Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Baseball, Burgers & the Blues

I love summer weekends in Taos. (actually, I love weekends year round).   This past weekend was no exception.  Saturdays in summer mean starting the day at the Taos Farmers' Market.  Our growing season starts much later than California's, so we are just now getting lots of spring onions, garlic, greens, radishes and turnips.  I scored and got a huge bag of garlic scapes for $1.00.  I don't think scapes are looked at as a rare item here.  In Napa I would have paid a small fortune for them. (What is a scape?  Read all about them, plus get some delicious recipes by clicking here)

Saturday night we went to a concert at this wonderful bar (lounge) called the Midtown Market and Lounge located in Arroyo Hondo, a town located just 12 miles north of Taos. The Midtown describes their venue this way:
We are a locally-owned convenience market and lounge. Our market offers beer, package liquor, wine, snacks, grocery and household items. Our lounge offers a full-bar, three pool tables, and a large dance floor. We also have three flat-screen televisions for catching the big game.

Lightin' Malcolm
Does that not sound like the perfect place to hang out on a casual Saturday night?  This past Saturday, Lightnin' Malcolm was performing.  Lightnin' is this amazing Blues guitarist/vocalist from North Mississippi with a sound described as "infusing soul, reggae, hip hop and rock into his hill country sound."  Take a listen via this YouTube video.




We had a rocking good time at the Midtown.

watching the game with taos mountain in the background...what a view!

Sunday brought church, Father's Day brunch and then we attended a baseball game.  We watched our local pro team, the Taos Blizzard. The Blizzard are part of the Pecos League, an independent professional baseball league which operates throughout New Mexico, West Texas and Southern Colorado.  If you are a baseball fan you have probably heard about Triple A, Double A and Single A teams affiliated with Major League teams.  The Blizzard are considered a  "Rookie team", not affiliated with the Major Leagues.  Players here hope to be "discovered" and promoted to a team in a higher division. Since 2010, the Pecos League has promoted 147 players.  Not bad guys....


This is the first year for Taos' team.  What a blast to attend these games.  They play at the local high school's field, the crowds are quite small...and everyone knows everyone else in the stands as we are a very small town. The field does not have lights so all games are played in the afternoon,  the kids from Taos High School Culinary Arts Program barbecue hamburgers and hot dogs (this being Taos, the hamburgers come with green chile!), the beer is Santa Fe Brewing Company...New Mexico's oldest microbrewery.... and they pass the hat each time one of our players hits a home run with the proceeds going to that player.  Rookie League players earn tiny salaries...they stay in "foster family" homes during the season....so the home run cash really comes in handy.  Cool motivator!



Baseball, Brews, Burgers, Brunch, Blues....What a perfect weekend! Hope all the Dad's out there had a wonderful Father's Day. Now I cannot wait to tell you about our hike today in Taos Ski Valley, the Thursday night concerts in the Plaza, the progress (or lack thereof) with the restoration of the ruin, our garden, ripe summer produce at the Farmer's Market, the Mumford and Sons recap, the Pow Wow at the Pueblo, and on and on and on...summer in Taos is magical.  I have a lot of blogging to do.


my best,
diane
June 19 , 2013

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Monday, June 17, 2013

Taos Peace

Peace, Joy, Happiness, Serenity, Home....I feel all this and more after moving to Taos, New Mexico.  If the mountain calls, listen.



(thank you Gigi)

my best,
diane
June 17 , 2013

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Thursday, June 6, 2013

Mumford & Sons in Taos! (part 1)

courtesy mumford & sons website

What an exciting day for our tiny town of Taos! The biggest musical event ever held here started this afternoon.  Mumford and Sons is playing as part of their “Summer Stampede Tour.”  8000 people will attend and only 600 are from Taos County. That means 7400 tourists, plus the usual couple thousand for a summer weekend! Taos' population is only 5200 so we could have triple the usual number of people.  The town has been planning for this unexpected event (we were just added to the tour in April)  for months.  The stage alone is the largest ever in Northern New Mexico.

mumford & sons stage (photo taos solar music festival)
So far, so good.  The town planned a festival for this afternoon consisting of food booths, crafts, cold water, a beer garden (thank you Taos Mesa Brewing), and tourist necessities such as hats, sunscreen and information.  We just returned home from wandering and loved seeing the town prepped for the event.  Flowers planted, weeds pulled, "Welcome to Taos" signs, and, best of all, bands playing outdoors all over town.  My favorite story which reflects the cool aspect of living in a small town; there are people all over Taos with handmade badges which say " Hello, I am from Taos. Can I help you with anything or answer any questions?" How cool is that for all the Mumford tourists? 

                                                                  "I Will Wait" live

Happily I am one of the local 600 attending the concert!  I cannot wait.  The concert starts at 7:00 pm with two opening acts, Michael Kiwanuka and Mystery Jets.  I will post again tomorrow with a recap of the actual event and some thoughts regarding Taos' reaction to such a huge event.  OK...off to Kit Carson Park for Mumford & Sons.

my best,
diane
June 6, 2013

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We now have a twitter account @dianeintaos. Please follow and I will follow back! Would love to get to know you on Facebook, Twitter and through your comments on this blog.