Lavender Festival

The Lavender Festival is a newish tradition here, tucked away in the old part of the city in the little Village of Los Ranchos which I tell everyone is the real Albuquerque. While the Duke of Albuquerque was busy in 1706 building a church and town square to make a name for himself in what is now Old Town, ranchers and farmers were eking out a living along the Rio Grande river in small villages like Los Ranchos, the ranches. 

The festival has only been held a few years, with a year off in 2011 to find itself. It's well atttended by enthusiastic and forgiving crowds looking for entertainment and the luscious scent of lavender. About here is where I would like to place a colorful photo of lush lavender fields like the ones you see in Tuscany, but we don't have those.

Here is the romanticized version of the fields from the 2010 poster by the talented painter David Welch, a local watercolor artist. And here is his website. I have seen him working at his easel in the village along the road that winds through the small farms and the beautiful large estates in the rural heart of town.

What the festival does have is the Los Poblanos Farm and their wonderfully marketed line of products. The farm owns the fields, and has varying degrees of success with the crop from year to year, as you may see from photos of former years if you wish at the official website of the festival HERE. They have a little local history at the site too.

There are other lavender vendors of course, but none as extensive as this local source.

Wonderful products from an event still finding its legs in our community. . . . There are also lovely photos of  The Los Poblanos Historic Inn & Organic Farm at their website that are quite worth looking at HERE. It's a perfect time of year for little local events and fairs. I hope you're enjoying getting out and about to some of them.

So glad you stopped by!

Jacqueline