Snippets

In lieu of some formalized and organized story with a plot line or something, here's some random things that have happened since we arrived in our New Mexican village:

We met a neighbor down the street who has been working on restoring her great-aunt's adobe house. It's a very, very traditional adobe. Small, thick walls, wood doors, no electricity or running water. She invited us in and we saw her woodstove and tin bathtub. She told me about the wild plants* she forages and dries. Her friend was there visiting. He raises goats. We got to taste some of the milk--tastes just like good cow's milk--and some of his goat cheese. Which tasted like, well, goat cheese. Not a fan. The milk was a pleasant surprise, though.

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Yesterday was the last day of the county fair in the next village over, twenty miles away. We went for the parade--at which there was a truly absurd quantity of candy thrown from the various trucks and floats--and the cowboy feed. This was shredded beef and pinto beans, with options of barbecue sauce, sliced onions and jalapenos, plus some overly-sweet potato salad, a flour tortilla, and an unfortunate dessert that consisted of canned peaches, vanilla pudding, and some kind of sweet biscuit-y topping. The meat was good, at least.

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After the cowboy feed, we stopped at the village market for a few things. When we paid, the owner asked if she could keep the pennies from our change, and told us that she uses them to buy pizza and ice cream for all the kids at the school in that village and our village twice a year. I thought that was great.

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I got a notice from the school that due to generous donations by community members, almost all the school supplies would be provided by the school. All I have to provide is backpacks and snacks for the kids. I was shocked by this, but in a very good way.

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When A. was here in July moving most of our things in, he found the seeds I had stuck in a box and planted them in front of the house. So when we got here, there were beets and beans growing. This is why we've been married for fifteen years.

Maybe I'll have a more organized post later. At the moment I'm buried in boxes to be unpacked and various boring details of life to be arranged, so I'm not feeling very organized. Someday. I hope.

* Interestingly, they were the same as many of the wild plants in upstate New York--purslane and lamb's quarters. Wild asparagus grows here, too, as well as some variety of gooseberry, which surprised me. I have a lot to learn about the edible plants here.