Happy Mudders Day!

A couple weeks ago, I invited my friend Val, of Fantastyk Voyage, to join my daughter and I to participate in the annual  "Mudders Day" held at Old San Ysidro Church, in Corrales, New Mexico.

Originally built in 1750 as the first church in Corrales, NM, west of the Rio Grande River, it was swept away in 1868, by a rampaging Rio Grande flood.  The Corrales church was rebuilt using the timbers from the original church.

(Val and Jenna in front of the church)

(My daughter and I in front of the church)

I have called New Mexico my home for over 18 years and one of the things I adore about my Land of Enchantment is our unique and fascinating culture, which is predominantly Spanish and Pueblo Indian.

 

One way to learn more about these cultures is to immerse myself in their historical traditions, which is done literally, via mud, during  Old San Ysidro Church "Mudders Day"!

 

   

The Preservation and Maintenance Committee sponsors an event which has come to be called "Mudders Day Weekend". Friends and neighbors come together to help mix and apply adobe mud to the walls of the Old Church, plant flowers, and attend to any other details of restoration that need doing.

Anywhere from 30 to 50 people have come to volunteer and there are jobs for everyone of whatever age. (Notice all the flaky stuff on the ground at the base of the wall. That is the old crumbly, loose, dry mud that we had to scrape off before applying new mud)

A great lunch is provided by the Historical Society Docents and everyone seems to enjoy this shared experience of caring for the Old Church. (The lunch was very generous, with so much food. We were stuffed! Everyone was was friendly and we had a great time just getting to know some of our fellow volunteers.)

 

The Old Church is still plastered by hand, with adobe mud, as it was when it was first constructed in 1869.

In spite of New Mexico’s relatively dry climate, the mud walls need to be re-plastered every year or so. It was fun playing in the mud with my daughter and friend, although it was hard physical work.

We had a lot of laughs, too.

And compared how muddier we were than the other, like sailors comparing their shark bite scars. It was funny when we had an itch and forgot that our hands were covered in mud. And my camera required a good cleaning after we were done.

We worked hard and did our best, but we barely knew what we were doing. We kept thinking that someone would come behind us to fix and do over the wall that we mudded.

 

So, we were happily surprised when we were told that our mudded wall looked great and only a few areas needed an extra layer of mud to fill in the indentations between the adobe bricks underneath the mud plaster.

Several other volunteers thought we were experienced mudders and were also surprised that we barely knew what we were doing either. lol! (Here’s our finished wall)

Here is what our wall basically looked like before we started.

We were proud of volunteering a small part in helping to restore this unique and beautiful historical church, just like thousands have done before us.

 

Happy "Mudders Day" from we to you!

 (Oh! And this little art piece, is for Dan & Betty. I took this photo last year in September in Corrales, using my old camera, while we were letterboxing. This equine lagomorph art piece was replaced by the painted ponies sculpture in my previous Sky Watch post.

From the Tower of,