Lost

 I have made a lot of pictures at the Botanic Garden over the years we have lived in Albuquerque.  The years-long reconstruction of the Heritage Farm there was recently completed, and I was eager to see the results.

What a disappointment!  The intimacy and authenticity of the little model homestead has been obliterated.  Where was the Board in the planning stage?  What were they thinking?  It is hard to believe that the architects ever actually visited a small farm.

Now, the place is full of concrete and high wire mesh fences.  The carefully tended vegetable garden is gone.  It reminds me of what I saw happening in southern Idaho where we lived on an old dairy farm.  The irrigation ditches were filled in, the old farm buildings leveled to the ground to make way for gigantic mechanised circle irrigators.  Albuquerque's children are left without a visual clue about rural history.