Pets

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the pets

The nights are cool here, but not freezing yet.  I got busy with the chainsaw that Jhampa brought us, and cut up most of the firewood I collected in the spring.  I have a good supply now, enough to take the chill off the coldest nights, but not enough to be self-indulgent. Guy's visit has been pushed back a month. Jhampa tells me that Armando will be coming, but I have no idea when.  I wrote Armando and asked him to call me the day before, so I am sure to be here and not in Durango.  I'm going to work with him to find a good plumber.  He seems to have better access to the tradesmen in Canatlan. The leaky pipe from the water tank is getting worse again.  That whole piece needs to be replaced. Our neighbor to the right has two horses he uses for plowing.  One is a jackass, kinda wild.  We enjoyed having the horses foraging our fields for the past couple of months, but Juan moved the horses out when I told him I think they are finished cleaning up the place; I didn't look for them. I suppose they were down by the river.  But yesterday they were back again.  Blacky is in our field tied to Juan's fence, with not much to nibble on underfoot.  Jacky is roaming, having better luck at finding fodder.  Blacky was clearly happy to see me, whinnying until I went to him for a talk. I had an entourage. I picked up Peanut from Sylvia's on Thursday morning after returning from Ben's wedding in Georgia, as you know.  She was in heat.  The black dog had waited for her the full five days, as far as I could tell, and he got first crack at her.  The next door neighbor Lalo's two big dogs also took up vigil, hoping against hope.  Soon the house was in full siege. They jump up on the doors and windows to keep an eye on the object of their lust.  Peanut is no longer free to roam and romp as she used to.  I carry her in my arms to the car and take her up the farm road.  The small black dog follows us afoot, but the other two do not.  She runs freely there.  I let him mount her a few times, but not anymore.  I think the deed is done.  We'll have puppies between Christmas and New Years.  My clothes take a toll.  The big ones jump up on me while I carry her to the car, and tear my clothes, and muddy them if there's been any moisture.  I do a lot of laundry these days. Even when she remains in the house, they follow me.  Now that her desire has wanted somewhat, I walk her on a short leash here on our land, and carry a four-foot long pole.  When she needs privacy I swing the stick 360°, until she is done.  It keeps them at bay.  Gradually I am letting the three of them get closer to them.  She wags her tail and enjoys ‘kissing’ them.  But as soon as one gets close to her tail, I poke them with the stick. I had to turn to the internet to find hope.  How long will this last?  How long is gestation?  The answers were vague and conditional, but I take comfort where I can.  It could last a few days to 21, but the average is 12.  Okay, seven down, five to go.  Actually, I think she is coming out of it.  She no longer seems so eager to receive the males.  Gestation is nine weeks, which brings us to the end of December.  At least I know that the puppies have only one father, so they won't be so varied.  I don't know how that effects size of litter. This is all an experiment, a learning experience.  She'll be spayed after this.  I have midwifed many kittens (and a couple of puppy litters too, but only the delivery phase), so I was curious to round out my midwifing experience with domestic animals. I am slowly putting in a bed of alfalfa.  I've removed the corn stalks from the 6 by 8 ft plot.  Next I will till and level it.  Apparently November is the month to seed alfalfa, so I'll get it done.  Then we can have green smoothies.  You might look up some recipes for healthy drinks, and join in.  Here they like alfalfa and cucumber mixes.  Yummy on a hot hot day!  I want to have seeds for alfalfa sprouts, but YouTube videos tell me they are very hard to collect, being very small.  Still I have to try.  I think I mentioned that alfalfa is a perenniel crop, so we can cut it and it keeps coming back.  The horses will like hands full of that; easier to keep on hand than carrots. Would you believe, some animal likes to eat peat moss!  That 55 lb  bale had been broken into, and an eighth of it was gone.  I thought it was the horses, but I checked the next day and more had been eaten and the horses are gone.  I repackaged it and stored it more securely. The rototiller blade got bent, I don’t know how.  I had it straightened, and now I can do the last tilling of the peach ‘orchard’ (if 12 young trees constitute an orchard), and the alfalfa plot. It is pleasant working on these cool days, although the sun can still be intense at midday. Peanut seems a bit stir crazy, so I’ve opened the front door (and locked the screen door) so she can visit with her entourage a little. She sits there, in the pool of sunlight, still casting pleading eyes my way.  Just another week, Sweetheart; hold on.

Retire to Mexico

It's been a long time in silent exile.  Maybe not long to you, since I am out of mind, but for me counting the hours, days, weeks, months without familiar social interaction, three years since arriving here has seemed like forever; a lifetime.  A prolonged time of waiting for the other shoe to drop, as I try to build a home in a wilderness..

Once again we have arrived at rainy season.  It is late this year.Some crops have failed, including my own experiment in farming, a crop of oats.  My fields are green with weeds.

I had been chronicling since arriving here three years ago.  I have profiled for you a number of the most familiar local characters.  I was waiting to polish each one before posting it.  Two years of writing about Mexico have vanished, digital code wiped away by computer malfunction.  Three more years of the book on my bakery experience, plus all the files of recipes from the bakery, all gone.  The Cosmos is telling me I am not to bother my silly head with authoring a book. No one cares about my quirky life; it is just one of millions.

Two years ago the rain was so plentiful that the flat bridge that crosses our 'river' at the entrance to our village was overflowing with maybe two feet of water.  Villagers have to cross that bridge to get to the highway and the bus stop.  The old people hung back, waiting and hoping for a kind neighbor to stop their truck and offer a lift the twenty feet across.  The river was swift and scary.  This year, in spots across our valley the creek has dried up completely.  The driest I have seen it yet.

I came here to join a community of meditators, others following the path of Buddhist compassion and lovingkindness.  No one else got the vision; I am alone.  The village is about two kilometers away from the tiny village of El Pozole.    I am in the midst of orchards and pasture land.  My companions are the birds,  dogs, cats, horses.

One dog in particular is worth remembering.  She died only yesterday.  Petunia is mostly pit bull.  A guy tried to foist her onto me, as just the protection I needed on my isolated farm. He had found her in the street all skin and bones, and 'rescued' her.  But he was not interested in adopting her. She is a kind, gentle, affection playful senior of 8 years.  As much as I loved having her around, she saw the place my little Maltese mix had in the home.  The little one sits on my lap, goes in the car with me everywhere, is generally pampered.  And so Petunia tries to climb on my lap, when I am sitting in my recliner watching TV.  One night she came home with a lame hind leg; we never discovered the nature of it.  It could be a sprain, or arthritis, or who knows.  It makes it harder for her to climb up onto the recliner. At 55 pounds, she makes a large impact on my small home.  She tracks mud in, jumps on blankets, rubs against clothes, causing more laundry and mopping.  After about a year, the limp equally mysteriously disappeared.

She is a vagabond, a nomad.  There is a home in the village that maintains kibble for her.  This home is the home to a number of dogs; people bring their puppies to Sylvia.  She always finds homes, except when her own kids or grand kids adopt the puppy. Petunia would lie in the sun in front of the house.  She would protect the little dogs against the big digs.  She is very protective.

She would roam.  Across the street from Sylvia is a house being renovated.  In this village family properties are in clusters, so the three houses across the street belonged to her three aunts, only one of whom is still alive.  One empty house is being renovated by a son-in-law of the deceased sister.  He lives in LA.  He is an alcoholic, a retired person who never quite grew up emotionally, being the pampered youngest child of a large brood.  He escapes from an unhappy marriage by coming to El Pozole many months at a time, supposedly to remodel the house.  When his wife comes to visit her cousins for a few weeks a year, she is sad at how he has destroyed her childhood home.  These two love Petunia, and try to care for her when they are around.  Petunia feels adrift.  She comes to me for chats, and to just lie unmolested in the sun.

About a year ago she had an ulcerated mammary.  After Jose returned to LA, I took her to the vet.  He cut the mammary.  He also took out her uterus, saying that we were dealing with cancer and that the cancer originated in the uterus.

Last week Petunia came to me to show me her wound.  An ulcer had erupted, between nipples.  As soon as she came in the door, after looking me dolefully in the eye, she laid down and showed me her wound.  It was leaking like a sieve.  Blood was pouring out.  I cleaned it up, tried to bandage it, put antibiotic cream on it, but it bled all night soaking through her bed.  I took her back to Jose and Marisela and suggested they get medical attention.

Later in the day we texted; they said they had an appointment three days away.  I was beside myself with this news; I saw it as an emergency.  But I do not have the money for Petunia's care; this couple from California does.  I was helpless to intervene.  When the appointment came I went with Jose to keep the appointment.  It was a new vet; Jose said it was a cousin.  We waited an hour.  We phoned. There was no vet.  The phone number written on the wall was a Durango number.  I suggested that perhaps the vet's main practice was in Durango, and he came to Canatlan certain days.  From long experience with Jose I know that he is about the worst communicator I have ever known, one of those who talks but doesn't listen.

We went to the vet who did the cutting a year earlier.  The qualified vet was not there; only his father was in attendance.  He cleaned up the wound and sewed it up. I was startled when a spurt of blood came from the wound.  At this point we were still thinking that Petunia had impaled herself on barbed wired; this spurt made me question that scenario.  We were yet to learn that the cancer was still active inside her.

A few days later they texted me that they were taking Petunia down to town to have the ulcer cut out.  I texted back, "Get a second opinion" 

Within the hour we were in my car headed to Durango.  We found a vet.  He explained that she probably needed a complete mastectomy on the right side of her body.  To ensure that it would not spread further (we had no measure of how widespread the cancer was) she would need chemotherapy. To do nothing would be to allow the cancerous ulcer to grow until it killed her.  It was just a matter of time, and a lot of pain.  Because Petunia is a quiet dog, using barking only to communicate to dogs, not to humans, the humans presumed she was in no pain.  But when she would visit me she would look into my eyes for minutes at a time, trying to tell me about it.  Our choices were to spend hundreds of dollars on a now nine year old dog, in a situation where she could not get adequate hospice care given her nomadic ways; let the disease take its course until she died; or a mercy killing.

I held my own counsel and let them talk it through.  I knew it would be easy to find a gun back in the village, and quickly dispatch the situation.  Jose was of the same mind, but Marisela was in tears thinking of the dog's termination by whatever means. 

The next day Petunia was put to sleep in Canatlan.  Early in the day I visited them to drop something off they had left in the car.  Jose tried to persuade me to come with him.  The job did not need the two of us, he was a chicken.  Marisela was no better.  I offered to take her on my own, but Jose did not like that.  It is just as well, because I had a lot of work to do on my farm.  I said my goodbyes to her, and that is the last I will see of my good friend Petunia.

Because of the topography, I guess, there is no cell service in homes.  If someone wants to use their phone they must go outside into the dirt street.  This prevents me from developing closer relations to the other seniors in the village.  No casual chatting by phone.  None of them drive, so none has ever been out here to visit me, or see what a house I have built.

The exception is Berta, but she is worthy of her own story.

I did eventually manage to get a wifi box from TelCel, the main cell provider in Mexico.  Through that I get to watch Netflix and Prime Video.  I also have a satellite, dish, that dishes up old movies and old NCIS.  I see adds for Bull, but this shows after I have gone to bed.

I am so desperate for companionship that I have continued to talk to my boyfriend in Chongqing, China to come live with me.  He is a city guy; he would be miserable isolated on the farm. He would also have to give up all his government pension and benefits.  He professes his undying love for me, but is no fool.  He would treat me well if I moved there.  It is tempting.

My home is beautiful and comfortable.  I have a guest bedroom and bath.  In a narrow valley being bordered on the east and west by hills, the views can be breathtakingly beautiful.

Exiled in Paradise

Mexico permanent resident visa process

I write this because during the process of obtaining permanent residency in Mexico, I have relied on the internet to inform me of what I need to do.There is a lot of information out there, yet it failed me in the end.  Blame it on my poor internet skills, if you will, or because I enter the country by car instead of by plane.  What follows is the process I followed.

Caveat:I have only crossed at Laredo and El Paso.   Each of them have a few bridges, some are more suitable for passenger cars than commercial trucks.

Driving across the border is effortless.  At certain times of day the line is long, at other times it is only an hour.  The Mexicans ask for no papers.  As a tourist, one has permission to stay six months.

Problem is, no one stamps your passport when you drive across. 

You have to park your car and go inside a building to get your passport stamped.  At Juarez/El Paso the road  at the entrance to the border is short, narrow and crooked.  There is a yellow building on the left, with its own indoor parking lot.

At Laredo/Nuevo Laredo there is a very busy government building with a large parking lot, that deals with many services.  Your car needs a permit to enter the country.  This is where you obtain it, and get your passport entry stamp.

I suppose once you have your resident permit, this is where the paperwork is processed for 'importing' your car.

My car (2002 VW Passat in great shape) was too old; it was undesirable by the Mexican government.  I could continue to renew its permit year by year, but I could never get rid of the American license plates, which act as a red flag to the local police seeking 'morditos', bribes.

Any cursory search reveals that you cannot apply for a residence visa from inside the Mexican borders.  The application must be submitted at 'your local Mexican consulate'.  [Since I moved from China to Mexico I had no locale; I went to the consulates in Texas.]

The requirements are simple.  Bring along two passport photos. and your bank statements for six or twelve months  Laredo asked for six, Austin asked for twelve.  If you are receiving a social security pension, you receive an annual notice at the beginning of the year telling you how much you are receiving, net.  Make sure you make one photocopy of this. You must demonstrate that you have enough money to support yourself.  It is supposedly based on the average salary of a worker in Mexico City.  You can find this information online fairly easily.  I will try to include links here at the end. I think a savings or investment account showing $20,000 should be enough.  Print out the summary page, all six or twelve months.  Not necessary to make copies.

Now you need to make your appointment.  I found this to be the hardest part of the entire process.  If you live near the consulate, in Austin it is easy to walk in and make an appointment for the following week.  In Laredo, not so easy.  Laredo is a small office with overworked staff.  Austin, by comparison, seems empty.  In Austin there is a receptionist at the entrance, who will direct you to the window you want.  I'm guessing it is easier to find someone on duty in their office in the afternoon, rather than at the 8 a.m. opening.

On the internet you will be given a phone number to call to make an appointment.  This seems like a waste of time.  The person answering the phone says that she can only make an appointment for someone seeking a Mexican passport.  She says she cannot help you if you are seeking a visa.  Yet at the Laredo office they gave me that number and said 'everyone here' got their appointment that way. (It is probably true that 90% of those present were seeking a Mexican passport, but he overlooked that detail).

That Mexican office, in Mexico City, is listed under MexiTel.

However it is that you obtain your interview, the visa should be issued and placed in your passport within hours.  No need to sweat the interview; just have your papers ready.  It is conducted in English, of course.

Now, with this passport visa you have six months to enter the country.

Once you have entered the country, you have thirty days to present it to your local Instituto Nacional de Migracion, commonly called the Migracion Office.

You should arrive with a filled out form (printed from the internet), the INM formato basico**.
The photos you need are tiny, called 'infantil, 2.5 x 3 cm , two front view and one profile.  Once you have shown your passport, they will print out a form you must take to a bank to pay the fee.  At the moment, temporary resident pays pesos $4,148 MXN.  The permanent residence costs pesos $5,056 MXN.  Depending on the exchange rate, it is somewhere around  .  US$200 ~$250.

Where I made my mistake was when I crossed the border, I forgot to get out of the car and enter a building to get my passport stamped.  Technically I crossed the border and had 30 days to register near my Mexican home.  But actually, because the passport was not stamped at the point of entry, I still have six months to drive back to the border and get it stamped.

For the Permanent Residency the process is the same at the local Migracion office.  I fill out the INM formato basico, bring photos, run out to the bank to pay, and return with the receipt. 

That local office will email you when the residence card has been issued.  The first time, two emails arrived on the same day.  One was to confirm that I had submitted my application, the second was to inform me that my card was ready.  I did not read the second one closely, just assumed it was a duplicate confirmation, and waited a month before going back to ask where my card was.  They greeted me with, "Oh, there you are!  We were wondering when you come in to get this."

This time I will be more conscientious in reading my emails.

Once you have either temp or perm residence card, you can deal with TelCel to get the better phone and internet deals.  You can open a bank account in your name, so that you can wire yourself money.  You present it at the medical facility when you have medical needs.

Your CURP number is printed on that card.  However, you still need to go to a local government office to geta peice of paper identifying your CURP.  I don't understand that, someone did it for me.

With a temp residency, you cannot get the senior discount on bus travel.  You need the permanent one for that. 

To register with DIF it is difficult but not impossible as a temporary.  You must go to the local mayor's office, to the Secretary of the town, and request an ID card.  With that you might be able to register with DIF Desarollo de Integracion de la Familia.  If you are living on the margin financially, there are certain benefits you can receive.  No problem registering with the permanent visa, I think.

The very amiable official at my local Migracion office told me that with the permanent status I would have all rights and privileges same as a Mexican.  He said I could vote, but other literature I've read said that is not included.  I only mention that because when trying to maneuver in public spaces, like registering a car or subscribing to Satellite TV, I am asked for my IFE.  That is the voting card.  I have registered my new car and subscribed to TV without it.

++++
to try to obtain an appointment by phone, for a Mexican Consulate in the US, you will be sent to this site and given a phone number. The Laredo Consulate offers this site on a handout.: https://mexitel.sre.gob.mx  I have found that using contact information given online by your local consulate is pretty useless.  No one answers the phone, no one answers the emails.

This is the official instructions for obtaining a residence visa.  https://www.gob.mx/tramites/ficha/expedicion-de-documento-migratorio-por-canje/INM811
This page has a link for you to apply online; it would not work for me.

This one is for Mexicans only: https://www.gob.mx/tramites

This page offers information to foreigners interested in living in Mexico
https://consulmex.sre.gob.mx/montreal/index.php/en/foreigners/visa  
Even though it is for Canadians, I think most information applies to US citizens as well.

The gift of strawberries

Lifestyle fitness camp 3

                This is not about Jenn and Chad and their great program.  This is about what happens after I return to ‘normal’ life.

                The big question is, of course, can I maintain my progress.  I guess we won’t know that yet.  We’ll check back later, maybe in a year.

                Meanwhile, sticking to the basic plan of consuming less than 1,000 calories a day and aiming at 100 grams of protein, so far so good.  I am continuing to lose.  Of course, consumption isn’t the only consideration.  Activity level is also the other factor.

                I have not gone to the gym in a few weeks.  I seldom do floor exercises.  I am not using the tube bands.  I hope that once I get settled in my new home, these will become my daily routine (except for the gym).  I paid the gym for three months, more out of a sense of supporting the community than of anticipation of actual usage.  For what I paid, calculating 15 pesos each visit, this should actually have given me a year’s pass!  But the more important consideration is to keep the gym alive.  It isn’t much, but it is all we’ve got.

                These are the activities that have been exhausting me.  I painted my bedroom, with Juan’s help.  I have been trying to coax a small garden.  I’ve been hauling rocks, to build an indigenous septic system. The electricity to all of Pozole has been out for over two weeks now.  The utility company says that they need to replace a transformer.  What?  So order one, send it overnight, and fix it.  Why the delay? 

My neighbors have not had lights at night, the dairy cannot refrigerate its daily milk, and of course, refrigerated and frozen food is now spoiled.  For me, the only serious effect is lack of water.  I bought a generator.  Juan hooked it up to the well’s pump and filled a spare tank that he placed near the house door.  This used up almost a full tank of generator gas, maybe ten liters.  To water my garden I fill bottles and pitchers of water, and carry them all around the property.

I am learning that the soil is deplete, and just loosening it, planting seed and watering isn’t going to cut it.  So I have ordered worms online; I have not received an ETA.  They must first be harvested, I guess, presuming the Mexican company is still in business.

                An acquaintance, Jim, one day told me that he had about 200 strawberries plants that he could give me.  This is an exciting prospect, once the house is settled and I can focus on gardening.

                Then one day he called me and said, ‘Come pick up some strawberry plants.’

                I took the bike the few blocks to his house and packed one load.  As it turned out, this same day I had connected with both Luis (the architect) and the carpenter.  We had already arranged to carry the carpenter out to my house to assay the perspective job, Luis would check in on his job out there, and come back and pick us up.  God is good.  I took the first batch of strawberry plants to the carpenter’s door, but it was closed.  He was changing clothes.  I feared they would be stolen.  I took the next batch directly to Luis’s uncle’s hardware store, which is around the corner from my apartment maybe 100 feet away.  Within the hour we were ready, the plants were loaded on the truck, and out we went the 9 kilometers to my house.

                Jim has proven to be on the negative column of Canatlan’s assets.  As I have come to know him better, I find him to be a racist, a bitter and spiteful old man.  This seems in keeping with the attributes of our birth year, as I learned during my time in India as Jane’s neighbor.  She and Jim are days apart in age.  1941 is the year of iron snake.  This apparently produces rigid inflexible people.  According to the Chinese lunar calendar I am part of that year, but I do not lay claim to these attributes.  It would seem a gracious and generous act, offering me these strawberries.  But the manner in which the gift is conveyed proves to be negative, without advance warning to give me time to prepare the soil.  I brought them out to the house on Thursday, placed them in the shade of a small tree near the entrance to the property, and threw some water on them.  On Friday I was out there again, and threw more water on them.  They seemed okay.  I missed Saturday.  Sunday was Palm Sunday, and I had been looking forward to joining the Church procession of the Palms.  I missed out on that, however.  By 8 a.m. I was already out on the ‘ranchito’ trying desperately to create a hospitable environment for these plants, despite my lack of resources.  No peat moss, no fertilizer, only spent earth and water.

                I had read up the night before, by using the tethering feature on my phone.  As it transpired, that used up nearly a gig of my 5 G quota, weeks before my service period was over; a couple days later I got the advance warning that I had less than a gig left.  This limits my access to news media; no more lounging in bed in the early morning catching up with the world news.

                I learned that a raised bed is a good idea.  The plants need loose soil, with good aeration and drainage.  I spent the morning on a piece of land 3 meters by 3 meters.  I was aiming to leave 12 to 18 inches between plants.  I did a rough estimate that I had nine plants.  Wrong.

                I flattened the previously plowed furrows, and tried to loosen the packed earth underneath with a spade fork.  There are still mounds of dirt around the property, after the backhoe opened up foundation lines for the fence and garage.  I shoveled until I couldn’t shovel anymore, from the mound adjoining the little plot, trying to produce a raised bed.  I divided it into three rows, with a narrow path in between.  I sought out places where the two grazing horses had left their deposits, took the oldest dried out patches I could find, and worked the loosened chaff into an equal amount of soil.  Then I laid it on top of my raised bed.  In the end, I squeezed 14 plants into that small area.  Some might not make it anyway, because they were too dried out.  For now, that is it for strawberries.  There are far too many other pressing jobs to be done on the land and house, before I can even live there. 

                The arugula was one of two seeds that germinated, of the over six kinds of plants sown.  The snow peas are hardy, although they seemed stunted.  The arugula awaited me in the seeding bed, ready for transplant.  I had far more seedlings than I could use.  I spaded over a raised row that had not borne seedlings, loosened it up and flattened the row.  Rows were a stupid idea; each time I added water they eroded, stranding the seedlings.  With this new flat bed I was able to transplant about twelve seedlings.  The poor soil would only produce more stunted plants.  I needed something.

                I remember using, in the past, manure tea.  This involves soaking manure and using the water as liquid fertilizer.  I didn’t know if horse manure would be as valuable as cow manure, but it is what was available.  I collected a bucket full.  I filled the bucket with water, and let it soak while I did other tasks.  Finally, I poured some off into a pitcher and diluted it by half.  I then used that on all my plant beds. 

                It is not very scientific; I have no idea what nutrients I am adding.  It is simply a matter of doing something is better than doing nothing.  I wish for an agricultural extension office, where I could bring my soil for testing and learn what I needed to add to make it usable.  This puts me in mind of when I started the bakery in China.  I had a list of materials and equipment I needed, but had no idea where to buy them.  I assumed they were not available in China.  Then as I learned to use the internet and the shopping portal TaoBao I eventually learned that I could find anything.  I am going through that process all over again.  In this agricultural area there must be a service like that; my task is to find it.

                To recap, I began this project of improving my health around January 19.  My goal going into the fitness program was to lose 20 pounds.  I left three weeks later having lost about 9 pounds.  My target was unrealistic.  Better than rapid weight loss, I had gained tools to maintain weight loss until I reached my goal.  Helping Juan haul rocks into the pickup truck for two hours proved that I had certainly reached a level of fitness greatly improved over when I began the program.  On March 27 the scale read 137 pounds, that is, 2 pounds away from my ultimate goal.

weather in Durango, Mexico

Weather

Ask people what are their priorities when choosing a retirement location, and I imagine weather to be in the top three or four of that list.  I know for me it plays an important role.  I have lucked out in finding Durango.

As I have said elsewhere, I decided to buy into this Buddhist community about six years ago sight unseen, while I was living in China.  I know I do well in community, and this one offered still unknown participants who would be sharing a similar philosophy and lifestyle.  So many years later, and the community has not yet flourished.  There are still no permanent residents.  Only one house is livable, and that Canadian gentleman spends two weeks twice a year here on his vacation.  When he does retire he plans to spend only six months here in order to preserve his Canadian retirement benefits. Now that I live in this location, it feels like for a whole lot of other reasons it is never going to take seed.  I arrived a year ago already vested, and so I stick around to see what I can make of my investment.

I have not yet lived here the full year around.  I have come in winter, summer, and late fall.  Now I am experiencing the full winter season, and spring is just around the corner. 

One thing I have said often is that I love the blue skies.  At 6,000 feet altitude the sky is a dark shade of blue.  It is not the washed out blue that I usually saw in Jiangsu, China.  For a while, I swore there were never any clouds.  I have learned better now, but I am no less enthralled.

Six years ago when I first heard about this place I did look up information about the weather.  It seemed that the daytime temperature ranged between 70 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit all year round.   I had been advised that in winter strong winds blow.  I have not found this true, except for March.  In this month a brief gust can rock you.  In the afternoon the wind picks up, pressing city dust into crevices around the doors and windows.

The winter nights could be cold, dipping down to freezing.  I thought I had better equip my proposed house with a wood burning stove.

Now that I have slept through many a winter night, with passive solar water heater on the roof, I realize that the cold is fleeting, it leaves as soon as the sun rises above the mountain tops.  The nights are very long.  It is dark by 7:30 p.m., and the starry skies remain visible for twelve hours more.  Although it can get cold at night, I do not see the earth freezing.  A frosty night can bite the leaves and red flowers off a healthy Poinsettia bush, but the roots remain unscathed.

A southerly facing bedroom window will allow the room to get cozy warm before bedtime.  If I turn on a heater, it is only to pamper myself.  Once inside the blankets I sleep warmly all night. A bathrobe is enough for the nightly bathroom run. 

This is a far cry from winters I have spent in East Tibet at 12,000 feet.

So, is it true that there are never any clouds in the sky?  This year around September the rainy season began.  The days were partly cloudy, but the rains usually held off until nightfall.  The high plateau land here is similar to dessert in that the rainy season results in flash floods. 

In the tiny village of El Pozole where my house is, I was pretty much housebound for a month.  The dirt roads out here in the countryside tend to get muddy.  Ruts can be filled with a foot of water, over a slippery muddy base. A creek passes across the road, and for most of the year can be forded by car or by stepping stones.  But in rainy season it overflows its banks to become deep and 30 feet wide with swift current.  The one flat bridge into town was inundated this year, by about one foot of swift-running water that lasted most of the month.  That pretty much shuts down transportation for all but tall 4x4 pickup trucks. 

The heavy equipment still moves, the bulldozers and backhoes, which gouge deep ruts into the soft roads.  The locals take it in stride, being prepared with good vehicles and Wellingtons.  I was stuck, with a low-carriage ‘city’ car.

I was surprised by a day or two of rain in January, and again in February.  The locals murmured that the weather is changing.  There are the occasional clouds even when the rain does not fall, but it is a rare day when the sun does not burn down.  This afternoon I took a walk in the countryside, and when I got home to shower discovered a line of tan on my legs above my socks.  Yet as the sun goes down and night approaches, the sky is gray with big patches of clouds.

By March the nippy nights are long gone (unless you are riding on a motorbike at dawn, when you still feel the cold with three layers on, wishing for gloves), the day time temperatures rise to between 75 and 80 degrees.  Farmers are gardeners have already planted seeds, and the fields are green with beans or wheat. 

In summer, as I have written elsewhere, a house needs to be properly constructed to accommodate the weather.  I stayed in a home that had inadequate insulation and ventilation, and suffered some very hot nights.  Yet I would sit in the yard at dusk and feel the cool breeze blowing, and the mosquitoes biting.  Not many, but it only takes two to drive you mad.  Out with the Off!  A house designed with adequate ventilation would admit the evening breeze and dispel the heat.

As I continue to construct my house, I am making sure there are layers of concrete inside the brick structure to serve as insulation.  The large picture window in the master bedroom is south facing, and screened windows face the east and west to accommodate the evening summer breezes.  This is how I designed the house six years ago. 

The summer sun can be hot.  It is wise to walk with a wide-brimmed hat and or an umbrella.  But the heat is a dry heat and the breezes still flow across the plateau.  It is not a heat the presses you down to the earth and makes you melt.

I find this one fact about Mexico to be a bit odd.  From what I understand, the little city of Canatlan is not unusual in not having storm drains.  The large city of Durango does also not have storm drains.  When it rains the streets flood.  This explains the very high sidewalks in Canatlan.  In the newer developments in Durango I also noticed that the houses were built at a slight elevation, with down-sloping paved yards.

If freezing cold winters and muggy summers are not your cup of tea, you may well find the weather in Durango on the asset column as you evaluate your potential retirement location.

Easter 2018

Easter, Strawberries and power failure

                It feels like all my projects have gotten bogged down.  I have extended the town apartment rental by two weeks.  I go daily to the countryside to see what I can do to further a project, any project, along.  I wind up spending my time in the garden.

                The hamlet of El Pozole was hit with a transformer failure, which effectively shut down all electric power to the community.  It was restored to the rest of the community, except for a narrow band of us along the Paso de las Carretas road.  Almost a month has gone by; the utility company says it cannot find a replacement transformer.  This is scandalous.  It is hard to imagine.  The American mind says, write your congressman.  Write to the head of the utility company, to the head of the overseeing government body.  This is Mexico, however.  We funnel our complaints to the local utility office.  Even the folks living in Canatlan do not know of our situation.  We shut make signs and march in front of the local office!  Make noise, get attention, cause some embarrassment.  This is Mexico, however.  We impotently suffer in silence.

                Without power, I cannot run a hose to water my plants.  Juan had foresight, I don’t know how he figured it out.  In the first week of the power outage we had two days of power.  He grabbed an empty water tank, of the sort we put on the roof, and placed it next to the hose.  He then filled it with water, on the day there was power.  Or perhaps he just drained the already full tank on the roof, into the one on the ground.  After a while I bought a generator, and he used that to run the well pump one more time to fill the tank again.  From that water I have been able to fill buckets and carry water to the plants.  This is time consuming and exhausting, but the plants struggle on.  Now the tank is almost empty, the buckets do not fill because I cannot reach the water level, and I have let Juan go.  He has finished the brick work, I cannot justify keeping him on the payroll.  But how will I get the water tank filled again?  I must buy a very long extension cord to hook the generator up to the well pump.  I think Juan simply put the generator into a wheelbarrow and carried it over there.  I cannot do that.

                On Maundy Thursday I met Juan, paid him what I owed, and let him know I didn’t have any more work for him now.  I had gathered his tools in one spot, where he could collect them.

                When I went out to the house, I found that he not only had removed all his tools, but also the tools that belonged to Luz de Compasion.  He had put them in the locked shed.  I had lost my keys to that shed a week earlier.  Now the wheelbarrow, the shovel, and the electric extension cord were locked away beyond my reach.  How annoying!  I had been using the wheelbarrow to carry water to the strawberry patch.  I needed it to carry the generator closer to the pump.  Even the shovel; without water, there were still things I could do around the property.  Since I suspect him of having the keys I lost, I find this to be an unkind act.  Of course, I could be wrong in my suspicion.  He was there when I lost the keys.  He was giving me a lift to my bike which had run out of gas.  I used the key ring when I unlocked and relocked the main gate as we left.  This key ring reminded him of the other I had left behind at Doug’s house; he asked me if I had retrieved them from under the mat. 

                I have not seen the gate key since that day.  It was attached to a calf hide change purse I had bought in Italy a year ago.  I was sorry to lose it.  I had also just folded a 500 peso note into it that morning.  Juan usually does not lie directly.  His is more often the lie of omission.  So when I asked him point blank if he picked up the keys, his ‘no’ should leave no room for doubt. 

                A flash of déjà vu. My black purse which I last saw under the table at Esther and Iloy’s house, that which contained my passport and Verizon phone, has never been seen again.  They swore I did not leave it behind.  What other conclusion can I draw, but that I have a poltergeist playing games with me.

                Easter weekend arrived.  I love the rituals surrounding this holy time.  I have a collection of lovely memories of rekindling the light into the church upon Christ’s resurrection.  I flash back to the old city of Jerusalem, sitting one story up on a Muslim call-to-prayer tower, watching the drama unfold in the courtyard of an old church.  In the high-plateau town of Westcliff, Colorado, a Filipino priest at the lovely church there rekindled the flame on the doorstep of the church.  In Kangding, the church is on the second story; the fire was lit on the balcony as we all crowded around.  Back further, I see myself sitting in a darkened church in Hendersonville, North Carolina, as the light is carried into the church as the words of scripture are acted out at the altar, and one by one from the back of the church the flame is passed candle to candle until the church is ablaze. But this year, thanks to the cantankerous Jim, I missed the heraldry. 

                Jim gave me a bunch of strawberry plants.  How nice!  However, I had no place prepared for strawberries.  I read up online, and discovered I needed to create a raised bed of porous material with good drainage and topped with mulch.  I needed to run down to Home Depot and pick up some peat moss and 9-9-9 fertilizer.  Oh, wait.  There is no Home Depot in Canatlan.

                I left the plants under a small shade tree for the few days while I tried to free up time to create this special bed.  I spent hours shoveling dirt from one of the many mounds left by the backhoe onto a 9 meter square plot of land.  My yard is still piled high with these mounds of dirt, leaving no room for such a bed.  I have had to use common land at the far side of where my garage will go.  I did what I could to add porous material, by gathering up dried horse dung and rubbing the clods between my hands to release the fine straw.  I worked it as best I could to the soil, but I was concerned about too much nitrogen being introduced.  I am not a chemist, I do not know what other chemicals and minerals dried horse manure contains.  I am only focusing on texture.

                I had done a rough count and figured I had 9 plants.  But as I soaked them in water to loosen the roots, I discovered I had 14 plants.  Some were healthier than others.  I did my best to put them in the soil, then spent considerable time carrying water out to them.  This used up the last of the storage tank.

                One day I went to my neighbor, Armando.  He had borrowed my generator the other day to water his bed of beans, planted in his home garden and thus not serviced by the waterline from the dam.  That water is meant for the orchards and planted fields, not for our home gardens.  He kept it overnight and returned it the next day. 

                I asked him if he might help me bring the generator to the pump’s electric connection, which is 50 yards away from my house.  By this time I had borrowed the crucial key from Juan to open that storage shed, where the wheelbarrow, shovel and electric extension cord are stored. 

                Armando is a great guy.  His body is sun-browned as a berry and lean.  His gray hair is shaved close to his head.  He is an easy-going guy.  His house is just down the road from mine, on the other side of the road closer to the creek.  He comes readily, without hesitation.

                He puts the generator into the wheelbarrow and wheels it down the lane to the edge of the field.  I have grabbed the extension cord from the shed, and connected to the junction box that hangs on the outside wall of Jhampa’s empty house.  As I try to carry the long extension cord out to the edge of field where Armando waits, I find that the cord is hopelessly tangled.  Armando comes up to me and together we try to untangle it.  Eventually we manage, he plugs the generator up and fires it on.  Now we wait until the main tank, on top of the shed, overflows.  We go back to my house to wait.  He begins dipping a bucket into the near-empty tank, and carries water out to the strawberries.  I am busy distributing the new soil to the beds.  What I have so far growing is only a double row of snow peas, and arugula.  There are also the two scraggly tomato plants I rescued from Doug’s sewer line on the day the backhoe came.

                What is this new soil I am adding to the plants?  On Good Friday a very kind plumber came to my rescue.  His name is Antonio.  He is on the City payroll; he is the guy who turns on and turns off the water every day.  The municipal water is, for some obscure reason, turned off every night at 6 p.m.  It is his job to go around to the various valves and close them.  I have called him in the past to consult on the water situation at Luz.  This time I called him to solve a problem inside the house.  When the house was built, six years ago, it was done apparently without the help of a trained plumber.  When I went to install the sink cabinet that I had bought at Home Depot in December, it did not fit.  That is, the fixtures and drain were placed haphazardly.  The faucets were too high, and the drain rose out of the floor instead of the wall.  The cabinet did not fit!  Juan had chipped away the tile and brick to expose the water pipes.  He left the pile of debris on the floor, along with his tools, and walked away.  It stayed that way for days.

                Antonio came out on Thursday to look at my problem.  Being already on a payroll, Antonio did not ask for much compensation.  I gave him money to buy what materials he needed, and he promised to return the next day.  When he came, his wife and daughter were in his Jeep.  They stayed there while he went into the house to begin his work.  It took him a few hours.  I passed by the car door and introduced myself.  I chatted with his wife a bit, suggesting she get out of the car and sit somewhere more comfortable.  (Where?  Neither Mike’s house nor Doug’s house have a sitting area; Jhampa’s house is completely empty and unfinished.  My house is a mess.)    I noticed the ‘child’ in the back seat.  I got the impression of mental disability; the child is handicapped in some way.  The hair was short, the face square and unsmiling.  Her mother introduced her, Soni, and revealed that it is a girl.  I could not tell.  She could have been eight or eighteen. 

                I would go by the car and chat a little more, about the weather and the garden and such.  Eventually I rambled on about the strawberries, and how I needed to get to Durango to buy peat moss and fertilizer.  She also is a recipient of some of Jim’s strawberry plants.  She said to me that I did not need to go to Durango, that what I needed was right here on the farm.

                At that point, she got out of the car and walked me over to the pesky nettle trees.  We grabbed a hoe, a bucket and a dustpan.  Under the tree, she scraped with the hoe and piled up the loose soil there.  She said this was perfect material for loosening and feeding the soil around the plants.  We worked, scraping up two buckets full.  Meanwhile, Soni slept in the backseat.

                She saw the two pots containing the gladiola plants.  She said the flowers would never be able to break through the packed earth.  We dumped them out on a square of cardboard, and replanted them using this newly gathered soil.

                This woman’s visit was a great blessing.  I would love to have her as a friend.  She would not use my name, but called me ‘doña’, far more formal than ‘señora’.  I am stymied by the classist feature of the Canatlan society.

                When Armando came that day, he saw what was left in a bucket and smiled.  He recognized it immediately, and named the tree that created this good soil.

                Animatedly I expressed my frustration with this power situation.  I said, in the States we would band together and march with placards.  He said he and our neighbor, Mr. Reyes, were planning on going to the CFE office tomorrow to talk with the engineer.  I agreed to join them.

                The engineer had just come back from vacation.  He was still getting up to speed.  He heard our complaints very calmly, speaking with a smile and a soft voice.  He mumbled something about there not being enough trucks, parts, etc.  We did our best to put pressure on him.  A couple days later I was in the office to pay my bill, so I popped in to his office to see how he did with his phone call to Durango, the head office of the district.  He said he called, he left a message, but they haven’t called back.  He said he thought he should look at the resources in the field and see if he couldn’t find one transformer that wouldn’t be missed, and could borrow it to install at our site.  Hmmm.  At any rate, he said, by Thursday he would find us a solution.  Meanwhile, my city apartment rent is up, so it is time to move out to the country.  Without electricity?  I briefed Armando.  He said if we don’t have power by Thursday afternoon, we would make a visit to the Canatlan Mayor and see what she thinks of the situation.

                I am slowly learning the native ways of this place.  I look forward to the uncovering of so much more, as I grow closer to this new home land of mine.