When I dis­cov­ered this realm it was as if I’d been called; as if every­thing about it was a dream dreamt but only sub­con­sciously remem­bered. I longed to live and learn and grow here, and just plain absorb the wis­dom that emanates from every cliff and crag.

The Gal­lina moun­tain val­ley is a unique pocket of fer­til­ity amid the semi-desert ter­rain of most of New Mex­ico. It’s a haven that used to sup­ply its peo­ple their every need, and still does to a degree—to a greater degree if the For­est Rangers don’t catch you.

There are rich, beau­ti­ful National Forests and BLM lands every­where, as through­out the state. Yet rural res­i­dents of New Mex­ico usu­ally exist at below poverty level, when just a few gen­er­a­tions ago, every need was sup­plied by the land, and hard work.

Still, the Gal­lina val­ley is blessed with sev­eral pre­cious river waters that sluice the vil­lage in flow­ing ace­quias (a-say-kias), sus­tain­ing the ver­dant rolling hills and fields of the village.

Our niche in the Gal­lina moun­tain val­ley of north­ern New Mex­ico is a life apart, lit­er­ally. The clos­est Wal-Mart’s is an hour and a half drive one-way. That’s also our clos­est phar­macy. A two-hour drive will get you to the clos­est decent hos­pi­tal or doc­tor, or Sears or fur­ni­ture store, or photo devel­oper or movie the­atre. One bank serves a cir­cum­fer­ence of 200 miles.

There are no phone com­pa­nies, Hobby Lobby’s or drive through fast-food restau­rants in Gal­lina and the sur­round­ing vil­lages. In fact, there are only two places of busi­ness in these vil­lages. But there is no lack of churches and liquor stores.

Many of us women make our own bar­beque and spaghetti sauce and the like, and can it along with wild orchard fruits and our veg­gies. I’ve never tasted a sweeter fruit than the cherry-sized wild plums and apples in the vil­lage, or the local choke cherry jelly. The wild aspara­gus fields are a closely guarded treasure.

Res­i­dents don’t run down to the store or drive-through to grab some­thing for sup­per. Almost daily the beans are pressure-cooking and the red or green chili already on the table beside the fresh, steam­ing tortillas.

Most cook­ing is done from scratch. One day I ran out of the bread­crumbs I had dried to make stuff­ing for a wild turkey din­ner and a friend sent me a sack she had on hand. Not only had she dried them her­self, but began with home­made rolls she makes every week. Her dried home­made bread­crumbs made the most fla­vor­ful and the best tex­ture of any dress­ing I’ve ever made.

Fresh goat milk is abun­dant, from which many still make cheese and but­ter. Most of us kill and pluck our own fowl, our arms blood­ied help­ing our fam­i­lies butcher goats, hogs, cow, deer, and elk. We slice the fat layer from the out­side of the hogs for chichar­rone, ren­der­ing our own lard when we fry it. We trea­sure the heart and liver, some even sav­ing the hides for tanning.

We use every­thing pos­si­ble. If you see a deer or elk antler hat rack in someone’s home, they didn’t order it from a Cabalas cat­a­logue, they sal­vaged it from their source of meat. We build adobe hornos and har­vest corn for dry­ing in them to make chicos, along with veg­eta­bles to pre­serve for win­ter, and bake the most deli­cious bread. And the blood from hog butcher­ing makes the tra­di­tional mor­cilla, which means black (blood) sausage.

Hid­den in these moun­tains are the tough­est, ten­der­est, most gen­er­ous and knowl­edge­able women I’ve ever known, though eco­nom­i­cally depressed. Life is hard for every­one. The unem­ploy­ment rate is close to ninety percent.

The high­est pay­ing jobs are log­ging, which is dan­ger­ous, sea­sonal and only for the very healthy and young. Even mar­ried men must travel far and wide to find log­ging jobs. Some are lucky enough to be ranch­ers, hav­ing fam­ily land passed down for gen­er­a­tions. And even for them life is full of hard work to meet daily needs that city folk take for granted.

As in day’s of old, the spring, sum­mer and autumn is made up of scur­ry­ing to pre­pare for win­ter. Not only is the income level depressed, there are none of the con­ve­niences that 95% of Amer­i­cans take for granted. Some of us get snowed in for weeks at a time. Even if you can get to the high­ways, they are too iced over to get to the cities.

Flag­stone and gravel, pro­vided by Mother Earth, is har­vested for use. Peo­ple like us can replace the rot­ted wood skirt­ing of our cab­ins and floors with endur­ing flag­stone with­out cash, but at the price of sweat and know-how. Gravel to tame mud, and moss-rock flag­stone for dura­bil­ity and beauty, are for the tak­ing, if you know where to find it.

Because of low-income and high unem­ploy­ment rates, every­one is a jack-of-all-trades. Most can’t afford to pay for ser­vices. We freely help each other with every­thing from build­ing a home, plumb­ing, masonry work, roof­ing, auto mechanic­ing, errands, gar­den­ing, butcher­ing and pack­ag­ing, and gath­er­ing fire­wood, because for most that is the only source of heat.

Dur­ing mon­soon sea­son, when weather is its dampest, we go mush­room­ing. I’ve picked the most deli­cious field mush­rooms, not to men­tion the golden and white chantrels, which are gourmet ingre­di­ents in fine restau­rants. With these fleshy field fungi I’ve sautéed bag­fuls in but­ter and gar­lic, com­posed sim­mer­ing sym­phonies of mush­room onion soup unsur­passed any­where, and dried them for win­ter use

Many lost skills are in con­stant use here, like doc­tor­ing the ill. Each year I go dig­ging Osha root with friends to get us through the flu sea­son with all its infec­tions and res­pi­ra­tory prob­lems. And we har­vest many other wild herbs for med­i­c­i­nal rea­sons. I’ve learned of onion tea, vine­gar and alum rinses for heal­ing strep throat and innu­mer­able other cures.

We har­vest wild aspara­gus and rasp­berry patches. We hunt and butcher (you’ll never taste more ten­der meat, because the fathers have taught the sons how to skin, clean, and cut the grain, remov­ing the ten­dons.) It’s time con­sum­ing, but work & time is how we sur­vive. Time isn’t money here; it’s survival.

Yet, with all the poverty, I’ve never lived among such a rich­ness of spirit, love and reach­ing out. I’ve learned that lack of money leads to a wealth of possibilities.

Most fam­i­lies have been here for gen­er­a­tions. We gather at har­vest and butcher­ing time to share the work­load and the bounty. And the fam­i­lies are closer than most, not only when help is needed, but when it’s time to relax or cel­e­brate. Fam­i­lies are in daily con­tact from the youngest to the old­est. Com­mu­nity life lit­er­ally revolves around the fam­ily unit.

The ground and the for­est feed us and sup­ply many of our needs. You may never see cash change hands. This is a coun­try where beer and fire­wood is the legal ten­der. And you will never see any­one, not a stranger hitch­hik­ing through or the poor­est home­less, go hun­gry or with­out a roof over their heads.

Peo­ple work hard for day-to-day needs such as heat and food and shel­ter, but when our labor isn’t enough, the heart of a neigh­bor is. When tragedy strikes a local fam­ily, you’ll see those who some­times have even less than the vic­tims, rise up and orga­nize ben­e­fits to raise funds.

This is a land where peo­ple never take off their boots, except to retire to bed at night, because the out­doors is their work­place. A land where peo­ple respect the elderly, instead of fir­ing them a year before they are eli­gi­ble for full retire­ment. The young and healthy are pre­oc­cu­pied with secur­ing a good life for their fam­i­lies and rely heav­ily on, and go often to our elders for the earthy wis­dom that is the only means of sur­vival in these parts.

There might not be much time or energy left over for for­mal edu­ca­tion. Many don’t have the lux­ury of plumb­ing or elec­tric­ity, much less com­put­ers, tele­vi­sion or radio. Life being such, I have never met, even in metrop­o­lises, as many well-read peo­ple. We dis­cuss every­thing from quan­tum physics to reli­gion to pop-psychology to the works of Shake­speare or John Stein­beck; or debate who is a bet­ter nov­el­ist, Louis L’Amour or Zane Grey, or which comic book hero has the worst vulnerability.

Knowl­edge and wis­dom are not so much sought after as it is obtained through daily life. As any­where, you may obtain an edu­ca­tion if you keep your mouth shut and your ears and mind open. A friend took me to the for­est one day. He wanted to scout out some new hunt­ing areas. I accom­pa­nied him as we drove through the dusk and watched him closely. When­ever he tensed or became alert I noticed a pun­gent, musky odor. After awhile I told him what I smelled. I learned that this is the odor of male elk.

I had already dis­cov­ered that, wher­ever I found wild mush­rooms, an earthy dank­ness wafted in the air. I hunt mush­rooms through my olfac­tory senses more than by sight. Wis­dom in the wilder­ness pen­e­trates not just the log­i­cal mind, but every sense God gifted us with. There is a rea­son that when the locals want you to really hear what they’re say­ing, they will tell you, “Watch this,” instead of “Lis­ten to this.”

Wis­dom resides every­where here, though in unex­pected forms. Wis­dom comes in over­alls and cow­boy boots, be it male or female. You may find it in the trail of the mule deer, or the height and den­sity of the clouds. No Doppler radar is needed to pre­dict what to expect from the heav­ens today, tomor­row, or even next winter.

The beauty of the moun­tains that sur­round us in all their rich­ness and harsh­ness also shapes the atti­tude of the peo­ple, who may at first appear hard-bitten by the ruth­less bounty of our surroundings.

Though day-to-day sur­vival takes most of our time and energy, life throws its curves here as else­where. We face debil­i­tat­ing dis­ease, chronic ill­ness, death, taxes, and severe losses too. Yet, unlike the mil­lions rely­ing on med­ica­tions for depres­sion, and the fright­en­ing rate of sui­cide, and the ris­ing frus­tra­tion lead­ing to crime, we face every twist of life and fate with unfal­ter­ing hope.

Liv­ing so close to the bru­tal cycle of nature teaches even the stu­pid or unwill­ing to be thank­ful just to be alive. But the wise among us gather so much more from our daily brushes with the Almighty. And that strength of char­ac­ter and resilience is evi­dent, from the small­ness of daily life to the hor­rors of loss, in our abil­ity to rise each day, and smile, and learn, and love those around us, and thank God for it.

Life may be harsh here but there’s nowhere else we’d rather be. And when life takes some of us away to wars or the cities to pro­vide for our fam­i­lies, many can’t help return­ing here to the purity of sim­plic­ity and the sweat of the brow. The rest of us just stay put and thank God for another day in paradise.