Los Poblanos and Rio Grande Community Farms

Not far from our house, close enough to easily bike to, there is a huge farm, restaurant, and bed and breakfast. It is privately owned, and at least one of the buildings was designed by the same architect who designed the UNM library. They grow food to use in the restaurant and to sell at the farmers' market and at their roadside stand. Below are photos we took there late one afternoon. www.lospoblanos.com/ The B and B ranked 3rd on Trip Advisor. My goodness, 3rd? I would like to see which B and Bs came in first and second!

The Los Poblanos food stand is on the same property.

A friendly turkey preferred to look out of its window and incessantly gobble, trying to find some interesting conversation from the shoppers.

There was some confusion in my mind with the Los Poblanos private enterprise and the Rio Grande Community Farm and the Los Poblanos Fields. The Farm (according to their website) is a certified organic farm located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is run by the city of Albuquerque along with the 138-acre Los Poblanos Fields which are spread out within the Rio Grande valley and the City of Albuqueque. The City acquired the land in 1995 after a two-year campaign to preserve this last remaining parcel of farmland in the North Valley. http://www.riograndefarm.org/about/  In addition to growing food for Albuquerque's public schools, 20% of the fields is devoted to growing food for the birds, especially the sandhill cranes that migrate through ABQ by the thousands in the late fall. These 2 photos were 'borrowed' from the Internet.

UNM Campus and Library

Lee had been eager to go for a walk on the UNM campus, but we chose an afternoon that was blisteringly hot. (Are there any other kind here during the summer?)  After cruising by the famous UNM duck pond, we decided to take refuge in the library. The library is huge and built like a cathedral, but it's an homage to learning, not to religion. In this photo, Lee is dwarfed by it's grandeur.

The details are also exquisite.

In the newer addition the artistic integrity continues.

And in for a closer look:

Outside, a turtle rests on a rock trying to sun as much of herself as she can.

There is also a statue by Luis A. Jiménez, the same artist we saw in the courtyard in Santa Fe (see the Santa Fe post), but this piece had no name. It should be entitled "Working up a sweat!!"

GRAB

Albuquerque and Santa Fe are hosting a Native Cinema Showcase. Last night we went to the historic KiMo Theater to watch the documentary GRAB by Billy Luther. You can watch a trailer at www.grabthemovie.com. More about the movie to follow, but first I want to tell you a little about the KiMo Theater. 
This is copied from http://www.cabq.gov/kimo/about-the-theater

The KiMo Theatre, a Pueblo Deco picture palace, opened on September 19, 1927. Pueblo Deco was a flamboyant, short-lived architectural style that fused the spirit of the Native American cultures of the Southwest with the exuberance of Art Deco. Pueblo Deco appeared at a time when movie-mad communities were constructing film palaces based on exotic models such as Moorish mosques and Chinese pavilions.

Native American motifs appeared in only a handful of theaters; of 
those few, the KiMo is the undisputed king. 


Amen to that!! It was too dark to take photos with my cell phone, but here are a few from the Internet. You need to jump to this website to see the detail above the windows of the building. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_t_in_dc/4985018802/
or copy this into the address bar of your browser.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_t_in_dc/4985018802/

The interior is sumptuous and no small detail has been overlooked. It is truly the most remarkable theater I have ever been in and I grew up in a theater-loving family near Chicago! Here are a very few of the details. This one is from the proscenium around the stage. This same pattern surrounds the entire stage.

This is a view of the lobby ceiling.

Above is a cell phone photo of a detail above the exit sign. There are murals, carvings, and cut-tin lamps throughout the theater. Even the seats are custom designed. If you ever make it to Albuquerque, don't miss exploring this theater!


Now about GRAB. This is an excerpt about the movie from the Native Cinema Showcase 2011 brochure. 


"Each year, residents of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico honor individual family members by throwing food and gifts from the rooftops of their homes to community members below. A community-wide prayer of abundance, thanks, and renewal... Luther's film chronicles the lives of three families as they make preparations to participate in this ancient tradition." 


After Lee and I took our seats a large family filled the row just in front of us. We noticed that the theater was filled with folks who seemed to know each other. In fact, people (especially gorgeous men) kept coming up to greet and hug the woman in front of me, so I tapped her on the shoulder and told her "I want to know you. You have all these cute guys coming up to hug you!" She laughed! Well, little did I know that she was one of the 'stars' of the movie. She is the potter you will see if you watch the trailer. The preparations for Grab Day included this potter, Josie Seymour, making a special pot for grab day which she planned to throw from the roof during the celebration. The tradition is that if it is caught, it is a wonderful gift for someone in the community, but if it is broken, it means an abundance of rain for the coming season. After the movie, she and her family were invited onstage. She had brought a pot with her to share with the audience community who had come to see the film. To my great surprise, she motioned to me and gave me the pot. She told me that she had decided that she would give the pot to the first person who spoke to her and that was me!! What a magical moment. I felt so very honored. As a post script, we have become facebook friends!

Sandia Crest Hummers

On the top of Sandia Crest there are a couple of visitor centers. There is one for the folks who take a tram to the top, but those who drive up there end up at a another one that is primarily a big gift shop and a little snack shop. The day that Lee and I drove up, it was very warm, and we went to the snack bar for an ice cream bar. We took our bars out to their patio to relax and enjoy the view. Yes, the view of Albuquerque spread out below is breathtaking. However, my attention was captured by two hummingbird feeders hung side by side from the patio railing. Those feeders were humming with action (so to speak). Dozens of the little birds were flying in to feed, then exiting, only to return a few seconds later for another snack. While we were there one of the waitresses came onto the patio for a breath of air and she told us that when they bring the feeders out each morning the little guys don't wait for them to be hung up, but hungrily swarm the feeders as they are being carried. She said that she can put her finger next to one of the feeding holes and the birds will mostly ignore it, but sometimes they will sit on her finger while they eat. I had to try it and it worked!!! Their little feet are so warm and delicate and I could feel the magic of them touching my skin for more than an hour later. Really, I will never forget it. Here is some video that we took.

Two architect designed homes in Albuquerque

These two homes invite you to stop, gawk, and take lots of photos. They are next door to each other and close to Central Ave downtown. Pretty remarkable aren't they!!

Santa Fe

It was a typically hot August day in Albuquerque and Lee and I decided to go to Santa Fe to enjoy some fine art and some cooler weather. (SF is usually 10 degrees cooler than ABQ.) We got lucky because as soon as we got to Santa Fe, it clouded up, cooled down to the mid 60s, and rained like crazy for much of the afternoon. Ahh.... felt like home to me! Santa Fe is a world unto itself. There is art everywhere you look, even the buildings are artfully constructed, and every thing is very expensive. And, of course, on a Saturday in August, the town is chock full of tourists! We looked at the long line at the popular Shed restaurant we had read about in our 2011 Fodor's Guide and decided to instead find a delicious and cheap fajita wrap for $5 from one of the food carts in the main square. We found a dry bench in the park under a tree and ate our lunch. Then we opened our umbrella and ran through the rain to land at the New Mexico History Museum and Palace of the Governors. There was an especially interesting special exhibit there about the African Americans' role in settling New Mexico. At 3:30, we were still hungry after our lunch and all the restaurants had shut down to prepare for dinner, but we found a bar that was open. Lucky us! The bar was part of a brand new hotel and their 'bar food' was chef-prepared. We shared bowls of Farmer's Market Soup and Posole stew along with the best tamales we've ever had. It had finally stopped raining so after eating we walked the streets of Santa Fe to look at the shops. Below are our impressions of that afternoon.

Umbrella ready, we set off on a street tour.

 This sculpture is on the wall of the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. Look closely and you will see it represents a multigenerational family with the ancestors represented as ghost-like faces at the outer rim. We thought it was interesting that every face was depicted with closed eyes, but that the eyes of the baby were wide open.

 In one of the courtyards we discovered this powerful work entitled "Border Crossing" done in 1989 by Luis A. Jiménez Jr. He dedicated it to his father,

Brain Power

Lee and I have been attending a number of lectures put on by OASIS. As published on its website: OASIS is a national education and service organization that brings people together to enrich lives and strengthen communities. We inspire people age 50 plus. www.oasisnet.org/

The native American cryptography class just described is an OASIS class. We've also attended lectures on 10 immigration myths, on unsolved mysteries of archeology, and one on astronomy. They are all presented by top people in the field, so they are extremely well organized, illustrated, and presented. It's been a lot of fun!

Last night we went to Vesta Fiesta. It was put on by the Albuquerque Astronomical Society (TAAS) http://www.taas.org/newtaas/index.php and the Open Space Nature Center, which is run by the city of Albuquerque. http://www.cabq.gov/openspace/

The event celebrates the arrival of NASA's Dawn robotic explorer to Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It was once thought that these asteroids came from an exploded planet that was predicted to lie between Mars and Jupiter. However, it is now thought that the planet never formed and exploded. Instead, it never formed at all because Jupiter's huge gravity pull on the fragments kept perturbing the formation process that the other planets went through when our solar system was born. This understanding makes Vesta and the other large asteroid, Ceres, very interesting. Knowing more about these asteroids will further understanding about the early beginnings of our solar system, especially regarding the composition of the early materials that later made the planets. Until now, NASA scientists only had a very hazy image of Vesta, but Dawn, the robotic explorer, is already sending back pictures as defined and clear as those we have of our moon. Dawn just reached Vesta. It will orbit Vesta for one year and then leave Vesta's orbit and travel on to find Ceres and orbit it to collect data. You can read all about it at:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/ceresvesta/index.html

Because the event was put on by TAAS (the Albuquerque Astronomical Society decided to include 'The' in it's acronym to avoid being the AAS society!) There were lots of telescopes and amateur astronomers to show you what to look at. Lee and I didn't stay for Vesta's rising, but we did see a binary star up close and personal. We intend to go the more TAAS events. We want to take advantage of Albuquerque's (usually) cloudless skies, but we will need to get away from the city lights to really see the deep sky. Meanwhile, Lee bought himself a lawn chair and sometimes I wake up at 5:00 am to find him missing from our bed and out in our courtyard, on his lawn chair, face to the stars, to discover whatever might be out there. This week the Perseid meteor shower will be visible in the early morning hours. The moon and city lights will obscure all but the brightest meteors, but we will look for what we can see.