Summertime, and the livin' is easy

Farmers Markets - Locals flock to the farmers market in Robinson Park (Albuquerque) every Saturday. It has become a huge community event. Raphael and I love to relax on our sleeping bag with the Sunday paper and a picnic snack and listen to live music, watch young families with their cute little kids, and savor the fare the farmers and artists have to offer. The veggies are fresh--and expensive--but they're grown locally and not shipped halfway around the world.

Santa Fe's farmer's market is older and has thrived for much longer than Albuquerque's, and is a hangout for some of the coolest people in the country--no, make that the world. But it lacks the green grass where one can linger a little longer than planned. We met this interesting musician-artist Lucinda, who makes musical instruments from dried gourds. She seemed like such a beautiful soul.

The Railyard Market - This is a new venue for Albuquerque this summer. The venue in the old rail yards is just awesome. This last week Raphael and I joined the free yoga class in one of the corners. I chatted up this woman from Colorado who sews cloth bags and satchels and listened to how she was forced into a career change--a difficult transition--but one that has transformed her for the better, forever.

I leave these places with an inspiring sense of community, and a greater love of people.

St. John's Summer Concerts - The campus of this college has become dear to me for Raphael and I have enjoyed the beauty of its location for many years. We've taken numerous walks in the canyon, and picnicked on the playgrounds. We've been out twice this summer to attend their outdoor musical concerts. They always have a big turnout. Summer's heat doesn't keep them away, and it's the best places to dance -- if you enjoy dancing.

Parks and Recreation organized a Brazilian musical concert in the outdoors yesterday. Sitting with my sweetheart, outdoors in view of the mountains, the valley below and the biggest sky above, breaks my heart with happiness.

Carrizozo / Pino Family Ancestral Home / July 2-4, 2016

The Pino family has lived on the ranch for more than a hundred years.The ancestral home, a stone's throw from the present house is currently in poor condition, but is slowly being repaired and renovated. It's an old adobe building with a lot of character. I love to walk through the rooms imagining what life was like so many years ago.

The Pino Family Ranch is located in the Chihuahua scrub desert a few miles outside the town of Carrizozo and at the foot of the Carrizo Mountain which peaks at 9000 feet. The ranch is approximately 2500 acres of open grassland and is not currently a working ranch.

Here are a few pictures of the old house.

Carrizozo Music / No Scum Allowed Saloon / July 2, 2016

Paul Pino and the Tone Daddies played at the No Scum Allowed bar in White Oaks. The bar is a great old west saloon in New Mexico's Billy the Kid country. This old mining ghost town once boasted a population of 4000.

White Oaks is about 12 miles from Carrizozo. These pictures were taken en route.

The saloon has an outdoor stage with lovely views of the surrounding Lincoln National mountains.

It's a tradition to follow the band here and listen to them play -- and to dance under the cool summer night sky.

I connected to wifi on the premises and skyped dad and mum. What a hoot it must have been for them to get a taste of the festivities of the evening. You'd be hard pressed to find anything in common between Hosur and White Oaks.

We left before the sewer backed up and sent everyone running except for Greg the bass guitarist who lost his sense of smell decades ago. All in all it was a great evening.

Carrizozo / Pino Family Ranch / July 2-4, 2016

Over the July 4th holidays, Raphael and I joined the "Pino Family and Friends Reunion" for the fourth time in five years. Their generous hospitality and welcoming nature has made us feel like part of the extended family. These are friends we've come to know and love. We relate and connect on many levels. It was a relaxing and fun couple of days.

Approaching the ranch house.

The ranch house.

Paul Pino, his siblings, cousins, and their families congregate from all over the country to reconnect with song and dance and lots of food, under the windy cloudless skies of the southwestern desert.
Below: In the shadow of Carrizo Mountain.

Forty plus individuals made their way to the ranch this year. A number of us stayed on the ranch, pitching tents or crowding into the already crowded ranch house. Others stayed in motel rooms in town; still others drove through staying for a meal and a couple hours of catching up on family news.

The ranch house patio.

Inside the ranch house kitchen.

We pitched our tent between two trailers and in the spot that had just been vacated by a nonvenomous bull snake. It was futile to put up the portable gazebo over our tent that we lugged along with hopes of being shaded from the fierce summer sun; the winds that blow intermittently would have picked it right up along with the tumbleweeds and tossed it helter skelter. We did string up a tarp above the tent as best we could for afternoon naps, but had to take it down in the middle of the second night for the winds thunderously whipped it around, it was impossible to sleep.

Everyone contributes to the communal meals. There is an abundance of enchiladas, tortillas, beans, chilli, chips, queso to name a few. I understand the day before we arrived, a pig was cooked and baked in coals in a pit. We took our juicer and made fresh carrot-apple-celery-ginger-lime drinks for everyone. I also took oatmeal cookies and fixings for a fruit crumble that we baked in the solar oven.

Below Raphael is making a shrimp appetizer--per kindness of Costco.

Carrizozo Flora and Fauna / July 2-4, 2016

This year the desert was green. Wild grasses were plentiful and the yucca elata blossomed abundantly. Their white clusters bright against the blue sky.

Wild rabbits--the desert cottontail and jackrabbits scampered behind every cactus. Gambel's quails paraded past our tent oblivious to the camera lens that protruded through the flap.

This rabbit and quail darted at each other back and forth in a little game of trying to get the other to leave.

This time we didn't see antelope and missed hearing coyote calls during the night, but we did hear the braying of wild burros--direct descendants of the pack animals that were brought by gold miners. During one of my early morning walks I spotted two of them in the distance, but didn't have time to switch to the zoom lens.

Anyway, here's the bull snake we spotted in the first few minutes of our arrival. Don't miss part of it on the lower left side of the picture.