Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Foreword by Walt Willey

Drawing by Walt Willey

It’s not my fault.  Really it isn’t.  Maybe you can blame Laura Ingalls or the quaint village outside Geneva, Switzerland where Marie spent her formative years, but you can’t blame me and Marie will tell you the same thing herself.

It wasn’t my intention to banish my wife to a mesa top a couple thousand miles away to tend the flock, bed and board strangers, raise children by herself, battle the elements, and live the life of a frontier woman.

But I helped.  I admit to that much.

In the early ‘90’s, Marie and I began visiting the Southwest in general and Santa Fe in particular and we fell in love.  The days with their endless blue sky, the star-strewn nights, the red rocks, and the pervasive spirituality all tugged at us until we finally bought a house out in Eldorado, a sub-division of Santa Fe.  We visited often and soon installed my mother, sister, and nephew.  Before long, we got married and pregnant and were ready to find new digs.

“How about a property that I could turn into a bed and breakfast?”  Marie asked one day.  “A nice little farm?  I could have a garden, a few chickens, maybe a milk cow?”

“Are you serious?” I asked, knowing full well she was.  I had been hearing her refer to the “Little House” books for years, even been forced to watch a couple of episodes of the television show, but I truly wasn’t  prepared for the actuality that she might want to live it.

“Honey, we can’t do that.” I reasoned.  “Someone would have to be out here all the time, especially at first.  We’re not farmers.  We’re not innkeepers.  How can we possibly do it?”  It was meant to be a rhetorical question.

But Marie had the answers; well considered, well researched, well defended.  She had stood by me through good and not so good and really bad times, always putting herself second.  I loved her and couldn’t say no.  Besides, the notion was actually starting to make sense. God help me.

“Okay, let’s look at some places” I said, and off we went.  An old rundown farm here, a beautifully appointed horse property there and then, finally, the Crystal Mesa Farm.  We both loved it from the start and the choice held up under all the scrutiny and devil’s advocacy we could muster.  Offers were bounced back and forth, a price decided upon, papers signed.  It was ours, for better or worse.

It has been both, as you shall read. It is seventeen years later and Marie, with some help from her mother and father, our son and daughter, some good friends here and there, and even me - her mostly absent husband - has made a huge success of the Crystal Mesa Farm Bed & Breakfast. 

Plumping pillows and filling bellies, serving happily as livestock midwife and ranch foreman and hostess and tour guide and doting mother and devoted wife have all become as natural to her as breathing.  She is remarkable by anyone’s standards, but she is without peer as far as I’m concerned. 

And once you read her travails and taste her recipes, I know you’ll agree.

1 comment:

  1. What a lovely story about how CMF came to be the enchanting place it is. My husband's warning to Marie, on our first visit--"Marie, my wife is a body snatcher and wants your life!" That's before he even knew Walt was the not so ugly hubby! Anyway, we ended up moving to Santa Fe and Marie and CMF were definitely a catalyst for our major lifestyle change.

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