Weirding my way into winter

 

Weirding my way into winter

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No longer can I remain in denial. I am an addict. I am addicted to sunlight.

When I lived in Poulsbo, Washington, on the Kitsap Peninsula where it rained ten months of the year, I remember how hard it was by February to keep up my spirits.  That is normal behavior, pretty much.

Now, these years later, after a mere couple (2) cloudy days with rain, and I begin to wonder if a Prozac Big Gulp would really work.

Having grown up in a country of constant drought, I love the rain. However, I love it more here, where (usually) the days have a mix of sun and rain (when it comes in season). When it is weird, like now, not so much.

Three weeks now, well entrenched in the Dry Season, October to June, three weeks, I repeat, three weeks of rain. The skies have emptied their black crumpled doomy-gloomy clouds of rain, rain, rain every day. Makes me want to lay my head on the chopping block like a chicken who gave up, go a-head, ready for the pot. (Sorry, couldn’t help the pun.)

When we are gifted with two days of sunshine, sunlight, sunglow, glorious, beautiful, warm, brilliant, sizzling, sun, as we are today, were yesterday, ah. Happiness is.

Forecast for tomorrow is cold, cloudy, doomy-gloomy and rain.

Nobody wants to give attention to the words “climate change”. Simple. I understand. Overworked becomes overlooked. For my own benefit, I’ve changed the words. Admit it or not, we are well entrenched in Weather Weirding. (Along with other kinds of weirding but . . . )

Winter is bad enough without going weird. With harvest well under way, thousands of acres of corn are now ruined, good only for silage. Cane harvest has only just begun so should be okay except for the small amount of cut cane on the ground.

On a personal level, cold and wind and wet often find me huddled shivering in a blanket. In an effort to take better care of myself, I splashed out.

A good bathrobe is a lovely and decadent way to treat oneself with gentle care. I never knew that until now. After an evening shower, I cuddle in my plush hooded robe, double wrapped in front, which almost drags on the floor, with a book and a cup of steaming tea with a candy cane, warm and cozy, waiting for my hair to dry.

I take my pleasures when and where I can, luxuriate in such simple joys. I give them my attention, thank them for participating in my life. Makes me feel rich.

Look out the window at my dog, Lola. There she is, on her back in a puddle of sunshine, legs uplifted into the air, a look of silly satisfaction on her face. She is a good model for mental health.

In the Garden Weirding department, remember the lime tree I witched a few months ago. I had tried being nice. I had even threatened that if she didn’t pop out some limes soon, I would rip her out and replace her with a guava. Then a friend who looks good in pointy hats and is handy with a broom, suggested I witch my barren lime tree. Feeling foolish, I followed instructions. My lime tree today, who can say how or why, coinkydinky I’m sure, has branches so heavy with fruit that some are near to kissing the ground.

The Weirding part though is not that. In addition to limes, she is giving me lemons. Uh huh. Lemons. And the same branches also have limes. Mostly limes. Some lemons. Explain that! Weird!

If I could, I would follow Lola’s example and go lie on my back in the sun and soak it up the sun before the clouds invade. If I get my creaky bones down to the ground, I fear I might never get up! I suppose I could roll under a lime tree and suck on a lemon.

However, it is clouding up and rain is on the way. Where did I put my bathrobe?

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

Raining in December

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A Different Kind of Day

 

            A Different Kind of Day

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Interesting how we carve time to suit particular purposes. I won’t look it up, but thinking about it, I’d not be surprised that our universal way of dividing our days started with the Industrial Revolution, as a way of getting the workers to be where and when the bosses wanted them to be. That is as political as I am willing to be this morning.

My day began yesterday, actually. It rained yesterday, so that jiggered up walk times with Lola, but we managed to wriggle them into slots that worked for us. I don’t walk in the rain and Lola is definitely not a water dog. She is a huddle in the warm dog house dog.

Then there was a very large and very loud wedding at El Eden, just a couple kilometers down from my house. Weddings around here are not quiet and seemly affairs. This one was huge. It began early with music blaring from a wall of speakers, punctuated by fireworks, day and night. Music is live, with bands lined up to cater to every taste, beginning with the brand of music we older folks tend to like and remember, and I’m grumphing here, it is downhill from there.

I’ve always wanted to walk over, just show up, if asked, I’m a friend of the bride or the groom, whichever. For the food. Oh, the mountains of food. Fill a plate, sit in a corner and watch the people. This would be, of course, early in the event. Food, of course, is accompanied with quantities of liquids.

Back when I used to go with Kathy to her resort, we watched a lot of weddings. Thus, I know by the noise level, pretty much what is going on down the way. Eventually the elders retire and the youngers take to the floor. We would say, Rock and Roll.

Until five in the morning, I kid you not. So that was my night. Fortunately, even with interruptions, I am an easy sleeper. So I woke at pretty much my usual time, according to the light. Sort of. I don’t use a clock for wake up. Sunlight, even muted, does that job.

Something seemed off, the day didn’t sound right, but after ablutions, I got dressed, ready to go walk my dog. Looked out the window and all plans came to a stop.

It could have been raining all night from the looks of it. And it looks like it could rain all day. Sorry, Lola.

This is our third rain in a week. The first one blessed us with more rain than we had in the entire (nearly non-existent) rainy season. Farmers are well into corn harvest. Cane harvest just began. Oops. Not good timing.

My tomatoes are beautiful and in full blossom, so not sure what this will mean for them. Everything else must be soaking up the moisture with gratitude.

I feel discombobulated. My whole routine out the door just turned in the door. I had to turn my light on above my desk. I never turn on a light in the morning. Natural light is plenty. I have to laugh at myself. I look out the window. Raining. The forecast for the day hasn’t changed in the last hour and a half. The forecast still says rain all day, all night. 

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

December 7, 2023

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I Don’t Know

 

I Don’t Know

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I don’t. Truly, I don’t know.

Life is so much more interesting when I don’t know. When I “know”, I limit myself to where it is difficult for new and different information to filter into my brain. Hey, because I already know! A closed door. Right?

Take something simple, like tortillas. What is there not to know about tortillas?

I feel pretty puffed up that I can make decent corn tortillas. I seldom make flour tortillas because they always come out looking like amoebas.

I had leftover sweet potatoes, so on a whim, I decided to invent sweet potato-flour tortillas. Okay, I borrowed the idea from rotis. Flat bread is flat bread, I figured. If it works in India, it should work in Mexico.

My Grandma taught me to cook, and even her written recipes called for things such as “butter the size of a walnut” or a pinch of this and a handful of that. So when confronted with a recipe, I look over the list of ingredient, frequently substitute, add or subtract: kitchen chemistry.

Though I use a Mexican foods cookbook I’ve had since 1975, with recipes from various regions of the country, I tend to use recipes as, well, suggestions. The other day I decided that maybe I don’t know, so I read the directions. Knead the dough? Let it rest in a cool place before rolling? Who would have thunk it? I didn’t know.

In my usual fashion, I mixed my sweet potato and flour, salt, shortening in proportions that seemed right to me, drizzled water, kneaded the dough and put it in the refrigerator to rest.

All my life I’ve made pies. I roll out a mean pie dough, perfect every time. I allow myself a sweet burst of pride over my pie dough. So rolling tortillas should be a slam dunk, right?

Wrong. I mean, I’ve nothing against amoebas, but an amoeba doesn’t hold fillings the same way a perfect round tortilla holds them. For those of you not keen on reading all the directions, in case there is another of us, form the ball, flatten it with your hand, roll once, quarter turn, roll once, quarter turn, roll, turn until your beautiful round of dough is the thinness you desire.

Pretty slick, eh? See what I mean? I could have been making my own glorious flour tortillas all these years, but I already “knew”, thus limiting myself.

That’s a pitiful small example, but, believe me, it works on a larger scale with important stuff.

Dreaded winter is here. During late November, December, January and early February I am an icicle. This year I did something different. I spent money. I bought a different kind of space heater with hope. Hope that it might work warmly. Then I went all out and blew my limited budget on a posh, thick, men’s extra-large bathrobe. Men’s because men’s are better made, and larger to double drape over my legs.

The day after Thanksgiving I pulled my heater out from behind the chair in the corner and read the directions. See, one can teach an old dog new tricks. Plugged it in and within two minutes, I knew my heater was worth every hard-scrabbled peso. See me smile?

Last night, after my shower, I pulled my bathrobe on and fell in love. I felt like I was held in warm, cuddly arms.

Speaking of love, I have fallen head over heels in love with a real man.

My morning routine includes short readings, from poets, other writers. They make me feel good, make me think, give me something to chew on throughout the day. A few months ago I added Gerald Manley Hopkins, 1844-1889, English poet and Jesuit priest, to my list, simply because so many writers referred to him, a stranger to me. My degree was in History. I missed a lot of Literature.

For weeks and weeks, I wondered, why am I reading GMH? What was so brilliant about him? But gamely, I kept going, until one morning I had an on-the-road-to-Damascus experience.

I got it! How could I not see it? How could I not know? How could I be so ignorant? The man is beautiful, brilliant, genius, full of love and light and life. I’m his. Now I can hardly wait for our morning tryst.

So, see. Every day now I try to remind myself that I just don’t know. If I don’t know, incredible gifts tend to fall in my lap, like love.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

December? Already?

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Pardon My Turkey

 

Pardon My Turkey

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One of the many things I have come to respect about the Mexican culture, the Mexican people, is their ability to celebrate. Times may seem grim and the larder near empty, but they somehow will scrape together beans, tortillas, tomatoes and peppers, gather family and neighbors into their homes to share a feast, and maybe even shoot off a few fireworks, always with music in the background, even if from a radio. Remember radio?

We, my friends, in our country, seem to have whipped ourselves up into a real mashed potato mess, appear to be in several varieties of a ‘pickle’, may think no amount of sugar and marshmallows can redeem the yams, despite all this, we could take a page from the book of “Be Happy” from our southern neighbors.

Celebrate. Celebrate that it is snowing. Or that it is not snowing. Or that the water pipes didn’t freeze. Or that you woke up breathing. Or that you have leftovers.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day. Most of you, my friends, cooked up a big family dinner, turkey or not, with all the trimmings. How many times have I heard you say, “The best thing about Thanksgiving is the leftovers the next day.”?

Yep. So how about we pile the goodies and build a sandwich, throw on a gob of cranberry sauce, squeeze a slice of pumpkin pie onto the plate, and deliver it to a neighbor, a friend, or, even better, an enemy. (Try that last one, just once.)

Deliver the plate with a few words suggesting that it feels good to celebrate gratitude more often than one day a year, and what better way than with the best of the leftovers, so, here, share with me.

Throughout the year, I might find occasion to share more plates. Just a suggestion. Maybe my chosen recipient throws my offering in the compost bin when I turn my back. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that it sure made me feel good to prepare the plate with my best, just cooked or leftover, no matter, decorated with a sprig of cilantro or rosemary or mint, and share it with a smile.

If we all do something like this once in a while, I guarantee, life will look less messy; will seem just that little bit more kind and gentle. Me, I’m selfish. I do this for me to feel good.

Don’t worry. Be happy. Would you like gravy over your sandwich or in a dish to the side?

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

Thanksgiving? Already?

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The Winter of, The Summer of, My Disillusionments

 

The Winter of, The Summer of, My Disillusionments

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My friend Jim from Glasgow sent me a short video clip of the Little Rockies, Three Buttes, Snake Butte and the Bear Paws. Immediately, I yearned, homesick. I shared the video with friends. “This is my beautiful country.” Their response, not unexpected, “Ah, yes. Uh huh. Beautiful,” as they looked for an exit. Which brought on this following chain of thought.

To some this will sound as though I am describing two foreign countries, and I am. Both countries have disappeared.

My earliest years were spent in Indiana, not far from the Ohio River, a mile wide, where often we sat on a bank and watched tugs push three, four and five barges laden with coal or ore or other goods.

Uncle Jim came to visit. He and Dad talked late into the night. Not long after my Uncle left, Dad came upstairs and sat on the edge of my bed one night. “How would you like to go to Montana?”

“Where Uncle Jim lives? Oh, yes!” I thought Dad meant a visit, a vacation. By the time I figured out we were moving, I was horrified. Not that I had any voice in the matter. I was ten.

During the Great Depression, Uncle Jim had gone to work on a family friend’s wheat ranch south of Chinook. He never looked back. Dad had worked for the same man, before the War. Montana had burrowed under his skin, into his heart.

By the time we moved, Jim owned a Valley farm and a partnership in an implement dealership in Harlem. Dad was going to buy the farm.

We had our farm sale on a sunshine April Fools’ Day, green grass, daffodils waving their silly heads. The following day, our car already packed, we left for Montana, in the rain, an omen if ever there was one.

I left an entire family of aunts and uncles with cousins my own age. (Uncle Jim’s children were older.) I left an excellent school which encouraged students to find ways to illustrate lessons, left all my friends, and everything I knew. I left my rock collection, the geodes, all my toys, yes, toys. When I was ten, we were still children. I was allowed to take one ‘toy’. I chose my books.

On a cold afternoon, April 5, we drove into Harlem on the old highway, along a deeply rutted dirt street, icy and banked with drifts of dirty snow. I’d never seen a more desolate, ugly town, although we had been driving through the same towns all day. Thaw was a couple weeks away.

On my birthday I climbed on the school bus for my first day at Harlem Elementary, terrified. At lunch, a girl grabbed my hand, "Come with us. Sally and Sylvia (classmates) are going to fight in the park.” Now I was terrified and horrified.

Fight, they did, actual fisticuffs with blood. Girls!  In my country, boys wrestled in play but I’d never seen a real fight.

By the end of the first week in my new school, my classmates hated me. Nobody told me you weren’t supposed to have ideas.

I was yet to discover gumbo mud which stole rubber boots from my feet, mosquitoes so thick they covered my skin. Drought. Wind. Temperatures over 100 degrees and minus 40. A different country, harsh, a different culture, hard.

I cried myself to sleep every night that first year, remembering a softer, gentle life.

When I was thirteen, my Dad put us on the Empire Builder and sent us home to Indiana for the summer, a truly wonderful summer, with cousins and school friends.

Nothing had changed. Everything had changed.

There were all the remembered friends, flowers and fruit. Along with red clay dirt. And chiggers. (At least mosquitoes are visible and don’t burrow.) Copperheads in the weeds and slithering through the blackberries. Humidity which made 75 seem 105. I had to reconnect with friends. Or not. Nothing was recognizable. People I had idolized grew pimples. Or warts. (Metaphorical.) Depending on age. On our old farm, house, barn and my swing tree had been razed to the ground to make way for a sprawling brick “ranch-style” house.

At summer’s end, we climbed aboard the Monon, transferred to the Empire Builder in Chicago, and returned home. Home. Home to Harlem, where the streets were still dirt, but home.

Nothing had changed but me. I could see with different eyes, could measure on a scale more balanced. I never lost my love for Indiana, but I knew my home. 

I’ve learned to make my home in many different places. But Home will always be that harsh, hard country I love.  

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

November—yikes--middle

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There is a hole in our lives.

 

There is a hole in our lives.

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There aren’t many of us here on the rancho. Not all of our houses have their people. But the last several days, we  who are here, me, Nancie, Julie, Lani and Ariel, Tom and Janet, frequently found ourselves running up against, no, not a wall, but a hole.

This hole has a specific size and shape, exactly the size and shape of Leo. Leo helps all of us with gardening, planting, pruning, mowing, cutting, watering. But Leo is more than a gardener. He has helped all of us, at one time or another, with translating, with information, with getting necessary services, with business, with appointments, with shopping. He can be kind of a catch-all.

For most of us, he has become even more. He’s a friend, a son, may I say, a grandson?

Leo was out with Covid. We all ask, “How did he catch it?” I’d say it caught him.

The last ten days of October are the annual Festival, a time of celebrations, parades, community dinners, all manner of festivities. Everybody in town has relatives who work in the States. There is a lot of travel back and forth, especially during Festival, followed by The Day of the Dead. Many residents work in Guadalajara, back and forth daily. Opportunities to cart around viruses abound.

In addition, last week Leo took care of his nieces while his sister worked. They were home from school, sick with flu. What kind of flu? Nobody went to the doctor to ask, “Is this Coronavirus?” When school kids are sick, and whatever the flu, and, it laid out the entire class, the mothers did what we all know to do. Tuck them in bed, plenty of fluids, a basin, warm water and wash cloths nearby.

Where he got it or where it got him matters not. He got it.

Out came our masks, our polite distances, our test kits. We all had had contact. Out came our anxiety.

By the second day of Leo’s absence, we were learning how much we depended on him, in ways we didn’t think about often. By the forth and fifth day, the hole left in the shape of Leo, had become distorted to giant-sized.

For me, gardening is only part of the picture. Even I can do enough to keep the whole mess from outright dying. Mostly. No, it was more the little things. Leo stopped by most of our houses daily, “Need anything?” or just, “How are you doing?” He’d sit, drink a glass of water, eat a cookie, chat a while, catch us up on the news in town.

Meanwhile, underlying our dependence, is a strange current of dichotomy. We tell him, “You are young, you have a university education, you are smart, you have skills way beyond pruning plants, valuable skills. You need to be thinking about your future.”

Then we follow that with, “But, we would miss you. What would we do without you? We couldn’t cope. We love you, our dear Leo.”

We talk out of both sides of our mouths, sincerely.

We want to see this young man do more with his life, get ahead, whatever that means. At the same time we don’t want to lose him.

Consider this: maybe, just maybe, it is we who have grasped the wrong end of the stick.

When Leo decided he didn’t want to teach school, that he wanted to work outdoors, with plants, with people, maybe our young friend, has found his life’s work.

Maybe he is smarter than we are. Maybe his genius, his gift, is in working with elders. Maybe we should be going to Leo for advice. Maybe pruning and planting are merely his tools, disguising his real work. Maybe.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

November here we are!

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Life is not a bowl of tortillas.

 

Life is not a bowl of tortillas. 

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Last week a registered historic hotel in Glendive burned. The night the fire was started was also the night of the first winter blizzard. Firemen from a hundred-mile radius came to fight the fire which razed the hotel and a neighboring building.

My daughter’s office is in the upper floor of a building adjacent to the hotel. Firemen battled the blaze all night and the following day to keep her building from burning. For three days the hotel fire smoldered and flared. For three days Dee Dee was not allowed into her building. From necessity she slipped through the back entrance with a big flashlight to retrieve her computer, noting extensive smoke and water damage.

Do you ever look at your kids and wonder from where they came? Found beneath a cabbage leaf? Flown in by a stork? Delivered by an alien space ship from Planet X? Sometimes I think, “That child is no relation to me.” I haven’t the backbone of steel, the determination, the pure heart to carry on under circumstances that would break many of us. She has them all. That woman is my teacher.

With the retrieval of her computer, she is back in business, seeing some clients by video. With the restoration of electric power and the okay by the safety inspectors, she is back in her smoky, leaking offices, seeing clients strong enough to brave the stairway and the conditions.

Me, I was a wreck for a full five days, from 2500 miles away. My girl is still recovering from radical surgery, from the removal of a cancerous tumor. She stands strong in her community, still helping others.

One of my good friends said, “Oh, no, she doesn’t need this.” No, she doesn’t. Neither does Acapulco need Hurricane Otis. Most of us can look at our own lives and find our own personal fires and hurricanes. We didn’t need them but they came. Like my daughter, we dealt with them the best we could, hopefully with help.

Let me tell you about tortillas. In the mid-70s I lived in California and began making my own Mexican food. Tortillas were always a challenge. I had a tortilla press. One can buy masa harina in any grocery.

My tortillas would be sticky. Or they would fall apart in the middle. Or the edges would crumble. Seldom did I make what I would call a really fine batch. I didn’t try often. The tortilla press would gather dust in the back of a corner cupboard. It is too easy to buy a bag of tortillas, all perfect, in any grocery. They never fall apart or leak.

However, periodically I would drag out the press and try again. Dough too wet, too dry, and the press went back to the cupboard. Living here in Mexico, I keep masa harina on hand for a lot of thing, cornbread, gorditas, or sopes. And I have a dandy-fine press.

Sometimes I buy a handful of masa from one of the women in the market who process and grind their own corn and with their delicious masa, I make better tortillas.

On a whim, just because I was hungry for breakfast tacos, I wiped off my press, grabbed my masa harina and made tortillas. I aced it. I made the best yummy flat rounds with plain ol’ masa.

It all had to do with intention.

Tortillas take masa flour and water. That’s all, Folks. I drizzled warm water into the flour, took my time, gave it my full attention. Then I worked it and worked it and worked it, with my hands. When the dough felt ready, it told me, because I listened. I made small balls with my dough, pushing and pressing them in my hands, with love, keeping the works covered with a wet cloth.

Instead of the usual 6 inch tortillas, I made 4 inch, like almost everybody in town makes. Cooked them on my comal (griddle), medium heat, 30 seconds on one side,  40 on the other, plopped them into a towel lined covered bowl. 

They were perfect, my tortillas, tender and fluffy, and I claim bragging rights. I already had my taco ingredients chopped and ready. Ate too many but I didn’t care.

Life, Folks, is not a bowl of perfect, bendable, scooper tortillas. Life is more like my hurried tortillas, the ones I used to make, which would split in the middle, or crumble around the edges. Messy.

When Life gives us those perfect little tortilla moments, I say, brag, shout, eat the goodness and enjoy the whole experience. My daughter taught me that.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

November already!

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