Morning Bray Farm

New Mexico’s nickname is The Land of Enchantment.

This year, for the second year in a row, we returned to a bed and breakfast called Hacienda Vargas to celebrate our anniversary. It’s where we got married.

Like New Mexico, Hacienda Vargas is very enchanting. 

Hacienda Vargas is the only New Mexico inn along the historic El Camino Real.

It’s in a little town called Algodones, which is between Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

Algodones was originally founded as a military garrison to provide protection for the merchant wagon trains traveling on the El Camino Real between Santa Fe and Chihuahua, Mexico. As late as the 19th century, it was the site of a military supply depot and occupied by General Kearney and the Army of the West in 1846.

See the tiny heart at the top of this sunflower? Enchanting, don’t you think? ♥

Does the place you live have a nickname?

We try to take Bernard and Ellsworth on as many walks as possible to acclimate them to new sights, smells and sounds.

We’re very fortunate to live right next to the Rio Grande and its network of irrigation ditches and paths.

The boys are very observant and rarely miss anything new. Just as he is at home, Ellsworth is a remarkable sentinel out on our walks.

Every now and then, we catch a lovely sight on the trail. Yesterday, it was a new bird. A very blue bird.

A blue grosbeak. Stunning, isn’t he? He was as blue as the sky.

Like life, the trail is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get. ♥

Two years ago today, I married my best friend.

So we’re celebrating two things today; our anniversary, and how our family has grown.

Happy Anniversary, Don. ♥ ♥ ♥

There’s lots of excitement in New Mexico right now. It’s green chile harvest time.

Everywhere we go for the next few weeks, sacks of green chile will abound.

And we’ll see and smell it being roasted. The smell of green chile roasting is a beautiful thing. It makes you feel alive!

Yesterday was the first time we bought a sack of our own and had it roasted.

30 pounds of freshly picked green chiles were put into the chile roaster…

The fire was turned on…

…and the drum turned the green chiles over the fire for about four minutes. Then the chiles were rinsed…

…which created steam… sorry, no smoke for the challenge…

…and the end result of beautifully roasted green chiles.

Life is good. ♥

Bernard turned two yesterday. Happy Birthday to the donkey boy who changed our lives forever. ♥ ♥ ♥

We so love you.  Always. ♥ ♥ ♥

We’re relaxing today after the Toby Keith concert last night. Did you know that while Toby Keith is from Oklahoma, he honed his craft in New Mexico? From Las Cruces to Taos and Clovis, he played every dive bar and honky-tonk that would have his band for five years before he got a record deal with Capitol Nashville. And, his 2008 movie, “Beer for My Horses” was filmed in New Mexico.

Today’s forecast in Albuquerque is 95 degrees and mostly sunny. And snow.

From where does the snow fall, you wonder?

Have a peek up in the cottonwood tree across the way from us.

What we’re just now starting to see fall is the seeds from the fruits of this lovely tree.

It’s the fluffy white seeds of female cottonwoods that give the tree its name. And sure, they’re annoying and they make a mess. Without a doubt, we’ll find piles of seeds everywhere over the next few weeks.

We’ll get over it though. As summer changes to fall at Morning Bray Farm, the leaves of our cottonwoods will turn bright yellow, creating a remarkable contrast with our clear blue autumn skies. We won’t remember the snow then. ♥

We’ve all heard of wingspan measurements in birds, but we had never heard of measuring ear spread in donkeys.                      

It was inevitable that after we read this exchange of comments on our For the love of donkeys page, we had to measure the ear spread of the Morning Bray Farm boys.                     

 Mel N.Y. Says:
July 24, 2010 at 5:05 am Linda, Sweet picture                     

Whats her ear spread ? I’ve met two mammoths with a 33 inch spread !                     

Reply

 Linda and Sam Says:

July 27, 2010 at 10:47 pm Hi Mel,                     

Sam has ears that measure 34 inches, from the tip of one ear down across her head up to the tip of the other.                     

Linda                     

We headed out yesterday afternoon to measure some donkey ears. As usual, we had to put up with Bernard’s antics.                 

Don measured Fergus first.                 

24 3/4″ give or take.                 

Then Ellsworth.                 

26 1/2  inches.                 

Naturally, Bernard wasn’t interested in cooperating because he’s going to be two years old on Friday.                 

We’ll give Bernard 22″.                 

From The Donkey Companion:           

A donkey’s hearing isn’t quite as acute as a dog’s but is much better than that of a  human (or even a horse). When a donkey picks up a sound or sights something unusual, he pricks both ears in that direction to capture the minutest sounds and funnel them down to the ear canal and on to his brain. The donkey’s huge ears can each swivel and capture sound independently; separate sounds from each ear are processed and analyzed at the same time.           

Pretty cool, huh? For those of you with donkeys or burros, what’s their ear spread?  

For Carolynn:  

As we were walking back to the house after mowing the grass yesterday afternoon, something buzzed haphazardly by my head. Turns out it was Harry, the baby hummingbird.

I’m not sure what it is with us and hummingbirds this summer. After watching Harry sputter and land in the hot sun on the ground in the corral, I went over to make sure he was alright. I think Harry was tuckered out from what must have been his maiden flight, because he stepped right onto my finger without a moment’s hesitation.

I handed Harry over to Don and ran into the house to get the camera, and Don took Harry to the feeder. Harry was happy.

We then took Harry into the shade of one of our cottonwood trees. Look at his teeny, tiny feet.

Harry sat cooling off on Don’s palm for quite a while. We stood there quietly with him.

Okay, Harry, it’s time for you to go back to being a hummingbird now.

Don gently moved Harry to one of our crape myrtles. Harry sat there for a few moments, then flew away.

May you live as long as you want and never want as long as you live, Harry. ♥