Escombro

escombro

About a month ago, I noticed someone had dumped some construction rubbish in the road near us. Then I saw a backhoe moving it onto the lot, which had clearly been very wet during the recent rains.

And a sign: Se recibe escombro. (Clean) fill wanted. Escombro refers to bits of what houses and such are made of: brick, concrete, tile.

From that, now this ungainly mess, including plastic. And a new sign: Propriedad privada – no tirar basura ni escombro. Private property. Do not dump garbage or construction waste.

More ironic, the rather brutal potholes in the road. In five minutes, someone with a shovel and wheelbarrow could fill them, with the material right there. No one has. I would (did once before) but my wheelbarrow is in the country. One of these days….

Resourcefulness +1

We’re still drawing water from the well with a rope, which gets completely twisted. Our ‘everything’ guy Martín suggested a metal thingie that allows it to rotate, didn’t like the way I installed it, and did it a different way, with a knot that left the bucket at the bottom of the well in the middle of my watering routine today.

He made a hook out of thin metal construction rod and started fishing. (He’s a fisherman.)

No luck. I was heading home for lunch; said I’d bring back a strong flashlight and another bucket so they could continue work in the meantime, since brickwork requires water.

Two doors down, on a whim, I asked my neighbor if by chance he had a strong flashlight. No, but he had a bucket I could borrow. That would definitely save time. Being only 100 meters away, I left the car and walked back with the bucket.

fish hook

In the few minutes of my absence, Martín had fashioned a treble hook, fished out two buckets from the bottom of the well, and assured me there was a third, which he left for now. Attached a bucket to the rope in place of the hook, and went back to work.

Tosca

Tosca:

  • an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini
  • the same magically transposed to film in a stirring and wonderfully performed production featuring Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna asthe star-crossed lovers
  • a downtempo-chillout-electronic-trip-hop lounge duo
  • a fine Italian dining experience in the heart of Washington, D.C.
  • an awesome old school café in San Francisco’s Chinatown
  • a manufacturer of travel goods in Australia
  • a street in Singapore, and …

… dirt. Actually a type of crumbly rock (my scant knowledge of geology fails me), a mountain of which appeared last week on the rambla, probably for the repair of the collapsing stretch nearby, and destined to devolve into clouds of dust, tooth-rattling washboards, and suspension-testing potholes (pozos).

Tosca, the "dirt" for roads, Uruguay

I found this spot a little more inspiring a couple years ago, with a funky car and graceful pines.

Car, tree, ocean — Uruguay

They’ve gone, victim of a storm, as have the railings to the then-new boardwalk. And I haven’t seen that car in a long time either, come to think of it.

This year’s volunteers

Our country house, Uruguay

Our country property included two pig houses, one collapsing. When I took the latter apart, I discovered volunteer zapallos (I think; some kind of squash at any rate). You might recall my fascination with the volunteer zapallos last year.

At some point, I will take up the neighbor’s offer to plow the area between here and the house for a garden, in exchange for letting him graze cattle on our land. Meanwhile, I can be happy that part of my garden has already planted itself.