Finding Our Tribe

“This is the hardest time to live, but it is also the greatest honor to be alive now, and to be allowed to see this time.  There is no other time like now.  We should be thankful, for creation did not make weak spirits to live during this time.  The old ones say ‘this is the time when the strongest spirits will live through and those who are empty shells, those who have lost the connection will not survive.’   We have become masters of survival — we will survive — it is our prophecy to do so.”

“Humanity must shift from living “on” the earth, to living with her.” — Tiokasin Ghosthorse

Tiokasin Ghosthorse is from the Cheyenne River Lakota (Sioux) Nation of South Dakota.  He holds a Masters Degree in Native American studies and Communications.  He is a storyteller, poet, university lecturer, scholar, essayist, cultural interpreter, and a peace and human rights activist.  Tiokasin has been described as “a spiritual agitator, natural rights organizer, Indigenous thinking process educator and a community activator.”  One reviewer called him “a cultural resonator in the key of life.”

My new hero – Ruth Stout. I’m implementing her mulching ‘system’ in my back yard.

Garden expert and lovable eccentric once said: “At the age of 87 I grow vegetables for two people the year-round, doing all the work myself and freezing the surplus. I tend several flower beds, write a column every week, answer an awful lot of mail, do the housework and cooking-and never do any of these things after 11 o’clock in the morning!”

Her second book, Gardening Without Work: For the Aging, the Busy & the Indolent was first published in 1961. She died in 1980, at the age of 96.

New sights and sounds

The senses are overwhelmed here at the homestead in New Mexico. So much to study that it has been difficult for me to know where to begin.  I had to introduce you to someone I met while weeding the raspberry patch. I stopped everything to take some photos of him.

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Calligrapha vicina / Calligraphy beetle

I was quite literally stopped in my tracks when I saw him — I had never seen markings this intricate on a beetle or bug in the Midwest and was taken by how much they looked like the hollows in a guitar or musical notes.  Lucky for me, there are experts on site and all I needed to do was ask.  The calligraphy beetle.  But, of course!

There are many more creatures here that I have never seen in the wild; roadrunners and lizards to name a few.  The lizards are quite funny to watch but hard to capture on film.  I have set a challenge to do just that.

I am learning after my first week in New Mexico and hope you are enjoying following my adventure in WOOFing.

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
View from kitchen window in the WOOFers quarters

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
WOOFers quarters, outside

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
Weeping willow out front is where the turkeys roost at night.

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
Biochar stove – just fired up today

 

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Hothouse/greenhouse

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
Potatoes, squash, melons and raspberries

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
Solar water pump, pump house and cistern

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
Second solar water pump, in front of goat house

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
Yummy asparagus patch behind WOOFers quarters

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
View from the fire pit

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
Another fire pit view

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
The goats, L to R, Bella, Lillian and little Peanut

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
My host’s straw bale house

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
Two of three turkeys that like to follow you around

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
Lillian is quite a ham

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
The solar oven – first try with beans but it was overcast

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
The outdoor kitchen

 

New Mexico WOOFing Trip Pictoral
Wood-fire cobb oven in outdoor kitchen

It is indeed rare for me to find myself speechless when visiting a place — but this is something that needs to be absorbed and savored [and I’m also learning and working every day!]  Valuable life skills to take back to Indiana that I hope one day to build upon with a like-minded community.