Like an ominous fog rolling in, economic hard times have settled over San Miguel during the past six months. The weather continues sunny and perfect. And the town's small contingent of mounted policemen, decked out in their theatrical uniforms, still take their posts around the central square and wait for tourists to take their picture …
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Two weeks away
With the universal warning from friends still resonating in our heads--"be sure to check on the construction every day"--we came back to San Miguel from a two-week trip feeling a bit apprehensive, almost expecting to find some disaster. There were three surprises. During our absence the architect had fired the maestro Bonifacio and his entire …
Stress Test
We should have known.Of all the American friends who have built houses in San Miguel only one, an acquaintance really, described it as joyful experience. The others repeatedly used words like "stress" and "headaches" and talked about the process in terms that made it sound like doing jumping jacks over hot coals or having a …
To Adobe or not to Adobe
Adobe elicits the kind of rhetorical rapture you don't generally hear about other construction materials like, say, cement blocks or aluminum siding. "You can feel the warmth, the spirituality, the charm. It radiates! It has a round and soft feeling," one New Mexico builder raved about his adobe houses.Close your eyes and adobe construction starts …
Being There
When we broke ground for our house, friends who had built homes in San Miguel gave us a barrel of often contradictory advice, except on one point--you must be at the construction site every day. It sounded like an overly suspicious, even obsessive attitude to take. Two months into construction it turns out to have …
Some Trees Grow in the Rancho
Looking more like twigs than trees, about 30 saplings sway awkwardly in the arid, dusty and increasingly hot landscape of Rancho Santa Clara. It's not an encouraging sight. These guys, some growing crooked, are practically invisible, scattered over the largely barren 7.5 acres of land. Amazingly, most are sprouting new leaves. At least three are …
Stuck in a hole
And a big hole at that. Cost overruns and delays are inevitable and two months into construction we've already been hit by both, caused by the construction of our extra-large rainwater collection system. Was it actually necessary? Is it worth it? I must confess that I've had my doubts. Stew insists it will pay off …
The Vital Question of Water
One Saturday each month, under the dancing shade of a grove of mesquite trees, Doña Felisa presides over a meeting of La Biznaga's water committee. Felisa is thin, neatly dressed and coiffed, and all-business. She takes meticulous notes of the proceedings which invariably revolve around money or how often and when to turn on the …
Gladys the Good Karma Mutt
Nine months or so ago everything connected with the sale of our existing home, and construction of the new one, seemed a tangle of dead-ends. It was about that time that a black-and-brown mutt appeared in the parking lot of our condo complex. Her life was a much bigger mess than ours. A medium-size female, …
A Day's Hard Work
According to a newswire story just a few days ago, Mexico's unemployment rate had "spiked" to 5 percent in January 2009. That is still almost three percentage points lower than the latest national jobless figures for the United States. Indeed, in some specific U.S. markets like Oregon, unemployment approaches 10 percent. More incredibly, two years …
El Rancho Santa Clara 