Our Visit to New Mexico

Our first leg of our journey out west was to visit my brother-in-law in Placitas, New Mexico.  He had told us that water was a problem there but I don’t think we were actually prepared for what it was actually like.  We knew that he had bought this beautiful home there and that a new well had been drilled for the neighborhood, the owner (seller) was responsible for the payment or his part of the payment as per the agreement when he purchased the house but then that well dried up just a few short months later.  Then the neighborhood began paying to have water trucked in but my brother-in-law purchased a 12 acre lot next to his property that has a working well on it and he pumps his water from that.  We assumed that it’s attached to the house but to do that it’s another 100-200,000 to have that done so every week or so he has to take this trailer to the lot and pump 250 gallons at a time into this tank on the trailer and then haul it back to the house and then pump it into one of the two 1000 gallon tanks he has in his garage.  That’s 8 trips to fill those tanks just to be able to flush his toilets or wash dishes, his hands, take a shower, do a little laundry.  This is hot, slow, back breaking work and it takes hours.  From what I was hearing from the natives there, they haven’t had real rainfall in twelve years.  I looked it up online and was only able to get the year 2015 … for the whole year … 0.65  … that’s all they received for the whole year of 2015. That is so hard to comprehend.  No wonder the wells are drying up.  The cactus is dying and the animals are wandering into the neighborhoods looking for food and water.  It is such a sad and devastating story for such a beautiful part of our country. 

   

Standing on my brother-in-law’s balcony I could see for miles.  His home is in the mountains and you can see the town in the distance and more mountains beyond that.  What a beautiful view!  Miles away you could see rain falling but it never made it to Placitas.  You look down at the parched ground, cracked and thirsty wondering what could possibly be causing such a long drought.  I know places where they are begging the rains to stop, flooding so bad that people are having to leave their homes and here is this beautiful mountainous country that is begging for just a few drops of rain to save it’s plant life, it’s animal life. 

He leaves pans of water at the edge of his property for the wild animals so that they might be saved.  He hangs birdfeeders from his trees and hummingbird feeders around his balcony as well as from trees.  He’s had all kinds of wild animals visit at night.  Lately he’s had a large black bear that comes even to the balcony and drinks from the hummingbird feeders.  A bobcat drank from his birdbath and left him a rabbit’s foot the next day as a thank-you.  Coyote visit to drink from his pans as well as deer, skunk, raccoon and squirrel.  He keeps cameras around to catch sight of the animals and each time he gets sight of a different one he buys a carving of that species to add to his menagerie that he keeps on a side table.  His beautiful dog, Hudson, is always at his side.  If it weren’t for the water issue, this would be the perfect place to live.  The peaceful existence between man and nature. 

Hudson is very camera shy and fought me about taking his picture.

Isn't he a pretty boy?  Love him so much! Such a sweetheart!