Happy Winter, a Year in Review
2025
We are grateful for everyone who visited the land, attending monthly full-moon dances, virtual heart circles, wood runs, work parties, Beltane's Builders Ball, Surprise Solstice, the Monsoon Gathering, and all the wonderful moments in-between.
We made some major progress on our newest housing project started in 2020 now affectionately called Drum House. It is named in honor of Steve Craven known to many as Drum. He was a long time supporter of the Sanctuary who died in December 2017. In his passing, he left us a Legacy of his estate which brought about all these new changes. It paid for nearly everything for this new house. It also paid for a large majorty of the new 'Walipini' blueGreenhouse still under construction.
In Drum House, we have about half the eaves blocked, and the first loft space has been built thanks to 2 wonderful carpenter / builders who came back for visits to help out on the building.
We need to finish the eaves blocking, finish installing the east doors, and seal the building completely. Designs for the stairway and shared landing between lofts have begun to be drafted to finalize our needs. We do have all materials on hand to complete the exterior siding & trim, and tongue & groove for the interior ceiling and walls. If you're interested in helping us work on this in 2026, please contact us.
The exterior deck has a seed-fund of $600, and we will need quite a bit more funding.
Interior lofts, stairway, wood stove or furnace, cabinets, & flooring finishes also need funding.
-
Bluegreenhouse needs windows & doors installed, walls installed, & a small host of other things inside.
Legacy Upgrades
To finish off the Legacy left to us by Drum, we installed new solar systems increasing our abilities across the land at least 2000%. (that's no joke!) Last fall, power would fail 1 hour after sunset without generators running all night - the dead power system had killed the previous fridge and freezer. We had to ensure the needs of the Sanctuary could be met for the forseeable future.
NOW, we no longer use gasoline generators for main power or pumping water from our well. The new systems are easily upgradeable when we can afford more 48v LiFePO (Lithium Iron Phosphate) batteries & additional inverters as our needs grow beyond our new 6000 watt output. We purchased a new back-up generator which is dual-fuel gas or propane. We also purchased new refrigerator/freezer & gas-stove appliances for the kitchen.
Trenchers & the Water Upgrades
To jumpstart our short term water safety goals to install a new water line into the Main house, a gracious friend of the Sanctuary donated some jackhammer rentals, & ....
We all went to jackhammering through the moon garden one morning this fall... Beneath the inch or two of top soil in the Moon Garde, exists unknown depths of shale sandstone layers. - Some thin, some very thick. This roughly 100' long trench will be used to bury new water lines from the 2500 gallon cistern (purchased in 2020 with a grant from Seeding Sovereignty). The new cistern will all have an overflow & check valve connection to the old 1500 gallon cistern & existing network connecting all the garden spigots across the land.
Our Programs
We sponsored & received a grant of $90,450 from the Outdoor Recreational Division of the Economic Development Department of New Mexico to build & maintain a new recreational, educational arts & sculpture trail to be built connecting the Ancient Way to El Morro National Monument. Work has begun & this project will be completed by December 2026. More information to be posted as possible.
Save the Heart
We started some real talk about a few of our Heritage Adobe structures during our Annual gathering & public Save the Heart House meeting this August. All Adobe buildings are in dire need of some serious TLC. The main house SW entrance is literally melting & crumbling & there's only so much a bandaid could do at this point. We have a temporary roof being built to hopefully stem any further damage this winter. In the works are some serious Adobe Restoration & Finishing workshops for 2026.