Retiring to the Frontier: Part 1

Our friends back in Southern California have said they couldn't see themselves moving out of state to someplace completely new and at first I couldn't, either.  I'd spent all but my first five years in suburban Orange County, California, a childhood, adolescence and young adulthood filled with trips to the beach, to shopping centers (and later malls), a five to fifteen minute drive to whatever I wanted or needed. Orange groves dotted the landscape between postwar housing tracts, and that was all we needed.

Moving to rural inland SoCal in our mid twenties for T's first teaching job took some adjusting. Farther from the beach, from stores and from our friends, it was now a 37 mile drive to college, where I was finishing my degree and teaching credential. but getting to Orange County was a smooth 30 minutes on a good day, not that big a deal. We liked living in our little yellow house on the hill, looking out over the citrus groves, red tailed hawks circling overhead, the manic sounds of coyotes howling and yipping into the evening darkness. We were spoiled for country living.

By the time we were ready to retire, our country life had been spoiled. Horsethief Canyon Ranch and Sycamore Creek housing developments moved in where citrus groves had been. I missed the scent of orange and lemon blossoms on my drive to work, and my 12 minute drive to work became 30 minutes, then 40 minutes, until finally I planned for an hour just in case the freeway had a problem. It took forever just to go grocery shopping, fighting the traffic, finding a parking space, waiting in long lines. Errands took hours. Cars clogged the roads. We were living in the fastest growing area in the country.  Where it had always been hot in inland SoCal, now it was also humid since the new homes had grassy lawns with automatic sprinklers watering nonstop. And I don't do hot and humid very well.

 So we knew it was time to move,  looked around, and found we could afford to live in New Mexico, a place we had visited so often it felt like home. It helped a lot to have Southern California Edison purchase our little home for a project that has never been completed.

Our new 'hood is census designated as "frontier, " which means we're far from hospitals, food sources and jobs, with around three persons per square mile.

This is the first of three posts introducing our frontier and how we adjusted to a different culture, found new people and became much more self reliant.

Quilty Pleasures: Our Lady of Guadalupita

I taught a class at ThreadBear a while back on improvisational medallion quilts. The three session class was designed to give everyone a start on the process, so I haven't seen their finished products.  Nonetheless, it was fun sewing along with the students so they could watch the process and get some ideas, with a few instructional stops along the way.

You may have seen the Lady of Guadalupe quilt I made after taking an epic class on Liberated Quilting hosted by quilting buddies Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran. (Click on the link above to get that story.)

Anyway, I still had some Our Lady panels in my stash (and have started another quilt that I hope to finish this winter), so that's where I started. Since this quilt was improvised, there was no clue what the finished product would look like, just starting in the center, working border by border.

Here's a look at the quilt. I built around the center, got bored with that and decided to add details at the top and the bottom.

Here's a close up of the different layers I added around the center panel. Because I wanted this quilt to be finished quickly, I made strategic use of interesting fabric rather than piecing each border. Freddy Moran, whose quilts have a plethora of fabric and color, likes black and white borders in a busy quilt so our eyes can stop and rest. For reference, the half square triangles are 1.5 inches finished. I'm not sure about the orange and rose fabric touching each other, but it's done and a small matter. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

Look at the quilting Michael at ThreadBear did, the rose and leaf quilting pattern echoing both the roses in the red border and and the general flower motif I repeated throughout the quilt. Oops! Don't look at that stray white thread. Oh, you looked, didn't you?

Towards the top of the quilt is an arch of Gwen Marston's Liberated Stars. I made the stars first and worried they would get lost in the bold colors, but by placing them at the top,  they become a focus motif. Liberated stars are free pieced, no measuring the stars' points, so each one is different.

At the quilt's bottom, I used Gwen's Liberated Basket technique to make flower pots, the flowers from an old Kaffe Fasset fabric. Gwen has used these same pots in one of the Lady of Guadalupe quilts Freddy and Gwen made for their book Collaborative Quilting.

An aside: If you haven't seen Quiltfolk magazine, please do. This issue is about the Michigan quilt community and features an article about Gwen, my quilting hero and a national treasure.

The backing fabric is Alma y Corazon by Alexander Henry. Love his fabrics and am grateful for Ann at ThreadBear, who made a bee line to this exact fabric, knowing it would be perfect.

 As I was making the quilt, I thought about a student I taught in Corona whose mother had gifted me years ago with a beautiful white crocheted sweater and later, after I had retired to the mountains, sent me a cozy hat and scarf to ward off the cold. I've always been so grateful for these gifts because, well, it was a parent who wanted to show me I was valued, and her son Juan went on to become a teacher, too, which is even better. So I sent her the quilt, now named Our Lady of Guadalupita. The name? Guadalupita, NM is the closest village to our place so it makes perfect sense since that's where I made it.

It looks like Mrs. Rosa Salgado likes Our Lady of Guadalupita, so I am glad to have been able to make her just as happy as I was receiving her gifts of love.

Summer to Fall, A Quick Transition

Our first frost came just when it was supposed to, between September 25-30, so I guess fall is really here. Monsoon rains are over, pine needles are dropping, the yellow zucchini plants look droopy, the maple tree is shedding its leaves and bees and butterflies are having last call drinks from the yellow chamisa blossoms. But days still feel like summer. A friend who was harvesting onions yesterday remarked on how searing the sun felt.

We have crazy apples this year, so apple juice, canned apple pie filling, dried apples, and who knows what else will be preserved.  This is one of three different trees, so I look at them with love and also with dread. It's lot of work to put up all these apples, but worth it when I don't have to buy something at the store.

Red Delicious Apple Tree

Last week we had friends over for dinner: chuck roast, potatoes, country style green beans and a cucumber and tomato salad. I realized later that the only thing we'd bought from the store were potatoes. That's a good feeling.

This stuff was grown inside our Growing Dome

Although the grama grass grew well this past summer, look at that dry dirt! Let's hope for snow.

 This isn't about fall, but just an update on the new pup, Liza Jane. She's a crazy nut, enjoys fetching, and likes to be out and about exploring the ranch, digging holes, and thinking about what it might be like to herd four legged ruminants. Here she is contemplating the neighboring yak herd.

I am still amazed at the changing seasons and don't think I will ever tire of it.

Letter From Northern New Mexico

Hello, Friends,

Summer is almost gone: Nights are cooler, leaves are turning, and a successful monsoon season is drawing to a close. That said, it's time for a big old catch-up session because I haven't been writing and there's much to see here in Northern New Mexico.

We've been here for 8 years now and even though there were a few bets that we wouldn't last, here we are.

So let's get to it.

We still have cattle, but it's a rotating cast of characters. These guys were Regis and Phil(bin). Tom named them; not I. 

Regis and Phil(bin) are gone now to the great pasture in the sky and we are grateful to them.

Our new pup, Liza Jane, has been a handful. We went from exceedingly polite Ms. Pearl to a bossy tornado. This is a rare puppy pic of her lying still.

Summer gardening was successful. I think having a canine tornado keeps the bunnies from eating too much.

 This was early in the season. We had asparagus, green beans, kale, carrots, strawberries, sugar snap peas, and there's some broccoli I'm hoping will weather the upcoming cooler weather. The kale was especially pretty. I even froze some and I will tell you how another time. I used this kale for Zuppa Toscana. I found a copycat recipe for this Olive Garden favorite and it was yum!

Inside the Growing Dome we had a good season, too. Up here at 7200 feet it can be iffy for tomatoes and indoor gardening solves this problem. This year I grew five plants: Golden Jubilee, Black Cherry, Chocolate Sprinkles, good old Early Girl and Brad's Atomic Grape. All did well and I froze some, made a tomato and gruyere galette, and sometimes leaned  over the sink, salt shaker in hand, and ate them like apples, juice everywhere.

Tomato Plants Growing Like Crazy

Straight Eight Cucumber Plants and Burgundy Green Beans

A Few Tomatoes

Tom has been cutting up a cottonwood tree that split in two.

We really don't need firewood because last winter was so mild, we didn't even touch the artistic wood piles I made.

And he chopped thousands of thistles, which are noxious, invasive weeds. I don't have any photos of that.

I set up a sewing area on the porch.

Here was my view:

There was a field trip to Santa Fe's Botanical Gardens.

And to the Santa Fe Opera, twice! It was my first time experiencing opera and I loved it. People have tailgate dinners here, so we did the same. The big difference was our tailgate had road dust inside and out, and just as I was taking the photo, there was a wine mishap, but you get the idea.

I think I'm growing up. Opera? Wow.

It's always nice to come back home, though, to our little bubble.

See you next time!

Ms. Pearl Has Gone

 One reason I haven't posted much lately is because I had sad news and didn't want to face it. We are accepting it finally,  though, so here goes: Ms. Pearl has crossed The Rainbow Bridge and is at The Big Party in the Sky. Her kidneys had been failing for several months and even with special food, she kept declining and there was a point where we realized she wasn't having fun any more.

Ms. Pearl was half Labrador retriever and half Australian shepherd, which meant she possessed excellent retrieving abilities and spent much of her time when there were guests shepherding them, circling the crowd, imploring everyone to please, please stick together. "Pattie, my sister in law once said, "Why won't that dog lie down?" I told her, "She's keeping us together."

She was an excellent retriever, too, Tom's hunting buddy, always ready for hunting. On her last turkey hunt, Tom and Pearlie were sitting on a hillside, calling a lone turkey across the valley, but the big bird didn't seem too keen on seeing who was making turkey noises. As Tom often does, he nodded off and took a little nap, his dog right next to him. Tom felt a nudge at his knee and woke up to see Pearl point her nose at the turkey, now walking their way. Tom said it was if Pearl was saying, "Hey, stupid, wake up! There he is!" She was a good hunter to the end.

It's always devastating when a dog has to go, and when a dog has been in your family for thirteen years, it really is like a family member has left. We knew we wanted another dog, though, so started looking for Aussie-Lab rescues on the internet. We saw a few likelies in Colorado, but they wouldn't adopt to New Mexico. New Mexicans must have a bad track record with dogs. In fact, many rescues and shelters in New Mexico send their dogs to Colorado for adoption. So Colorado was out. There were some Lab mixes in Arizona, but they wanted us to go to Arizona to spend a few days with the possible dogs we found, which is a good idea so one can see if they are compatible, but just too much red tape for us. We kept looking, though. And looking. But back to Ms. P.

Our Ms. Pearl was probably the smartest dog we've ever had.

She herded cattle. Well, sometimes they herded her.

She was a world class cuddler.

A good friend to Miss Bonnie. Bonnie was her frenemy.

Loved to swim

and the snow

Was a good traveling buddy, although in later years after a traumatic drive through thunder and lightning, she needed drugs.

And she was the best hunting partner a man could ever have.

Why do we have pets when they die so soon?  I guess Will Rogers says it better than I can.

"The misery of keeping a dog is his dying so soon...but, to be sure, ..."if there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went."

 Did we get another dog? Yes.

Preppy Pod by Elizabeth Hartman

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? It's not that I haven't had anything to write about, but winter happened and I think I must get a touch of depression during those months. I think no one is interested in what I'm doing, the leaves are off the trees and the grass turns brown and so does my brain. Plus, this winter was boring, with little snow, or even rain,  and not even some really cold weather to talk about.

But winter is over.

And it was spring for about three days before the weather jumped into summer mode, just like that! Summer here has an average temp of around 82 degrees, and that's where it is right now. I'm stoked.

These two quilts were finished this past winter, but languished for months waiting for their binding. Some of my quilty friends love binding and will sit in front of the television to get it done, but I just want to watch the danged show, which is also why I only have 3/4 of a sock knitted.

So I started these a couple of years ago, having two little grand nephews in mind, with a Preppy the Whale pattern by Elizabeth Hartman. After piecing about six Preppy blocks and realizing I'd need 54 whales for two quilts, I said, "Forget this!" and put them away. There had to be a faster way to get these quilts done. A few months later I found Preppy Pod, also by Elizabeth Hartman, and leaped for joy. Loved making those gigantic whales at the bottom of each quilt! (Believe me, these quilts are square. The wacky wind would not cooperate!)

The fabric for the whales came from scraps, well, all but the large green whale, whose fabric came from ThreadBear, my LQS.

ThreadBear also supplied the sea creatures and sharks backing fabric. It just went perfectly.

Michael Siewart did the quilting honors, choosing a circles pattern since well, bubbles.

Binding fabric is this Kaffe Fassett Collective swirly something or other I found in my stash. It works well for multi colored quilts, doesn't it? (Apologies for not taking a close up of the binding!)

I've had some fun making Elizabeth Hartman's animal design quilts and there's one more to bind, but not whales. Maybe I will practice multitasking and watch Barry whilst doing the hand sewing.