After an incredible harvest of avocados (paltas) during which on some days I felt, Shit, I have to eat avocado again, a season with zero – nada – zilch. But aha! Today for the first time i see evidence that we will have another harvest!
Finally!
Lago de Pátzcuaro
Lago de Pátzcuaro – Mexico (by Ricardo Villar)
Where we lived for almost three years before moving to Uruguay.
But only then
Dont be surprised how quickly the Universe moves once you’ve decided.
The empanada cheat sheet
If only.
Shh! Don’t tell gubmint or they’ll ban the Tao Te Ching!
And I thought they were good at this
When you buy at the street market (feria), the vendors use skinny pads and add up your purchase.
Usually they’re right.
In case you’re curious: morrones (peppers), two types, pepinos (cucumbers), naranjas (oranges), bananas, cebolla (onion).
Compost attacks
Something — a comedreja, possum — has been attacking my worm composter the last few nights.
The door I didn’t install real well on the compost barrel, thinking i could harvest from the bottom, is at present also no match for the little critter(s).
The barrel has a metal lid after this incident three years ago:
I still don’t know why it ended up dead, even if it couldn’t get out. Plenty to eat, and it wouldn’t have been more than 24 hours.
Oh, sorry, you wanted to look inside the worm composter? Pieces of orange and onion got in there by mistake. The slugs are a new addition.
What a difference a ladder makes
Several years ago, I created a wood-slat drop ceiling with fiberglass insulation on the north (sun) facing roof over our bedroom. With only an extension ladder it was quite precarious and rather scary. Returning Americans gifted us a tall step ladder, and so I’m finally getting around to necessary repairs.
And it’s no big deal. Now.
You’re a completely different person…
And maybe that’s a good thing — me at 17:
And my first painting, at age 17:
I proposed this a a 10′ x 20′ mural for the game room of my prep school as my senior project. Happily the headmaster rejected the design as “too negative,” and it devolved into “just” a painting. Thus, today at eight feet wide, it hangs in our living room (one of only a few possibilities in our house). As a mural, I doubt it would have lasted five years.
I occasionally toy with the idea of doing a 50-year-later version. Because you’re not the same person….
Letting go: art supplies
50 sheets or so of drafting paper, each ¼ of the original sheet, torn because I had nothing large enough to cut them. A fraction of the original US Army surplus auction purchase in West Germany, in 1985, for maybe $8. The rest I used to create 10 how-to-draw books, which sold over 10 million copies. Last used in a 2015 updated edition of the Draw Cars book. I don’t intend to do another.
The templates are from 1992, used only in the first edition of the cars book, and held onto ever since just because that’s what people do.
At a summer session of New York’s School of Visual Arts in 1983 in Morocco, I was impressed with someone’s thick-lead mechanical drawing pencil. I bought several green ones. I don’t know where they went, nor where the red one came from, but I bought the leads in September 2012 in New York (while living in Uruguay). Basically never used since. Various erasers and the cool sharpener.
All will probably go to a high school kid who likes to draw.