Jessica Rath
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For horses, donkeys, dogs, cats, and one pot-bellied pig!

And, I almost forgot:  two resident mice who live happily in a spacious terrarium.
When I found out that there is an animal rescue organization in our area, I was excited because I love animals. And when I heard that their location was not far from where I live, I just had to learn more about it! The owners, Tina and Mike Kleckner, graciously agreed to meet with me, show me around, and let me take photographs. It was so heart-warming to get to know these two people who dedicate their lives to rescuing neglected, abandoned, threatened  animals and to witness the deep, genuine love they give to their charges.
 
They had no plans to take in animals when they bought their property in Youngsville. It sort of just happened – and the way they grew and changed with each new rescue is truly remarkable. It all started with one horse, Arrow. A good friend of Tina and Mike’s, Bridget McCombe from the Abiquiu Inn,  had been   rescuing horses from Oklahoma kill lots.  Horse slaughter is outlawed in the United States,  and any horse no longer useful to its owners will be sold or auctioned off at kill lots. From there, they’re sent to be slaughtered in Mexico. The  transportation is inhumane and horrible. So, when Bridget had brought a truckload of horses back to Abuquiú and asked Tina and Mike whether they’d be willing to take one, they brought Arrow home.  He was a thoroughbred off-track horse  on his way to the slaughterhouse. Only three years old, he had won some 23 races, but because he was too young when they started racing him he developed a little bone spur, was deemed useless for making more money, and was sent off to slaughter. He changed the Kleckners’ lives,  when they realized how much they could do for horse rescue. 

They acquired some more horses, but then, Mike told me, he really wanted a donkey. And a pig. When Tina came home from a weekend visit with her mother in Kansas, she was greeted with a loud HEE-HAW and first thought that their horse Belle had gotten ill with bronchitis! But no, this was Josephine. And soon after, they got another donkey, Wyatt. And quite recently they added Shoni, a donkey who had lost her siblings to sand colic – a serious gastrointestinal ailment which develops when the animal grazes on a sandy pasture. Since donkeys are very social creatures, the former owner felt that Shoni would be lonely all by herself, and so she joined Josephine and Wyatt. 

And the pig – I was curious, how did they end up with a pig?

Tina explained: “ We’re now licensed by the State of New Mexico  Livestock  Board. We’re one of twelve licensed rescues in NM. When we get a call about an injured or hurt animal,  we call the State of NM, and they will legally pick them up. They house them on their site for five days, and if nobody comes forth to say they are theirs, then we can legally adopt the animal.

The State of NM called us a couple of months ago and said they had a pot-bellied pig that somebody had alerted them about  over in Velarde. He was  living in the wild, somebody must have dumped him, and his ears had recently been removed.”

Mike added: “One ear was clearly cut off. The other ear was mangled, and dangled off his head.”

Tina continued: “So, they asked,  ‘Can you take the pig’? Pot-bellied pigs are considered pets, not livestock, so they couldn't take the pig, but  they could  pick it up and bring it to us, if we would  be willing to give it a chance.  We said, sure, bring him out. We knew nothing about pot-bellied pigs, but we knew nothing about horses either when we started, and we learned everything. So, they brought the pig, and we wondered, could it have been a coyote who bit off his ears, or a dog?  But we noticed his reaction to human beings. He snapped at us like an alligator, he was mad at the humans, but he liked the dogs. Then we read up about earless pigs, and there were other cases where humans cut off their ears – to train their dogs for wild boar hunt.  They use the pig with a bloody ear as bait. It took him a couple of weeks before he finally stopped snapping at us, and now he’s like a dog, he trusts us, but we had to earn his trust.”

He probably can’t hear much because of the scar tissues around his ears, but all his wounds have healed really well. He wags his tail, and he loves everybody.  “He gets along with the horses and the donkeys, and the dogs, and the humans. He’s part of the family”, Mike adds. “Pigs are so intelligent, I was trying to feed him, I had some older bananas cut up on a dish. I tried to put it down over the fence, and he figured out how to get the banana out of the dish which wasn’t easy for him to do because his mouth just doesn’t work that way.  He turned the page about a week ago. He’s a totally different pig now. Before, when we had food, we had to be afraid he’d snap at us, but now he’s fine.”

And what’s his name, I asked?

Mike chuckled.  “We didn’t know whether he was a boy or a girl. It’s hard to tell with a pig. We thought she was a girl and named her Piggy Sue, but then we found out he’s a boy. So Tina wanted to call him Sue anyway, because Johnny Cash wrote a song about “A Boy Named Sue''! Then somebody said, call him Sumo, so that’s what I like, and I call him Sumo.”
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But for Tina,  his name is Piggy Sue. “If you listen to the words of the song, it’s just like our pig, because he snapped at us like an alligator. In the song, the parents called him Sue to make him stronger; he lost his ear in a bar fight, and he snapped at some guy like an alligator! This is too weird! So he’s got to be a Boy named Sue!”

 Mike said  that they have a total of 26 animals that we’re feeding. Seven horses, three donkeys, six dogs, seven cats, and two mice! Another story!

They have some barn cats, and they noticed that they were playing with something on the ground. Something tiny – the size of a thumb – no eyes – rolled up into a little ball. Mike exclaimed, it’s a baby mouse! No hair! He started stroking its chest, and soon he noticed that it’s breathing! He took it inside, researched what to do next, and learned: where there’s one there’s more. Sure enough, when  he went back out he found  another one. Mike got a tiny paint brush and some baby formula, and he set the alarm, and every four hours he would feed these two little mice. Nine days later, they opened their eyes. They probably were only a day old when he found them.

They could never survive in the wild, once they’re used to being fed. Both Tina and Mike became quite attached to them. At a Holiday gathering  they  had a line of people waiting to go into the bathroom to see the two little mice (who live in a large terrarium) and to hold them because they are so cute. But if they had a male and a female, they’d multiply…. They called their equine vet who’s used to work on 1000-LB animals, and asked whether he  could castrate the boy. “The vet thought we were nuts”, Mike laughs. “Finally somebody told us to wait another six weeks. If you have a male and female, you’ll have babies. But if you don’t, then you know you’ve got two females. And we never had babies.”.​

I was curious: “Did you already have this ranch when you took in the first horse?”

Mike explained that they had  the house, but nothing else. They went to Big R in Santa Fe, bought some horse panels, and built a round pen. Then they built the paddock where the horses spend most of their time.  Then they fenced in some pasture land, then they built some walk-ins, so the animals could get out of the wind and the sun, and then they built a barn. It was a process, because there was absolutely nothing for horses here. They bought some water buckets and some horse panels and built the round pen – that’s how it started. When I looked around outside, at the two big barns, the different paddocks, and the feeding stations with lots of hay, I was duly impressed. What a labor of love!

Tina agrees. “ We had the heart and the passion, the willpower to do so, but it was a lot!”  Mike adds  that they started in 2018, so everything one can see has been accomplished in the last five/six years. It’s been a journey!

Mike and Tina have so many stories about all their rescued animals, one could write a book. Here is another one, the story of Marshall, a German shepherd mix. They had a chihuahua when they first moved out here, and the poor creature was killed by a coyote – right in front of Tina’s eyes. So, they decided they needed a big dog. 

​Two days later Tina found a totally emaciated dog right by the Youngsville post office, one could see  each of his rib bones. And he followed her home, two miles on a dirt road. When the dog saw  the rain barrel he just plopped right in it and started drinking. Then he took a big dump, and out came a ketchup package from McDonalds’ – he must have been scavenging for a while. He was so emaciated and had  mange all over. Tina and Mike  decided to clean him up and started feeding him – that’s how they got Marshall. He’s not a marshal but a marshmallow, Tina claims, but he does a good job chasing off the coyotes.

The Horseshoe Canyon Rescue Ranch is  limited to taking in only ten large animals. For other animals, Tina and Mike  try to find connections; for example,  the Christ in the Desert Monastery has two horses that they  arranged. “This is good, because Mike and I do this all by ourselves”, Tina adds. “We don’t have help. So, we don’t want to get so big that we can’t give each animal proper care. That’s our mission right now; we had a call yesterday about  nine wild mustangs in Colorado – would we take them? We can’t, but I connected them with somebody who can. We have a huge network now, the State helps us a lot with that too.”
“ This work comes with a lot of heartache. We had our first equine loss last week, Belle,  she probably was in her twenties. She was the first horse we directly purchased from the kill lot. That was tough. She’s in a great spot now, in the back, where we have a little cemetery.”

​Tina is clearly moved, but she has a wise strategy that helps with grief. “A friend told us, ‘this dog or horse taught you so much to love, and now in your heart you have room for another one.’  When we lose an animal, we make sure we fill that spot right away.”  Mike adds, “ When we lost a cat, we came back with two! Another one of our special needs, he’s blind in one eye, and only one ear! This is Rocky – from the Rocky-movie – and we got Adrienne, his girlfriend, both from the shelter.” 

With Marshall as guard dog and three donkeys (they keep coyotes away too), Mia, the chihuahua mix, can safely enjoy the sun. What a pleasure to know that all these animals who otherwise would be suffering or dead have such a safe, happy place for the rest of their lives. Thank you, Tina and Mike Kleckner!

~ Brian Bondy

​The world is an amazing place. It’s natural beauty, it’s glorious variety, it’s amazing opportunities for adventure. Sometimes though, nature plays ‘tricks’ on us. Hurricanes, earth quakes, volcanoes, sinkholes, etc. Yes, the world is a fascinating place.
 
If you’ve never been to Yellowstone National Park, then you are missing out on seeing some natural wonders that are very active and somewhat dangerous. Geysers, hot springs, mud pots. They are glorious. One thing though, they pretty much stay in one place.
 
There’s a mud spring in California that’s been moving about 20 feet a year, since 2016. So, like Melanie, ‘don’t go too fast, but it’s gone pretty far’. I paraphrase. This mud spring started in a farmer’s field in 1953. It wasn’t moving then, just appeared in a field and sat patiently, not causing any particular harm, for decades.
 
In 2016, the farmer noticed the mud spring had moved. In 2018, the spring was moving towards a railroad, so the railroad attempted to block it….unsuccessfully. So, while this all sounds like one of my April Fools jokes, it’s true, and there’s a great video on it, below.

​Watch the video and learn why they think the mud puddle started moving. The video comes from someone called Physicsgirl, on YouTube. She has other interesting videos as well.

Glenwood
 
Heading west from Socorro, in the center of the state, you reach the Catron County line about halfway across the vast plains of San Augustine. In the 1990’s, Catron County was called “The Toughest County in the West,” because of conflicts between ranchers, loggers, environmentalists, and the U.S. Forest Service over land use, spotted owls, and wolves. In 1993, The Catron County Commission passed an ordinance requiring every citizen to own a gun. It’s still on the books.
 
On this August day, the Plains of San Augustine are dressed in sunflowers, a gown of yellow extending to the Very Large Array, a line of giant radio-telescopes whose round faces also bend to the heavens, like alien sentries along the horizon.
 
The Village of Glenwood, population 57, In the southwestern corner of the county, is ranching country, and conservative, hard by the Arizona border to the west, and the vast Gila Wilderness to the east. Like Vallecitos, there are no grocery stores here. The elementary school is closed for lack of students, and the few remaining are bused to a school 30 minutes away.
 
Lynn Neidermayer is the Glenwood Community Library’s director and sole employee. She is exuberant, engaging, and an accomplished ceramic artist whose whimsical tile work, along with child and adult contributors, adorns the outside back wall of the library. Most everybody for miles around seems to know her and values her book-cased domain as a safe place--- a space that has helped to bridge this rural community’s political and environmental divide. She began that effort 12 years ago by starting a monthly book club.
 
This morning, Neidermayer is facilitating a lively discussion of The Chilbury Ladies' Choir by Jennifer Ryan, among, as she described them, six very diverse women. The only rules---you can talk about the book, your family, your vacation, or yourself, but not politics. “What I love,” Neidermayer says, “is bringing people together, the ranchers and the environmentalists who would normally be in two different worlds, opposing each other. I’m trying to make the library a place where both can meet and feel safe.”
 
Her next job was attending to a family of 4 teenagers, driven by their mom from Reserve, the county seat, an hour north. The kids are out-of-central-casting wholesome, engaging, and smart. They are also home-schooled, and this is their library. They each arrive with a big shopping bag for books, and leave with them stacked full, many recommended by Neidermayer, along with wise literary critiques.
 
The library’s collection is impressive, over 11,000 books, 3000 dvd’s, and 600 audio books, each extensively described and cataloged thanks to a volunteer, Mike Rose, a retired professor of anatomy who has taken special pride in developing the classics section. Neidermayer says the audio books are extremely popular because folks must drive so far to get supplies, to visit the doctor. And for people who can’t get out because of disabilities or lack of transportation, Lynn Neidermayer makes home visits. Today, she visits a woman who recently lost her husband, and a man who she describes as a bit of a hermit, bringing them books, dvds and just plain kindness.

Designed by Renowned Architect and Woodworker  George Nakashima

​~Jessica Rath

​If one wants to visit Christ in the Desert, the Benedictine monastery near Abiquiú, one has to drive north on US 84 past Ghost Ranch, and turn left on Forest Road 151. It’s a dirt road which becomes quite winding and steep at times, with towering sandstone walls on one side and deep chasms on the other. Signs warning of flash floods and falling boulders aren’t reassuring either. While I was driving along  the almost 15 miles for my meeting with Brother Chrysostom, Guestmaster at the monastery, it struck me that hardly anything had changed during the almost 60 years since the monastery was founded. The road was just as rugged, just as undeveloped now as it was around 1964. ​

This was definitely one of the reasons for choosing the location, as Brother Chrysostom later explained to me. The site of the monastery is surrounded by the Santa Fe National Forest, which would guarantee the silence and solitude required for the monastic life.
 
The monastery was  founded on June 24, 1964, the day of the  Feast of St. John the Baptist,  the patron saint of the Order of St. Benedict to which Christ in the Desert belongs. There was only a ranch house, nothing else was there. Father Aelred Wall had found the site, and became its first Prior. With very limited resources but lots of dedication, Father Aelred and a handful of fellow monks began to build a community which would eventually provide a home for around 18 monks, accommodate overnight guests, maintain a gift shop, AND offer solar-powered electricity!

The first building that went up was the chapel. Father Aelred turned to his personal friend George Nakashima, a Japanese American architect and furniture maker who had won numerous awards, for the design of the chapel. Because he knew that the monks had no money, Nakashima offered his services for free. Another benefactor was Georgia O’Keeffe; the Christ in the Desert Monastery website sports a lovely picture from the mid-1960s of Father Aelred, George Nakashima, and Georgia O’Keeffe

Brother Chrysostom provided me with lots of interesting details about Nakashima’s life. His parents immigrated to the United States, and he was born in Spokane, Washington, in 1905. He earned his Masters in Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1931 (incidentally, Brother Chrysostom is an alumni of MIT as well). After graduating, he spent a year in Paris, then went to Japan, and eventually to India. In Japan he had worked for the American architect Antonin Raymond. When Raymond’s company was commissioned to build Golconde, a dormitory for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry,  Nakashima finished the project after Raymond returned to America.

All this happened years before he came to Christ in the Desert. He was a world-traveler, a seeker, trying to find out what his purpose was. Brother Chrysostom called him an amazing man who wanted to experience everything on a deep level.
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When he was in Japan, Nakashima had met Marion Okajima, who would become his wife. They returned to the United States in the early 1940s when Nakashima became convinced that as a builder of furniture he could achieve his standards of design and craftsmanship. And then they were interned as Japanese Americans during WW2, George, Marion, and their young daughter Mira. At the relocation camp in Idaho he met a man trained in traditional Japanese carpentry who taught him the use of traditional Japanese hand tools and joinery techniques. 

In 1943, the architect Antonin Raymond who had become an honorary consul and had quite a bit of influence, vouched for Nakashima and his family and they were released from the internment camp. They moved to resettle in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where slowly George built his shop and home on several acres of hilly woodland. From there, Nakashima became entrenched in woodworking, and by 1949 he was established as a designer and builder of fine, handcrafted furniture. 

Father Aelred had  connections to many important and famous people, that’s how he happened to get George Nakashima involved with the design of the chapel. According to Brother Chrysostom, it is  arguably one of the tallest adobe structures in the world, because of the steeple! Nakashima designed it, and it was  built with the help of volunteers over a number of years. It was first used in 1968, and ever since.
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Brother Chrysostom thinks that Nakashima probably was involved with the choosing of the site, the location where the church would sit, given the majestic view of the canyon behind it. “Thomas Merton once remarked on one of his two visits here that this church is probably the most monastic church in the U.S. the way it is situated, the architecture, everything”. That is high praise, indeed.

I asked whether he did any furniture for the church? “Yes indeed, he created some of the pews and seats in the original configuration. We no longer have those, we have other pews that were crafted in Mexico and brought up here. But our tables and chairs in the refectory are pure Nakashima. They’re very heavy and durable and probably last 600 years!” 

I had to ask Brother Chrysostom about his name: is it  Greek?

“Yes, I’m named after my Patron Saint, St. John Chrysostom of Antioch who was one of the early patriarchs in the church, I didn’t get the name because my secular name was John. Generally when we enter  the monastic life we get a completely changed name, that’s the whole purpose, your life has changed. Chrysostom was the name that I submitted, St. John Chrysostom was a doctor of the church, and what he was known for was his preaching. His name is actually an adjective, it means Golden Mouth. His name was John, and Chrysostom was an add-on. It’s a high standard to reach!” I think he can be very proud of that name!  

I’ll close with a quote by Nakashima about the concept of the buildings:
“Architecture and structure are not just abstract ideas; they must relate to the environment of the building and the materials available; in a sense a structure evolves from the materials used. I am at war with the usual architectural practice of starting with form; this is an egotistical concept for then you are left having to fit structure into form. Here, we are 25 miles from the next town and getting materials is a big task in itself. But we have adobe in the Canyon and we have vegas, so it’s natural to use them. The use of adobe affects the structure and appearance of a building. The walls have to be very thick, between three or four feet; the openings are therefore small and the form of the building is necessarily very different from most modern buildings with their large expanses of glass and curtain walls”.
Jubilee, September 1065.
 
Many thanks to Brother Chrysostom who kindly took the time to chat with me, and with gratitude to Mira Nakashima and David B. Long for providing me with a number of useful newspaper clippings!

​The pizza was good. It’s always good. A nice, I’m guessing, sourdough crust, layered with a balanced savory sauce and a melty mozzarella. We ordered two pies, the Veggie Supreme and the other extra pepperoni, green chile and red onion.  The green chile was sparse, but perfectly spicy and any more would likely have caused a fire on my tongue.  The pepperoni, of which I would consider to be a “regular” amount and red onion balanced and enhanced the spicy chile. The veggie pizza was excellent and had plenty of green peppers, onions, tomatoes, olives and mushrooms embedded in the saucy cheesy pie.  As always, we over ordered and we’re very satisfied and happy laying on our grassy lawn with plenty of slices left over for future lunches. The portions from Mamacitas are generous, but not on the cheap side. For two jumbos, the total was about $62.  On the menu I see more than pizza, including wings, subs, salads and “garlic stix.”  Next time I will try to branch out a bit and let you all know how it goes. I also look forward to future river adventures this summer and to enjoying the likely new friendship we will have with this lovely family that we got to share our weekend with.

~Brian Bondy
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Humankind definitely has a penchant for forcing the world around us to change for our “benefit”. Sometimes it’s trying to bend the will of others to believe something different, like religion, science, or justice. It may also be to change the world around us to be more accommodating, building dams, clearing forests, plowing fields.
 
These changes can cause conflict, alleviate hunger, alter nature. It’s quite the mixed bag. Arguably, we wouldn’t be where we are without fossil fuels. It would be easy to see that as a positive and a negative. Sometimes maybe, we just don’t know when it’s time to quit. Nobody likes change, but really, nobody likes change unless it’s easy.
 
I wrote about how humans changed wild animals into domesticated cats and dogs. The same goes true for cattle, pigs, and chickens. This is the food we eat because this is the food that is served to us in grocery stores. When I was a kid, I got served squirrel and didn’t think anything of it. Today that seems odd, but I have a Better Homes & Garden cookbook from the 60’s that shows how to skin and prep a squirrel and a rabbit.
 
I was looking up ‘how humans have modified their food’ How humanity has changed the food it eats - BBC Future  and the results were fascinating. It also came up with articles on how humans have changed because of the food they eat. The first thing that caught my eye was how, since humans have cooked their food thus making it easier to chew, this evolved our faces to become smaller and our jaws less powerful.

Humans’ civilization begins with farming. Food supplies being localized meant that they did not have to continuously wander in search of something to eat. Groups could form to help with protection, education, food production, etc. And the food could be selectively bred to be more productive, larger, sweeter, whatever the needs. Read some on that HERE. How Humans Have Changed Fruit (businessinsider.com)
 
Forests were cleared, dams were built, pesticides were sprayed, wolves were killed. Unintended consequences happened.
 
Today, genetic modification is done to help enhance plant growth. In some cases, generous scientists have created rice that will survive longer periods under water. They donated this genetic modification to the world, which helped some starving nations to grow rice where their regular crops failed due to the new, unusual weather patterns occurring today.
 
Monsanto, of course, was famous for patenting their seed products, then selling them everywhere. They could then sue farmers that were not buying their product, but the farmer’s crops were contaminated with Monsanto corn from neighboring crops. That was likely a conspiracy theory, a story you can read about HERE. 
 
There is genetic engineering going on to help alleviate hunger, produce pest resistant food, and even to produce milk and meat in a lab, not from animals. It’s happening right now. The promise of solving food shortages, and maybe even vegetarian compatible meat, vegan compatible milk, that has some seriously great promise. And, like AI, artificial intelligence, it has some seriously scary possibilities.
 
Cats & Dogs, Cows & Pigs, Wheat and Soy, they are all genetically modified, some by selective breeding, some in a lab. Where do you draw the line? 

Finally the weather is perfect, goals have been met, my work is done and the weekend is here!

Great timing because this Saturday is also the annual Bondy yard sale. We love this sale. The prices are fair, the goods are plentiful and very well displayed. You can count on having many categories to shop for. You can also count on this field trip taking about three times longer than you planned for, as, likely, you will run into a lot of people that you know. Catch-up chats and quick hugs with a “gotta get going to buy things I probably don’t need, see you later”!

This year was the best year yet. I always follow my same routine by starting front left and working my way clockwise until I reach the Bondys’ front porch that’s usually so crowded with used stuff and people sifting through it, that you have to squeeze in with a lot of “excuse me, I’m sorry”. I pretend to be looking at all the laid out items on tall tables, but really I’m casually strolling to the back where there are always lots of homemade treats that I hope are for the taking. Brian Bondy could always fall back on a second career of candy making with that perfect toffee he makes fresh every year. It’s sweet, but not too sweet with the exact right crunch and chewiness. The nuts compliment it perfectly and one piece is never enough! Yum! But wait, this year I see that there is a whole new section of booths behind the porch with clothes and fun art temptations. Oh dear, this is gonna be hard to resist. Thankfully, I came with my wife and two dear friends and mostly succeeded in focusing my shopping urges on clothes and essential items for them. My wife tends to get grabby at these events and, later, I discovered that she had already made several trips to our car with arms full of very important things by the time we were saying our goodbyes to drive the short distance further down the road to the second location of the sale. I’m glad that we brought our small car this year, because this next leg of the sale had some temptations that were challenging my “less is more” philosophy. I will confess that it is fully my responsibility that we came home with a giant meditation bowl for our, yet to be finished yoga/ meditation space. Ah well, it’s good to treat oneself and to splurge every now and then.

We decided to carry on splurging the next day to treat ourselves to a Mother’s Day breakfast at The Artesian Restaurant in Ojo Caliente. We love coming to this restaurant, it’s so peaceful and beautiful. The gardens were literally sparkling and shining, probably due to the 1.11” of rain torrent that we had received the night before. What a gorgeous day! The bustling dining room was not as crowded as we feared it may be considering the holiday and we were sat quickly at one of the many pleasant tables lining the walls. The menu has a nice variety of delicious sounding items to choose from. We were starving, so, started with the avocado toast as an appetizer. I ordered an omelet, choosing my own ingredients. It comes with cubed potatoes and toast. I chose house cured bacon, goat cheese and spinach. Asked for my potatoes crispy, always, and rye for my toast. My wife went for the French toast.

The avocado toast was all that it boasted to be except for a pet peeve my wife and I share, that avocado should be avocado. Not guacamole! It’s no different than assuming tomato on your BLT, but getting salsa. Come on people, know the difference! Besides that, the sourdough toast was a perfect vessel for the piled high guacamole, sautéed spinach and over medium egg drizzled with a nice zesty sesame chili oil and surrounded by flavorful cherry tomatoes. My omelet was very sizable and topped with a lot of bacon, spinach and goat cheese. At first, I was worried that that was their style, to have the ingredients on the outside of the omelet, but quickly comforted to find the fold was stuffed with much more bacon and goat cheese and spinach. Dare I say too much??! The potatoes were good but nothing spectacular and the toast was bland and room temp. I do appreciate a restaurant that still serves cute, soft butter balls in a ramekin, a rare sight since COVID and was happy to receive this and small sides of ramekin-ed ketchup, syrup and a delicious homemade strawberry jam that I wish they sold jarred and to go.

My wife’s French Toast was some of the best I’ve ever had. Texas toast soaked in a delicate egg batter and fried to a slightly crunchy golden brown, dusted with powdered sugar and surrounded by a generous portion of sliced strawberries, a velvety maple syrup and a mountain of whipped cream. We ate the French toast last thankfully and were not tempted, for a change, to order dessert.  All this, a cup of decaf and a lot left over, came to $55.

It was a truly lovely weekend. As I sit writing this article on a comfortable chair on my new screened in porch on the river, listening to the beautiful song of the Western Tanagers, I am so very thankful to be lucky enough to live in such a beautiful valley surrounded by kind and generous folk.

Now to face all the new tasks on my to-do list, I am rejuvenated and ready to go.
I think that we might make this Bondy-ing with Mother’s Day breakfast an annual tradition!

​

~Jessica Rath

​​After an extraordinary long winter which started with freezing temperatures in the first days of November and lasted all the way through April, spring has finally arrived. And, even faster than in other years, spring is almost gone! Just in time for summer, for swimming and kayaking, Abiquiú Lake has nicely filled up with plenty of water. Something that most of us have sorely missed for the last few seasons.
 
Before I moved to New Mexico in 2000, I lived in Berkeley/California. When I told people of my plans, the common reaction was: What?! You’re moving to the desert?! Well, I had visited friends who lived in Santa Fe, and they had taken me to Taos and other gorgeous places in the north, so I knew that I wasn't going to live in a dry, sand-blown desert. But I certainly didn’t expect that I’d end up close to a splendid lake. It didn’t bother me that it is an artificial lake, with a dam to store the Rio Chama water. It was just perfect for swimming, other people were kayaking, sometimes there was even a sailboat. The speed boats – well, one just had to ignore them.
 
But for the last few years, the water level steadily sank until it was too low for the boat ramps. Swimming became dangerous because of blue-green algae. What was going on? I looked at the history of the lake to find out more.

​The work on Abiquiu Dam started in 1958. It was created to control the amount of water which would flow from the Rio Chama into the Rio Grande in Espanola. When it was finished, it was considered to be the fourth-largest earth filled dam in the world: 325 (now 340, raised 15 feet in the 80s) feet high, 1,450 (1800 now) feet across from one edge of the canyon to the other, and 2,770 feet from the upstream to the downstream edge.   A mile-long conveyor belt had to be installed to bring fill dirt from the borrow areas to near the dam, from where it was transported via dump trucks to wherever it was needed.
 
The dam was completed in 1962, but – surprise! – there  wasn’t a lake at all! The dam was used strictly as a flood barrier. Apparently, in the 1970s there were conflicting attitudes about the development of a recreational lake which would flood the area on the north side of the dam. Much of the land was private, and there was concern that the dam wouldn’t be strong enough to hold so much  water. On the other hand, the Espanola Chamber of Commerce petitioned for the construction of recreational facilities because of the obvious benefits for local businesses. I don’t know how it happened, but I’m glad they won!
 
With the higher water levels, this summer looks promising as far as swimming and other water activities are concerned. But what about the coming years?  Will the water stay high? I wanted to find out and made an appointment with John Mueller, Operations Manager at the Abiquiu Dam (which is part of the U.S.Army Corps of Engineers), who kindly agreed to answer my questions. 

First of all, I wanted to know why the water was so  low for the last two years – was it just the drought or were there other reasons?

John explained that it was usage, primarily. The purpose of the reservoir was to control flooding from the dam down to Espanola, where the Chama meets the Rio Grande. Initially, there wasn’t  much water stored – not enough for  swimming etc., it was just a puddle at the bottom. In the spring there was more water, but it was slowed down for flood control, the water was released at a controlled rate.

But, in the mid-70s the San Juan Diversion Project changed things. (He shows me on the map). The headwater of the native Chama River is southeast of Pagosa Springs, it flows along the Colorado border, and then into Rio Grande. The Bureau of Reclamation Tunnel is 26 miles long, it collects water from the headwaters of the San Juan River, flows through a tunnel underneath the Continental Divide,  and comes out east. It is placed in Heron Reservoir where it connects with the  native Chama River. The water is purchased by contractors, municipalities, and  water authorities including  the City of Albuquerque. They can store it in Heron Lake, and they can store it in El Vado Lake including native (natural Chama, not San Juan-Chama) water. They use it for irrigation and drinking, mainly. In the 70s the water was stored year round for the contractors. They can ask for it whenever they want or need it.
​
“We can’t STORE native water like El Vado does. We can only hold it, slow it down, and eventually release it. The only water that is stored is the San Juan-Chama water, for these contractors, to be sent down when they request it. In the 80s and 90s and early 2000s they were not calling for it, but then when they did ask for it, our water level kept dropping. This is partly related to the drought, and also, Albuquerque is growing and needs more water. For the last 10 years the water level has been reduced.” There is currently legislation and a process that is being developed for Abiquiu Lake to have the ability to store native water in addition to San Juan Chama imported water up to an elevation of 6230 feet, although it is uncertain when this may be implemented.
 

​I asked about the blue-green algae. It’s actually NOT an algae John corrected, but a bacteria. It grows in warm, stagnant water with high nutrients such as nitrates, sulfates, etc. from agricultural run-off.  Less water, higher temperatures, more nutrients: the perfect growing conditions for algae.

“Last year we had more water because the El Vado Dam is being worked on. To do the maintenance, they had to drain their reservoir and we took that water. Also, the snow melt is a contributing factor for the high levels. We have to hold off releasing the water like we normally would at this time of the year, because there are other tributaries like the Ojo River. We have to reduce our release because at the Chamita Gate down there, at the Chevron Station where the Ojo comes in, there would be too much water otherwise. We’re only releasing about half of what comes in. But we’re going to release that water eventually, for agricultural purposes etc.”

​And good news for this summer: “On July 1st whatever we’ll have over will be locked into storage until the end of the season, that’s going to help us keep the water up here. Because of El Vado and the snowpack we have a higher storage through November. Potentially also next year, depending on when they complete the maintenance at El Vado. Right now, it’s a foot and ½ going up every day. We’re at the level of 2013 I think. We're probably gonna come up another 6 feet. However, it will not last. This year and next year, we’ll have a lot of water! Definitely this year, and it’s looking pretty good for next year.”

​I thanked John for his time and the interesting information and went to the overlook and then to the main boat ramp to take some pictures. There were already some picnickers, some kayakers, and one speed boat. It’s still too cold for swimming, but we can look forward to a glorious summer! 

Read More
Taos News 4/28/1960
Albuquerque Journal 7/22/61