A Visit to Denver

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

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

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!

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'...

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?

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!

Let the Farming Begin!

We've learned so much the past two weekends, attending local farming conferences that taught us things like how to harvest rainwater (to multiply average annual rainfall by at least 3x!), how to enrich soil organically, how to plan your garden or farm economically, and market research for what to grow that the local economy needs. This is serious stuff folks!

We're still overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information that's out there, and everything we have to do to transform our 2-acre blank-slate property into a production vegetable and fruit farm (not sure about animals yet--that's phase III--see below). So, we decided to sit down for a few hours each week, share all the information we learned at the conferences (we divided and conquered at the conference sessions), and start mapping out a landscape plan and timeline through the end of this year. It will take a lot of learning, mistakes, sheer discipline, and pig-headed determination, but we think we have what it takes!

So, here's the rough plan so far:

Phase I: Spring/Summer/Fall 2008

Establish infrastructure and prepare the land for production farming. This will include:

• Market research: visit local farms and farmers' markets, discover what grows best in our parts and what the market demands (including restaurants, schools, grocers, farmers markets, CSAs, etc.)
• Plann where to plant things, especially major trees, fruit/nut tree groves, and invasive vines (blackberries grow like weeds out here!)
• Eliminate the 3-4 cement areas that were once outbuilding foundations (and a makeshift basketball court). Jon has been doing this by hand with a sledge hammer. Makes for nice guns! (teehee)
• Turn the carport in the back into a greenhouse
• Establish composting bins and a recycling/composting system from house-to-farm (this is already in progress thanks in part, ironically, to Target stores)
• Tear up unwanted grass areas and re-route existing drip irrigation system to accommodate planting plan
• Establish our water rights with the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District so we can flood our fields via the acequia, or irrigation ditch, on the back of our property
• Build water overflow and rain catchment systems around the house and property
• Enrich soil on nearly 2 acres for planting next season
• Begin flower garden in front courtyard (before/after photos to come!)
• Plant a small experimental garden to test variety hardiness (Val wants pumpkins for the Fall)
• Sell experimental crops at local farmers' markets to find out what it's like to wake up at 4am, harvest fresh produce, haul it to the market, and while away a Saturday in the hot sun....
• Build cold frames for winter crops
• and much, much more!

Phase II: Winter 2008/Spring 2009

• Plant winter crops
• Begin cultivating for planting rows in spring
• Plant trees
• Plant crops for Summer and Fall 2009 harvests!

Phase III: Summer/Fall 2009

• Decide if/how to incorporate animals on the farm - chickens, sheep, etc.

Lots of work ahead of us, but oh so gratifying. In the meantime, we've scheduled local farm visits over the next few weeks both for fun and for research. First stop: an organic goat cheese farm in Estancia, about 1 hour east of us. We'd also like to meet and work with another couple doing much of the same at their Ironwood Farm Project in Albuquerque's south valley.

Farmers' markets don't really start in New Mexico until May or June, but we have attended the winter market in Los Ranchos, which was a bit sparse. However, we did pick up some PHENOMENAL oyster mushrooms grown organically on straw bales in Mountainair, a great loaf of fresh-baked Italian bread baked in Los Ranchos (just next door to the market!), and some organic raspberry-red chile jam from Heidi's Raspberry Farm in Corrales, NM. We made mini-pizzas that night on slices from the Italian loaf, topped with cheese, fresh pesto that we made, and the oyster mushrooms sauteed in butter and garlic. Mmmmmmm.....

Life doesn't get much better than this.