2020 PROGRAM UPDATE

While state imposed coronavirus health restrictions precluded HCSL from launching its summer programming in 2020, HCSL was busy with other projects, like expanding its gardens and improving its facilities in Jacona, NM.

During the spring, HCSL more than doubled the size of its gardens from two to five beds, which produced tomatoes, squash, carrots, onions, basil, cilantro and a variety of greens including lettuce, chard and kale. We also cultivated a heart garden featuring vegetables that promote a healthy heart including peppers, chilies, cabbage and eggplants. And HCSL created a new orchard with forty apple, peach, pear and cherry trees and planted raspberries, blackberries, potatoes, tomatillos and beans among the rows of trees. HCSL’s intellectually disabled residents enjoyed tending the gardens, watering the beds, picking vegetables and sampling the berries. HCSL’s expanded gardens will be key to its ability to launch its gardening program in 2021.

In June, HCSL learned how to work with mud, sand and gravel to repair the traditional mud plaster on several of its buildings and walls surrounding the property. HCSL’s residents helped with this process: brushing off the old mud and wetting the walls so they were ready for the first coat of plaster. Working with an experienced adobe contractor named Dylan Sparks, we then applied the initial and final plaster coats. Maintaining the traditional mud plaster on its buildings and walls will be an on-going project for HCSL and its residents.

In the fall, HCSL worked with Dylan to build a horno (wood fired oven) in the courtyard outside the kitchen building. The beehive horno was christened on a cold night in November when we cooked a homemade vegetarian pizza and roasted a chicken. HCSL is excited to feature the horno in cooking classes that it intends to host in 2021.

It was quite a year! Our talented friend and videographer, John Romero at Mad Dog Media, produced videos of some of the 2020 goings-on at HCSL that can be viewed below.