Desert Harvest

With the night time temperatures dropping to near freezing it is time to salvage what we can from our garden and small orchard.
Yes, as the days get shorter and the nights get colder we have to harvest what we can before the crops freeze on the vine as it were. This has been a very good growing year in our inner compound here in the desert. We have about 7 quarts of strawberries in the freezer not to mention all those ones we ate during the summer (actually picked our last pint this past Wednesday), as well as pesto, spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce, and an assortment of other garden vegis and some raspberries. Linda canned numerous other items as well, including dill pickles and sweet pickles, apple and plum (plums I gathered in the Tazza parking lot) butter, and apple sauce.

In the hoop house (an inexpensive way to make a greenhouse) we were able to grow eggplant, cantaloupe, bell peppers, cucumbers and a variety of other of other edible delights.

In spite of the scorching hot days, sand storms, drying winds, and no August monsoons we did alright. Gardening here in the desert is even harder then gardening in the open areas of Taos. We have a lot of obstacles to over come. Thankfully that we only had one hale storm this year and that came just over a week ago. It caused some damage but it was minimal. I think that the lily pads took the hardest blow. They look like Al Capone's gang shot their leaves with tommy guns.

Today Linda and I picked all the apples off one tree, collected the remaining grapes (leaving some for our little feathered friends), and gathered up all the green tomatoes. The rest of the items in the garden including the unripe apples on another tree will have to weather it out through the next few freezing nights. Once they have passed it should warm up for a while and hopefully if the squash and pepper survives, will have a chance to ripen without too much damage. I've got my fingers crossed .

Other than the two apple trees, our orchard didn't really produce any fruit again this year (Oh that is not entirely true, one of our plum trees did give us four token plums). Maybe next year it will do better. Does anyone from the Taos area know of anyone who has too much fruit and would like to share? We have given away some tomatoes and cucumbers at the Carson Post Office. It is our local place to share our local harvest with the community. It is a custom that has been going on long before we moved here. Some of our neighbors sell there crops at Poco Loco but we just share them with whoever wants them.

The above picture of Critter (The Black Cat) eyeballing the tomatoe harvest is an image from the past. Critter loved eating fresh vegetables right out of the garden or cooked. When I moved to Taos from New York State, Critter enjoyed his morning breakfasts of eggs, fried potatoes with fresh canned New Mexico chilies that I had sent to me in New York. I had spent the better part of a day roasting and processing them for the trip west. Critter spent 15 wonderful years with me until he had a run in with a Brown Recluse. A run in that he was unable to survive. I will talk more about Critter at another one of my ramblings.

This may very well be our last rose of the season. There are still a number of buds still on the bush but who knows what the frost will do to them. But like all our other flowers, this rose bush really produced this year. At the end of the season we are going to move part of it to the other end of the portal and move the Clematis over near our new porch where they will be more protected from our Spring Winds.

Well that will about do it for now, and as summer winds down and the nights start getting very cold, it is time to start looking at the Taos Mountain for signs of snow. Snow is now what is starting to occupy my thought, snow and skiing. I got my season pass already mounted on my ski jacket and my skis are on the bench ready for a fresh waxing and sharpening. So my friends as much as I may regret the passing of summer, life in the desert still goes on.

Terry R. Wolff

P.S. As a note of interest, Taos and Carson both sit approximately 7,000 feet above sea level. For those of you who are familiar with Mount Rainier, Mount Baker or any of those other majestic peaks of the Pacific Northwest know how outstanding they are as they loom out of the clouds. Here we live about half way up the mountain so when we look out at our mountain, it doesn't seem to have that same breath taking domination (that is if you happen to be lucky enough to be there on one of those seldom sunny Washington or Oregon days to see them). However, "Its almost Always Sunny it Taos" and our mountain is magical in many other ways. Just ask anyone from the Taos Pueblo about their mountain.
And if you are planning on moving to Taos, the best advise I can give you is don't be in a rush to unpack your suit case because as they say, Taos Mountain may or may not want accept you.

Summer Is Winding Down

It's September and I can already see the seasonal changes in the weather here in New Mexico. Maybe we will start to see our Monsoons after all, over the last few weeks there had been a few times when it looked like they were going to come. Now it seems that the afternoon clouds have been building this week and yesterday we had a good ground wetting. A little over due but well welcomed just the same. By the way, I am writing this in Thursday but it most likely won't be until the weekend that I will actually get around to posting this.

The Sunflowers to the right are starting to give way to the end of the season, but are still supplying seeds for the birds. It's the birds who seem to have eaten most of the petals in the first place. The Sunflowers, Russian Sage are being replaced by Wild Asters, and the blooming of the Desert Chimasa. With the Chimasa starting to flower, we should have our first frost in about six weeks. I did see some snow on the Truches peak this Wednesday on our way back from the Ghost Ranch. So Summer is really coming to a close.

I am happy to announce, that before the summer was completely over and before the arrival of the Desert Mosquitoes, I was able to complete our porch which I started earlier this year. Shown in the above photo just to the left of the greenhouse on the very right of the photo. Okay, I am not completely done with it as I still have to lay the flagstone floor. But it is usable so in my book, that is close enough.

Linda's son Chris is spending the week with us, he is fromWashington State. So today we are on our way to Red River (for those of you not familiar with Taos County, Red River is a western theme town located in the northern part of the county up in the mountains, one of the few Texas strong holds in the county). Anyway we haven't been up there in sometime so it should be fun and I will talk about it later.

Since Chris has been here we have been revisiting sections of the northern part of the state. Our first adventure was to the quaint ole mining town of Madrid (pronounced more like MAD-rid than Ma-DRID). Madrid is located between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. In many ways, the town sort of reminds me of our local version of say Sugar Loaf NY, New Hope PA or Cape May NJ with its homes doubling as art studios and shops. Madrid is the site where they filmed some of the movie, “Wild Hogs”. In fact the restaurant featured in the movie is really easy to recognize due to the work they put into it. Madrid is well worth the time that it takes to get there and I am sure you will be glad that you paid it a visit. There is local history and some nice restaurants, shops and really nice art studios as well. And that is enough of a plug for the folks at Madrid.

We also went to Bandelier National Monument which is a site of a ruins of a native culture that had lived cliff dwellings. This is another nice day trip from either Taos or Santa Fe. One of the things I like about Bandelier is that it is a good place to walk or hike both at the ruins or away from the ruins as well. Bandelier is located up in the mountains just south east of Los Alamos, the home of the Atomic Bomb but don't hold that against us New Mexicans. Anyway this is a great time of the year to go to Bandelier as the days are cooler.

Yesterday we went back to the Ghost Ranch. I wrote about this in an earlier post this year when we went there with Linda's sister, Nancy. This time we took one of the hikes up into the canyons. The canyons around Ghost Ranch are a deep red color like those in Sedona AZ. One of the dry gulches was not so dry yesterday so we actually were able to hike along a stream. The colors of the rock formation in the canyon were reds, yellow, gray, blacks, and whites. Since the Ghost Ranch is 21,000 acres, there is still a lot more for us to explore at another time. The squirrel shown here is a local resident at the Ghost Ranch and did not seem too bothered at my taking his or her photo. I actually took several shots and the little critter just stayed put waiting for me to be done with whatever I was doing. The museum at the ranch while small, does have a few interesting exhibits about the archaeological diggings that were done there in the 30's and 50's. There was a photo of Georgia O'Keeffe with one of the expeditions which I found kind of cool.

Okay, back to today's trip to Red River and the Enchanted Circle. Today was yet another beautiful day, the temperature was perfect, the sky was deep blue with puffy white clouds, absolutely perfect. We walked from one end to the other, taking in all the shops and enjoying the walk along the river as well. For me this is the best time of the year to visit, as at the temperature is comfortable, the tourist have headed back south and the ride around the Enchanted Circle is enjoyable with hardly any traffic to deal with. Up toward Bobcat Pass the Aspens were starting to turn shades of yellows and even some reds. The ride through the Morreno Valley is also nice this time of the year with all the grasses starting to change, it made for a mass pallet of muted colors moving with the flow of the wind. The vultures were massing for their annual gathering in Taos for their autumn flight south to Winter over in Mexico.

We had hoped on stopping in Eagle Nest for an ice cream stop but Eagle Nest was pretty much closed down, Summer is over. Most of the stores along with most of the motels were closed. There were still some folks scattered around town, some of the RV camp grounds had folks staying there, but not a single boat was out on the lake. So here we are in the first half of September and the place sort of had the look of a ghost town.

We decided not to stop at Angel Fire and went through the Taos Canyon into Taos. While in Taos we took time to stock up on some needed supplies (okay, we ran out of wine and some other items) before heading west across the Rio Grande to Carson.

Well, its now Saturday and Chris has heading back to the northwest. Before Chris left, I had him help me finish a run-off pond which I had started several years ago. I decided that we should put those gym enhanced arms to some good use while he was here. So here is the fruits of our labor. Some of these rock were pretty damn heavy. Just a little footnote here, every rock on our property was hauled in by me, hence my nickname around here is "Rocky".

So until next time that will do it for now. If anyone is reading this rambling, I hope you find it enjoyable.

Terry R. Wolff