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Couple rooted in Espanola Valley watches farming tradition fadeSAN PEDRO, N.M. (AP)--Arm in arm, Rosendo and Ida Garcia, both 82, stroll across their 8-acre farm in this Northern New Mexico village. Their apple and pear trees are leafless and dormant now. The stubbled alfalfa field sleeps in the cold January afternoon. A mile west, the Rio Grande flows on its long, often interrupted journey to the Gulf of Mexico. Come spring, Rosendo will be back working in the fields at this farm and another 17-acre plot he owns nearby. He'll irrigate off the nearby Ortega Ditch, which is fed by water from the Santa Cruz Reservoir in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Rosendo will cut, row, rake and bale the hay, though he no longer stacks it like he once did. "I'm too old. I hire laborers to stack the hay now," he says. Yet he chooses to keep farming, long after his friends have stopped. "The guys around me who are my age tell me I'm crazy to still do this at my age," he says. "But I enjoy it. So does my wife. We like farming and gardening." Ida spends the summers and autumns working a small garden patch and harvesting fruit. She cans pears, apples and tomatoes. In her younger days, she helped Rosendo plant dozens of pear and apple trees. She drove a tractor down the lines of alfalfa bales each summer while he stacked them. She cut and carried firewood for years, until age finally made her give in and buy a modern gas insert for the fireplace. The stuccoed house they built together decades ago sits to one side of the farm. Inside, the walls are covered with pictures of their three children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. On shelves are several photos of Rosendo as a young and handsome dark-haired man in uniform. The stories behind that uniform, the couple's long family history in this valley and the water waiting to flow in their fields create a living diary of New Mexico's past and future. Ida and Rosendo's families date back several generations in northern New Mexico. Ida and Rosendo are children of the Great Depression, although the worldwide slowdown had little impact on most northern New Mexicans, who were already cash poor when the nation's economic collapse began. What they had was land, water and the ability to grow their own food. Rosendo grew up farming in a village called Guachupangue near Santa Clara Pueblo. He and his brothers farmed and raised cattle there and in nearby Garcia Canyon. In 1938, Rosendo's father and uncle bought 60 acres of farmland across the Rio Grande in San Pedro and moved their families there. Five years later, at 18, Rosendo was drafted and joined the U.S. Air Force. Ida's family farmed in Cuyamungue in the nearby Pojoaque Valley. "That's how everyone made a living back then," she says. "We raised cattle, chickens, vegetables." World War II was a pivotal point in the Garcias' lives. Ida recalls that only one young man graduated with her Pojoaque High School class. The rest were drafted and left New Mexico to fight. "Some came back and graduated. Some never came back," she says. "They died in the war." Rosendo is a member of the Lucky Bastard Club. His 1944 certificate of club entry hangs in their home's entryway, next to a black-and-white photo of his eight fellow crew members on the B-17 named Sleepytime Gal. Together they flew and survived 32 missions across Germany during the war. Rosendo returned home to find that the family's farm had been appropriated for the Manhattan Project. "It was sad. I had so many good memories from there," he says. Decades later, Rosendo joined the Pajarito Plateau Homesteaders Association, a group of 38 families and their heirs who sued for fair compensation for the lost land. They won a $10 million settlement but not the return of any land. The final payment to the Garcias arrived last week. "It wasn't very much," he said. "There were a lot of heirs." Rosendo remained in the military a couple of years after the war ended. During one leave, he went to an Espanola dance hall where he spotted Ida. "Look at her," he says, casting a glance across the living room at his wife of almost 61 years. "Isn't she beautiful?" The best job Rosendo could find after the couple married was at Los Alamos National Laboratory. For the next 41 years, he worked there as a mechanic-welder, making sure hydraulic lift tailgates could carry 3,000 pounds of highly sensitive explosives. "If it hadn't been for the Manhattan Project, I probably wouldn't be here in the valley," Rosendo says. "There were no jobs here except with the school or police." So Rosendo became a weekend farmer. While he worked in Los Alamos, Ida sold the fruit from their orchard, cared for a large garden and raised their children. After retiring from the lab in 1986, Rosendo concentrated on his farms. With a grant from the East Rio Arriba Soil and Water Conservation District, he installed 15-inch irrigation pipe underground around his fields. Rosendo was one of the first in the valley to install the pipes and 10-inch valves and space them out so they would evenly flood the fields. The system saves water and reduces irrigation times. Rosendo's efforts over the years won him recognition as the regional conservation district's outstanding conservationist for 2007. A few other orchards and farms dot San Pedro around the Garcias' home. But much of the once-fertile farmland lies under houses now, a familiar story up and down the Rio Grande. Rosendo doesn't need all the irrigation water he has the rights to use off of the Ortega Ditch. But under state law, if he doesn't use them in a few years the water rights could be confiscated by the state engineer and sold to someone else. Rosendo has put his unused water rights into a "water bank" run by the Santa Cruz Irrigation District. Rosendo retains the rights. The district is able to lease the water to other farmers on the ditch who need extra water. Like other older farmers, Rosendo and Ida don't have family interested in taking over their farm. Rosendo figures there will come a time he can't do it anymore. "I think farming is fading away in the valley. The young people go to college and get jobs elsewhere," he says, standing in the quiet, waiting field with Ida. 2/4/08 Date: 1/25/08
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