Lavender Festival

Los Ranchos de Albuquerque is a 4 square mile village within the city of Albuquerque, along the East bank of the Rio Grande.  The village tries to maintain its more rural character, and is home to the annual Lavender Festival.  The following is from the festival website:

The Mission of the Lavender in the Village Festival is to preserve and enhance Los Ranchos public open space, stimulate an interest in sustainable agriculture, and foster community spirit.

 Stephen decided that it sounded like the "Allergy Festival" to him, and chose to occupy himself elsewhere, so I was on my own.  I parked at Alverado Elementary School, one of the four or five official parking areas, and took the shuttle bus to the festival site.  There, I saw a large open field with one barn and many tents.  The barn housed a number of artists working in oils, acrylics, and watercolor, along with some antiques dealers and one producer of lavender products.  

 The variety of products containing lavender was impressive!  All types of personal care products, lavender lemonade, lavender honey, lavender jelly, lavender cookbooks, lavender sachets, and lots of decorative arrangements.  There were also many fine arts and crafts not directly related to lavender, and tents housing groups promoting alpacas, donkeys and mules, wild animal rescue, bee keeping, and even a butterfly farm.  I was curious about that last one, but the place was mobbed so I decided to keep moving.

I don't know the name of the bluegrass band that was playing, but they were excellent.  I stopped to listen to a lively arrangement of "The Wabash Cannonball."

 Food vendors tend to have different specialties here in New Mexico.  I thought the portable brick oven the pizza guy was using was pretty cool! 

 The festival was next to lavender fields, some of which had been harvested and then cut like hay, and some of which were still growing.

 

 On the bus ride to the festival site, I paid close attention to the turns, street signs and directions, and estimated that it was a mile or less to my car.  I decided to walk back even though it was hot, because I wanted to see more of the area.  I took the photo above looking back at the festival tents.  Los Ranchos de Albuquerque is full of large ranch estates with palatial houses and elaborate entrances and landscaping.

 The water for the fields comes from the river, channeled by ditches.  This one is cement-lined with a gate to allow or stop the flow of water.  Other irrigation ditches are more primitive.

I keep reading stories in the Albuquerque Journal about the river drying up, so I'm sure the farmers are anxious for the current drought to end.  We have had just over an inch of rain at my house in July.  The "monsoon season" is coming up, and hopefully the expected rains will come.