Author: doug

So goes the sitzbad

Over ten years ago, we bought a chacra (mini-farm, 14 acres) with a crappy little house that we chose to fix up instead of bulldoze, the recommendation of some (all?) who saw it. I won’t go into it, but we had a reason.

Given the possibility of being creative, I had the idea to emulate the sitzbad my wife had years ago in her tiny apartment in Frankfurt, West Germany.

So I went wild, because hey, Martín can build it! And it ended up not being compact at all.

But pretty! At one end, a nook for a washing machine.

And don’t ask me what I was thinking when I framed this photo, but it’s the closest I have to an image of the finished project.

Which project was a stupid idea. No question about it. First of all, it would require a huge amount of hot water, and we never pursued the idea of installing a (large!) solar hot water heater. Plus, something that occurred to me only when I showed the house to a middle-aged couple: who, including little kids and older people, is going to be able to comfortably get in and out of the thing?

So an executive decision was made…

…and it didn’t take me long to realize that I was out of my league with a 1-kg sledge hammer and a chisel. I asked our contractor if he had a larger sledge hammer I could borrow, and he went one further and loaned me his small jack hammer. Which turned out to be exactly what I needed.

A few hours here, a few hours there, and three days later the job is done, leaving the question of whether we can match the floor tiles, of which we have six, or the wall tiles (none)…

…and of course, “done” is relative. The last two days’ rubble still needs to go away.

So what to do now (other than slather more horse liniment on my overworked shoulders, of course)?

Ants and acacia

Ants are, of course, amazing. What’s unusual about this trail is that we could actually find the end of it; usually the trails disappear in the undergrowth, often after a far greater distance than this.

Regardless, the question remains: why weren’t they harvesting the closer acacia bush?

Speaking of trees

This is not how you cut one down, regardless of whether you call it felling (eastern north North America) or falling (western north North America). In fact, I’m not even sure how they would accomplish this without a rope and a bit (or a lot) of luck. If you’ve ever used a chain saw, you’ve probably experienced the blade binding—not fun.

As a refresher, here’s how it’s done:

Out of curiosity, I spent one dog walk photographing stumps. I never realized how boring photographs of tress stumps are. So, you’re welcome. Anyway, it seems that perhaps as many as five percent of the trees cut were done by people who actually knew what they were doing.

(In my opinion.)

A dwelling in winter

Almost sunset. Temperature has dropped from 12°C to 8°C (54-46°F) as night approaches. No visible source of heat, unlike the neighbors’ smoky chimneys. Masonry construction; insulation unlikely. No sign this evening of young kids I often see playing.

The lighting is nice, but any suggestion of warmth is purely illusionary.

You decide:

In the winter, their surroundings are equally pretentious, but very uncomfortable, for the houses of Montevideo are as frigid as the white marble in which they are finished. The people believe artificial heat unhealthy, and in this city, which is as large as Washington, and quite as cold, there is not a furnace or a steam-heating plant. During cold snaps, a hostess often receives dressed in furs, with her hands in a muff and her feet on a hot-water bottle, and gentlemen and ladies come to state dinners in over-coats and fur capes.

~The President of Uruguay (author unknown, 1897)

Double-faced fruit trees

Sometime after planting fruit trees, someone with much more experience pointed out that the nasty spiked branches would never produce fruit, because they weren’t part of the fruit-bearing portion of the plant.

Instead, they were suckers growing from the root stock. You can sort of see where the two join, and there’s the sucker below.

The junction is much clearer on our lemon tree.

Lesson is: they are nasty things, obviously well worth removing!

Happy dawgz!

Raw meat for the doggos – 2.5 kilos (5.5 lbs) each of meaty bones and chicken gizzards (menudos) and 1.2 kg (2.6 lb) of beef heart. US $15 for all. Heart the most expensive at about US $2.25/lb. Seems like a good investment.

In the background milk (yes, in a plastic bag) for another batch of yogurt, and cilantro for another batch of salsa Mexicana. And flour tortillas: I’m OK making pizza and bagels and such, but the idea of making flour tortillas hasn’t grabbed me. Maybe one day. Sure, they look easy enough…but doesn’t everything on the internet? (Here’s looking to you, it’s-so-easy two-stroke engine tuneup guy with 15 years experience.)