https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKlCmo03YSk
After a few days of rain, this was what we heard last night.
I panned a couple times to show streetlights, but there was not much to see. Just as well—let your imagination go wild.
Category: plants
Just ain’t right (monster lemons)
A friend said he had some lemons from his tree for me. He said they were big.
I guess so. The biggest are the size of grapefruits.
Tero-tero!
A pair of territorial Southern Lapwings, or tero-teros as they’re called here after their raucous call, have created this “nest“ near our tajamar, and, given their aggressive nature, have staked their claim for a significantly larger area. I was able to get close to take this picture (they’re the size of very small chicken eggs) without them dive-bombing me.
When the young hatch, that will not be the case.
Carpet of lavendar
Aloe!
Even underexposing two stops, can’t do justice to the brilliance of
these aloe plants cross the road, glowing as the sun descends
toward its local disappearance at 5:43 PM. Four days past the
winter solstice, nice to know that each day will be a little longer now.
Quick tour of the volunteer garden
A couple of large zapallo (squash), each about 16″/40cm long:
One I only spotted from the road the other day, growing behind the chiquero (pigpen; unoccupied). It had wedged itself into the fence; I removed it, maybe damaged stem. If so, it becomes dinner.
Finally, two of the loofahs (which I did plant), joined on the left by an even larger zapallo, which I didn’t.
In which I become an herbalist
Ten days ago I posted a short video about comfrey.
Five days ago, my son stumbled steps in the centro (at 5 AM, ahem), creating what turned out to be a nasty fracture of the tibia that required surgery and several screws.
He spent three nights in the hospital, during which he spent some money for outside food and TV rental in his double room. Retrieving him, I paid 719 pesos (USD 38.45) for at-home anti-coagulent, antibiotic, and pain meds, and 1,410 pesos (USD 75.40) for 15 daily in-home visits to administer the anti-coagulent shot. That was it.
What would this cost in the USA, $25-30,000?
Today I made a poultice for the first time, using comfrey I transplanted from a friend’s place over a year ago. He said it felt good!
Also interesting: we’ve been here over three and a half years; he’s only had medical insurance in the last six months or so.
¡Estoy rico!
Even agressive Photoshop filters don’t make them particularly interesting.
Actually, they belong to my neighbor, whose two remaining guinea hens were pecking at the feet of one of them, which is almost interesting. In a limited way, on an off day.
Cow gaze: you can almost sense the intense cerebral activity.
My pet tarantula
House in the country not yet habitable. Workers Martín and Rafael preparing to leave Friday afternoon when Martín calls me in to see our new visitor. After some little discussion of how they weren’t dangerous, Martín said they usually kill them just to be sure. I said let it be my guest for the weekend.
It’s a small one.
Related: Itsy bitsy spider
Lookaloofah!
I chuckled as I picked through the cellophane-wrapped loofah sponges at Tienda Inglesa a long while ago, thinking how in the USA most shoppers would probably take horror in seeing seeds in their bath sponge. I, on the other hand, sought out the one most laden.
They got a late start, and now–finally–I’m seeing fruit. The vines have really hit their stride: you can practically watch them growing.
The loofah sponge I bought desperately needs replacing…hope on the horizon!