A weekend jaunt to Albuquerque and Santa Fe was complete with some pleasant surprises. First of all I was able to acquire one of these beautiful swan gourds from one of our seed librarians in Albuquerque. AIRE had provided these … Continued
En el espiritu del Sexto Sol… Today we mark the shadow on this sundial at sunrise. This is the third time we make marks on the level flagstone altar with a plumb rod. Last time we marked the Fall Equinox … Continued
Today we cleaned and weighed out some sweet corn seed that we grew at Parr Field this last season. We weighed out about 7 grams of seed which is more or less 50 seeds. We later did a germination test … Continued
We are doing our best to keep track of the accumulated snow fall here at Sol Feliz in hopes of being able to correlate how much acequia irrigation we get in relation to the total number of inches of snow. … Continued
A nice little snow makes me think of snow pack potential and acequia flows in the spring. I think of these five rows of garlic that are now nestled under a blanket of snow, absorbing moisture through the pores of … Continued
November 29, 1949 – December 4, 2012 Today I learned of the passing of my father, Reynaldo Manuel Santistevan. My dad was a great guy, always full of laughter and friendship. He never judged anyone and would give you the … Continued
There is growing interest in using biochar to improve soil moisture, organic matter, and crop yields. Biochar is basically reducing carbon from wood to a charcoal-like state and then using it to amend the soil. I first heard about biochar … Continued
Here we are weighing out 1/2 pound packages of our chicos. By the time of this posting, all the Native Yellow and Hopi White corn chicos are sold, except the ones we are keeping for ourselves. We still have some … Continued
Today we did some compost amendment while cleaning up the yard. We raked up all the leaves in the back yard and piled them on the blue tarp you see on the wheelbarrow at right. Then we threw the leaves … Continued
Here we are breaking ground to put in some corner posts for a new chicken coop. We are going to attach the chicken house onto an existing shed on the right and make a sizeable yard for the chickens to … Continued