On a hillside overlooking Chimayó, Patty Albritton and Angel Reyes tend a two-acre field not with a tractor and hoes, but a horse-drawn plow blade. Albritton’s 8-year-old horse, El Macho, patiently walks the field’s rows in place of modern machinery.
Reyes is from Michoacán, Mexico, where his family still uses horses to tend fields.
“He’s been a rancher all his life,” Albritton said. “We met four years ago.”
Three years ago, Reyes reclaimed the abandoned two-acre field on Albritton’s property.
“After my grandmother died, nobody did anything with this land,” Albritton said, sweeping her arm across the freshly-tilled rows of young sweet peas. “Now we grow sweet peas, onions, chicos and saffron.”
Tractors compact the soil, Reyes said as he neatly weeded row after row of the freshly planted peas Monday with a plow pulled by El Macho.
“Weeding with the horse is faster than with a hoe and it keeps the plants growing better,” Albritton said. “People remark on how few weeds we have here. Angel tells them we don’t grow weeds in Chimayó.”
Albritton’s grandson, Kaeden Albritton, 2, rode horse and plow in turns, pointing out birds and ladybugs as they went.
“People have offered to come out and do this all with a tractor,” Albritton said. “It would take two hours, they said. But he uses the horse only.”
It’s a good year for water, Albritton said. The Cañada Ancha acequia flowed full and fast just uphill of the field.
The couple doesn’t just grow food in the field. With El Macho’s help, they grow art, as well.
Reyes fashions ristras and boquets using corn and saffron, which the couple sells at the Taos Farmer’s Market and the Albuquerque Fairgrounds Flea Market, Albritton said.
The couple set up a makeshift workshop in the house of Albritton’s grandmother, where Reyes assembles the small crosses and boquets of colorful Indian corn, saffron and juniper.
Garlic and chile ristras hang from the workshop walls.
“We grow all our own corn, all the vegetables, the chiles,” Albritton said. “We want our art to be affordable for everybody. We charge $2 or $3 for most of our bouquets.”
The couple uses local native plants from local hills and woods, as well.
“We use cholla skeletons for crosses and juniper and yucca seed pods in bouquets,” Albritton said.
The farm is a living confluence of Michoacán and Chimayó traditions — traditions Albritton and Reyes hope to pass on to Kaeden, along with a healthy dose of business savvy.
“My mother says she is never home because we’d sell her too,” Albritton smiled. “She’s probably right.”