Features

The Museum Hill in Santa Fe offers local and visitors alike many events at the museums and botanical garden for free during Community Day Sept. 32.

This event attracts 2,000 people to Museum Hill, where all museums offer a slew of activities for the entire family. 
Community Day has become one of the capital city’s most popular annual events.

This daylong event is hosted by Museum Hill Partners, which include the: Museum of International Folk Art; Museum of Indian Arts and Culture; International Folk Art Alliance; Museum of Spanish Colonial Art; the National Park Service; Santa Fe Botanical Garden; and the Wheelwright Museum of The American Indian.

“Each year on this special day, we look forward to sharing the unique treasures of Museum Hill as a way of saying ‘thank you’ to the dedicated community of museum lovers for supporting our museums and the beautiful Santa Fe Botanical Garden,” said Department of Cultural Affairs Cabinet Secretary Veronica Gonzales.

Events include:

• 9 a.m.-4 p.m.: Museum of Indian Arts & Culture: Mural Painting on the Plaza and Indigenous Food Informational Booth.

• 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Gerardo’s Andale Food Truck Wheelwright Museum.

Celebrate black bears with the Pajarito Environmental Education Center and Land of Enchantment Wildlife Foundation at the second annual Bear Festival! The festival will be held on Saturday, Aug. 25 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and the nature center’s schedule is packed full of bear-themed programming all week long leading up to it.

The week will kick off on Tuesday, Aug. 21 at a talk called “A Cub’s Life” from U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist Daryl Ratajczak. Ratajczak will discuss the life of a black bear cub from the moment it’s born in a darkened den to its first steps as an independent yearling bear. The talk is free and will begin at 7 p.m. at the nature center.

On Aug. 24, PEEC and LEWF will host the second-ever “Eat Like a Bear Buffet” from 6-8 p.m. Attendees will eat a dinner completely inspired by a black bear’s diet. The menu will feature smoked salmon catered by Pig + Fig, stuffed mushrooms off the grill, ants on a log, a big salad, rose hip tea, sub sandwiches served from a trash can, log cakes, chocolate acorns and more. The night will be fun, educational and delicious! Tickets for the dinner are on sale now at peecnature.org and are $50 for non-members and $40 for PEEC members.

In the waning days of The Black Hole in 2012, hundreds, if not thousands, of people stopped by to purchase what was left of the military surplus store’s inventory during a massive liquidation sale.

The store’s founder, prominent anti-nuclear activist Ed Grothus, died in 2009, and his family no longer had the resources to keep the well-known store and institution to anti-nuclear activity in New Mexico open.

As visitors came to purchase or take away the many pieces of castoff equipment from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, one visitor came to give something back to the store that served as a rallying point for those against nuclear warfare and those that weren’t afraid to put the activities going on at the Los Alamos National Laboratory under a microscope.

Janire Najera, a photographer and visual artist who lives in the United Kingdom, dropped by at first because she was curious.

“I was in New Mexico preparing for another project which entailed a month long road trip following the Old Spanish Trail from Santa Fe to Los Angeles when a friend shared with me a local newspaper article about the liquidation sale of The Black Hole,” Najera said.

Registration for the New Mexico Master Gardeners’ State Conference will be closing soon. 

The conference is open to the public and will be held in Albuquerque Aug. 31 to Sept. 2 at the Marriott Pyramid Hotel. Cost is $150 and registration is online at nmmgcon2018.org.  

The theme is “sustainability,” or “Don’t fight Mother Nature – work with her.”

Topics will include edible landscapes, waterwise growing for home gardeners, four-season gardening for pollinators, green roofs, sustainability lessons learned from ancient pueblos, composting and even learning how to develop your own vegetable, herb and flower varieties.

Speakers include well-recognized experts such as author Judith Phillips, Landscape Architect Baker Morrow, sustainability consultant Jeff Goebel and others. 

“We have designed this conference in the hopes of providing our attendees with new tools for their gardening toolkit, information on the latest sustainability trends and issues and some hands-on workshops to sharpen skills,” said conference co-chair Sam Thompson. “If you have a serious interest in southwest gardening, this is the place to be.” 

Summer fun continues at Pajarito Mountain with more events, a downhill Enduro race, live music, and hiking!

On Aug. 23, Pajarito is hosting Dog Days of Summer from 4 p.m. to dusk. 

Pajarito Mountain will offer lift-served mountain biking and hiking from 4-7 p.m., beer from Bathtub Row Brewing from 5-8 p.m., and live music from Eddie and the Nomads from 6-8 p.m.  

Celebrate Equinox Day from 4-7 p.m. Sept. 20 with more lift-served mountain biking and hiking, beer from Bathtub Row Brewing, and live music. 

Receive discounted lift tickets and rentals for both of these events, including $15 uplift tickets and $50 rentals that are available for purchase in the ticket office. 

Pajarito will host the Party at Paja Enduro Sept. 8, with a lift-accessed Enduro mountain bike race hosted by Team Trail Party.  Gravity riders will enjoy this 100-percent lift-accessed Enduro race with four to five stages. 

In addition to these events, Pajarito is open for bike and hike uplifts every Saturday and Sunday through Oct. 28.

Bonnie is a 5-year-old girl from Rio Rancho who needs a home. The German Shepherd and Australian Cattle Dog mix was transferred to Los Alamos County Animal Shelter about a week ago. She is very sweet and loves all kinds of people.

Bonnie is spayed but she is a little overweight and would fit perfectly in a home that loves exercise.

House training, leash training and obedience commands have all been taught to Bonnie already. She loves car rides and hikes as long as she can go her own pace.

If you are interested in adopting this sweet dog or would like more information, the shelter can be reached at 505-662-8179.

This week, I would like to suggest that you practice getting up a little earlier, if you have kids attending school next week. It is always a harsh reality to all involved in the process.

If you back up the going to bed time and make the time to rise earlier too, it will make the first few days much less harsh. It is the reason that I am always happy that school starts on a Thursday.

Those two days of intensity really help to assist in the getting back in a routine.

I think as parents and caregivers, we forget that it is a mad dash from the alarm going off to heading out the door. It helps if we plan ahead and help our children to plan ahead, too. Think about easy things to pre-package the night before and leave items in a row and easily accessible to make it easier on everybody, especially of you require kids to make their own lunch.

This will be my last, first day back to school and I still want to make sure it is a positive start. Life is too short to be grumbling about anything on such a great day. You would feel the EXACT same way as the kids if you have 10 weeks off and had to go back to work.

Once again, The Los Alamos Opera Guild of The Guilds of The Santa Fe Opera, Inc. is joining Bandelier National Monument to present Opera on the Rocks Sept. 15.

The performance returns this year with a concert staging of scenes from several popular operas.

The New Mexico Performing Arts Society will present selections from Gounod’s “Faust,” Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier,” Johann Strauss, Jr.’s “The Gypsy Baron” and Offenbach’s “Barcarolle,” all selections from their sold-out performances in Santa Fe.

The New Mexico Performing Arts Society was founded to promote the work of New Mexico-based professional musicians and features several singers who have already delighted audiences at past Opera on the Rocks performances; Andre

Garcia-Nuthmann and Jennifer Perez will be welcomed back. Artistic Director Franz Vote brings to Santa Fe many years of international experience, including conducting at Bayreuth and the Metropolitan Opera. Artist information may be found at NMPAS.org.

Opera on the Rocks is an informal, family-oriented introduction to the world of opera, set in the beautiful, rustic amphitheater at Bandelier’s Juniper Campground.

I like the word “penultimate.” It’s actually one of my favorite words because it’s not too big and is a fun word to say.

And it has a meaning that makes perfect sense, not one you have to go fishing for a reason to understand it with wrinkled brow after you’ve heard it used in a sentence.

It simply means next to the last.

It’s a good word, kind of a blue-collar type, one that can be used to “dress up” a sentence without making it look too pretentious.

Like I said, just a fun word to use.

Still, there are some sad connotations in which the word “penultimate” can be used. Saturday was one of them.

Saturday I attended the penultimate date of the first-Saturday-of-the-month arts and crafts festival at the White Rock Visitors Center. The final date is Sept. 1.

It’s sad because of all the fun I had at the next-to-the-last event in White Rock.

Even though there were less than 10 tents set up with artisans showing and selling their wares on the grass at the Visitors Center, the ones in attendance were very friendly and enjoyed talking about their crafts to potential customers whether they walked away with a purchase or not.