Bread making and pueblo design

The most elaborate homes of Santa Fe have humble beginnings. 


The living style is best served by its communal relationship with wind, water and earth.  Whereas early Puebloeans established means of securing water for sizeable populations, the Spanish introduced the aquifer and acequeia systems once brought to them by the Arabs.  The Arabic irrigation ditches channeled water from the Santa Fe River and the water shed of the Sangre de Cristo into the city.  Sheep herders and farmers established ranches above the city. Trees of apples, peaches  and other fruits hung over the ditches and courtyards. Adobe walls of earth and straw kept families cool in the summer and warm against the arid winds of winter. 


This simple mix of earth and straw gave people bricks and cement or plaster to shape a home as they saw fit.  Most designs followed a pattern of square rooms connected by halls and passage ways.



But anything is and was possible. 









Ranches were self sufficient.  Chapels, bread ovens served peoples general needs. 




If you could build your own adobe home.  How  creative  would you be?  Be careful.  Your design must  protect you and connect you to your environment. 







This little New Yorker was nice enough to pose for me at a demonstration of  breadmaking. 

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