​When I interviewed Lisa and Djann about a year ago, they had told me about the young couple who had leased part of their land, was growing vegetables for the Taos and Santa Fe Farmers Markets, and was providing several restaurants with fresh produce. They had nothing but the highest praise for the two, who are actually three now – Baby Jet is part of the family, and I can’t begin to imagine how much work it all must be. Then again, when you enjoy what you’re doing, it’s also fun, and Jessi and Hendrix definitely love farming. The way they’re doing it also benefits the environment, which is a huge factor for them. Locally produced items are the most environmentally friendly, Jessi told me: “You hear about strawberries in California getting trucked to Northern California for the winter and then trucked back down south so that they'll continuously produce  fruit. And then they get trucked across the country. It’s pretty crazy.”

​This reminded me of the understory, the layer of vegetation in a forest or wooded area which includes fungi and their root-like structure of mycelia. They form symbiotic associations with plants, and exchange resources. It means the soil is full of life, and if I understand Hendrix correctly, their technique not only  doesn't hurt the soil by breaking this all up and disturbing it, but they do more: they add compost so that it can regenerate. They want to help the soil, help the Earth. This seems so important.
 
Jessi confirmed: “It also eventually will cut down how many amendments we need to add. Regenerative agriculture really does have an effect on your local environment. And eventually it could go bigger than that. Less mining, less shipping, less trucking, fewer deliveries, this could have a huge impact.”

​​“The food system in America is so backwards,” Hendrix continued. “With monocultures like in Iowa where they grow the same thing over and over again. They go from corn to soy and then back to corn again. And all that stuff is getting sprayed with herbicides and pesticides, and the soil is completely dead. There's nothing in there.”
 
Jessi added: “The plant is only there because they’re giving it chemicals to sprout, and then they add hormones. Those are not nutrients, nothing like that. I hear all the time that the tomatoes taste like nothing, like cardboard. So this is another future goal of ours, and another passion that we want to bring to life: getting people to the farm for Chef’s Tables, and bringing people together over delicious food, and having beautiful conversations over this beautiful food. Just getting people to taste real food again. Giving recipes out and sharing recipes, having guest Chefs come in, having Hendrix's Grandma come in and cook a meal, or our neighbor's Grandma. Just having more community, based on real food and nourishment on so many levels.”
 
Isn’t that a fabulous idea! Jessi and Hendrix  show that there's value in good food, in nutritious food. When one buys  groceries at the supermarket, there's no real value, there's no care. There's no life in the commercially grown produce. It's all dead, really. And then people are getting more and more unhealthy.
 
Jessi continues: “If we have to spend our time doing something, we might as well eat good food and have good conversation and feel healthy and good about it! Maybe someday, who knows, this will become a bigger movement.”


How often do you go to the Farmers Market, was my next question.  I imagine all of that must be a lot of work. They do the farming, they do the harvesting, they prepare land, and then they drive to Santa Fe and to Taos for the Farmers’ Markets. And all this with a little baby!

“The market definitely feels like our whole life,” Jessi told me. “Our whole schedule, our whole home routine and everything revolves around it. On Saturdays I go up to Taos with Jet, and Hendrix goes down to Santa Fe. He goes year round. And the Taos market lasts six months, six months out of the year.”

I'm so glad I had the chance to chat with Jessi and Hendrix. They farm with a new sort of awareness, they’re  doing this with a purpose that goes beyond just making money or taking care of themselves. I think that's what we need these days: people who take the state of the Earth and of our environment seriously. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. I want to close with a statement of theirs  which I found at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market website: “We believe that happy soil leads to happy plants, and happy plants lead to happy people.” That’s it in a nutshell.

by NM Political Report  

New Mexico’s congressional delegation is demanding the Trump administration exclude the state from efforts to rescind federal protections for roadless areas in national forests, citing economic and safety concerns.
​
U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, led the effort alongside Sen. Ben Ray Luján and Reps. Melanie Stansbury, Gabe Vasquez and Teresa Leger Fernandez in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

We are concerned that rolling back this rule would hurt our state’s economy, diminish its wildlife, and endanger its residents,” the lawmakers wrote.
The 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule protects nearly 1.6 million acres of national forest land in New Mexico from new permanent road construction. The rule was developed after decades of debate, more than 600 public meetings and 1.6 million public comments, according to a press release.

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, outdoor recreation generates $3.2 billion annually in New Mexico and supports nearly 30,000 jobs. The lawmakers argued that many visitors specifically seek out the state for backcountry activities that would be diminished by new road construction.
The delegation also highlighted wildfire risks, noting that New Mexico has a higher wildfire risk profile than 82% of the United States. Multiple federal studies have confirmed that wildfires are less likely to ignite in roadless areas, they said.
“The administration’s goal of faster deployment of suppression resources must be compared against the reality that more fires will ignite when roads are added,” the letter stated.
The lawmakers noted that roads also damage wildlife habitat and are associated with higher mortality rates and lower reproduction among species, including deer, elk, black bears and bighorn sheep.
Heinrich gave a floor speech last week, criticizing the administration’s efforts and encouraging public participation in the comment process.

Office of the Governor

SANTA FE – New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday announced new satellite data showing New Mexico’s methane rules cut oil and gas facility emissions in the Permian Basin by half compared to neighboring Texas.
The findings, released during U.S. Climate Week, demonstrate significant economic and public health benefits from the state’s environmental policies.
Nine separate satellite observations collected and aggregated during 2024-2025 across the Permian Basin, including the Delaware sub-basin, showed New Mexico’s methane intensity is 1.2% compared to Texas’s 3.1% in the Delaware sub-basin. Methane intensity measures the amount of natural gas that escapes into the atmosphere during production relative to total output.
Since 2020, oil and gas production in this region of the Permian has increased approximately 20% in Texas and more than 100% in New Mexico, yet overall methane intensity has declined significantly in New Mexico. The methane captured in New Mexico is valued at $125 million in additional natural gas production and $27 million in tax and royalty revenue, creating additional economic opportunity for New Mexican families and returning money to taxpayers.
“New Mexico’s methane regulations demonstrate that we can lead the nation in both energy production and environmental stewardship,” said Lujan Grisham. “These smart environmental policies generate revenue for our state while protecting our air and fighting climate change.”
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere. New Mexico enacted comprehensive methane rules in 2021 that Texas lacks. The rules require operators to minimize venting and flaring, use cleaner air-driven equipment, conduct regular leak detection and repair, and develop gas capture infrastructure.
These science-based improvements appear to be the primary factor identified in achieving these emission reductions and economic benefits, with the satellite data showing clear performance differences between states with and without comprehensive methane rules.
Economic advantagesThe $125 million in captured natural gas represents energy that would otherwise be wasted. The additional tax and royalty revenue flows directly to state programs and local communities.
“This data proves science-based environmental regulations deliver tangible economic benefits,” said James C. Kenney, cabinet secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department. “New Mexico’s methane rules demonstrate that protecting air quality and reducing emissions protect New Mexicans and strengthen our energy sector.”
“This satellite data provides the clearest evidence yet that well-designed methane regulations are both cost-effective and protective,” said Jon Goldstein, associate vice president for Energy Transition at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). “New Mexico’s success under Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s leadership demonstrates that cutting methane pollution and waste delivers economic benefits while protecting air quality and our climate.”
Advanced satellite technologyThe findings are the result of orbital sensing technology and analytics developed by MethaneSAT, a subsidiary of EDF, supported by the Bezos Earth Fund, enabling high precision, high-resolution measurement of methane emissions over large areas.
An interactive website at www.methanesat.org provides detailed analysis of the satellite findings across the region.

New Mexico lacks more than 90,000 housing units across the state — a much larger shortage than previous estimates — according to a keynote presentation Thursday at the ongoing New Mexico Housing Summit in Albuquerque.
Previous estimates in statewide needs assessments have been less than half that. A 2022 Mortgage Finance Authority analysis said the state lacked 32,000 affordable housing units.
Todd Clarke, an apartment investment broker in New Mexico for more than 30 years and self-described “data geek and policy wonk,” asserted the higher figure during a breakfast presentation at the summit.. 
After walking through what he sees as four previous statewide housing shortages — those caused by tuberculosis patient arrivals or post World War II expansion, for example — he said the state is in its fifth-ever housing shortage, one that presents a multi-billion-dollar challenge for housing policymakers and developers. 
“We hear numbers about this much demand for affordable housing; this much demand for Northern New Mexico; this much demand for Southern New Mexico, but all in, personally, I believe that number is closer to about 91,000 units,” he said. 
He based that number on research he’s doing with the help of a database of all apartment complexes across New Mexico that have at least two units, along with estimates of job and population growth in certain areas across  the state, including in counties experiencing oil and gas development booms, he said. 

Couple that with jobs from tech expansion from Amazon, Facebook, Netflix and others in the Albuquerque area, and the shortage is huge, he said. Clarke expects Albuquerque’s housing shortage to be as high as 25,000 units in the near future, he said.
“Certainly there are some counties that are not growing or actually shrinking, but for every one or two of those, there’s five or six other ones that are absolutely growing gangbusters, particularly those related to oil and extraction of minerals from our state,” Clarke said. 
Assuming a $300,000 per unit cost, that means the state faces a $27 billion problem, he said. 
Clarke’s presentation tracks with other signals that seem to point to an acute housing crisis in New Mexico: Median rents are increasing at rates much higher than the national average, and so is homelessness. 
Housing officials tasked with responding to the crisis seemed to accept Clark’s estimate and incorporated it into their descriptions of the state’s challenges and opportunities related to housing. 
“That’s a huge number,” said Isidoro “Izzy” Hernandez, director of the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority, during a “State of Housing” presentation Thursday morning. “And if you look at the number of permits that we’re issuing annually here in the state, we’ve got a long road ahead.”
The housing shortage was one of many indicators that Hernandez said “are all over the map” in New Mexico, when it comes to inventory, prices and trends.
“I don’t envision that at the end of the session, we’re going to solve all the problems,” Hernandez said. “But I can tell you that there is a lot of progress being made in a lot of effort to solve the problem, and to do more for the housing needs across the state.”
Department of Workforce Solutions Secretary Sarita Nair, whose agency contains the newly created state Office of Housing, touted recent spending of more than $80 million across the state with funds the Legislature approved earlier this year, part of record housing-related spending by the Legislature in recent years. 

​The funding went primarily to Albuquerque, including for homelessness services, converting an old hotel into affordable apartments and helping new developments break ground. 
Unlike other states, Nair noted, the state does have one advantage in tackling the growing problem, which is that the state has “a lot of money” to spend to both build more housing and make it affordable to people who need it.
“That makes us very unique in the United States. I mean, when I talk to my peers from the other states, they’re cutting. Colorado is cutting budgets. California is cutting budgets. All over the country, they’re cutting budgets,” she said. “We’re not.” 

LANL NEWS RELEASE
On Wednesday, two scientific instruments developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory launched into space aboard a NASA spacecraft that will explore and chart the boundaries of the heliosphere — the bubble surrounding the sun and planets inflated by solar wind — and study how it interacts with the galactic neighborhood beyond.
​
Called IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe), the NASA mission will help researchers better understand the enormous and complex space environment of the sun, the Earth’s place in the stellar region, and how the interaction of solar and stellar winds form barriers against harmful cosmic rays, thereby helping to protect life on Earth and astronauts. IMAP will travel 1 million miles towards the sun, where it will continuously sample the passing solar wind and will also remotely observe the distant, roiling interaction of solar wind with the interstellar medium.

“We’ve been remotely studying the distant heliosphere for the last 17 years with another spacecraft called IBEX,” said Herb Funsten, a space scientist at Los Alamos and instrument lead for the IMAP-Hi instrument, which was developed at the Laboratory and is onboard IMAP. “We’ve learned a lot about this region of space where the sun’s space environment ends and the rest of our galaxy begins. But IMAP is so much more sophisticated. It will be like going from looking at Christmas lights in broad daylight to looking at them in the dark of night, wearing prescription glasses, and in more colors. We’ll be able to see things we’ve never seen before.”

IMAP-Hi collects, counts, measures and maps invisible particles called energetic neutral atoms (ENAs), which are formed when the more abundant energetic charged atoms — flying outward from the sun or coming in from interstellar space — interact with the tenuous interstellar gas atoms that permeate the heliosphere. These fast-moving charged particles grab electrons from the neutral ones, thus becoming energetic neutral atoms. “Measuring ENAs allows us to map the otherwise invisible boundary at the distant reaches of the heliosphere — without having to go there ourselves,” Funsten said.

Dan Reisenfeld, also a Los Alamos space scientist and deputy instrument lead on IMAP-Hi, agrees with Funsten that IMAP will allow for a more detailed picture of the heliosphere. “This is like going from the Hubble Telescope to the James Webb Telescope. The IBEX mission posed a lot of questions and gave us a better understanding of how our solar system interacts with the rest of the galaxy, and how the heliosphere doesn’t just protect our spacecraft from damaging radiation but the Earth, too, and, ultimately, our DNA from dangerous mutations because of radiation. But we have a lot more to learn.”

IMAP will draw a map of Earth’s nearby galactic neighborhood, and advance what is known about neutral atoms and space dust that have traveled that neighborhood, bringing clues about the solar system’s origins.

Additionally, the 10 scientific instruments aboard IMAP are equipped to observe a vast range of particle energies and types in interplanetary space to simultaneously investigate two of the most important overarching issues in heliophysics: the energization of charged particles from the sun and interaction of that solar wind with the winds from other stars and other material that fills the galaxy.

“We’re looking at particles coming from the sun that will make their way to the boundary of the heliosphere and affect the formation of neutral atoms,” said Ruth Skoug, a Los Alamos space scientist and instrument lead for the Solar Wind Electron (SWE) instrument, which collects and counts electrons from the solar wind. SWE and the other charged particle instruments on IMAP will provide real-time observations of the solar wind and energetic particles coming towards the Earth, which interact with the Earth’s environment and can cause geomagnetic storms that produce auroras but may pose a hazard to satellites or power systems on Earth.

“The position of IMAP will be about 1% of the way from the Earth to the sun, giving us about a half hour warning of space weather before it reaches Earth, or any spacecraft close to Earth,” said Skoug.

• For launch updates, visit: https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/imap
• For more information about the IMAP mission, visit:  nasa.gov/imap
• For additional visual resources, visit: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/imap

For NASA's news release, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-noaa-launch-three-spacecraft-to-map-suns-influence-across-space

Florence Jaramillo, “Mrs. J”, beloved owner of Rancho de Chimayó
Restaurante, passed away on the morning of September 22, 2025 at her home in Chimayo, New
Mexico. She was 94.

Florence Jaramillo was a mother, grandmother, friend, visionary, businesswomen, author,
philanthropist, and community leader. She leaves a legacy of generosity and a passion for life.
She changed the way we gather to share and celebrate through a love of food, culture, and
tradition. Among her numerous achievements, she was named a New Mexico Culinary
Treasure in 2014, and was awarded the 2016 James Beard Foundation America's Classics
Award. The James Beard Awards recognizes culinary professionals for excellence and
achievement in their fields and further the Foundation’s mission to celebrate, nurture, and honor America’s diverse culinary heritage through programs that educate and inspire. She worked tirelessly to preserve the traditions and culture of her family and community. Her impact on the world will be felt for generations to come. She always said“God blessed me with one child, but gave me thousands of children to raise.”

She leaves behind her treasured Rancho de Chimayó Restaurante, which is about to celebrate its 60th Birthday Anniversary in October. She opened the restaurant in 1965, along with her former husband, Arturo Jaramillo, and daughter, Laura, in the restored home of Arturo’s grandparents, Hermenegildo and Trinidad Jaramillo.

Even as a nonagenarian, and up until about a month ago, “Mrs. J.”, as she was fondly known
by her customers and staff, was still at the restaurant daily greeting her long-time customers,
meeting new ones, and ensuring that the restaurant ran according to her standards all with a
radiant smile.
​
Funeral arrangements and a celebration of Mrs. J’s life are pending, and will be announced
soon.

Inheritance
 
You are human,
and as such,
you inherited
a massive collection
of domesticities,
tangled together
like a box of tackle
that’s part of the family
even though no one fishes
anymore, not since before
some war or other.
 
You were born
into a suite
of civil decorations,
predetermined as
wide-ruled paper,
and you never got to choose
at the start
how tame you would be
or where your territory would range.
 
Now the weeds threaten
the property line
and tap
tap tap
on the view
out the window.
They overgrow
your sense
of propriety,
because how
could anything
that flowers
be wicked?
 
You have your moments
when you anticipate
burning it all down,
living off the road,
forwarding all correspondence
to a PO box
you will never check.
 
You didn’t ask for society,
and you don’t know
how to answer
the primal itch
humming up through
your feet.
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© 2025 Zach Hively
PO Box 1119, Abiquiú, NM 87510

For immediate release
​
Moving Arts Documentary Moving Arts | Setting Hearts Ablaze
Nominated for 2025 Rocky Mountain Southwest Emmy

ESPANOLA, NM — Moving Arts Española is proud to announce that its documentary, Moving Arts | Setting Hearts Ablaze, has been nominated for a 2025 Rocky Mountain Southwest Emmy Award. This recognition honors the powerful storytelling and impact of Moving Arts’ mission touplift Northern New Mexico youth and families through arts, culture, and community.

Produced in collaboration with Docufilms, Moving Arts | Setting Hearts Ablaze captures the heart of the organization’s journey, its students’ creativity, and the transformative role of the arts in the Española Valley. The nomination marks an exciting milestone for Moving Arts, reflecting not only the dedication of its team but also the resilience and spirit of the community it serves.
​
“We are absolutely thrilled and deeply grateful for this incredible recognition,” said Salvador Ruiz, Chief Executive at Moving Arts. “Working with Docufilms gave us the opportunity to share our story in such a meaningful way. This nomination shines a light on the passion, perseverance, and artistry of our students and families.”

The Rocky Mountain Southwest Emmy Awards, presented by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), honor excellence in television and media across Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and parts of California. The winners will be announced at the 2025 Rocky Mountain Southwest Emmy Gala later this year.

Moving Arts Española extends its heartfelt gratitude to Docufilms, its students, families, and community supporters for making this achievement possible.

Additional accolades for the film include:

●Official Selection – Los Angeles Independent Shorts Awards
●Official Selection – East Village New York Film Festival
●Official Selection – IndieX Film Fest
●Best Original Score - TELLY Awards
●Best Documentary - TELLY Awards
●Best Social Impact - TELLY Awards

About Moving Arts Española
Founded in 2008, Moving Arts Española provides low-cost, high-quality arts education and wellness programs to the youth and families of the Española Valley. With a mission to nurture creativity, self-expression, and community resilience, Moving Arts serves more than 600 children and families annually through dance, music, theater, and visual arts programming.

For press inquiries, film screenings, or interviews, please contact:
Email: carmelitaa@movingartsespanola.org
Phone: 844-623-2787
Website: movingartsespanola.org
Learn more about the film and upcoming screenings at
movingartsespanola.org/events

Rainstorms last month in Northern New Mexico damaged several dozen acequias, many of them severely, according to an advocacy group concerned that without state or federal help, farmers who rely on the ancient irrigation canals will lose at least two growing seasons.
​
At least 36 acequias in Taos, Rio Arriba and Santa Fe counties sustained damage in three storms last month, according to Vidal Gonzales, policy and planning director for the New Mexico Acequia Association. He told Source New Mexico on Tuesday evening that most of the damage came from two storms Aug. 25 and Aug. 29. 

All told, 19 acequias in the Chimayó area, along with six near Pojoaque and 11 others near Ojo Caliente, sustained several millions of dollars in damage in the powerful rainstorms, he said. 

The storms created floods that poured into the channels, generating enough pressure to crack metal headgates. Debris flows elsewhere left acequias full of silt that will have to be dug out before they can flow again, he said. Others may have to be rebuilt, he said.

“Some of them got blown out just from such a high-intensity rain event in such a short amount of time,” Gonzales said, who shared pictures of the damage. 

Acequias leaders, known as mayordomos, have shared damage assessments with the Acequia Association in recent days, as the organization begins advocating for county or state disaster declarations that would unlock some funding, Gonzales said. The group hopes to compile all that information for Rio Arriba and Santa Fe county officials this week, he said. 

But even if Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham were to approve a state declaration, which would mean at least $750,000, Gonzales said he’s unsure where the rest of the money will come from. 

While a federal disaster declaration could provide needed individual assistance and help to public entities like acequas, “I don’t see that happening with this administration,” Gonzales said.

Other federal agencies, like the Emergency Watershed Protection Program or the Natural Resources Conservation Service, are short-staffed and overwhelmed, he said, with other disaster projects and spending cuts. And state funds the Legislature passed specifically for acequias earlier this year have already been allocated, primarily to small projects or engineering and design. 

Gonzales attributes the severity of the floods to human-caused climate change, he said, along with longstanding watershed degradation that will require a multi-faceted approach to address. 

“We’re really between a rock and a hard place here in New Mexico with all these disasters and climate change and everything affecting us,” he said. ​

The storms mark just the latest natural event to damage the historic irrigation canals, which are largely unique to New Mexico. The association earlier this year estimated that150 acequias were damaged due to recent wildfires, particularly due to post-fire flooding, in northern and southern New Mexico. 
​
The Legislature in recent years has approved more than $100 million in disaster loans, including for specific acequias, to help them start recovering, but they often face bureaucratic challenges, including becoming designated public entities eligible for federal or state disaster assistance. 

Mykel Diaz, mayordomo of the Acequia de los Martinez Arriba near Chimayó, told Source that he’s already encountered some of those challenges for his acequia, because it runs over the boundary of Santa Fe and Rio Arriba counties. That’s making the damage assessment difficult, he said, along with other hurdles.

He told Source that the flood damage has affected basically the entire Santa Cruz River Valley, including several major acequias. His acequia has slightly over 100 users — or parciantes — he said, and the Distrito Community Ditch nearby has about 200.
Both suffered severe damage that will cost tens of thousands of dollars, at least, he said. 

The acequia Diaz oversees lost basically an entire mile-long stretch due to 20 “avalanches” that dumped into it during the Aug. 29 storm, he said. For acequias that have been in that area for several hundred years, seeing one storm wipe so much out demonstrates “the fragility of the system,” he said. 

“It just took one epic rainstorm that put two inches of rain in like an hour,” he said, “and took us out.”

Diaz’s acequia has some money to at least begin digging out, he said, which is a rarity among acequias. But he’ll need to convince parciantes to approve moving $10,000 they recently approved for a new diversion project toward recovering from the disaster. 

“If we don’t re-allocate that money, then we’re not going to have any water to divert,” she said. “It’ll be a futile project.”

For other required spending, Diaz said he just hopes that the acequia will somehow be reimbursed for the “freak of nature” storm. 

“Mother Nature really gave it to us that day,” he said. ​