El Rancho de las Golondrinas

I woke up a wee bit later this morning. Must have been the cooler temperatures. I had to warm up the house with the fireplace. Jim slept later too. It was just one of those lazy mornings.

Once we had coffee and breakfast was out of the way I did the dishes and started doing laundry. I dressed for our outing and made the bed. Then I fixed us a picnic lunch while Jim chose our destination. We had several to choose from and today we went to Las Golondrinas which translates into Swallows. www.golondrinas.org

From the website:
"El Rancho de las Golondrinas is a living history museum located on 200 acres in a rural farming valley just south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The museum, dedicated to the heritage and culture of Spanish Colonial New Mexico, opened in 1972. Original colonial buildings on the site date from the early 18th century. In addition, historic buildings from other parts of northern New Mexico have been reconstructed at Las Golondrinas."

Flowers at the entrance.

This used to be a sheep ranch and they had these on display.

School house was obtained in Raton, NM It was dismantled for transportation and reassembled on the grounds. This particular building consisted of two rooms. One for the classroom and one for the teacher to live in.

cemetery next to the church

I've forgotten what this building is. But I thought it was pretty sitting there.

The terrain was hilly, rocky and near the water quite lush.

It's a walking tour and there are adobe buildings with dirt floors, outbuildings made with wood. Tipi's, blacksmith shop, tannery. A grist mill that was also brought here from elsewhere. And gardens, we saw corn, squash, beans, peppers, sunflowers, watermelon, pumpkin and lemon cucumber, apple trees and peach trees. Herb gardens that included culinary and medicinal herbs. I found the place fascinating. They were self sufficient in a somewhat harsh environment.

all that traipsing around made us hungry so once we were back at the entrance we grabbed the picnic and sat outside in the picnic area. Roast beef sandwiches, tomato soup, tomatoes, cucumbers, pickles. Soda to drink. We ate almost all of it!

It was extremely interesting and if you come to this area and don't mind walking around, check it out.

After we left there we headed to Whole Foods Market. I love this store and just walking around it makes me happy. We didn't buy much, a loaf of bread, some radishes, soy ice cream for me and a piece of turtle cheese cake for Jim.

Then home! Where I unpacked the picnic items. Pulled laundry out of washer and put it in the dryer and started another load. Jim played golf but found it challenging, the wind started blowing and by the time he finished we had some sprinkles and colder temperatures. When he came in he closed the door.

We had our picnic late so we didn't really want dinner. I did cook up a pot of rice and we each had a bowl. Jim had his cheesecake and I had some popcorn which I shared with Boo.

Watched Robin Hood on the BBCA and the rest of the evening has been HGTV or the Food channel. I've been watching Iron Chef America while Jim has headphones on playing some game on the computer.

It's almost 2200 and the temperature is 50 degrees outside. My feet are cold and I'm looking forward to our warm bed! But first I need to do the dishes. :(

Jim and I both neglected to take pictures today. I hope there are more on the website.