We talked to the guy who has owned it since the 1960s -- he used the property to run cattle and has never lived in the house. "That house was old when I bought this place," he said.

 

It does have electricity, and a telephone line. But it has no foundation and the water "well" is really just a deep hole someone dug with a shovel. They hit water eleven feet down -- more of a seasonal underground stream -- and left it at that. Previous inhabitants say the well pumps water , well, sometimes. Sometimes not.

 

The floors are old wood, rotting in places, with dirt underneath. A good percentage of the windowpanes are cracked or broken and there are places where the stucco is falling off. Indoors, the plaster is cracking. The old weird plywood "porch" someone built is basically falling down.

 

But. Here are the good things about it: It has really thick adobe walls, and it is surrounded by some of the loveliest land we've seen in Northern New Mexico.

 

One contractor we consulted have recommended we call for a bulldozer.

 

There are two problems with this:

 

1. We don't have money to start over from scratch, and

 

2. We like the idea of renovating the old house and keeping, at the very least, the old adobe walls. It's, ahem, rather quaint.

 

On this page we'll keep you updated on any construction that goes on, including painting and plastering, the only work we can (reasonably) do ourselves! As Avrum keeps telling Nik, "Nik, it will be FINE once we fix it up..."