Relative Something

Saturday, September 25…

Cyndie got up and dressed while I was writing, and she headed off to get started on freezing peaches she had picked. Her projects of trying to preserve the abundance of fruit here have met varying degrees of success and she wanted to bring the tasks to an end before the weekend activities started. I finally make an appearance for breakfast around 9:00 and find Cyndie in process. She reports that Ian is mucking out the stables and Stephanie is yet to appear. I eat a quick breakfast of bread and cheese with some of Cyndie’s fresh fig jam, and then head to the stables to offer a bit of support to Ian. He says that Lucy is looking thin again and decides to give the horses deworming medicine.

Stephanie and Cyndie come to the stables to assist and between the four of us, plus some peaches as enticement, we get medicine delivered to each of the horses. Then we all take a horse and move them down to the bottom field together. Ian suggests preparing the stables now, in advance of the horses return at the end of the day, so we won’t have to do it when we are in the middle of the grapes project that is expected to take the rest of the day. While cleaning and stocking food in the stalls, we get side-tracked by the increasing presence of wasps. We spontaneously find ourselves in a search of the area, looking for nests that must be the source of all the wasps. There is no immediate solution and the day is slipping away, so we finally make a point to get started on the picking of grapes.

There is really nothing special in terms of the process. We just cut the stem of a bunch and toss them into a plastic tub. It makes a very pleasing sound when a bunch of grapes plunk into an empty tub. Very soon, we hear the arrival of the first guests who will be assisting, Ricardo and Francisca, who get right to the task at hand. They are wonderful. Ricardo speaks a fair amount of English, and although Francisca is more hesitant, she does a pretty fair job as well. For a while she and I work together, teaming a ladder, and it seemed to me that we communicate just fine. Ian and I bring the first batch of grapes up to the winery and, almost ceremoniously, he has me dump them in the squisher and push the power switch, while he takes pictures with my camera. We settle into a routine of filling bins and then I haul them up and dump them.

In the middle of the day, Victoria arrives and she and Stephanie prepare a lunch of curry chicken over rice with a salad of mostly left-over makings from our dinner at Carlos’ the night before. Francisca has contributed a desert of an apple bake that is somewhat cake-like, made with organic apples from their home. I find it to be a particularly tasty treat.

While we were eating, the sound of helicopters appeared. It continued long enough, and seemed close enough –although we couldn’t see them over the ridge– that Ian walked around to look at the fire. He was able to spot it, and was satisfied we were probably not in danger. Later, there was the sound of a siren and Ian said it was the fire truck in town, which meant there was another fire, but the helicopters were already occupied with the first one. Fires are all too common an occurrence here and Ian takes care to minimize the risks where ever possible.

to be continued…