Red Hatters Tour New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum

Saturday, June 9, 2018

Members of the Alamogordo, New Mexico Roadrunner Chapter of the Red Hat Society took a day trip to Las Cruces, New Mexico to tour the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum. They were also hosting a Health and Fitness Fair in the building that day.

The first exhibit was amazing! Women from several states around New Mexico including Texas, Colorado and Arizona created art work depicting seed packets. This was all done under the auspices of Studio Art Quilt Association of New Mexico. The pictures do not truly depict the beauty of these works of art, but do hope you will enjoy them anyway.

The museum really takes one back to the "good ole days". Definitely imbued with nostalgia from the old cars and New Mexico license plate collection to the replica of a General Store and a section on simply washing clothes.

When we finished going through the museum, we were treated to a ride around the farm to see the collection of old farming machines, blacksmith shop and live cattle.

Lunch was enjoyed at Santorini's Authentic Mediterranean Cuisine Restaurant. Not only do they serve Greek food, something I've missed for a long time, but they also prepare dishes of Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus origins. The atmosphere is more college kid oriented, but the food is delicious. They are located at 1001 E. University Avenue, Ste E3 in Las Cruces and they are open Monday through Saturday from 11:00am to 10:00pm, phone 575-521-9270. They do have take-out as well.

This adorable owl greeted us as we entered

"Chuck's Berries" created by Lynn Rogers, Rio Rancho, New Mexico

"Zebra Striped Tomatoes" by Michelle Jackson of Albuquerque, New Mexico,  "Moss Forget Me Not" by Nancy J. Steidle of Albuquerque, New Mexico and "Fiesta Corn" by Denise Seavey of Santa Fe, New Mexico

"Bull's Eye Beet" created by Michelle Jackson of Albuquerque, New Mexico

"Hummingbird Buffet" (Foxglove) created by Brenda Williams from Bernalillo, New Mexico. The photo doesn't show it, but these flowers are three-dimensional, as are most of the other seed packet creations in this exhibit.

"Zebra Lily" created by Betty Busby of Albuquerque, New Mexico

"Moonflower" created by Cynthia Fowler of Santa Fe, New Mexico

"Indian Paintbrush" created by Jean C. R. Grimes of Wolfforth, Texas

Alice Evans and Margie Purcella

Lu Mattson and Trudy Reese

Gail Swineford enjoying "World Peas" by Frances O. Murphy, Surprise, Arizona

Carla Kerr pointing to "Five Alarm Sunflower" by Sue Szajer of Santa Fe, New Mexico and "Tangleweed" behind Carla by Jean C.R. Grimes of Wolfforth, Texas

As you can see, there were just so many of these and I didn't take time to photograph all of them. What a marvelous show of talent!

A lovely wedding dress of days gone by made of wool and silk

A lady's bedroom

This machine is a dowel maker. Dowels were used to put furniture together before nails were invented.

I thought sure this was a Singer, but on closer observation discovered it was a Western Electric sewing machine actually made by the National Sewing Machine Company of Belvedere, Illinois, which put Western Electric decals on one of their models. The electric motor in it was made by Western Electric but the machine disappeared from the market by 1918. Western Electric became the manufacturers and supply unit of the Bell Telephone System.

This was the description shown at the museum

This is an inside shot of an Indian home

Bread Oven

A room in a typical adobe home. Note the baby in the bed hung by ropes.

The wagon building section, quite primitive, but functional

The collection of 100 Years of New Mexico License Plates

A close-up of the some of the very first license plates issued from 1912 on.

We had all scattered through the museum and I ran into Gail and Trudy

This is a Dempster Vaneless Windmill

Click on the photo to make it larger and it will tell you more about this particular windmill.

I am almost 80 years old and this corner of the museum sure brought back memories!

Remember these refrigerators and the toaster on the stove?

A horse-drawn milk wagon

A section of the "General Store" that even had hats, a sewing machine (not a Singer) and dry goods

Another section of the "General Store" to enjoy

The United States Post Office

Remember these little mail boxes?

Occasionally, they hold rodeos here and they bake in that Indian oven (we were told that the inside of it is melted silica and looks just like glass) and the barbecue pit is to the left and they left the adobe brick in it's natural state so people can see what it looks like before it's plastered over. We are now in a nice little cart taking a tour of the outside.

They have a huge collection of antique farm and ranch implements and these are seeders

This all has to do with baling hay, but I didn't quite understand how it all went together!

This is a cow whose horns grew out in a strange way and they just let them grow to see what would happen.

This is a bull that is a crossbreed between a Longhorn and a Brahma. He was NOT friendly when I took his picture and began immediately pawing at the dirt trying to throw it on me!

Our last stop, the Blacksmith Shop. He was a lovely gentleman. All of the people who work here on the property are volunteers and very informative and friendly.

We left there and drove to the restaurant where we thoroughly enjoyed our meal. I had lamb kabobs and they were perfect. I got so into eating that I didn't take another picture, but we all had a grand time.

This is all I have to say for now.