News From Ron and Kathy Bird__
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Expert German-English translation available; business and finance our specialty.
Sachverständige Deutsch-Englische Ãbersetzung; Geschäft und Finanz unser Spezialgebiet.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Tuesday, 06 September 2005
We heard yesterday from the children by email. Antonia and William were driven down to Corpus Christi, Texas, (I guess by Elizabeth, their mother) to stay indefinitely with Elizabeth’s sister and her family. Elizabeth was born and brought up there so she has a network of friends there. Her father also lives in Corpus Christi. Elizabeth is a social worker at a state men’s prison in Mississippi and, according to the kids, has returned to her job and to keep an eye on the house. My daughter, Antonia, said Andrew was working with the disaster-cleanup crews. Things are obviously up in the air for everybody. Antonia thought they would be staying in Corpus Christi at least until the end of the school semester but I do not know if they will actually be attending school there. I regard all this as good news that they are out of harm’s way and safe from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The second good news is that I picked up some translating business from the London office of a New York translating agency. It was an issuing prospectus for a hedge fund so therefore more than a little technical. A few hundred dollars comes in really handy right at this point since my two small pensions leave no money over after deductions and child support. I hope I can get some more business while I am stationary here at Rancho el Nogal.
Yesterday, for the first time since we arrived, we had no daily downpour. That’s good since the roof over the big room and kitchen at the ranch house is not at all waterproof. Since the walls are essentially made of mud (adobe), when they get saturated from rainwater seeping inside they begin to disintegrate. Part of the house, the after portion, has a slanted roof that seems to be pretty watertight and so does our guest house. Most of the barns also are also badly in need of new roofing (they appear to be mainly of wooden shingles and corrugated iron. It’s the flat roof over the kitchen and living room of the main house that is leaking so badly. No doubt, since it is dry most of the year, they are like the Arkansas Traveller who didn’t want to get up on the roof in the rain because it’s too dangerous and, when it’s not raining, it doesn’t bother him much that there’s a hole in the roof. Bob and Cindy are usually very busy and can hardly deal with everything.
Both Cindy and Bob are delightful and engaging people who seem very intelligent. The ranch would be totally overwhelming considering that it’s 17,000 acres already and may be expanded at some point. Cindy also runs a school (university credits) for environmental projects, sets up and runs eco-projects (e.g. currently counting trout in the streams) in the region, together with Bob operates the business side of the ranch (like, what animals to raise, when and at what price to sell them, etc.), home-schools three small children, travels to the U.S.A. and all over Latin America to mountaineer and rock-climb as well as to engage in eco-projects. Spring semester will be taken up with university courses here. Cindy hires a teacher for the kids when there are students here. She also hires a cook. A cleaner comes in every few weeks during the year to try to keep the chaos of a ranch house with three small children and busy parents under control. Any single one of the adults’ lives would overwhelm me.
Simon, for his part, says he cannot handle all the work here alone. The goat went un-milked while Cindy was away and has almost stopped lactating. There are gardens that are left untended. The chickens have more or less stopped laying in the hen house since nobody is here in the evening to put them away. Then there are all the other jobs from shoeing horse, to culling cattle, to moving horses and cows from one pasture to another, etc., etc, etc. Not to mention work on the buildings and outhouses and corrals. A cowboy’s work is never done. Simon talked like maybe there was an extra hand coming but, “Where is he?”
However, we can assist: in exchange for room and board we can watch the house and yard and do a few light chores, e.g. take care of the chickens, goats, pigs, dogs and cats, keep ahead of the dirt in the house and maybe take on other light jobs. At the same time we can have the wilderness ranch experience. So far, I find it great. The simplicity, even the primitiveness in general doesn’t bother me. A boater, however, is easily shocked by any dilapidation. He is used to keeping ahead of things so the rain stays out his berth and the boat says looking good and operating well. I really object to dirt and flies. Well, I can’t go too much about the second, i.e. the flies, though I have become a major threat to them with the matamosca (fly swat). (Fortunately, we don’t seem to have them in the guest house much. No food there I guess.) Kathleen and I have been sweeping and cleaning in the main house and things are already looking like we are catching up. I hope they are pleased at our efforts when they finally get back.
This morning I get up early to make coffee and write. Simon is slow to get up today and Kathleen even slower. Simon at least has the excuse that he was in the saddle all day yesterday and didn’t get home until several hours after dark. Cindy said that meals on the ranch are 7-1-7, so we waited well past seven in the evening to see if Simon would come. We promised him spaghetti with tomato sauce and Kathleen baked a great loaf of Damper bread. It was probably 2200 before Simon finally came in. He is smiling but fatigado (tired). He wished me a happy birthday and admired the glass jar of meadow flowers on the table. We asked him how he could find his way home in the pitch dark last night. I think he said that his caballo (mulo, actually) knows the camino a casa. Luckily it did not rain though I know he had his rain cape with him. He ate his dinner, said Buenos Noches, and left for the bunkhouse.
This morning he makes a batch of tortillas and a pot of refried beans first thing. He makes great tortillas! He sits patiently mixing the dough, setting little dough balls to rise, rolling them out with a small, one-inch-thick rolling pin and frying them on a piece off flat metal on the propane range until he has the woven covered basket full. He has tried Kathleen’s damper bread, which we both think is great. But he doesn’t much care for it, I suspect. Did he say in Spanish that it tastes too much like sawdust? Maybe he doesn’t like the whole wheat flour that was also in the dough. “And anyway you have to saw it off to eat it.” He has a point there.
Later, while are drinking the first coffee, another cowboy shows up. I saw him from a distance at the corral on Sunday but did not get to meet him then. His name is Israel and he works here too. Like Simon he is a Pima Indian. He goes out alone for days at a time to ride fence, i.e. patrol on horseback along the barbed wire fences and repair them when necessary so one’s own cattle don’t get out and strange cattle don’t get in. Simon says he sleeps, “in el campo” so I guess he camps out, though I didn’t notice that he had a bedroll. But maybe too the ranch has some cabins out there in the 17,000 acres. Simon fixes breakfast for him after first making the tortillas. No doubt too he is pleased to have company where he doesn’t have to listen to broken Spanish (actually, our Spanish isn’t yet even that good). Soon afterwards, Simon fills up a couple of plastic bags with food for three days: coffee, beans, apples, etc. It didn’t seem like much, though. On the other hand, even Simon doesn’t eat that much considering the heavy work he does every day. Neither one of them is overweight, that’s for sure.
The refried beans for breakfast come from a bag, are in powdered form, and are already spiced. You simply pour hot water over the amount you desire and heat it gently for 25 minutes. Delicious and a lot easier than making your own or even buying and schlepping canned beans. Must get some of these bags for the boat.
While the beans are steeping for breakfast, Israel sits on a fence rail looking like the Marlboro man and watches Simon re-shoe his mule and then put a new hoof on Israel’s horse. There is a little outdoor smithy under the overhanging eaves just opposite the door to our sleeping accommodation. Later, I wish I had asked Simon to show me how to shoe (herrar) a horse. But before I could get up the nerve to ask him, he is finishing his work, saddling the big black mule he normally rides, handing up the food supplies in plastic shopping bags along with an enamelled coffee cup to Israel who in turn festoons his saddle with them, sticks his foot in the stirrup, swings up into the saddle. The two of them start out the open gate leading to the steep path down to the river. We watch them disappear nearly straight down until they disappear around a bend and into the trees and we are masters of the place again.
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