Ardovino's Desert Crossing
Wouldn’t you know it, the day after I left for a family celebration in El Paso, Texas was the day of the second scheduled meeting of the Eastern Shore Beekeepers Guild. Per some previous posts in “Odds and Ends”, I had definitely been looking forward to going to that meeting but the occasion of my mother’s 90th birthday was not to be missed and so off to Texas we went, bee guild or no bee guild.
While there, in between various family dinners and such, my husband and I did have a little time to explore the areas surrounding El Paso, which in general are very desert- like unless there is some source of irrigation. Early one Saturday morning we drove out to Ardovino’s Desert Crossing ( http://www.ardovinos.com ), in Sunland Park, New Mexico, just across the Texas-New Mexico border . Ardovino’s, which is now a lovely restaurant, is located in what is still pretty much in the middle of nowhere on what was an old cattle ranch in an arid part of the state. Interestingly, on Saturday mornings from May through October, they sponsor a Farmer’s Market and we were going to that week’s Farmer’s Market to see what local produce and artisan products were being offered there. (http://www.ardovinos.com/farmersmarket.html )
Breakfast At The Coffee Stream
Before trekking around we decided to have breakfast– an egg and Applewood bacon burrito topped with spicy homemade salsa and a zucchini-carrot muffin, both delicious offerings from the Coffee Stream trailer, eaten under a large umbrella on their patio which overlooks the market tents and wagons. From there it was off to the produce tents where gorgeous baskets of local jalapenos, green chilies, wreaths of dried red chilies, cactus “apples”, avacados and bunches of sunflowers were interspersed with the more traditional cantaloupes, corn, squash and peaches. Local artisans offered breads, lovely soaps, herbs, shirts made from smooth local cotton, handmade baskets, paintings , etc. I love Farmer’s Markets and it’s always fun to go to them in different parts of the country to see the local specialties being offered. This one was no exception.
In addition to several small watercolors of the Franklin Mountains which surround El Paso, we bought some chipotle spiced pecans, dried red chilies from Hatch, NM ( supposedly the chili capital of the US, www.hatchchilifest.com ), roasted pinion nuts and spicy salsas to take home plus lots of homemade cinnamon rolls and three large cantaloupes, smelling as sweet as honey, for a family breakfast Sunday morning. My daughter got some very colorful sunflowers from two bashful kids helping out in their Mom’s garden booth. And speaking of honey and flowers, which bring me full circle to bees, there were also two vendors whose wares included local honey and we spent a little time talking about their bees. It seems that even in such an arid part of the country there are bees on duty, doing their thing, making smooth, sweet honey from local flowering plants, including cactus flowers, etc. (I would have found it difficult to comprehend how bees could search out the relatively few flowers available in those parts if I had not just read an interesting article in Science Daily ( www.sciencedaily.com) indicating that scientists are so impressed with the navigation and flower recognition skills of bees that they have built an artificial “bee eye” to help them better understand how these abilities are aided by bees’ unique vision skills, hoping that this information will help science improve navigational strategies for mobile robots.)
Mom's Two Helpers
I would say that the long and short of bee-ing near the desert is that the bees on the Texas-New Mexico border definitely have darn good eyes and are out there navigating around, recognizing flowers and making some top grade honey !!