The Vilisar Times

DUTCH’S LEARNING EXPERIENCES; LAUNDRY AT RANCHO EL NOGAL; THE LAUNDRY PROCESS; POEM FOR ELI
Tuesday, 20 September 2005

Kathleen and I stayed around the ranch yesterday, Monday. Kathleen was finding spending a day alone with Eli a little stressful and asked if I would stick around too. I spent the morning writing, while Eli, surprisingly for a kid as physically active as he is, spent his morning dragging out all his books and going through them, humming to himself and chortling over some picture or other. Dutch gave him a Donald Duck comic book in Nederlands. Eli enjoyed it thoroughly. We keep adding German words to Eli’s vocabulary and are always amazed at how well he picks things up. He can even handle the Umlauts (i.e. ü, ä, ö) in German. In the afternoon he played around outside on his own and then helped in the kitchen.

In the afternoon I baked two apple pies and one pie and some tarts made from half of a large squash. There has been a large crate of apples in the kitchen corner from someone’s tree. But they needed to be used quickly. I sat outside at the picnic table and peeled and sliced. The only two general cookbooks were missing the pages concerning pie crusts so Kathleen looked up a recipe and instructions on the internet. In giving her own instructions, one lady spent about five pages describing the steps. It sounded more complicated than getting a man on the moon! I finally stopped reading and started making pastry. Use lard and flour and little bit of cold water. Mix the lard into the flour using two knives. Roll it out on a cold surface, no problem. The apple pies were delicious but the squash pie was duller than Bob Dole. Maybe I forgot the sugar. Today someone is going to have to make bread again.

Dutch’s Learning Experiences

Just before dark large dark clouds and plenty of thunder and lightning show up. We only have a few drops of rain but, with the heavy cloud, it gets dark earlier. Just before pitch darkness sets in, the little dogs all begin to bark and run out to the corral. Dutch and Simon left at midmorning on horseback to round up cattle. This was Dutch’s first day completely on horseback. Simon was supposed to instruct him but there was obviously going to be a language gap. Greta, Cody and Phil, three of the bigger dogs, went with them. The Chihuahuas are all yapping at the return of riders and dogs.

Eventually Dutch comes into the house where Kathleen is reading a bedtime story to Eli. Dutch collapses on a sofa. After over nine hours in the saddle in very rough country, he is exhausted and sore. It is already strenuous enough chasing cattle up and down very steep hills and driving them to better pasture. I know from my own experience in the last two weeks that those hills are killers - for the horse especially but for the rider too. On top of this Dutch has a few unique and special learning experiences. The catalogue goes something like this:

Learning experience # 1:
His horse, a large and beautiful Appaloosa, tends to take him under overhanging branches. One of the branches sweeps Dutch right off his horse and drops him on the rocky hillside;

Learning Experience # 2:
His horse walks too close to a big cactus and Dutch winds up with five big needles stuck in his right knee. He spends a few minutes pulling the stickers out of his flesh while Simon watches with an expressionless face. This morning the holes are a little inflamed.

Learning Experience # 3:
Not all rivers can be walked through. Dutch starts to cross one river to round up some cows. The river turns out to be very deep and horse and rider are soon swimming. This means of course that the horse’s body is underwater and Dutch is wet up to his arse and beyond. On the other side he stops, pulls off his boots one at a time and pours out the river water. I wonder why Simon let him go in that deep. Dutch’s clothes have to dry on him while he rides-- this is nothing to a real cowboy.

Learning Experience # 4:
Don’t believe that just because a Pima-Apache Indian rides out in late morning without taking water or food with him that he will be coming back in for lunch. So far I have never seen Simon take any food or water on the trail. When Bob and I rode out with Simon on Mexican Independence Day, Bob had a plastic water bottle which we refilled several times from flowing streams. Simon never drank all day. Bob says the Indian workers eat only two meals a day and live almost entirely on frijoles (pinto beans) and tortillas.

As I said, these learning experiences are in addition to hours in the saddle. Dutch sprawls on the couch. When dinner is served he doesn’t eat much. Kathleen is reading The Valiant Little Tailor to Eli. Dutch listens for a while but soon announces soon that he is going to take an aspirin and go to bed.

Laundry Day At Rancho el Nogal
This morning he is much more lively. I thought Simon was going to ride out again this morning. And so he did, but without Dutch. That’s fine, I guess, because Dutch has a long list of repair and construction projects to work on. To add to his day, the washing machine starts to act up. First it wouldn’t agitate. Then the gasoline generator conks out; no more fuel. Then we accidentally add fuel that has oil in it and then have to drain all the gasoline out and put clean gas in. Since we are filtering all the gasoline through a paper coffee filter to make sure it is clean of dirt, this is messy and takes some time. Then Dutch gets to work on the washing machine itself. The wiring is bad and he rewires a lot of it. Of course, we don’t know where the electrician’s tape might be kept so he has to improvise. It takes him about two hours to finally get the whole generator-agitator system running again. But in the meantime we have used up all the water in the tank. We had filled rinsing tubs and agitator a few times; we have had to throw out water so we could upend the agitator to look at the motor. The temporary solution to this problem is to use buckets to move clean water from the rinsing tub to the agitator. There is only a trickle coming from the water tank now so it will be a while before the next load can be rinsed. I just checked, however, and most of the clothes that we washed this morning are nearly dry.

Man! This is almost as complicated as living on a boat at anchor! Dutch says he can hardly remember that he started off this morning to repair the picnic table and make a new kitchen door.

The Laundry Process

Laundry is done in an old agitator-type electric washing machine that stands outside in all weathers. The 120-volt power necessary to run it comes from a gasoline-powered generator. The water comes by a long length of hose from the normal water tanks out near the corral; the real source of water is, of course, a freshwater spring about half a mile away towards the hills behind the ranchhouse. A buried water hose runs downhill from there to the tanks. The whole waterworks system works on gravity.

First, we fill the agitator with cold spring water, add the detergent and dirty clothes. Then we fill two rinsing tubs with clear water as well, start the generator, run the agitator for half an hour of washing, wring out the sopping clothes either by hand or using a mop-squeegee (this washing machine doesn’t have an electric wringer attached to it: that would be a great addition), drop them into the first rinsing tub, swish them around for a while, wring them out again and drop them into a second rinsing tub to get the last of the soap out (one hopes), and then string them out on one of the clothes-lines that crisscross the grassy area between the walkway and the house. The days are usually sunny and the relative humidity quite low. In addition, up here on the bluff above the river we usually catch at least a little breeze. So, it takes only a few hours to dry even blue jeans.

I decided last night that I would attack the big pile of laundry that has built up in the two weeks. It is not because we have actually used many clothes; we tend to wear things for a few days at least unless we have been battling runaway pigs or have slipped and fallen in the corral. But our clothing had gasoline spilled on them from jerry jugs on the washed-out and therefore rough ranch road on the way in here two weeks ago and stink terribly of gasoline. We also told Dutch that he could throw his laundry in with ours too.

What with the breakdown first of the agitator and then of the generator, we are still not finished with laundry. But we are getting there. That guy Dutch is a worker! He knows a lot, is very handy with tools and pitches right in. With two more like him we could run all of Mexico.

Poem for Eli

I remembered this poem from grade school. William Henry Drummond was a Scotsman who travelled a lot in Canada in the late nineteenth century. His poems are considered a little patronising of French Canadians. But they show an affection for the people as well. Dealing with six-year-old Eli reminds me of Little Bateese and his grandpere.

Little Bateese

You bad leetle boy, not moche you care
How busy you 're kipin' your poor gran'pere
Tryin' to stop you ev'ry day
Chasin' de hen aroun' de hay--
W'y don't you geev' dem a chance to lay?
Leetle Bateese!

Off on de fiel' you foller de plough
Den w'en you 're tire you scare the cow
Sickin' de dog till dey jomp the wall
So de milk ain't good for not'ing at all--
An' you 're only five an' a half dis fall,
Leetle Bateese!

Too sleepy for sayin' de prayer to-night?
Never min' I s'pose it'll be all right
Say dem to-morrow--ah! dere he go!
Fas' asleep in a minute or so--
An' he'll stay lak dat till de rooster crow,
Leetle Bateese!

Den wake us up right away toute suite
Lookin' for somet'ing more to eat,
Makin' me t'ink of dem long leg crane
Soon as dey swaller, dey start again,
I wonder your stomach don't get no pain,
Leetle Bateese!

But see heem now lyin' dere in bed,
Look at de arm onderneat' hees head;
If he grow lak dat till he's twenty year
I bet he'll be stronger dan Louis Cyr
An' beat all de voyageurs leevin' here,
Leetle Bateese!

Jus' feel de muscle along hees back,
Won't geev' heem moche bodder for carry pack
On de long portage, any size canoe,
Dere 's not many t'ing dat boy won't do
For he's got double-joint on hees body too,
Leetle Bateese!

But leetle Bateese! please don't forget
We rader you 're stayin' de small boy yet,
So chase de chicken an' mak' dem scare
An' do w'at you lak wit' your ole gran'pere
For w'en you're beeg feller he won't be dere--
Leetle Bateese!

William Henry Drummond

posted by rjb,
4:30 pm

<$BlogRSDURL$>

		News From Ron and Kathy Bird__
For more pictures of Ron and Kathy Bird and the Vilisar, see these beautiful photos by Albert Pang Click here to e-mail Ron Click here to e-mail Kathy Archives January 2004 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 February 2007 March 2007 Vilisar Translation Expert German-English translation available; business and finance our specialty. SachverstÃ¤ndige Deutsch-Englische Ãbersetzung; GeschÃ¤ft und Finanz unser Spezialgebiet.	Tuesday, September 20, 2005 DUTCH’S LEARNING EXPERIENCES; LAUNDRY AT RANCHO EL NOGAL; THE LAUNDRY PROCESS; POEM FOR ELI Tuesday, 20 September 2005 Kathleen and I stayed around the ranch yesterday, Monday. Kathleen was finding spending a day alone with Eli a little stressful and asked if I would stick around too. I spent the morning writing, while Eli, surprisingly for a kid as physically active as he is, spent his morning dragging out all his books and going through them, humming to himself and chortling over some picture or other. Dutch gave him a Donald Duck comic book in Nederlands. Eli enjoyed it thoroughly. We keep adding German words to Eli’s vocabulary and are always amazed at how well he picks things up. He can even handle the Umlauts (i.e. ü, ä, ö) in German. In the afternoon he played around outside on his own and then helped in the kitchen. In the afternoon I baked two apple pies and one pie and some tarts made from half of a large squash. There has been a large crate of apples in the kitchen corner from someone’s tree. But they needed to be used quickly. I sat outside at the picnic table and peeled and sliced. The only two general cookbooks were missing the pages concerning pie crusts so Kathleen looked up a recipe and instructions on the internet. In giving her own instructions, one lady spent about five pages describing the steps. It sounded more complicated than getting a man on the moon! I finally stopped reading and started making pastry. Use lard and flour and little bit of cold water. Mix the lard into the flour using two knives. Roll it out on a cold surface, no problem. The apple pies were delicious but the squash pie was duller than Bob Dole. Maybe I forgot the sugar. Today someone is going to have to make bread again. Dutch’s Learning Experiences Just before dark large dark clouds and plenty of thunder and lightning show up. We only have a few drops of rain but, with the heavy cloud, it gets dark earlier. Just before pitch darkness sets in, the little dogs all begin to bark and run out to the corral. Dutch and Simon left at midmorning on horseback to round up cattle. This was Dutch’s first day completely on horseback. Simon was supposed to instruct him but there was obviously going to be a language gap. Greta, Cody and Phil, three of the bigger dogs, went with them. The Chihuahuas are all yapping at the return of riders and dogs. Eventually Dutch comes into the house where Kathleen is reading a bedtime story to Eli. Dutch collapses on a sofa. After over nine hours in the saddle in very rough country, he is exhausted and sore. It is already strenuous enough chasing cattle up and down very steep hills and driving them to better pasture. I know from my own experience in the last two weeks that those hills are killers - for the horse especially but for the rider too. On top of this Dutch has a few unique and special learning experiences. The catalogue goes something like this: Learning experience # 1: His horse, a large and beautiful Appaloosa, tends to take him under overhanging branches. One of the branches sweeps Dutch right off his horse and drops him on the rocky hillside; Learning Experience # 2: His horse walks too close to a big cactus and Dutch winds up with five big needles stuck in his right knee. He spends a few minutes pulling the stickers out of his flesh while Simon watches with an expressionless face. This morning the holes are a little inflamed. Learning Experience # 3: Not all rivers can be walked through. Dutch starts to cross one river to round up some cows. The river turns out to be very deep and horse and rider are soon swimming. This means of course that the horse’s body is underwater and Dutch is wet up to his arse and beyond. On the other side he stops, pulls off his boots one at a time and pours out the river water. I wonder why Simon let him go in that deep. Dutch’s clothes have to dry on him while he rides-- this is nothing to a real cowboy. Learning Experience # 4: Don’t believe that just because a Pima-Apache Indian rides out in late morning without taking water or food with him that he will be coming back in for lunch. So far I have never seen Simon take any food or water on the trail. When Bob and I rode out with Simon on Mexican Independence Day, Bob had a plastic water bottle which we refilled several times from flowing streams. Simon never drank all day. Bob says the Indian workers eat only two meals a day and live almost entirely on frijoles (pinto beans) and tortillas. As I said, these learning experiences are in addition to hours in the saddle. Dutch sprawls on the couch. When dinner is served he doesn’t eat much. Kathleen is reading The Valiant Little Tailor to Eli. Dutch listens for a while but soon announces soon that he is going to take an aspirin and go to bed. Laundry Day At Rancho el Nogal This morning he is much more lively. I thought Simon was going to ride out again this morning. And so he did, but without Dutch. That’s fine, I guess, because Dutch has a long list of repair and construction projects to work on. To add to his day, the washing machine starts to act up. First it wouldn’t agitate. Then the gasoline generator conks out; no more fuel. Then we accidentally add fuel that has oil in it and then have to drain all the gasoline out and put clean gas in. Since we are filtering all the gasoline through a paper coffee filter to make sure it is clean of dirt, this is messy and takes some time. Then Dutch gets to work on the washing machine itself. The wiring is bad and he rewires a lot of it. Of course, we don’t know where the electrician’s tape might be kept so he has to improvise. It takes him about two hours to finally get the whole generator-agitator system running again. But in the meantime we have used up all the water in the tank. We had filled rinsing tubs and agitator a few times; we have had to throw out water so we could upend the agitator to look at the motor. The temporary solution to this problem is to use buckets to move clean water from the rinsing tub to the agitator. There is only a trickle coming from the water tank now so it will be a while before the next load can be rinsed. I just checked, however, and most of the clothes that we washed this morning are nearly dry. Man! This is almost as complicated as living on a boat at anchor! Dutch says he can hardly remember that he started off this morning to repair the picnic table and make a new kitchen door. The Laundry Process Laundry is done in an old agitator-type electric washing machine that stands outside in all weathers. The 120-volt power necessary to run it comes from a gasoline-powered generator. The water comes by a long length of hose from the normal water tanks out near the corral; the real source of water is, of course, a freshwater spring about half a mile away towards the hills behind the ranchhouse. A buried water hose runs downhill from there to the tanks. The whole waterworks system works on gravity. First, we fill the agitator with cold spring water, add the detergent and dirty clothes. Then we fill two rinsing tubs with clear water as well, start the generator, run the agitator for half an hour of washing, wring out the sopping clothes either by hand or using a mop-squeegee (this washing machine doesn’t have an electric wringer attached to it: that would be a great addition), drop them into the first rinsing tub, swish them around for a while, wring them out again and drop them into a second rinsing tub to get the last of the soap out (one hopes), and then string them out on one of the clothes-lines that crisscross the grassy area between the walkway and the house. The days are usually sunny and the relative humidity quite low. In addition, up here on the bluff above the river we usually catch at least a little breeze. So, it takes only a few hours to dry even blue jeans. I decided last night that I would attack the big pile of laundry that has built up in the two weeks. It is not because we have actually used many clothes; we tend to wear things for a few days at least unless we have been battling runaway pigs or have slipped and fallen in the corral. But our clothing had gasoline spilled on them from jerry jugs on the washed-out and therefore rough ranch road on the way in here two weeks ago and stink terribly of gasoline. We also told Dutch that he could throw his laundry in with ours too. What with the breakdown first of the agitator and then of the generator, we are still not finished with laundry. But we are getting there. That guy Dutch is a worker! He knows a lot, is very handy with tools and pitches right in. With two more like him we could run all of Mexico. Poem for Eli I remembered this poem from grade school. William Henry Drummond was a Scotsman who travelled a lot in Canada in the late nineteenth century. His poems are considered a little patronising of French Canadians. But they show an affection for the people as well. Dealing with six-year-old Eli reminds me of Little Bateese and his grandpere. Little Bateese You bad leetle boy, not moche you care How busy you 're kipin' your poor gran'pere Tryin' to stop you ev'ry day Chasin' de hen aroun' de hay-- W'y don't you geev' dem a chance to lay? Leetle Bateese! Off on de fiel' you foller de plough Den w'en you 're tire you scare the cow Sickin' de dog till dey jomp the wall So de milk ain't good for not'ing at all-- An' you 're only five an' a half dis fall, Leetle Bateese! Too sleepy for sayin' de prayer to-night? Never min' I s'pose it'll be all right Say dem to-morrow--ah! dere he go! Fas' asleep in a minute or so-- An' he'll stay lak dat till de rooster crow, Leetle Bateese! Den wake us up right away toute suite Lookin' for somet'ing more to eat, Makin' me t'ink of dem long leg crane Soon as dey swaller, dey start again, I wonder your stomach don't get no pain, Leetle Bateese! But see heem now lyin' dere in bed, Look at de arm onderneat' hees head; If he grow lak dat till he's twenty year I bet he'll be stronger dan Louis Cyr An' beat all de voyageurs leevin' here, Leetle Bateese! Jus' feel de muscle along hees back, Won't geev' heem moche bodder for carry pack On de long portage, any size canoe, Dere 's not many t'ing dat boy won't do For he's got double-joint on hees body too, Leetle Bateese! But leetle Bateese! please don't forget We rader you 're stayin' de small boy yet, So chase de chicken an' mak' dem scare An' do w'at you lak wit' your ole gran'pere For w'en you're beeg feller he won't be dere-- Leetle Bateese! William Henry Drummond posted by *rjb,* *4:30 pm* Comments: Post a Comment
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