New Mexico's Fiber Tradition

I only learned to knit in the last few years and, with the move to Vashon, was introduced to a vibrant culture of knitting, weaving, spinning and natural dyeing.  While not having much talent, it has been fascinating and opened my eyes to appreciate the treasures that exist in New Mexico.  In fact, the introduction of sheep to the Americas was thanks to the Spanish explorers.  They brought a hardy breed from the Iberian Peninsula called the churro (originally churra).  The breed is known for its ability to survive harsh conditions and ewes often have twins and the lambing is successful without human intervention.  The sheep were important for food and fiber in the Hispanic culture of the Southwest and quickly adopted by various Indian tribes.  Both Hispanic and Navajo weaving became rooted in the two cultures.  Different techniques are used by each, with different kind of looms.  Both made rugs and blankets from the wool produced from the churro sheep.

The churro became so popular that the Mexican churro pastry was named after the wavy churro sheep fiber.

The sheep population grew in Arizona and New Mexico, as well as Southern Colorado and Utah and there may have been some overgrazing.  In the 30's, when drought devastated the US, misguided and insensitive federal agents basically exterminated the breed, shooting thousands and leaving their carcasses to rot, in their efforts to control overgrazing.  They also thought it was a breed inferior to the sheep from Northern Europe.  The breed was reduced to around 500 animals and only recent efforts by biologists and some ranchers have brought it back.  I am told it has wonderful properties for rug weaving in particular, and is a sweet and healthy meat.  To the latter I can attest.

Prize winning Churro sheep

Shepherd's Lamb is one of the Hispanic ranches that has cultivated the breed in the area around Chama.  They provide wool to the Tierra Wool weaving co-op and meat to the area as well as to high end restaurants.  They still graze their flock on wild land, moving the sheep to higher pasture in the summer.

Seasonal flock move to higher pasture

In 1983 the Tierra Wools Weaving co-op was established to keep alive the Hispanic tradition of spinning, natural dyeing and weaving in the area.  The co-op is a few miles south of Chama in the small town of Los Ojos.

Tierra Wools Weaving co-op

Tierra Wools Showroom

Natural Dyed Churro Wool

Tierra Wools Weaving Studio

For those those who have a fiber passion, here are some more references.

http://www.nmmagazine.com/love-of-lamb/#.VZvPu2BsU9X

http://www.newfarm.org/casestudies/tierrawools/gerard2.shtml

http://www.santafetravelers.com/our-travels/tierra-wools-2/

Going back a few weeks to the Santa Fe area, the town of Chimayo is known for a centuries old tradition of Hispanic weaving, with the Ortega and Trujillo families being prominent.  The BD brought his book and patiently waited while I visited three studios, Ortega, Trujillo and Centinela.

Chimayo is still a small village and the fiber arts are the big attraction.  The fact that it is still sleepy and centuries old is really special.  While other wool is used, churro rugs and blankets are still made.  I treated myself to a pillow made from natural colored churro wool in the very traditional pattern for the couch in Pancho.

The pillow will be woven in the pattern and colors above and shipped to me in the next few weeks from the Trujillo studio.  The picture doesn't do the colors justice, the browns and carmel are quite rich looking.

At the Centinela studio I found a lovely wall hanging.

The hanging is made from naturally dyed wools using:

green-indigo and chamisa
tan-black walnut
pink-cochineal
blue-indigo
purple-logwood
orange-madder root
natural wool colors of cream and black



Some of the plant material used in the area that was new to me included chamisa

Chamisa

Chamisa

as well as Yerba de la Negrita.

Yerba de la Negrita

Chama and Northern New Mexico

We were in Chama for about a week, enjoying the very northern part of NM while waiting for our appointment in Farmington at the Freightliner dealer for some warranty work.  We have been to Chama before, the last time by accident and discovered the wonderful narrow gauge steam train that runs between Chama and Antonito, CO.  The train system in the area was established in 1880-81 as the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and the stretch known as the Cumbers and Toltec is 64 miles long, summits at over 10,000' and took only 9 months to complete. Trains in the Northern NM, Southern CO area were originally built to service the silver mining industry, then used to carry oil and pipe for the oil boom around Farmington.  It also carried peppers from Santa Fe (the Pepper Express) and transported lamb and wool raised on ranches in Northern NM and Southern CO.  More on that in a future "Fiber" blog (no, not Metamucil!). While we did not ride the train this time, we camped right next to the trestle and watched and heard it travel north at 10:00 am and return at 4:00.  It is a big operation jointly run by the  "Friends of the Train" and reactivated by a cooperative effort between New Mexico and Colorado.  The RV Park  contains a number of retirees who spend the summer volunteering in the steam shop.  

Steam Shop

The only wooden coal steam train chute left in the US

While we didn't ride the train we did take a drive that paralleled the route and were able to follow the progress of the train as it traveled north.  While different from being on the train, it was as nice an experience.

This part of NM is beautiful and still very green because of the rainy spring.  We get thunderstorms most afternoons and I have never experienced such loud thunder.  Max is not fond of it but doesn't go too crazy.  Raggie's hearing loss is an advantage.  The other end of the train is a small town named Antonito.  It used to be a major sheep raising area but has clearly fallen on hard times.  An old building intrigued me.

SPMDTO stands for Sociedad Protección Mutua De Trabajadores. and was founded in 1900 in Antonito in order to prevent Hispanic land usurpation and combat discrimination against wage laborers.  It grew into 65 lodges in CO, NM, and UT providing financial aid, low cost insurance and fraternal support.

Another interesting building was the Catholic Church, the first church in Colorado, dedicated in 1863.

First Church in Colorado

One day we took about a 90 mile ride due east to Taos.  It had been a few years since I visited the little town, which was relatively quiet and quaint at the time.  No more.  Like so many places it seems, the word gets out and they become overrun by tourists, retirees and people seeking 2nd homes.  It is a small village with limited traffic infrastructure, resulting in crowded streets and too many people.  We found a lovely cafe at the edge of town and had, yes some more, NM food in a shady patio.  While the town was a big disappointment, the ride to and from was gorgeous.  The summit is 10,500, with the western section a part of a Spanish land grant and the eastern belonging to the Carson National Forest.  At one time there were ranches in the area but the harsh conditions resulted in most being abandoned though summer grazing leases still exist.

Brazos Cliffs

Just west of Taos is the Rio Grande Rift.  It is an impressive, deep "canyon" with the Rio Grande at the bottom going south.  According to an article on Geology of the Taos area:

"The Rio Grande Rift has cleaved Northern Mexico, Texas, New Mexico and half of Colorado over a distance of 800 miles.  The rift is somewhat like a plowed furrow with raised shoulders, partly filled with alluvium.  In this area, the shoulders are the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on the east and Brazos Uplift (Tusas Mountains) on the west.  Just west of Taos, the floor of the rift is estimated to be down-faulted 36,000 feet.  If we could vacuum out the alluvium, the basin would be six times deeper than the Grand Canyon."

Rio Grande Rift

Northern New Mexico-Food

We remain in one of our favorite states, New Mexico.  We love the food, variety of centuries old cultures, handicrafts and views.  The only drawback was some really hot weather in Santa Fe, with a western exposure without trees in the afternoon.  We changed spaces so we could add time to our stay and, sadly, gave up our wonderful shade tree.  Now that we are in Chama it is higher and the weather has cooled but proximity to the Chama River and the wet spring have really brought out the skeeters.

Yesterday I  lost abut 6 or more hours of work on the blog trying to catch up on the last few weeks.  Don't know if it was the flaky internet connections or something in the blog that Google didn't like.  Some Internet chatter referenced the same problem with some "cures" that are frankly beyond my patience and technical knowledge.  I like doing the blog and figure when I am old and forget my journeys, I can relive them on the old blog entries.  So, I will break the NM entries down into smaller segments, the first being...

FOOD

We have visited several restaurants at the suggestions of friends and locals here in Santa Fe, as well as outlying areas.  Among our favs are Tia Sophia's and Maria's in the Santa Fe old town area, Rancho de Chimayo in Chimayo, which is abut 30 miles north of Santa Fe, Harry's Roadhouse east of town and a fun place we found by accident when I was hungry in the middle of nowhere about 10 miles north of town.  It is the Tesuque Village Market, which appears to be frequented by locals.  Another fun place outside town is Gabriel's, which has an interesting gallery adjacent to the restaurant where 22 different tribes' art is featured.

Tia Sophias

Rancho de Chimayo

Harry's

Tesuque Village Market

The BD is a huge chile rellenos fan and enjoys trying them at restaurants.  New Mexico has been uniformly good, perhaps because of their fondness for chiles.  The best so far is Tia Sophia and even the little cafe here in Chama got a 9 on their version.  I first discovered Carne Adovada at Rancho de Chimayo.  It is made by marinating pork or chicken in a red chile sauce, then slow cooking the meat.  My first version was served with posole and beans at the Rancho.  The restaurant was opened in 1965 after Arturo Jaramillo and his Anglo wife, Florence, decided to refurbish the family hacienda built in 1910 and open a restaurant featuring family recipes. At the time it was not "respectable" to offer such cuisine in a restaurant but Craig Claiborne, then NY Times food critic, visited and wrote a glowing report in the paper.  As a visitor he had asked many questions but the Jaramillos had no idea who he was.  When the NM Governor gave them the article, they had to call friends in the East to ask who he was.  Because Chimayo was a bit remote and NM wasn't too much on the foodie radar (I don't think foodies existed then), the article had little influence on business.

For a few days the heat in Santa Fe was around 100 so it was a choice of staying in Pancho with the A/C on, leaving the dogs and going to a movie or museum or taking a ride into the mountains with the car A/C on and the dogs with us.  We chose to head for the Sangre de Cristo Mountains east of Santa Fe. We found fly fishermen fishing for native brown trout as well as stocked rainbows, pine and at the higher elevation, aspen. It was cooler and beautiful

A fun sign on the road gave the history of a particular holding, which kind of sums up what I love about NM and the sense of history, which is so obscured in many areas as tracts are built and shopping malls erected.