The Lavender Project Benefit
Thu, Aug 6, 6–9pm
Marsh estate, Candelaria 
250 pesos

You’re invited to a Field of Dreams

Experience a lavender field exhibit—planted among an olive orchard—under the stars at one of Candelaria’s most spectacular estates. Meet the lavender farmers and artisans from the Lavender Project community cooperative and see how lavender is transforming their pueblo, Rancho La Colorada. Listen to sweet sounds from the Chamber Music Festival’s University Quartet. Other highlights are door prizes, botanas, a silent auction and lavender margaritas and desserts.

Help raise money so the Lavender Project can expand and thrive.

Tickets include a “Provence” lavender plant and are sold in San Miguel at La Conexión, La Victoriana, El Charco del Ingenio, Buenas Noches and Petit Four, or you can email mariarebora@hotmail.com. 

Sponsors are Coates/Dolan, La Conexión, Rosewood Artesana, Petit Four and St. Anthony’s Alliance, founders of the Lavender Project.

Can’t attend? Go to www.thelavenderproject.com and make an easy online donation.

All proceeds go to the Lavender Project, Rancho La Colorada, Guanajuato. Your support funds repair of an irrigation pump, expansion of the drip irrigation system to handle 30 hectares of lavender, shade cloth and winter cloth for the greenhouse the project has recently built to do their own propagation, more equipment and a larger facility for soap-making, and beekeeping training and equipment to make lavender honey (yum!).

Directions

At the Candelaria gate, ask for the Marsh estate. Between 5:30 and 7:30pm, as you drive through the scenic, landscaped Candelaria grounds on your way to the Marsh estate, stop at the Villas of Candelaria for lavender margaritas and a chance to win an iPod shuffle. Look for the sign!



Lavender blooms in San Miguel
By Signe Hammer



Ausencio Domenzain Martínez is a man with a mission. As head of the lavender farming co-op at Rancho La Colorada, a 45-minute drive from San Miguel off the road to Dolores Hidalgo, he has 5,000 lavender plants under cultivation. Visit the Lavender Project, as the combined efforts of three different rancho co-ops are called, and you’ll see long rows of plants headed by signs reading “Provence” or “Grosso.” Right now, the lavender is blooming, the low, rounded, bushy plants sending stalks of fragrant blossoms straight up to perfume the air. Stand in a furrow between rows and listen to the buzzing of hundreds, maybe thousands, of wild honeybees and you’ll wonder what the much-analyzed honeybee problem in the US is all about.

In 2007, Domenzain and the seven other members of Azul Lavenda, the farming co-op, had their first harvest from 2,000 plants purchased with the help of St. Anthony’s Alliance, a US-based nonprofit started by husband-and-wife physicians. St. Anthony’s provided funding (including matching grants obtained by Azul Lavenda), training, and the whole idea of starting a lavender industry on the arid highland plateau of central Mexico.

The people of La Colorada have run with it. Solo Lavenda, the soap-making co-op headed by Elizabeth Morales, is beginning to make money. The work of Azucenas de Joaquin, the sewing co-op, has expanded to include lavender sachet bags, lavender basket linings and other products. A beekeeping co-op is being formed. Lavender soap, sachets, salts, wands and other products are currently sold in stores and markets and at craft fairs in San Miguel and Mexico City. Under contract with the Rosewood hotel chain, 3,000 sachets have been shipped to California. Once FDA approval has been obtained, soap will follow.

The lavender is being harvested this month. Domenzain showed me his half of the two hectares (almost five acres) now under drip irrigation. Nearby, in the still room, lavender oil is distilled—50 liters of lavender buds, about half the harvest from a single hectare, produce half a liter of precious oil. The farm co-op sells the oil to the soap co-op, whose divinely scented, multicolored products fill the wire shelves in the soap-curing room. The scents range from lemon with honey, chocolate and cinnamon with honey to peppermint, flower of lavender and just plain lavender. 

Domenzain is thinking ahead. Rows of propagating plants are now sheltered under the still room’s porch roof, but nearby the skeleton of a greenhouse is ready to receive its skin. There, in addition to Provence and Grosso, Domenzain will propagate the smaller, softer-and-sweeter-smelling Munstead variety, perfect for garden plants. 

His own single hectare of lavender is surrounded by six hectares of alfalfa and food crops. At seven hectares each, the members of Azul Lavenda control about 56 hectares of land. Underground pipes are already in place to take water to the farthest fields. Funding is needed for more drip irrigation, but it’s not hard to imagine the lavender fields of La Colorada stretching as far as the eye can see.

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Biblioteca board changes meeting format 


The Board of Directors of the Biblioteca has voted to change the format of monthly meetings. The Executive Board now will meet twice a month to discuss current business and meet with department heads in the Biblioteca.

The format of the monthly public meeting will be (1) reading the minutes of the previous meeting, (2) financial report, (3) two topics for discussion (to be published in Atención before the date of the meeting) with the participation of relevant staff members/volunteers and (4) new business.

The board hopes this will stimulate more community participation in the meetings by concentrating in depth on different areas of the Biblioteca. The monthly financial summary and the minutes will be posted on the website.

The topics for the next meeting on July 31 will be the House & Garden Tour and Café Santa Ana. The board looks forward to your participation.

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