The Nickel and Dime Ranch

Fort Union, New Mexico

2013-05-22T18:48:00.000-06:00

From far away it looks like a post apocalyptic movie location...or a Stonehenge type place.

But as you move closer, you realize it's the ruined remains of Fort Union. Cavalry, infantry, and a large quartermaster depot were housed here on the New Mexico plains to protect the folks using the Santa Fe Trail and to act as a supply hub for all the other forts and military positions in the Southwest.

The fort was made from adobe clay brick, wood, local stone for the foundations, and, like in the photo below, adorned with bricks hauled along the Santa Fe Trail. Nails, window glass and roofing tin were also brought along the trail to finish the fort.

The work was hastily done and the clay plaster coating the adobe bricks cracked and required constant repairs to keep the damp from seeping between the plaster and the brick. When the fort was abandoned in 1891, things just fell apart.

Officers lived here, on Officers' Row. The posts in front of the houses held the porch roofs. Officers' wives would sit on their porches to watch the goings on, fanning themselves in the summer heat. Pretty much all that is left are the brick chimneys, standing as witness to times past.

It was a pretty isolated posting, but the fort had a hospital, school, a band, dances, baseball teams, and other entertainment. About seven miles away was the village of Loma Parda, (now a ghost town) where the more adventurous soldiers could find what might be called "night life," drinking at the cantinas and dancing with the local (and sometimes imported) ladies.

I could write more, but you can read more here, instead.

Quilty Pleasures-Pattie's Easy Street Quilt

2013-05-18T08:49:00.000-06:00

Back before Christmas, sis-in-law Pattie and I decided to make Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Quilt, called Easy Street.

Pattie finished her quilt and last month sent me a photo of the completed top. She went with a different colorway than Bonnie's and was at first concerned because she went very scrappy in choosing the fabrics. Because of this, the center design didn't show up as clearly as she would have liked. Once together, though, I must say that the design shines through just fine and the scrappiness makes me think of a church's stained glass windows.

Check out the flying geese border and how the geese get smaller as they are closer to the corners. Smart move!

My quilt top is still partially together in a bag somewhere in the sewing room, waiting for me to unsew a couple blocks so I can recommence assembly. There's nothing like messing up to create a big old stop sign in your mind.

Pattie, your quilt has shamed me into getting mine done. Soon, very soon.

Stalking the Wild Asparagus in Northern New Mexico

2013-05-16T08:06:00.001-06:00

The other day someone mentioned that her young friends were foraging for fruit and wild veggies grown on public lands or from branches hanging over fences on public property. There's an app for that, did you know? Wildman Steve Brill leads foraging tours through Central Park in New York, but don't actually pick anything or you might get arrested.

So friend Betsy asked if I'd like to search for wild asparagus. Our first outing last week was a bust: we clomped around in a boggy area behind the Catholic church in a local town, but someone had been there before us. All we got was wet: it was a misty moisty morning.

The other day, though, we spent some time strolling along an acequia (water ditch) looking for the elusive wild asparagus. Betsy is an expert asparagus spotter and showed me how to find the tall stalks poking up from the earth. She is a relentless searcher and this time it paid off.

Wild asparagus grows along water sources or places that get some moisture: water ditches and fence lines seem to be the most likely spots around here. In the photo below, you can see the acequia just beyond the barbed wire fence.

As luck would have it, we found a fair number of asparagus spears growing on the far side of the fence which required careful reaching. One would hold the fence wire up while the other forager reachedreachedreached until she could snap off those tender stalks. Since some of the spears were almost going to seed, we left those. We foraged until thunder and lightning and some big rain drops told us to cut it out.

Betsy and I divided up our haul and each left with enough asparagus for a meal and a promise to meet again next week to look for some more.

Tom said it was much better than the stuff from the store and yes, it was tender and sweet, just like he is ;).

Sauteed Asparagus With Garlic (Serves 2)

Ingredients

1 handful asparagus (it doesn't have to be wild)
2 T butter
1-2 cloves garlic

Directions

1. Melt the butter in a medium skillet over medium-high heat and add the asparagus and garlic.

2. Cover the pan, lower the heat, and cook for about 5-10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the stalks. Pick up a piece of asparagus from the pan and bite into it. If you can bite through but it's still just a little firm, it's done.

Promise to cook your asparagus just until it's bright green. If you cook it until it's a grayish green, then it will be like that canned stuff my mom tried to feed us.

Quilty Pleasures: Modern Hexagon Quilt

2013-05-09T08:18:00.000-06:00

At QuiltCon Jacquie Gering taught me how to machine piece hexagons, so our Modern Quilt Guild in Las Vegas, NM, asked me to share with them what I learned.

So I shared, in my kind of muddly way, and now we are working on some pieces using giant hexagons. I have been doing my usual procrastination thing and haven't made much headway but Betty brought her finished quilt to the last meeting and it is impressive, more so in person.

Note that the gray background isn't one piece of fabric, but hexagons, too, which adds depth to the quilt. The gray isn't your standard quilting cotton; Betty thinks it might be auto upholstery fabric. It is tweedy and textured, a fun contrast to the center solids.

This quilt is going on a special trip to a long arm quilter where Betty will quilt it herself, her first time.

Betty is one of my quilting heroes: a fearless experimenter, always up for a challenge, ready for adventure.

If you live near Las Vegas, NM, come to our next MQG meeting. We meet the first Monday of the month at 1 pm at ThreadBear.

Bees and Carrots

2013-04-29T23:31:00.000-06:00

This is a pretty random post, but since I've been random in what I do lately (like today waking at 4 a.m. and deciding that since I can't sleep, I might as well make a gigantic batch of granola), why the heck not talk about two topics that really aren't related?

Today after the epic granola project, I had to do some gardening chores. There is a 600 gallon water tank which acts as a thermal mass for the dome. The water evaporates, so I lugged in the hose to top off the tank. While it was filling, I did some planting.

But to make room, I had to pull the last of our Nantes carrots. This is the first time I've grown carrots in the dome and they did well. Now an Early Girl resides where the carrots were. I added some worm castings and growing mix to welcome the new tomato to the block.

Do you like that dishtowel? Thanks, Pattie!

Just outside the growing dome are the beehives. For a while there I was worried: robber bees were trying to get into the beehives with epic battles just outside each hive. I finally reduced the entrances to about bee width so the guard bees would more easily stop the invaders and it seems to have worked. All is orderly again.

Here is a closeup of the entrance to our top bar hive, now open because the robbers are gone. Most of the beekeepers around here use this type rather than the more common box-type hives called Langstroth.


Those little specks you can see against the cinderblock are flying bees.

Each of the bars, which you can see under the metal roof (which needs a good hit with the hammer), is 1 and 3/8 inches and the bees make their combs along the bars' length. There are no frames, so the bees make the combs just the way they want them. When we harvest honey, I hope this year, we lift out the bars, cut the combs off the bars and crush the combs to extract the honey.

This past fall we left all the honey for the bees because they were a new colony and I wanted them to have enough food for the winter. As of last week they still had some honey left, but friend Sue gave me two bars of honey yesterday. So I switched out some lightweight combs (they had eaten most of the honey) with the heavy, full ones. That should hold them for the couple of weeks we have until the flowers bloom. We have a late spring, yes, we do.

Surrounding the bee yard is an electric fence to keep out bears because the last thing the ladies need after a long, cold winter is for their homes to be invaded again, this time by gigantic furry destroyers. Both Ms. P and I have involuntarily tested the fence and it works just fine. The rocks on top of the hives and the orange straps on the ground keep the wind from blowing off the roofs.

I hope by midsummer to expand to four hives, but that depends on the bees and their queens and if there are enough flowers for them, and who knows what else.

We will hope that all goes well with plenty of honey for everyone this year!

For Trudy: The Enchanted Forest

2013-04-28T08:08:00.001-06:00

Since mom-in-law Trudy can't come visit, I try to give her a sense of what it's like, so she can see, even if we are 951 miles apart.

The weather was in the 70's the other day with a slight breeze, some clouds, but also sunshine. Winter was a faint memory even though just last week it looked like this:

It was gone by the afternoon, though.

So I took a walk to The Enchanted Forest, beyond the grassy expanse you see past the garden wall, across the wooden bridge over the creek, and into the trees.

The day was breezy yet sunny and after checking out the beaver dam I looked at a tree and said, "I think I will sit right down here and have a little nature time."

So I spread out my sweatshirt, sat on the pine needles, closed my eyes and just listened. There is an absence of sounds: no planes, cars, voices, chain saws, anything mechanical, still no birds. It's too early for them to be singing. No cows mooing, no yaks grunting. Just wind in the pines.

So Trude, here's what I saw to the left:

And here is how it looked to my right:

Looking straight ahead:

I thought, "We need to clean up this tree. There are dead branches on the ground and up its trunk."

And wouldn't a bed be cool out here? But I thought of rodents and discarded that idea.

A close relative came to visit a couple years ago and he said, "What are you trying to do, make this a park?"

Well, yeah. Why not?

A park with random hammocks. Yeah, that would work.

The Lazy Boys: George and Ringo

2013-04-25T09:24:00.003-06:00

Meet George and Ringo who have been content to wander around the ranch, eating for a while and then lying down. Then they rest after their hard work, which consists of eating and lying down. There is plenty of grass so they don't need to range far and wide to find food. It's all around them.

But this dried grass is boring! It's like eating shredded wheat cereal!

Lately, though, they've been steers with a purpose: find grass that is green. It's starting to green up, especially along the creek bank, and they are on the job finding all the best morsels.

It's like when we say, "I think I want a salad!" after all those carbs.

Possible rain is forecast for a couple of days and that's just fine. We all want salads in spring.

April Snow

2013-04-24T07:47:00.002-06:00

Yesterday afternoon while we were sewing at ThreadBear in Las Vegas, the sky and the air looked gray and moisty, like Newport Beach in the winter. Minus the beach.

"I wish it would do something," a friend said.

"Maybe rain?" someone else said. And then she added, "Hah!"

And then it started snowing. We packed up and hightailed it out of there just in case it was a blizzard or something. It wasn't a blizzard, but at home there was a nice two inches of the wet stuff.

By this afternoon it will have soaked into the earth and the grass trying to grow will say, "Thanks, buddy!"

I like the hopeful vibe of the hammock hanging behind the picnic table.

Chicken Spaghetti-Another Comfort Food Favorite

2013-04-22T09:10:00.000-06:00

Chicken spaghetti is a recipe I had never heard of until it popped up on my radar just after we moved to our place in New Mexico. It's one of those Texas recipes, I guess, because I recently internet searched for chicken spaghetti and Texas, and found many versions of this comfort food casserole.

Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Woman fame, has an excellent chicken spaghetti recipe on her website and it's hers I tried first. It's still my go-to recipe for guests, creamy and savory, with just a little spicy bite at the finish.

Last week, though, I needed to take a main dish to the Sangre de Cristo Livestock Growers' monthly meeting and couldn't get to a grocery store. In the fridge was half a rotisserie chicken and in the freezer were two broiled chicken breasts. I had cream of mushroom soup and there was half a block of Velveeta cheese food. I was good to go.

It isn't as good as Ree Drummond's Chicken Spaghetti, but it worked well enough that someone at the meeting asked, "Is that an Alfredo sauce in there?" And I answered, "Yes, Campbell's Alfredo."

Ro-Tel Chicken Spaghetti (Serves 6-8)

Ingredients

12 ounces spaghetti, cooked and drained
2 cups cooked chicken, chopped
1 can cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup
1 can Ro-tel tomatoes (I used medium spiciness)
1 can chicken broth
1 lb Velveeta cheese, cubed

Directions

1. Boil water and cook your spaghetti. Drain your spaghetti into a colander and leave it there while you do the next step.

2. Mix the chicken, soup, tomatoes, and chicken broth in the pan you used to cook the spaghetti.

3. Add the spaghetti and cubed cheese. Mix that baby up so the cheese cubes are well distributed within the mixture.

4. Put a little olive oil on a paper towel square and grease a 13 by 9 inch pan. Or spray it with your oil stuff. Pour the spaghetti mixture into the pan.

5. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 45 minutes until it's warm and bubbly. You can take the cover off the last 15 minutes if you like a little browning on the top.

6. When you take the pan out of the oven, give it a stir to ensure the cheese is evenly distributed.

Sadly, there are usually no leftovers.

No Yak Puns-Just Some Cute New Babies

2013-04-21T13:28:00.000-06:00

I could get all crazy with yak puns, but this week I haven't felt like being funny. There were some happy events, though, here in the valley.

Meet our new neighbors, yak babies born about a week and a half ago.

I call them the sumo babies of the cattle world. Husky, sturdy little guys, aren't they?

I want to just run my hands through that fur!

But I don't think the mommas would like that. Check out those horns!

So what are yaks? The are cattle relatives, originally from the Himalayas, which makes the winters in Northern New Mexico a piece of cake for these guys. Last year when it was 30 below zero? No worries for the yaks.

Their meat is juicy and a little sweet, like beef but with less fat. Their fiber, which is combed from their coats a couple times a year, is highly prized by knitters and weavers.

Yaks are easier on the environment, too. They eat less than cattle and I suppose that means they poop and fart less, too, so fewer greenhouse gases. Their feet are small so they don't mess up creek beds as badly as cattle can and they drink less water, as well.

They are, for the most part, pretty docile except for one yak in the herd named P.I.T.A. who has used her horns to throw two different men out of the corral when she was going to be combed.

So that's all from this neck of the forest. Hope all are having an excellent Sunday. I am on my way to a local seed swap and to the local nursery which opened this weekend. Maybe there will be some interesting stuff to plant.

Oil and Gas Drilling in Northern New Mexico: A New Film

2013-04-18T07:18:00.001-06:00

Reader Angela, who writes the excellent blog, http://www.highdesertchronicles.com/, reminded me of the recent film about our county's fight for its rights.

Here is the trailer for the movie, which gives an excellent picture of what a small community is doing to protect itself from oil and gas drilling.

When I tell people where I live, more often than not, I hear, "Oh! You live in God's Country!"

Watch this video to see what they are talking about.

Community Rights in New Mexico

2013-04-17T08:15:00.000-06:00

Community rights is the idea that communities should have more rights than corporations when it comes to determining what happens to a local community's air, water, and land.Well, duh! Wouldn't that always be the case? Nope. In many cases big business deals trump the welfare of a community, polluting and ruining the environment with no recourse for the community members.

These posters have sprung up in our county and the counties nearby. Mora County residents have recently elected county commissioners who are strong believers in the idea of community rights and they are now the majority on the county commission. They are working to enact community ordinances which would restrict or ban gas drilling in Mora County and protect individual and community water rights.

Around here water is precious and even more so since we are still in a drought.

In Mora County, water sustains cattle, the largest agricultural product here and for many, their only paycheck. Most people in the county drink from their own wells and water associations monitor and regulate how much water each member uses from the acequias (water ditches) to irrigate their fields.

Beautiful, clear creeks and rivers flow through the ranches and public lands in Northern New Mexico and residents fear that hydrolic fracturing could either pollute the water from chemicals used during the fracking process or suck up all the water here for drilling projects elsewhere.

Either way, the ranchers and residents of our county would be screwed.

As someone most aptly put it, "We can live without natural gas. We can't live without water!"

Boyz in the Hood

2013-04-14T22:44:00.000-06:00

This morning I drove six miles up our dirt road for coffee with a neighbor. We were going to inspect her beehives, but the weather turned stormy and windy which isn't something bees like. So we took a rain check.

On the way home I saw these pretty boys and had to stop to say hi.

The guy on the left nickered a hello and ambled closer when I got out of the truck.

Then the pinto decided to investigate whether there were treats involved.

Sadly, I had no goodies but they didn't seem to hold a grudge.

And that ominous sky? Nothing happened!

Quilty Pleasures: Ogallala Quilt Festival 2013 Best in Show

2013-04-12T09:11:00.001-06:00

Dimmitt, Texas, (pop. 4,423) really knows how to hold a quilt show. The Ogallala Quilters' Society hosts a yearly quilt festival that truly is a world class event. Well, it's not gigantic like Road to California or Houston's International Quilt Festival, but with over 500 quilts on display, there was plenty of eye candy for quilters who came this past weekend from New Mexico, Texas, Arizona and, amazingly, my old home town, Corona, California.

Yep, it's a small world and when my friend Ann took a Pat Speth (she was the feature teacher) class there and found some quilters from Corona, she mentioned my name. Sure enough, one of the quilters knew who I was. I worked with her hubby and taught her daughter. Weird, huh?

What wasn't weird was this awesome quilt which won Best in Show, called Many Mansions, by Mary Steinhauer from Lubbock, Texas.

According to Mary, after reading a post about these little houses on a Dutch blog, she decided to challenge herself to make one little schoolhouse block each day for 366 days (it was a leap year). What is so cool are the little windows with teeny details in them like flowers, kitties, and a Christmas tree. One of the houses has a photo of Mary smiling at the viewer. The blue border has a gently scalloped edge.

Below is the appliqued and embroidered center of the quilt.

The stitching in the sky reminds me of Van Gogh's Starry Night.

There were many gorgeous quilts, and this was my favorite.

Lucero, NM Cattle Crossing

2013-04-03T08:53:00.001-06:00

The other day I was coming home and had to slow way down because it was a cattle convention in Lucero, the teensy village not far from our place. The cows, their calves, and a very large bull had made a break and were wandering around, but no one seemed to care.

In the 1930's there were about 400 residents in this village. Now there are about 10, maybe. Whenever I drive through, it's like I've been transported to another time.

There are more cattle than humans here. And that's just fine.

Quilty Pleasures Monday: Depression Era Blocks, Paper Pieced

2013-04-01T09:17:00.001-06:00

Back during The Great Depression, readers could find patterns for clothing or quilt blocks in their local newspapers. The Kansas City Star was one of those newspapers, and they didn't even charge for their complete patterns. Caroline Cullinan McCormick decided to write a book about some of these blocks from the newspaper and adapted many of the designs for paper piecing.

ThreadBear, my local quilt store, decided to offer a Block of the Month program based on this book. So we have bought the book and just finished our first block.

What I like about ThreadBear's BOM is we may choose whatever fabrics we want. I decided to go with a black pindot background and for this month I chose Denyse Schmidt's fabrics from her Shelburne Falls collection.

This fabric looks so pretty and fresh and this block came together nicely.

How do we get such precise results? For my friends who are not quilters, it's called paper piecing, kind of like painting by the numbers. Here is how it looks on the back. Each number shows the order in which the fabric is placed on the paper pattern. Et, voila! It looks perfectly perfect! Just what this ADHD person needs to keep her head on straight.

No, ThreadBear didn't pay me to write about their BOM. I just like their store.

Now I am on my way to meet up with our Modern Quilt Group. We are going to muddle through my presentation on sewing giant hexies by machine, the class I took from Jacquie Gering at QuiltCon.

Happy Easter!

2013-03-31T07:23:00.000-06:00

Santuario de Guadalupe was built in 1781 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Growing Dome Report: Early Spring 2013

2013-03-29T08:29:00.000-06:00

Early spring in Northern New Mexico is not pretty. Everything still looks dead and three years ago when we first moved here, this SoCal gal wondered if any of the plants, trees, or grass would ever come back.

Looking north toward the cabin and Growing Dome

Temps are still as low as 3 degrees with highs in the 30's or 40's. The wind howls and it sounds like the roof is going to be ripped off. It's times like these that I remind myself that summer will be in the temperate 70's and 80's and not over 100F for weeks like at our old home.

The Growing Dome is the place to be during times like these. With the sun shining it's in the 70's and 80's which makes it cozy to sit in the Adirondack chair, read, listen to the wind, and watch stuff grow.

Below is the eastern side of the dome. I planted most of this stuff in late September. We ate lettuce, radishes, carrots, chard and kale throughout the winter.

Cast of characters here: kale, onions, rainbow chard, carrots and broccoli rabe.

Here are some closeups:

Broccoli Rabe

Carrots, rainbow chard, and red stalk celery

The radishes look as pretty as their picture.

I just bought a Meyer lemon tree. In the background are some EarthBoxes. Box 1: spearmint, Box 2: rosemary in the back and cilantro sprouting in the front, Box 3 (which you will just have to imagine): lemon thyme in the back, basil in the front. The rosemary and lemon thyme are a year old now.

The west side of the dome has been my lettuce garden and it's almost done and I have to wash off the aphids before we eat the leaves. I know, "Yuck!" But there's some protein there, I guess. I've been keeping the aphids in check with insecticidal soap which works if I keep at it.

Some of the sugar snap peas are ready to pick.

And I have one last crop of snap peas waiting in the wings. These were planted late February.

Pretty soon it will be time to plant the warm season crops: beans, tomatoes, cukes are number one on the list. Yay!

And here's another Yay! We will be adding some raised beds where the south lawn is, so I can grow more stuff outside! We don't need that much lawn and why not have a potager (kitchen garden) just outside your house?

Happy Spring, everyone!

Quilty Pleasures: ThreadBear Has a Website!

2013-03-25T09:37:00.001-06:00

I have previously written about my local quilt shop, ThreadBear in Las Vegas, NM, but when their new website went live a couple weeks ago, I just had to do another post about them. Why? They are a small business in a small town and we all know that supporting small businesses makes our communities stronger. I hope you will visit the shop (where I teach quilting classes now and then) and if you aren't close, check out the cool stuff they have on their website. Click this link to see what they have.

When we moved to Northern New Mexico just a little over three years ago, I knew I was going to miss Recreational Shopping. You know, that hop into the car, drive a few miles, hop out and wander around where you really aren't looking for anything in particular, but the "isn't it nice to be out and about" kind of shopping?

Yeah, that kind of shopping. Nowadays, a shopping trip is a 50 or 100 or 200 mile one or two day expedition. It's important to have a list and to get everything on the list, so there is little aimless meandering. It's like those old westerns where we ride the buckboard into town with Paw to get supplies and want to linger over the ribbon counter at the general store. "C'mon, Sarah, it's time to go back to the ranch, now." And we hop into the wagon and ride back home.

Luckily, ThreadBear, the fabric and yarn shop in Las Vegas, NM, is close enough so I can visit every one or two weeks, wander around, see what's new, talk to Ann and Michael, ThreadBear's owners, and fondle the goods. I love to fondle fabric; it's good for the soul.

Here are Ann and Michael, standing in front of their comfy sitting area, where the knitters meet each week and hapless males recline while their wives shop.

The store is on the historic plaza in Old Town Las Vegas, just catty corner from the Plaza Hotel, where a bunch of film people will be staying in the next few months. Tommy Lee Jones and Meryl Streep will be filming as will Seth Macfarlane. The tv show Longmire is filming again, too.

I love the bright, colorful fabric at ThreadBear. All my fave designers are here: Amy Butler, Malka Dubrawski and Kaffe Fassett. Fabric heaven, right here.

Alexander Henry fabric is everywhere. That's Paseo de los Muertos in turquoise on the top shelf along with other Hispanic designs. The bottom shelf holds something more sedate from the store's art nouveau collection.

The traditionalist isn't left out: they have my favorite 30's fabrics, plus Civil War, Victorian, Mid-Century Modern repros. One corner is all southwest style fabrics, another of my favorites.

Each week the website features Our Favorite Fabric, where Ann and Michael each choose something they like, offer 20 percent off, and write about it. This week Michael has chosen one of my faves, Midnight Pastoral, by Alexander Henry.

Michael's fabric descriptions are almost literary, a peek into the origins of a particular fabric, connecting the fabric to other works of art and to history and showing, in this case, how the fabric plays with tradition and then socks you in the eye.

Ann writes about Botanica Journal by Jason Yenter. Her descriptions appeal to my love of color, design, and that question, "How can I use this fabric?" She also alludes to her fabric hoarding tendencies, which makes us sisters from another mister.

Here's Ann's gardening apron, Apple Cobbler by Mary Mulari Designs, an apron with the Botanica fabric.

A couple weeks ago I ordered some Favorite Fabric on sale and could have had it mailed it to me. Instead I picked it up, ready to go, the next time I went to the store. That's a good reason to visit, don't you think?

And don't forget the yarn! I am an inexpert knitter who once spent two years knitting a 12 hour afghan, but there is a vibrant knitting underground here in Las Vegas. Here's a shout out to the Thursday Afternoon Knitters, the cool kids on the block!

I've only touched on the basics here, so visit the website to see all the stuff ThreadBear has to offer. I haven't even mentioned the precuts and novelty prints, their batiks and their classes.

Just so you know, ThreadBear hasn't paid me to do this post; I just like their store!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! An Immigrant Family

2013-03-17T05:48:00.000-06:00

It must have been hard to pack all your worldly belongings into a parcel:

To leave this:

To endure this:

And find this:

But it was worth it: Grandchildren of immigrants, The Crowley Girls-Nancy, Kay,

Mary Lou, Jeannie

And a prosperous family:

Mary and Bart Crowley, Children of immigrants, and the Crowley Girls, my grandparents, aunts, and mom

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

International Quilting Day: My Favorite Quilt

2013-03-16T08:46:00.001-06:00

In the 12 or so years since I began quilting in our daughter's bedroom after she went off to college, I've made and given away more quilts than I can remember. Note to new quilters: take a photo of each quilt you make and put it in a safe place so when you are old and senile, you have it right there.

My favorite quilt, though, is one I kept and hangs on the living room wall. Why do I love it?

1. It's the first quilt I made where I didn't have a clue how it would look at the end.
2. My brain was so engaged in making this quilt that I even dreamed about it.
3. Looking at it is always a new experience. And not because I am old and senile, but because there are surprises, like that fabric in the bottom right, different from the rest of the border.

Thanks, Pattie Prothero, for inspiring me to start this most rewarding occupation.

Hoop House Raising in Northern New Mexico

2013-03-15T08:59:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a brilliant, warm 70 degree day and the wind wasn't blowing: a perfect day for a hoop house raising. We convened at Veronica's house where she had coffee and snacks ready to fuel the crew of about 20 volunteers who came to help. Just like in many Northern New Mexico homes, Veronica has both a wood cook stove and a conventional one. The wood stove keeps the house toasty warm and and it makes sense with wood free and plentiful around here.

Hoop houses will be springing up like wild flowers in the next few months around here because our livestock and growers' group has learned that growing veggies in Northern New Mexico can be a very sustainable way to make a living.

Last year Del Jimenez, Agriculture Specialist, Rural Agricultural Improvement and Public Affairs Project (RAIPAP) at New Mexico State University gave a lecture to the group and offered his services as a consultant for this project. Because our group was started with a grant from Heifer International, recipients must follow the Heifer guidelines, including 40 hours of training before they can receive a gift. Veronica has received some bred heifers and is in the process of repaying the group with 5 bred heifers from what has been born so far. Her repayment for the hoop house is its cost, repaid within 5 years. If all goes well, she should be able to make her repayment in a year or so, no problem.

Her dad constructed the frame using PVC pipe, rebar and locally milled lumber. By using lumber from someone nearby who harvests their trees to make boards, it keeps the costs down. In the background are Veronica's chickens. She sells their eggs to family, friends, and the local natural foods grocery store. The whole ranch is in the process of becoming organically certified.

The group's job was to get the large sheet of heavy plastic over the frame and to stretch it tight. Others armed with staple guns tacked the plastic to the wood while we supplied the hands necessary to get it nicely stretched with no wrinkles.

Here is the plastic being draped over the hoop house "bones."

Veronica's dad tacks the plastic to one side of the frame before we stretch it. I don't know how old her dad is, but he was everywhere at once and you can tell he loves every minute of this project. It made me miss my dad.

Once this side was tacked down, it was time to stretch. We had a line of people on one long side, pulling hard to ensure the plastic was stretched taut as a drum. If the plastic isn't stretched tightly, the crazy Northern New Mexico wind would cause it to flap about and start ripping. There is Veronica, with the sunglasses and gorgeous gray hair.

The group did a quality job and a hoop house is born!

Inside, the hoop house is big! I think the dimensions are 36 long by 20 wide. Someone correct me if I am wrong in the comments, okay?

There is still a lot of work for Veronica to do. Building raised beds, assembling the irrigation and misting systems, and planting the first seeds for her mixed baby lettuce are just some of the tasks still ahead.

But there is a big market for locally grown produce, and Los de Mora Local Growers' Cooperative is on its way to becoming a market force in Northern New Mexico.

As a thank you, we feasted on pizza with green chile garnish, chicken wings, salad, and wine after our labors, and had fun meeting new friends and chatting with our neighbors.

I Won Some "Color Me Retro" Fabric!

2013-03-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

Last week was lucky because I entered a fabric giveaway and I won! That doesn't happen too often. Only once before, in fact.

But I just felt lucky and I really wanted some of this fabric. So I entered and the rest is good luck history.

The package came from Tactile Fabrics, who sponsored the giveaway at Jeni Baker's blog, In Color Order. So what does "Color Me Retro" look like?

You probably can't tell, but Tactile Fabrics sent fourteen fat quarters and I can't wait to do something with them just as soon as I bring in the skiploader to shovel out the layers of project detritus in the sewing room.

Color Me Retro is designed by Jeni Baker and makes me think of lying on a Southern California beach. These fabrics would make an excellent beach or picnic quilt.

Anyway, thanks to Jennifer at Tactile Fabrics and Jeni at In Color Order for the fabric. I will put it to good use.

Coyote Creek Traffic

2013-03-06T08:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took a trip to ThreadBear, my local quilt shop in Las Vegas, New Mexico. I'd already been there Monday for our Modern Quilt meet-up, soon to be guild, but I had a quilt to quilt and so the Bernina spent the night there and we met up again the next day.

I will write more about ThreadBear soon, because their brand new website is up and running. They are now selling their neato fabric online as well as in their shop on The Plaza in Las Vegas. I love their fabrics, especially their Hispanic looking stuff, and want ThreadBear to stay alive and well in Las Vegas for a long, long time.

But here is what I want to show you today:

As I was driving on the dirt road which takes me to the highway, I saw some hulking forms on the road. Whoops! Cows are out, but they weren't mine, thank goodness.

As soon as they saw my truck, the bovine escapees hightailed it to the side of the road which I thought was extremely polite.

Some of these cows were extremely preggo and there were babies, too, so they stayed pretty close to home, the field beyond this broken gate, I think.

Seven hours later as I drove back home, they were still out, but that's how it goes in Northern New Mexico. Eventually someone will fix that gate but it doesn't have to be right now.

Cheese Blintzes

2013-03-05T08:54:00.002-07:00

It's feeling springlike here at the Nickel and Dime, and even though I realize Mom Nature may have a few more snowstorms hiding under her skirts, I am hopeful that warmer weather is just around the corner.

My symbol for hope is this springy breakfast I made today. Right up front you should know these blintzes are not made from scratch like my dad's were.

These were from the frozen food section at a supermarket in Santa Fe and a decent second choice if you don't have any home made blintzes stockpiled in your freezer. I bought some raspberry pecan jam while we were in Texas last week so that's what is on top.

Happy Almost Springtime!