On the Way to Get Some Pumpkin Empanadas

I thought you might like to listen to some mariachi music to get you in a Las Cruces mood...

Fall in southern New Mexico is fiesta time; it's time for parades (it seems like every weekend), the Southern New Mexico State Fair and Rodeo, The Whole Enchilada Fiesta (known locally as TWEF), various wine and jazz festivals, hot air balloon events, and Dia de los Muertos. Coming in November are the International Mariachi Conference and the Renaissance ArtsFaire. You can see a calendar for this year's events here.

The high desert weather cooperates, of course. Chilly nights make for good sleeping, and the mornings warm right up, but the days don't get too hot.

With the cooler weather, our appetites start to return. Yesterday Beez and I thought that some pumpkin empanadas would make a good snack, so we headed out to (what else?) La Fiesta, the best bakery we know.

Here is what we saw along the way. I hope that mariachi music is still playing while you check out this amazing truck. The art work makes me look forward to el Dia de los Muertos.

If we were back in New Hampshire, we would be sipping fresh apple cider and munching on buffalo burgers at the Deerfield Fair. This truck (and those empanadas) tell us that we are, indeed, in a very different land.

"As skeleton-happy New Mexicans know, honoring departed souls is not some eerie voyage into the macabre—in fact, it’s an annual cause for celebration" ~Miranda Mirklein

Under the hood

The hood itself

Detail on the back of the truck

Railroad Museum

Our Las Cruces Railroad Museum is located in an historic Santa Fe Railroad Depot in the Alameda-Depot Historic District of the city. It is staffed by knowledgeable and enthusiastic volunteers. 

When we visited during the 5th Annual Railroad Days a couple of months ago, we talked with model railroad enthusiasts, Harvey Girl reenactors from El Paso's Railroad and Transportation Museum, and lots and lots of train fans. 

Our little museum hosts other events, as well. We recently attended a talk about the Orphan Trains, which I'll tell you about in a later post. I see that the Museum's upcoming activities include brown bag lunches with talks about local history; a monthly toddler story time; and the Rail Readers Book Club, which discusses a different train-related novel every month.

Vintage railroad posters line the walls of the old railroad depot waiting room

Upstairs in the model railroad room you can operate parts of this exhibit yourself. It was built by students during summer programs held at the museum. From the exhibits page: This HO layout depicts railroading in the southwest in the 1940s and 1950s. It includes a switching yard, a vibrant downtown area featuring a few buildings from Las Cruces’ past, and outlying farms and mountains. You can find out about this summer's modeling classes here.

Admission to the museum is free. There is always something new to see, although it might just be the look on the face of a little boy (some of them quite grown-up), fascinated with the world of model trains.

Friends!

When I first retired and started writing this blog, my profile included this statement : 


Who knew that retirement would be so much fun? I enjoyed working with kids and books and technology as a school librarian, but now I love having time to myself for walking, riding my bike, taking photos, reading, researching, volunteering, knitting, writing, gardening, and blogging.


Well, who knew that retirement would hold such surprises? I just updated that rather solitary-sounding list of individual (or couple) activities to include, first on the list: 

but now I love having time to get together with friends

We've only lived here for two years now, but I had to smile when I looked out at all the cars parked along the road on Thanksgiving Day. We had a dozen friends at the table, and most of them are people we didn't know when we first moved here. 


Good old Las Cruces--it's a friendly place and we are so lucky to have so many wonderful new friends. 

The Las Cruces Report: Late May

When I lived back in New Hampshire, we always put our gardens in on Memorial Day weekend. Oh, we could try to trick Mother Nature by getting plants in the ground before that, but they really wouldn't start to grow until the end of May when the ground warmed up.

Other memories about growing things in the East--we aspired to have corn that was "knee high by the Fourth" (of July); the first haying was done in between rainstorms, also in July, and we always wished for fresh tomatoes from the garden for summer picnics, but didn't really start harvesting them until late July and early August.

Oh, my, things are so different out here in southern New Mexico. First of all, the corn:

 Here is Beez, kindly supplying the knees next to a flourishing field of corn. You can see that it's good and high, and here we are still in the month of May.

Dry soil in the orchard

However, any crop that is flourishing here is doing so because of irrigation. Because the irrigation district is very short of water due to lack of snowmelt, farmers who usually get three to four acre feet per season for their fields are getting 3 acre inches this year. That means that in order to irrigate, they have to pump water from ground wells. This is what the soil looks like in our neighboring pecan orchards. The trees still get flooded, but the water comes from the aquifer, not from the mountains, and the soil dries out a lot in between due to lack of rainfall. We haven't had rain for months now, but there is some rain in the forecast for the week, so keep your fingers crossed for us.

A couple of other notes: The first cutting of alfalfa was done well over a month ago now. That always amazes me. There are probably three more cuttings to come. And our tomato plants are all starting to take off, growth-wise, and are in bud. I'll let you know when we pick the first tomatoes. 

Blue Neon Crosses

Our Lady of Health in the old Las Cruces Mesquite neighborhood is my favorite church to photograph.

The Mass is held in both English and Spanish

The colorful facade is so different from the more austere New England meetinghouses of my old town in New Hampshire

The crosses are outlined in blue neon, a beautiful (and so Southwestern) sight against the nighttime desert sky. You can get an idea of what they look like when lit here, in this photo taken at dusk.

The City Goes Green With Goats

Goats doing what goats do

The City of Las Cruces Public Works Dept. recently decided to try out goats for weed control at a local drainage pond. I was lucky to get this shot, as the goats had just about completed their job of ridding the area of tall weeds that were acting as a breeding ground for mosquitoes. A few days later, the herd was moved elsewhere to help out with another project.

The neighborhood where the pond is located is called "Chiva Town" for the goats that were once commonly kept in yards nearby. You can read an article about this "green" weed control project in the El Paso Times.

Fixer

We spent some time wandering the back calles (streets) of the nearby village of Mesilla the other day. Coming across this worn old adobe gate, we mourned the terrible damage done to the prickly pear plants by our recent spell of below freezing weather. As you can tell, these are plants that have been growing at this site for a good many years through all kinds of winters, but the bitter cold of this past month has done them in.

If you are able to do adobe repair and reconstruction, the house is in the same shape as the gate--a fixer, for sure, but located in a lovely old back lane of a beautiful town.

Why I Don't Live in El Paso, for Skywatch

I'm sure there are pretty parts of El Paso, but this is what I see when we travel through: Blue skies, yes; but too many cars, too many people, and too much speed and noise. 

I-10 heading north

Looking toward downtown El Paso with poor, war-torn Juarez, Mexico in the distance

I like a little more peace and space around me: A little more solitude, as you can see from the header photo of Beez at White Sands (click here if the header photo has been changed) and from the photo below, which was taken not too far from where we live.

Looking across wetlands at the Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park toward the Organ Mountains. We saw a coyote out for a ramble on the day we were there

To see both urban and rural skies from all around the world, please visit Skywatch Friday.

The Las Cruces Report: Early February and a Deep Freeze, Part 2

In our recent sub-zero weather here in New Mexico, our pipes froze last Wednesday and thawed on Friday. That was when we knew we had a broken pipe and got the water shut off at the main. Here it is Monday now, and we are still without running water.

Oh, we've seen our wonderful plumber, Paul, who is still his handsome, cheerful self, in spite of being absolutely exhausted from dashing from house to house on his list, deciding who has the worst water/pipe issues and which ones can be easily and quickly repaired. While he was here, he disconnected and pulled out our hot water heater and located the problem pipe. Sadly, it is inside of a wall behind our refrigerator. Because our job will take longer than most, Paul asked for our patience and will get back when he can to start ripping out the interior wall.

This really has a Third World look to it, don't you think? Who has a hot water heater located outside? The heater is now in the backyard (yes, even more charming) and the outdoor shed walls and pipes have been ripped about in the search for the leaking pipe

In the meantime, we've learned a few things about our modern dependence on running water. Although, as desert dwellers, we are always careful not to waste a drop, we find that we take for granted flushing toilets, washing hands, shampooing hair, taking showers, and doing laundry. On the other hand, we've discovered just how little water we can get by with from day to day, especially after the local grocery store started running out of drinking water. 

We also found just how hard it is to clean up a kitchen full of the pots and pans used to prepare Beez's signature white lasagna, which he considers a "must-have" for any Super Bowl party. Yes--we decided to go ahead with our party plans, and hosted a wonderful group of friends who kindly carried in their own water for flushing, and brought us drinking water, too!

They were from the parts of the city that still had running water. Even though water was not a problem at their houses, they had all experienced rolling blackouts with no electricity for several hours at a time, as well as the fear of no heat in freezing temperatures, due to the state-wide shortage of natural gas brought on by the increased demands. That was a very scary part of our recent brush with an arctic storm--our utility companies just weren't prepared to handle unprecedented energy demands and their own instrumentation apparently froze up. 

There is a lot of anger at the electric company--after all, people had tvs and heat pumps blow with the electricity surging off and on. While I don't think the company is to blame for the results of the kind of weather that hasn't been seen in our area for 60 or 70 years, I am very worried that with global warming adding more moisture to the atmosphere (as I understand it) that these kinds of winter "aberrations" will become more common. 

The Las Cruces Report: Early February and a Deep Freeze

Newspaper photo: Ice from somebody's broken pipe (Robin Zielinski/Sun-News)

The weather is the big news here, just as it has been nearly everywhere else this winter. According to the Sun-News, the temps were below freezing for over 91 hours straight over the last few days; that's some kind of new record. Here in the North Valley, we got down to -1 F.  At the 7MSN Ranch nearer to the center of the state and at a higher elevation, temps got as far down as 27 below!

Here in New Mexico's southern desert, we aren't prepared for this kind of weather, EVER. Our hot water heater is located outside on the north side of the house, and is housed in a small shed-like jog. You can imagine how well that works out in sustained, near-zero weather.

Yep, our pipes froze and we're pretty embarrassed. As New Englanders, we know how to prevent this kind of thing, but we were too snug and warm in bed to get up and deal with the issue. In our own defense, pipes have been bursting all over. The whole darned city is a mess.

We babysat our frozen pipes until things thawed out yesterday and the open faucets began to run free. Then there was that ominous sound of running water inside the wall and Beez took off for the main water shut off. That was frozen, and when I saw him heading out the door with a sledge hammer, I headed him off and called the water company before things got even worse. They managed to fit us into their gigantic list of people with emergencies and were outside within minutes because one of the water guys happened to be passing by.

So, here we are in the sunny Southwest with no running water. It's a clear day, and the temps will be above freezing--we'll even see 60 on Tuesday. We're not dealing with mountains of snow like our old neighbors back east. We have electricity and heat (more about that in the next post), so we can't really complain. But no water equals no bathroom facilities, which means we probably won't be hosting our first annual Super Bowl party tomorrow.

The plumber, who has always been on speed dial since we moved here, is so backed up that we have no idea when he'll be here to repair the pipes. There are stories of weary plumbers working almost around the clock.

Will our walls have to be ripped out? Will the repairs take up the whole carpet replacement budget? We were so hoping to get the next phase of the floor project done by spring. It looks like that is a dream deferred...

Christmas Eve in Mesilla

Here we are, well into January, and I haven't told you about our Christmas experiences yet.  I will spend a bit of time looking back during the coming week.


We finally got to visit the Mesilla Plaza on Christmas Eve, something I have always wanted to do. It was magical in every way. The night was cold and fragrant with the smell of luminarias and fireplace fires. If you have never smelled a Southwest fireplace fire, you have a treat ahead of you, because there is absolutely nothing like the fragrance of burning juniper and piñon on a frosty night.


Let's see, we have covered one sense--that of smell, which is always important in the desert Southwest. For sounds, we had the tolling bells of San Albino, the laughter of children, singing carolers, and a brass band. For sights, there were strolling families, lights strung about, Christmas decorations, and, of course, the thousands of authentic luminarias--each made of a candle inserted in sand inside a brown paper bag (assembled by the high school band for an annual fund raiser).


Here is what it looked like, with the church of San Albino lit up in the background.

We followed a little side trail of luminarias and found that it led into a tiny alleyway between old adobe walls. Turning a corner, we saw this lovely sight in the darkness--a little outside altar in honor of la Virgen de Guadalupe, whose procession we had seen just a couple of weeks before. I took the first shot without a flash, so you could see it just as we did.

To show you the scene in greater detail, I tried a shot with the flash. Just bear in mind that the little grotto was much darker, and was actually lit only by the flickering candles and luminarias.

We had another unexpected meeting before we left Mesilla to go home, but I will tell you about that tomorrow.  In the meantime, I leave you with this image of one of the stained glass windows of San Albino. If you have a moment, you can go to the parish history page and click on the tab entitled "Crowd leaving 1908 dedication of the new San Albino Church" to see a lovely historical photograph of the church, its parishioners, and the plaza over a hundred years ago. 

The Las Cruces Report, Early December

Biker Santas, 2009

I love our December weather. It's cold at night, and chilly enough in the mornings to wear the wool sweaters I brought from New Hampshire. By afternoon, though, the sun is warm again, and we are back to shirtsleeves. If we get too hot, we only need to step into some shade for some sharp, cool air.

A hard freeze has cleared off the leaves from the pecan trees, and harvesting along our road has already started, with the big mechanical tree shakers out there bringing down the pecans. In the fields, mostly empty now, the cotton harvest is winding down. From here at the desk in our study, I can see a lovely big field greening up, planted with some kind of winter cover crop.

Josefina's Gate in Mesilla, 2009

There are way too many holiday activities happening--too many, that is, if we tried to go to all of them. A couple of nights ago the city had its Christmas tree lighting, complete with carolers, horse-drawn wagons, and hot chocolate. We hope to go to the Christmas eve lighting of the luminarias on the Mesilla Plaza this year. It's a beautiful scene, often photographed.

The nearby Tortugas Pueblo will be holding its Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta this coming week (December 10, 11, and 12), with candlelight processions, an all-night vigil, a pilgrimage to the top of Tortugas Mountain, special masses, a community feast, and traditional matachine dancers.

The high school football season has come to an end, with Mayfield High School winning the state championship, but there are plenty of basketball games at the University for us to cheer at, as well as craft fairs, and concerts all over the place. The Las Cruces Farmers Market, voted one of America's favorite markets, has scheduled some extra time for shoppers.

Here are some more December happenings from the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, around the city, and around the state.

The Las Cruces Report: Late October

We moved into our adobe house in the pecan orchard last November, so we have been here almost a year now. I think that this must be my favorite time of year. The nights are cool, and the days warm up quickly so that the air is hot in the sun, while still cool in the shade. The flies and mosquitoes have gone away; even unscreened doors and windows can stand open to the fresh air, allowing the dogs and cats to come into the house and out onto the patios at will. We often get clouds that seem to be sent especially to make the sunrises and sunsets absolutely breathtaking.

SOOC--straight out of the camera--with telephone wires intact. This was the sunrise from our patio a few days ago. 

The harvest is going on in the fields--cotton, red chiles, and pumpkins. The pecan orchard keepers are watching their trees carefully and spraying for weeds. They send out tractors that pull big rollers to tamp down the grass beneath the trees, which will make it easier to gather the pecans when they are shaken off a bit later in the season.

It is fiesta time in southern New Mexico. There is something going on every weekend--wine festivals, parades, special events at museums and art galleries--the possibilities for entertainment are endless. Next weekend on the plaza in Mesilla, people will be displaying altars dedicated to their loved ones for the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos), followed on Tuesday by a candlelight procession to honor the dead.  We have some plans for an altar of our own, here in the adobe house.

The summer's monsoon rains have given the desert vegetation an almost lush look, as you can see.

Taken near the Visitor's Center at Dripping Springs

Banana yucca in fruit, Organ Mountains, NM

The Las Cruces Report for August, Part 2: Green Gold

It's hard to explain the importance of chiles here in the Mesilla Valley. Chile is a crop, it's a culture, and it's a big part of the cuisine here. Our friend, Pat, who is planning to retire here soon, calls them "green gold." There's a sign in one of Beez's favorite restaurants that says, "A day without chiles is like a day without sunshine," and we rarely experience any days without both of these staples of New Mexican life. 

When it's chile harvest time, the air is filled with the smell of roasting chiles and the grocery stores sell a ton of those little quart freezer bags. We all shop for our year's supply of chile and a great many of us have an extra freezer just for all those bags of green gold. 

We bought our first batch at the Farmers Market on the weekend. You buy a big burlap bag, 20 pounds worth, right from the farmer...

... then you bring the bag over to the roasters...

... who roast your 20 pounds and pack the hot chiles into a plastic bag like the one on the left in the first photo.

Once we get the chiles home--and what a fragrant ride it is!--we spread them out a few at a time on a pan to cool a bit. Then we plunge them into some chilly water, drain them, and package them (skin and all) into those little freezer bags, 8 chiles to a bag. Once the bags are all closed up, we pop them into the chile freezer, all but the plateful of fresh ones that we peel and eat for lunch. 

It's a lovely, almost ceremonial tradition, and a nice thing to do on a hot day in a shady kitchen while looking out the window over the sink up at the Organ Mountains and being thankful for such a good life.

*****

If you are a fan of cowboy stories (Deb, I'm trying to catch you!), be sure to check out the tale of tenderfeet over on the Remember blog today. 

The Las Cruces Report for August, Part 1: Misery

Flies in the early morning light

Click on the photo to enlarge it. If you concentrate really hard and look at the air about halfway up the trunks of these pecan trees surrounding our house, you will see what I was trying to capture--millions of flies, swarming around in the early morning. Millions more of their brothers were perched on the side of our house and flying around my eyes and into my ears on that same day; the day I was outside sweating and swatting and trying to do a little gardening at dawn.

You probably can't see them, but take my word for it: August has been a month of bazillions of flies and of heat and stickiness. Oh, and mosquitoes, too. Pretty miserable for us here in the Pecan House with few window screens, no air conditioning, and a swamp cooler that promises nothing during monsoon season. Poor us! However, I keep thinking about all the people in the world who do quite nicely without any a/c, not to mention all the people who lived here in the Mesilla Valley before there was electricity and before the city obligingly sent out trucks to spray against mosquitoes and the dangers they carry.

Human misery aside, the feeling of living in a rich and fertile oasis in the midst of the desert has never been so strong. That hot sunlight and all of our afternoon rains have worked their magic on the local field crops and the cotton plants down the road seem to grow a foot a day. My poor struggling roses, looking so pathetic in their first year, have sprung to life with new leaves and a second blooming. The vitex (Texas lilac) has grown over two feet in height since it was planted in early July and is blooming again, too. The hollyhock seeds that a friend gave me are coming up all through the garden, promising lots of flowers for next year. The Farmers Market is overflowing with bounty: Corn, grapes, honey, sweet melons of all kinds, and peaches--juicy, wonderful, ripened-on-the-tree peaches.

There is one more crop being harvested, but its importance is so great that it deserves a report all its own. Tomorrow, Green Gold.*

*****

*Thanks, Pat!

Lunch at Ono Grindz

We discovered a great place for lunch after spending some time at the Las Cruces Farmers Market on Saturday--the Hawaiian restaurant called Ono Grindz, located along the Downtown Mall. The name means something like "delicious food" or "kickass eats" in Hawaiian slang.

It was a parching day and we had been out in the sun for a couple of hours, so the thick-walled adobe building with the fountain in its enclosed courtyard promised a cool respite that didn't disappoint. We were served tall glasses of ice water right away, and the sweet waitress even offered "to go" bottles of water later when we were leaving. When we said we were already carrying water bottles, she filled them up for us, a kindness much appreciated on a scorching summer day in the desert. 

The decor was casual and delightful, with all sorts of Hawaiian memorabilia and vintage posters like the one below. 

Our meals were colorful and delicious, and reasonable, too. I had the fish tacos, which came with an onion/pineapple/coriander sauce and a salad with fresh pineapple, macadamia nuts, and a mango vinaigrette; all for $7.95. 

Here are a couple more reviews:

Get Fresh at Ono Grindz (from the Las Cruces Sun-News) and Island Treasure (from Desert Exposure).

P.S. If you have a moment, could you help me with some Crock Pot Questions over on my other blog? Thanks!

Not Visiting an Explosive Site

Beez and I were out for a drive a couple of weeks ago, and thought we'd pop over to the White Sands Test Facility, located just across the Jornada Basin from the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Park. When we've hiked around the park, we've looked over toward the Facility, so we were looking forward to seeing it a little closer up.

Silly me. Silly us. This is the sign that greeted us at the Baylor Canyon Road exit just off Highway 70:

Here is what the website says: Since WSTF is a protected and hazardous testing facility, it is not open to the general public. Employees and authorized visitors can only enter the facility with appropriate badges and photo identification.

Here is what they are doing out there where we didn't visit, according to the same website:

White Sands Test Facility (WSTF) conducts simulated mission duty cycle testing to develop numerous full-scale propulsion systems. These systems have been developed for the Apollo Service Propulsion and Lunar modules, Shuttle Orbiter, and the International Space Station (ISS). Additionally, we evaluate upgraded or redesigned shuttle orbiter components to extend service life, enhance performance, and improve mission safety. WSTF is formally certified to perform precision cleaning and depot-level refurbishment of flight-critical propulsion systems components.

The scientific investigation of explosion phenomena at WSTF is aimed at improving safety at launch facilities and other areas where hazardous materials are used. Ultra-high-speed instrumentation helps better define safety and structural requirements for new and existing launch facilities by measuring the effects of exploding liquid and solid propellants.

That's some pretty exciting stuff. I'm kind of glad we didn't get any closer.

Las Cruces Report: Early July

July sunrise in the flooded orchard

It's hard for me to believe that the farmers have already made their third cutting of alfalfa. I'm used to two cuttings for the whole season in New England; and those are always a race with the weather. Here in the Mesilla Valley, except for the monsoon rains, the farmers deal with dry weather most of the time--good for harvesting and drying hay, and good if you have enough water for irrigation.

The chile plants are a couple of feet high and the corn is truly as "high as an elephant's eye." The cabbage crop has been harvested, and the onion harvest continues. I tried to get a good shot that would show just how labor intensive that harvesting onions looks to me--this was just a small portion of the field and there were trucks parked all around it with many workers out there in the heat, laboring to fill those big boxes. It sure smelled good, though.

In the gardens around town, we are seeing the most beautiful butterfly bushes in pinks and blues. Of course, I want to get some to plant. The brilliantly-colored canna lilies are just about to bloom, too.

We'll go to the Farmers Market on the weekend to see what's happening there.

Monsoon Morning for Skywatch

I wish that my photos could show the full magnificence of this rain shower falling in front of the Organ Mountains. It was pretty early in the day and I had to run to get these shots before the brief rainfall faded away.

For skies with all kinds of weather, be sure to visit Skywatch Friday.

Evening on the Rio

Watching the river drift down toward Mexico

The other evening we had supper at a restaurant with friends and wanted to continue our conversation in a quieter place, so went down to La Llorona Park along the Rio Grande to watch the sun go down. It was hot and still; perfectly beautiful and peaceful.

Looking into the setting sun

Having a little fun with the previous picture

There are just a few more days to vote in the New Mexico Days of Enchantment Photo Contest. You can vote as many times as you want, but only once per photo per day. See my photos here. Your votes are really helping! The response to this contest has been amazing, and the views of New Mexico you will see there are really incredible.