Eggs Become Art!

The eggs from our backyard flock look like this

My knitting friend Mary-Claire's artist neighbor, Florence, transformed them into this!
Wherever she could, Florence incorporated the rich natural egg colors into her designs.

Welsummer eggs are this beautiful rich, dark brown

The background color of this one is also the natural color of the egg

This is probably a Peckatina egg (see below)

Detail of previous egg

This one says "thank you" on the other side. It was for me for providing the eggs...



although Peckatina just reminded me to tell you who really does the egg production around here
(and that every single egg is a work of art)!

A Vintage-Style Easter Table

Beautiful Spring! It just perks me right up. I never thought I'd be blogging again here, and just look at the posts lately--full of color. Bright red chairs on the patio! Flowers blooming in the garden! Lots of exclamation points!

I didn't spend any time at all on this table for Easter--nary a chick or bunny or flower arrangement in sight but, as Auntie Bucksnort pointed out, the colors were rather nice. I wish you could see the blue border on that faux-vintage fashionably-wrinkled ordered-from-Amazon tablecloth.

I was just making a rather prosaic baked ham with some green beans and fresh tomatoes on the side, but then good friends arrived, bringing a vegetable antipasto mixture with fancy crackers, strong Canadian beer, polenta (in the photo next to the tomatoes), fresh mango chutney, and roasted red peppers. Suddenly, we had color and conversation and a feast!

Happy Spring to you all! I guess I'm a little late with that...

Spring in the Desert Garden

When we bought our little vintage adobe house in 2009, the yard was barren. There was a hot strip between the covered porch and the fence, and I was determined to fill it with color. 

It's been a learning experience for a gardener used to the abundant rainfall and loamy, rocky soil of New Hampshire. Here, we have almost no rain at all (maybe 8 inches total in a good year), blazing sun reflected off a south-facing wall, and hard clay soil. Some things work, like these flowering cacti. Some things do NOT work here, like the roses and irises I see blooming luxuriantly in other parts of town. 

Hollyhocks adore our yard and put on an amazing show every year. These older, short ones are just starting to bloom now. Our plants self seed, and I just move the seedlings around a little. My knitting friend, Diane, gave me a little packet of seeds from her plants up on the East Mesa part of town a few years ago, and the rest is history. I have sent my seeds, in turn, to gardening friends in Nevada, Northern California, and Washington state. 

I am hoping for great things from this scrawny-looking tangerine crossvine, just planted a couple of weeks ago. I would love to train it to drape from the porch roof. We'll see.

This brutal-looking plant is the kind of thing that really thrives here. It started from one cactus pad in 2010 and will soon be immense. I just hope we can control it, because you can't go near it to prune without heavy gloves and long-handled tools, and even then it will find a way to get you with its thorns (painful) and tiny glochids (stiff hairs, way more painful and very difficult to get out once they are embedded in your skin). Why do we put up with it? Well, it's here now, and is very beautiful in its way. It has many shades of purple and aqua in those pads, and it will be flowering soon, too. 

I should have taken these photos earlier in the morning. It would have been easier to see what I was doing and the photos might be in focus! The desert bird of paradise (known to us as The Bertie Memorial Tree) on the right and the Texas lilac out of sight just beyond it both provide some much-needed shade just three years after being planted. 

This was such a rookie gardener mistake--I thought that cacti would be slow-growing and planted these too close together. I like the sharp colors, though. 

These hollyhocks around the corner from the other, smaller ones may not look like much right now, but stand back! I'm expecting a wonderful show soon. The plants are at least 6 feet high and still growing taller ever day. They colonized themselves in a partly shady east-facing bed where nothing had grown before. There are some larkspurs down under there somewhere, which will add some more color to all the hollyhock pinks. 

There you have it, my April report for the garden. What's growing (or about to grow) in your garden? 

A Colorful Springtime Tea

My sister is coming over for tea tomorrow, so I thought I'd make a little relaxing area on our underutilized back patio. It's nice and shady--a perfect place to sit and chat. In true New Mexican fashion, I kept adding more colors and more flowers. I'm really pleased with the result. 

What you can't see in the photo is the lively spring wind we experience this time of year, so the tablecloth is pinned in place, that little hen on the blue table is well stuck down, and the chairs are about to take off unless someone sits in them quick. 

Now I'm going to put together my fountain that is made out of a copper bowl full of black river rocks and add that to complete the sensory experience. Then we'll have color and comfort and the sound of trickling water. The only thing that will be missing is something lively to look at.

Wait, this patio looks directly out at the chicken yard. That kind of view might be a little too bucolic for some, but we will enjoy our Chickie TV!

Too Much Family History

Bonnie and Clyde? No! Stewart and Eva, family friends in Maine

I know that you don't come to this blog to hear about my family history, although that's what I've been going on about lately. This is supposed to be a blog about a New Englander coming to New Mexico. However, I am deep into the search for clues to my family's past and for the next little while I will be toiling away on family trees, telling family stories, and posting about the process of searching for ancestors over on the Remember blog.

I cordially invite you to come along on my journey into the past. In the meantime, please check back here on The Zees Go West, because there will surely be posts here from time to time.

I hope that you all will have the happiest of holiday seasons--Merry! Happy! Joyous!

~Clair Z.

Organizing Family Memories

Safe at last

As I mentioned in the last post, I have a large collection of family history "stuff"--photos, files of information about families and individuals, written and email correspondence about our history and our stories--just lots and lots of stuff.

Determined to share what I have with my family, back in 2010 I started a family history blog called Remember. At first, I just pulled out photos at random and wrote about them. I liked the result, but I could see that I was going to have to change my approach so that the results were more cohesive and organized and that each family was clearly delineated.

There's that organized word again. I thought that I might begin by sorting and labeling photos, a job that soon had me feeling overwhelmed all over again. I could still see those boxes of files of papers out of the corner of my eye. I wanted to go through everything once and have something to show for my efforts.

After a lot of thought, I finally came up with an approach that works for me. I hope that it might be of help (or an inspiration) for someone out there who is trying to organize their own family history chaos. I'll put the materials needed in bold type.

1. Get some great big binders and label each with a family name.

2.  Sort everything--papers, correspondence, photos--by family group. and put the materials with, not in each binder. Don't fasten anything in yet, this is a rough sort.

3. Get some dividers (this is so much fun if you, like me, like to shop for office supplies). Label them for individuals within the family, and start inserting everything into the binder in the order that pleases you. Punch holes in copies only. Original documents (like birth certificates) go into individual heavyweight non-acid sheet protectors.

4. Large photos can also go into sheet protectors. I heaved a sigh of relief when this step was done, because I knew these irreplaceable photos were safe at last. They can be scanned without any further handling.

5. Smaller photos can go into a large envelope (for now) labeled with the family name. Seal the envelope, cut off one end so it will go into the binder sideways, then punch holes into the edge of the envelope, being careful not to harm any photos, so it can be filed in the binder with the appropriate family. You can place a paper clip on the open end to keep photos from sliding out. Of course, after this step you will find a nice book or website about archival handling of photos and follow the directions to store these small photos properly. For me, having them safely in an envelope was better than loose in a box. One step at a time. 

Envelope for temporary storage of small photos, sorted by family

Now that I could see what information I had for each family, I wanted to put up some family trees on the Remember blog--my mother's, my father's, my husband's mother's, and my husband's father's, and one for my son's ancestors, since he comes from my former marriage to a Dutchman. Then, when I blogged about each individual I could start with a family tree to locate that person in the family.

While looking around for family tree templates, I found the perfect way to display my information by using the website WikiTree. WikiTree allows me to enter and save information about each person, link families together on a family tree, and add to any of my records when I have more information. Better still, they have "tree widgets" for my blog which will reflect any changes I make to any of my records on WikiTree. I also like how WikiTree will let me set privacy levels, and even allow trusted family members (or distant relatives) to make changes and additions to my records, but only if I want them to do so.

So, that's how I got things organized. Next time, I'll tell you about a few surprises I came across while learning about our family's history. For now, take a look at the beginning of my father's family tree. He is the mystery man in the family, so I really get excited when I find out any little thing about his ancestors. 

 

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

Why the Posts Here are Dwindling: Blame My Family!

I haven't been posting much here because I've been working on a huge and chaotic family history project. You can see the beginning of the results on my family history blog, Remember. 

Some came from Germany

If you've ever worked on your family's history, you'll know that it's hard to figure out where to start, especially if you are the holder of your family's documents and photos. I have piles of files of information, some inherited from my parents and some containing my own research from the last time I worked on the project in 1999. It's wonderful stuff--Birth/marriage/death certificates, probate records, and census sheets; and my favorites: Photos, interviews, and stories. 

Did I refer to this project as huge? To give you an idea of the possibilities: If you wanted to go back as far as your great-great-great grandparents, you would have 16 pairs of ancestors. Now, here is where it gets interesting. According to an article (Ten Effective Strategies for Building a Family Tree) from GenealogyInTime Magazine: 

Assume each pair had three children, who in turn had three children, who in turn had three children. If we roll the clock forward, after five generations you appear. If you do the math, you will find this will produce 365 people down to your generation. But, wait a minute; you have 16 pairs of great-great-great-grandparents. This means your extended family tree has 16 x 365 = 5,840 potential people in it!

Of course, my mother's family never stopped at having a mere three children--that was for sissies. Her parents had 13 children, her dad was one of 13, and her oldest sister had 12 kids! The sheer numbers are overwhelming.

I don't just have my mother's family (England, U.S., Canada) to document; there is my father's family (origins very mysterious), my husband's parents' families (Italy, Germany), and my son's family (The Netherlands). Add in the fact that our own is a blended family (his, mine, and ours) and the complications are endless.

Dutch boy with tulips (my son)

So, how did I find a way to start telling the family story? I want to share the process, the pitfalls, and the shocking surprises with you in the next few posts here on The Zees. In the meantime, if you look at nothing else on the Remember blog, I hope that you will read the story Mary and Amalio Talk About Life in an Italian Town in the 1920s, because this kind of record is why I wanted to make a family history blog in the first place.

Newly arrived in America

A Quick Tour Around New Mexico

Ever wonder what it's really like in New Mexico? This song, written and recorded by the group Richmond, and the accompanying video from the New Mexico Tourism Department, might give you an idea. Just don't all come rushing on down here; we like our big, empty spaces!

Busy Needles

I've been making a blog for my knitting group over much of the past year. It's a good place for our group to keep a record of the projects we've done and the recipes and patterns we've shared. It's also a way to keep in touch with the knitters who travel. You can see it at Sit, Stitch, Share, Snack.

Because I've been busy documenting everything going on around me, I suddenly realized that I hadn't been getting a record of my own projects. Since I was taking photos for the knitting blog today anyway, I thought I'd share the results with you here.

Heritage Trellis Lace Cowl; Petey wouldn't get off!
The pattern is available online for free from Cascade Yarns.
I used Knit Picks wool yarn left over from the mittens below.

Terrible picture of my sweater, knit from Knit Picks Shine Sport Weight Yarn--a soft blend of cotton and modal (a beech wood fiber). I was in a rush to get the shot before Petey jumped in to model.

Mittens with deer; the pattern for these came with a big bag of yarn from Knit Picks, a gift from my husband. This is the second pair I've made; the first pair is shown here. I have enough mittens now and am using the rest of the yarn for projects like the lace cowl above. 

Back side of mittens. You can see I did something strange when reading the pattern--I didn't realize these were so different until looking at these photos. It was probably because there was quite a bit of time between the knitting of the first and second mittens!

Now, this is a closeup of the pair of socks that I first made from a skein of Noro Silk Garden yarn--I loved the colors, but I hated the socks and never even put them on. So, I unraveled the socks...

...and used the yarn to make this shrug, which I like much better.

And what knitter can't use another pair of wool socks?

Southwestern Autumn

Organ Mountains in the distance

I suppose that anyone who has lived in New England will always compare autumn foliage elsewhere to the blazing maples of memory. 

Picacho Peak is hiding on the left

However, I loved these golden leaves against the deep blue Southwestern skies, seen as we rode our bikes yesterday along La Llorona Trail. The warm October afternoon and the sight of the Organ Mountains and Picacho Peak in the distance didn't hurt, either. 

The Pretty Room

This post is really for my kids. I came across this old photo of the Pretty Room in the house on High Street, which I've written about before on this blog. (Follow the links and you'll find the story about how we came to live in our very own 1770 New Hampshire Colonial home, ghosts and all).

This was the room that always felt like a quiet, peaceful island in the middle of a busy house. When the window behind the sofa was open you could smell the garden and the little white climbing roses. It makes me smile to think of it.

Beep Beep

The City of Las Cruces, together with New Mexico State University and several health initiative and planning organizations, has published a booklet called the Las Cruces Prescription Trails Program Walking Trail Guide. The very first walk it describes brought us to Tellbrook Park, a small neighborhood park tucked into a side street over on the other side of town. 

I don't think we would have found this little gem without the booklet. We have friends who live nearby who had never heard of the place. 

On one side of the park there was a shady neighborhood of lovely homes. The view in the other direction...

... looked out over the desert, toward the valley and the distant Robledo Mountains. Back inside the park...

we found groupings of native plants and...

many cacti. We spotted some white-winged doves up in this odd-looking tree.

This green lawn made us stop a while; green grass being a real rarity where we live in the Chihuahuan Desert. Now, this is the part where you will need to do some careful looking--a bit of imagination will help, too. On the far side of the lawn you might just be able to make out three little rabbits, nibbling away at the grass. 

I was wishing for a big camera, or a telephoto lens, but had to make do with my iPhone camera. Glancing over to the other side of the lawn, we spotted a roadrunner. 

I think this speedy bird must be Beez's totem; roadrunners show up wherever he goes. I never get good photos of them. This was the best of the many that I took that morning, as the roadrunner checked out the bunnies across the way. 

Remember that you are using your imagination, please. The roadrunner greeted the rabbits like they were old friends. The four of them played a crazy game of Beep-Beep-Bunny tag all around the lawn, then away down a desert trail, around some cactus, down into a big arroyo, and out of sight. 

I have no YouTube video of the game to prove it, but I'm sure you believe me. You can see it with your imagination, right?

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