Emails

This is an excerpt from a running email between my sister and me. Part of the fun of living out of the US of A is in learning different lifestyles and embracing what fits and realizing what doesn't.

"...A few more observations: Young Mexican women are SUPPOSED to arrive late. There may be something about making an "entrance", but I'm inclined to think it's more about the poor time management multiplied by the number of people in the car. I might be able to work out an equation, given the variables (number of women in the car and distance to the location), and find an answer to what time they will arrive. Another thing that we have learned is that Mexicans find
so much joy in partying late into the night. I liken it to the joy I find in my early morning coffee..."

Change Is In The Air

The full moon brought us a blissful change in our weather. The temperatures are changing, the percent humidity is changing, the water temperature is changing, the wind direction is changing, and my mind is changing.

By mid-September most of us who made it through the summer and hurricane were pretty bored with the overwhelming, sweat inducing, heat and humidity. A few days ago? Bingo, humidity is gone and temperatures are slightly lower. I guess it feels more like Phoenix or Las Vegas. Yippy.

I enjoyed a little grooming session with Bella yesterday evening. We still need to work on holding the hooves up nicely. She does very well with two of her feet, then the last two she starts pulling away. I patiently waited until she was still before letting them back down. She also doesn't appreciate her forelock being combed. So, we'll do that everyday now. I led her out to my car to get the bucket-of-love and take it back inside to the stall feeder. She handled that pretty darn well. We had to open and close the gate both ways and she wasn't allowed to even ask for a bite of her pellets. No pushing or pulling and she had to back up and wait until I poured it into the feeder. She has turned 2 and a half this month. I'll drag the saddle out and put it on her this weekend. She doesn't forget anything we've worked on, so I'm ready to move forward.

Pods

I love my iPod. Downloading podcasts and syncing them onto my lovely, black iPod makes me so happy. As I drive through the Mexican desert listening to Geek Speak from NPR in Santa Cruz I am not unaware of the irony.

We are heading across the border for 2 days tomorrow and I'm all 'N Sync.

A few monsoons and a windy hurricane and the desert just comes alive. The beautiful rocky mountains in the background are blooming as well. The horses are in heaven.

Back Again and Back Again

In between hurricanes and sisters I have had more than my fair share of trips up across the border this summer. My husband and I just made a quick up and back trip this last weekend, getting back home last evening just at nightfall. To say the least, my cupboards are well stocked. I've got a million gallons of wine and mayonnaise on hand now. What more could I need? Oh! Bread! duh. I got it.

Well, what I do need more of is time with my filly. I hate leaving her over and over. She seems to be ever more accepting of my absences but almost forgets her manners when I take her bucket into the stall. A strong word usually accompanied by a hand signal gets her to back off until the pellets are poured into the feeder. Funny how the rules get ignored or pushed when Mama isn't around. I'm anxious to start working her in bits and pieces but the weather is still miserable for more than a tiny bit of activity. I think we've got about a month to go until the cooler breezes come in. Then, this winter I have big plans of lunging and ground driving. I hope you blogger friends will offer some assistance in my starting. She'll be a worthy little mare if we do this right.

Life returned to normal, the hurricane almost forgotten.

Hurricanes are windy.

Henriette

It's not surprising news to us but we awoke to pounding surf and wind this morning. Tropical Storm Henriette could possibly make a direct hit on us today. We have our storm shutters down in-case the wind gets scary. I'll get pictures of my little bay later, when dawn breaks.

I didn't see Bella yesterday. As Diane was putting the mares away, one by one, Bella and Sonora made a break for it with McCoy, the big black gelding. If you ask me, he's a nice looking, older quarter horse with too big a head and a bit of a sway in his back. I guess it's his charisma. The little girls really believe his pick-up lines and follow him like a flock of geese. Maybe he sings Spanish love songs.

Cross your fingers that we don't lose our electricity.

Sky Lights

Venus showed up yesterday morning. As I turned over and looked out over the slightest bit of breaking dawn it was unavoidable to miss a miniature moon gazing straight at me. After a five second brain delay I realized it was Venus rising in the eastern sky. My eyes kept wanting to close but Venus kept demanding attention. She was strutting her stuff as well as any celestial ball can and telling me I should look now for it would be awhile before she had this kind of time and energy to send my way. I lay there and worshipped her as she deserved for well over 15 more minutes before getting up for coffee. As daylight overtook, Venus disappeared.

Early this morning my eyes popped open again before dawn and I turned over excitedly to see if Venus was still my morning friend and was sorely disappointed to only find a small, slightly larger than a star, Venus. As I blinked away sleep, she rushed across the sky on her morning duties, much too busy to bother showing off for me.

We women have the prerogative of being productive and busy one day and languishing Goddesses another.

Our Guadalajara adventure went off without a hitch. It was lots of fun to go to the city and the shopping was wonderful. If anyone is planning a trip down there I can offer some good suggestions on where to go. The hurricane had blown itself out before it even got over the Sierra Madres so we got almost nothing out of it. Maybe a tiny mist and a breath of breeze.

So, Barbie didn't find her windows, but did find lots of other glass. We watched some glassblowers making bottles and Barbie had to have several of those. I bought some glass vegetables (I'm too practical) to put on my dining table as decoration. A large glass tomatoe! Red glass with a lovely stem. And two different peppers. One red, one green.

Bella was happy to have me back yesterday since me=bucket. I hosed her down to get some of the dust and sweat off. This is the time of year that is almost impossible to ride since the weather is so hot and humid. It's like deep winter in the northern states...reversed. So, just going out and spending time with the horses is nice for them. After I washed her down I let her loose to roll in the dirt. Then, she got to go back to her stall with the mudpack on. I also put Swat on any and all little spots on Pony to keep the flies away.

It's almost time to take Barbie across the border and say goodbye as she flys back up to Oregon. So, I'm off again but only for one night. I don't think my husband can take much more of my absence so I'd better not make any more plans for awhile.

Guadalajara

I'm taking Barbie down to Guadalajara tomorrow for a week of shopping. She has some notion about what she can buy down there. She has seen some beautiful colored-glass windows that she simply must find. They look a little like the bottom of a wine bottle. ha. Wonder why that would interest her. So we are taking off early to catch a flight down and are scheduled to return on Friday. No big deal.

Except

There is that bothersome big hurricane that will come ashore on Mexico's east coast around Wednesday and could impact our flight, or drive, home on Friday, over here on the west coast. I'm terribly worried about our countrymen all along the east coast and will be monitoring Dean's progress as closely as I can. You guys can help me beg Mother Nature to blow this bad boy out with little to no destruction.

I hope to see you Saturday.

My baby Bella, who thinks she is quite grown up and doesn't need a mother anymore, kind of ignored me when I arrived to visit her for the first time since arriving back in Mexico. That lasted all of 2 minutes until she realized I had the long lost bucket she so craves. She had to wait impatiently for me to clean out her feeder and then she buried her face in the fresh pellets. As I started brushing her in some of her favorite spots she stopped eating and put her head on my shoulder. I think that might have been a hug.
She's developed quite the Andalusian neck. I need to get and post some new pictures.

That shiny Prius took us up and back to Oregon with few refill stops. It gets better gas milage than I do. I can't go as long as it does between pit stops. The best milage is best found in town, but I would not complain about that road milage vs. my Pathfinder milage. I believe we averaged around 43.8 miles per gallon.

Oh, Mt. Shasta has very little snow and the lake level is terribly low.

It was nice being cold in Oregon and Northern California. We stopped in the Tamales Bay region to sleep and visit an old friend. I'm sorry I haven't been there before now and have it in my mind to certainly return.

We hit 5 wineries total going and coming back. I was the designated driver but did buy a few bottles. Paso Robles seems to have tons of Zinfandel grapes and we learned that Pinot Noir grapes have gone way up in price since the movie Sideways. So the Pinos are more expensive than they used to be on the central coast. Hahn was my favorite and very well worth a few miles off the highway to visit.

Back to Mexico and my Bella after the weekend :)

I'm up in the land of shiny cars and cold running water. I took my time and made it a two day trip, instead of that long, long 12 hour, butt-numbing, maniac ride.

Are you wondering why I speak of cold running water? In our little Mexican village the water pipes aren't buried very deep, AND we have a big water container on our roof (like a thousand liters) in case the town water goes off for awhile. Those two things combined make for warm cold water all summer. Many people just turn off their water heaters until October, when overnight temps cool down, and still shower comfortably in tepid water.
I foolishly filled my hot tub thinking I would be able to dip my feet and enjoy a cool bath. After I put the solar blanket on it for a day to keep out wind borne bougainvillea flowers the temp went all the way up to 110. I guess that wasn't a good idea. Nothing refreshing about that.

And, of course, there are plenty of shiny and fancy Mexican vehicles, but not like up here. Every other car up here seems to be less than a year old shiny BMW or Prius. You know that car you drove 15 years ago and traded in 10 years ago? It now lives a nice leisurely life in Mexico, puffing oil and forgetting it ever had a muffler. Oh, I was thinking that our old-car enthusiasts might consider going down into Mexico to find that certain cherry '55 Buick. There are plenty to pick from under swaying palms. And, they're probably still running.

I'm on the first leg of visiting my sisters. My daughter is here at my 'Merican house with me for the first part of the visit. It's so easy to spoil her, we just drop right back into our Mother/Daughter roles. Then, sister Susan is picking me up (in her shiny 2 month old Prius) and taking me to her home in LA. After a haircut and a visit to the Pilates studio (duh) we are heading up to Barbie's house in Oregon for less than a week. Think of all the cold running water up there! We are all coming right back down in the shiny car and then I am driving Barbie back to Mexico with me. It's a busy trip.

Horses are such quick learners. If they see the smallest bit of weakness in their riders they go for it relentlessly. We ended up on the lunge line going in circles so we could actually learn a few pieces of riding etiquette. This horse crazy girl was a quick learner, too. She understood the reason behind using only the ball of the foot in the stirrup. Then, she learned how to get off safely.
Then she had to go in and speak to Bella and give her a bit of a brushing.

Horse Crazy

Once again I am lucky enough to meet another 10 year old girl who imagines horses in everything she does everyday all day long. She has memorized a few body parts on the horse and I gave her a little more information. We discussed the chestnut and the hock and how over thousands of years the leg developed like that, and then I gave her an assignment for our next trip out to the barn. On Sunday we took the time to measure several of the horses with my carpenter's measuring tape. Anyone who has never measured a horse might not be aware that horses don't particularly like having long, skinny, snake-looking things held up next to their body. Doing this exercise taught Brittany how to introduce an unsavory object to a horse with patience, where exactly a horse is supposed to be measured, and we reassured the horses that we could be trusted.
Bella is almost too easy because she tends to trust me with anything but the fly-spray bottle. She came out to 53 inches. Her mother is only an inch taller at 54 inches. Bella's sister, Sonora, is 51 inches. And the other yearling, Cita, is 52 inches. All little horses for sure. Billy measured out at 60 inches. Oh, and baby Paulina is 44 inches. Amazing, but she trusted us very soon after we introduced her to the tape. I figured she'd be the toughest to get, but it was Billy who just didn't have time in his busy schedule to fool with tapes and people without candy. I explained to Brittany that this wasn't a very scientific experiment because the dirt floors are uneven and a real measuring stick has that top part that rests on the withers to guarantee a level measurement. Her assignment is to write all the horses names and figure out the number of hands and the date. Next time she comes to visit her grandma we can do it again and see who has grown.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking that maybe tomorrow we should saddle someone up and take a short ride. I would love to get a picture of her on-board and see if her smile can get any bigger. I have an old black and white picture of myself, at around 9 or 10 years old, on an old flea-bitten white mare, Comet (who I thought was gorgeous!) and this look of cowgirl confidence under my hat.

A new day dawns.

Baby's First Step

I got on Bella last night. She's been such a willing little lady all week and I had complete confidence in her last night, so I saddled her and then stepped up on top. Well, to be more exact, I had decided to put her saddle on as I was driving out to see her. She had been out all day in the desert with some of the others and so had whatever attitude already bucked out of her. As I led her out of her stall she just followed along sweetly so I took her all the way out to my car (no use schlepping my saddle into the barnyard.) I had her little bucket in the back of the car and she always knows that. I let her have her bucket and just started saddling her right there, next to the car, not tied up. That was fine, she hardly noticed. Then, Diane (the barn owner) came out of her house and laughingly asked what was I thinking, and then said she'd get on her. I just replied that if she had had enough to drink, she was welcome. She hadn't had a thing to drink but was certain that Bella would be wonderful. So, she came over and we got the cinch nicely snug. I took Bella's almost finished bucket away so she could focus, and Diane put some weight in the stirrup. Bella hardly blinked. Diane then put weight in the stirrup again and just swung on over. Bella stood still and thought about it and then asked for her bucket back. Diane got off and we hugged the baby and then I found myself back by the stirrup and I decided to do the same thing Diane had. I put my weight in the stirrup several times before going ahead and swinging on over. She stood like a statue. I talked to her and patted her all over and rubbed her neck and then got off. Maybe a 60 second first start. She was completely happy with herself and now wanted the rest of her bucket.
After a few more minutes of us fawning all over her being such a big girl we brought out the bridle and put that on her too. She took all of this like a little well-trained girl. I do need advice though, on what bit I should start her with. I have a nice big full-cheek snaffle that I've used for years, but I'd like to really protect her mouth while at the same time having that direct contact. Any choices you have started with and think works well?
So, Bella's been broke.

I just got a new phone (pink, razr, the one everyone bought ages ago) and I wanted Bella on it. I think my real camera does a better job. So, I've figured out how to send pictures back and forth via Bluetooth with my computer. The quality of the phone camera is different, of course, but one out of ten pictures turns out almost useable. It might help if I would put my glasses on so I could actually see what I'm taking.

I can't believe Bella has so much forelock. I suppose I should braid it, but whenever I do something...um...girlie I get teased about these not being California horses. Mexican horses do not have a bridle path, so after I mentioned my clippers once to Diane and got a sniff in response, I put them back in the drawer. I will say however, that since I've been giving Bella suppliments and daily brushing since around last October, she is the one horse that has the softest coat and combed out tail. Some of it is her breeding, some from attention. I'm slipping Pony, her mother, a little grooming and tail combing, and putting Swat on her belly-sore from fly bites. Pony's tail is almost hopeless with such a mess of dreadlocks. Little by little, stroke by stroke, maybe I'll make some headway. Before we know it they'll all look like show ponies. Cowboy Magic anyone?

sshhhh