It Takes a Thinking Community

by Dr. Richard Rubin

Header photo: the author stands outside of Mi Casita, which is listed on the national register of historic places.

Aldo Leopold taught us about the intellectual and emotional process needed for land ethic evolution. The design and production of Mi Casita’s new interpretive sign is a recent example, via collaboration between the Friends of Mi Casita, the Carson National Forest, and the Aldo Leopold Foundation, especially 2024-25 Education and Communications Fellow, Ariana Zimney. I am grateful for the opportunity and outcome as steward of Aldo and Estella’s 1912 home in Tres Piedras New Mexico, now a site for inspiration and education.

Somewhere along my educational way, I learned that Louis Pasteur said, “Chance favors a prepared mind.” I am a veteran of my father’s organic victory gardens. I studied Leopold’s masterwork, A Sand County Almanac, in college. Upon retirement from the medical field in 2012, I joined the New Mexico Native Plant Society Taos Chapter. Since I was particularly familiar with northern New Mexico forests, the group asked me to arrange field trips there. I connected with Bonnie Woods from the Carson National Forest Tres Piedras District. She took me to visit Mi Casita which was then restricted under national historic registration protection. The house’s original appearance as designed by Aldo in 1911 had been restored in 2005 to celebrate the U.S. Forest Service centennial and the legacy of Leopold, who had built the house while serving as Supervisor of Carson National Forest for the fledgling USFS.

In 2012, the Leopold Writing Program, based in Albuquerque, NM, initiated residency support opportunities at Mi Casita. Bonnie Harper-Lore, a native plant botanist from Minnesota, obtained Forest Service permission to establish a restoration garden at Mi Casita. I soon received a request from Bonnie Woods for the Native Plant Society to implement this garden. Garden development led me to overdue house projects such as painting and carpentry repairs. The Forest Service was prohibited from using taxpayer dollars for site maintenance. The restoration plan directed that public rentals could be a source of funds. Hmm, sounded like a potential win-win to me;  direction that the community could contribute and enjoy this historic house to boot.

When oiling the front porch rails annually, I shared the view Aldo loved: the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Adding to these emotional experiences, the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation, which Leopold himself had founded in 1914, added intellectual opportunities by providing sixteen Leopold scholarship works. I was hooked. Many donations have since grown the library housed in Mi Casita to over 145 books.

After a few years, the USFS District Ranger asked me to organize a Friends of Mi Casita volunteer group for ongoing stewardship. To manage nonprofit support for our work, the Taos Community Foundation created a Friends of Mi Casita fund, where contributions can be made via its website. An Advisory Committee was established to oversee disbursements, and is now comprised of seven interested people with diverse knowledge and skills. Exercising my old professorial skills, I wrote a book about the house’s evolution, “Living the Leopolds’ Mi Casita Ecology” (Nighthawk Press, Taos 2022). This included a Preface by Ranger Angie Krall and an Introduction by Aldo’s biographer Curt Meine. Sale proceeds go to the Community Foundation fund. When the 75th anniversary celebrations of A Sand County Almanac occurred in 2024, the Friends sponsored Meine and Leopold Foundation executive director Buddy Huffaker to speak in Taos. Both were delighted to spend the weekend at Mi Casita. Max Sorenson, a former Leopold Foundation Fellow and in-residence artist, was working in Albuquerque then, and Buddy invited him to share the overnight. I appreciate the print of the Shack he contributed to the Mi Casita exhibits. This celebration included launch of my new book with contributions by Andrew Gulliford and Leeanna Torres, “A New Mexico Land Ethic Handbook” (Nighthawk Press, Taos, 2024).

Five years earlier, the Forest Service had constructed in the yard of Mi Casita a small gazebo to display a poster that local staff created describing the Leopold story and Mi Casita. Doing his job to inspire evolution, Buddy suggested to me that we could improve the poster. The Taos event was followed by my pilgrimage to Baraboo, Wisconsin, to participate in the 75^th anniversary celebrations, have my first experience at the Shack, and give a talk to staff about Aldo and Estella’s time in New Mexico. Feeling our New Mexico-Wisconsin relationship evolve, I gave the Leopold Foundation a contribution for the new poster project. I spent the next three months collaborating with ALF Fellow Ariana Zimney. Buddy called it mentoring, a pleasure reminiscent of my many past professional students and medical residents. During these months, I had the idea to create a Friends of Mi Casita logo and recruited Max. Ariana designed the beautiful new graphic panel and coordinated its production on weather-proof aluminum via a Taos print vendor. I assisted with installation at the gazebo in early May. The timing coincided with the opening of Mi Casita to overnight rentals through the Forest Service Rec.gov website. Swapping for the copies of our Mi Casita and Land Ethic books I donated to the ALF store, Amy Terbilcox sent me a full box of the commemorative 75th anniversary Sand County Almanac. They are now being purchased by Mi Casita visitors, in Buddy’s words, “expanding the Land Ethic community.” And on Andy Radtke’s invitation, I am sharing this story with the Foundation’s blog cohort.

Where can we take our evolution now? Learn more about the New Mexico phase of Leopold life and thought through our books. Appreciate Estella’s quiet but powerful influence from her many generations of New Mexico heritage. Support our local Forest Service with Mi Casita Rec.gov rentals. Contribute books to the growing library. Be here now for immersion in this special place. Write your own Phenology essay. Brush linseed oil on the porch rails with me while viewing the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Maybe experience a migrating flight of Sandhill Cranes trumpeting overhead.

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