loving the southwest

There is so much I wish to say, yet so little time! We have been having a great time since we left Santa Fe. We decided to stay in New Mexico for another week to WWOOF since we are both running out of money. It worked out really well. Despite making our arrangements very last minute, we found a great couple near Espanola who needed some help getting their place ready for sale. We did some painting, weed whacking, grounds cleaning and helped to improve a crumbling wood shed. Our hosts, Gloria and Liz, were so gracious and grateful for our help. We instantly fell in love with them, their land and their cats and dog!

After spending the week there, we had our first couchsurfing experience in Flagstaff. Once again, our hosts were gracious and incredibly open and welcoming. They fed us dinner upon our arrival and gave us awesome suggestions for bars, restaurants and sightseeing spots. I can not quite express how much I LOVE Flagstaff!! There is a great music and arts scene and everyone we encountered was really friendly and down to earth. I now plan to apply to Northern Arizona University's graduate program in sustainable communities. In addition to our hosts, we made some new friends, students at NAU from Saudi Arabia, who were really fun to hang out and experience downtown with. We also went on amazing hike yesterday in in Coconino National Forest.

Today, we went to the Grand Canyon. It was amazing, of course! We didn't have much time, so we just rode the shuttle around and checked out a few vistas, but hiking into the canyon is now on my list of life goals.

Now we are spending the night in a motel (with free wireless, yay!) in Utah, just south of Zion National Park. We'll be checking out the park tomorrow on our way to camp on Antelope Island near Salt Lake City for the night.

Burning Man starts Monday and I can hardly believe that Labor Day is just around the corner. Time sure flies when you are having fun! I should be back in Maine by the end of September for Common Ground Fair and a trip to hike Mt. Katahdin.

One of these days I'll post some pictures on here. We've gotten some great ones....

learning a lot in New Mexico

We had a good time in Nashville two weekends ago--the most eventful thing we did there was dance to 80's and 90's music at a club called Decades. Our drive through Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas was pretty long and uneventful. We camped out in Arkansas at a state park in which there was a lake in front of a nuclear power plant then in Texas at Lake Meredith National Rec. Area, which was pretty cool, albeit very buggy. Thankfully we missed the hurricanes!

Right now we are in Santa Fe, staying with Rachael's friend, Kalan, from Maine. I love New Mexico! It is my favorite state so far. The dramatic beauty of the mountains is incredible. We stayed at Solar Ark for a week and left yesterday. We drove to Taos on the way here and I fell in love with that town! We also saw the Earthship village just outside of Taos, which was amazing to see. I now have a new dream house!

We learned a lot at Solar Ark in one week (see my list below). I did things, like plaster a wall, that I never before pictured myself doing. The best day there was when we went into the mountains in Colorado and foraged for chantarelle, puffball and porcini mushrooms. We were in the San Luis valley area, just over the border of NM, and it was so lush and beautiful.

Last night we saw some free Latin music in the plaza. It's nice to be back in a city for a bit, but I am looking forward to our next 2 weeks of hiking and camping in Arizona and Utah :)

I'll be posting some pictures soon.

Things we have learned this week:

1. People from the area pronounce Nashville “Nah-yush-ful”.
2. How to plaster a wall and make a whole building out of wood, plaster and a parachute or sheet.
3. Lots about ravens: that ravens can not break flesh, which is why they would eat the eyes and lips of corpses and is why they crow when they find a dead animal so that the predators will come and tear the flesh for them; they are a song bird; they hide and stash their food for later; they have a vocabulary of 60+ words; they are not very good meal companions, for they try to take your food.
4. Bees swarm because of overpopulation or because the queen died (there’s one other reason I can’t recall).
5. Hens need 12-14 hours of sunlight per day for optimal egg production.
6. How to operate a methane digester.
7. How solar and wind energy work, how the power is stored in batteries and about the pros and cons of these types of energy. A wind turbine needs to be at least 500 ft. from another structure and much taller than the nearest building/structure.
8. About the three kinds of hybrid systems for automobiles: series, parallel and series parallel. The series parallel is the most efficient system. Rachael’s car has a parallel hybrid system.
9. Grapes you pick yourself are very tasty!
10. You get drunker at higher elevations: 1 drink equals 3 ( I read this, though experience has not yet proven it to be true) .
11. How to make no-knead bread and bake it in an outdoor clay oven.
12. About grey water collection.
13. Chickens will eat just about anything.
14. Worms will eat coffee grinds.
15. Laundry detergent builds up significantly in you clothes, so when using a super efficient washing machine you may not need to use soap. Conventional top loading washers leave the most soap residue.
16. What an Earthship is (look it up, really cool!)
17. How to catch crawdads.
18. Carp are not a predatory fish.
19. Bones add valuable phosphorous and other nutrients to soil. You can just put bones in your vegetable garden or pot and the nutrients will be released into the soil as organisms break down the bone.
20. How to make a hot air balloon out of tissue paper and birthday candles. Great for releasing at celebrations!
21. How to make kimchee.
22. About people and ourselves—tolerance, patience, respect and the kinds of personalities we have a hard time dealing with (such as overbearing and controlling).
23. It is easier to feel motivated to work when the work benefits an entire community or family, rather than just one person.
24. It’s fun to feed frogs crickets you catch for them.
25. There are two schools about when to water the garden: one says you should do it in the early morning so that molds and fungi will not be able to develop since the warmth and sun of day will prevent it; the other school thinks it best to water at night, so the water will not evaporate in the sun and the cool night will give a good chance for the water to soak in.
26. Don’t squat with your spurs on!