Neighborly Pictures

Check out these photos of Las Mañanitas taken by some of our neighbors.

This was taken in September by Karl and Maria. We weren't there to see the asters in bloom, so we're very glad that they got them on film.
This one was taken one early December morning by Kris:
And this was taken by Maggie in July, 2005 during a thunderstorm::

Happy 2008!

We rang in the New Year at the straw-bale home of Maria the Buddhist, an artist and massage therapist who lives in the tiny enclave of El Rito, near the Colorado border. We danced to the rock 'n roll music of the El Rito Rhythm Kings, whom we'd heard (and met) in October at the Adobe Bar. When the band took a break, I chatted with lead singer Viv about how she'd met her husband, John, and she talked a little bit about the radio show that they host called Art of the Song. Our friends Jim and Rebecca tell us that house parties with live bands are fairly common in Taos, so we hope this will be the first of many for us.

We awoke on New Year's Day to find that our pipes had frozen sometime during the extremely cold night. By 10:00 a.m. the water was running again (thank God), and we decided to follow the Japanese tradition of a New Year's bath in our little soaking tub.

The rest of our stay (when Steve wasn't on the roof) consisted mostly of taking morning walks on Mesa Sea and visiting friends. Steve and I lit the farolitos again, but the wind blew them out after five minutes. I managed to get a few blurry pictures anyway:


And Steve took this picture of a winter-pink sunset:

We had another hootenanny with Ginger and Kris:while Miss Ruby relaxed under the tree.
Toward the end of our stay our neighbor, Deonne, treated us to a delicious dinner of paella and bread pudding at her lovely and enviably leak-free home. The following night we invited Maggie, Mary, and Karen to our house for lasagne. Some of our best mesa evenings are spent with these neighbors, especially when the conversation turns to the latest news about the local dogs and the alpacas. This time we learned that Lars, the Great Pyrenees, has started to pick up his oversized dog dish and carry it across the road to the Pueblo land to eat his dinner in peace. And Haley, the naughtiest alpaca, recently spewed green slime on one of Maggie's casita guests, an unsuspecting nine-year-old boy who thought it would be fun to feed her by hand.

Flaws and all, we love our Hondo Mesa home and can't wait to return.

Christmas in Taos

Three giant banners proclaiming Peace On Earth greeted us as we drove along bumpy County Road B007 to Mesa Sea. A lovely sentiment, but what we liked even more were the mini-banners underneath arranged in Burma-Shave fashion:

Raven and Rabbit

Cedar and Sage

Singing in Solstice

Sun Touching

Hearts and Hearths

On Our Hondo Mesa Home

We entered our Hondo Mesa home to find a few troubling leaks. Even though Steve had patched the roof thoroughly in October (or so he thought), the freeze-thaw cycle of snow and ice opened a few vulnerable spots around the canales, allowing water to seep down the walls and stain the plaster. Steve spent an hour or two nearly every day of our three-week stay sealing the seams with roof cement. This winter an unusual amount of heavy wet snow has fallen on the mesa, and we're keeping our fingers crossed that those patches will hold until our next visit in March. We'll try the patch-and-pray method one more winter; then it'll be time for a new roof.

Christmas was truly remarkable, despite the roof worries. First, there was our genuine New Mexican Christmas tree--a white fir nearly ten feet tall:

Then Drew, Liz, and Lyra arrived, just in time to make farolitos,
drink a little bubbly,
and play Christmas carols on their guitars.We enjoyed the Christmas Eve festivities at Taos Pueblo (no cameras allowed), a few movies, a new card game, our favorite board game, Scene It, and dinner at Hunan Restaurant. The morning of their departure was crisp and sunny:
and we waved goodbye as the Mini chugged along Mesa Sea, headed back to Las Vegas.