Sierra Vista

You might think I'm dead.

I've only written two blog articles this year. And at my age, it would be reasonable to wonder what that means.

To set your mind at ease, I'll post this article about a cemetery here in Taos.

Sierra Vista is a volunteer cemetery, best I can tell. It is maintained by a volunteer organization with apparently few volunteers. A sign at the entrance says something like "let us know if you bury someone here, we like to keep track." There appears to be no religious affiliation and the town doesn't seem to have much to do with it.

A number of the founders of Taos's artist community are buried in this one acre just off the main road with a nice view of the mountains that so many of the artists loved. It's quiet despite the traffic. Small and interesting.

200 years ago places like this would have been bustling, as public parks had yet to be developed and people needed someplace to hang out. Now they are almost always empty with laughter heard only on the Day of the Dead ... and a bit of cackling laughter late at night.

Some tombstones and sites seem to invite you to create stories to explain them.

Why is that second date not completed?

Who had the idea to put MJ on this marker?

He was 22 years older than her?

Was MJ in fact his wife?

Someone remembers Vigil.

Who?

Just some 1?

Well remembered

I love this rock.

A bit of the art found here

And a bit of the view

Estimates are that 5% of all people that ever lived are alive today. You and I are part of that minority. 

And it's a pretty good minority to be part of.

Big Views, Small Accomplishments

We've been in Taos for three weeks now and we've been mostly enjoying the scenery, people and food (all of them great) and we actually managed to accomplish a few small things.

When you first arrive in Taos, you are struck ... almost bludgeoned ... by the views. So I'll start big

The Rio Grande Gorge

The night sky

Milky Way with Jupiter and the Scorpio constellation
We are both Scorpios, so we take this as a good omen

The Mountains

The sunsets

This is a tease
The colors can be spectacular
But you'll have to come visit to see them yourself

The view from our dining room window

And the view when I climbed 1,000 feet to see over the ridge behind us

We arrived the weekend of the annual Taos Lilac Festival.

The previous owner left us this garden with blooming lilacs.
Our arrival timing was perfect

And she left us roses

And she left us these weeds, which we have adopted as flowers

Some things I've seen wandering about

Lots of spring flowers. Again, good timing

Here is a view of "central Taos"

And as long as we are up here,

a view of Ranchos de Taos

The Rio del Pueblo de Taos has it's own gorge

We have met a few neighbors

This guy was very friendly

And this guy was interesting

Reminded me of an old friend

Now on to our small accomplishments

All the appliances we inherited were gross and barely functioning.

The washing machine sort of worked, the dryer did not

So we bought a new washer / dryer and it took only three weeks for them to be delivered.

Hanging laundry was fun for a while, but we are happy to have a working dryer

We also got a garbage can. You've seen garbage cans, so no picture.

But it did take 18 days and 5 calls to Waste Management to get one can

Waste Management did manage to get us an invoice in 3 days, tho

We have done some landscaping, putting in some additional plants and installing this parking pad.

This went pretty smoothly, thanks to Ulisses

We are working on finding contractors for a kitchen bath remodel.

We may already fired our first contractor. That is an accomplishment.

An anti-accomplishment?

And we got Internet installed. Fiber from the local co-op. That only took 3 months, 14 calls and, last week, an in-person visit to their office where I got lucky and caught the gatekeeper on break and talked instead to the head of the installers, who set us up for an install 3 days later. And his guys did a great job.

The gatekeeper was pissed.

But we now have internet

And I get to write blogs again

And you get to read them

Taos Grand Openning

Osterhus Enterprises is excited and pleased to announce the latest addition to our already impressive property investment and management empire: Casa de Viejos in Taos, New Mexico.

Surrounded on three sides by the Sangre de Cristos Range of the Rocky Mountains, de Viejos provides as expansive overview of the Town of Taos and of the always stunning Rio Grande Gorge. Above soars a violet blue sky by day and ten thousand stars by night. The one acre ranch consists of granite and quartz cobbles, adobe and caliche soil (or snow, if it’s not July) with sage, chamisa, pines and prickley pears sheltering elk and rabbits, magpies and hawks. The all masonry passive solar house provides a warm, cozy embrace while tall and wide windows provide ample views of the indescribable mountain southwestern light so beloved by artists and poets.

So here’s the thing. This is my 9th real estate transaction in the last 7 years working with 15 different realtors, some of them for 3 transactions. The total of all the sales costs have exceeded the cost of 3 of these houses. The optimism, language and hyperbole of realtors has rubbed off on me.

Near the end of March I had four places to live in four different cities. Made me feel like Romney. But a couple days later I was down to three and in a couple weeks I should be down to a mere two. The largest of the houses (which isn’t that large) is filled with crap I’ve hauled back and forth across the country a number of times. The other is empty. I prefer the empty one.

Everyone needs a hobby in retirement and as hobbies go, this both keeps me busy and is pretty expensive. I haven’t made any money at this, but I don’t think I’ve lost any either. The joy in this, as any realtor will tell you, is in pride of ownership, which is a load of crap, especially when the furnace or well pump breaks.

But it’s fun exploring new places and meeting new neighbors and then trying to avoid those neighbors. The best strategy I’ve found for neighbor-avoidance is to tell them my wife has dementia and I could use some help caring for her. It’s not as effective as my sister-in-law’s strategy, which was to adopt two newborns and ask for babysitting help, but Cyndi is easier to care for than two babies.

A little bit easier.

I'll start with a view of El Salto as seen from our kitchen window. 

And the view I'll have while washing the dishes

And the view Cyndi will have while hanging out the laundry

Actually, this will be my view because Cyndi says

I'll be damned if I'm hanging up laundry. Give me a clothes dryer!

The view looking south from the main room

Py enjoyed the window sills

Looking southwest

The south side of the house

Our kitchen window

Lots of magpies

While walking around the yard, we found lots and lots of elk pop.

Some bear scat too

The next morning before dawn we saw elk wandering thru the yard

Cyndi counted 18 while I struggle with the camera in the dark

This is an example of what I captured with the camera in the dark

Actually, other than the photo above, this was the best I got 

Lots of pine tree volunteers in the yard

We are trying to identify the species

Anyone know what this is?

A view of Wheeler Peak, the highest point in New Mexico

Looking to the west, we found the desert snow covered in the morning

And I'll end with a sunset