Brady, 12, sharing her copilot seat with River, found at the Papaloapan River in Tlacotalpan, Veracruz, Mexico
River, the dog who got rescued twice. Riding here with Jorge who saved us all after our van flipped and we were alone in the desert.
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Me, August 15, 2021 Sonora, MX
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The fishing village with more dogs than people, Puerto Libertad. Breakfast for 10
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The Habersham Hacienda was my most recent past project, and you can see photos of that venture HERE
For more of my past writing head to micheleniesen.blogspot.com
After selling my farm in North Georgia and trying desperately to downsize and live affordably in the US, I just threw up my hands and headed South of the Border. Not sure to do what, but hanging around to see what freaky thing happened On the Other Side during 2020-21 wasn't an option. I just went on a walkabout. I had already sold everything, moved a dozen times and finally really REALLY sold everything (except for a couple Persian rugs. Okay and a turquoise chandelier...) and packed my minivan and headed South of the Border. I've been coming to and in love with Mexico for decades. It has changed and it has not. I have changed. Could I adapt?
When I first saw Tulum off a dirt road in 1995 I couldn't believe such a magical place existed. Then Oaxaca opened my eyes to a culinary world that we, in America, were not shown in our Taco Tuesday chimichanga cheese sauce covered lives.
Would it be dangerous? Yes. Not yet, sometimes, maybe. I'm aware that living in Mexico (and driving through it) is very different than visiting Mexico. I do not take my path without reservation and respect. Sometimes it's apparent that I'm not welcomed here, but mostly it's pretty amazing. Just when you think the trip is going over a cliff something magical happens. Or something terrible. I came in March 2021. I went through Veracruz as I'd never been there before, a lush humid tropical affordable state, we settled in Tlacotalpan on a river in a Pueblo Magico for a couple months. That's where we found many, many homeless dogs and, finally, River...who was scared and under a bridge after being tossed off a boat. After a few weeks we finally got her to engage with Brady and me. When I saw the "shelter" in town I knew I had to figure out something else. I had her spayed and she's been traveling with us ever since June 4, 2021.
I say she's the dog we rescued twice as we got in an accident and she was lost again after impact. By a miracle, she and Brady were found. Her collar tag with my number on it and the kindness of Mexican strangers allowed us all to reunite.
The SAD NEWS*************I was Tboned and flipped the van twice. The dogs were somehow thrown clear and ran into the desert and were found the next day with only mild cuts and abrasions on Brady. We're all freaked out of course. I was pulled from the vehicle and outside of some spectacular bruising and sadness over the loss of my favorite van (and home) I'm okay too. I was nearly to the border. I'm still in the state of Sonora in a fishing village about 4 hours outside of Arizona. Accident happened Aug 1, 2021.
We are awaiting word and payment from Mexican insurance.
US insurance covered nothing. We are figuring out next steps.
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More about RIVER and HER RESCUE
My biggest deal breaker with Mexico has always been the treatment of dogs, my greatest friends and loves. Left on roofs, balconies, tied to tires, tossed on the streets, sliced open with machetes or left to starve, it's impossible to fathom how this place I grew to love could be so ambivalent to these loyal creatures. I do not have the answers. I am not here to judge (but sometimes it's really, really tricky). I have resigned myself to helping where I can. Choosing my battles (not bothering with politics and city officials) and going where I can do the most good...which isn't ALWAYS where I think it is, but where I'm guided. There has to be a supportive community because it's too big if there aren't others in your village, you'll sit in your room and eat ice cream and cry for all the sadness. I've been driving around for months and stopped for 9 weeks in a tiny town with a big heart and a bigger stray dog problem. Tlacotalpan, Veracruz on the Papaloapan River. That's where I saved River, but not where I could make much headway. So we've moved on to Oaxaca where I know I love it (climate, food, people) and where other crazy dog ladies are doing amazing work. We all find our way, my niche is saving the great ones, giving the uglies a chance, buying parasite meds and flea treatments for all and always making and traveling with made from scratch dog food. Rounding up strays and getting the word out about discount spay clinics and hopefully starting my own small rescue. It sort of takes you under the water at first and then you find out you can breathe under there. And then we showed up here...and there are more dogs than people.
Not exaggerating.
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Who would toss this sweet creature out? Living under a bridge we talked to her for a month Brady and me. She started to walk with us. When she went into heat I saw the horror of dozens of males ganging up on the one female in town. The town sweeps up females and puts them in a big room jail on the outside of town. So when a female gets dumped she's swarmed like flies. I picked her up out of a pile up and ran. I was not going to leave her in the jail. I brought her back to my posada where my host was very kind at Casa de la Luz. She slept for 3 days. I thought she was dying. She could stand. She fell over when we walked. We took her to the country vet, without consult he gave her an injection and said it was pain meds and antibiotics. She was up in a day and with a homemade diet and lots of love she's a bouncing, wonderfully smart companion for Brady at 12, who is going blind.
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Some towns have felt safer than others. not my car, but unfortunately it was foreshadowing...:-(
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River the Rescue Dog, Day 2
A brief but luxurious stay in Boca del Rio at the Hotel Rivoli. Pet friendly with top service and Gulf views it was a fabulous stay. Brady REALLY likes our luxe hotel stops.
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The original Hacienda blog is here and there's some good stuff in there back to the farming days, Big Chicken, gentlewoman farming and how (not) to go broke. The first two books in my Decade of Dish series are available on Apple and Blurb below.
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Goodbye to the Grand Dame,
2005-2019 the longest relationship I've ever had was with a house. Mt. Airy, Georgia
Brady taking the beach view in pretending to be a Mexican roof dog in the coastal Santa Cruz in Nayarit
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Cooking class with my work buddy sidekick Juanito aka Mowgli the Man Cub featured in my 2009 Essay 'How to Save 89cents' winner of the non fiction prize in New Southerner magazine.
HOW DID I GET HERE? (TLDR, but if you're curious...)
In 2007 I sold a couple of restaurants in Decatur, GA and got a wild hair (hare?) idea to move out to the country and start my own farm. It'll be fun, they said. It'll be rejuvenating, I thought.
Actually no one said that. Most of my friends and coworkers said, "What?! Why??" but away I went. I was pulled to the country lifestyle and peaceful days. Swapping the Atlanta traffic for pastoral mountain views of Northeast Georgia. Harvesting my own organic vegetables and trimming the tops off my ever replenishing sprouting cilantro. My mind conjured up all kinds of narrative about my flock of hens and their bounty of eggs with tangerine colored yolks. Fresh air. The soft pastures underfoot. I'd start a farmer's market in that front field near the entrance. Enjoy the small town chat at the feed store and slowly renovate a big old house and slowly add guest suites, a big central kitchen where I'd harvest my wild herbs and make tinctures and old timey remedies. The stress of being chef owner of 2 busy restaurants had taken its toll on my lifestyle (hello 30s, goodbye 30s) and my health. I needed radical change.
I got it. It just wasn't how I had played it out in my head.
It was not always an easy transition, this bucolic life. But over a decade of many trials (and many errors), I finally got the Habersham Hacienda up and running to the sustainable, magical vision I had always dreamed of. The guest suites, the loft apartment, the cooking classes, the rain gardens, the Apothecary, the wild meadows, the pollinator organic gardens, the wild harvested herbs, the chickens, the rotational grazing pastures, the compost, the soil and eco systems finally balanced. The songbirds, bats, beetles. Snakes, hawks and bees. I had the right crew to help me build, create and carry out my visions. A neighborhood family of endless brothers and cousins from Guatemala headed by Antonio, my work buddy for over 7 years. Juanito, Victor, Pedro, Calixto, Esteban. And one Mexican, my genius friend and muse, Fernando. Everything was coming together.
And then, I ran out of money.
In 2007 I sold a couple of restaurants in Decatur, GA and got a wild hair (hare?) idea to move out to the country and start my own farm. It'll be fun, they said. It'll be rejuvenating, I thought.
Actually no one said that. Most of my friends and coworkers said, "What?! Why??" but away I went. I was pulled to the country lifestyle and peaceful days. Swapping the Atlanta traffic for pastoral mountain views of Northeast Georgia. Harvesting my own organic vegetables and trimming the tops off my ever replenishing sprouting cilantro. My mind conjured up all kinds of narrative about my flock of hens and their bounty of eggs with tangerine colored yolks. Fresh air. The soft pastures underfoot. I'd start a farmer's market in that front field near the entrance. Enjoy the small town chat at the feed store and slowly renovate a big old house and slowly add guest suites, a big central kitchen where I'd harvest my wild herbs and make tinctures and old timey remedies. The stress of being chef owner of 2 busy restaurants had taken its toll on my lifestyle (hello 30s, goodbye 30s) and my health. I needed radical change.
I got it. It just wasn't how I had played it out in my head.
It was not always an easy transition, this bucolic life. But over a decade of many trials (and many errors), I finally got the Habersham Hacienda up and running to the sustainable, magical vision I had always dreamed of. The guest suites, the loft apartment, the cooking classes, the rain gardens, the Apothecary, the wild meadows, the pollinator organic gardens, the wild harvested herbs, the chickens, the rotational grazing pastures, the compost, the soil and eco systems finally balanced. The songbirds, bats, beetles. Snakes, hawks and bees. I had the right crew to help me build, create and carry out my visions. A neighborhood family of endless brothers and cousins from Guatemala headed by Antonio, my work buddy for over 7 years. Juanito, Victor, Pedro, Calixto, Esteban. And one Mexican, my genius friend and muse, Fernando. Everything was coming together.
And then, I ran out of money.
my wild front yard. I cut paths into the native growth over the years to add depth to the postage stamp of the previous flat lawns.
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the carpet of December. Each year the Japanese Maples dropped the firecracker leaves. Magnificent trees on this property, a specimen tree nursery in the 1950s
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