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"Growing up in Tierra Amarilla"
"September"
By Alfonso de Herrera - Ulibarrí
September, the ninth month of the year, when the Autumn begins to lee toward winter and cold weather, and before the year recovers and begins its ascent toward the summer solstice again. To me, September has always been my favorite, the weather is always perfect not too hot and not to cool. September is the transitional month between summer and winter, when you feel the coolness in the early morning, mild by noon with the coolness returning in the evening and night. The first frosts also come in late September enticing us and the animalitos to prepare for winter. The time to go out and gather firewood, scout the elk and deer population, before hunting season opens, and to find where a good piñon crop will be ready by the first of October.
It is also the time when the green chilé is in season and the aroma of roasting chilé comes from back yards, grocery stores and all those roasting establishments that pop up suddenly at every street intersection. What a wonderful aroma and only those who have roasted the chilé, peeled it and eaten it with a fresh tortilla along with a roasted ear of new corn smothered with fresh churned butter right off the grill, can testify to it.
Growing up in Tierra Amarilla, September was the month when we returned to school for the new term. Those friends who had left the area to work or for other reasons returned and we once again renewed friendships. New teachers were met and we were happy to see the old ones return and we looked forward to the coming school year.
I suppose September is my favorite month of the year because on one September 28th many years ago at about four on a snowy afternoon, I came into this world and presented my credentials to the De Herrera and Ulibarrí families of Tierra Amarilla New Mexico. Since I arrived without letters of recommendation, they took me at face value with anticipation that I would be an asset to those two no-nonsense families whose ancestors had settled the Tierra Amarilla Plateau and the Conejos Valley of Southern Colorado in the 1880's. I hope now that I am in the September of my life that I met all their expectations.
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