Recently– last winter- an odd mix of ranchers, cowboys, artists, medical workers, teachers, and even less classifiable types started having Sunday brunch at Tita Dixon’s brief version of the Bear Mountain Cafe. It was so much fun that when Linda Rael Mansell and Kelly Kent opened a good cafe at the old Magdalena Hotel it …
Tag: My Town
Visiting
Mark Cortner, old friend and variously biologist, cowboy, rancher, farmer, and fine gun nut– (we have traded various things including guns, books, and horses since Betsy was alive) stopped by just before sundown with Harry the Peruvian paso, one of the nicest horses I know. I still get jealous every time I see a gaited …
Steve Grayson, 1950- 2014
My friend Steve Grayson died two nights ago. He owned the Golden Spur for over thirty years, and made it into THE community center for Magdalena and the surrounding ranches. Betsy Huntington and I met most of the people I still know there, not to mention the increasing number we have lost. He makes an …
Magdalena Old Timers Fiesta
Good week with the hawk and with guest Annie Hocker; bad week with my right hip, and not very productive. But once a year, local patriotism demands I pay some attention to Magdalena’s only event that brings out of towners in. Yeah, it’s hokey and country and so what? We missed it when water worries …
Local Color
Bar owner Darryl Pettis, new mayor Diego Montoya, and some library donations from Darryl — because I can, and because I support both. (I am on the library board). Not a secret, but I bet Libby and I are the only Magdalenians who have been there other than her: Diego’s mother came from Waltham, Mass. …
Christmas 2013
Over the desert and up in the range, to Muleshoe ranch we go. Right click for big… Twelve miles of sometimes atrocious dirt and rock track, up to above 8000 feet, with the astronomical telescope on the 10,000 foot ridge above glinting in reflected afternoon light from the west… No art or essays or anything …