We Went to the Iris Farm!

I've always wanted to take a trip to the Hondo Iris Farm, located a couple of hours away from Las Cruces in the Hondo Valley of New Mexico. Today we combined a visit there to see the irises in bloom with a picnic on the grounds. Lovely!

We drove to the other side of the Organ Mountains, through the Tularosa Basin, up into the Sacramento Mountains, and through the mountain town of Ruidoso. Along the way we passed a missile base test facility, the White Sands National Monument, the Mescalero Apache Reservation, the Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort and Casino, the Hubbard Museum of the American West, and the Ruidoso Downs Race Track.

Scenery-wise, we traveled from the pecan orchards and chile fields of our own irrigated Mesilla Valley, through bare rocky mountains, along a desert road through ancient lake beds, up through some pine tree mountains, and down through some very barren and dry hills to the place where the Hondo Valley starts.  

Oh, that Hondo Valley! It hit these desert eyes with a big blast of green, just like the oasis it is in a dry land. The waters of the Rio Hondo, Rio Bonito, and Rio Ruidoso meet here and irrigate the grazing fields, orchards, and vegetable farms in that good bottom land. 

After passing by the little villages of Glencoe and San Patricio, we came to Hondo and took the turnoff into the grounds of the Hondo Iris Farm. The pictures below should tell the rest of the story.

There were lots of shade trees, always appreciated by New Mexicans. 

I love the contrasting foliage of these trees. 

Here is the garden--lots of irises, interspersed with lilies, 

some hollyhock seedlings, and peonies. The fragrance was wonderful.

Not such a good shot of the flowers, but we always love the shade!

There were roses, too. 

St. Francis, being dwarfed by a huge iris bloom.

I brought home several potted irises and a peony for our own garden. I loved our peonies back in New Hampshire and somehow never realized that they can be grown here. We also brought home a catalog and I'll be choosing more iris varieties to pick up from the farm in July. 

I guess I have some digging to do to make some beds out back for the new plants. I think our chicken girls will enjoy the view of all those blossoms next year. 

A couple of the irises I brought home: Fiery Temper

Nigerian Raspberry

Getting a Mountain Fix

A couple of days ago we drove up from 4300 feet in Clovis to over 8600 feet in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, located in the beautiful Sacramento Mountains. What a gorgeous drive! After several months on the high plains, we needed another mountain fix.

We took Hwy. 70 from Clovis past Roswell, to the beautiful Hondo Valley. Here we passed through the tiny towns of Picacho, Tinnie, Arabela, Hondo, and San Patricio. If I were 30 years younger, I would love to live in this uniquely scenic area.

We continued on to the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation, passing through Ruidoso. We turned off on Hwy. 244, a quiet two lane road that travels through Elk Canyon, where we stopped to take pictures and could hear elk bugling on the hillside above us.
We traveled in and out of the Lincoln National Forest, an area rich in history. According to the Billy the Kid Scenic Byway web site: "The Lincoln County area...has been home to Billy the Kid, the Lincoln County War, the Mescalero Apache tribe, Kit Carson, "Black Jack" Pershing, the Buffalo Soldiers, the world's richest Quarter Horse race and Smokey Bear."

For the first half of its history, those going to the village of Cloudcroft went by excursion train from Alamogordo, traveling 16 miles up from the desert floor. The first highway to Cloudcroft was built in the mid-1940s, and the train service was discontinued in 1948. We found a delightful small mountain town with abundant fresh air (and abundant tourists, too). After a delicious lunch of green chile meat burritos that we ate on the front porch of a little cafe, we started back to our home on the plains.

Here are some points of interest on our journey.

• Apache Point Observatory: http://www.apo.nmsu.edu/Site/apo.brochure/apo.brochure.html
  
  
• Billy the Kid National Scenic Byway: http://www.billybyway.com/
  
  
• Cloudcroft, New Mexico: http://cloudcroft.com/
  
  
• The Hondo Valley; Picacho, Tinnie, Arabela, Hondo, and San Patricio: http://www.southernnewmexico.com/Articles/Southeast/Lincoln/TheHondoValley-PicachoTin.html
  
  
• The Lincoln National Forest: http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/lincoln/
  
  
• Mescalero Apache Reservation, an article from New Mexico Magazine: http://www.nmmagazine.com/NMGUIDE/mescalero.html
  
  

For additional information:

• "Black Jack" Pershing: http://www.nps.gov/pwso/honor/pershing.htm
  
  
• Buffalo Soldiers: http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/carson.htm
  
  
• Kit Carson: http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/carson.htm
  
  
• The Lincoln County War: http://www.southernnewmexico.com/Articles/Southeast/Lincoln/TheLincolnCountyWar.html
  
• If you like gambling and horse racing, see the Ruidoso Web Site at http://www.ruidoso.net/

• The story of Smokey Bear: http://www.smokeybear.com/vault/story_main.asp
  
  
• To hear various elk bugles, go to http://www.elkheaven.com/elk_sounds.htm