Snivel, Whine, Foiled Again

 

Snivel, Whine, Foiled Again

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I know better. I set myself up to fail. All the signs pointed to early rain. I jumped in with both feet and gleefully shouted to everybody I know, “This year the rains will come early in June. What a wonderful wet year we will have.” Ha.

I know better. Sure, it rains in summer. Late June when we are lucky, July, August, and rains dribble off in September. The rest of the year is bone dry and that is easy and safe to predict. 

If I really wanted to be right, and who doesn’t like being right, I would have shut my mouth until we actually had more than one freak storm. But all the signs pointed to a wet year while the weather hit the wall and turned left.

The cicadas began singing the end of April instead of end of May. The elders in the community lifted their faces, “Ah, the way it used to be.” The black-bellied whistling ducks returned. The yellow rain birds came and built their fanciful, conical nests and planted eggs. The white bedsheet butterflies are here. Iguanas are hitting my yard for a free salad bar, despite Lola’s vigilance. Bugs are trying to get in the house. All the signs of rain imminent.

Every morning as well as late evening, I could stand outside and smell the rain. It had to be raining somewhere. Oh, yeah, Montana. The world turned upside down.

I do know that the only way to safely predict weather is to stand outside and say what one finds at the moment. Today, sunshine, blue skies forever, 105 F in the shade, 98% humidity. And when I go to my computer and check officially, same day after day after day, 105F, tomorrow 106, forever and ever, amen.

I never was a good prognosticator. If I applied for the position of oracle, I’d be turned down flat with laughter. Whatever I were to prophesy, expect the opposite.

Well, nothing to do but accept what I cannot change and deal with the heat and dust as best I can. Lola and I take our morning walk at 6:30. Back at the house, I proceed with morning chores and self-appointed tasks of the day. For example, today, by 10:00 I had the floors mopped and a mango pie in the oven, a rhubarb pie on the counter waiting to bake. As hot as it is, the oven heat won’t make a lick of difference.

A length of gauzy cotton fabric lay spread out on my table, ready to cut for a blouse, but I had to put it away, the red, orange and yellow colors too hot to contemplate.

And so each day goes, active chores done by noon. My afternoons, I revolve from patio to back yard beneath the jacaranda, to the side yard seating area I built last year, following each bit of breeze.

Despite my failures, despite my lousy reputation, I have a new prediction. It will never rain again. Having said that, I’m going to organize a neighborhood picnic. Iguanas welcome.

Sondra Ashton

Looking out my back door

Sizzling in June

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It is either feast or feast around here.

 

It is either feast or feast around here.

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“Here” being Jalisco, the Garden State of Mexico, it seems to be either feast or feast. One day it is too many tomatoes. Another day presents a splurge of tomatillos. On to a glut of papaya.

Today’s feast consists of a mess of mango. I must have been out of my mind. Weeks ago I made the decision that the only mangos I would see this summer would be the few I bought at the tienda for eating. No mermelada, which is jam in English. Every year I make mango jam. Every year I give away most of the jam. I mean, how much jam can one person eat!

Last summer after a bumper crop harvested from my young whippersnapper of a mango tree, I asked Leo to prune the tree, knowing that meant no mangos for this year. Pruning keeps the tree to a manageable height for harvesting. No mangos means no jam. It is hardly the end of the world, and truth be told, I still have a pint of last year’s jam in the fridge-freezer, to eke out judiciously on what I deem special occasions, such as, whenever I want mango jam. When the jam is gone, it is gone. No biggy.

Leo drove me to town to see my dentist in his quite wonderful, very old cup o’ truck. Wonderful in that it still runs, wonderful that it is of the vintage that is fixable. On the opposite side of the highway sat another venerable truck piled high with crates of mangos from the balneario on the way to Tequila, where grows the sweetest mangos in the world.

Leo lifted his eyebrow. I gave a nod. Mango season is short and the local mangos, the little yellow ones that are sweet and juicy, are snapped up whippety quick.

While I’m trying to figure out how many mangos I might need for one batch of jam, the young man tells Leo he’ll sell the whole crate for $750 pesos.

I stood at the back of the truck still pondering one batch of jam and three or four for eating, most of the money in my wallet scrapped and scrimped together for my new front teeth.

“$600 pesos,” the man says, seeing indecision on my face. Without thought, I handed him a portion of my tooth money.

Leo hefted a 35 kilo (77 lbs.) crate of mangos into his truck. Just like that, I’m in the jam-making business. I must have been out of my mind.

I did go on into town and get my new crowns cemented into place. I gave my dentist a dozen mangos, the rest of my money, and a promise.

Definitely out of my mind. The following day I peeled mangos, juice dripping down my arms to elbows. I called quits and gave away a quarter crate. I have mangos to eat and mangos for the freezer for pie later in the year.

Today I made jam. And I made jam. And I made jam. Seven batches. My dining table is groaning under the weight of jam jars. At this point I don’t even know if I still like jam. 

The problem is, sometimes I act as if I am still back on the ranch, hedging my bets against a year of hail and hoppers, no cattle market, and the chokecherries have blight. I’ve always had a tendency to fill jars as though I needed to feed the world.

I could have hand-picked a bag or two of mangos, made one batch of jam, and had more than enough for myself. As it is, I will keep the equivalent of a quart of jam, less than one batch, and give away the remainder.

See what I mean. I must have been out of my mind to buy the entire crate.

There is hardly anybody here on the Rancho for the summer, but as each family returns in the fall, I will greet them each with a gift of jam. Everybody loves mango jam.

Hmmm. Waffles with mango jam, thick sliced ham, might taste good. Maybe by morning.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 9, ‘23

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Looking Through a Flawed Lens

 

Looking Through a Flawed Lens

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An acquaintance stopped by the other day for a visit. Most people would have said, a friend.

Another man, a close friend from years ago, whom I miss terribly but can visit only in memory, used to say, we have few friends. Most people we know are business acquaintances. I’ve thought about his saying often.

My visitor definitely fits into the transactional group. I’ve known him for several years now but I so easily forget the rules. (His.) I expect a visit to be an interchange of ideas, experiences, even, opinions, worthless opinions but kind of fun.

This man lives on a one-way street, so to speak. He speaks, graces me with his wisdom. I listen and stomp on my tongue. He is a good person, kind, generous, caring. My job is to listen.

I can’t keep calling him “that man” so I’ll call him “Sir”. Sir will never read this.

May I give you an example of why my tongue has footprints? Sir said, “People should make the opportunities to travel while they are young and can really enjoy the experiences, not wait until they are old and can barely get around.” He was referring specifically to a young woman, who, incidentally, does not work. Sir finances her trips and good for her. I say that with no sarcasm.

I said, “That’s great. In theory, I can agree. Not everybody can up and go.”

Sir said, “Sure they can. Anybody can do anything they want. When they want to do a thing, they will find a way.”

Here I had to clamp both feet, ten toes, on my tongue. Sir, I thought, you are male, white, from a solid middle-class background. For you, I thought, that is so, has always been so. You have never stood in a queue for commodities, food stamps, low-income housing, with a toddler hanging on your legs, or for any other help and been grateful that it was there when you needed it. You have never questioned your ability to walk down a street and not be assaulted.

Flawed lenses. You can see my bias plainly.

Sir’s lenses are smudged on the other side. We can only see through the lenses we are given, our life experiences. If we are really, really lucky, we also get to learn how to see, in a limited way, from other persons’ perspectives.

The best I can, I listen. When you speak, I want to hear your story, to know who you are.

I read, a lot. In a story, whether there are six or sixteen major characters, I get to live their lives through their experiences. I lose myself in reading. I learn a lot.  

One time I asked Sir if he’d like to borrow this really good book I’d just finished, thought he’d like it. “I don’t read books,” he replied. “I read enough in University and I’ve learned everything I need to know.”

Wow. Superglue my lips. I hope I never learn enough. I hope the Great Wonderful never reaches across with a lens cleaner and wipes your glasses, Sir. You need your smudges.

I’m fortunate. I’ve colored outside the lines I was handed. I suppose you can say I’m still living outside those lines. 

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June the Beginning Thereof

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Translations

 

            Translations 

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Dear Kathy and Richard,

Thank you for sending the amazing photos that you take on your walking tours throughout the mountains of France. They are truly beautiful glimpses into the countryside you traverse.

I suppose you think I envy you the pleasures you experience these days. Oh, far from envy, my dear friends. While you trudge through the rain and the mud, or sunshine, on toward the next village or city where you stay the night in luxurious hotels, explore the neighborhoods via roadways built in Roman times, eat exotic foods of which I cannot even imagine, I hold to my heart pleasures of which you know not.

I just spent three intensely glorious hours at the dentist. Translate that to tortuous. But first the back story, an example of jumbled languages.

Last autumn I began Covid-delayed dental care. This was a weeks, nay, months-long process. I like to blame Covid for my less than timely dental care, but in truth, dentist offices wipe me out at the knees with terror. It’s a childhood thing. Bravely, I had a tooth crowned, a dead tooth pulled and several cavities filled.

My dentist told me I have a cracked crown that she would like to replace and another couple . . . And here is where my limited understanding of Spanish failed. Now, grant you, I am capable of garbling even words in English to mean what I’d rather hear. I got it into my head that there were a couple more little cavities but no hurry. Which didn’t make sense but I didn’t ask questions.

Meanwhile financial drought hit my pocketbook which delayed dental care another several months. Finally, the day came, back to the dentist.

“About the cracked crown,” I said as best I could, “I’m not sure whether to replace it or pull it. There is nothing below to bite against. Aren’t there a couple cavities left to care for first?”

“No, no cavities,” she said. “I’d like to replace your two front coronas.” (Corona being crown.)

Oh. How in creation did I mis-hear “crowns” for “cavities”? “Okay,” I said. “Do them first.”

Way back story: In 1968 a truck T-boned me on the highway. Among other injuries, I sheered off my two front teeth against the metal steering wheel. (Remember when vehicles were made of Detroit steel?)

That first set of crowns lasted me many years. The second set gave me difficulties. My own fault. The good dentist, in jamming the second tooth onto the base, didn’t get it on before the cement set. He wanted to take it off, make another. I just couldn’t face that whole process again, so I said, “Leave it. I’ll live with uneven front teeth.”

And, live with it I did. One tooth lower than the other, my bite off. I’d like to say it didn’t bother me. I didn’t realize how much it had bothered me subliminally until Dr. Imelda told me she’d like to replace it. Immediately I was excited, terrified, yes, but excited.

So, dear Kathy and Richard, while you trudged through the historic sites in France, I spent three hours in the dental chair with all the pleasures that picture elicits. Shots with gigantic needles, grinding with every grinder tool in the workshop, pliers, hammers, a sawzall, four kinds and colors of goop jammed into my mouth in forms, water up my nose and down my neck, porcelain chips on my tongue, plasticine around my lips. Oh, my friends, I had such a good time.

My new teeth today are “provisional”. I love that word. In a couple weeks I will have two new teeth, permanent. Forever teeth. Both teeth will be the same size, will hang evenly in my mouth. I’ll be able to bite in front again. 

Meanwhile, like you, my friends, I’m eating differently than my usual. Oatmeal, mashed potatoes, pureed carrots, yoghurt, pates, ice cream, that sort of thing. I would send photos but I do not want to goad you to jealousy.

With teeth gritted in love,

Your friend, Sondrita

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

May toward the end of month

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Sometimes a Shadow

 

Sometimes a Shadow 

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Up at 6:30 and out the door to walk Lola. The sun is almost up, the sky spread cool with night clouds.

These days when Lola and I go walk-about, I have an entourage. A few months ago Josue and family adopted a pup, named him Hunter. He is mild-mannered. Most of the time. He thinks I am his. When he hears my belled gate open, Hunter bounds like Tigger, meets me with wet tongue greetings.

Lola takes lead. Hunter races between me and Lola. Hunter does not walk. Pup, remember. A  large pup. Snowball, tiny, ancient and blind, lags behind.

This morning there was something, a shadowy presence at the end of the lane toward the highway. Lola went on point. Hunter hugged my leg. Snowball sensed discomfort and turned tail, home.

Dawn. Light, but the sun is not up. I stopped, on the verge of fear. Last night a bobcat, stinky creature, had announced itself pungently.

The hunched shadow did not move. I continued up the lane. Lola ran home. Hunter sat on his haunches and watched. Somebody had moved a huge stone from the rock wall over to mark or protect the water valve in the line running to the ranch. A menacing rock. It could stand up and launch itself at you, right, Lola? It could have been a large cat hunched over its prey. It could have been.

These days, the hottest of our year, most of us change routines to survive the afternoon heat.  The cicadas, an annual variety, sing, sing, sing, songs of coming rains. I survive by working in the morning cool and flopping with a book in the afternoon. I line up my chores, mop, iron, food prep, house-mom stuff.

When the rains begin, the temps drop. Usually, the day starts sunny, storms blow in late afternoon to early evening. Weather doesn’t like routine either though, so there are variations to that theme. From June until December, weather here is pretty much perfection.

Changing my routines reminds me of a couple I once knew, welcoming neighbors when we first moved to Washington. I’ve lost contact but I’ve not forgotten them or their strange ideas. One idea they shared with evangelistic fervor is that one should vary routines. Simple ways. If you always put your right shoe on first, don the left first. Alternate. My friends figured change keeps one’s mind from ossifying.

Silly. Fun. When I think to do it, I like the way varying a routine helps me recognize when I’ve fallen into a rut. Helps me think outside the box. Then I can decide to try a different route. Or not.

I’m not evangelistic. For some people such changes might be dangerous. Nothing’s wrong with the comfort of regular habits. Like two cups of coffee, comfort.

This morning, after my first cup of coffee, I swept the floor, south to north, shelled beans from my three bean buckets, each a different variety. One bean jumped onto the floor, immediately rendered itself invisible. I left it.

I picked squash, spinach and cilantro for an egg scramble. Sat down with a book and my second cup of coffee. Two cups. No variation.

Eventually, the sun angled through my kitchen window in such a way that the runaway bean on the floor puffed up a four-inch shadow. Gotcha, you little bugger.

Mopped my floors, west to east. It’s a good morning. Sure, my day is just begun, but I know it is a good day.

Then like in a cartoon, a huge roiling cloud of black smoke loomed overhead, black blacker than the blackest night. The new recycling center, across the highway, down one block, caught fire. Leo and Josue rushed off to check the danger, warned us to be ready to evacuate if need be.

I barricaded myself indoors with the windows closed against the fumes. Fortunately, for me, not so lucky for those downwind, I was safe while imprisoned. For hours I paced, watching the black clouds puff and roll, at times shading the sun. Tires? Plastics? Batteries?

Bomberos arrived, sirens screaming. From town, from Ahualulco, Magdalena, Tala. I heard occasional pops and booms. Our volunteer firemen are probably unprepared to deal with chemical fires. They kept the blaze under control, away from neighboring properties and the dry, dry grasses. Black dominated the sky until late afternoon. We were told the residue might smolder for days. Prepare to stay indoors.

Shadows come, shadows go. Same with the clouds of smoke although I might have shaved a couple years off my life breathing noxious fumes.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

May, loud with cicadas

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“Be Here Now” (Travel Later)

 

            “Be Here Now” (Travel Later) 

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Thank you, Ram Dass. I confess, I’ve not read his book of above title. But I understand the concept, some.  

I do be, and I be where I am planted, and I be where I am right at this moment, glorying in the beauty (even when mixed with pain) I am given, every day. I often say, I am the luckiest woman. However . . .

An unusual thought-want-desire-plan sprang nearly whole into my mind the other night while my eyeballs ran over the first paragraph in a new book I’d just sat down to read. I scanned that paragraph fifty or sixty times and never read a word. I was off in another world, on the road.

I’m going to lay the blame for germinating the idea in three different places.

My friends, Ellie and Wayne, just returned from a trip to London and Paris. They sent glimpses along the way. It is good, a trip three years in the planning. Good.

Kathy and Richard are on a multi-months stay in France with her daughter. Paige and Luke have acreage on the edge of the tiny hamlet of Pouy where they have lived for years. Their 200-year-old stone house, the fields and surrounding lawns look like cutouts from paintings by Old World Masters.

Finally, I blame the jigsaw puzzle I just finished. I like the intuitive process that happens when I work with colors, shadings and shapes which jiggle my mind into different ways of thinking. From the daily rut to new patterns.  

I’ve no desire to go to London or Paris. A two-month walking tour of France? No, not for me. I love that my friends get to experience these things.

Back in the olden days, was it Western Airlines, with champagne flights? My first commercial flight was Great Falls to Calgary. I was entranced. These days, flying is no fun. I dread trips.

My friends’ trips and my puzzle jiggled my mind into new ideas, unbroken ground. For years I have talked of hopping a bus to various towns I’ve never been through, stay a day or two, explore, eat regional foods, grab another bus to my next virgin destination and tour Mexico thusly. Every place has wonder and magic. My job would be to find it. The Mexican bus system is incredibly traveler friendly.

The other form of getting where I’m going that I find particularly wonderful is by train. I love train travel, the diner, watching the country slide by, being lured to sleep by the clack of the wheels on the rails.

What if I bussed north to the border, zigged and zagged through Mexico. At the border I’d grab a taxi to the train station, ride the rails on the southernmost Amtrak route to California, swing north to Seattle, west to Havre. Not nonstop. What is the rush? Oh, the joy! I would stop along the way, grabbing even more cities in my clutches.  

Just like that, the trip I had been dreading, the flight from Guad to Seattle or to Billings, dropped into the ocean of non-starters, and a dream trip became a real goal.

Now I will tell you the part I want you to keep under your hat. What I’m going to say is not a big deal but I have friends who will try to make it a big deal. Planner friends. I like to travel without reservations, without destinations and times with which to adhere. Also, I don’t have an iPhone. Roll back the clock!

On the road with freedom. I get there when I get there. I meet lovely and wonderful people along with strange and interesting folks. One hotel might be adequate—or less—and the next hotel might be elegant. A delay is an opportunity. An opportunity for what? Well, I won’t know. Part of the fun is the anticipation, the wonder of exploration.

Will I also meet with disappointments? Of course, I will. That’s life. It is all part of the wonder.

Whenever I travel this way, I feel like I leave part of myself behind and that I own part of the country through which I’ve gone.

Today I am here. I have to build a pile of pesos. Today, for the first time in years, I’m looking forward to a trip.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

May like August

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Gone the Garden Guru

 

Gone the Garden Guru 

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Our gardener, Leo, was gone for a week, off to the beaches of Cabo San Lucas with a group of friends.

“No worries, Leo. I can water my own plants. I’ll do a section every day. Go have fun. All will be well.”

Easy to say, yes? Harder to live the reality. I figured three sections: front of house, back and sides of house, back yard. One, two, three. Easy, peasy.

Plants, however, are not logical. If a plant is gasping, pleading, “Feed me, feed me,” what is a woman to do. I renamed several of my plants Audrey, in honor of that piranha of plants from “The Little Shop of Horrors”. I dragged hose, front, back, all around the garden, every day, trying to appease the neediest.

It is a job which, gradually, over the years, I had given over to Leo. When temps hit 90 daily, one must drag hose, a job which I had not had to do in a long time.

We are fortunate here. We have water in abundance. Unless a water main breaks, which happens with frequency, most often quickly repaired. I pay approximately $65.00 a year for my water. I pay much more in filters to sift the sand from the water after a break in a line. Drinking water I buy separately. I digress.

After the first couple of days, I rooted around for a working sprinkler. Found one. Hooked it up. The back yard became an easily do-able job. All I had to do was move the sprinkler every couple hours. All day long.

That left all-around-the-house, drag hose, stand and point, move, stand, etc.

The following day, with a little ingenuity, I figured out how to aim the sprinkler on parts of both sides and in back as well as sections of the front garden areas. I’m also watering concrete, house brick, pathways, and other things non-productive. But, hey, the run-off crosses grassy areas which I don’t water regularly, being water-conservation conscious. These are unusual times, unusual measures, I figure, justifying my wastage to myself. Do not tell Leo.

And so it went.

When Leo returned, I proudly told him what a good job I had done, told him that I had kept of the watering regularly, nothing needed watering today, as I handed him the hose. “Oh, except I didn’t water the plumbago, the large elephant foot, the palm in the back corner or anything outside the walls.”

Much to my consternation, Leo spent the entire day dragging hose, watering every pot, bucket, tree, and container on the place that I had so diligently given drink. So much for my hard toil and genius.

I figured Leo was letting me know he is indispensable. I won’t argue.

This is the first week of May. But the rains are coming. On April 30, early in the evening, I heard the first shrill screech of a cicada. May 1, I heard 3 cicadas. Or one cicada three times. Or any combination thereof. May 2 brought in a small chorus. By next week the brown bug music will be in full swing.

Local lore has it that the cicadas sing down the rain. It won’t rain today or tomorrow. But perhaps the rains will begin in May rather than June. Leo says the old-timers, the really, really Old Ones, even older than me, say the rains used to come in May. I say, May they come.

Last night’s music was up to the strength of a small chorus. By next week the brown bug music will be in full swing. Sing down the rain, I say. Sing down the rain.

Next time Leo wants to take a holiday, I shall declare, “I forbid it.” Won’t do any good, but it will make me feel good to say it.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

May First Week

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