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.