Tonight my legs, feet and right shoulder are a bit fatigued. As a family, we spent all day hunting quail in a remote but beautiful area. My children are 5 and 9. Today I heard them giggle at how funny the javelina look when they run away from you, how beautiful a young buck is at 50 yards when you’re not a threat to him, and how oryx prefer to exit stage left when the squeals of children playing tag in the same ZIP code reach them. I marvel at the innocence and inquisitiveness of my kids. They even helped prepare our prize for dinner tomorrow and learned about the anatomy of their meal that was alive this morning and the appreciation for its sacrifice to provide sustenance to us.
I know that soon they may be too cool to spend all day in the desert, dodging carpets of cactus, chasing little, frustratingly evasive birds with their parents. Even now, they are playing the Wii with Dad as a reward for their good behavior and their patience, even enthusiasm, to appreciate raw and rugged beauty and learn about earning your dinner. My pride is matched only by my dread for the day they are seduced by the flashing lights of technology and the ease in which our society lures young people into a false sense of convenience.
The area surrounding Las Cruces is full of history and relics from a time when living was hard but life was simpler. The homesteaders to this area struggled. How could they not? The threat of famine, flora and fauna without antibiotics and painkillers was a constant worry. Old cemeteries prove that life was shorter and often harsh. But they were lucky, too. Families stayed together, neighbors helped each other, and abundance, though rare, was celebrated and shared. In the rush of our lives today, most of that is lost. And that is a shame.
Last week, we found ourselves flush with an excess of cucumbers and onions. A simple recipe has yielded surprisingly delicious, home-made refrigerator pickles. For Thanksgiving, apples that we picked ourselves, with the occasional blemish you would never dare to accept finding in a store, became an apple crisp pie that I was proud to share with my family.
But on the other side of the coin, we work hard and often find ourselves leaving home in the dark and coming home in the dark. My children have lamented more than once that I was picking them up “late” from daycare. My heart dies a little every time but how else am I supposed to live the American dream and provide them more abundance and opportunity than I had?
I’ve decided I do it by balancing hard work and long days with weekends full of sunshine, adventure and, hopefully, an enduring appreciation and even love for a life that moves at a little slower pace and is rooted in the abundance that the land can provide if you have the patience to look and learn. But if the quail would slow down a little for this tired mom, that would be nice, too.
Shawna Pfeiffer is a life-long Doña Ana County Resident, graduate of NMSU, small business owner, hobby farmer, dog-lover, outdoor enthusiast and mother to two young children.
