Year in Review

December 31, 2023

Hello again,

Well, it's hard to believe that another year has come and gone.  Even harder to believe is the fact that we've been out here in New Mexico for three solid years.  The East Coast seems like all but a fuzzy and hazy memory to us now...all the places that seemed so familiar to us now have started to fade into half-accurate caricatures of themselves.  Meanwhile, I rack my brain to remember all the momentous events that happened in 2023.  At the beginning of the year, I was still working construction on the boss's new house and we were still all piled in the casita.  In May I switched over to working directly for the boss and then she moved up to her new house on the first of June.  We lost our dog, Rui, in June, too.  He was only 9 and it was way too soon, yet, at the same time, he lived a tremendous life.  Still, it's awfully different around here without him.  He would patrol the kitchen every night and around the dinner table, making sure that not a single scrap of food was left unattended.  Now, when we see a crumb or something similar on the floor, it only makes us think of him.  He also was the only one who would clean Willow's ears...now, she cocks her head in front of Ela, expecting the same treatment, only to see Ela just stare blankly back at her, as if to say, 'There's no way I'm doing that.'  Our cat herd grew by leaps and bounds this year, with several litters adding to the numbers.  However, there were many losses, too.  We lost GG, Smokey, BRJ, Kachina, Charley and Forest over the course of the year.  One was due to old age, one due to an accidental drowning, and four most likely because of the coyotes.  We moved over to the boss's old house in September and spent the rest of the year settling in. Now, even the outdoor ranch cats have relocated to our backyard and we have little cat hutches and Kitty Tubes, as they are called, nestled here and there, so that there is lots of room for everyone.  The dogs chase them a bit, but very playfully, so it's good exercise and practice for the cats to learn to avoid hazards out here and to head straight up a tree.  We started going to the Montezuma Hot Springs back in the spring and it has turned into a weekly event that has truly changed our lives for the better.  We even fill up canteens and bottles of water when we're there from one of the old sources that are right next to the tubs and take it home to drink.  A lot of the locals swear by it and say that it can and will cure anything that ails you!  We got another visit from Erin's Dad, Ken, in September, who drove out for his yearly pilgrimage here in September with his partner, Astrid.  So many memories for one year!

We went down to see the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa back at the beginning of the year.  That's an 80' deep natural spring in a karst formation that has the bluest water you've ever seen and actually allows you to go scuba diving out here in the desert.  I had all three dogs out in the horse pasture not too long after and ended up getting stampeded by the horses once they saw us and clearly were tired of being bothered by dogs.  In March the neighbor's mules showed up right before dawn one morning, having gotten out from a door that a worker left open.  They marched right up over the hill and back down and were then found contentedly munching on hay in our open barn, while our crew were jealously watching from inside the horse pasture.  The following week our horses got out of an open gate here and spent almost an hour out joyriding around the pond, before Erin and I rounded them all back up.  I literally started whistling and just walked to the driveway while they followed me up the road to where Erin was waiting with the gate open.  We started stopping more and more frequently at our little, local bar here in San Jose, el Alto, where you can sit and drink or buy beer, wine, liquor, snacks, dog food, chicken food, eggs and all kinds of other stuff to-go.  Erin began making soap in earnest and has made a couple of dozen kinds over the course of the year.  We also made a spot for her way out in the Back 40, her secret spot, to escape to whenever things were too crazy down on the ranch.  I began taking care of all the landscaping and irrigation in June, which kept me quite busy over the summer.  Then, fall brought one of the biggest hailstorms that we've ever seen and an annular solar eclipse.  I unloaded and managed to put a whole tractor trailer's worth of hay in the barn in November and then I discovered evidence of a neighbor illegally cutting down some of our very old pinyon trees.  These were just some of the adventures that we had in 2023.

And, for our final batch of pictures for the year, they start with five digital interpretations of some of my photos: a window screen; metal roofing; at the bar in the Skillet in Las Vegas; our windmill; and one of the pools at the hot springs. Next, six shots of the horses one cold, winter morning: first, two shots of the group; then, four shots of Freedom making her way to the feed buggy. Then, five last random shots: the pavers outside our kitchen door; two shots from the interstate in Santa Fe; again, sitting at the bar in the Skillet; and, finally, all loaded up in town with a month's worth of stuff to take back to the ranch!

Happy New Year's and take care.