What To Do When The Networks Aren't Social

     Yesterday, the Internet was down all day.  Because we are in the process of selling our homes, I spend a couple of hours a day, pushing buttons, tweaking advertisement, making changes to the Website (Check out our Website and Pass it on to Interested Parties You Know), Twittering, Facebooking ("LIKE" Casita's Page), Writing e-zine type articles, and Blogging.  And, of course, wasting some time each day just web-surfing.  But it was not meant to be, yesterday.
     Instead, I did do some writing on the computer, made meals, read, and did my socializing with the out doors.  A good deal of every day is spent outdoors, as it is.  But, not having an Internet connection gave me a little more time to finish projects that were in limbo (this limbo being the non-spiritual euphemism for procrastination). 
     Today, we are back on-line, but have been busy, busy.  We spent morning in town, buying supplies to bring back to our home here at Casita Dos Arbolitos, in the quiet countryside of Mexico.  Quiet in the campo, the countryside, is a bragging right, especially in May.  The whole month of May is a fireworks fest, celebrating many holidays and the feast of Santa Cruz.  Each weekend, the fireworks are being set off, early in the morning, and late in the evening.  From our countryside vantage point, the sounds are muted.  Town people are always commenting on the fireworks; and we're always pointing out the peace of living out here.  Especially in the morning; fireworks begin around 5AM, sometimes earlier; while we are still sleeping.  We get up early and have coffee in the Patio Room, while listening to the faraway sounds fireworks and muted crowing of roosters of the roosters in the village.  As the sun begins to approach the horizon, various birds begin singing.  First, is the Poorwill, chirping its bouncy cadence.  Then doves and Scotts Orioles and others join in.  As the sun breaches the horizon, the woodpeckers start complaining about the fact that we have wrapped out wooden patio cover posts in mesh so that they can no longer dig holes in the posts.  The mesh doesn't stop them from trying.  Tag-teaming, the male and female take turns sitting on the posts, tapping a few times, then giving up and letting the other try.
     When we came home from town, we spent the next four hours in the kitchen.  Firstly, I had to restock my cookie supply.  Today's (and for the next few days) offering: Oatmeal Sesame Candied Sunflower Seeds Chocolate Chip.  After that, we were busy making our next Mexican Cuisine Dinner.  Tonight's Dinner was Tamales made with the Amarillo Estofado of two days ago; the sauce used to moisten the masa, and the meat and some sauce and a little Oaxacan string cheese were as filler.  Dessert was guavas basted in cinnamon syrup and filled with Coconut Creme.  I was prep cook drilling holes in the Coconuts, saving the water, then cracking the shells and saving, and then skinning, and then shredding the coconut meat.  We chilled the Aqua de Coco and added chilled rum and ice for a refreshing beverage, on this hot day.
     Now, the reverse of bird calls has nearly finished.  While I was writing this, the tiny sparrows that live in the jasmine vine on one of our Patio Roof Posts flew in and began their evening chatter.  This lasts just a few minutes then they are silent for the evening.  This evening ritual is a small scale version of the larger scale Grackle evening home coming; a tradition that has finally come to an end.  For decades, if not centuries (I'll have to look that up), the Grackles would come to roost in the large trees growing in the Jardin Principal, across from the Parroquia.  Unlike our tiny birds, with their sweet chirping that lasts a few minutes, the Grackles are big-voiced birds, with lots to say.  And while they were saying it and settling in, they would perform their evening toilet, literally, which dropped down onto the benches below and people sitting there.  As San Miguel de Allende grew into its own as a World Class Tourist Town, the Grackles were deemed a nuisance.  They had to go.  Nothing drastic, unless you were a Grackle that liked nesting in the Jardin.  The trees were modified, opened up to make them undesirable for sleeping in.  And so the Grackle moved on. 
     Just now, the sun is fully dropped below the horizon and the Poorwill has begun its evening song.  A good place to end.

On Flowers and Food.

     There is a hurricane, Hurricane Bud, off the western coast of Mexico.  For those along the coast, there are warnings of things to come, as early as today, but probably by tomorrow.  While the weather is a threat to the beaches, it is a promise to the central part of Mexico.  The rainy season---or potential thereof---begins with the hurricane season.  Farmers here in the highlands are looking forward to hurricanes driving near enough to both coasts to push clouds and rains upward and inward.  These first rains are crucial to "cool" the earth, la tierra, after the heat of April and May, and before the final furrowing and then planting can begin.  The three important food crops, corn and beans and squash, which still sustain many of the countries people will be planted when the earth is sufficiently moist.  Then the hope for continued rains, throughout the growing season, begins.  The word for hope is esperanza, from the verb esperar, to hope or to wait, or both.
     At Casita Dos Arbolitos, we also are waiting/hoping for the rains.  Much of our own gardening plans, beyond the Shelter Garden areas that are filled with greens and herbs, count on the rain, as well.  While we are waiting, we are always busy with one aspect of the Garden or the other, planting, watering, digging, making compost.  The most pleasurable part of the garden, however, is the walking through, the looking at, the touching, enjoying the sights and scents and tastes (especially when our Fig Tree is producing).  This week, one of our succulents celebrated spring by producing what we call its 'Little Shop of Horrors' flower.  Part of the pleasure of walking through the Garden is making these discoveries.  The flower opened Tuesday and gave a magnificent display.  That day, it also had a scent that I didn't find that appealing, but attracted numerous bees to immerse themselves in its pollen.  Today, it has become a fading star, mostly limp, soon-to-be-gone.  But in its one day of full glory, it was spectacular:

     Besides celebrating our Garden, we Celebrate Mexican Cuisine in our Kitchen.  We have many cookbooks about Mexican Cuisine.  Two are by the author Diana Kennedy.  She has lived in Mexico much of the time, since 1957.  Because we spent some time in Oaxaca, we are enjoying making thins from her Oaxaca al Gusto cookbook.  We bought it before our trip, when she was here in San Miguel de Allende for a book-signing.  The recipe for today is Amarillo, which is to say Mole Amarillo, an "esotfado," a stew made with chiles and spices, potatoes and chayote, masa, chicken and pork.  The amarillo part means it's supposed to be yellow, but the chiles that we have aren't exactly like those from Oaxaca, so the stew is more orange than yellow, but still delicious.  Que Rico!  How Rich!

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Buen Provecho! Good Eating!

Just a Quick Note!

You can see by the Twitter Feed, that we have been to Oaxaca and back.  Now, we are preparing for Spring and taking what we've learned from previous years and applying it to this year's Garden.  In the meantime, we have had 4 inches of rain this year and the drought the devastated last year's nopal cactus crop has been mitigated.
 The early rains have refreshed the cactus and encouraged them to leaf out and bloom.  Both of these are important, as they are both food crops as well as high plateau forest greenery.  We have already had our first helping of fresh nopales, onions and tomatoes.  We'll be harvesting more throughout the month, while awaiting the ripening of the "tunas," the prickly pears.
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Time to Cozy in for the Night.  There is the potential of some rain coming our way.  And, if not, the Thunder and Lightning show that is beginning will provide a nice evening's entertainment.

Casita Dos Arbolitos---The FaceBook Page!

Casita Dos Arbolitos has its own FB Page.  Usually, it's got photos of some yummy meal that we've just had.  Take a look at it if you want some delicious meal ideas: Casita Dos Arbolitos on FaceBook!