The stars here are spectacular. We knew that before we had our house built, so we made sure it included stairs to a seating platform on the flat roof.

When we are on the roof of our house beneath the ceiling of the night sky, we see a show that, because of the light from cities, most people in the world can no longer see. The black sky is blasted with stars, as if a glitter ball exploded.  The Milky Way is a dense smear above us and the stars are so strong you can almost taste them, like bright dimes.

Night Coming On

The night sky is surprisingly active.  Some stars twinkle and some are not stars but airplanes, high and silent, moving slowly across the vast vault from west to east and east to west.

Some lights are spinning satellites and many have color—the star named Sirius flashes red and green and blue.  When we first saw it, we thought it was a UFO.  Even between meteor showers, if you watch carefully for a while, you can almost always see a shooting star or two.

We look at stars scattered along the tops of the sandstone cliffs, thousands partly hidden over there behind the pines.  “Oh,” we say, “isn’t that the Big Dipper, or the Pole Star, or Orion’s Belt,” seeking patterns among the brilliant shards, something to anchor us in the bright vertigo.

We don’t stay very long, it’s startlingly beautiful but the huge black sky is so bright and cold we can only take it in sips, vaguely unsettling after awhile. We go quietly down into the belly of the house, out from under the canopy of bright silver into our cave where small pools of warm yellow light give us transition from the dizziness of cold infinity to the cozy warmth of our limited world, to sleep.

When we turn toward sleep the night sky is with us again.  Our bed lies beneath a large skylight that cuts a rectangle from the vastness above us, and a bank of long windows in the curved wall floods the room with moon and starlight.  Our dog, Walter, sleeps in his bed beside the windows, awash in it all.

This Place

New Mexico is an ancient place. Pueblo Indians and their ancestors have been here for thousands of years and still remain in communities mostly along the Rio Grande River. Close to us are both the Zuni Pueblo Indians and the Navajos, whose huge reservation laps into four States. You may have read one of Tony Hillerman’s mysteries, which take place on the Navajo Reservation and feature a Navajo detective.

Thw highway that transverses our area, Highway 53, is overlain on a road used for over a thousand years by travelers from Zuni, then Spanish conquistadors and priests, Navajos, then settlers, and now by cars and trucks whizzing along. Despite the fact that US history books focus mostly on the English, the United States was explored and settled much earlier by the Spanish.

Our place in New Mexico is especially rich in diversity. Ramah is a town established by Mormons, and we have Spanish, Mexicans, Navajos, Zunis, and people who moved into this beautiful place from elsewhere in the country, such as ourselves. The land is graced with high red and tan sandstone bluffs and Ponderosa forest, and inhabited by deer, elk, cougar, foxes, coyotes, wild turkey, eagles, and of course our state bird, roadrunners.

Our town is fairly high—7200 feet—which means that we have cold winters and mild summers. It also means that the temperature can swing 40 degrees or more from night to day. Although a winter night can get well below zero, the next day often brings bright sun and temperatures in the low 50’s. It also means almost nobody has air conditioning. A day in the upper 80’s can feel hot when you stand in the direct sun, but when you enter the shade of a house, it can be comfortably cool.

The most wonderful thing about our weather, of course, is that the sun shines almost every day. It is very rare to have several consecutive days of grey clouds. And the sky, especially in the fall, is as beautiful as a sky can get. Our son, Matt, who lives in Virginia will sometimes tell his two boys, “Come and look guys, it looks like a New Mexico sky outside”.

We hope you get to see this area sometime—it is ancient, beautiful, and powerful. You can hike, fish for trout, find pottery shards and points (arrow heads) that are hundreds of years old and pieces of petrified wood that were formed millions of years ago, and listen for the ravens’ croaks and the whoosh whoosh whoosh of their wings as they fly over this country they inhabit so prominently with their strength and intelligence.

Us

We are Lucia and Tim Amsden, and we had the Rainbow House built and have lived here for over 14 years. We are both writers (Lucia has written two books and Tim is a poet).  Here we are:

To see more of the flavor of our area visit Kirk Shoemaker’s magical stupendous omnibus website, http://www.enchantedlands.org

The Rainbow House is for sale! If you are interested, please see the video at http://vimeo.com/68110220

Contact Nancy Dobbs at Sandia Peak Realty, 505-783-4144.

Here is the link to our listing:
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/8-Blue-Jay-Ct_Ramah_NM_87321_M14503-85241?row=1

The data relating to real estate for sale in this web site comes in part from the Internet Data exchange (“IDX”) program of SFAR MLS, Inc. All data in this web site is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed.