Framedlight

  We had lunch by Abiquiu Lake and then on a whim, as we liked the name, decided to drive up the road to a place called Coyote. There was little there apart from a rather nice adobe church which was closed and a small settlement. On the way back to the main Highway 84 we passed yet another cemetery which required an exploration. We found the grave of a lady who had died at the venerable age of 106 years. She had been postmaster of Youngsville for 30 years and also helped as a midwife and sold Avon products. Not all of the graves were grand Finally we headed back to Abiquiu and carried on the search for Georgia O'Keeffe's 'white place' taking a back road which ran closer to it. We unfortunately we still could not really see it but the cottonwoods were lovely and we came across the desiccated body of a bob cat! Then it was back on the road past the river to the house

When Georgia O'Keeffe was first living at Ghost Ranch she began to hanker for a bigger house that she could live in over the winter, in the same area of New Mexico she had come to love. O'Keeffe was very fussy about what she ate and liked to have a lot of fresh vegetables so it needed to have a garden. In the 1930's she found a ruined adobe house in Abiquiu, not far from the church. The house is old, some parts are thought to date back to the 1730's. Unfortunately it belonged to the church and it was not until 1945 that they agreed to allow her to buy it. Her friend Maria Chabot, under Georgia's instruction, oversaw the renovation work and it was completed in 1949. Georgia, as was her habit, fell out with Chabot after the work was completed but managed to reconcile later. After her husband Stieglitz had died in 1946 Georgia spent nearly three years in New York settling his affairs. After that she left New York permanently and spent her time at the Abiquiu house or u...