someone's backyard. A man passing me on the path told me that when the grapes ripen, they are small, super-sweet red grapes with seeds (aha! the description of a wine grape!), and that the owners just let them fall to the ground.

I picked a leaf to take home and identify the wine grape using our leaf identifier book (nerd moment...). It looks to be Grenache, which makes sense, as the Spanish colonists were the first to grow grapes in the U.S. right here in New Mexico back in the early 1600s--and what else is Grenache than "Garnacha"--a typical red grape that Spanish winemakers still use in abundance to produce excellent Spanish wines.

You know that we're gonna get to know these people and ask if we can pick their grapes this Fall!

Rainwater Harvesting

2008-07-11T22:04:00.000-07:00

Introducing our latest addition: a 1600-gallon rainwater catchment tank, which so far is holding about 350 gallons of water from rain that's rolled off the roof of our home the past two weeks. All this without routing from a gutter system yet--just direct drip into the tank and us filling buckets strategically around the house, then dumping them into the tank! Jon will install gutters shortly, and we're already using the water to drench our vegetable and flower gardens and new trees. Just from the roof of our house alone (not including the roof on our detached garage/barn/workroom and the roof on the small guest house and nearby lean-to), we can easily fill the tank within the next two months of monsoon rain!

The tank will eventually reside behind the guest house, and we'll hook it up to a drip irrigation system for the trees. Jon is writing an article on all this for his next installment on Matter Network, so I can't give away too much about our watering plans at this point...Stay tuned!

Article #2 in Our Series...

2008-07-10T21:41:00.000-07:00

This time, Jon's article is the headliner!

http://www.matternetwork.com/

Or, if you're reading this post after July 13th, it may be posted here:

http://featured.matternetwork.com/2008/7/flooding-the-farm.cfm

Can't wait to read the discussion boards on this one. Can't touch this!

Maintenance Post

2008-06-30T17:25:00.000-07:00

Not much new to report these days...it's hot here, but things are growing. Jon has a few flowers on the tomato and pepper plants in his experimental "bedouin tent" out back. The plants have withstood several days of strong winds and a heavy rain yesterday, so it looks like the tent saved them. Mostly, it was an experiment to see how natural windbreaks and shade might help the plants along, so we can plan where to plant trees and shrubs around the farm property accordingly.

Autodesk has given us the week off, but some of our plans fell through. So, just hanging around the homestead, maybe a road trip or two. It's kinda nice not having any plans.

Happy 4th!

Feedback on Jon's Article - Good Stuff

2008-06-18T14:16:00.000-07:00

We had a call with the publisher and editor of MatterNetwork.com yesterday. They're promoting the site to other syndicated web sites and online magazines, so Jon's article will get even more coverage!

Because of this broadcast coverage, Jon's inaugural article spurred some interesting feedback. Check out the discussion threads below. We especially relish the comments on PeakOil.com:

PeakOil.com
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic41248.html

Treehugger.com
http://forums.treehugger.com/viewtopic.php?t=4559&highlight

Bon Voyage, Les Amis!

2008-06-17T07:48:00.000-07:00

Our friends Mark and Tara from Colorado left yesterday after staying with us over the weekend en route to France (with a stop in Dallas) for their new lives in Samoens. Our mutual friend Daphne also came to stay with us from San Francisco to see them off. Everyone added so much life to our home, including Mark and Tara's dog Kai. It's especially quiet and empty today as Jon and I return to our daily lives.

Their visit was serious quality time full of cooking together, reading and commenting on gossip magazines (balanced with discussions over serious issues in The Commonwealth Club magazine), playing Table Topics, running away from killer mosquitos on a flooded Rio Grande river trail in 100-degree heat, and generally relaxing, laughing, and hanging out.

Bon voyage Mark and Tara! We wish you all the best on your new adventure, and we WILL come to visit you as soon as we can....

more at twiigs.com...

We're published! And we're hipsters!

2008-06-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

Today marks the inaugural article in a many-part series that Jon is writing for Matter Network.com. John Gartner, a good friend of Val's from San Francisco (who now lives in Portland, OR, with his wife Guacira and son Dylan by way of a stint on the East Coast) is the site's publisher and took an interest in our blog, so he proposed that we write for his new web site about sustainability for the everyman. If you've never visited the site, it's chock full of great articles and practical information without greenwashing you to death.

I find it funny that the editor chose to call us "hipsters". No offense to Jon, but we must be the nerdiest hipsters I've ever seen. When I hear that word, I think of Posh and Becks, or 20-somethings droning about like zombies with their jeans halfway down their bootys and their iPod headphones permanently connected to their ears. But, it's kind of a cool label to carry. It's way better than "Gen Ex-ers" or "farm geeks".

Thanks for publishing the story of our lives, John G!

Vegas, Mama!

2008-06-09T19:58:00.000-07:00

Spent the weekend in Vegas with Mom for our somewhat-annual mother/daughter trip (we've missed the past couple years). While we had a fantastic time (great food! won $100 in 5 minutes at the blackjack table!) I think I've seen enough of Vegas for a lifetime.

When we arrived Thursday night, we had our first dinner at Benihana. Mom loves to sit at the teppanyaki table and enjoy the chef doing his thing. Yummy cocktails too--I had a cucumber cocktail made with sake. Sooooo refreshing....

We spent most of our time on the Strip as we stayed at a Hilton behind the Flamingo, a Las Vegas hotel rich in dramatic history (the infamous mobster Bugsy was one of its founders). Our hotel was in a great location--completely central to the Strip, right on a monorail stop, clean, decent service, and not expensive. The Flamingo is somewhat of a stone's throw from the Paris hotel and casino, where we had our favorite breakfast of fresh pastries and coffee, Parisian style. And our hotel had a nice, quiet patio area engulfed with palm trees and other lush foliage to enjoy a glass of wine in the evening or coffee in the morning. Perfect pace for me and mum.

We did, however, spend a day in downtown Las Vegas, which was surprisingly great. It has such a retro-Ocean's Eleven feel (the original, with Sinatra & co.). Mom likes to feed the slots more than I do, so I either played the blackjack tables or wandered around with my camera waiting for her. Downtown generally has lower-limit tables than the Strip, so it's easier to sit and enjoy a longer, less-devastating round of blackjack. We also stumbled into Triple George Grill on 3rd street, a great restaurant/bar that had a phenomenal wine list and fresh kumamoto oysters--my favorite. It was a welcome light lunch before we headed off to Rosemary's Restaurant eons away from the strip later that evening for what may have been the most amazing meal (and service) I've ever had.

There was a vintage car show going on downtown, with the most gorgeous classic cars on display. I'm not a huge car fan, but it was fun to see all the different styles and the enormous effort people pour into them...

We had a great time, but it's good to be back on the farm. Seventy-two hours in Vegas is just enough to never want to see it again...until next time.

more at twiigs.com...

It's Tiller Time!

2008-06-03T20:10:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary by plowing, tilling, and flooding the "back forty". Originally, we had plans to steal away and see IJ4 followed by dinner at a local French restaurant to celebrate, but hey, ya know, we're like farmers now, and Indiana Jones can wait. Field duties unexpectedly took over.

It was the only day our neighbor Lee could spare his time and his tractor to plow and till our field, and it was the first time our land had been touched in more than 12 years, so you could imagine our excitement when the plow broke ground.

When Lee finished his tractor work, our eager neighbor Richard came over with his four-wheeler and jerry-rigged an old gate to the back to drag over the ground once Jon and I had broadcasted some sweet clover seed (for ground cover, to nourish the soil in prep to plant crops next spring). Jon and Richard were like two boys with their G.I. Joe action figures--it was even fun to watch them at work.

When Richard went home, we were fortunate to have water in the acequia so Jon opened the gates to flood the field and water the seed. Now, we wait and watch....

License to Serve

2008-05-31T20:57:00.000-07:00

I earned my New Mexico alcohol server's license today to cover myself should I continue with the wine tasting business. I had no idea this state's laws were so stringent. For example, if you serve someone alcohol for a paid event (such as a catered wedding, fundraiser, or other event) or on a licensed premise (such as a restaurant or bar) you MUST card EVERYONE. If you don't, and let's say a 65 year old man leaves drunk (which, by law, you are responsible for because you served him!), his license was revoked or expired so he uses a fake, he gets in a wreck, and the cops trace where he got his last drink. If they trace back to you, they can fine up to $500 or $1000! Worse, if he turns around at a wedding and gives the drink to a minor (under 21), and that minor leaves and gets in a wreck, you can get up to 18 months in jail PLUS a $1000 fine PLUS all your legal fees (at the very least $3000)!

All this seems to put undue responsibility on the server and dining/drinking establishments, but I suppose it helps deter bartenders and waitresses from serving drunk people and minors. I also learned that it can cost $300,000 - $500,000 plus an annual fee for an establishment to get a full liquor license! How do restaurants survive in New Mexico? It's probably why we have a dearth of fine dining establishments and decent bars around here....

Now that I'm licensed, I can do my wine educator thang in NM should I choose to but I have to admit, after that course I'm not chomping at the bit!

Memorial Day Weekend in New Orleans

2008-05-30T16:16:00.000-07:00

Juleps at mid-day
And plantation manors,
Jazz bands on Bourbon
and warm Southern manners,
People named Cooter,
The St. Charles "ding!"--
These are a few of our favorite things....

We spent Memorial Day weekend in New Orleans, partly to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary this week, but also so I (Val) could take the Certified Wine Educator (CWE) exam for kicks and giggles.

The CWE exam is a four-part, four-hour exam sponsored by the Society of Wine Educators (read: Wine Geeks R Us). The test comprises 85 multiple choice questions, an essay, a blind wine identification tasting, and a wine components tasting, where they add things like extra acid, alcohol, tannins, cork taint and other things to 8 glasses of wine, and I had to identify what they added to each glass. I passed that part fine (we saw results for the tastings after each part), but failed the blind tasting miserably. I wasn't alone. There were some serious wine geeks there who scored the same as me on the ID part. We won't know how we did on the multiple choice and essay until mid-July. Earning a CWE designation means I would get to put initials after my name and bug the hell out of the local community college or wine shops to let me put together wine education programs. That's the theory. Mostly, I just wanted to see if I could pass and spend some time with Jon in New Orleans.

We've been to New Orleans together before and have always loved this sultry, mysterious, boisterous town. This time, we took it easy in the Big Easy and just strolled around the French Quarter and along the Mississippi, uptown via the St. Charles streetcar.

Monday afternoon we ended up at Cooter Brown's at the end of the St. Charles line (well, it's the end of the line now. After Katrina, the city had to shut down the rest of the rail line along Carrollton Ave. for repairs). Some of you may know that after our first visit to New Orleans, we dubbed Jon "Cooter" because he likes to take life reeeeaaaal easy. So, Cooter Brown's was a fitting stop for us. Plus, I was starving after the exam and got to chow down a Philly cheesesteak and wash it down with a German double ale (over 100 beers on tap!). I passed on the "Coonass Special--so good you wanna slap yo mamma!", although I usually live by the When-in-Rome rule. It was a fine way to spend a sweltering afternoon, and to shelter ourselves from the thunderstorm outside.

As to be expected, we saw a lot of interesting things in New Orleans. You just can't escape 'em. Mannequins poised on French Quarter balconies (accompanied by a flying pig in a tutu), some leftover Katrina damage--or simply neglected, dilapidated houses and buildings--and, my favorite, a fully decked-out Hello Kitty bike, tire tread and all, which seemed to be following us around the French Quarter as we saw it outside a few stops on one of our afternoon pub crawls. I fell in love with it and had to Google it when we came home. I found it for sale on Amazon/eBay for $299 brand new.

The Incredibles

2008-05-30T08:14:00.000-07:00

So far, our neighbors have been nothing but superheroes.

Example: Being clueless city folk, we really needed guidance on how to use our acequia system to flood our field. Not more than half a day into tinkering around in the ditch were two to three neighbors offering their past experience in how it's done. One neighbor, Rowena, stuck with us the entire day since we share a turnout with her, but she also shared lots of tips for how to make it easier (and lots of entertaining stories about her past 12 years in the Farms). Since that day, we've become good friends with Rowena and her family. They invited us over to enjoy their firepit last Friday night, which was like camping with a family of six plus eight dogs, two cats, and 3 horses. We sipped wine, told ghost stories, and shared probably unsolicited advice with their oldest daughter who's off to college.

Rowena's husband Michael is a Lt. Col. in the armed forces. He's often on assignment in the Middle East, and is currently home for a few weeks after spending several months in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Army is deploying him to Iraq June 8th, this time for an entire year with only one week to return home to visit family. We've had the chance to spend a little time with Michael while he's been back, and to witness the incredible love and generosity of his entire family. He especially shines to Jon (who doesn't?), and during the firepit evening, sequestered him to share stories of what it's like to be in the Middle East during this tempestuous time. Jon left that evening with a gift from Michael: a dogtag bearing the Army creed:

Loyalty
Duty
Respect
Selfless Service
Honor
Integrity
Personal Courage

Not a bad list of values. We'll be attending his "coming and going" BBQ Saturday to see him off to his next assignment.

Then there's Lee, directly next door to us. Lee is out tilling our "back forty" right now on his enormous tractor, free of charge. Until a couple weeks ago, we were biting our nails at the cost of purchasing or renting a tractor/tiller and all the logistics involved in learning how to use one and getting it onto the property, etc. But Jon's first-time, over-the-fence meeting with Lee evolved into a conversation about our tilling needs, and he swooped in enthusiastically to save the day. Until then, we could barely get the man to wave at us.

Enter the dynamic duo, Jerry and Karen. While they live about 1/4 mile from us, we ran into them while they were toting their yoga mats and we were riding our bikes on the bike path. I screeched to a halt and nearly accosted them to ask where we could find the nearest yoga class. We got to talking, and learned that Karen is a freelance food writer and Asia correspondent for Gourmet magazine (and has published a few books), and Jerry is a freelance photographer, who accompanies Karen on their 6-month assignments in Asia. Not bad for a young Midwestern couple. They too just bought their home in the Farms about nine months ago. We have a lot in common, so we had them over for dinner and a wine tasting last week. Talk about some engaging conversation...if you're ever lacking, invite a globetrotting food writer and photographer over for dinner sometime. You won't regret it.

And last but not least: The sheep man, our neighbor Richard. Richard is quintessential Northern New Mexico. Probably in his late 50s or early 60s, Richard likes to refer to himself as "semi-retarded", pausing for effect to see how you react. Of course, he means "semi-retired", and then erupts into a contagious belly giggle at his own humor. He's an insurance salesman who likes to chew the fat. He may talk slowly, but he has a fast wit.

He, his wife and grown paraplegic son live on the lot north of us, with chickens, roosters, a dog, a cat, and...SHEEP. Fifteen wonderful sheep. He was the first neighbor we met upon arrival here and was our first bartering experience in the Farms. When he saw our field of waist-high weeds, he offered to lend us his sheep to mow down the weeds, which saved him money in return as he doesn't need to buy feed for them. It was a beautiful arrangement that has benefitted us a millionfold, as it once again saved us the money of having to buy or rent something to mow down an acre of tough weeds.

We hear stories from friends and family all the time about nightmare neighbors--some that encroach on property, some that are noisy and inconsiderate, some that are downright rude. We feel very fortunate that so far our neighbors have been nothing short of interesting, embracing, and generous. Now, we owe them all home-baked pies....

The Story of Stuff

2008-05-29T14:10:00.000-07:00

Concerned about rising gas and food prices? Worried about your drinking water? Wondering how you'll be able to afford commuting to and from work when gas is $10 a gallon?

The video that spawned this web site is a bit lengthy (about 15 minutes?), but very much worth watching. It's the story of "stuff", how the Western world (especially America) got to be such a consumeristic society over the past 60-odd years, how it has changed the world for the worse, and what we can do now to hopefully right the ship.

The web site has great resources and ideas for how each of us can change the trend of materialism that has actually consumed us over the past decades. Upgrading our lightbulbs and using recycling bins simply isn't enough. We all have to make some uncomfortable and permanent lifestyle changes if we want future generations--even our own generation!--to be able to sustain themselves. Besides, many of these changes would be GREAT for us mentally, morally, physically, socially, and spirtually. Definitely a worthy video and web site to peruse, particularly if you're concerned at all about what lies ahead for today's kids, or even for those of us who will already have to deal with this big mess as time goes by.

Lorrie's Pig Roast

2008-05-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

No offense to any fine police officers (or vegans) out there: "pig roast" is just the moniker for a gathering we attended to celebrate our friend Lorrie's new adventure into the Albuquerque Police Department! After spending the first part of her career behind a camera for newspapers, weddings, films, and finally shooting fine catalog photos of jewelry making tools, findings, gemstones, and displays for Rio Grande jewelry supply catalogs at The Bell Group (where she and Val became friends and roommates, and have been close friends since), Lorrie decided to try something new and to live life to its fullest by serving with Albuquerque's finest.

We wish you all the best Lorrie, and make the doughnuts last!

Visitors from Atlanta

2008-05-14T15:58:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, we hosted friends from Atlanta who haven't been to New Mexico in years, and had only visited for work. Val and Cathi work together, so it was a great opportunity to work in the same office for a day--before hitting the spa, shops, great food, and more!

We learned a lot from our Southern Belle visitors, and were even gifted with new Southern names: Cathi "Sue" and Amy "Jo" decided that our names are now Valerie Mae and Jon-Bob. Same for our cats: Alma Mae and Max-Bob. The weekend quickly began to sound like an episode of The Waltons....

We all had a great time, particularly Cathi and Amy, who enjoyed their first cranial sacral treatments at the Hyatt Tamaya Resort. If you haven't tried one and you plan to, be prepared to RELAX veeerrrrrry deeeeeeeeeply....

We spent a day in Santa Fe, just an hour north of Albuquerque, shopping and enjoying very pink margaritas at the legendary Pink Adobe Dragon Room (natural cactus flower juice added the pink hue). It was a gorgeous day, perfect for strolling and enjoying the oddities of The City Different.

While we entertained at home most mornings and at least one evening, we did get to enjoy some great meals out at The Range Cafe, Nob Hill Bar & Grill, and Casa de Benevides.

Thanks Cathi Sue and Amy Jo for visiting, and for sharing your Southern charm!

The Wacky Weed

2008-04-30T18:59:00.000-07:00

Val loved this cartoon growing up: Andy Panda brings home a gorgeous flower and plants it, only to be menaced by one wacky weed. The sequence below is often how we feel these days: spring in New Mexico is gorgeous and budding green, but much of it is weeds. We spent the past month uprooting weeds from the flower bed in our courtyard, and they're still popping up. Wacky....

Stills courtesy of Walter Lantz Productions, 1946

Smug Alert!

2008-04-28T17:55:00.000-07:00

We attended another Earth Day festival, this time in Albuquerque's charming Nob Hill business district. Since Jon is now working for Edible Santa Fe Magazine, it was a great opportunity to hand out some free issues and talk to vendors at the festival about advertising.

However, once again, we were "smugged"! This time, by a girl working the carbon offset booth. As Val was walking by, the smugger asked if Val would like to donate money to offset her carbon footprint. As Val politely said "not today, thanks!" the smugger proceeded to follow her through the crowd, insisting that just a $1 donation could offset 200 driving miles in a 4-cylinder vehicle. Val retorted that she rarely drives (as we live in the country, work from home, and share a car!), and the smugger continued pursuing her almost angrily, shouting "well, you still release carbon in other ways!"

It reminded us of an episode of South Park we ironically watched the evening before we moved to New Mexico, about a "smug cloud" emanating from San Francisco as the result of a self-righteous George Clooney environmental speech, and which was dangerously heading toward a similar cloud over South Park, Colorado. If the two clouds collided, it would cause a "smug storm" the likes of which we've never seen! The South Park cloud resulted from citizens switching over to hybrid cars and feeling very self-satisfied for doing so, thank you very much. In the episode, Stan makes it his mission to stop the clouds from colliding--or at least to get his friend Kyle out of San Francisco, where his parents moved him so they could inhale their own farts to offset their carbon footprints....

Here's a terrible but quick cut of the episode we found on YouTube:

It's so true. If we're not careful about self-righteousness and badgering others with our ideas of environmental responsibility, there will be a backlash. Why can't we all just be reasonable?!?

Earth Day: Why Bother?

2008-04-22T17:08:00.000-07:00

Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and more recently "In Defense of Food", has written this brilliant article on how in just a couple generations we've managed to forget how to use our minds, bodies, and the resources available to us, and instead we point fingers at government and big business for skyrocketing oil prices, climate change, and other major flaws in our world (have we all forgotten our high school economics classes? A free market is dictated by consumer demand).

But rather than just jammering on about our flaws, Pollan challenges us with some real solutions--some real ways to change the way we think and live every day. Are you up to the challenge?

How'd You Like to Be This Guy?

2008-04-22T11:49:00.000-07:00

Stuck in an elevator for 41 hours...

http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/2008/04/21/080421_elevators

A Visit to Denver

2008-04-21T20:30:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we drove about 7 hours, 460+ miles, to visit family and friends in Denver. It was a great road trip, full of laughter, adventure and good music (we listened to some of our old CD collection--Radiohead, U2, the soundtrack for 'O Brother Where Art Thou', Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli, among others).

The most bizarre thing about the trip (besides stopping for a beer in Trinidad, Colorado, on the way back--more later...), was that it was April 17th and it SNOWED during half our drive, mostly in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. It was kind of a treat, but we were counting on nice weather.

We stayed with Val's brother, Jean-Noel, and sister-in-law, Linda, and couldn't have had better accommodations. They run a veritable bed-and-breakfast! We especially dug their coffeemaker and catching up on Bill Maher (courtesty of DVR, we got to see a recap of the Pope fiasco and Maher's...apology).

Over the weekend we visited with friends Mark & Tara and Jeff, Jen and their little girl Madi. Both couples moved to Denver from the Bay Area, ironically. Jeff and Jen hosted us for a BBQ Saturday in their gorgeous home, and we enjoyed a few games on their Wii console. Boxing anyone?

We also met a lot of dogs on this trip. Introducing...Jean & Linda's little angel (with a surprising demonic side), Lilly:

And Jeff & Jen's new dog, Cooper, a French bulldog with lots of class (except for the lewd things he was doing to that rubber chicken in a bikini...):

On our way to Denver, Val had a hankering for a good milkshake, so we stumbled on the historic Conway's Red Top diner in Pueblo, CO, and slurped down old-fashioned shakes in tins. They were deeeee-licious, but our stomachs regretted it for a couple days.

On our way home, we pondered what craving we'd satisfy at our halfway point. We agreed that a beer would hit the spot, and thought: what better halfway point between Denver and Albuquerque than Trinidad, CO? I looked up breweries in Trinidad on my Blackberry and found Trinidad Brewing Co. Perfect....

EXCEPT for the greenwashed neophyte hippies that accosted us to pay $10 per person at the door for their Earth Day celebration. Now, we of all people are on the green bandwagon--uprooting from city life to start a self-sustaining organic farm is no small commitment. But we had just about enough of Earth Day elitism in Denver (it's getting just as bad--or worse than--oft-criticized fundamentalist religious zealots!). No one wants someone else's beliefs shoved down their throats. Jon calls these people "greeligious". It's ridiculous--after all, shouldn't everyday be Earth Day?

We slowly worked our way past the greeligious freaks and managed to shimmy our way, cover-free, into the brewery for our long-awaited beer. It was 'aight, but we couldn't drink it fast enough to turn tail and get outta there! And we thought Trinidad was slightly askew for its reputation as the sex change capital of the world....

It was a fantastic trip, one that we continue to savor and that keeps getting better with each memory we rehash like a fine, fine wine. Thanks everyone for your Denver hospitality!
xoxo

New Mexico Wildfire

2008-04-21T20:18:00.000-07:00

Contrary to frequent questions and concerns from friends and family, we're out of harm's way from the Manzano mountain wildfire. Thanks for your concern!

Fortunately, there is a mountain range and about 40 miles between us and the fire. Unfortunately, our goat cheese friends live and have their operations in Estancia, just 15 miles from the town of Torreon, where the fire just passed through and no one evacuated! Crazy New Mexicans....

Exercising Our Right to Water

2008-04-14T15:56:00.000-07:00

Living in New Mexico poses many differences and challenges to any newcomer, particularly people like us trying to establish a small farm. The key challenge for everyone in rural New Mexico--indeed, anywhere in the world these days--is access to water.

Contrary to popular belief, not all of New Mexico is arid, God-forsaken land. The Rio Grande river is one of the largest rivers in North America, beginning in the Rocky Mountains and running smack down the middle of the state, dividing it East from West, and providing much of the water for the state. Early Spanish settlers that established agricultural practices put in various irrigation systems to tap into the river, some of which still exist today. The irrigation system we have available for our land is a community acequia system; a system of canals, gates, and individual turnouts that's regulated by our local Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District.

The politics--and emotions--behind any community water system like this run deep, and we saw some of these play out when we flooded our property on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. If you've ever read or seen the charming Milagro Beanfield War, you have a taste for what we experienced. It's as if the moment someone saw us fussing around in the canal, the neighborhood set aflame with word that someone new was flooding!

To keep the flood from seeping into our house, we had to have some kind of trench or moat around the area we wanted to flood. Lacking a tractor and having only two days' notice from the ditch rider that water was to be released that weekend, Jon dug a trench by himself--with a shovel. He dug 7-8 hours a day for two days, and our land isn't a roll of Charmin. Much of it is loamy clay which turns into cement-like hardpan if neglected, and according to our neighbors, no one has tended our land in about 12 years. Ouch.

Capturing the water and routing it to release onto our land was a fascinating process. Because no one had irrigated our land in over a decade, we had no gates or boards to block the canal and build up enough water to fill our turnout, and ultimately flood our field. So Jon had to buy some wood and equipment to craft a stacked gate system that would give him control over the water flow. He drilled a few holes in each of the 2x6 boards that stack up on one another to ease pressure from the accumulating water so the boards wouldn't break. Brilliant. We were like beavers creating our own dam system (come to think of it, we saw a beaver swimming down the canal later that evening).

Watching the water rise on our land was intimidating. We weren't sure if Jon's homemade trench would hold, but thank God it did! The water accumulated about 6 inches over an acre of our property, and with Jon's stacking board system and keeping a careful eye on the flow, we shut off the water just in time. Standing in the middle of the flood was a unique experience--we're sure a whole new ecosystem of organisms is now calling our land home, and it's just what we need to prepare our soil for some good, organic farming.

Best of all, choosing to flood our field allowed us to experience community like we've never experienced before. All manner of neighbors came out to chat and to offer help and advice--some friendly, and some entitled and antagonistic (it takes all kinds...). But most of our neighbors were cordial, advising how to manage the water flow, riding the ditch on their four-wheelers to help us time the waterflow from upstream (a few properties north of us irrigated that day--mostly horse farms and manicured lawns), showing us how to open our turnouts, etc. and just to generally hang out and enjoy a sunny afternoon.

Jon's well-deserved celebratory beer after a weekend of digging trenches and flooding.

Cheese, Glorious Cheese!

2008-04-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, we rolled up our sleeves and spent an entire Sunday discovering what it takes to make 12 wheels of aged cheddar goat cheese. And folks, we're here to tell you it's no walk in the park....

Through what must have been a cosmic connection, we made contact with the owners of The Old Windmill Dairy in Estancia, N.M., just east of the Sandia mountain range (opposite Albuquerque on the west side of the range). Ed and Michael Lobaugh each hold full-time jobs, but spend their evenings and weekends tending a herd of over 60 goats and milking about 1/2 of those about twice a day--once before dawn, once around dusk or whenever they come home from work.

We felt like losers compared to these two Energizer bunnies. PLUS they were stuck with us for about 10 hours, taking us through each step of making the cheese and keeping the facilities clean and functional, all while staying cheerful and congenial. Amazing!

They only started seriously making cheese last summer, and their products are on the shelves of New Mexico's food co-op, La Montanita, and at the local farmers' markets each week. They blend herbs like garlic, dill, and capers into their raw cheeses, and they are the only aged-cheese producers in the state (there are only about seven artisanal dairies in New Mexico, including Old Windmill).

We met Michael and Ed under circuitous circumstances...our friend Lauren (whom Val met on a plane a few years ago) was visiting her parents in Santa Fe and attended a yoga class where she met a friend of theirs, another Michael. He told her that he makes goat cheese on weekends at the Old Windmill, gave her his card, and she encouraged us to call him, so we did. He referred us directly to Michael and Ed, and we made arrangements to visit their dairy. Incidentally, the other Michael was working with us on Sunday, where he revealed that his brother has been working for Autodesk--the company where Val works--for a couple decades! Small world....

While Ed and Michael aren't farmers, we learned so much about carrying the responsibility of a day job and a mortgage (and a farm mortgage) while trying to establish a dream. These guys are determined, and they taught us a lot about what it will take to achieve our own dreams. Thanks Michael and Ed!

These Boots Were Made for Farmin'...

2008-04-07T18:49:00.000-07:00

Fun times with our friend Leah, back visiting her folks in Santa Fe from Washington, D.C. Since I've only had the opportunity to wear my Roberto Cavalli cheetah-print, 3-inch heel boots one or two times since I bought them in New York a couple years ago, I figured I'd go allllll out. A tractor ride would certainly help me break them in....

Leah came back to drop off her longtime companion, Mabel. Mabel is a Jack Russell terrier that I used to dog sit when Leah and I lived in Santa Fe in the late 90s. When Leah occasionally went off to D.C. to represent New Mexico in her state legislature finance position, I would take care of Mabel and her fellow Jack Russell in crime, Dirk Diggler (Boogie Nights had just come out in 1997).

Lots has changed since the Santa Fe days...Val and Leah are both married now and have established careers. Leah has two adorable children, but unfortunately Dirk had an incident with one of the kids so it was time for him to go. Luckily, he found a great new home, and his new dad gives Leah regular updates and is fond of posting videos of Dirk (new name now) rolling in the grass on YouTube.

Mabel must be at least 7 years old, and was getting increasingly less attention from Leah, husband and kids, so Leah decided she needed a good retirement. What better place to get lavish attention than with grandma and grandpa?

Mabel the retiree.

It was refreshing to see Leah and the people we used to hang out with in New Mexico before I ventured off to California, and Leah to D.C. After all, only this crowd would appreciate (and tolerate) those boots....

What can you grow in New Mexico?

2008-03-16T18:48:00.000-07:00

A lot of people ask us this question. To illustrate, Val grew up in a typical, 1/4 acre lot home in a suburban subdivision of Albuquerque from the late 70s to the early 90s, and had numerous varieties of mature fruit trees and vines on the property that supplied her family, the surrounding neighborhood, and several friends, coworkers, and schoolmates with produce for the entire summer. She, her father, mother, and three brothers spent May through September harvesting, washing, cooking, canning, stewing, preserving, baking, and giving away the following:

- Squash: zucchini, acorn, butternut, small pumpkins
- Tomatoes
- Bell peppers
- Chile peppers
- BLACKBERRIES - they took over our house! Several tens of bushels per summer
- Peaches (the best I ever tasted since)
- Apricots (see note for peaches above)
- Cherries: three breeds: black, bing, and pie cherries
- Almonds
- Sunflowers (with edible, roastable seeds)
- Pears
- Apples
- Plums
- Grapes (not so great - table grapes and roses are notoriously hard to grow in New Mexico)

There are many other profitable crops that grow well in New Mexico as well, particulary when water is accessible:

- Asparagus
- Beans (all kinds - from green to lima to pinto, etc.)
- Beets
- Broccoli
- Brussel Sprouts
- Cabbage
- Cantaloupe
- Carrots
- Cauliflower
- Collard greens
- Swiss Chard
- Sweet Corn
- Cucumber
- Eggplant
- Garlic
- Honeydew melons
- Kohlrabi
- Leek
- Lettuce (all kinds)
- Mustard Greens
- Okra
- Onions
- Parsnips
- Parsley
- Peas
- Peppers
- Potatoes
- Pumpkin
- Radish
- Raspberries
- Spinach
- Turnips
- Watermelon

So, the choice is ours: after we do some market research to see what the market demands and what isn't being grown enough, we'll decide what to plant over time!