Any kindergartner can tell you that their best artwork hangs on the refrigerator.  It’s displayed in this prominent location so that each member of the family can view it several times each day.  More than mere construction paper held up by magnets, a child’s pride, confidence and self-worth are supported on the smooth surface.  Eventually, as time passes, the exhibit changes from colorful drawings to spelling tests and report cards.  But it starts with art.

Sargent's property with mock-up image of showcases.

Without a large kitchen appliance on which to hang his students’ work, Juan de Oñate art teacher Steve Heil has turned to the school and Gallup communities in order to create a public art display.  Fitz Sargent, an architect by training and former art teacher, loved the idea immediately and has donated a portion of his own property along Second Street, just south of Aztec Ave., for the project, which will be permanent and highly visible for drivers and pedestrians alike.  Sargent will also be building the three showcases out of steel and glass.  Each 4 x 6 x 1.5-ft. case will be free standing and lit in the evenings.  Though all the logistics have yet to be determined, the design will be simple so the emphasis will be on the students’ work.

Heil has gained the interest and support of every art teacher in the district’s 19 elementary schools.  They will rotate on a month-to-month schedule throughout the school year in order to show examples of their students’ 2- and 3-dimensional artwork. When school is not in session, the display will be used for other youth art programs. Each new show will be opened at Arts Crawl on the second Saturday of each month. Parents and kids will be encouraged to attend and then continue on to enjoy our downtown Arts Crawl events.  At this point, the project is focused on elementary art, but there’s no reason why the displays can’t be used to exhibit a broader section of student art in the future.

With a $1500 donation from the BID and donations made possible by Gallup Journey, the project has raised more than half of the funds needed to begin building this spring.  In-kind donations are welcome; specifically help is needed with steel, concrete, glass, landscaping and electrical. All supporting organizations will be suitably credited on the showcases.

The arts are an important thing to support, especially here where they have profound cultural ties.  A public display of elementary artwork will instill a healthy sense of pride in our children, and hopefully, in the Gallup community at large.

For more information on donating to this project, please contact Steve Heil at (505) 721-9371 or email sheil@gmcs.k12.nm.us.

Jim Abeita

Jim Abeita isn’t shy about his life. In fact we hadn’t even finished our first cup of coffee at Angela’s Café  when he admitted that for a number of years he was a typical downtown Gallup drunk.  He said that ended dramatically  on Sept. 11, 2005 when he left the American Bar and went out to the Courthouse Plaza.  The details of what happened that night aren’t exactly clear, but Jim was beaten by two adults to within inches of his life.

After 5 days in a coma at IHS he woke up tied to his hospital bed, because of violent seizures he unconsciously displayed.  “I think I was dreaming . . . nightmares,” Jim says.  But it may have been more of an exorcism, a casting out of the alcoholic demons that had drudged his life away from the beauty he created with brush and canvas.  He has never drunk since.  “That was my second chance . . . I should have been dead.  Now the focus for my last five years has been painting again.  I suppose getting jumped is what I needed to set my path straight.”

Before meeting Jim at Angela’s I had taken a trip to the Navajo Nation Museum to cover the art show that will be opening for him on April 14.  I noticed on the show flyer that it said,  “Help honor an artist who changed Native art forever.”  Quite a bold statement, I thought.  And when I asked Clarenda at the museum about it, she politely educated me on how Jim was the first Native artist to really master realism with oil paints.  Up until that point, nearly all Native paintings were of two dimensional representations in the drawing, water color, or paint mediums.

And it wasn’t just that Jim was one of the first Natives to do realistic oil paintings, it was simply painfully obvious that he was really, really good at it.  While Jim would shrug it off,  it has been said by “those who know” that Jim, regardless of race, creed, or content could possibly be one of the best living oil painters on the planet.  That’s pretty subjective, I know, but Johnny Cash, years earlier, seemed to agree.

Jim Abeita was born April 14, 1947 in Crownpoint, raised a few miles north near Becenti, where he spent the first 10 years of his life helping herd the family’s 100 or so sheep. It was while herding sheep that little Jimmy first learned to draw.  “My uncle and I would draw on the dark sandstone with a sharp rock; it was like a chalkboard.  We would draw all sorts of things: animals, soldiers, designs, and we did it out in the open.  That’s when it first started.”

At 10 Jimmy was taken to Mormon placement school where he stayed with a host family in Salt Lake City.  Jim’s artistic ability was obvious, and in grade school he entered a poster contest and won.  He then entered the city-wide poster contest and won; then the state wide contest and won again.  At a young age Jimmy was already in the papers for his art.

One of Jim's works displayed at the Navajo Nation Museum.

A few years later his Mormon host family got him a set of oil paints for Christmas.  “At first I couldn’t figure them out and almost gave up, but I just kept playing with them and eventually got better,” Jim remembers.

At age 17, Jim met his wife, Hannah, a Navajo who grew up near Sheep Springs, who went to a different school, but also a part of the Mormon placement school program.  They fell in love and finished their last year of high school at Gallup High in 1966 and were married soon after.

Jim took a job doing some drafting for the BIA, but his boss saw that his talent was too great for that station.  He found Jim a free ride scholarship to attend the American Academy of Art in Chicago. Jim and Hannah moved east and they soon had the first of their three children.  Jim studied art and developed his painting living in downtown Chicago.

After a few years Hannah decided to take a stack of Jim’s scrap artwork to a nearby gallery called Art International.  The gallery was happy to buy all of Jim’s work for $10 a piece and Hannah brought home a check for $280.  Not too shabby for 1970 dollars.  This particular gallery had stores in 30 locations across the globe and very quickly requested more artwork from Jim.  Soon Jim was pumping out 30 to 40 small paintings a week, making good money, but not exactly the art he was hoping to do.

Abeita portrait of Johnny Cash

Around Christmas in 1971 Hannah got tickets to a Johnny Cash concert and at her request Jim painted a large canvas portrait of Johnny.  At the concert they gave the painting to a stage manager who delivered it to Johnny.  Johnny liked the portrait so much that he requested Jim and Hannah come backstage after the show.  Mr. Cash then proceeded to make Jim and Hannah an offer they couldn’t refuse.  He asked them to come to his house in Nashville for a summer to do more portrait painting of his family.  Of course they went.

A friendship developed between the Cash and Abeita families and soon Cash was connecting Jim with other musicians like Waylon Jennings to do more work.  Hannah and Jim had made enough money after that summer to buy a singlewide and return to the Crownpoint land that he grew up on.   Johnny would randomly fly Jim to different events or shows across the country, and eventually Johnny came to visit Jim in Crownpoint.  That visit spawned a song called “Navajo” written in Jim’s honor.  The song is found on an obscure live album called Strawberry Cake.  (If you’re interested you can hear the song on youtube).

It’s hard not to find Jim in the lyrics:

I have seen your colors woven in your blankets

I have heard your names on rivers and old towns

I have see your turquoise on fine fancy ladies

and the Indian sun is rising instead of going down

Navajo, Navajo

the people called the people from 10,000 years ago

from the the land of the enchantment, Navajo

I have seen your red rock canyons out in Gallup

I have walked upon your Arizona hills

At Crownpoint I watched an artist painting

all the secrets of your past surviving still

Navajo, Navajo

the people called the people from 10,000 years ago

from the the land of the enchantment, Navajo

I have see your women dressed in royal purple

silver from your hills upon your hand

I don’t need a signpost readin “reservation”

I know the minute i’m on Indian land

Navajo, Navajo

the people called the people from 10,000 years ago

from the the land of the enchantment, Navajo

from the the land of the enchantment, Navajo

Jim at 1970's State Fair

During this time, Jim, of course, entered paintings at the State Fair, and the Gallup Ceremonial in the early 1970s . . . and won.  He also began selling paintings at Mullarky’s photo shop in downtown Gallup and began to realize that $1000 was not too little to ask for one of his works.

Tragedy struck in 1974 when Hannah fell asleep at the wheel while driving to Shiprock.  She was killed but her cousin riding with her, known as “Tweeter” survived.  Jim’s three young children were left without a mother.  But Tweeter, who had always been a frequent babysitter, helped Jim raise the kids.  After some time Jim and Tweeter married and had one child of their own.  But after just 10 years Tweeter also died.

Jim spiraled, and the bottle became the escape for his pain.  He eventually had 2 more children with a woman who, ironically, also had clan ties to Sheep Springs. Even so alcohol slowly pushed its way to the front of Jim’s life, while his art slid off into the shadows . . .

A train just roared in, its whistle resonating on the silverware at Angela’s.  The pause was enough to make me realize we must have drunk 8 cups of coffee over the hours we talked.   Then the idea hits me.

I say to Jim, “Do you think there are still some rock drawings out on the rocks in Crownpoint?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s been a long time?”

“Do you want to go check?”

Drawing sheep near Jim's childhood home.

The next thing I know we are driving out past Crownpoint to the open lands of the Becenti Chapter.  A few miles on the dirt and we are at Jim’s childhood home, a rock house now fallen apart.  We depart into the land and hike a half mile or so to a field of large dark brown sandstone boulders.  Jim scours the surface of some and finds some faint markings.  He picks up a rock and immediately starts touching one up.  Soon he is drawing on others.  His connection to the land is undeniably strong. He points to an eagle’s nest not far away, while indeed the shadows of two golden eagles circle high above. He smiles to reveal missing teeth that were shattered by that fateful night five years ago in downtown Gallup.  He smiles that somehow he has a second chance. He smiles because he has a rebirth, a time to do again what he was created to do.

And perhaps Johnny Cash sums up exactly what that is:

“I respect Jimmy for what he is, what he does, and what he is trying to do.  I know that in his heart, the mark he wants to leave in this world is to paint a picture of the culture, of the character, of the humanity of his People . . . May his works inspire you as he, himself, has inspired me.”

Today Jim has 14 grandchildren and has won recent honors as the Inter-Tribal Ceremonial poster artist. He  continues as a master artist and graciously allowed his work published in this issue of the Gallup Journey. It is no accident that Jim’s show at the Navajo Nation Museum opens at 5:30pm on April 14.  Jim will turn 64 that day.  Come say “Happy Birthday” to honor an artist’s journey and a sampling of his life’s work.

Six years ago, in one of our first issues, we published a story about Red Rock Motorsports.  Then, the club was a fairly new initiative made up of impassioned men and women who were concerned about OHV (Off Highway Vehicle) safety and prosperity in Gallup.  The club formed a non-profit 501(c)(4) organization with a mission that included establishing a designated OHV (Off Highway Vehicle) recreation park for Gallup and the surrounding community.

In the years since the story was printed, the club’s members have fought what often seemed an uphill battle in order to realize this goal.  Founding members, Greg Kirk, Eric Gonzales, Deni Gonzales, Nate Sowers and Melissa Steadman, recalled almost giving up more than once.  “But we couldn’t throw in the towel because there was no one else who would get it done,” said Eric Gonzales.

In 2007, the City of Gallup and the club received a Recreational Trails Program (RTP) grant of $160,000.  The RTP is a grant program for motorized and non-motorized trail and trail related infrastructure.  It allowed work to begin on improvements to the OHV area north of Hassler Valley Road, which had fallen into disrepair and misuse since it was built in 1974 by Elmer Atson, of Chinle.

Last fall, Gallup’s newly improved OHV Park opened its gates to the public.  “Murphy Builders did a phenomenal job, along with the aid of architect Elliot Brainard,” said Kirk.  The City has been instrumental in securing the RTP grant and the County has recently started work on road improvements, allowing safer and easier access to the park.

Three of Red Rock Motorsports Club's founding members: Greg Kirk, Deni Gonzales and Eric Gonzales.

Activity has been kicked into high gear for Red Rock Motorsports recently.  In addition to maintaining and operating the Park, their early goals also included promoting and hosting special events and races.  Now that Gallup has officially been named “Adventure Capital of New Mexico,” it seems only appropriate that motor sports be added to the long list of outdoor recreation activities that Gallup offers.

The OHV Park’s inaugural event is going to be one for the books!  Details are still being sorted out, but it’s sure that this thing is going to be huge!  On Memorial Day weekend, May 28 and 29, Gallup will be host to 500 racers from New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado all ready to compete for bragging rights of the Four Corners.  The first annual Gallup National Off Road Desert Race will put Gallup on the map and kick off the opening of Gallup’s OHV Park in big way!

Volunteers are needed for this event!  For more information, check out www.redrockmotorsports.com or call Greg Kirk at (505) 870-7278 or Deni Gonzales at (505) 870-6500.

Yoga is a meditative practice that has roots in India thousands of years old. Across the centuries and around the world, yoga has evolved from a philosophy in search of religious liberation to an exercise routine with improved health as a goal.  Today, one of the most respected living yoga gurus is Bikram Choudhury.  He was born in Calcutta in 1946 and began practicing yoga at the age of four.  At seventeen, a weight-lifting accident caused a knee injury that doctors predicted would never allow him to walk again.  Bikram returned to yoga and within six months he was healed completely.  His instructor, Bishnu Ghosh, was the first to scientifically document yoga’s ability to cure chronic physical ailments and heal the body.

Bikram went on to perfect a yoga method that systematically works every part of the body – muscles, ligaments, veins and organs – in order to maintain optimal function and health benefits.  Millions world wide, regardless of age, have experienced the physical healing and mental wellbeing by practicing Bikram’s yoga.

Medical doctor, Richard Laughter, is one of these people.  Several years ago, following a back injury, he turned to this form of yoga.  After six months, his pain was gone and his back perfectly realigned.  Laughter encouraged his wife Brandy, who had just had their third child, to give it a try.

Brandy and Haley demonstrate the Bow Pulling pose.

Bikram’s yoga is unique for several reasons.  First, the workout takes place in a studio heated to 105° at 45% humidity.  These conditions allow the body to warm up and become more pliable.  It also enhances the body’s purification process by flushing out impurities through sweat.  Second, the layout of the studio is very specific: mirrors along the entire front wall and carpeted flooring.  And third, the workout routine is always the same, 90 minutes consisting of 26 asanas (poses) in a specific sequence.

Brandy Laughter recalls her first session of Bikram’s yoga as being awkward and painful.  She was in the back of the class, sweating and shaking while she attempted to hold each pose.  Her decision to attend a second class was a direct result of the elderly couple in front of her, who effortlessly and with smiles on their faces performed the entire 90-mintue routine.  After some more classes, Brandy began to see changes in her body: muscles and flexibility that she had never possessed.  Before long, she was hooked.  Then, four years ago, right around the time she and Richard moved their family to Gallup, Brandy traveled to Los Angeles to attend the nine-week Bikram Yoga Teacher Training, after which she was certified to instruct the Bikram method.

Last fall, Haley Laughter, Richard’s sister, moved to Gallup, as well, after also having completed the Bikram teacher training program.  Now, Brandy and Haley are opening Four Corners Bikram’s Yoga in order to share the benefits that they have been convinced of with the Gallup community.  Their studio, located at 601 W. Coal Avenue, has been completely remodeled, with the wonderful help of their contractor, John Hren.  The main entrance is now located in the back of the building and ushers visitors into a reception area where mats, towels, water bottles and yoga gear will be available for purchase.  The dark wood flooring continues in the men’s and women’s changing rooms, then gives way to soothing blue carpet and cheerful yellow walls in the main yoga room.  With space for 20 to 30 students, the two women plan to offer classes seven days a week.

The new yoga studio will be open in May.

The excitement is palpable in the studio as Haley and Brandy anticipate opening their doors in early May.  They realize that Bikram’s yoga may be unfamiliar to many people in the community, but are eager to bring a completely new form of exercise to Gallup.  They are offering a great Beginner’s Special – $29 for 30 days of yoga – in order to draw newcomers.  They acknowledge the difficulty and awkwardness of an initial class.  “Everything is weird the first time, but do it anyway,” says Brandy whose goal for first-timers is that they simply stay in the room.  “If you try your best, you will get the benefits.”

Bikram’s yoga teaches discipline and uses the body’s natural movements to increase balance, strength and flexibility, providing healing from the inside out.  There is a sense of predictability and comfort in that the routine is always the same.  Yet, according to Haley, there’s always room for improvement, new ways to push one’s body.  “There’s always somewhere else to go – a deeper posture – it’s never ending.”  Haley felt as odd and out-of-place as Brandy did when she first began, but has since discovered a part of herself that she never knew was there – the “Bengal Tiger Strength” – as Bikram calls it.  He also says, “It’s never too late, it’s never too bad, and you’re never too old or too sick to start from scratch once again.”

Classes are offered Monday through Friday at 6:00AM, 4:30PM and 6:30PM, Saturdays at 9:30AM and 3:00PM, and Sundays at 9:30AM.  A free Karma yoga class is also being offered, Thursdays at 4:30PM and all donations will be given to local charity.  For more information, call 726-8081 or visit www.fourcornersyoga.com.

When I met Susan Klopfer for coffee last week, she apologized, mentioning something about spring allergies as she dabbed at watery eyes.  I hadn’t really noticed since I was fixated on the enthusiastic and easy manner with which she was telling her story.  After listening to Klopfer talk about the books she’s written, places she’s lived, and items she’s collected over a lifetime, I doubt she’s the kind of person who has ever called in sick to work – allergies or not.  When you’re passionate and doing what you love, nothing else seems to matter.

Susan Klopfer plans to open Second Street Gallery in May.

Susan and her husband, Fred, were originally from the West, but lived most of their married life in the Midwest, moving whenever Fred’s job as a psychologist would call them to a new place.  Living in Indianapolis, and in smallish towns in Missouri and Iowa, they spent time in Texas and Mississippi, too, and enjoyed what life had to offer.

In each place Susan would reinvent herself, saying, “What do I want to be when I grow up here?”  Never one to sit and wait around, she would go out and apply her skills to whatever was there that drew her interest.  With an MBA and a background in journalism, most of the jobs she undertook were in the writing and reporting realm: a newspaper reporter in Branson, Missouri, an editor in Indianapolis, and a budding author in the Mississippi Delta.

It was during her time in Mississippi that her deep passions for civil rights and diversity were ignited.  In 1955, Emmitt Till, a fourteen-year-old, African-American boy from Chicago, was visiting relatives in Mississippi.  After reportedly flirting with a white woman, he was brutally murdered.  The perpetrators were acquitted.  Till’s death is considered one of the primary catalysts of the Modern Civil Rights Movement.

In 2004, the case was officially reopened by the U.S. Department of Justice.  Susan was living in Mississippi at the time and started talking with many people who vividly remembered the events surrounding Till’s death.  She was so moved that she began writing.  She has since published three civil rights books and is wrapping up a book on diversity now.  While learning, writing and speaking about civil rights and diversity are greatly fulfilling, Klopfer makes room in her life, and her home, for another passion.

While living in the quaint town of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, the Klopfers occupied a 1923 Arts and Crafts home.  Susan immediately fell in love with the house’s style and charm and began collecting art and furniture from the era to fill it.  She amassed Victorian and Art Deco pieces and prints, many in their original frames, but those that stand out the most to her are the works of artists Maxfield Parrish and R. Atkinson Fox.

"Daybreak" by Parrish, 1922

Parrish’s paintings are recognized by their vibrant, saturated hues and fairy-tale landscapes.  His techniques create an almost three-dimensional quality on flat canvas.  The bright colors remind Susan of the Southwest.  Fox’s work is sometimes confused with that of Parrish.  He, too, was an illustrator and painted beautiful landscapes and portraits.

Recently, when the opportunity came for Fred and Susan to move to Gallup to be nearer to their son and granddaughter, they jumped at it, planning to write life’s final chapters here.  However, when asked about retirement, Susan practically laughed out loud as she shook her silvery-blond ponytail saying, “No, it’s not for us.  We’ll die with our boots on.”

Fred took a job with the V.A. and Susan, as ever, has devised a way to maintain her own pursuits while adding to the business and activity of her new surroundings.  Second Street Gallery, located at 104 South Second Street, will be opening its doors to the public at the end of April, with an official opening in early May.  Susan affectionately refers to the block north of Coal Ave. as the “NoCo District,” where she will display her own vintage collection, featuring prints by Parrish and Fox, as well as some commissioned artwork from Quintana’s Second Street Framing.

This is a completely new kind of adventure for Susan, but the way she looks at it, she needed office space in which to market her books and plan speaking engagements, and if she’s got to be there, she may as well have fun and allow others the same enjoyment.  While the space will be an art gallery, primarily, Susan invites visitors to sit and relax and drink a cup of tea.  She plans to include other antiques and vintage jewelry in the space and hopes to put on poetry readings and host special music events periodically.  Monthly Arts Crawls will be a blast!

Susan’s enthusiasm is contagious.  She paused in our conversation to answer a call, and when she set her iPhone aside, I asked the question that was swimming around in my head since she started regaling me: How do you do all this?  Write books, speak about diversity, become an antique expert, open a gallery?  Susan smiled and leaned in slightly, as if she was about to reveal her secrets to endless energy and zest for life, and said, “The way to do it is just to do it.”

Home gardens in the New Mexico high plateau near Gallup can be difficult for new gardeners from other areas.  Most of the gardening advice from seed catalogs, and from well meaning agricultural authorities unfamiliar with our area, is not always relevant to our unique high plateau environment and soils.

Gartenarbeiter, by August Macke

Hopi and Navajo people were living off the corn, beans and squash from their farms in this area long before the Europeans came with their horses, cattle, sheep, seeds and metal tools.  Native people’s farms were scattered far and wide in this area as evidenced by the many scattered Anasazi potsherds and ruins.

The question is how did they farm before and after the great droughts of the early 1200s?  Some likely moved to the distant river valleys while others stayed in this area.  They learned to live with Mother Nature and developed crops and farming techniques that blended with their high plateau environment.  Now, that’s our challenge as home gardeners.  However, gardening methods used in the past and present in the Rio Grande and San Juan River Valleys’ climates may not be successful in our high plateau.

The three primary factors that affect gardening in the high plateau are climate, soil and water.  We need to adapt our planting and gardening methods to our unique local environments.

Our hearty spring winds do not bring the abundant rains they do in other areas.  Our dry air sucks the moisture right out of the soil, which results in six inches of dry topsoil.  The six inches of dry soil acts as mulch for native plants as it retains the moisture deposited from the winter snows.  However, our modern seeds were developed in the Midwest or other climates and environments, which are vastly different than our high plateau climate.  The roots of these modern plants cannot penetrate the six inches of dry topsoil

In the early spring (March or April), one can cover the garden with mulch or artificial cover, such as black plastic, to limit the evaporation of the moisture from the soil.  The mulch also insulates the soil from the cold night temperatures.  During the day, heat accumulates under the mulch, which increases soil bacteria and fungus that enrich the soil.  Remove the artificial mulch just before planting.

The Native people developed and selected seeds that could be planted deep down in the soil at the moisture level and selected seeds that could withstand colder germinating temperature.  Modern seeds cannot withstand these conditions and usually rot.  The growing season in the high plateau is very short, starting during the last week in May or the first week in June until about the first hard frost during the middle of September.  The growing season lasts about ninety to a hundred days.  If one uses modern seeds this growing season may not be long enough for some plants.  Select seeds for plants that can mature during our growing season.

The range of temperatures from night to day can fluctuate from forty to fifty degrees.  The warm eighty-five-degree, sunny day in April or May could change to forty degrees or near freezing at night.  If seeds are planted too early they will open in the warm days, but will not germinate in the cold nights.  The seeds will rot because the soil bacteria and fungus will destroy them before they can germinate.  Some folks may want to get a soil thermometer and check out the night and day soil temperatures.  Soil should be above fifty or sixty degrees before you plant.  Check your seed packets from information regarding germination temperatures and the number of days to maturity.

The altitude of your garden also affects your temperature.  At a higher altitude the temperatures are usually warmer at night and plants blossom up to two weeks earlier than those in a lower altitude.  The warm air rises at night and the cold air drops to the lowest areas, which limits the growing season at the lower altitudes.

The water in Gallup and the surrounding area has a high ph level at about 8.2 to 8.6.  Garden soil experts have determined that garden soil ph should not exceed 7.5.  The white crusts along the Perky Wash are salts deposited as the water evaporates due to the high spring winds.

The same process takes place in our gardens and increases the concentration of ph level in the soil.  Raised garden beds may increase the evaporations of the water in the soil.  To avoid excessive water evaporation, one should mix organic mulch into the garden soil during the planting of seeds.  Light and frequent daytime watering on the surface of the soil only increases the ph of our garden soil, which hinders plant growth.  It is best to water the garden several times a week in the late evening or during the night.  Water deeply until the water puddles.  The water will soak down into the soil and lessen evaporation.

Root growth follows the water.  Plants need deep root growth to gather abundant nutrients and produce healthy growth.  Use peat moss, which is high in acid, as mulch or mix it in your planting rows to help lower the high ph levels of our water and soil.  Organic mulch also helps to balance the ph level of the soil.

There is a difference between soil and dirt.  Soil is alive with bacteria and healthy fungus, which eats the organic materials in the soil and provides plant nutrients.  Dirt, however, has no organic material, bacteria or fungus.  One can only grow limited crops using artificial fertilizers in sterile dirt.  Organic materials must be worked into the top six inches of dirt to develop an environment for garden soil.  One should get a small amount of live soil from a fellow gardener or heavy mulched soil from under a large native shade tree.  Mix this soil in your garden to assure there are bacteria and fungus to eat the organic material and to produce nutrients, which your garden plants need to grow and produce abundant crops.

Too much clay in your soil will prevent the absorption of water and nutrients.  The following is a simple technique to determine the percentage of clay in your garden dirt.  Fill a glass jar about half full with your garden dirt and then fill the jar with water and shake it vigorously to assure the dirt absorbs the water.  As it settles, the clay goes to the bottom.  Te resulting layers will show the percentage of clay and sand in your dirt.

A sandy soil is usually better because it absorbs and retains the moisture and prevents rapid soil drying.  If you have a lot of clay in your garden soil, mix in some sand.  Water in clay soils puddles quickly and, because the water is not absorbed, the puddle remains on the surface for a long time.  Thus the plant roots stay at the surface to access water and do not penetrate deeper into the soil where they could access more nutrients.

In subsequent articles, I will discuss various garden plants you may wish to grow in your garden, as well as planting methods.  If you have ideas, suggestions or questions, send them via email to gallupjourney@yahoo.com.

Photo by Deer Roberts © 2011

Don’t get me wrong.  Life here certainly isn’t idyllic.  My daughter informs me Cibola County is the poorest in these continental United States (funny, I thought that of the county closest to downtown El Paso, as per the 2000 census).  Don’t know if the claim is true, but there sure are a lot of poor here.  Funny thing about the poor though, they sure know how to take care of one another.  As a kid living just off the Pasquotank Sound in North Carolina, I remember when my dad had done a favor for a Puerto Rican man with a family there.  He returned, in kind, a sack of potatoes.  When my mom opened the sack, every last potato was rotten.  Her take on it was to turn to us kids (there were eight of us on an enlisted man’s pay), preserving the dignity involved and mandate us never to tell a soul.  “These folks obviously chased the potato truck,” she said.  “They’ve given us the best they had and all they had to eat. You are never to tell a soul.”  Then she summarily dumped the sack.  Forgive me, Mom.  I think it’s a great story.

At any rate, we are a community of Navajo, Zuni, gay, lesbian, off-gridders, Mormons, and comfortably-retired Anglos. If there are more I’ve yet to find, forgive me again. The Navajo, I hear, are split between the traditionalists and the Christians.  My impression is the Christians suspect the traditionalists of superstitious beliefs.  They may be right, or not.  Across the road from me is a very old Navajo man who has lived on his property since he was a kid.  His home is a hogan with no running water.  There are no electrical lines running to his property.  Some within the Navajo community, I’ve been told, hold superstitious beliefs about him.  All I know is that this man took care of his mother in that home until her death.  In a country that is hostage to nursing homes (the latest studies say it is three times cheaper to take care of the elderly at home than in a nursing home), I hold the man in reverence.  He loved and cared for his mother to the end . . . and he is no spring chicken . . . and that hogan of his is sure simple.  On the other hand, he seems to know when someone local is having a party and just shows up.  Laughs and giggles through the whole evening.  Hearsay says he loves music and photography. Three times when I have come home from grocery shopping, he has been waiting for me on his horse atop the mesa adjoining his property.  First time he said “Baer” to me, I ran to my neighbor and asked if he knew Navajo.  “No,” he said.  But I knew he knew more than I did.  So I dragged him along.  “Baer,” repeated the old Navajo.  We both looked quizzically at one another.  Suddenly it registered!  Beer!  How the heck that fellow knew I had picked up a six-pack I’ll never know.  But he did.  I gave him four of the six.  He wanted to know where the rest were.  My conscience wouldn’t let me give him more.  “That’s all there is,” I said.  He didn’t believe me, but acquiesced.  Something similar has happened on all three occasions I picked up beer while house sitting, before my retreat here.  Don’t know how he knows.  On the other hand, he seems to be immune to hard liquor or wine.   Never asked.  Since I’ve relocated here I hear he thinks I am a reincarnation of the man who used to live here and died, come back to life.  He’s been undercover where I am concerned lately, except for the time he paced up and down on the road in front of my house.  Perhaps he was trying to get a good look and decide. So far he seems to think it best to stay away.  Makes me sad. I really like him.  Wish I could know him better, but suspect learning Navajo is a bit beyond my bilingual capabilities.

more later . . .

p.s.

Found someone to act as an interpreter today and to ask permission for this article.  He invited me into his hogan . . . something he never would have done if he thought me a reincarnation.  Also of note, I found out not only did B.J. take care of his mother, but he also nursed his aunt through to the other side.  The Navajo community built him a whole new Hogan when the care was done for each.  Good neighbors.