Las Cruces Cont. - Fort Selden State Monument

Just down the road from the Leasburg Dam State Park is the Fort Selden State Monument. The monument is

Excerpted from http://www.nmmonuments.org/inst.php?inst=10
"Fort Selden was established in 1865 in an effort to bring peace to the south central region of present day New Mexico. Built on the banks of the Rio Grande, this adobe fort housed units of the U.S. Infantry and Cavalry. Their intent was to protect settlers and travelers in the Mesilla Valley from desperados and Apache Indians. Several of the units stationed at the fort were black troopers, referred to as Buffalo Soldiers. A young Douglas Mac Arthur called the fort home while his father was post commander in the late 1880s."

Not much is left of the old fort, the roof, windows & doors having been removed years ago, the adobe walls are slowly dissolving away. What is there reminds one of the starkness that the soldiers stationed there had to deal with on a daily basis. While the setting is lovely now, I'm sure 150 years ago was a completely different picture.

The Monument has a small museum that outlines daily activities at Fort Selden and other frontier forts; along with personal artifacts that were used on the frontier forts. It is worth a quick stop.

Fort Selden Map

Parade Grounds at Fort Selden

Looking toward the Barracks

Old walls at Fort Selden

Dad showing how thick the walls are
at the fort

Fireplace at the old hospital

Looking inside the barracks

Old wall of the fort hospital

Mar 28 - Rio Rancho Pork & Brew

Today we spent a couple of hours at the 6th Annual Rio Rancho Pork & Brew in nearby Rio Rancho, NM. What a great venue this was... Lots of great food (BBQ) from around the US and even Canada. We were too busy sampling the goods to get many photos but here are a few.

There was a stage and a pretty good band playing while we were there, lots of food vendors - most of which were in the BBQ cookoff competion - and a few other craft-type vendors and a beer tent.

It was set up where you 'bought' BBQ Bucks to use at all of the food vendors instead of cash. Worked out pretty well I suppose, except when you ran out of BBQ Bucks!! Most of the vendors sold 'samples' for $1, but we also sampled a couple of sandwiches. I wish I would have taken note of the ones we tried but I didn't - I should know better than to trust my memory. But we had an excellent pulled-pork on Indian frybread... DELISH!!! Everything was excellent - Porky's Pride had a great sauce and their brisket just melted away... When Pigs Fly had the best rib I've ever tasted... and a terrific spicey sauce, holy, uhm pig, it was good. We tried several other places and never had a bad anything and I'm sorry I can't remember their names but all was tasty.

The only disappointment (and not to me since I'm not a beer drinker) was the "beer garden". Due to the Pork & BREW name we assumed that there would be quite a variety of beers to sample - sort of like what they were doing with the BBQ... microbreweries, or whatever, but nope, just one tent with a Budweiser truck pulled up behind it. Bryan, since living in the PNW, has become quite the beer snob and Bud just won't do (well, in a pinch but...).

Stage

Trophies

When Pigs Fly BBQ Grill Team (best ribs around!)

View of Sandia's from the Pork & Brew

March Snow

Today we woke up with about an inch of snow on the ground. I tried to take pics but it was still pretty dark out so they didn't do well - and it all melted by 10 AM. This was Hannah & Maggie's first snow and they loved it... not quite as much fun as when we are irrigating/flooding the yard.

New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, Las Cruces

We spent a few days with Raymona's parents in Las Cruces, NM last week (Mar 18-22). Actually we were about 16 miles north of LC at Leasburg Dam State Park near Radium Springs. What a great little park - terrific views, good campsites, clean bathrooms & shower house, nice 'hiking' trails throughout the park. Bryan & I spent one night there on our way back from Texas a few weeks ago.

While in the area we took in a few sites - the weather got pretty warm and we both had our dogs with us so we were limited on site-seeing to the early mornings before it got too hot to leave the dogs in the vehicles... but we did see a fantastic museum and the farmers market.

I think one of the highlights of the trip was the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum (http://www.nmfarmandranchmuseum.org/). What a fantastic place to visit. It detailed out 3000 years of the farming & ranching in the New Mexico from the Mogollon First Nation to present day cotton, pecan, etc farmers. Lots of detail about how the early Indians and pioneers farmed the land from the arid high-desert near Chaco Canyon to the Rio Grande river valley.

New Mexico Farm and Ranch
Heritage Museum

Mogollon Pit House

Sign explaining the Mogollon Pit House

There are also lots of antique (& new) farming equipment on display, it was neat to walk through and have my Dad point out implements that they either used or still have lying around their ranch. Being on a ranch, they had to scavenge parts from one piece of equipment to another so sometimes he'd say - "we have part of that, had to take the wheels, cogs, insert part here, off to fix that machine over there".

Old Farm Equipment (Dad told me what it was
but I can't remember now)

A great exhibit inside the museum is the "Farm Life in New Mexico: Then and Now" this beautiful new exhibit features four major sections: “Moving Around,” “On the Farm,” “Home Sweet Home,” and “Going to Town.” This exhibit had antique carts & wagons as well as modern harvesting equipment on display. There were excellent storyboards outlining the history of farming/ranching in NM from Chaco Canyon to present day. There was also a nostalgic look at home life on a farm - display farm house rooms and a recreated country store & post office. I really enjoyed it but my parents really liked it, pointing out items from their childhood & early adulthood. It was great to share that with them.

Milk separator

Recreation of an old country store

Old timey post office

Surrey and buckboard

Stagecoach

While we didn't go out to the milk barn and animal corrals, there are extensive live animal displays on the premises. There are picnic areas and great visitas from the museum. The back courtyard is outlined with paver stones with New Mexico brands embedded in there - my brand (my grandpa's old one) wasn't there of course, as it was/is a fundraiser for the museum and costs $250 to have one set for you.

Back courtyard of Museum

View of Organ Mtns from museum courtyard

Sample of brands in courtyard

My favorite brand (other than my own)
The "Two Lazy Two P"

The museum also has part of the old Green Bridge, the oldest steel highway bridge in NM. This bridge spanned the Pecos River east of Roswell, NM.

Check out the website listed above for current & upcoming events - the museum hosts a variety of "seminars", such as dowsing (witching) for water (or whatever, there's a whole listof things you can witch for). Anyway, this is really a great museum and if you are ever in the Las Cruces area, I suggest you check it out. (Cost is $5 per person, $3 for seniors)

Cactus Sampler

Here are some photos of cacti we saw in the Las Cruces area - some can be found in "the wild" but all of these were in gardens. And unfortunately, I don't know the names of all of them.

Pin cushion cactus about to bloom

Beavertail Prickly Pear cactus

Close-up of Beavertail cactus

Teddy Bear Cholla, was told this was a
wicked cactus you did not want in your
cactus garden

Interesting cactus at the Farm & Ranch
Heritage Museum

Mom in front of a giant Agave (which seems to be
the only way they grow down here)

This prickly pear was HUGE, I wish I could show you
just how big it was. Each round section was about
the size of my head.

Another huge Agave at Fort Selden

Cactus garden at the Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum
Las Cruces, NM

Agaves in the cactus garden at the FRHM

Puppies - Free to a Good Home

Well, maybe not but there are several times during the day that we would probably seriously consider it. Like, now - four chewy bones on the floor and yet, only the one that the other one has is the one that will do - the ONLY one that will do. So I sit here, alone, while Bryan is off playing with guns listening to Maggie bark her high-pitched, super-annoying "Mom, Hannah has the ONLY bone that will DO" bark. And NOTHING will do but that one stupid bone!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARGH - good thing I'm not the one playing with guns! haha

Please, I'm begging, you, PLEASE let me have the bone

It's kinda funny (if there weren't ear-splitting yelps involved) because the one without the bone will go get ANYTHING & parade it in front of the other trying to get them distracted - which usually works - so that they drop the ONLY bone. Then it starts all over.

But then you see these pics and they are just so darn cute... when they are sleeping.



Their first experience with the irrigation flooding. They LOVED it - water & mud everywhere. Doesn't get much better for two puppies than this. They chased the leaves that floated by, they chased each other and they chased the splashes they made while chasing whatever.

Look at us. We're Bosque Dogs, Mom.