detox weekend part one

i needed to get out of albuquerque for a quick minute. a quick escape. to my family's organic farm.

moriarty, new mexico. it's 39.2 miles from downtown albuquerque. the trip consists of passing through the city, then on the twisty turning roads climbing up the mountain. instead of continuing up the steep trek to the mountain top, we follow I-40 as it curves up and down the east mountain valleys. past sedillo hill, past mountain valley road, past the town of edgewood and in the final leg we drive 11 miles across the flat dusty interstate to moriarty.

driving through the town is sick sweet nostalgia. for most others it's nothing more than fast food chains and a large truck stop. but most others don't see the narrow side streets and the farmers' dirt roads. the horse meadows, the pumpkin patches, and the dusty smell of old trees and native grasses. the loud winds and the summer sunflowers. small towns ingrain all of their rich silent sentiment onto me.

my parents' farm is a few miles northeast of moriarty proper.
our corn garden is a relatively new addition.
this farm is where i learned rigorous sun protection.
the squash garden.
baby crookneck squash. i despise people who buy baby squash. people who buy baby squash are silly and terribly irritating upper middle class morons. they blab on and on about how cute baby squash is and then JUSTIFY it by saying how much better it tastes.

guess what moron? they taste disgusting and bitter. eat a correctly grown squash!
that's a zephyr. see how its squash blossom is still attached? but the blossom looks like it's still orange so we should leave it to grow a little bit more. that squash blossom will wither and fall off sometimes.
can you see the horse house? we built it several years ago during a thunderstorm.
our one and only asparagus. can you see it? i guess the rest just weren't ready to come out of the ground this year.
my dad replanted the honeysuckle on the south side of the guest house.this is the 'children's garden'. our poor sad little garden. turns out 79 cents worth of birdseed don't sprout a field of wildflowers. that sentence sounds like i'm going for ebonics vernacular. i'm not but is it SINGULAR OR PLURAL?! whatever. moving on. in previous years my brother, sis and i grew a rainbow of desert flowers and herbs. and tomatoes! cherry tomatoes.
the purple veins on the green leaves are my favorite.
the purple-colored green beans are finicky this year. we usually have so much more by now.
this is my dad. and his mustache.
MOMMA!!! my mama.
you've got to wash those little beans before you bag them!
the corner garden. hidden carrots and snow peas. four rows of dill. and turnips. so beautiful and fragrant. it's a romantic patch of land.
farming. it's hard hard work. it beats you up and you can't always rely on a bloom of successful crops. it tears at your skin and fingers. it burns your arms and gives your face deep wrinkles.

but once the last vegetables are harvested and it moves into a deep and chilled winter, the craving to plant scratches at us again.
it's so so so full of love here. maybe this is how cults are started. i'm just beyond addicted to the environment my family created on this farm. and the love.