Farm + Ranch Show with Sage Faulkner

The Shifting Agriculture in the Chama Valley with Toni Broaddus

• Chama Peak Land Alliance

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Sage visits with local ranch family pioneer Toni about the agriculture changes in the area and Tierra Wools.  

For more information, please go to www.chamapeak.org!

SPEAKER_02:

Hi there, this is Sage Faulkner, and this is the Chama Peak Land Alliance Farm and Ranch Podcast. These are previously aired live recordings from the Farm and Ranch Radio Show on 96.1 FM KXJR. We appreciate the opportunity to share these recordings with you, and if you have questions, you can always reach me, sage at chamapeak.org. There may be old or outdated announcements throughout the show. Please disregard. Thank you again for making time to listen. Our website is www.chamape.org. Thanks to CPLA, KXJR, and the many members and guests who have contributed to this podcast. Thank you so much and have a beautiful day. I want to thank all of you for taking time to join us today. Always glad to be able to be here and talk about things farming and ranching. And I have a wonderful guest in the studio with me today. Truly a lady that I admire greatly. She's one of my role models. So good morning to Miss Tony Bradus.

SPEAKER_01:

Good morning. How are you today?

SPEAKER_02:

Very good. And so very glad to have you in the in the show with us this morning. So it's the 28th of June. It's flown by just incredibly fast. We're in the throes of summer now. Our weather outlook from the weatherbug app for the next 10 days. It looks like mostly sunny with a few clouds. Our highs are going to hit in the low 80s and our lows will be hitting around the mid-40s. So monsoons maybe aren't quite here yet, but certainly around the corner it's looking like. The Farm and Ranch Show is sponsored by Chama Peak Land Alliance. And you can find them at ChamaPeak.org if you want to look into it. Membership is free and we welcome membership from across the area. We reach really kind of from Pagosa down to Abbecue and both sides. We kind of follow the watershed and certainly trying to be a resource for landowners here. We always try and do our disclaimer on the Farm and Ranch Show, basically. We know that there's a lot of different opinions out there, and on the Farm and Ranch show, we um recognize those different perspectives and and just always try and be respectful and share some different ideas about farming and ranching here. And so again, thank you, Miss Tony, for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01:

Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_02:

So let's do this. Why don't you um introduce yourself a little bit for our listeners for anybody that may not know you?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, my uh Tony Boyd brought us. I was finished high school from Chama in 1966, last graduating class, and my dad was Richard Boyd, and we rode all these country looking after cattle and having a good having a good time. And I raised my two girls, Jerry and Martha Blackmore, down at the Rancho Rita, which is now called Cañones Creek Ranch. And then I was married and moved away from the country for about 25 years, came back in 2011, and been with uh Tieto Wolves, weaving, spinning, not spin but dyeing yarn and uh hanging out with Molly mostly, which has really been good.

SPEAKER_02:

I bet it's nice to be able to spend time with family and and do productive things, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00:

That's right.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. So um I love your connection with Tietto Wools. Why don't we visit a little bit about that? What are some things that you guys are doing there this summer?

SPEAKER_01:

We have classes. She had them online, and there were so many people wanting to be on a list, a wait list, that she went ahead and opened some more classes. So we do have some more openings, especially in I think maybe September, maybe August. And then November, there's a couple of classes available for the weaving, beginning or tapestry. And for myself, I teach die class. I've had one, I'll be teaching again July and August and September, one a month. Two-day class, and the spinning class is a two-day class. That comes on a Saturday, Sunday. Mine are Tuesday, Wednesdays. I think the weaving classes are they're Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sundays. So if you're interested at all in the fiber arts, we have them and we have the materials, the fiber for people that want a needle felt, wet felt, knit and felt, whatever. And we have knitting the yarn, crocheting yarn, and all kinds of uh weaving yarn, hand-dyed at the shop. So it's a lot of a lot of stuff there, and then other things to look at, and plenty of weavings to look at.

SPEAKER_02:

So you you made me think of a question you were talking about, you doing the dyeing. Um I tend to spend a lot of time um walking this time of year. I walk ditches, I'm irrigating, I'm walking through cows because it's just easier a lot of times than saddling up a horse, and we know we're in a pretty small place. And I think my count right now, I've been counting the different wildflowers, things that are flowering, and I'm up to about 38 different flowers. Um tell us a little bit about some of the the native dyes and some of the things that you use. That's so interesting to me, and um I love the process that you do it, and and you get a lot of your color components from the land, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And I I try to use as many of the local plants as I can. And most everything locally will give me some kind of yellow or tan. But if I put juniper tips, you can pick the juniper berries or you can use the tips, and you still get the same color, so go figure. So I'll use juniper tips on a gray yarn, gives a green, a greenish, uh it, you know, it depends on the gray, and it's just amazing. And then um I just gathered some pentamin. I you may realize that they are plowing that line in going south across from Mundy's old place, and there were just so many this year, and they're twice as tall as they usually are because we had such a good winter and such a good spring.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And uh so I haven't used that before. I'm gonna see what I get. Sometimes you'll get kind of a fluorescent greenish yellow off of some plants. I've done that once with lupin, blue lupin, but then another time I use it and it gave me nothing but yellow, you know. So time of year, what the conditions have been, it all affects what kind of color you're gonna get. So a lot of the times it's just a pretty much of a gamble to see what you're gonna see.

SPEAKER_02:

That's so interesting to me, and I I just love that connection. I think it's neat that um you're talking about the the colors that you get from most of the little local stuff around here is um tans and yellows, and we are tieramaria, so it makes sense, right?

SPEAKER_01:

It was just a another Yeah, chemisa gives me a very dark uh strong yellow, and cota also gives me that strong yellow that will go green if I put indigo with it.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

All the rest of them, chemisa, yerba de nigrita, a lot of those bring me more of a teal. And every single yellow gives you a different green. So it's exciting.

SPEAKER_02:

I bet that sounds like you could spend the rest of your life dying and pretty much, yeah. We mostly are. This year may be different than next year, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

That is so cool. So, one of the things that I just treasure about you is the rich history that you have and that you're often willing to share with us and the connection to agriculture, but you also weave. So, is the there a place for you where that kind of all comes together, that connection with your heritage and the weaving and the agriculture?

SPEAKER_01:

I would think so. Um weaving is, I mean, it's an art form, and so anybody that does art of any kind knows that when you work on your project, everything else goes away, and it's a very healing thing. And uh my first rug, when I made my first rug was 2011. I took a class, Tonio had said, Well, why don't you take a class? It starts tomorrow. And I was gonna be house sitting for them for a few days, so I thought, okay. My husband had died recently, and I was pretty much of a basket case. So I went to the class and they told me to choose my colors. I spent over an hour. I thought, well, okay, I'll get these, and they would go with a quilt that my stepdaughter made me, pansy colors. But when I crossed the Brazos Bridge heading to my mom's, I thought, that's it. So the next day I went back and I changed my colors. It took 15 minutes, and I had the colors that represented the meadows, the river, the bosque, and Chalma Peak. And the sky that night was just that dark gray waiting for a rain, and so my my sky was a dark gray. And I had only woven about maybe a foot of it. Oh, I could do this in spring and fall, and and I have done fall, winter, and you know, they've sold well. And so to me, this the topography here and the the colors. I've made a I made a pictorial when you drop off going to Blanco where my mom used to be in the wintertime. I there was a mesa to the right as you go down the hill, and I incorporate that into a pictorial. And you know, it was it was CPR colors, and it lost it it it sold. So yeah, the the country helps me my and my and with the plants because I was with them all my life and I I I like using them for the die.

SPEAKER_02:

That's that's just amazing, and I could I could visit with you all day long about this. Um so for our listeners, we're probably making them think, where can I come look at some of your weavings and some of the things that you guys are doing? Um the shop is is here in Chama now, just past the bridge, if you're headed south. Right. Um, and let's talk a little bit about your hours of you guys are open in the summer.

SPEAKER_01:

We're open all summer, it feels like sometimes we're open all the time. We're open from 9 to 4 5:30 Monday through Saturday and noon to four on Sunday. If you see our cars there and it doesn't look like we're open, just come and knock on the door because we'll open up and let you in.

SPEAKER_02:

And it's such a just beautiful place to be. It just makes you feel good when you go in to see all the different weavers work in there and the yarns. And it's a a very comforting feeling for me. It feels like it's it's such a representation of our area. And I I just I love that. So anytime we have guests from out of town coming in, that's always my suggestion. So it's run by Tiada Wolves and and see the incredible work that is done right here, and and there's nothing like it anywhere else in the world. You guys also have a great website. So if we have listeners by chance that are maybe streaming from somewhere else and and can't get into Chama, um, they can go to your website and look at some of the stuff that you guys are doing, and you have a wonderful newsletter that comes out every every month, I think.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, it's monthly, and it's mostly pictures.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's it's I I yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It doesn't take a long time to go through it.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. It kind of see where you guys are. Um agriculture and and ranching are so connected to the seasons. So you guys do such a beautiful job on that newsletter of kind of showing that, you know, if you're in lambing season or fall gathers or the storms and just the and it's so I I just love the the eye candy really that you get from the website and the newsletter. So kudos to you guys for that. You're doing a beautiful job on that.

SPEAKER_01:

Um the website page is w uh www.handweavers.com. And you know, this the weaving we do is traditional Rio Grande weavings. That's some people change into a little more abstract patterns and so on, but we all still use the the uh traditional patterns and it's it's amazing. Those the style of looms we use and the sheep wool that we use came from Spain in the 1500s. So it's been here a good long while.

SPEAKER_02:

That is, and that's such a neat connection to that that history and that heritage. Um so let's talk a little bit more about Rio Grande weaving. So your looms are are big, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. And you can make you can make, you know, Molly has one hanging on the wall right now that's I think five feet wide by eight feet or six, seven, I can't remember the exact dimensions, but it's definitely a big rug. And then we make runners for tables and mug rugs for coffee cups, and um so you can get any size, and we do have some table looms for sale at the shop, along with all kinds of equipment and books and things like that also for for the fiber artists. And uh I had something I was gonna tell you, but I can't think what it was.

SPEAKER_02:

It's e it's easy to get it.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, what I was gonna say when we because we only get the tans and yellows from this country's plants, we do use cochineal and indigo and matter and Osage Orange. But that um there's a book called The Color Red that's the history of the cochineal. It's amazing story. Oh my goodness, it's an amazing story. And then they have a new, fairly new book by Natasha Boyd named Um Indigo Girl. And this goes back to Civil War times of how she helped get that industry going in South Carolina. It's a novel, but it's a novel, but it was based on some diary things and so on.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Um, just a funny side note. Um, several years ago, um, one of the museums in Santa Fe had a whole show on the um the I got to see it the last day.

SPEAKER_01:

One of my friends took me down there. She said, You have got to go see this, and I did, and it was amazing.

SPEAKER_02:

It was amazing and beautiful, and just such a neat thought that you know all this incredible color comes from a bug. Yes, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Mealybugs from the prickly pear cactus.

SPEAKER_02:

Little tiny guys, and they give us this beautiful color, and and so it's kind of a cool thing. Um, I know you wanted to mention you have a friend that has some um is raising some dogs.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, my friend uh Kelly West lives up at Haroso, Colorado. Her maiden name was Zinn. So when she was a girl, young woman, we were she's a little younger than I am, but she looked after the cattle at the Chalm Basin for her dad, Fred Zinn. Looked after Quinlan's cows and this and that. And then later it was I don't remember what all, but she's a cowgirl, and she's raising these mini Aussies, and they're just precious dogs, really good dogs, smart, and her website is heavencent S-E-N-T-Aussies, a U S S I E S dot com.

SPEAKER_02:

Perfect toilet for anybody that's is looking for a really good companion dog. Um they're beautiful, beautiful little dogs.

SPEAKER_01:

Or a herd dog, I mean, they're smart, and she's only the 15 to 18 inches tall or something. My pup weighs 30 pounds, and she's a year and a half old now.

SPEAKER_02:

So you don't have to feed them, but they're still incredibly smart and helpful, or you're not feed as much. So that works really good. Um, so for those of you listening, I'm visiting um this morning with my dear friend Miss Tony Broadis, and she's talking to us a little bit about Tieto Wools and and um some of the things that are near and dear to her heart, and we're just visiting about weaving and and some of the old ranch history in this area. Um the show is the Farm and Ranch Show, and we're sponsored by Chama Peak Land Alliance, and we're just glad to have you folks out there listening. Um Tony, we've got a few more minutes, and um we did a show pretty early on with you about more about the history kind of of of your family's history here. Um, and and five minutes certainly doesn't give us enough time to do that, but right before our our show started, we were talking a little bit about um there's not as many cattle in here in this area, and and we're um maybe not as connected to the agriculture in this area, but you've got grandkids and they're kind of gonna take their place in in agriculture, and your family's um certainly done a lot for agriculture. Let's visit a little bit about your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_01:

It is hard to know that there aren't any cattle in this country like there used to be. And I know the you know the people that are raising game, they they have their place. Um I sent my brother a picture of the cattle truck at the stop sign one day. I was at the lunchroom and I saw a stop, you know, and he said, Oh, and he thought I was just sending a picture of the mountains with the snow and how pretty it was. I said, It was a cattle truck, the first cattle truck of the season. And for us that was nostalgia, you know, because we used to load eight or ten trucks some mornings in the fall and you know, unload them in the spring and this and that. But like you said, my grandkids, some of my grandkids are still in it. My daughter Martha lives down at Silver City, and um those grandkids are growing up on a ranch. Jerry lives over there between Melrose and Tukum Carrey, and they're doing, they have cow mama cows, they have yearlins, they have wheat, Milo, hay grazer, and right now they're harvesting wheat. They've got about maybe, I don't know, two or three days to, they've been working for uh 10 days with the wheat harvest. And yeah, my grandson Randall is partners with his granddad and his dad over there on the wheat farms, and he's fixing to take one of our Chama girls over there and plant plant her over there. So it's been um amazing, amazing life, and it's gone by very quickly. This business of being the first of July, Saturday. I how can how did that happen?

SPEAKER_02:

I am so with you on that.

SPEAKER_01:

It seems like I finally took my uh long johns off on the 21st.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. It it has just flown by, and I certainly share um the appreciation for getting to raise a family in agriculture with you.

SPEAKER_01:

It's absolutely nothing like it.

SPEAKER_02:

There's been times where you know Christmases might be a little bit lean for us, but um I I think the lessons and the connection to the lands have gotten and and for me getting to see them. get comfortable outside and you know we we survived the COVID stuff and a lot of our days ended up being spent outside and horseback because we didn't have good um computers and and those kind of things and we got through it and I think um for a family like us being being able to have that agricultural connection is so important.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

And we're sure blessed like you. I am hoping to have you join us again on the show. We could have you here every week and just pick your brain because I truly think you're a treasure in this area and and certainly just somebody that I admire so so greatly. And for those of you that are listening when when my kids were little Miss Tony you were a huge just a reminder that I was headed in the right direction and the world wasn't going to end if you know if my kids weren't just doing everything exactly right. And I I appreciate that. I think young mothers particularly on farms and ranches can be kind of a little bit isolated and and you are such a ray of sunshine for me. So I'm so thankful to you for that and thankful for all you do for this community and for agriculture even in the state and and throughout the Southwest and I know you travel some with keta wolves for the different things and and we're just so lucky to have you as an advocate so thank you for all you do.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm glad to be glad to be here I can tell you um blessed beyond measure that's a good boat to be in isn't it with that is this is