Saturday, March 2, 2024

Miles to go before we plant

 

Miles to go before we plant

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It is interesting to contemplate that a mere two month old baby has accumulated more frequent flier miles than I have in the past five years. The comparison is easy. My mileage is 0.

More astounding is that little Marley’s flights cost more than the sum total of all my flights, domestic and foreign, inclusive of but not exclusively: multiple domestic flights, Hawaii, Alaska, Mexico, China, Japan and India. Who could have imagined this farm girl could have visited so many far places!

Marley spent last week in the all-inclusive exotic resort, Hospital St. Vincent’s in Billings, via her second life-flight, treating for a return of pneumonia. I was too upset to even talk about it.

I learned something. When a person we love is dangerously ill, we, not just me, tend to distance ourselves from the pain by referring to them as she or he, the baby, her mother or his son. When I realized that, I changed my language to Marley this and Marley that, keeping her close in my heart.

Marley is back home again today. Our little Marley has officially spent exactly one-half of her life in St. Vincent’s NICU. My little great grand-daughter has accumulated a whole world of people who ‘own’ her, as my friend Kathy said.

That is the update on my Montana life, which I live vicariously, via telephone.

Since I write about whatever is happening in my life, and I don’t pretty it up, I’m going to tell you what ‘almost’ happened today. I ‘almost’ got in a snit with a friend. It was my snit. Not hers.

Yesterday I sent out a photo of my azalea, planted in a garbage can, to my high-school girlfriend-group. It is spectacular, more flowers than foliage, perfumes my entire front garden.

My friend Karen replied that she wanted an azalea but thought it might not grow in her new home in Nevada. I wrote back, why not, the winters are milder than in Floweree.

Ellie wrote.  Azaleas need acidic soil. Nevada soil is alkaline. Don’t plant it. Won’t grow. Those are not her exact words. It is how I heard the words. Like a slap. I felt dismissed.

I removed myself from the keyboard before I plink-plink-plinked-send. Got a glass of water, took a hike, calmed down.

Ellie is a serious gardener. She researches every flower and bush and tree she plants. Karen is a Master Gardener. Both women are much more knowledgeable than me. I’m simply lucky to live in Jalisco, the Garden State of Mexico where if you spit, something will grow, because you probably had a tomato-guava-jalapeno-some-kind-of-seed stuck in your teeth. Ask the birds. They know.  

My friend Ellie researches her soil, how much water the plant will take, how much debris the plant will make, how long it will flower, shade or sun needs, what the plant wants to eat and when to burp it. She is thorough. Proof is manifest in her beautiful low-water-needs garden in Central (dry) California.

When I finally sat back at my computer to respond, I thanked Ellie for the information. But, I couldn’t help myself. My ego reared her ugly head and I went on to say I have no idea whether our soil here is alkaline or acidic. It is volcanic. Everything seems to want to grow, whether or not I want it to grow. However, my beautiful azalea sits regally in a large trash can filled with planting soil from David’s Vivero Centro. (So there!)

My gardening style is hit or miss. “Oh, I like you. I’ll plant you here. If you grow, good. If you don’t, off with your head.” Having admitted to my ignorance, I do tend to stick with plants that are easy, plants that I see thriving in gardens all around me.

I don’t know why I got in a snit, short lived, but it was definitely there. There had been no real provocation. 

I have a colander full of tomatoes that want to become soup base, so I’d best get on with making soup happen.

I wonder, do tomatoes want acidic soil or alkaline soil?

I’ll keep that wonder to myself.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

March already!

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To Tapir or Not to Tapir

 

               To Tapir or Not to Tapir 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Michelle called. “I need to take Blue to the vet in Tala tomorrow. Ana can’t come with me because she is overseeing the work crew building our new guest house. Would you be able to come along with me?”

“What time do we leave?”

Michelle picked me up. Blue, tucked in his kitty carrier, never made a peep the whole trip. Michelle and I filled the air with words covering multiple spectrums.

Background: Blue is an elderly cat, not in the best of health. Michelle feared this might be his last trip, yet, there were signs he wanted to live.

More background: Tala is an old factory town. The sugar cane processing plant pumps white steam into the air from October through May. Somewhere off the highway there is a Coca-Cola plant. In town, and it all seems to be ‘Old Town’, the streets are narrow, not laid out for modern vehicles.

Even more background: This veterinary practice specializes in small animals, mostly dogs, but will see cats too. Michelle said one time when they came, the vet was treating a horse, in the courtyard, I’m sure. The man who started the clinic had three sons, all of whom went to veterinary school and joined the thriving practice. Vets in Etzatlan mainly see to the health of cattle and horses, farm animals.

We had no more than settled down to wait our turn, when, trailed by two large dogs, in walked a man, cuddling a scruffy, long-snouted creature in his arms. Our eyes grew large as dinner plates.

“Is that a tapir?” “I think so.”

The man must have had an appointment because he was shuttled directly into a room. Michelle and I tip-toed to the open doorway, trying to get a peek. The man stood with broad back blocking our view. Reluctantly, we backed off before we became rude and intrusive. Wow, a tapir!

We left Blue in the capable hands of the vet hospital persons. His problems are being treated.

My grandson, Tyler, is a rescuer of animals and has his own rather exotic collection with their various care requirements. Tyler is set on his own pathway to become a vet. I must tell him about the tapir.

Yes, wow, a tapir! This man held the animal close in his arms, his hands comforting it. The animal was not struggling to escape, though it was moving about. So, how do you get one? I’ve never seen a tapir at Pet’s R Us. But, then, I’ve never looked.

How do you care for a tapir? This one responds to petting. Would it enjoy being brushed? Do you keep it in the house? What does it eat? I’ve never seen bags of Tapir Food at Tractor Supply or the pet supply aisle of IGA. Then, again, I’ve never looked. My Lola would never agree to such an adoption. Share her doghouse? Never, no way.

This particular tapir, if tapir it is indeed, must be a toddler. I had to look them up. These animals get quite large, are similar to wild pigs. Some varieties are bigger than others. This looked like a Mexican tapir.

On a whim, I looked up anteaters. No, I think it was a tapir. I can imagine a tapir as a pet. Not so much, the anteater. Although, feeding an anteater would be no problem. “Here you go sweet pea, a large yard. Have at it.”

I do wonder how one comes to be cuddling a tapir.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

Still February

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Here a Little, There a Little

 

            Here a Little, There a Little

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Why do the little changes take up so much space? I should qualify that with an addition, “in my head?”

Really, most changes hardly make a dent in my consciousness. Change is constant. My favorite bowl slips from my fingers and shatters on the tile floor. Blip—gone. The rubber tip on my cane wears out. I replace it. Lola The Dog celebrates her birthday (Okay, I celebrate her birthday). I notice she has quite a few more white hairs. Change, like a river, always moving.

Other changes. I give them  big space, make them important.

Over the years while Julie lived next door, we’ve slowly come to know each other. Julie is married to Francisco, whose family home is a thirty minute drive northwest of here, where they will make their new home. “We will visit often,” she assures me. I nod and smile, knowing that her life will zoom a different direction. New home, new neighbors. Yes, we will visit, but, with decreasing frequency. It’s the way of life. It will not be the same as chatting over the gate, in the back yard or on the patio three or four times a week. Change. Neither good nor bad. Simply change.

Then there is the weather. Just when I’ve gotten used to the patterns I’ve observed the years I’ve lived in Etzatlan, it goes slop-sided on me, big time.

As expected in February, days began warming. I took one of the covers off my bed yesterday morning. I’d been tossing it off at night for a couple weeks. I’ve been using my heater only sporadically, an hour or two if I felt chilled.

As usual, I walked my dog at noon. Sat in the shade a while. Chatted with a neighbor. Warm and comfortable.

Lola The Dog got antsy around 3:00, insisted we walk again. Okay, I grumbled under my breath. The wind had come up, stolen all the heat in those couple hours. I put the quilt back on my bed, turned on the heater in my suddenly cold house, made a cup of steaming tea to heat body and soul. Watched the clouds threaten rain, a few drops here but real rain in towns around us. It “never” rains in February. A rare shower in March, my neighbor assured me, never in February.

Just for giggles I checked the forecast a week ahead. Colder. Rain every day. “What do you mean, turning colder?  Rain?” Lower numbers 20 to 25 degrees, sun-up and sun-down, which may not be cold in Montana but it means cold where I live. What’s with the rain? Welcome rain! Go away, cold!

You’d think by my reaction that I had been personally affronted. I turned up my heater, resigned to another big power bill. Lola and I walked again around 6:00, bundled in my winter-wear. Should I make Lola a doggy coat?

While walking, my thoughts turned to physics. Not the high school physics of 1963. Or maybe it was. I had pretty much day-dreamed through physics, slouched in my seat, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” tucked into the pages of my text book.

I wondered if air hurts. This was not a new wondering. I remember racing Sputnik the length of the hay field after the hay had been stacked, huge billowing storm clouds behind us, crackle of electricity in the air, feeling the air part around us. That was long ago, still in the 60s, when I first wondered if air hurt or noticed or cared.

I’d think about that airy notion, time to time, on the open Montana highway, parting the air at 80 mph. Or on the airplane over the Pacific, on the way to China, or on I-5, Seattle to LA, maneuvering through more vehicles than surely should exist. Or the water, while on the Ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island. Does water hurt? Does it make a difference, what we do without thought, at such speeds?

Without doubt, it makes a difference to bugs and fishies. If air or water are contaminated, we hurt. But what does it mean to continually stir the air? Nothing? Anything?

I certainly do not advocate we return to horse and buggy days. That would be a change too far.  I like cars. I’d quite happily own a gas guzzler if it were not cheaper and easier for me to pay someone else for transportation.

Julie will move. It will rain in February. I’ll part the air carefully while walking the lane. I think I’ll read “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” again.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

February, still winter (with rain!)

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

 

All My Noisy Neighbors

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

First things first. Our Baby Marley is home. She is home, ready for the hard work of getting healthy and growing and looking at everything around her with those big eyes. We are so grateful. And we are so grateful for all the friends and strangers who cared, who in small ways took our baby in their arms and into their hearts and helped her heal. Thank you.

That dog of mine has put me into the habit of greeting the rising sun on our first walk of the day. Believe me, before Lola came to live with me, I did not leave the house at first light.

I’ve no problem anthropomorphizing non-humans around me. This morning, in my meditations, the birds, in all their great variety, inhabiting the wide-spreading trees, took on characteristics of people living in high-rise condominiums, maybe without quite as much fuss as we humans.

Kiskadees prefer the upper floors, the penthouse suites, noses high in the air, a bit above the rest of us, more colorful, louder in their opinions. Let me tell you, those Kiskadees, they are loud! And insistent that you hear their opinions. Over and over and over. They would be great radio personalities, you know the kind, ones who host phone-in talk shows.

Tanagers and Palomas seem to furnish the middle units quite happily. These characters are softer voiced, more musical, more space between their words.

Rainbirds like to hang out, separate but connected. They are private types, tend to listen before they sound off. (I’m making this up, of course, you know that.)

Partridge doves and warblers nest in every limb of the lower units. These inhabitants of the numerous condos, apartments and high-rises around us, provide the background music of life, always there, always singing.

Of course, this is my own silliness, a silliness that sprang from thinking about how much the birds need the trees and the trees need the birds. That’s what I think, at any rate. And we, or I, need the trees and the birds.

When I leave the house in the morning I walk beneath a ring of trees, full of birds singing the sun up. If the birds go silent, I look around to see what and why. They pay no attention to me. This morning I saw a hawk, a rare sight.

Vultures are always circling the air currents. Vultures don’t live in our ring of trees but they have habitations in a particular group of trees in town. The birds give no mind to the vultures, knowing they are looking for riper prey. Once my birds deemed the hawk of no danger to them, they resumed song.

But is it song? Maybe they are arguing. My nest is better than your nest. What about that slovenly bird-brain on branch 23? Birds of that feather shouldn’t be allowed to live among we-are-better-than-thems. Deport that bunch back to Missouri. Take away their visas. Those lower-caste birds on the bottom tiers, can’t we boot them to the slums? They are surely nothing but troublemakers.

In my world, silly or not, I’ll call bird voices song. Or prayer. Or blessing.

This morning I noticed a flock of yellow Tanagers. I love the Tanagers. (The Western Tanager is red-orange, a glory of feather-dress, and likes to hang out in the Bottlebrush.) These yellow Tanagers, or they might be Orioles, were riding the air to the height of the tallest pines. We have a type of pine tree that tends to loom above the spreading-branches trees.

The tanagers this morning perched on outside branches of the pine tree above Julie’s house, arranged themselves as if they were Christmas decorations. The sight so delightful, I had to stop in my tracks with admiration for so long that Lola, who’d pranced ahead of me, came back to see why I had not followed her back to our house.

I’ve come to believe, personal experience, youth is wasted on the young. When I grew up on my Dad’s farm on the Milk River, my get-away place was a cottonwood tree, trunk and branches leaning over the water. I’d climb that tree to sing, to cry, to celebrate, to sulk, to dream, to tell God of my understanding back then, what I wanted and how I thought my life should go. Amen.

I remember the texture of the cottonwood bark beneath my fingers, the solid branches holding me in the air, the mottled shadows of sunlight through the leaves, the tortured twigs of winter. But, I don’t remember the birds. I know there were birds. There had to be birds.

Where were the birds?

Where was I?

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

February, still winter

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Making My Retreat Center in the Kitchen

 

            Making My Retreat Center in the Kitchen

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Life is tough. At times, life is tougher. I’m on the periphery of that tough life but I feel it just the same.

Baby Marley is still in the hospital in Billings. She’s not out of the woods, but slowly on the right path, healing from RSV and Pneumonia and detoxing from the drug that kept her paralyzed during the worst of her personal storm. Mom and Dad still camp out in her room.

Meanwhile, back home in Glendive, Grandma Dee and Grandpa Chris and Uncle Tyler are taking care of the other children, in ages, two and three, six and eight. Grandma came down with a horrible cough, ear and throat infections, and is medicating the best she can while continuing work and child care.

Sure, I could hop a plane. And be one more person needing care, not being currently winterized, among other disabilities.

Me, I’m 2500 miles away but next door to the whole rumpus. I want to run away. I want to go on retreat. A three-day retreat would be better than any vacation. I’m serious. I’ve given this a lot of thought, edging into overthink.

The solution, obvious, is that I live in my own retreat center. I could hang a sign on my gate: “On Retreat. Do Not Disturb”. My problem is that I don’t want to unplug my phone. I want to know. I want to stay in touch with family. Goes against retreat rules, right? Rules such as no phone, no computer, no contact, no talking.

When Baby and Grandma are back to health and their own homes, I will make my retreat, sans phone and computer and talk.

In the interim, I find retreat in my kitchen. My kids used to say, “Watch out. Mom’s making bread.’ That was shorthand code for “Mom’s upset. Stay out of the way.” I’ve always found comfort in pummeling bread dough.

Baking bread doesn’t mean I’m upset. I bake bread because I’m out of bread. Because I want to do something nice for a neighbor. Because I’m stressed. Because I’m happy.

I find comfort in my kitchen. Instead of my usual honey whole-wheat bread, I decided to try a different bread roll recipe, new to me. Oh, my. I found the queen of all breads. Instead of baking cookies to eat with my morning coffee, and I had cookie dough in the refrigerator, ignored, I broke off a bread roll and delighted in the goodness.

I shared these rolls with a couple other people, suggested they try them with morning coffee. They have metaphorically lined up outside my gate waiting for me to bake again.

Figuring I had to make sure the recipe wasn’t a fluke, I made a second batch. Plain dough that good just might make sweet rolls. I divided the dough into sandwich buns, dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls.

When the cinnamon rolls cooled slightly, I broke off a taste-test. These are better than my usual cinnamon rolls. The bread is softer, more delicate, carries the flavors well.

Immediately I contacted my friend. Michelle, I know you and Ana are taking your sister Susan to the airport tomorrow. If you have time, stop by for cinnamon rolls and coffee. I knew their schedule would be tight.

They came. We ate, we drank, we had an unspoken communion. The plate of rolls disappeared. I shooed my friends on down the road.

That is one of the joys of a kitchen retreat center.

Several friends bake bread. We compare and share recipes. Most of my friends bake bread without ever touching the dough. This I do not understand.

We all use recipes. A recipe is a guide, right? We grew up, each with a slightly different guide or recipe for how to live. Circumstances might change, a difference in ingredients, an addition here or a subtraction there. That’s life.

Same for bread. The flour here is less refined but ground to a fineness that makes me smile. My butter is different than your butter. Honey or sugar? Sea salt or the stuff from the blue box with the girl and umbrella? Do they still sell that? Potato water? So many choices. Same for life.

I want my hands in the flour, to bring the ingredients together just right, to knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic and slightly blistery. How can I pour my heart into the dough without getting messy? The dough talks to me. My fingers understand the lingo. My fingers know when the dough is just right, ready to rise in a covered bowl, ready to shape and bake.

Bread of life with love and worry and frustration and goodness.

Don’t bother me. I’m in the kitchen.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

February, none too soon

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I’m all shook up!

 

I’m all shook up!

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

No, that does not refer to an earthquake.

If you are of an age, you will recognize this as a song sung by Elvis when he was a youngster himself, around 1957. “I’m in love. I’m all shook up!”

Love manifests in many ways and early last week my world and the world of my family was all shook up. My great-granddaughter, Baby Marley, was diagnosed with RSV and pneumonia. Along with Mom, Jessica, Marley was transported from Glendive to Billings on a life-flight. Her family immediately came together with plans for how to cope. Of course, all the plans fell apart.

By the end of the day, revised plans in place, Jessica and Marley were safely ensconced in the NICU at St. Vincent’s. Damon (Dad) was en route with instructions to drive mindfully on the snowy, icy roads to Billings. Christopher (Grandpa), Dee Dee (Grandma) and Uncle Tyler stepped in to take care of the other four little ones, schedule to be revised as needed, which pretty much has meant daily restructuring.

Several hours passed that first day before we learned that Marley was in NICU, hooked up to various lines to support her life. Life lines. Sounds better than tubes. Semantics, I know. During those several hours of knowing nothing, I was a wet, sopping mess.

I’m an old hide, as my friend Dick used to say. I’ve lost my parents, my aunts and uncles, my closest friends and many, many people close in other ways. Each death left a scar on my heart. Nothing hurt like losing my baby. It is a different kind of pain. Too many women in our part of Montana can attest to what I say. Many, many women stepped out of their path to comfort me that winter in 1964.

This little Baby Marley, one I haven’t held in my arms, took over my heart in an overwhelming way. Part of my feeling was from fear. I do not want Jess and Damon, my whole family, to go through that loss. Don’t tell me that fear and love cannot live side by side. Love is bigger but I would be lying if I told you love pushed out fear. I wish it would.

The latest news from the doctors is that Marley will probably be in the hospital another week. My family “on the ground” in Glendive are exhausted, juggling child care for the other four children with their regular jobs and responsibilities.

We all have hope. The second night Marley was in the hospital, I had a dream in which a tightly swaddled baby was thrust into my arms. This little baby was a boy. Throughout the night’s dreams, I held that baby snug to my chest. I wondered if I had carried Marley through the night.

My friend asked, “Did you carry the baby or did that baby carry you?”

“Ah.” I said, as I recognized another truth.

I respond to soppy, sappy old love songs. We’ve all been bit by the bug. Baby Marley is our little buttercup. We surround her with a puffy pillow of love. Her whole family is carried on a puffy pillow-clouds of love.

At this point, week two in the hospital, it looks like another week ahead. Exhausting. But hopeful. We are all shook up. All of us. We know what matters. Love matters.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

January soon over

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

I Am A Plaid Flannel Shirt

 

            I Am A Plaid Flannel Shirt

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

My friend Jerry wrote me this week. Skipping the personal stuff, he asked, “Is it possible for you to create a 501 3C to raise money in U.S. to help people in need in Etzatlan?”

Once I picked myself off the floor still hooting, I wrote back something like the following.

A 501 3C? Oh, Jerry, I thought you knew me better than that! You ask me to do a suit job. I am not a suit. I am a well-worn flannel shirt.  I am a lot of things, my friend. I am an artist, an inventor, a mechanic, a poet, a farmer, a dreamer, a leader. I am a friend. But I am not a suit. I am not even one sleeve of a suit. Oh, how I wish I were. My life would be so different.

Let me interject that I’ve known Jerry since school days. Jerry helped me with Algebra and I wrote his term papers to his specifications. He’d say, “Give me a C+ this time. I think Mrs. Hunter was suspicious of that last B.”

Jerry is a suit. We both went to school in little Harlem, Montana. Jerry got further away than most of us, not geographically, but in other directions. Jerry is still one of us. He just cleans up really, really well. Jerry knows which fork to use. Jerry is a financial investor for a major bank.

When I sold my house in Harlem, and compared to housing values throughout the country, we don’t even ping the scale, I asked Jerry if he would invest my wee landfall for me. Jerry kindly explained the smallest investment he handles, and he named an amount that I cannot even count that high. I was mortified, humiliated, wanted to crawl into a cave. I survived. We are friends.

Jerry and his wife visited me when I’d lived here in Etzatlan only a couple years. And they returned every year until the Pandemic. I don’t know if he fell in love with Etzatlan but he definitely has an affinity for our town. Every year he sends me a generous amount of money for the old-people’s home which is run totally on donations and always in need. Leo and I scurry around town and buy food supplies and personal items for the people. The store owners always generously adjust the costs downward when they learn where our purchases are going.

So you can understand why Jerry thought I’d want to help. I had to decline the job. I said, Jerry, I have neither the experience nor the expertise to do such a job. Numbers and money are beyond my ken. (Sigh.)

In my former life, I was leader of a group that built a theatre, from nothing, after paying off a huge debt left by the former administration. One of our first priorities was to obtain a 501 3C. It took a lot of doing and would have been impossible without Kathleen. And without Al, our bean counter and the man who made sure our feet stayed on the ground, and without David who described himself as general dog’s body but we couldn’t have done without him and without the handful of other volunteers, all extremely important, all adding their bits of experience and passion.

Emphasis on “group”. We were a small, emphasis on small, handful of volunteers and from a near ten thousand dollar debt, we emerged and built a one-hundred seat black box theatre. We did what couldn’t be done. We.

When our theatre became successful enough to fill the seats every weekend, I was smart enough to step down and seek someone with suit skills to carry it forward. I am very proud to say that the Jewel Box still puts on plays, still serves the community and is thriving.

I blathered on to Jerry a good bit about my own personal stuff and ended my missive with “much love from the plaid flannel shirt”.

This morning I had coffee in town with a friend and told her about Jerry’s request and how I had had to turn him down. Her eyes lit up. “Let me think about this. I do know how to go about obtaining a 501 3C and this sounds right up my alley.”

I wrote Jerry back and told him that his idea did not die on my vine. We need to get together. I envision much dialogue. Who knows but the impossible might be possible, not with me, but with we.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

January, spring side, more or less

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________