10.5.2010
At a coffee-shop in Santa Fe, I met a man named André who had lived there for the past four years, after living a while in Seattle WA. He worked behind the counter and chatted animatedly while his co-worker steamed milk. He grew up in Brazil, and had lived in 4 states and 4 South-American countries by the age of 18. He called New Mexico “the land of entrapment,” and I think it perhaps is. New Mexico is enchanting; it feels like another country. I’ve felt pulled to the old Spanish towns and Northern valleys here more strongly than any other place we’ve visited on this trip.
We spent four days in El Valle de San Miguel in Northern NM, about 7500 ft up, with William deBuys for a welcome stint of writing, hiking, and farming. Where we were camped we could see the snowcaps growing on the mountains around us, and a quick hike offered a view of the small adobe town of Las Trampas below. Seeing the area through Bill’s eyes was beautiful. On one hike, he paused to explain the poor health of the forest we were in – a history of fire suppression, drought, clear-cuts and the like. “This forest, screwed up as it is, is dear to me,” he smiled. “Loving the thing that is imperfect is a challenge to us all,” but, to him, is a necessary and fulfilling endeavor. He spoke of more than his love of the forest, “how we love imperfection in others, nature, in ourselves…” I am so grateful for the time spent in his, and his forest’s, presence.
We walked from Bill deBuy’s place to his neighbor’s through the Piñon pine and juniper, Teague and his fellow farmers at Gemini Farm. Around their small adobe house were salvaged Amish farm tools, home-made bee-boxes, a thrown-together skid sled with runners made of old skis. Tattered flannels dried beside the yurt they built two years ago, a pile of garlic bulbs and straw smoldered in front of their root cellar. Soft smells announced baby chicks hidden in hay-bales. The thrown-together, live-simple, bare-dirt look and their unkempt beards reminded me of Arctic Organics, felt surprisingly like home. Teague, Mike, Annaleise, and Brett wore tattered Carhartts, layers of worn wool, fading bright scarves, and drank tea from mason jars. They make their own cheese from their goats’ milk, bake sourdough, make sauerkraut and wine and apple-mead. They employ an old washing machine to dry lettuce. They use mules instead of tractor-power.
Teague was a funny character. As Bailey put it, she’d never met a non-Amish person who was so excited about being Amish. His mother is from Poland, his father from the UK, and his voice adopts some mix between Polish, English, Spanish, and a farmer’s drawl. He used to fly at least once a year to Poland to see family, but hasn’t stepped foot in an airport in 8 years. His life is deliberately simple. Walking through the parsley, he turned to us, “There’s somethin’ to be said for pickin’ up a handful of earth and smellin’ the sweetness, smellin’ the life in it.” He spoke of the land as “a gift from our foremothers,” which we are all entitled to work and harvest, but not to own. Beside his spiritual farmer language, he pulled out words like “bro” and wore bright scarves with flair.
We spent the day digging up carrots and Jerusalem artichokes (also “Sunchokes,” or “Fartichokes”), the only harvested tuber that is native to North America. They’re four times more productive than potatoes, and taste like potatoes crossed with jicama and turnips. I was glowing in the smell of carrots and the feel of soil, dirt-stained fingers and heart-breakingly rich sunset.
In Las Trampas we visited the old church of San José de Garcia, built by the Spanish in the mid-1700s. The restored adobe walls were soaked with honey evening light. The floor-boards were worn and thick and smelled like human history, if old wood can give that smell. Hundreds of old graves lay under the church floor and the city streets. In the church’s entrance, simple designs are signed onto the ceiling from the original twelve families. On the altar wall, the painted beasts and saints have full, red lips and calm eyes. In a painting of “Nuestra Señora del Carmen” on the right wall, bare women with placid faces are bathed in flames like chili peppers. They reach their arms languidly upward towards a virgin Mary, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, or cross them to cover their chests. The virgin looks over the pews with indifference.
New Mexico is mostly Hispanic and Indigenous. A figure I heard gave that only 20% are Anglo in Northern NM. New Mexicans seem to identify strongly with their histories, whether native or Spanish, with a deeper understanding of ancestry than I’m accustomed to in the US. We visited a pueblo near Taos that didn’t allow running water or electricity. Phil (our program director) said these pueblos remind him of rural villages in China. There’s an old church and a small creek in the center of the town, and the homes and shops are modest one-to-two story adobe (clay-mud and straw/grass). The doors are teal-blue and the paint peels, and carmine strands of chilies hang from doorways. Scrappy but sweet street dogs move in small packs through the dirt paths.
Last night we camped in a strange, flat site outside of Roswell, NM. Just west of us was an old military base that closed down in 1991. It housed Nike missiles and other weaponry in bunkers as a defense against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The fences around it, now broken, still stand, and you can walk into the old bunkers. All around our site were oil wells, and they make an arythmic, constant beating sound, like amplified heartbeats or drums. In the afternoon, gunshots joined the oil-well’s dipping, target-shooting by the bunkers. During the day, we counted Harvester Ant mounds in the Chihuahuan Desert, and saw the craziest creatures! Jack-rabbit, baby Diamond-back rattlesnake, a tarantula, black grasshoppers with red wings, a grasshopper larger than my palm! So much life! And today, I found two praying mantises! I’m perplexed and enchanted by the intricate insect life and the busyness of this desert.
As for today, we’re camped beside a swimming-hole! Life, then, couldn’t be more splendid. We’re in the middle of our final ecology unit, and tomorrow will bring a long day of hiking and exploring near the Carlsbad Caverns.
For now, bedtime.
Wishing you fun and sending lots of love from this wacky desert,
madelyn
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