The Vilisar Times

Wednesday, 07 2005
Simon arrived back in heavy rain about 2200 last night, cheerful and smiling. He ate the quesadillas that we had prepared for him earlier, thanked us, chatted for a while before wishing us Buenos Noches and heading off to bed. This morning he was a little slow getting started and sat with us around the table drinking coffee and patiently correcting our Spanish until about 0930 before getting to whatever he was doing today.
I asked him if he would help me saddle a horse for riding around the immediate ranch-house area. He said he would.
The orange rooster had me awake with his off-key crowing this morning well before dawn. I kept turning over to go back to sleep the whole time also thinking that the cock could definitely use some voice lessons; he has some pitch problems. His crowing doesn’t stay quite on key, rising a half tone at the beginning of his final note and then dropping (no doubt for lack of abdominal support) a whole tone. His song is precisely the same every time. There are fourteen chickens and four roosters in the hen house. We have named the orange rooster Macbeth (“Macbeth murders sleep” Shakespeare). Macbeth is a new bird at the ranch, Cindy told us. Macbeth stays over here near the ranch house because there are already too many cocks in the flock. But he keeps calling in the mornings over to the roosters in the coop on the other side of the corral about two hundred metres away. At first they answer him. But, after a little while, they simply ignore him, leaving him to squawk (under our window) in vain.
Until this morning there was also another new bird on the ranch: a little, white, half-grown chicken that normally slept right on top of old Tank, the huge but feeble and half-blind dark-grey mastiff dog that grew up on the ranch. This morning when I was walking under the covered walkway between the guest house and the ranch house, I saw the chick lying dead near where Tank had been sleeping last night. The bird did not look like it had been savaged. In fact, it looked just flat. Could Tank have rolled over in his sleep and smothered the chick?
I am trying to get myself back on schedule of rising early when I can be alone to write. I do the morning chores (chickens, pigs, dogs, cats, and goat), make coffee and turn on my computer to check my email and whatever news of fresh disaster has come up overnight; with George Bush in the White House you can count on a new one every couple of weeks; my head has shaken so much and so often over the last few years that I am sometimes inclined not to bother checking the news at all because it just upsets me. (How did such a spoiled, rich, addled, posturing, empty vessel ever get to be president?) I check regularly on progress and situations in Mississippi and Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. I am glad to know that the kids are safe but want to see what is happening next. And finally I take a look at the 5-day weather forecasts for Guaymas and San Carlos, Sonora, (where Vilisar is on a mooring buoy) to see if anything horrible is on the way north. At present there is no sign of a tropical disturbance at all for the Eastern Pacific (http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/76255.html ).
I am going to have to isolate myself more however since both Simon and Kathleen come into the ranch house just as I am getting started. Frustrated, I decide to give up writing till Simon has left. I grab a broom and started sweeping, picking things up and sweeping again. Simon eventually leaves for work and Kathy helps me re-arrange some of the heavy wooden furniture to get the pieces away from the wet adobe walls (last night’s rain soaked a lot of wall and dripped in on upholstered and wooden furniture), to clean behind furniture and to make the room a little friendlier. Today when the grass outside has dried I want to roll up the large Navajo rug on the floor which has become filthy from the dirty shoes tracking through: I intend take it outside and shake it out. It’s too big to hang up and too much work at this point to beat the dust out of it. There doesn’t seem to be a vacuum cleaner around the house. Just turning it upside down on the grass should get a lot of rough dirt out of it. It’s a really pretty rug.
My unremitting battle against house flies is more or less like the U.S. Army trying to subdue Iraq; it’s showing no sign of being successful. I am not so cynical to try to make myself or others believe that my real intent is to bring democracy to the flies. The matamosca (fly swat) is falling apart. From where I sit to write I see a gecko over near the window. He is pretty successful at catching flies. I read once of a cruising couple who had inadvertently picked up a gecko in the tropics; it kept their boat free of bugs, insects, cockroaches, etc. Every outdoor wall has a gecko around here, some as long as four or five inches. So, I wonder if I couldn’t get a few more in here.
On top of everything, as the rainwater dripped down the walls last night, legions of big red ants could be seen marching across the wet yellow walls carrying what looked like kernels of rice but may actually have been larvae they were trying to rescue from the water. And, from near the top of the adobe fireplace in the corner, closely-ranked lines of very small red ants were marching down the corner of the wall and being passed by the same formations heading back up. This morning neither type of ants is visible at all. I checked the internet to find home remedies to deal with ants, methods that were also ecologically sound. Apparently, ants don’t like items with strong smells. Since I have only a limited number of stinky shoes with me, I decided to try recommendations like spreading black pepper or shredded mint or bay leaves, spraying with diluted Simple Green, or even slopping caliente hot sauce around. Planting aromatic herbs like mint or even planting marigolds all around your house helps to keep them away. My researches on geckoes for use in the house have not progressed very far yet.

posted by rjb,
1:50 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.	Thursday, September 08, 2005 Wednesday, 07 2005 Simon arrived back in heavy rain about 2200 last night, cheerful and smiling. He ate the quesadillas that we had prepared for him earlier, thanked us, chatted for a while before wishing us Buenos Noches and heading off to bed. This morning he was a little slow getting started and sat with us around the table drinking coffee and patiently correcting our Spanish until about 0930 before getting to whatever he was doing today. I asked him if he would help me saddle a horse for riding around the immediate ranch-house area. He said he would. The orange rooster had me awake with his off-key crowing this morning well before dawn. I kept turning over to go back to sleep the whole time also thinking that the cock could definitely use some voice lessons; he has some pitch problems. His crowing doesn’t stay quite on key, rising a half tone at the beginning of his final note and then dropping (no doubt for lack of abdominal support) a whole tone. His song is precisely the same every time. There are fourteen chickens and four roosters in the hen house. We have named the orange rooster Macbeth (“Macbeth murders sleep” Shakespeare). Macbeth is a new bird at the ranch, Cindy told us. Macbeth stays over here near the ranch house because there are already too many cocks in the flock. But he keeps calling in the mornings over to the roosters in the coop on the other side of the corral about two hundred metres away. At first they answer him. But, after a little while, they simply ignore him, leaving him to squawk (under our window) in vain. Until this morning there was also another new bird on the ranch: a little, white, half-grown chicken that normally slept right on top of old Tank, the huge but feeble and half-blind dark-grey mastiff dog that grew up on the ranch. This morning when I was walking under the covered walkway between the guest house and the ranch house, I saw the chick lying dead near where Tank had been sleeping last night. The bird did not look like it had been savaged. In fact, it looked just flat. Could Tank have rolled over in his sleep and smothered the chick? I am trying to get myself back on schedule of rising early when I can be alone to write. I do the morning chores (chickens, pigs, dogs, cats, and goat), make coffee and turn on my computer to check my email and whatever news of fresh disaster has come up overnight; with George Bush in the White House you can count on a new one every couple of weeks; my head has shaken so much and so often over the last few years that I am sometimes inclined not to bother checking the news at all because it just upsets me. (How did such a spoiled, rich, addled, posturing, empty vessel ever get to be president?) I check regularly on progress and situations in Mississippi and Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. I am glad to know that the kids are safe but want to see what is happening next. And finally I take a look at the 5-day weather forecasts for Guaymas and San Carlos, Sonora, (where Vilisar is on a mooring buoy) to see if anything horrible is on the way north. At present there is no sign of a tropical disturbance at all for the Eastern Pacific (http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/76255.html ). I am going to have to isolate myself more however since both Simon and Kathleen come into the ranch house just as I am getting started. Frustrated, I decide to give up writing till Simon has left. I grab a broom and started sweeping, picking things up and sweeping again. Simon eventually leaves for work and Kathy helps me re-arrange some of the heavy wooden furniture to get the pieces away from the wet adobe walls (last night’s rain soaked a lot of wall and dripped in on upholstered and wooden furniture), to clean behind furniture and to make the room a little friendlier. Today when the grass outside has dried I want to roll up the large Navajo rug on the floor which has become filthy from the dirty shoes tracking through: I intend take it outside and shake it out. It’s too big to hang up and too much work at this point to beat the dust out of it. There doesn’t seem to be a vacuum cleaner around the house. Just turning it upside down on the grass should get a lot of rough dirt out of it. It’s a really pretty rug. My unremitting battle against house flies is more or less like the U.S. Army trying to subdue Iraq; it’s showing no sign of being successful. I am not so cynical to try to make myself or others believe that my real intent is to bring democracy to the flies. The matamosca (fly swat) is falling apart. From where I sit to write I see a gecko over near the window. He is pretty successful at catching flies. I read once of a cruising couple who had inadvertently picked up a gecko in the tropics; it kept their boat free of bugs, insects, cockroaches, etc. Every outdoor wall has a gecko around here, some as long as four or five inches. So, I wonder if I couldn’t get a few more in here. On top of everything, as the rainwater dripped down the walls last night, legions of big red ants could be seen marching across the wet yellow walls carrying what looked like kernels of rice but may actually have been larvae they were trying to rescue from the water. And, from near the top of the adobe fireplace in the corner, closely-ranked lines of very small red ants were marching down the corner of the wall and being passed by the same formations heading back up. This morning neither type of ants is visible at all. I checked the internet to find home remedies to deal with ants, methods that were also ecologically sound. Apparently, ants don’t like items with strong smells. Since I have only a limited number of stinky shoes with me, I decided to try recommendations like spreading black pepper or shredded mint or bay leaves, spraying with diluted Simple Green, or even slopping caliente hot sauce around. Planting aromatic herbs like mint or even planting marigolds all around your house helps to keep them away. My researches on geckoes for use in the house have not progressed very far yet. posted by *rjb,* *1:50 pm* Comments: Post a Comment
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Thursday, September 08, 2005