Archive for April 2015
Pool Shots
I’ve been wrestling with a couple of images I captured of the swimming pool at the beach house in Guatemala, in search of a crop that pleases me most. There is no right answer, and I labor over the multitude of possibilities. I had in mind that I might use them for a “Words on Images” creation, but there is not much solid background available in the first one, and the pattern is too wonderful to interrupt in the second one. I have settled on presenting them as images only, for your viewing pleasure.
Do you prefer one more than the other?
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Not Stinky
Pondering smells…
I didn’t live with cats until Cyndie and the kids successfully achieved adding one to our family unit. I didn’t have a strong aversion to cats. It was more what I would describe as a lack of interest in them. When I found myself facing the reality of having one in our home, my main concern was the smell of the litter box. I didn’t want to know it existed in our house. In time, I came to appreciate cats, but the litter box remained Cyndie’s responsibility unless I absolutely couldn’t weasel a way out of it.
When Cyndie landed work that provided good income, but would demand most of her time and attention, I was approved to take on the role of Ranch Manager. I didn’t give it much thought at the time, but the reality of tending the litter box was included in the many daily tasks about to become my sole responsibility.
I seem to have adjusted my sensitivities and am having no difficulties managing the chore of regularly cleaning the litter box.
I didn’t live with horses until just a year and a half ago. I knew manure would be a significant issue to manage, but I tended not to dwell on it. I figured it would be nasty necessary evil. I have come to realize the I don’t find it nasty at all.
Since the snow melted off the fields, we have slowly worked on spreading the droppings that had accumulated over the winter. I’ve tried a variety of different tools for the job, but so far the best results come from simply kicking the piles apart. While I was fervently flailing away in the back pasture yesterday, I became aware of what I now find to be a pleasant smell of the dry manure being broken apart.
There are certain smells typically associated with the keeping of horses. When a barn is well maintained, the aroma is a combination of hay, maybe a little dust, and probably some remnants of dried manure. To a horse-lover, it is an appealing smell. It resonates like wood smoke or the scent of leaves on the ground in the fall.
When I bury the pitch fork deep into the pile of composting manure and turn over the portion that has been breaking down, the smell is far from stinky. It is a rich, earthy smell that I find very appealing. It is a rewarding success to take fresh horse manure that can be offensive smelling and, in a relatively short time, convert it to something that smells pretty good.
It is an interesting twist that I tend to find the smell of perfumes irritating. Along the lines of beauty being in the eye of the beholder, I guess appealing aromas are in the nose of the breather.
Although, who doesn’t like the smell of fresh-baked bread? That one must be universal!
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Water Falling
I got the pump installed in our pond yesterday. It took me a while to get the pump to run because the garage outlets were all dead. I was stumped at first, because the circuit breaker in the basement was on and appeared normal. Eventually, I remembered there is a ground-fault interrupt outlet behind one of our shelves. Resetting that did the trick.
It was a wild morning, because Cyndie came back in the door shortly after leaving for work, and reported she had a flat tire. She switched and took the truck to work, because I had already scheduled an appointment to get the oil changed in my car.
Our local auto repair shop is great. When I stepped up to pay for the service to my car, he suggested I go get Cyndie’s car and come right back so they could fix the tire. I could pay for mine when I returned.
I put air in her tire so I could drive it and got it to the shop without any complications. They found the leak and plugged it without charging a penny.
In the afternoon, I did some more mowing, because the grass is really starting to take off and grow. The back yard almost looks to be in mid-summer form. It’s the trees that reveal we are still more spring than summer around here right now.
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Little Lambs
While outside making good progress on a few clean up tasks in the warm April sun yesterday, I received a text from our neighbor, George Walker. He wrote, “We have lambs!” If Cyndie had been home, I would have dropped my rake so we could dash right over to see them. She was running errands after having perused the farm and garden ad supplements —always a dangerous financial situation— and I didn’t dare go see them without her.
She came home with the always successful tactic of diversion from how-many-things-she-purchased, in the form of Dairy Queen treats. We sat on two new tractor-seat folding stools she picked up, and enjoyed our ice cream in the company of the horses. I was so distracted I forgot to mention the lambs!
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I did eventually remember to tell her in time for us to pay a visit before the end of our day. We stood watching the lambs in their outdoor pen for some time. At first, the lambs were scattered among the ewes, frequently suckling. George brought over some supplemental feed and tossed scoops into the pen. This caused the mammas to make a mad dash for the spots where it landed, and they ravenously rooted around in the hay bedding to feed.
That fracas instantly split the young and old into two separate groups, with the lambs congregating just on the edge of the circle of feeding ewes at first, but then moving off to explore the pen together.
George described that the day before, the lambs had taken to sprinting together from one end of the pen to the other. He said that he stood there watching them for about a half an hour because it was so entertaining.
There were still some ewe/lamb pairs inside the barn that George walked us in to see.
He picked up one and handed it to Cyndie. It called and called for its momma with the loudest cry, stopping once to look up at Cyndie in a gesture that almost looked like it was going to be a kiss. It was too fast for my camera skills, so you’ll just have to settle for the image of the wailing baby.
It is such fun to have friends so close with a farm full of all the classic animals. It feels a bit like living in the country!
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Well Fed
When the pendulum of oncoming spring swings away from the snow showers to sunny warmth of surprisingly summer-like days, we are presented with more to do than there are hours in a day. It is a blessing and a curse.
There are areas of our property where the grass is already growing like crazy, forcing me to need to mow the hill behind our house last Thursday before the predicted Friday rain/show showers. The ground is barely dry enough to support the tractor, but I delicately pulled it off. That precipitation turned out to be pretty much a bust and after yesterday’s warm sunshine the grass in others is now looking overdue for a cut.
The horses are in full mode of shedding their winter coats. They don’t wait around for us to take care of brushing them out, resorting to the tried and true method of mutually grooming each other. It is such fine cooperation to behold.
We had a visit from the vet yesterday to get the horses updated on their vaccines. We squeaked in a session of grooming prior to the vet’s arrival so everyone would be looking their best for the doc. Cyndie checked the weight of each horse with a tape measure which provides that translation and we were happy to learn they have all lost some weight since we last checked. The vet says they aren’t where we want them yet, so we have additional work to do. We are hoping the addition of more intentional exercise now that the winter is over will get us the rest of the way to their healthiest weight.
With her parting comment, the vet made a point about the weight of our animals when Cyndie brought Delilah from around the barn where she had been barking for attention. Dr. Lisa said she thought from the bark it sounded like she would be a smaller dog. She reached down to greet Delilah and after putting her hands into Delilah’s thick coat she blurted, “Oh, that isn’t all hair! You are overweight, too!”
Point taken.
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We’re Family
Saturday, April 4th, was our last day in Guatemala with our friends, the Morales family. Luckily, our departure was in the evening, so we had the whole day to enjoy. After breakfast at the beach house, we began packing bags and loading vehicles for the trip back to Guatemala City. I wandered out in the early morning sunlight to capture a few parting shots in hopes of adding more vantage points to aid my memories of our visit.
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Traffic wasn’t too heavy since it was Saturday of Easter weekend and the drive back to their house went smoothly. Marco and I made a run to pick up some ingredients for lunch, which they prepared and served at home. I discovered there was a US women’s friendly soccer match on their television and watched some of that with the boys, before the adults headed out to give us one last chance to purchase some gifts for people back home.
We started at a market with more hand-crafted items to select from, and then moved on to a fabulous outdoor center of many upscale shops. Their boys eventually met us there and we visited a specific coffee shop where Marco and Dunia wanted to buy some special coffee beans to send home with us.
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The sun was setting and the air outdoors was fresh. The energy of the people created a feeling of excitement for Easter weekend. That feeling mixed with our joy for the precious time we had experienced, and our growing grief over parting from our friends. When the time came for us to be heading toward the airport, we gave the boys hugs and said our goodbyes, and climbed into the Land Cruiser one last time with Marco and Dunia.
During the bittersweet drive, they mentioned a number of times how happy they were to have us, thanking us and saying how much they would miss us. I told them it was like being family, and Marco said, “You are family.”
Yes, that is how we felt the whole time. Actually, that is pretty much how it has felt from the time we first met them in Arizona, and later when they stayed with us for 2-weeks at Christmastime. We are blessed to have come to know them and honored to consider them as family.
Cyndie and Dunia are definitely linked in their inspirations to offer equine facilitated lessons in the areas of leadership and personal development that they studied in their Epona apprenticeships. They both share hopes of being able to travel to assist each other for workshops in the years ahead.
Visit Dunia’s website for C’Ubuntu to see excellent descriptions of opportunities for equine facilitated learning and growing that are available. We are planning to come up with something similar for Wintervale Ranch very soon.
And then it was over. We flew all night Saturday and arrived home in the middle of the day on Easter Sunday. We had an absolutely fabulous time in Guatemala with the Morales family. Our thanks to them, and to their extended families and friends, for being such incredibly gracious hosts, and for allowing me to post all the images and details from our visit.
I hope it has been as fun for all of you reading as it has been for me to re-live in such detail. ¡Adios!
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Beach Again
I now return you to my tales of our Guatemalan adventure, reliving our third day at their beach house. It was now Friday and we awoke from another sound night’s sleep in which neither my wife nor I heard even a hint of rain. From the looks of things, it must not have been much of a storm, after all.
I’m not usually one to crave a hot beverage, but when I walked out of our room that morning, I instantly had the thought of wanting some hot chocolate. While we were seated at the table visiting with Marco, Dunia’s dad, and Jose, Dunia brought a cup of hot chocolate and set it in front of me. Neither of us had discussed it, and without a word, she acted on a sensation she felt to look for their chocolate and then brought me a cup. It is not the first time she has demonstrated her acute sense of intuition. Priceless.
I elected to join Dunia and Cyndie for a walk on the beach that morning, picking up stones and shells along the way. Walking a beach has the potential of being an endless activity, and at one point I offered an invitation to Dunia to consider not walking too far. She graciously listened to my idea, and then continued on in conversation with Cyndie. I found myself choosing to slow down behind them a bit and soon after, she and Cyndie turned around and were walking toward me. Moments later, Marco showed up on the 4-wheeler to check on us. I think he and I were thinking along the same lines. Plus, it was soon time for a big breakfast!
When we got back, I made a small tower of stones and left it on a ledge for them.
Marco’s brother arrived for the day, and Bill and Karin and their niece joined us for breakfast. Guatemalan breakfast was served, plus pancakes and amazing fresh fruit. It was all spectacularly delicious, especially Marco’s salsa again.
The rest of the day was filled with lounging around the pool and people enjoying a variety of arts and crafts, with Dunia and Marco working mostly on their paintings on the wall.
The boys took a few turns playing a game where they try to kick the soccer ball the full length of their field and strike the cross-bar of the goal. I played the role of photographer.
It was idyllic.
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Reality Check
I am going to pause today in my ongoing chronicle of our Guatemalan adventure to provide some perspective that I think will show why I choose to describe our 10 days with the Morales family in such specific day-to-day detail. This is the April reality that we have returned to at our home, latitude 44.7739° N:
You may be able to barely make out the silhouette of our horses in the distance through the falling flakes, but you won’t find any palm trees and I can attest that there was absolutely nothing similar to a balmy Pacific breeze.
Do you blame me for wanting to relive every precious warm moment of that visit with our great friends in their beautiful country? It’s winter-cold here again and the wind is gusting mini-blizzards straight out of the Arctic circle this week!
Seriously, tomorrow I am going right back to describing our last days at the beach house and then our return to Guatemala City in preparation of boarding the flight home. Maybe it’s escapism. I’m not proud. I do it because I can.
Aw, heck. I can’t even wait.
This is what I am talking about…
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Luxurious Relaxation
It felt great to sleep a long night. On Thursday, we woke leisurely and then gathered with people around the table where the coffee drinkers enjoyed their morning treat. Once everybody was fueled up, Cyndie joined Dunia and her mother for a walk on the beach before the sun got too hot, and Marco invited me to join him on a trip to the vegetable market to buy fresh produce. There wasn’t space in the Land Cruiser to pick up anything when we passed by the day before.
Even though I already had pictures of this place from my first visit, I couldn’t stop myself from taking a few more shots of the wonderful array of colorful fruit and vegetables.
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On our way back to the beach house, we stopped to buy fresh mangos from a street vendor selling out of their front yard. Marco said he didn’t buy them from the market because these would be better. Marco is a very skilled chef and he added some flavor enhancements to the fresh-cut mango that were a particularly special treat for my taste buds.
Dunia’s brother and family arrived with contributions to a brunch meal. While preparations were underway, I played cards with Jose and then programmed a music playlist before the food was served. Marco’s fresh salsa was an outstanding addition to the scrambled eggs. Dunia’s mother made a dessert of chocolate covered plantains that I’ll remember for a long time, too.
After brunch, I played ping-pong with Jose and Marco, enjoying many ferocious battles, where the winner stayed on the table in a rotating series of games to 7 points. We got drenched in sweat by our effort, which led to some relaxing time in the pool.
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After a break for lunch, for which Marco had slaved over the hot, hot heat to grill ribs, the boys wanted to play some soccer. Bill & Karin’s son, Anthony, wasn’t around to make it 2v2, so Dunia’s brother volunteered to play. I was having so much fun that I tried a little too hard and strained my calf muscle stepping quickly forward to steal the ball. I got the steal, but paid the price. I tried limping along to continue play, but further sporting activity was dramatically curtailed.
We jumped in the pool after soccer and eventually Cyndie, Marco, & Dunia joined us for a relaxing soak until dusk threatened an onslaught of mosquitos. After a shower, I climbed the new spiral stairs to their TV room to play some cards with the boys before calling it a day. While we were up there, it started to lightning outside and we heard a few good rumbles of thunder. When I came down, I stepped out from under the roof to check the weather and enjoy some of the lightning activity. Bill had stepped out from next door to look, as well, and he described the usual storm activity. If it comes from the ocean, as this one appeared to be doing, it is usually a pretty good storm.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to be awake to see it.
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Relative Something 