New Year—Old Me

 

               New Year—Old Me

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Scraping along on the heels of Christmas, we celebrate the beginning of a New Year. Many of us regard the new year as a time of reflection, of taking stock of our lives, perhaps resolving to make changes.

For me, I’m the same old bag of skin I was last year, still filled with some sad and some glad, much joy and a hint of mad.

As for making changes, I have a note on my desk to turn on the bat light at night for the next week. That will keep the itinerant group of bats from making a new home in the rafters of my patio roof. I like bats, but I would rather they not be overhead. May they find a new home. Soon. Not a personal change but a necessary one. The only change on my agenda today.

My friends Kathy and Richard, whom I’ve known twenty-plus years, longer than anyone in our little community, are returning to Victoria, BC next week for medical tests and care for Richard. There is excellent health care here, but at home they know the doctors and know the language. More comfortable.

I’m sad they are leaving and glad that Richard, who, by the way, is a retired physician, is finally seeking medical help. His wife and friends have been worried. Richard kept saying, “It’s nothing.” The river of DeNial runs deep and strong.

Just yesterday I was telling Kathy that I, even after these years here, I can hardly believe the life I am living, the life I have stumbled upon. I could not have made this up. Remember seminars or weekend retreats when the focus was on goal setting? What a laugh, for me, looking back, thinking I could map my future.  

I’ve come to believe, based on nothing substantial, that my life is built on little decisions. You may label the consequences of decisions, if you wish, good and bad. I’ve made them all. I choose not to label my decisions. Sometimes, in my life, what at first seemed disaster turned out to be rich with blessings. Others, well, I’ve been known, out of necessity, to back up and take a different direction.

I said to my daughter, “After a life of work, work, work, I can’t believe I’m such a sloth. I’m a lazy sloth, and I love my life.”

She said, “Mom, you are always busy. It’s just that now you are free to find joy in simple things. Things like kneading bread or reading your favorite book under the mango tree.”

We are entering a New Year. I hope to keep slothing along, doing my own chores, cleaning my own house. We don’t know though, do we? Every day brings something new, new joys, surprises, grief and pain. We don’t choose what’s in the grab bag. We only choose how we deal with what we grab, seems to me.

Happy New Year and may the coming year, made up of a day at a time, bring you much joy.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

December 31, 2025

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The Christmas Truffle Mystery

 

          The Christmas Truffle Mystery

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In the early morning light, my first thought when I went out onto my patio was that something was not right. “The Barbarians have landed,” I said to my faithful pooch, Lola.

As everyone knows, any common, garden-variety Barbarian comes to pillage. This Barbarian left a bag of Belgian chocolate truffles on my table. No ribbons. No card. No note. No signature.

Not just one or two truffles. A two-pound bag of Belgian Truffles! That’s a lot of chocolate! I read the fine print, looking for a clue (no signature) and looking for legitimacy. The truffles shipped from Belgium.

Not only did the Barbarians invade in the dark of the night without a sound, they had to get past the vicious, snarling, slavering jowls of my watchdog and faithful protector and low-tech security system, Lola.

“Lola, did someone dangle a huge hunk of steak through the gate and you left your post and let them inside? Let me smell your breath.” Lola clamped her jaws shut and waggled her tail with a look of chagrin. “You are no help,” I told her grimly.

While my neighbors and I often share around trays of cookies, slabs of cake or Janet brings plates of her specialty, a loaded pizza, as a group, we are more thrifty than gifty. We don’t do birthday and Christmas presents.

I did what I do best. I wrote to my near neighbors, told them pretty much the above, with the addition that maybe it was that sweet, so friendly, white-haired man who is one of the garbage pickup crew.

Replies flew back. “Not us.” “Nor us.” “Warn’t we.” And such. Each one latched onto my white-haired man comment with much speculation. You can put that one to rest. Stat.

This morning Julie, who lives up the mountain a half-hour away on bad roads, wrote. She’d come by in the evening when I was probably in the shower. Julie is a good friend who used to live on the Rancho and Lola wagged her the go-ahead. These are really creamy, really delicious chocolate truffles, addictive, no doubt.

Julie suggested I go ahead and indulge in a chocolate high. What a good idea. I think I will.

Merry Christmas to each and every one, Merry Christmas.

Sondra Ashton   HWC: Looking out my back door   December 24, 2025

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To Be or Not to Be

 

               To Be or Not to Be

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I’m a “doer”. It’s the way I was raised up. My family never sat me down and discussed choices. If “be” came into any discussion, it was accompanied with a “not”, such as, “do not be idle”. Ever.

There is nothing wrong with that. It served me well. I suspect Life gives us what we need to cope.

Along the years I became aware that my life worked better if I balanced “do” with a smidgeon of “be”. Little bits at a time. Things like a day at the hot springs with the kids. Or an afternoon walk along the river. Little bits.

Then came physical challenges that nudged me to choose retirement and a whole new way of life came into being for me. I’ve never run out of things to do, things to do that I like to do. I gradually developed a “guide”, if you will, or way to approach each day.

Every morning I begin with a list, mental or written, of things to do. By one or two o’clock, I’ve pretty much finished my list. With one exception. I like to leave one of the items listed for tomorrow, sort of a seed. That leaves me my afternoon free to relax, read, putter in plants, just “be”.

It never works, of course. The list gets muddled. Opportunities for being come in the morning. I pay attention. Sometimes afternoon gives over to doing. Almost always, life brings an entirely different agenda than mine.

Take the other day, for example. I had a quite extensive list of things I intended to do. My phone rang at 8:30 in the morning. Leo asked, “Would you like to go to Oconahua for breakfast?” There is a small open-air eatery with excellent food.

“Yes, of course.” After we’d eaten breakfast, I asked Leo if he’d take me to the little hospital for a flu shot, one of the items on my floating list, and then as long as we were back in Etzatlan, I’d do a little grocery shopping. My plan.

After my flu shot I revised my plan. “I feel really good, Leo, but I’d like to go home. I can give you my grocery list.”

Doctors here in Mexico advise us to take the day, to do no work, after any kind of vaccination. It makes sense. Being a compliant patient, (here I sense every doctor I’ve ever had cringe at that outright untruth), I spent the entire rest of the day immersed in a good book. I bumped my list of things-to-do into tomorrow.

The following day, still feeling quite healthy, I also felt that I wanted another do-nothing day. So I granted that gift to myself. Bumped my list into the next tomorrow.

This went on for three entire days. Mind you, I’m not a total sloth. Lots of little things got done. Dishes did not pile in the sink. The bed got made daily. Lola got fed and walked. I took care of myself. Cooked my meals. Visited with friends, some I went to, some came to me.

Along the way, I paid attention. Little things, mostly. A pair of Western Tanagers in the bottle brush tree, surrounded by six fledgling hummingbirds, all feeding on the flowers that look like brushes. Hours out in the mottled shade of the mango tree, just watching, listening, smelling, feeling the breeze, being. I spent some hours thinking about my mother and her side of my family, felt another layer of my personal onion skin peel away. That kind of being.

Those three days gifted me. I didn’t set out looking for anything, no agenda at all. It’s hard for me to put this into words. I feel more complete. Grounded in a better way or different way. The simple moments are the most precious.

Guess what! My list of things to do did not disappear. It’s all still there for me to do. Tomorrow I absolutely must mop the floor and iron that pile of clothing before the pieces begin mating and multiplying. Absolutely must. Unless something or someone comes along to change my mind. Life. Ya gotta love it.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

December 18, 2025

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Winter, No Wonderland!

 

               Winter, No Wonderland!

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My family has returned to the Cold, Frozen North where Winter is firmly entrenched, leaving me alone down here in the cold, but not frozen, southland.

My house is empty but my heart is full.

Today I plugged in my little portable heater for the first time. Woke to pelting rain in the night.  No storm or wind. By morning, the rain settled into a steady light rain, hour after hour after hour.

I realize it is hard for you to dig deeply to find sympathy for my cold woes but please keep in mind my house is made of one layer of brick, no insulation, no heat source. I recall with great fondness my beloved Hearthstone Woodstove from my former home in Winter Wet-Cold Washington.

That said, I also must report that with my new windows, my wee heater is doing a good job of keeping me from huddling in blankets all day.

Meanwhile, please feel free to grab onto all your feelings of superiority and lord it over me, the wuss of winter, griping because my house is cold and damp. I do remember, with no fondness, Montana winters with freezing rains, snow which turns to ice, cars with plug-ins sticking out the front, snow shovels, bitter winds, clunky Sorel boots and puffy parkas that turn the population into Dough Boys.

I grew up huddled in a rocking chair over a floor vent over the furnace in the basement, so, really, sitting in a chair near my little heater, book in hand, waiting until the warm comes, is not so different from old times.

Full disclosure. True, there are not that many similarities. Today is cold. Tomorrow will be warmer. We are assured of much colder days here in this rather temperate country. But the cold days are interspersed with afternoons which bring toasty warmth. And by February, most of the cold has creeped back to its den, wherever that is.

Winter. People are beginning to string Christmas lights and a few decorations. Tiendas display more toys and gifty items. I miss my daughter and my grandson. I’m grateful that we had a great week together.

Today’s rain is just that—Today’s rain. No snow, no ice, no wind. My winter.

Sondra Ashton,  HWC: Looking out my back door, December 11, 2025

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Greetings!

 

Greetings!

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Sondra, otherwise known as my mom, has decided to take a break from writing this week because she is busy entertaining my son and me.  Two months ago, I decided if mom wouldn’t come to me, I had better go to her. 

I am not known for vacationing.  It has been 6-7 years since we have seen each other except over Zoom.  We talk daily, but it truly isn’t the same. 

In case come for a visit, I will give you an idea of what it was like for me.  I got the passport and tickets, then let mom know the dates.  The trip here is rather easy until you get to the connection in Salt Lake.  Many nationalities were seen in the waiting area to go to Mexico.  The messages were only in Spanish.  Luckily Tyler has a language translator on his phone.  We caught about ¼ of the messages.  We got on the plane.  

The view over Guadalajara was so beautiful.  The mountains and trees and green grasses were lovely.  When we landed, we followed the crowd to get our passports scanned at security, declared at customs, showed our passports a few times. They will either check your luggage or shoot you through to the outdoors.  We got sent on our way.

Mom’s friend Leo picked us up at Starbucks.  We went to the car and prepared for a 1.5-4-hour trip, depending on traffic.   Leo is a wonderful tour guide.  He showed us all the new construction to sponsor the next Olympics.   The sights and sounds of the flowers, birds, trees mingled with the buildings and shanties.  We stopped at a little overhang where a family sold ice cream.  Flavors nothing like I’d had before.  I got vanilla and it reminded me of snow ice cream.  Leo got elote (corn) and it truly tasted like corn.  I decided it was best to skip the tequila ice cream.

I had asked mom not to schedule any major site seeing because I just wanted to rest and be.  My first view of mom’s home is exactly as the pictures and descriptions she has given before.  Her brick home is small and full of color and personality.  Her outdoor areas are covered in fruit trees and plants that people back home pay a lot for to have a tiny bit in a pot.  Here they grow wild.  She has a pathos on the garden wall with leaves twelve inches across and 18 inches long!  The patio is covered and has a seating area that is so relaxing.  I can look from the patio through mom’s whole house because the windows are so large and watch the butterflies flitting around from flower to flower in her backyard.   

We have done a little shopping in town, and the sights and sounds have been so fun.  I am not sure I am brave enough to drive here yet.  The roads are frequently made of cobblestones or red dirt with many sharp rocks. In towns, the streets are close together and there is little room for one car to get through.  If there is asphalt, there have been speed bumps very close together. 

We went to a cathedral, Templo de la Purisima Conconcepcion. In English, The Temple of the Immaculate Conception, which is over 500 years old!  Everything was beautiful. 

The stores are not like the stores at home.   They may be 10 feet wide at the most.  On one street there was a brick maker, drinks maker, fruit stand, tortilla maker, and used clothes and shoes for sale.  Little tables are set to eat on the sidewalks. 

At a stand we went to for breakfast, I had the best refried beans I have ever had in my life.  While we ate, we watched as a man across the way whacked the tops off coconuts and prepared the milk and fruit for sale.  Dogs, cats, and birds roam freely.  I haven’t seen any bad animal and/or children behavior.

My son Tyler is more adventurous and has gone sightseeing with friends or walking to the stores for something to eat or drink. 

I lounged under the trees and chatted and read to my heart’s content.

I am writing this with the sound of birds, geckos, and wind chimes in the background.   It is time for siesta here.  I love this time of day.  I may have to bring the institution of siesta back home. 

Deborah Robart for Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

December 4, 2025

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Renta Goat?

 

Renta Goat?

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For my daughter’s visit, it was necessary for me to rent a car. Etzatlan is not the Big City. Leo, our all-around helper for anything necessary, makes a lot of the Big City Trips.

A few years back Leo quit driving his own car for the back-and-forth airport runs. Around town, hey, no problema. His car has aged out of the long trips. Kind of like me.

Several years ago an enterprising local entrepreneur in town began purchasing automobiles for rental purposes. He started out with a multi-person van, seats ten. We rented it with the driver the year we had our class reunion here in Etzatlan. These days he has a fleet of rental vehicles, a very small fleet.

Leo took me to the rental garage, way out on the west end of town, to see what cars were available. I wanted one large enough for four long-legged adults to ride in comfort.

The Rental Man had a quite large storage building. I don’t know how many cars he has in total. The day I went to look at those available, he had three cars plus three large ten-to-twelve people carriers plus empty spaces for other vehicles.

In the back of the garage, he had a stable with two horses and a goat and an area for chickens. This is not Hertz or Enterprise or Budget.  

Leo and the Rental Man entered into what might have been haggling but was more likely something like this: “How’s your Dad doing these days?” “Pretty good for an old man. You know, some days good and some days harder.” “Your brother still working in Fresno?” “Oh, no, he’s in Phoenix these days, managing a gaggle of Auto Zone stores.” “Say, I heard your Grandmother passed. My condolences.”

This kind of conversation can go on for hours and often does. It is the polite way of easing the way into the real business. We Americanos are rude. We just say, “How much and where do I sign?”

I have just enough Espanol to be rude and not enough to be polite.

I wandered over to talk to the horses and goat while the men conversed.

After a while, Leo took me aside to see which car I wanted. I eyeballed one of the big people carriers just to watch Leo blanche. That’s my kind of vehicle. Then I chose the larger car, the one with the most leg room.

I couldn’t help but wonder, though, if the goat pulled a cart.  

Sondra Ashton HWC: Looking out my back door, November 26, 2025

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Under the Mango Tree

 

      Under the Mango Tree

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I am happy to report that I’m back in my proper domicile, which is no longer a sieve, newly windowed, and I revel in the changes.

The five weeks it took to achieve the changes left me discombobulated. When my house is out of order, I am out of order.

My home with wraparound windows, with hardly any walls between them, has always made me feel like I live outdoors, beneath the trees. Without the iron curlicues dividing up the window spaces, my views are even more unobstructed. I like that opening a window does not take up indoor geography. I like that when windows are closed, wind, noise, dust and rain stay outside.

 During the weeks my life was a mess, my new favorite place has become in the back yard, under the mango tree. I planted the mango my first year here and now my tree reaches to shade a sitting area no matter the sun’s place in the sky.

November is heading toward December at lickity-splickity pace. The Fresno trees, like the Cottonwoods up north, are either dressed in golden yellow or naked. The Fresnos stand tall and straight, unlike the tortured-looking Cottonwoods.

The Jacarandas are beginning to drop their seed pods, which resemble clam shells on the beach. The African Tulip Trees are in full orange bloom, as is my Magnolia.

What rather stuns me is my Fuerte Avocado tree, which now sports a full head of blossoms, completely out of season. This year there was no fruit during the normal time for fruit. Now it is near winter and the poor confused thing has flowers?

Another change, that bothers me greatly, is that there are hardly any yellowhead blackbirds, whose flocks in the thousands always darkened the ground with shadow for minutes at a time. We seem to be right in the path of the flyover and watching their movements, morning and evening, was pure joy. It is painful to see a hundred or so, some days maybe two hundred, some days none. What happened? Where are they? It’s a mystery.

My Lime trees are filled with fruits in various sizes, true to their season. My new Fig tree, still baby small, has baby fruits, maybe ready to eat in a month. My Lavender Tree, otherwise known as a Grapefruit, has sixteen marble-sized fruits!

Bees, birds, butterflies and me, under the Mango tree, watching fruit and flowers grow. Life doesn’t get much better than this.

Sondra Ashton, HWC: Looking out my back door, November 20, 2025

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Reboot My Brain

 

               Reboot My Brain

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We are not talking about windows this week.

We can mention weather, which is the usual here for December and January but my calendar says this is November. I might be wrong.

Why didn’t God or First Impulse or Great Spirit or Whatever make us with zerts in our joints to which we oldandwornoutones could lovingly apply a grease gun and then be able to move on these cold mornings?

What I can tell you with some certainty is that even from the depths of my frustrations and disappointments, I knew that I needed to reboot my brain.

I dragged my oldandwornoutbody over to my cousin Nancie’s and invited her and our other neighbor in residence, Lani, to the fancy coffee shop in town for cappuccinos and breakfast croissants. My treat.

To me, this is rather a special place. I don’t go often because I want it to remain special. I always enter the shop with one of their yummy cakes in mind, but by the time I’ve eaten most of my breakfast croissant, I no longer want cake. More’s the pity.

Last time I visited this coffee shop was in April. Nancie and Lani agreed that it is indeed a great place and maybe we could go a little more frequently and still honor the specialness. I concur.

I’ve things to do, things I want to do now that my brain has had some laughs and a smidgeon of gossip and fellowship with friends, in other words, successful reboot. Maybe, just maybe, by this time next week I will be living back in my casa, watching butterflies through my new, you know, those glassy things in the walls.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

November 13, 2025

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My Walk On the Dark Side

 

My Walk On the Dark Side

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When I began writing this column, I determined to be as honest as I could be, that if my life took a grim turn, I’d say so, not pretend everything is whirly girly.

Most of you know the legend of the wolves but I’ll give a brief recap. A wise man told his grandson that within us, we all harbor two wolves, who vie for our attention. The gray wolf encourages us to love, to respect, to give honor when due, to do good. The black wolf revels in hatred, rage, despair and all dark deeds. His grandson contemplated these words several days, returned to ask, “How do we know which wolf wins?”

“The one we feed,” Grandfather answered. The other night my black wolf grew sleek and fat, sated.

It’s all about my current project of replacing my old-style, sieve-like, windows with a modern version which keeps out the wind, rain, and a goodly portion of dust. After three weeks camping out in my bodega, I hoped to be able to tell you this week that I am back in my sparkly clean house. It’s not to be.

I had had a sleepless, pain-filled night but that is no excuse. This kind of night cycles through my life periodically. Usually, the following day is different.

After three weeks, the bottom portions of my windows are in place. Mr. Window Man has to go to Guadalajara to form the arched top framework using specialized machinery. He took templates of the arch of each window.

In Guadalajara, a city of over 6,000,000  people and more ways in and out than the entire Montana State (unverified), that morning, at about 10:00, corn farmers instituted a protest at the government-set price of corn, and blockaded every single entrance into the huge city with multiple layers of farm machinery. That evening, Window Man borrowed a scooter to get home, leaving his truck hostage with my window frames in The City.

As an aside, I support the corn farmers, no matter my inconvenience.

All traffic into and out of the City was at a standstill. In our little town, people went into a panic, drained every drop from the two gas stations and cleared shelves of groceries.

Me, I went walking on my dark side, black wolf by my side, wagging with encouragement. My thinking, flawed, went something like this: If it takes three weeks to remove ten windows, replace eight of the bottom portions, minus screens and caulking, how long will it take for the tops to be made.

Do the math! Certainly, do the math without adequate information. I’m skilled at this, by the way. The blockade is of unknown duration. If my windows require four trips to Guadalajara, that might well put us through November into December. I have family visiting the final week of November.

I’ll spare you the details of most of my figuring, the imagined days sitting in my bodega, wrapped in quilts, icicles hanging from my frozen nose, while birds flew in and out the open windows of my unusable house. I managed to drag the project all the way into the new year. My family arrived and we spent each night in a hotel, lived on street tacos. I created an entire drama/tragedy while my Black Wolf smiled.

The entire following day, aware of what I had done, I was as useless as a wrung-out, dirty, wet dishrag.

By mid-day the third day of the blockade, the farmers and the federal and state governments had negotiated a significant raise in price, allowing the farmers to begin harvesting.

The next day, Window Man installed three of the arched tops of my windows. I’ve not seen him since.

I’m still holed up in my bodega, living life on the small side, hanging out by a fingernail around the farthest edge of bright. I’ve been assured that my windows will get installed and I’ll have time to clean my house of concrete chips and brick dust before family arrives. While I’m not that confident, I’m determined to not be seduced by my Black Wolf, much as it hangs about, wanting me to pet it.

For me, this is a mere inconvenience. I’m not starving, homeless, nor scared. I still have a bed to sleep in and that is no small thing.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

November 6, 2025

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What Was I Thinking?

 

               What Was I Thinking?

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I know it is a good idea. It is. However, it is disrupting my entire life. Chaos for an unknown period of time. If only I had headed to the coast for a month of vacation, taken myself out of the mess. Oh, right. Limited funds. Vacation on coast versus new windows of the modern kind. Choice made.

Windows won. Winter’s coming on. My casita is one of the oldest here in our little compound. I love the aesthetic quality of my old wrought iron enclosed windows. Large, arched, drafty windows which wrap around my entire house. No walls, just windows. Wind and rain enter my house, not at will, but freely and frequently, if only during windy storms.

Living in Oconahua this past year of seasons, in a house with modern aluminum framed windows, I discovered that they are better at insulation, at keeping out rain and wind and dust and even the heat in the hottest months. I’ll still have all the wonderful light. With a mental boo-hoo, I choose to trade aesthetics for comfort.

That’s why I’m camping out in my bodega with a minimum of necessities. My poor house is overrun with men with hammers and chisels, overrun with chips of concrete and brick dust and bits of broken glass. (Men with hammers equal broken glass.)

In the mornings I go to my house early and make a pot of coffee. Everything is covered with sheets, including the kitchen stove and sink. Leo brings me street food mid-morning. My only real meal. Today it is tacos barbacoa. Yummy. The rest of the time I forage, which means cookies and such. This is not healthy. In the afternoon I opened a packet of tuna and ate it, as is. When an unadorned packet of tuna is appealing, you know you are at wit’s end. And this is only day three.

The hardest part for me is not knowing when I can “go home”. Home will mean days of clean up, laundering sheets and towels and tablecloths filled with dust, putting furniture back in place, washing every surface. Daunting. Yes. But preferable to lounging with cookies and my kindle all day.

Came day four, no men showed up. What? When will they be back? Maybe three, maybe four days. Shrug. After all, it is the last three days of October Fiesta. I uncovered my kitchen and cleaned like a mad woman.

Eight of my ten windows have the large bottom section installed, that is minus the arches which are made separately in Guadalajara. Those spaces are open to birds and bugs, lizards and scorpions. However, I spent the day shoveling debris and sweeping and clearing my kitchen space. Face planted into a filet of salmon.

Day five, back in the kitchen, making more food to carry me over the next invasion of men with hammers and chisels. Ginger chicken feast today.  

Day six, not feeling so frantic. Grind beans for coffee. Make two liters of agua fresca. Bake cookies. Mornings are cold in my house of many openings. My homemade tomato soup today, more food prep. I dislike having no estimate of when chaos will be finished, although I know the foolishness of depending on an estimate.

Last night was the last night of the annual ten-day October fiesta. Close by a horde of barbarians made noise from near dark until first light of false dawn. I hesitate to call the clamor music. Loud, it invaded even my cave of a bodega.

Day seven. Leo and Eddie will remove the final two windows. More mess. Progress. I yearn to clean. Some of the arches may show up tomorrow. How long will cauling take? These windows are huge.

Perhaps, perhaps, next week I can return home. Perhaps I’ll have lovely new windows. I’ll let you know. Meanwhile . . .

What was I thinking? I should have gone to the beach for an extended vacation. But, I have to be here to physically hold back any wandering storm clouds. It’s a tough and daunting job but somebody has to do it.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

October 30, 2025

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October is the Best Month

 

October is the Best Month

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Finally, sunny days are here, every day a sunny day. I know. Next week I’ll be grumbling at dragging hose to water vulnerable plants every day. Today, I celebrate the Sun. I celebrate October, my favorite month, (well, along with some others).

 These days I gravitate to my back yard, my current favorite spot, beneath the mango tree. She welcomes me to her shade. I’m not a sun bunny despite my yearning for sun, any sun, on a cloudy day. Some days I take a book. Some days I read the butterflies. Birds. Bugs.

October in Etzatlan is also the month that ends with ten days of Festival, a time of feasting and blessing, parades, celebrations in the streets, dancing and singing, especially a time of thanksgiving, giving and forgiving. The streets are humming with people, filled with laughter.

Yesterday Leo took me to the Cathedral to see how beautifully it is decorated. I no longer care to be out at night, walking the plaza, taking in the music and festivities. I like to go sit in the Cathedral, adorned with thousands of cut flowers, this year’s theme colors green and gold. I simply sit, sit and soak in the love and give thanks. The people who handle and arrange these flowers cannot help but be awash in love and the flowers give it back to us.

These past several days I’ve given a lot of attention to the hundreds of folks in southern Mexico who have lost their lives, families, homes, businesses, their everything in the torrential rains and mudslides and to those in Alaskan villages facing the same losses.  

These kinds of horrendous disasters stop me hard, lead me to take note of my own life. Now and then I get down on myself because of past decisions I have made. However, by my own choices, I have changed my entire way of life. Today I own absolutely nothing of any value. Yet, I have so much.

I have shelter, food in the refrigerator, enough pesos to pay the monthly electric bill, to keep the propane tank topped up. I have friends here and around other parts of the world. I have people who care about me and about whom I care. I often realize, even more particularly now, that I am among the richest women in the world.

I have a dog who walks me two or three times a day. My neighbor brought me a slice of her homemade loaded pizza, I have a mango tree waiting to shade me. I am wealthy beyond belief.

Give thanks, whatever you believe or don’t believe. Give thanks for sun, for rain, for cold and snow, for they have their places too. Give thanks for breath of life, for sustenance, for your neighbor, even the neighbor you don’t like very much. Give thanks for love and if you think you don’t have enough, go give some away.

As for me, the sun is shining. I’m rich beyond belief. On top of that, October is the best month.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

October 23, 2025

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Predictable Patterns

 

Predictable Patterns

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You probably are different. In contemplating my life, I find myself to be much too predictable. Oh, I’m flexible enough. I change plans on a whim, daily. My major patterns, however, can be easily predicted.

Every year, the first week in September, I begin to grumble that the rainy season is over and done. Oh, we may get one more drenching rain, but, predictably, the rains run elsewhere and our dry drags in rolling dust along the way.

This year, the entire month of September was wonderfully wet, rains nearly every night and some days. The first week in October I had to stand on my tongue to keep from grumbling, enough, already. I’ve plans for the dry.

To add to my burden of dissatisfactions, cloudy days drag me down into the mugdumps while sunny days lift my spirits inordinately. October is historically, here in this part of the world, sunny and dry and windy but calm by Montana standards, with cool mornings and warm afternoons. Perfect. Usually. Mid-month and I wonder if November might be dry.

October, despite the never-ending rains, still smells like October, spicy and earthy.

Not all patterns make me grumble. This one took me a while to notice. Every morning Lola and I walk out our gate and down the lane, around the corner and up to the highway, turn about, return. We do this two and sometimes three times a day.

What I didn’t notice, or perhaps misinterpreted, is that if Puffer, Josue’s pup going into doggy adolescence, doesn’t hear my belled gate open, Lola goes into their patio and gets her. At first, I thought Lola was checking out any leftover food (dogs don’t leave leftover food) that she might scarf up.

It took me a while to realize Lola was getting Puffer to share our walkabout. Once Lola rouses Puffer, who doesn’t take much rousing, she pretty much ignores her. Puffer is a pup and Lola is getting to be an old woman. Pup she is, but Puffer is an amazingly gentle and quiet pooch, for a pup. I attribute that to Lola’s teaching.

As predictable as they generally are, these wets and dries can fool us. It happens. Take the rainy wets, for instance. What if, while meandering past on their way elsewhere, Rain becomes enamored by the Trees, waving kisses at the clouds, making winds that grabbed them and corralled them back around to stay awhile. Ah, love, powerful is love.

You do know that is how wind is made, right? The trees wave their branchy arms and winds begin small, grow and mature and whoosh around the world, sometimes creating havoc, sometimes creating romance.

Or perhaps  Dry stops in at a local bar for a quick Coca-Cola, plunks a quarter in the jukebox and someone shoves a Tequila Sunrise in its hand and just like that, without thinking, Dry begins drinking. One drink follows another down the dry throat and next thing you know, fighting breaks out, and our dry hero is incarcerated in the local hoosgow for a period of dry contemplation.

Eventually, time served, our Dry will show up, dry again. Romance of rain and trees will wane. Rain, being of a wandering nature, will flit off elsewhere, in search of another love.

What is also predictable, is that two weeks into our dry season, late as it is, I will be grumbling and wishing for June to hurry to bring back our lovely, life-giving, love-giving rain.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

October 16, 2025

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Childhood Deprivation

 

Childhood Deprivation

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I survived a deprived childhood. We had none of the things that my great-grandchildren have today. We did have two things that my great-grandchildren do not have. We had a daily newspaper with a great-fat Sunday edition. And, we had phonics.

 I grew up reading. I don’t remember not reading. Sunday morning I devoured the comics, reading aloud to my Dad, sprawled on the floor, paper open before me. My favorite was Pogo. At five years old. At five years do you suppose I understood Pogo? At some level? Nancy and Sluggo? Dagwood? Mary Worth? I read all the words.

I read everything. Cereal boxes. Can labels. “Popular Mechanics”. “Successful Farming”. What would you like to know about raising pigs in the 50s and early 60s? Or the contents of Cheerios? I read every magazine or book I could find.

My favorite place to hang out, as I grew older and was allowed to ride my bicycle to town, was the library. By that time I had already sneaked through my Grandma’s book collection, including some on the banned book list. Do you suppose I really understood the depths of “Le Rouge et Le Noir”?

My own children never had a chance. I nursed each baby with two books close at hand. I read to them until they fell asleep, carefully put the children’s book on the table and carefully picked up my own book while I continued to hold and rock my baby, holding my breath that he or she would stay asleep. Those moments were doubly precious. Holding my sleeping babies were the only times I got to read adult fare. With a baby awake, reading goes on “hold”.

“Do you remember Friday nights when you were a kid and we . . .”   I asked my daughter, but she interrupted me before I could finish my question.

“Of course, Mom, I remember. Friday nights were the only times we were allowed to read at the table. We’d all have a book beside our plates, eating without even looking at the food. Those Friday night family eat-and-reads were great.” She laughed.

I was a mean mama. I never let the children bring books to the table except for that one night a week. The rest of the time, we ate and we talked.

When I go out to dinner with friends, the thing that makes me grind my teeth, and at my age, my teeth are precious, is that every one of them has an electronic device beside their plate and no matter the intensity of our conversation, the device rules.

If you come hunting for me when I’m out with my friends, you will recognize me. I am the one whose cell phone is at home, on my desk, but I have a real book beside my plate, open.  My current book is “The Dancing Wu Li Masters”. It’s about, well, physics. I have a tiny understanding of some of it, enough that I like the book.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

October 9, 2025

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It Must’ve Been the Arthur-itis

 

It Must’ve Been the Arthur-itis

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I never had a mom but there was a woman who birthed me and with whom I had a strained and tenuous relationship, that mom.

I was four when my Mom was committed to the State Hospital in Madison, Indiana. She never left the institution until the late 60s or early 70s when those institutions were pretty much shut down and residents parceled out into group homes, each with a shopping bag of medicines. Yeah, I’m biased.

I remember almost nothing of my early childhood except the “last straw” in which there were threats and violence. I know that my Mom had to leave home because me and my baby sister were endangered.

When I was seven, our teacher, Miss Naomi, introduced us to letter writing. I began my correspondences to my mother and her sister, my Aunt JoAnne, which correspondences I continued until the deaths of each woman.

Aunt Jo’s letters always delighted me and we became close. I dreaded finding each missive from my Mom in the mailbox because I never knew if the letter would be intelligible. She always told me she loved me. Some part of me believed her and I continued writing.

I lived in Missoula in the mid-80s when Aunt JoAnne called me that my Mom was back in Madison and that she was dying. I had a working vehicle, no memory of how I financed the trip because I had no money, and I drove non-stop through Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis, through Illinois into Indiana and on to Madison, stopping only for fuel and cat-naps at rest stops.

I was so ga-ga from driving that I had to go to the police station to get help to find the motel where I stayed with my Aunt JoAnne.

Every morning for a week I went to the hospital and spent hours with my Mom, mostly in silence, but we communicated love in depth. In the afternoons Aunt JoAnne and I walked the banks of the Ohio River and talked and ate hot dogs and ice cream cones. I had that last week with my Mom and I am forever grateful.

One morning I overheard a woman in the room across the hall, another visitor, saying these words, “It must’ve been the arthuritis.” The woman’s accent was pure hill-country and the word “arthuritis” had more syllables than I can imitate. Her words and the lilt of her soft voice have never left me.

I smiled and in my mind her phrase became my code for the unexplainable and the inexplicable. I also use the phrase as a prayer, to cover a sadness, and to make me smile.

Hurricanes, floods, fires, quakes, bridges down, airplanes crash: Must’ve been the arthuritis. Confusion, anger, messes of all kinds around the world: Must be the arthuritis. Climate change: Definitely arthuritis. When I hear the siren of the ambulance passing through on the highway: Must’ve been the arthuritis.

My three papaya trees get curly leaf and die: Must be the arthuritis. Ant invasion in my kitchen: Must be the arthuritis. When the bread doesn’t rise like I know it should: Yep, the arthuritis.

When every joint aches and walking is painful, I know it is the arthuritis. Personally, I think everyone should have a handy-dandy all-purpose catch phrase to use in those moments of frustration or anxiety or feeling hopeless. For me, I lay blame on the arthuritis and then move on to the next step, even when that step is still invisible.

Even when the leaves get chomped to smithereens on your best papaya tree and suddenly you find seven pupa of the beautiful giant pine hawk moth, yep, must’ve been . . .

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

October 2, 2025

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Like a Pebble in the Puddle

 

               Like a Pebble in the Puddle

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My daughter and I were talking about a favorite author, Louise Penny, and about the village life she created. Dee Dee said, “I want to live in Three Pines.”

“I do too,” I responded.

The phone was quiet for a minute. A minute can be a long time. “Mom, I think you already live there.”

Another quiet minute. “You are right. I do.”

Back in 2018 I wrote a blurb or a blathering, depending on you point of view. Yesterday I pulled it up because my stubborn printer needed a test page. I chose it because it is short. I called the small piece “A Pebble”. I’ll give you part of it.

“I can’t change you. I can’t change much in this big bad world. But, I can make choices. When I choose hate and spite, superiority and greed, ignorance and fear, I add to the mess of my life. I might hurt you, but, ultimately, I hurt myself.”

I know we can change ourselves, our thinking. I believe, and this is just my belief so don’t hang on it, that to make changes we need help, all kinds of help, some with skin on it and some without. If I want to change, the helper will pop up in front of me. Of course, sometimes, often, I misidentify the helper.  

I continue my piece from 2018, which had been triggered by an event I no longer recall, “As much as I am able, I choose to treat you, and me, with dignity, with respect, with compassion, with acceptance. Like a pebble dropped in a puddle, my choice reverberates, touches you. I cannot control your response, only my choices. It’s not much. I hope it matters.”

In 1978, ’79 and ’80 I lived in Chicago. Those years culminated the lowest point of my life. There, in my little upstairs writing room, I learned to find the mountains I sorely missed. I began to learn to change my mind, my choices, my life. I had good help.

Back to Louise Penny. It is a coincidence that yesterday I finished re-reading one of her books. From the afterward, I quote Louise, “Three Pines is a state of mind. When we choose tolerance over hate. Kindness over cruelty. Goodness over bullying. (Or over being bullied, my words.) When we choose to be hopeful, not cynical. Then we live in Three Pines.

“I don’t always make those choices, but I do know when I’m in the wilderness, and when I’m in the bistro. I know where I want to be, and I know how to get there.” End quote.

Me too, Louise, me too. I don’t always make those choices but I know how to get there. I know how to live at the ocean or in the mountains or on the plains and be at home each place. I’ve learned to love where I am. Home is not about geography.

Three Pines or Etzatlan or Havre, Montana, any home, is at the end of a two-way street. I give you what I can and I take in what you give me, all while making choices as thoughtfully as I am able. Like a pebble dropped in a puddle, my choice reverberates, touches you. Your choices touch me. We dance. We dance alone. We dance together. I hope it matters.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

September 25, 2025

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A Mistake Is Not Always . . .

 

A Mistake Is Not Always . . .

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A mistake is not always a mistake.

I have a bit different attitude toward making mistakes than some of my good friends. I’ve learned. I’ve learned that mistakes lead to more learning. Mistakes lead to understanding that which I might have missed if I thought I always had to be right.

Any gardener knows mistakes are made. Ha! Garden mistakes are often not under our control. Correction. Garden mistakes are never under our control. We put ourselves and our planting into the hands of Mother Nature and nobody controls that Big Mama.

My garden, which used to be extensive, I’ve now limited to my herbs and a few flowers and lots of lavender. One of my favorite herbs has always been sage. I love sage with anything chicken, most particularly stuffing, not limited to holidays.

Sage, in Spanish lingo, is salvia. Several months ago I began hounding David at Vivero Centro for a couple new sage plants. Like most living things, sage seems to have a life limit, or perhaps I’ve not learned how to keep it going. Operator error looms large in my life.

One day I went home with three beautiful salvia plants, plunked them into their container, watered and cared for them diligently, watched them grow into beauties, filling the pot. It wasn’t until I went to harvest some of the leaves that I realized that this was not the salvia sage that I needed for chicken. This was a different salvia altogether!

Back to the Vivero. David said, “Yes, that is a purple-flowered salvia. What you want is the white-flowered variety.” So I ordered the white-flowered salvia.

Meanwhile, a little research yielded a lot of information. There are some 90 (or was it 900?) varieties of salvia. I learned my purple-flowered variety might have medicinal properties.

Intrigued, I wondered, what about tea? I made a cup. I made many cups of tea. What I discovered is that this salvia tea has a calming, soothing effect, for me. Medicinal? I don’t know. It’s become one of my favorite teas and I drink it often.

Meanwhile, my white-flowered salvia is flourishing. The hardest thing with salvia is keeping it trimmed back. Both varieties love to bloom. Show-offs.

Mama Nature seems to be thumbing her nose at us. In this country of a short rainy season, with never enough rain, and a long, long dry, with too much dry, I never thought I’d look forward to the end of rain.

By September, first week, we usually are treasuring every drip and drop of rain. Here we are this year, past mid-month, still waking up to soppy squishy mornings. Every morning.

That’s a good thing, right? My basil and marjoram are in rainy heaven. They demand a generous drink of water every day. My mint and oregano are suffering. Drowning might be the more correct description. Thyme and rosemary look tolerant but seem to be losing patience.

My mint might recover but I will need to replace my oregano, after the rains retreat to wherever they go when the Big Dry takes over. If we get a Dry this year.

As I said earlier, I make mistakes. I would never dare accuse Madame Mother Nature of making a mistake. Perhaps she’s made some “trial runs” but never a mistake.

Good thing that I don’t mind making mistakes. Without ordering the wrong salvia, I would never have discovered my comfort tea. Mistakes are okay. It is not everyone who can grow grapefruit on a lavender tree.  

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

September 18, 2025

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My Great Big Beautiful Lavender Tree

 

My Great Big Beautiful Lavender Tree

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I fell off the wagon big time this morning, first thing too, with nary a thought for the consequences.

A year ago, when I moved to Oconahua, I sold or gifted about 100 of my pots, all because my new patio was too small to hold more than a few herbs and a half dozen geraniums. When I moved back, I took the Pledge that I would not buy any more new pots or plants, other than replacements, when necessary, for those which died of natural causes, but nothing new that required more care.

I want no more plants than I can care for myself with a minimum of help from my gardener, Leo, who mows the grass, prunes the trees and weeds the back yard area. I figure I can manage my patio, which is large, and which I had formerly crowded with all manner of growing lovelies, too many for me to care for alone.

I had to replace a lavender plant which succumbed to the dreaded white smut caused by too much moisture and high humidity, a seasonal malady. The dead lavender left a huge hole, so I decided to buy two lavender plants to replace it.

Right at the entrance to the Vivero, where we parked and when we parked, David had hauled out this lovely grapefruit tree, and I fell in love, or lust. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.

Like iron filings to the magnet, my eyes took in the beauty of the tree, and I was a goner. David, the owner of the Vivero, knows me well enough to have a gleam in his eye and smile on his face.

I ended up bringing home my two lavender replacement plants plus my lovely lavender tree.

Leo did try to stop me. He gave me the stink eye and asked, “Where do you think you are going to plant it?”

He had the question. I had the answer. “We will take out the dying lime tree and put it there.”

Leo had a rebuttal. “The ground is too low. That’s why the lime is dying.”

All this time David is standing over by the citrus trees, grinning big.

We settled on planting my great big beautiful lavender tree on the higher ground between the mango and the fig. That huge green globe of fruit hanging on the low branch may look like a grapefruit, but, I know this is a lavender tree.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

September 11, 2025

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My Million-Dollar Idea of the Day

 

My Million-Dollar Idea of the Day

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Years ago, a friend, I don’t remember who, told me that every day we have a million-dollar idea but that they skim by so quickly that we seldom catch one.

I don’t remember which long-ago friend posited this preposterous notion. I do remember that I said, “Hmmm. Um hmmm,” while nodding my head, wide-eyed.

I never forgot the notion. Now and then I catch a nodding acquaintance with one of my million-dollar ideas. Hence, the following.

Nostalgia is big these days. Grossly misplaced nostalgia, if you ask me, since I lived some of it and know the reality. However, nostalgia sells.

Conveniently, medical oversight seems to suddenly have fallen by the wayside.

At the same time, people, that’s you and me, gang, are bombarded with miracle cures, ancient, modern, invented, and imagined.

Bring these three threads together and you have it. Or, rather, I have it. I propose to revive the old-time medicine wagon and drift from village to village hawking my own brand of snake oil. Brilliant, eh?

What’s in the bottle of Cures-What-Ails-You? It doesn’t really matter, does it? I figure the base of most snake oil is alcohol. Here where I live the cheapest, most easily acquired alcohol is from the cane plant. Grind up some red chilies and one or two secret ingredients, and, no, I ain’t telling, because then they wouldn’t be secret ingredients, would they? Decant the liquid into old-timey blue bottles with a cork, and hit the road.

My friend Kathy’s husband Richard is a renowned retired doctor and he is willing to come up with the appropriate language for my spiel. Okay, he may not be renowned yet but by the time I finish my tour, he will be, yes, he will be renowned.

One product cures all, I figure. Richard can come up with the appropriate prescription, loosely called prescription, perhaps taking a page from homeopathy. Say, a drop for this ailment, two drops for that, and a slug for the really hard cases.

Brilliant, right? Do I figure to get rich? Well, no, not exactly. I’ve never been enamored of wealth, more’s the pity. Real wealth takes money to begin the process to generate more money. I have none. Wealth requires wealthy friends. Ditto. In today’s world, wealth takes devious manipulation through the internet. Ditto, again.

However, would I ever have a good time. I can easily imagine clip-clopping over the backroads with my mule and colorful-as-a-field-of-wildflowers medicine wagon, stopping by both isolated homes where I might trade a bottle of Cure for a meal or a clutch of eggs and in main-street squares, opening the back of my wagon, setting up a box on which to stand so I can see over the heads of the crowds and hawking my wares.

At best, I might make expenses.

As with all my other million-dollar ideas, you may have this one for free. You may get rich. I am sure to have fun.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

September 4, 2025

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When A Weed is More Than a Weed

 

               When A Weed is More Than a Weed

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My friend Vala from Harlem told me about her pitiful yield from her garden, hardly enough for a salad, in this summer of hail, flooding rains and stultifying heat. She said she mostly grew purslane and bindweed.

“Purslane,” I got excited. “Purslane is a wonder vegetable. You can eat it. It’s much like spinach only tastier and full of good nutrition. Here’s how I fix it. I steam it, add butter, salt and pepper and drizzle on a little vinegar. It’s delicious.”

Vala asked Larry to go out amongst the bindweed and gather her a mess of purslane. She followed my directions. “I love it,” she reported. “Larry said it was better than he thought it would be but he wouldn’t want it every meal.”

Nor would I, Larry, nor would I. I get hungry for it now and then but only eat it every couple months, or when I can find it. I don’t happen to have any in my yard.

When I was growing up on the farm, we called it pigweed. It grows prolifically. Here, there and everywhere.

A hundred years ago when I lived in Great Falls, a woman named Mary Missy taught me how to cook pigweed. I mean purslane. She also taught me how to use comfrey, another weed, as tea and as a compress for wounds. I wish I could have known Mary longer. I’ve never lost her memory.

This morning at the market in town I bought a bundle of purslane. It’s not on the shelf every day but I can find it often enough to keep me satisfied. I steamed the whole bunch and ate a large bowl of the greens. Tomorrow I’ll scramble purslane with eggs.

Since purslane is a common market vegetable in this area, called verdolagas, I asked Leo how his family cooks verdolagas and discovered that my way is boring.

First they fry costillas, which are bite-sized bits of pork rib (or one can use any meat), and set the costillas aside. Next chop tomatoes, onion, garlic and chilis of your choice in the blender with water.  Pour that into the skillet which fried the costillas. Reduce the broth, stirring frequently. Add the costillas and verdolagas to the broth (salsa roja) until the meat is heated and the vegetable is tender. Doesn’t that sound yummy?

My next thought, now that I’m jumped out of my boring (but still delicious) purslane rut is to try the costillas and verdolagas with salsa verde, made with tomatillos. Mushrooms? A bit of chopped carrot? Potato? In tacos. Oh, I can almost taste them just talking about them. Enchiladas with cheese and beans. Raw in salad. Hmmm, tomato sandwich with purslane?

My purslane-pigweed-verdolagas cup runneth over.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

August 28, 2025

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Why My Bread Didn’t Rise

 

Why My Bread Didn’t Rise

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I have amazing mechanical skills. If I contemplate a problem long enough, generally I can figure out how to fix it. When I was a very young mother and my daughter was in diapers, back when diapers were squares of cotton cloth, my washing machine broke down.

If you’ve ever washed 80 diapers by hand, you will understand why I lay on the floor beneath my wringer washer, the kind with the tub up on legs with a wringer attached to the rim of the tub, and looked and thought and looked and thought.

With only the most rudimentary tools, pliers and two screwdrivers and a couple wrenches, I took something apart down there that looked broken, fixed it, put it back together with only two small extra parts, filled the tub with water heated on the wood stove and washed a huge load of baby clothes.

Christmas Eve, year after year, I’ve spent hours on the floor putting together children’s toys made in China, directions written in Chinese.

For years my ability to take things apart and put them back together more beautifully made my house payments.

Mechanically, I’m good. Electronically, not so hot. At electronics, I’m rubbish. Electronics turn my brain into 3-days-in-the-pan, overcooked, congealed oatmeal.

The other day I finally got my new internet service installed. I was excited. I’d been piggy-backing off a generous neighbor’s services, gratefully. I got my computer, my kindle, my tablet all online. No problem. I know how to do that.

However, my printer refused to spit out a page of print. My computer refused to even recognize my printer. What is this, a grade school snit amongst electronic equipment?

I’ve a fairly new printer which I had managed to install with no problems and only minor irritation and sweat. I followed the directions. I should be able to find this problem and fix it. Right?

After a couple hours, I quit. Had a sleepless night, trying to figure it out while lying awake in bed. That never works but I keep trying, which I think is the definition of insanity.

The following day, with my daughter on the phone 2500 miles away, we worked another couple hours. No go.

Interspersed with my futile attempts to make my printer work, I mixed a batch of dough for bread. Baking bread is a mechanical process. I’m an excellent baker.

The dough didn’t feel right. Bread dough is sensitive. It responds to emotional atmosphere. I know that dough felt my frustrations and acted accordingly. Finally, it had risen enough that I could form loaves, which I almost threw away but, reluctantly, just in case, put in the oven.

One last attempt trying to hook up my printer. Remember the definition of insanity? When I quit, I was screaming. I was screaming for ice cream. I grabbed my neighbor, Crin, and talked her into sharing ice cream with guava sauce I’d made that morning. (Guava is not so sensitive.)

Not being totally devoid of brains, in defeat, I asked for help. My neighbor Josue is trained in electronics and robotics. Go figure. You are right. I should have started with “HELP”.

I picked up a book and sat in a chair with my back to Josue. I hate someone looking over my shoulder when I am working. Ten minutes later, Josue asked me to come test the printer. Ten minutes! I was immensely grateful, but, a tiny contrary part of me wanted to brain him. Ten minutes!

My bread was not light and fluffy and full-sized, but Crin convinced me to keep it for toast. I gave her one loaf and kept the other.

This morning I made a batch of Grateful Bread for Josue.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

August 21, 2025

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It’s Pretty To Think That Way

 

               It’s Pretty To Think That Way

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Warning: Merrily mixed metaphors ahead.

I do like weather. While some might talk about the weather to keep conversation on a superficial basis, I talk about weather because weather is vital.

What a topsy-turvy year this is for weather. Montana. Mexico. Not much different down here where I live in Jalisco. In other words, it’s an unpredictable mess. I follow eastern Montana weather closely thanks to my daughter, Montana friends and the Havre Weekly.

I can’t help but wonder if this is the kind of weather set up, with all the surprising rain, that prompted the infamous flood of pamphlets that lured homesteaders to such inhospitable locations as eastern Montana with the promise that “Rain follows the plow!”

From our standpoint of distance and history, we might wonder how anybody could have entertained such unfounded, unscientific, unweatherific, illogical, irrational nonsense. But believe it they did, plows and kitchen tools and children in wagons, farmers along with plenty of neophytes left both workable land and inner cities by the hundreds, struggled across what later became several States, built drafty cabins or dirt hovels and plowed the prairies and waited for the rain which never fell and never fell and never fell.

Thinking that if one plowed the plot, dropped in seed, and waited, rain would follow, reminds me of the fairy tale of the Shoemaker and the Elves.

I do like fairy tales. When I had my little workshop in Poulsbo, Washington, I liked to prepare my worktable or station for the next day, set it up with cut patterns or springs ready to tie or whatever the next step required, in hopes that the elves might appear in the night hours and finish the job. In hopes, tongue in cheek. Every morning I had a good laugh when the elves neglected to show. Not even one time.

The difference is that I knew it was a fairy tale, I wasn’t a shoemaker and knew the elves would not come but used the story as self-entertainment.

Not for one moment will I try to tell you that I can’t fall for my own fairy tale. Just a year ago this month, I began preparing for a move ten miles west and further into the mountains and part of my reasoning, this is true, is that it rains more there than here at the Rancho. It does. The water is better, not so super-saturated with minerals and the water system is more reliable. It is so.

Blithely, I managed to ignore other “weather” signs. Some I couldn’t see until I lived under, around and inside them. My decision to move back I made entirely on my own, based on storm clouds mounting on the horizon of history if not geography.

I do like weather. I’m crap at reading weather signs, especially in these turbulent conditions and interesting times.

Rain does not follow the plow. I won’t set out flowerpots with seeds and wait for the cloud elves to drop water. I have pared down my garden considerably, to herbs and a few flowers because flowers are important. I will gladly drag hose from pot to pot on the days when no rain falls. I will revel when the rain drops from the lowering sky.

When I wander into fantasy fairy weather land, I will remember my Aunt Mary telling me, “It’s pretty to think that way.”

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

August 14, 2025

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The Horse Runs Faster to the Barn

 

The Horse Runs Faster to the Barn

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Having all my stuff back at the Rancho doesn’t mean I’m settled down and done.

There is a lot to be said for staying put forever. Stability. Knowing your surroundings and, whether or not they are close friends, knowing those around you intimately. Comfort.  A sense of permanence that rolling stones don’t get to have. Moss. I like moss.

It took me two months to move to Oconahua. It took twelve days for Leo to move me back, complete with bamboo, herbs and my little dog, Lola. There must be a moral or a meaning to this story, if only I can figure it out. The horse runs faster.

We’ve worked hard to get my belongings back into some kind of order. We? Me point, Leo grunt. Leo has been a trooper, putting up with my extra jobs along with taking care of several other houses and yards on the Rancho.

In at least one instance, I got a little carried away with creating spaces differently arranged than when I lived here previously. The differences are part of my fun. Poor Lola. I moved her dog dwelling closer to the front door. That night we had a rather daunting storm. Water everywhere. Soaked doggy bedding.  Back to the tried and true and dry.

I’m bleeding money but that is all part of moving, necessary expenses.

My plants made the move without going into severe shock. Constant rains help. I’m loving them and they are loving me.

My house is in order, bodega mostly settled, patio sort of sorted. The horse is in the barn, so to speak, munching oats, or soon will be.

Today I made a nice batch of granola. Harvested a clutch of limes from my key lime tree and juiced them for the freezer. I’ve ingredients on the counter to make a pizza for dinner. It’s an ordinary day, a restful day, a day of peace.

Now I’m off to mop, mop, mop and then to flop, flop, flop. An ordinary day.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

August 7, 2025

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I didn’t go to kindergarten.

 

               I didn’t go to kindergarten.

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Since we didn’t have kindergarten in the rural school in which I began my education, I missed the chance to learn everything I needed to know in one fell swoop of a year.

I have had to learn everything I needed to know the hard way, life’s lessons over time. I’m still enrolled in that particular school.

Smashed flat beneath a bundle of notebooks I no longer need but hang onto for looking back at names and memories, is a small bundle of flyers for plays at the theater I helped build from nothing but scratch and desire. I’m quite proud of that chapter in my life.

What I want to do, without the expense and fuss of frames, is to paste these flyers to a piece of card stock or something similar and preserve the fronts, crumples and dings and all, and hang my theatre memories in my bodega sewing room where I actually have usable wall space.

When I was in first and second grades, art consisted pretty much of paper and coloring crayons. Pitiful, but, hey, it’s a start. I’m not sure about the best materials to use for my “art” project, but I know who has the answers.

My friend Crinita, who will be here in three weeks for a short stay, is a teacher, a primary teacher. Retired, but at her core being, a teacher through and through.

I could figure out how to put together my project, but when one has an expert next door, why not use her skills and knowledge.  Crin is also a lot of fun.

I’m not without artistic skills. When I was 8, 9 and 10, I used to make my own paper dolls and design their clothing.

No scrap of paper hit the burn bin without my scrutiny. I remember removing the turquoise and silver paper covering from the Ajax Cleanser. Do you realize the possibilities of beauty with a scrap of turquoise and silver?

Armed with nothing more than a ruler, scissors and crayons and white paste, from piles of these papers I created entire shoe box rooms with furnishings. Lamps from scraps and a sucker stick. Windows with a view from scraps of cardboard and my Dad’s match book covers of birds and flowers.

Kindergarten is important. I wish I could have gone. Instead, I had unstructured time and imagination. Also important.

Next month I’ll let you know the outcome of my kindergarten “art” project. I wonder if they still make pots of white paste?

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

July 31, 2025

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Positively Giddy

 

        Positively Giddy

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I wrote a short note to my friend Sandy in Washington to let her know I am still alive, busy unpacking, cleaning, placing, creating different livable spaces in my familiar old home, back in Etzatlan. (The first night I tucked in with only a bed and stove, my dog and myself.)

Then came the first load of boxes and furnishings. Followed by . . .

One of my favorite things is to create areas of functional beauty in my home. Perhaps I waxed a bit bombastically when talking with her about how much fun I am having.

Sandy wrote back, “You sound positively giddy.”

Perhaps I am just a bit giddy. I find pleasure in simple things, in accomplishments, and this work gives me great pleasure.

Just the same as I wrote to Sandy, this is a short note to you. I hope, and hope does seem to spring forth eternally, I hope to be more sane and able to write in a sensible manner by this time next week.

I will add one very short and scary story. With all the ins and outs and all around the house, full box in, empty box out, walk the dog, full box in, as though I’m on a merry-go-round, leaf and other tree debris walk in on my shoes and some bits decide to stay.

This morning I almost picked up a quite large centipede, in clever disguise, with my fingers, when I remembered to poke it with my cane first. It looked like a curly leaf, until it didn’t. In this subtropical country, it is amazing how many tiny critters mimic leaves and grasses, almost invisible, until they aren’t!

Oh, wait, one more little tidbit. In my bedroom I have a beautiful print of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a sandalwood statue of Quan Yin, a female Buddha from my trip to China, and a sandalwood carving of Ganesh from my India trip. It’s not really a shrine. Okay, it is a shine to remind me of my connection to Great Spirit, to God, however you understand God.

Alongside these, I hung a bedpan from my last surgery, which I had filled with an arrangement of silk flowers, a flower pot if you will, to remind me not to take myself so seriously.

Adios for now, from Giddy in Mexico.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

July 24, 2025

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A Rolling Stone?

 

A Rolling Stone?

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Some decisions are so obvious that it is easy to say “yes” or “no” or “in the barrel”. Others take time and some are painful. I made an extremely hard decision this week. I am moving back to Etzatlan to my empty casa there from this beautiful home I’ve lived in the past eight months in Oconahua.

Last week we had a barbeque for the 4^th, we being three gringos and four Mexicanos. Ana told us about a niece and her family from the States who were moving back and needed to rent a home until they found a place to buy or build. My first cringing thought was that I am living in their perfect transition home.

More than once Ana and Michelle have talked about the possibility that friends or relatives might be needing an interim place to live. Those discussions were theoretical. Now they were talking about real people with names.

Ironically, my empty house, which is on the market, immediately, last week, garnered two offers of purchase. I turned them down. During the last week of June, I had accepted a lucrative offer for a 6 month rental. I took a deep breath and notified my agent that, oops, with regrets, circumstances changed and I want, I need, my house for me.

That’s my story in a nutshell, minus several toss-and-turn nights.

Moving here took weeks. Moving back will take weeks. I’ll return with memories and regrets. I won’t get to see that little mule colt grow up. Both places have their own distinct advantages. It’s not like I’m leaving the country. Ana and Michelle are good friends. We will visit. We probably will meet for coffee more often than we do now, living next door!

When I get moved back into my place, I will make changes. Change seems to beget changes. Little things. For example, I’ll move my herbs and geraniums back with me and my dog, but I will not replace the 130 pots I sold last fall in which I had an extensive garden. I’ll hang up my farmer’s hat.

During the days I mulled over my decision options, I consulted friends, friends with no skin in the game. I asked them to make any comment, any criticism, even if they needed to tell me I’m crazy. I did not say a word, however, to my friends on the Rancho. I already know what they would say. They are selfish. They’d say, “Oh, good, come back. We want you here.”

Some might say, “Oh, you made a wrong decision when you moved to Oconahua.” I disagree. These months here on the mountainside have been precious to me, an extended vacation.

Long ago I came to believe that there are no wrong decisions, just decisions.  This decision has these consequences. That decision has those consequences. Consequences come in a mixed bag, joy and pain together. This is my belief, with my experiences. Mine. I would never try to convince you that this is “truth” or that you should think my way. Shudders.

I make mistakes. Of course, I do. My big mistake in this situation was to ignore that tiny niggling concern I had back before my move to Oconahua, a shadow of concern that my friends might need this new house for their friends and relatives who, given political uncertainties, might opt to either relocate or return to Mexico.

That was a mistake, but, a mistake I made for which I have no regret. Consequences, right? My time here has been wondrous. Now I shall step aside for others to enjoy this special place.

I’ll return to my other special place, make some changes to make living there easier for me. It is a win-win, all the way around.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

July 17, 2025

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