This morning was also cold, even though we're heading south.  It was 11 degrees this morning, but it didn't seem as bad as the night in Pike National Forest.  Mike, Robin's husband, had to leave early this morning for a job out of state.  Robin took the kids to school, so when we heard her come back in we got up and chatted.  Robin's place consists of 2 main buildings, one is a bath house and kitchen and the other is where they all sleep (Robin, Mike and the three kids).  Both buildings are straw bale that they built themselves and have sod roofs that are planted with medicinal herbs.  There is also an outdoor bath house that is wood enclosed with two showers, an outdoor kitchen she uses in the summer for canning and other big events.  Water is a big issue in the desert, so Robin has plants around the base of the bath house to utilize the run off.  She's planted fruit trees and grows what she can in her garden.  She's quite the Woods Woman; her courses offered at Earth Knack include hide tanning, blacksmithing, beekeeping, and lots of other primitive and homesteading skills.  Homesteading is what we want to do, on some level.  Her location is really in the wild.  She has coyotes, bears and mountain lions all around her property.  An electric fence keeps the bears out of her bee hives and three dogs keep the mountain lions and coyotes at bay.  She said she walked out on morning to find a mountain lion sitting on the hood of her car!  She showed us another straw bale house they are building for the kids' godfather.  It's about the size we'd be interested in for ourselves.  They had done some beautiful detailing in the house.  Mike has done several doors with wood inlays.  Just gorgeous! We hated to leave, but we made a promise to come back.  

We drove down to Santa Fe to visit Andrew's friend, Jen Foote.   Andrew met her on his previous drive-about while caving.  She and her boyfriend are very active in caving.  We got there in time for a quick shower and dinner out.