Find your favorite cactus at the Albuquerque Garden Center. Photograph courtesy of the Cactus and Succulent Society of New Mexico.

Spike it up.

Grab your sunhat and head to the Albuquerque Garden Center Saturday when the Cactus and Succulent Society of New Mexico holds an outdoor sale. Vendors will offer a wide variety of plants, some priced as low as $3. “There will be plants there for beginners and people to talk to about how to grow them,” says Ralph Peters, the society’s webmaster and spring sale public relations manager. “Most of these plants are really easy to grow if you understand what they want.” Peters says to keep an eye out for mature plants, too. Some vendors bring 20-year-old behemoths they’re looking to unload. You just might score a $20 winner. 

Grizzly painting by Dinah SwanView animal portraits by artist Dinah Swan at the Doña Ana Arts Center Gallery, in Las Cruces. Photograph courtesy of the Doña Ana Arts Center Gallery.

Bless the beasts.

Pastel portraits of tigers, ravens, and coyotes make up Animal Magnetism, a solo exhibit of works by Dinah Swan at the Doña Ana Arts Center Gallery, in Las Cruces. She hopes the pieces inspire a protective instinct. “I depict animals as noble, innocent but vulnerable partners with us,” she says on her website. “We have a voice about what happens to animals in the future. I believe we should use that voice for animals who cannot speak for themselves.” Swan’s works are up through April 29.

Cello performerListen to the Music of the Universe, a virtual performance in collaboration between Meow Wolf and the Santa Fe Symphony. Photograph by Manny Becerra/Unsplash.

Start the music.

Bach’s Cello Suite No. 6 and modern art weave together in Music of the Universe, a virtual presentation created in a collaboration between Meow Wolf and the Santa Fe Symphony. The virtual, pre-recorded performance premiered in March and is available through April 21. It’s like a music video inside Meow Wolf’s otherworldly House of Eternal Return featuring some of the symphony’s biggest stars. It’s free. You can watch whenever you want. A nice dessert for an at-home date night, perhaps?  

Jemez Hot Springs offers golden leaves against red cliffs.Soak up the sun and the hot springs in the Jemez Mountains. Photograph courtesy of Jemez Hot Springs. 

Hit the hot springs.

Natural hot springs hide like treasures in the Jemez Mountains—a few of them wild, others domesticated. Have a spa day and support a local business at Jemez Hot Springs where multiple pools offer temperatures between 98 and 105 degrees. Some are bright blue and large enough for a nice swim. The commercial property does not take reservations. It’s first come, first served, and COVID restrictions mean there are only 20 people admitted at a time. Bring a towel, a book, and leave your worries at home. 

Baby Protoceratops at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & ScienceCheck out a new virtual exhibit featuring baby Protoceratops and other tiny dinosaurs. Photograph courtesy of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science.

See baby dinosaurs!

New Mexico dinosaurs in their wee-est forms star in a new virtual exhibit from the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, Tiny Titans: Dinosaur Eggs and Babies. Get to know more about dinos from the late Cretaceous period, like the Bisti Beast and the Pentaceratops, see fossils, and learn about how the dinosaurs gave birth and cared for their young. Hear from the museum’s curator of paleontology, Thomas Williamson, who talks fossils, models, and the paleontological significance of New Mexico.