My Home in Ojo Sarco

Back around 1990 I moved from Santa Fe, New Mexico to a small mountain village about 45 minutes north, called Ojo Sarco. This was back when I still had enough money to buy a house, and below is the one I bought and lived in for two years. If you click on the photo to view it larger, you can just make out my red chow chow, Bebert, standing by the side of the house. And the dark shadow by the corner of the house is my black chow, Baba, peeking out.


This was an old house built in the traditional local style out of adobe, and the rear room had a viga (ceiling beam) that had the date 1906 carved into it. The back room, which I used as an art studio, also had a bit of an odor to it, as one of the previous occupants had housed goats in it!

Ojo Sarco is one of the villages off of what is known as 'The High Road to Taos'. This area is described as follows on about.com: "North of Santa Fe, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains soar, their 13,000-foot (4,000-meter) peaks punctuating the horizon. The Taos High Road passes through isolated mountain towns that retain the atmosphere of early Spanish settlers who came here four centuries ago."

This was a lovely place to live, with mostly friendly people, although the postmaster in the tiny little post office and gas station was a grumpy fellow who did NOT approve of the colorful drawings and stickers I put on my outgoing mail. In order to try to get me to take a more serious approach to mail, as he did, he began charging me extra postage for any mail I sent that had artwork of any kind on it. I indulged him and happily paid the extra pennies as my penance for unauthorized creativity.