A flock of churro sheep, a herd of longhorn cattle, several donkeys and a milk cow will greet visitors to the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum when it opens later this year in Las Cruces.

Inside the 70,000-square-foot, hacienda-inspired building, artifacts and stories showing New Mexico's rich agricultural past will fill state-of-the-art exhibits.

"We in agriculture in New Mexico today are the inheritors of centuries of experimentation, determination, hard work and success in what it takes to wrest a living from this arid land," says Edson Way, museum director.

Way wants the museum to celebrate that heritage. "On the high-tech end, we will be installing push-button kiosks in the exhibit halls that will let visitors call up a taped interview with a cowboy or a plant geneticist, for instance, or see a piece of machinery working in a field," he says.

"On the low-tech end, opportunities to practice 'old-timey' domestic crafts like churning butter, carding fleece or shelling and grinding corn will give the visitor insight into how much time-consuming work went into feeding and clothing a family in the pre-microwave, pre-Kmart world."

The state's newest tourist attraction began more than 15 years ago as the vision of the late William P. Stephens, a former secretary-director of the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, and Gerald Thomas, then NMSU president. The two brought together others interested in giving 3,000 years of New Mexico agriculture a proper home.

Since then, there have been fund-raising events, construction woes, changes in leadership and grand expeditions to collect artifacts. As one local newspaper headline read, "It's been a long row to hoe."

When the museum staff moved into the building at 4100 Dripping Springs Road in January 1997, the greatest push to put together a premier museum began. Staff members have their work cut out for them, since it's not every day that a new museum is born. "We came in with the canvas clean, and we're painting that canvas," says Toni S. Laumbach, curator of collections.

An anthropologist with 25 years of experience in collection management, Laumbach is familiar with every artifact in the museum's 4,500-plus-item collection.

"The fall of 1996 was when things really started to come together," she says. "We were on the road. The collections began to take shape, and there was a real sense of camaraderie developing among the staff."

Under a crisp, blue sky, Laumbach and several staff members traveled to the Mimbres Valley Wigwam Ranch, owned by Ruth Bounds, where they explored the "ranch junk yard."

"As we viewed the items, it was fascinating to observe the tremendous efforts made to repair and recycle equipment," Laumbach wrote in a recent museum newsletter.

From that trip, the staff hauled home a number of items, including a forge with hand-cranked bellows accompanied by ranch-made blacksmith tools and an anvil mounted on cast-iron legs.

Back on the road, the group collected more agricultural treasures at the Cross H Ranch in Chaves County and the McGregor Ranch at the foothills of the Black Range on Berrenda Creek in southern Sierra County.

Then, at the invitation of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, they were off to Elephant Butte Dam. "You won't believe what we picked up there--about three tons worth of cast-iron piston housing used to open and close the sluice gates of the original Elephant Butte Dam," Laumbach wrote. "We envision an exhibit featuring the piston housing, which will portray the control of water and its importance to agriculture in the lower Rio Grande Valley."

The museum staff jokes that with a truck, trailer and some sage advice, Alvin Davidson, a museum volunteer, saved them from having to roll the piston housing down the highway back to Las Cruces.

Back at the museum, each donated item is carefully inventoried before being cleaned and fumigated to prevent further deterioration. Laumbach's work requires simple soap and water and, sometimes, a brush or a vacuum. Occasionally, more extreme measures are needed. A cowboy's bedroll recovered from a barn required freezing to get rid of the embedded vermin.

Some items are then stored in archival, acid-free paper and boxes, while others sit on shelves or wood pallets in the temperature- and humidity-controlled collection room.

"Most of the artifacts aren't glamorous," Laumbach says. "They're a part of rural living that I think will appeal to people who like a little bit of nostalgia."

While Laumbach collects artifacts, Jane Loy O'Cain gathers recollections of the state's farmers and ranchers. This oral historian's equipment includes a tape recorder and, more recently, a video camera.

"My work puts a personal face on history," says O'Cain, who has a master's degree in anthropology and is a candidate for a master's in history at NMSU. "Oral histories can be used in conjunction with documents and artifacts to tell about people and their ways of life."

To date, she's taped close to 60 interviews, including 38 with museum founders that will be used in an exhibit honoring the people who made the museum possible.

O'Cain has traveled the state to interview farmers, ranchers and rural school teachers from Springer to Lordsburg and from Roswell to Farmington. Along the way, she has discovered the art of working with people.

She usually meets her interviewees at least once before she arrives for her official interview. She begins by reassuring them about the kinds of information she's after. Her questions start with how the interviewee's family got into farming or ranching in New Mexico. She coaxes out their stories by asking and rephrasing many questions, and then waiting patiently for replies.

One of O'Cain's favorite interviews occurred two years ago with Pablo Bernal, a sheep rancher from Springer. As he was turning 100, he talked with O'Cain four times, filling eight audio tapes.

Bernal told O'Cain how he was able to sell his neighbors' lambs at a Denver stockyard during the drought in 1932: "We shipped those 15-, it was 14,000 something. I don't remember how many. We arrived there next day, near the morning, we put them in stockyards. They were very kind, but they told me there's no market. `But we gonna try. We been trying, calling, there is no one who wants them.' So all that day went on. In the evening, they told me there's no market. 'Sorry.' (Laughing) I couldn't do nothing. The lambs were there but there was no market. Next day, 11 o'clock they called me at my room. 'We sold all those lambs. Two dollars, net, two dollars a head.' Was that a miracle or what?"

Bernal will be featured in the museum's permanent exhibit.

To the thousands of words from her interviews, O'Cain adds historic documents and photos that help tell the stories. Copies of the tapes and transcripts are stored in the Rio Grande Historical Collections, located in NMSU's Branson Library.

With every interview she does, O'Cain's list of yet-to-be interviewed farmers and ranchers grows as more names are suggested.

Nigel Holman's job is to coordinate and develop what most people expect from a museum--exhibits. He is constantly brainstorming with the museum's exhibit designers, Main Street Design in Boston.

When complete, the museum's permanent exhibit will feature seven different zones, including land; water; weather; innovation; markets; production; and farmers and ranchers, which will be the first one ready for viewing.

While many of the museum's staff members are concerned about getting the indoor exhibits in shape, Robert Ulibarri is concerned about what visitors will see in the outdoor displays. Like any farm manager, Ulibarri's most important tools are a good pair of boots and a trusty horse.

A 1993 graduate of NMSU's agricultural and extension education department in the College of Agriculture and Home Economics, Ulibarri oversees the development of the museum's grounds, building pens, corrals, barns, paths and a bridge over an arroyo. He makes sure everything is wheelchair-accessible and safe for animals and visitors alike.

Ulibarri is in charge of preparing the land surrounding the museum for planting. He needs to put in an irrigation system and bring in topsoil to the mesa land for crops like chile and alfalfa.

The outdoor displays will include heritage livestock that tell the story of agriculture in New Mexico. Longhorn cattle are well-adapted to the desert climate, and churro sheep were the first sheep brought to the New World. A one-cow dairy parlor will be the site of milking and cheese-making demonstrations.

Way says the activities farm children take for granted or complain about make exciting adventures for city kids. "We hope that the friendly, informal atmosphere will encourage conversation among the visitors, so that a farming family visiting the museum may end up telling urban visitors about their own daily experiences drawing food and fiber from the land."

Ulibarri says together the indoor and outdoor displays will show what life was and is like for the state's farmers and ranchers. "Visitors will see how they are affected by agriculture. It will be entertainment and education--an experience."

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