Enduring Acequias: Wisdom of the Land, Knowledge of the Water

5: Mi Querencia: Acequia Junta y Ciénaga, a Sense of Place in a Displaced World

189 5 Mi Querencia Acequia Junta y Ciénaga, a Sense of Place in a Displaced World • MI ALMUNYAH DE LA JUNTA DE LOS RÍOS nOW THE LAST LEG OF our journey brings us to La Junta, to my almunyah de la junta de los ríos, my 2.5 acres on this beautiful and bountiful piece of land that has been in my family since 1725. It is an almunyah in the true sense of the word, in that it is both a private experimental garden and an orchard and a recreational space. Mine is the seventh head gate or regadera on the Acequia Junta y Ciénaga and the fourth piece of land. The first irrigated parcel on the acequia is known as La Oscurana, “darkness,” probably because in winter, since we are in the canyon between Velarde and Pilar, the sun sets a little after three in the afternoon. This property was owned for a long time by Father Peter Kupper, a priest who was born in Germany and immigrated to this country at the turn of the twentieth century. Father Kupper established the apple orchard in 1928, according to the late Elidio Gonzales, who helped with the planting. That property has been owned by Harvey Frauenglass for the past thirty years; several years ago he sold the orchard for $300,000 and soon after the new owner put it on the market for $650,000. Next follows the property of Clovis 190 CH A P T E R 5 Romero, followed by the property of the late Perfecto Maes, then the property of Walter Archuleta. The Romero, Maes, and Archuleta properties , as well as my own, at one time all belonged to my great-grandmother Ramona Archuleta and her first husband, Francisco Martín, a descendent of the original Francisco. My piece of land has some joya-jolla and also vega and ciénaga. It does not have an altito, but the original Archuleta property had a portion of altito; today that altito is on the Romero and Kupper properties. For the acequia water to get to my land, it has to travel about eight hundred feet. The water travels through a cequiecita called a lindero, and when it gets to the end of what today is Barbara Morgan’s property (at one time it belonged to my father), it drops onto a cabecera, or a horizontal cequiecita, which also serves as a desagüe, and it goes all around my property, crosses State Road 68—the main thoroughfare between Santa Fe and Taos—and eventually empties back into the Río Embudo, about two hundred yards from where that river empties onto the Río Grande. On my cabecera I had six compuertas (gates) installed in order to irrigate all my land. I still need about two more, one of them on the east side of the property. Once I realized that the land, like us, also has a memory and one probably that is longer than ours, I found there were several bancos, or step terraces, on my property. My grandfather more than likely carved out these terraces, or they might have been there since before his time. In 2012 I installed underground piping all along the lindero and cabecera, about 1,500 feet, since it was a long haul and gophers kept spreading the water in every direction, causing problems for my neighbors. Now I have eight ten-inch alfalfa valves and don’t waste water as before, though now I have to reconfigure part of the landscape again. To do justice to the original land and understand its layout, it’s better to see the land as a whole. Let’s start by defining an almunyah. In his Tratado de agricultura, Ibn Luyun, the last of the Spanish Arab agricultural writers, could well have been describing a traditional jardin nuevomexicano when he described an almunyah: With regard to a house set amid gardens, an elevated site is recommended , for reasons of both vigilance and layout. And let them have a 191 Mi Querencia southern aspect with the entrance at one side, and on the upper level the pool and well; better, instead of a well have an acequia (waterway) where the water runs underneath the shade. And the house should have two doors, so that it will be better protected and easier for the repose of its occupant. Then...