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the Unforseen

those two words are really what's on my mind today.  but i haven't showed you yesterday yet.  and it was yesterday that allowed the Unforseen to rise to the forefront today.  so, yesterday:

001f
the herb garden

005f
watering inside the tree nest she had created

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her house.  to me, the most beautiful house in the world ever.

016f
her bedroom

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the cheetah in the fireplace

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her daughter, Clellan's (who lives in Spain) chair.

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kitchen cabinets

i love this house.  i have posted pics of it before.  it's a very old adobe in Magdalena that has slowly slowly been design mended to be so totally and completely uniquely the home of my friend….who does not live there now.  only comes now and again to water the yard she has so equally Care~fully created.  being here with her is a real gift.

from here we went over so i could meet Ann, the other goat woman.  they live a few miles out of town.

018f

020
she has two does…Nubian… and one buck.  both does are due to kid in April.  This meeting will need to be it's own post.  but it was very very great.  full of promise.  and then on the way back, we stopped at my other friend Janet's house.  Janet was in her late 70's and decided to go back from whence she came…Minnesota.  her home is empty now.  for sale.  cheap.

021f
Janet's back barn where she loved and cared for a small herd of mohair goats.  almost every year at the New Mexico State Fair, she won the blue ribbon for her wool.

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back of  her house and my friend Fancher.  this depicts something that has always interested me. what we see here is dried weeds.  Friend Janet has been gone only a year.  prior to that she had all manner of plants, bulbs, little vegetable garden areas throughout.  for all practical purposes, the land has forgotten all that and given itself over to weeds.  hmmmm.

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she built this pond.  it had fish and lily pads

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one of the rain barrels.  about 3ft tall

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a small house, behind her neighbor's house.  a mother in law house.  very common here.

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and what might land me in jail.  there are two of these aluminum beauties.  left behind back by her barn.  i want them.  like, really WANT them.  she is gone and maybe uncontactable.  do i just drive my truck up there and take the chance????  it's theft, in a certain way, but in some other way, hmm.

 

 

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62 responses to “the Unforseen”

  1. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    Your friend’s house looks inspiring. I really like the all those rusty grasses at the other house and the . great rain barrel! I immediately thought those chairs were cool. If they’re abandoned?

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  2. wendy Avatar
    wendy

    This is all such a surprising look at your life and landscape for me Grace, I am in awe. I came back to tell you that when I saw your doll-being in yesterday’s post, I immediately thought it was a portrait, a perfect portrait of a perfectly dried and curled leaf. It has just exactly an organic profile. And now this beautiful post about all of these places and lives intertwining….and thieving, too! All so unexpected and lovely Grace- thank you!

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  3. wendy Avatar
    wendy

    and p.s. when I saw the rain barrel there I thought “I hope Grace took that home, that is so useful for so many things….” HA!

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  4. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Magdalena is where i was headed when i came to New Mex.
    i had read a book, Querencia by Stephen Bodio. that sealed the deal. Magdalena is about a half hour up the
    mountain from here, so i almost made it. and before the
    Unforseen appeared that time, i imagined myself living
    in one of these two houses. the rusty grasses are Kochia.
    everyone has that. a HUGEly invasive nonnative. BUT,
    also, extremely nutritional for Goats. Tra La.
    and the rain barrel…i’d never noticed them before when
    i visited her. they are afixed to cement. and yesterday,
    my immediate joyfull thought was…..INDIGO VAT!!!!!!
    oh, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
    those chairs. oh, those chairs. there is much commerce here in metal recycle. things are stolen all the time.
    in the local paper today an article about electrical line being stolen, oxygen tanks from someone’s porch. i would be a thief. is it worth it? is it worth being caught? i’m thinking in the moment, yes. they Are. they are just so amazing and such great Goat chairs. most likely before
    the house is sold all that’s back there, including barrels
    of mohair wool will be contracted out to dump. the chairs sold by the pound to metal recycle as would an incredible
    little wood stove. i don’t know. i’ll have to find out
    if the “charge” would be a misdemeanor or a felony. a
    misdemeanor i’d risk.

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  5. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    isn’t it GREAT????? the possibility of Thieving?????
    no one really cares. Janet took an incredible amount of
    stuff with her. She is really SOMETHING. a whole house
    of STUFF, all of it amazing and loved by her to the enth
    degree. but i guess she just couldn’t squash these last
    things in. i was supposed to go have lunch with her before
    she left. and i could have brought them home then. i know for sure she would want me to have them. that morning, just as i was on my way to go, one of the goats
    bleated that sound of “crowning” and i called and cancelled.
    it’s such a singular and BEAUTY FULL world here. it is.

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  6. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    they are bolted to cement.

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  7. deb Avatar
    deb

    Leave a detailed note on the door. “the lawn chairs are visiting with Grace” and a way you can be contacted. You are giving them a vacation from waste and loneliness.
    She would like it if she cared.

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  8. kaite Avatar
    kaite

    I would take them if they meant that much to me, have done so before but the way to do it is BOLDLY, do it like she told you to collect them and if anyone asks tell them you have permission.

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  9. kaite Avatar
    kaite

    so just go back and get them, don’t think of it as tieving but rather as rescueing….

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  10. kaite Avatar
    kaite

    *thieving

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  11. kaite Avatar
    kaite

    yes you could do that

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  12. kaite Avatar
    kaite

    and while you’re there do harvest some of that dried grass also, for your goats.

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  13. Michelle in NYC Avatar
    Michelle in NYC

    I thought about that–leave a note–and the stove too–but, I don’t know. Are there neighbors who knew her, maybe? It’s only been a year…maybe you COULD find her in Minnesota…no clue where…what town or city? Phone directory might list her, or family if you knew that. The grassy world and abandoned homes…something BIG there…the past still soeaks. I wonder if there is a real estate agent involved or if she or her family still holds title. That would be easy to find out. Well, I’m really looking forward to the post about the meeting and the next chapter in this story.

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  14. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    THIS IS A TOTALLY BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and i mean
    BRILLIANT
    THOUGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  15. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    I am laughing. Thieves cannot hang around harvesting
    grasses.
    or
    can theY?????

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  16. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    the past mutters and mumbles and intones and speaks
    litany of so much. out behind her goat barn is the
    remnants of old cattle loading area from long ago. it
    was a cattle town, a mining town. now, just ghosts.

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  17. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    funny. i CANNOT lie. but I think i CAN thieve.
    in this moment, late~ish in the evening, i think i will
    go tomorrow and THIEVE. and you are right. do it
    BOLDLY. will just go. with a prepared note to push pin
    securely to the door. stating name, phone# and address.
    and the wood stove too. if i could, i’d hiest the
    rain barrels, but, oh…no…bolted down. well…maybe
    i could look?
    and also in the meantime, see if i can find Janet and tell
    her what i’ve done. She would laugh.
    so…you are right.
    BOLDLY. YES!!!!! oh…GREAT!

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  18. Sandy Avatar
    Sandy

    isnt it only stealing ifthe owner presses charges? Just sayin’……. xo Sandy

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  19. kaite Avatar
    kaite

    yes they can if they don’t think of themselves as thieves!!

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  20. kaite Avatar
    kaite

    …sad…

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  21. kaite Avatar
    kaite

    Coralie says they are beautiful chairs, they are treasures that need to be valued, said with tears in her eyes, go get them……….now!

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  22. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    OK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    wooHoo, Coralie!!!!! my partner in crime.
    they are.
    they ARE beautiful chairs. i’ve never seen anything
    like them. i never saw them in all the times i was
    there to visit Janet.
    i met Janet at the Valencia County Fiber Arts Guild.
    I was new. She wasn’t so new but she was very
    Minnesotan, closed, tight lipped, close to the chest norweigan, somehow in New Mexico.
    i don’t know why, but she liked me.
    she had a home in Belen. it was amazing. She had her
    fiber goats, dogs, horses, an inside aviary with plants
    as high as the moon, Everything. and one day, her husband just left. she got so mad, she axed almost everything.
    gave away most of the animals and called me on the phone.
    would i go to Socorro with her to look for somewhere else
    to live???
    yes. ok. so we came. and the realestate woman here
    Marie Satterfield took a liking to her and she ended up
    with this house in Magdalena where she moved all her
    STUFF. where she brought her goats. a few of her dogs.
    where she sheared those goats and dyed the wool and spun
    it and made really beautiful things one of which i have
    on my lap in this moment. Janet was a fierce and determined woman. All of the above she did in her late
    60’s. like me now. just kept going. Janet is the
    epitomy of Just Going. once i went to see her up there and the huge table was gone…i asked…she had run out
    of fire wood. done deal. no looking back.
    so…YES.
    i think. tomorrow. yes.

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  23. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    HA! she never would.
    but i’m not sure who the actual owner IS, now?
    but they are there…amidst the weeds, amidst the
    barrels of beautiful and fine and excellent wool.
    it is hard to See.
    She took all she could. i can imagine her…trying to
    stuff things in a moving van.

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  24. ali Avatar
    ali

    I can already see you, and maybe even me, someday, sitting in them. watching the goats, stitching, having a chat or saying nothing at all…what a wonderful, full, rich, meaningful post. thank you

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  25. ali Avatar
    ali

    I can see you sitting in one, and maybe, someday, me sitting there beside you. watching the goats, stitching, having a chat or saying nothing at all. what a beautiful, really meaningful, rich post. thank you, Grace

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  26. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    wouldn’t that be Something????
    if it were
    you?
    it’s a Life. all this stuff.
    love, love and love

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  27. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    well…
    i am going to DO it.
    Tomorrow.

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  28. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i have watched stuff like this happen…when something
    is THOUGHT
    and it’s really interesting and amazing.
    i know that if i go back a week from now, everything
    will be gone.
    and gone into some vast empty space of Nothingness.
    just gone.
    no meaning.
    done.
    so…i will drive up there in the truck tomorrow. take
    them. take that little oh so odd and wonderful wood
    stove. check out the rain barrels, but them, i don’t think so.
    and if someone has an issue with it, they can call and
    retrieve them.
    but really, i think it will all amount to nothing. and
    part of it all is That. that Janet’s stuff that she couldn’t fit in will amount to nothing. but, too, really,
    i have to admit the total
    LUST
    for those chairs.
    love,

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  29. ali Avatar
    ali

    it will be something, somehow I feel it is a given, someday…love and love and then…love

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  30. ali Avatar
    ali

    those chairs deserve the good home you will give them!

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  31. jacky Avatar
    jacky

    Your friends house is beautiful…how sad it is abandoned.
    I am sure your friend would be happy for you to be custodian of her aluminium chairs.
    Maybe you could just leave a note under the door asking your friend to contact you. If she does, tell her you are taking care of her chairs, and whatever else. And that you have been keeping the garden tidy by harvesting grass for your goats.
    I so hope she contacts you and tells you take what you want before somebody does steal it.
    I hope by the time you read this you are sitting outside on those chairs with the goats and those wonderful rain tanks.
    Jacky xox

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  32. kaite Avatar
    kaite

    take shifting spanners as well, you just might be bale to move those rainbarrel bolts. go Well and Boldy 😉

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  33. kaite Avatar
    kaite

    Yes, done deal!

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  34. kaite Avatar
    kaite

    One day i’ll come visit you and i will sit on one of those chairs for Coralie. xox

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  35. Michelle in NYC Avatar
    Michelle in NYC

    It is tomorrow! My Goodness that Janet–what a treasure–you draw a provocative picture. That last bit about the table for firewood was a cap. I mean it puts the cap on the description….and the light in that place is inspiring…How RIGHT it is to salvage whatever is useful there. It will harm no one. You’re a gleaner not a thief–“Gleaning” has a long tradition behind it: “Its mentioned in the bible, old testament, nothing shameful at all.” There is a wonderful film by the great French Filmmaker Agnes Varda. I saw it when I was in film school, and i’ve long loved the painting that inspired it. and here it is–French with English subtitles “The Gleaners and I” (2000). Inspired by Realist painter Jean-François Millet’s famous painting “The Gleaners [Les Glaneuses] (1857),” Varda explores contemporary practices of scavenging and recycling—http://youtu.be/WYzl-h1IAmo

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  36. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    such beautiful houses in an alien landscape, alien to me at least: vast and sunny and open and dry!!
    yes to the chairs and wood stove, good luck with moving them

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  37. patricia Avatar
    patricia

    what a delightful thread of thoughts and experiences. but very unsettling–not the question of to take or not to take the chairs–the note is a great idea–but the land. the adobe structures. the sky. the light. the air. only lived in NM for 18 months but it got deep under my skin. deeper than that–deep under my heart. deeper than that even. i look outside here and wonder. i think about why i’m here and wonder. but i’m glad you’re there and thank you for sharing the pictures and narrative.

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  38. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Foraging – “search widely for food or provisions.” Provisions- “providing or supplying something for use.” The way I see it, the chairs are sitting there idle, of no use and they need to be useful. I think Janet would agree. The Midwest breeds a mindset of using what you’ve got; I know this because I am married to a Minnesotan. You need a place to sit as you watch the goats, the feather grasses sway in the wind, the seeds shoot up, as you hold cloth and take a stitch or twenty. You need a place to sit back, close your eyes and listen to the crow conversation, to birdsong; a place for Julian and you to discuss the universe. You need chairs for those who come to visit; I need to sit in one of these chairs as I hold dirt clumps in my hand and hope to find a worm. Need trumps all else, so go forth and acquire the chairs.

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  39. jude Avatar
    jude

    i “stole” all the stones left over after they knocked the house down next door. Big stones. used a wheel barrow at midnight.

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  40. Julie Avatar
    Julie

    I like the idea of leaving a note but I have to say, as someone who is helping my parents pack up a house, that the things left behind are exactly that. We’d be grateful if someone would break into the garage and take the ladders, rakes, shovels, etc so they wouldn’t have to worry about getting rid of them…condo association seems to have a dim view of leaving them around for “thieves”
    I can just hear the crunch of the weeds beneath your feet…that’s what I love most about New Mexico, the crunch my hiking boots made.

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  41. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    what a great post and story and responses! you are a totally unique fabulous & magical crow woman extraordinaire aaarrrkkkk! aaaaarrrrrkkkk ! aaaarrrrrkkkkk!

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  42. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    good thing you and i and Coralie don’t live on the same
    continent. we would be a Force To Contend With, the
    Three of Us. isn’t that funny???? like we are related,
    huh.

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  43. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Jacky…i forgot that today was an Alz. B day at the old
    folks home. but just as well. gives me time to be sure
    of this as something that is legit.
    i am such a little Rule Follower.

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  44. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Kaite…HOW GREAT that would be. Do you think??????
    i wish Coralie could come right now.

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  45. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i have read, yes. Gleaners.
    this is different though. a singular case of Theft.

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  46. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    it is. the polar opposite of your world. but Vast
    in common. it’s the vastness.
    again…just a half hour away, i live in the Rio Grande
    Valley. these pics are UP the mountain one half hour
    drive. High Desert Prairie. it is Forever that you
    can see and there is just the prairie with mountains
    in the distance. when i look, i feel my whole chest
    open out like wings…EXPAND…..FLY. i cannot believe
    how much i love it.

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  47. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    it took me a lifetime to get here. from when i used to
    see those pics in the National Geographic as a child in
    an attic in Michigan. but it is my Place. Everything
    about it is in keeping with Everything i am as a biological
    being. i might not be here forever, but i am and i can
    say with deep pleasure and satisfaction that i Was.

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  48. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Big smile…”Need trumps all else, so go forth”

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  49. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    HA!~~~~~!
    at midnight no less. oh…..and eeeeeee.
    i wish.
    but i will have to go in broad daylight….having no
    wheelbarrow to use.

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  50. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    ahhh. yes. you DO know New Mex. knowing that crunch.
    it’s not Janet…she would do the Same, for sure, no
    question. it’s the townspeople, the US Marshall.
    it’s really no different than someone thieving metal.
    the thieving is the same. it’s the intention, the Use
    that is different. but the crime is the crime.
    as you can see, i am still conflicted.

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  51. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    oh, mo…i blush.

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  52. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Patricia~ I understand that under-the-skin feeling. That is how I am with the Carson Valley in Northern Nevada. Only lived there 5 years, but it speaks to me on such a deep level.
    Grace this is such great storytelling…your friend ~ what a gem and those colors, skies, light…just ALL of it.

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  53. Nance Avatar
    Nance

    Oh, take the chairs. Perhaps contact the realty company for Janet’s address. But she would want you to have them. I ” know ” this.

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  54. Robyn Ayaz Avatar
    Robyn Ayaz

    Wow Grace, I think you should get them and leave a note. As soon as I saw the rain barrel I thought the same thing, oh my! But the chairs are lovely and need to be used and seen by eyes who would love them – yours! It was strange seeing these two houses – they seemed so “Australian” which clearly they are not, but … Particularly the first house – you could drive through the countryside here and see many houses that looked like this on the outside. I love them.

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  55. Minka Avatar
    Minka

    I love therein barrel…just to look at it. Reminds me of a birch bark basket somehow.

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  56. Debra S Avatar
    Debra S

    Grace, how much is she asking for her house, just wondering? 🙂

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  57. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i got the address. wait till she hears what i’ve done!

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  58. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    yes. the similarities…i have been startled by them.
    and not just in the houses, but a lot more. the land.
    the way people live.

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  59. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    the SHAPE of it…yes. i looked again yesterday (this
    is now Sunday) but…bolted down, they belong to the
    house. but oh oh and oh, what an indigo vat they
    would make. i think i’ll keep looking for some such
    thing….

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  60. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Debra…there were two houses here. that first that you
    can actually see, is my other friend’s house and she
    is not selling it. doesn’t live there anymore, lives
    in Albuquerque, but feels like she will return to Magdalena when she can.
    it’s the second house, Janet’s that’s for sale and you
    only see the back yard in these pics. i’m pretty sure
    she said $55 thousand. it’s an old adobe, the Real kind,
    those thick brick walls. 2 bedrooms, living room, diningroom, large kitchen. and along the length of the
    front of the house is a beautiful narrowish Sun room where she would spin her wool. there is no front yard, is
    right on the street like it often is here with old homes. the lot is narrow and LONG to the back. i’ll go back
    soon and take some pics of the town. i really love Magdalena. it keeps trying to become a Destination and almost making it, then, not, again.

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  61. Dee Avatar
    Dee

    came back to visit this place again. it reminds me of Australia (having never been there – or to NM, for that matter)… I want to live in this place!

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  62. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    yes. i think there are many similarities. and also in
    the way of life. the doing with what is at hand and the Pride in that.
    Fancher’s home, the one you see the kitchen of, is very
    fine. so plain in a way, but also, with such class. if i worked for NYT, i would do a whole article about it.

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