Spoof and Other Observations

 

Spoof and Other Observations

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Last week my article garnered surprising comments. The older women seemed to get a hearty chuckle. The younger women were horrified. The men were silent.

It was a spoof! I thought that was obvious. I also know that when I speak I have such a serious face that people often mistake my humor.

The important point though, the only important point, is that I know that the only person I can make happy is myself. And that is a full-time job!

Meanwhile, see the smile on my rainy face. Last night the rain poured, plunged, out of the stormy clouds, our first full-on, hard rain of the season. Never mind how happy a few sprinkly showers made us feel. This is pure joy.

The hot season is over—daytime temperature dropped 20 degrees. Rain is a daily do. I will not have to drag hose for five glorious days. I can say that every day.

Without that daily chore, what will I do? Let me tell you a little bit about living here in Oconahua. I love living in Etzatlan. I love living in Oconahua. The first time I came to Oconahua, it was to tramp over the ruins, talk to the on-site archeologist, to learn about the digs.

The second time I drove through the town deepened my fascination. This trip was to visit new friends, Ana and Michelle. Driving out of this little town of maybe 2400 people, I remember thinking, I could live here. Each time I came that feeling gained a little more weight until decreasing mobility gave me the impetus to make the move to a smaller home.

I miss my wrap-around windows. I miss my Etzatlan friends, all within a short walk. I miss my extensive garden. I make the most of what I have, my herbs, five pots of geraniums, my papaya tree planted in a large garbage can, my two containers of food plants.

No location is perfect—or every location is perfect. My choice. My grass is greenest.

The other morning I cut off seven non-bearing squash blossoms, stuffed them with a sliver of cheese, dipped them in egg, dredged them in masa, fried them in butter. I make the most of what I have.

The next day, for entertainment, I rested my forearms on a window sill and watched a prize-winner of a tractor pull a cultivator over what will become, once again, a corn field. I say a prize-winner tractor. It would garner admiration and acclaim in any antique tractor show. At a guess, I’d say this one is vintage 1930s. Same with the cultivator.

Maybe one would have to have grown up with tractors to understand my fascination. We had older tractors on our farm. I don’t recall that we ever had a shiny new sparkly tractor. But none as old as this fine specimen.

One of the joys of living in the Garden of Mexico is the variety of fruits and vegetables I’ve never seen before. I make a point to try everything and certainly have my favorites. I like to explore their various uses.

Ciruela, trust me, it is unpronounceable. In Spanish every syllable is pronounced and don’t forget the Spanish “r”. Cir-u-e-la. And vowels are pronounced with different sounds than ours. (Seerrr-ew-((long)) a-lah) Now put it all together with speed. Ha. Enough of language lessons.

This lovely native plum is delicious. However, much like the chokecherry we know, it is more pit than pulp. Ciruelas are the size of marbles to ping-pong balls. Common use is as an agua fresca, a delicious drink, refreshing and healthy.

Ana brought me a nice bulging bag of reddish-yellow plums.  Given the similarity to our own fruit of comparable pit-pulp, I wondered if ciruelas would make a good jelly.  

It was a hot and steamy day in the kitchen, worth every salty drop of sweat in a hot kitchen, and, yes, ciruelas make the best plum jam ever!

I’ll end my rambles for today with a dog story. On the far corner of my concrete patio area, overhung with a plumeria tree, there was a 4’ x 6’ area of weedy dirt. I decided to grass it over. My friend Leo brought me the sod and created my small “lawn”. My mutt Lola immediately claimed it as her own. She rolled and rolled, joy evident in every muscle, the biggest smile ever on her doggy face. If she’s not wriggling, she’s perched in the grass, overseeing her kingdom, making sure all is well in our world.

Don’t try to tell me I don’t have a full life.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

June 19, 2025

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Haircut Day at Mi Casa

 

                 Haircut Day at Mi Casa

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Rainy season has arrived early. Hooray! Hooray! Evening rains revive this parched mountain valley. Trees tilt their sombreros when I walk by.  

When one hasn’t seen rain in nine months, the typical gestation period one might think, each raindrop is a birthing. A renewal. New life. Figuratively and literally.

And I laid claim to my Baby Rain, took credit for bringing it about all by myself. I’m human, okay? It may sound silly but it is the way I felt, wet, standing out in the rain, drenched by my baby, laughing.

Gardening is different here in central Mexico. Pruning plants to keep them within bounds is a constant chore, just less frequently necessary in the dry season. But knowing the rains are here leads to thinking, “We need to hack this stuff off now, stuff like the Plumbago hedge and the ferns.”

We, my garden man Leo and I, had let the Plumbago hedge along the entrance wall go to flower. This shrub dresses itself with a profusion of blue flowers. When the branches get rain-soaked, they fall over, blocking the walkway. When trimmed regularly, and this shrub grows out of bounds quickly, the plant makes a lovely green hedge.

I am rich with a hedge for Plumbago flowers in back and a greenery hedge in front.

Trimming the Plumbago led to hacking the potted ferns down to a flattop hairdo, led to whacking back the vigorous Wandering Jew, all of which grow like weeds on steroids; once planted, watch out!

“Everything is getting a haircut, Leo,” I said, clippers in hand while trimming one of my favorites, something like a cousin to asparagus fern. “I should go to town to have Lorena cut my hair too.”

My hair, born with a mind of its own, responds best to short, wash and wear cuts. I’ve been whacking it myself during the entire pandemic. Poor hair. But as my Dad always said, “The difference between a bad haircut and a good haircut is two weeks.”  If only that were true. It worked for a couple years until my head got to the point I wanted to shave it and start fresh.

Leo said, “I drove my car today so I can take you to town if you want. Or I can ask Erika if she’ll cut your hair.”

Well, I didn’t know Erika cut hair. She’s a multi-talented woman. She’s got to do better than me. So I wrapped a towel around my neck and Erika pruned me in short order, pun intended, out in the courtyard between the Plumbago and the geraniums.

After Erika finished my hair, Leo and I continued pruning, whacking, weeding.

Sadly, we had a death in the family. There is a shrub with multi-colored leaves of such beauty to make you catch your breath. It grew here possibly twenty years or more. This winter, the poor thing struggled to keep any leaves, and, in naked humiliation, finally gave up. So Leo whacked, sawed and dug the skeleton out of the ground.

Pre-pandemia, I would have made a trip to Vivero Centro to buy a replacement plant. But for the past years, I’ve simply been splitting or moving around what I have on hand. I had been wondering where to put the hollyhocks I had planted in a bucket from seeds Michelle gave me. Well, here it is, a sunny spot, now vacant, perfect for hollyhocks. Thus proving (to me) my belief that to make room for the new, one has to clear out the old.

Gulp. That’s a grim thought. This “Old” got pruned today but when will she need to be dug out and replaced!

Whoa! That sounds severe. Hopefully I have a bunch more trimmings before The Master Gardener cuts me off at the roots! I’m having too much fun.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 9, 2022

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And the rains, they came.

 

And the rains, they came. 

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To the tune of “Just another manic Monday”, the rains, they came, “just another rainy Monday”, Tuesday, Wednesday. Every day, the rains, they came. I’ve no idea why that old tune came to me. There certainly is nothing manic about my life. I am the definition of life-in-the-slow-lane.

Sunday, for the first time in a year and a half, I went out to lunch at a restaurant, the Etza Grill in town. Ate a meal I didn’t prepare myself. Sat with friends at a table and added laughter to cement our friendships.

After we’d ordered, Michelle asked me, “What have you been doing these last few days?”

“Not a blessed nor a blasted thing. Housework, making meals, puttering in my garden when it’s dry enough. Jigsaw puzzle. Solitaire. Reading. The epitome of an exciting life well-lived, hmmm?” That was a conversation stopper.

My Oconahua friends had the grace to laugh. Then admitted it was much the same at their place, though they also had planted trees in their reclaimed “new” back yard.

As we finished our hamburguesas and ensaladas, the sky, that lowering gray ceiling, turned upside down and became a river. Even after three weeks of rain, we still feel an excitement, an appreciation that this is good.

Needless to say, in the dash from the restaurant to the car, we got drenched to the skin.

We, in this dry country, are grateful. The earth soaks moisture like a sponge. Trees and bushes and all manner of growing stuff lift their heads and open their mouths and drink. Dead grass revives and in days is a tangled foot high and bushy tailed. It is good.

It’s not ALL good, of course. The rains brought all manner of bugs, especially the beetles. Brown beetles and black beetles and green beetles. Bugs. Black beetles have decimated my hibiscus blossoms. Green beetles prefer the creamy magnolia. Brown beetles simply are everywhere.

Bugs seek to share my domicile, especially the earwigs which are creepy. Flies, mosquitoes, centipedes and millipedes, all want to live with me. “Off with your heads,” I say. Sorry, if you love bugs. Creepy crawlers don’t pay rent. They bite. They refuse to listen to reason. Just say no does not work.

My son called. He’s working two jobs at present. Said he had to look at his life, make a list of all his activities and cut back some of his commitments for the present if he valued sleep and sanity.

My daughter called. She lost her secretary. A client called late in the night with an emergency situation. Dee Dee got up at midnight and took her to a safe house. Her oldest granddaughter, visiting her father in Washington, was bit in the face by a large dog. Everybody around her seemed to be in crisis. To top it off, the fox got in the hen house.

It’s situational. These things will pass and their lives will smooth out again.

But I’m reminded of a time when I ran my own life on the crisis-of-the-minute plan, fueled by adrenaline.

Fortunately I had a friend strong enough and sassy enough to call me on my choices. “You must like to feel miserable,” she said. “You keep doing things to hurt yourself.”

Whew, did I ever get angry. I hated her. But she had cut through my defenses. I saw that she was right. I went back for more good council when I cooled off.

Thinking about my kids’ problems of the moment and certain friends on rocky roads, I could put my mundane, boring, tedious, flat, dull, prosaic life in perspective.

Hey, I’ve got a good life. It’s a good week. Leo replaced two spigots and the float valve to repair the leaks in my tinaco (water reservoir on my roof).

The black-bellied whistling ducks returned. They come every year and nest in the trees. Yes, in the trees, where they lay eggs and hatch their babies. My closest pair nests in a long-ago storm-blasted Guamuchil tree within a hollow they find perfect for their summer home.

This handsome couple waddles like ducks but they don’t quack like ducks; when they fly over my head, their call is an unmistakable whistle. Amazing. Ducks in trees? Who’d a thunk it?

I watch zucchinis grow, faster than grass, faster than paint dries.

I made a squash-blossom quesadilla for breakfast.

It is raining.

Doesn’t get much better than this.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 24, 2021

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“Green, Green, It’s Green They Say. . .”

“Green, Green, It’s Green They Say. . .”

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            For the past three weeks it has, indeed, been greener on the far side of the hills surrounding our parched valley. Rains come in June, the local people tell me. And the rains surrounded us, in Ahualulco, San Marcos, Magdalena, Ameca. We in Etzatlan sat high and dry.

            Our last rain fell in October. Every day I scoop sand dunes off my floors. I worry. Is this a drought? June is nearly done and gone. What will we do for water?

            I grew up worrying about weather. I learned from my Dad, leaning on a shovel at the irrigation ditch, scanning the sky for any hint of cloud. I have too much history of the rains that never come. Even twenty-five years in the Seattle area, land of perpetual drizzle, could not—did not—cure my weather worry.

            Our household water is delivered by gravity flow. Each day the pressure dropped. Each day watering my extensive garden took longer. Some blithering idiot went crazy planting flowers in pots. What was the woman thinking? I walked around my casita and counted pots—95! I am embarrassed. Perhaps my gardening obsession got out a wee bit of hand.

            Our tiny colonia is situated on the corner of Rancho Esperanza. Streets are nothing more than dirt driveways. After eight months of no rain, dust devils are common. Yesterday I saw a rat in the philodendron alongside my patio wall. Rats are moving in from the corn fields, newly plowed and planted. Today I captured a rat in a bucket. Poor rat. Dispatched.

            Humidity climbed exponentially. One day 4%. Then 34%. 51% seemed too much to bear. Next day, 67%. Moisture saturated the air. Temperatures in the muggy high 90’s. Clouds moved in. Clouds moved out. Clouds moved all around and about.

            Until, Glory, Glory, “O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

            The first drops evaporate on contact with my concrete patio. Thunder rumbles. Sky lights flash. Wind delivers more than empty promise. An hour later every leaf, every blade of grass glistens with diamond flashes in the setting sunlight.

            I go to bed to the music of night storms. But I don’t sleep.  I have a strange mixture of emotions, hard to decipher. Apprehension when thunder crashes overhead and lightning surrounds me in every direction. My little house has wrap-around windows, no curtains, so I live open to the elements. I get up and close windows on the east and north. Wind shifts direction. I get out of bed again, close windows to west and south. Open. Close. Apprehension mixes with joy, sheer exuberance that the rainy season is begun. Three times the rains drop down blessings that first night.

            My yard looks like a park. Every plant has drunk its fill. Flower pots clustered on my patio are saturated. A dozen kinds of birds are mining the grass in my yard for bugs and worms. No need to drag hose from place to place today. Instantly the temperature dropped fifteen degrees. I inhaled deeply. Why does earth wet with rain smell different than rain wet from a sprinkler? Why are flower scents stronger today? Why do the hummingbirds act drunk?

            Late afternoon, clouds roll in, the show begins, small rain. But in the night, a steady pattering, two hours, three hours, soak. The green of grass and shrubs is so bright and intense that one needs shades, even in the shadows. Two nights of rain and the land appears rejuvenated.

            By the third stormy night I’m able to sleep through the rock and roll. I know each evening will bring sky activity from now through October. The locals assure me. I believe. I’m so easy.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 29, 2017

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