Thursday, May 17, 2018

Can You Pronounce "Pojoaque?"

Image may contain: plant, tree and outdoor Throw-back Thursday, Home-Sweet-Home Dept: 
>>This is the view of the south--and probably the prettiest--side of the Konopak family domicile in Nambe, north of Santa Fe, from around 1961 until 2001, in area known as the Pojoaque valley.  ("Poh-wAAh-kee")
>>There were rooms in the house the walls of which were 300 years old. We took a core sample from one exposed beam. the lintel over a (very low) door, which was dated to around 1700. It had probably formerly been an exterior door. The floor in one the west-side rooms is laid over what had once been a well INSIDE the house, which suggests preparations for seige. It was a typical New Mexico countryside house, with rooms added almost randomly over time.
>>We had just under 10 acres, originally, but the State condemned (and paid for) about an acre of it in the late '70, to straighten a dangerous curve on the north side.
>>None of the siblings were able/could afford to buy the others out and keep it in the family. It was bought, in 2002, by a dentist from Seattle, as sort of a project for his wife, who apparently made it productive. I've driven by, but I haven't gone in--the new owners installed a locking gate across the driveway.
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>>The image was painted by my BiL, Gordon Dirlam, the artistic spouse of my equally artistic sister Cary, probably sometime in the '80s. They're both fabulously talented, in my estimation. I have no clue about how painters do what they do.
>>I really LIKE the way Gordon rendered the cottonwoods. They were elegant, massive, gnarled, sagging old denizens along the acequia. A few were 15-20 feet in girth.
It looks idyllic, but I couldn't WAIT to get away.

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