The Calm of Cutting Dead Lavender Flowers

The lavender bush in our front yard maintains a magnificent state of endless blooming. Not only is it pleasing to my eyes; it provides a bounty of pollen for the honey bees. It is fall here now, and the choice of flowers for the bees and butterflies has diminished. I stand before the bush, scissors in hand, the soft warmth of the fall sun on my back. I do not want to prune the lavender, so must cut the dead flowers one by one. I work with care so as not to disturb the industrious bees as they labor with their velvet touch. The flowers nod in acknowledgement to the visiting bees.

Like the bees, I must work with patient precision, paying delicate attention to detail. I inhale deeply the lavender scent and watch how the furry creatures go about their business of gathering.

I feel immensely rich, having the time to pay attention to these small things. This is how I survive life in the big city. The paying attention is all – to the varied hues of the fall leaves, cloud formations, the backyard birds pecking at the crumbs I've sprinkled about, the one California wild iris in bloom, tricked by the warm days.

Next week our occasional gardener is coming to tear down the old lemon tree. Until recently, it provided us with a constant supply of large lemons ever since we bought the house twenty-eight years ago. Gradually we've had to amputate dry branches until now only one green branch survives. I will miss it. A replacement thrives in a pot nearby.

Our old apricot tree is also showing severe signs of aging. I fertilize it often, hoping next spring its branches will again be laden with juicy orange globes. It could also be replaced, but I doubt other apricots would be as flavorful. Replacements often do not measure up to their predecessors.

Tortoise update: Speedy Gonzalez has gained one hundred grams! Our patient hand-feeding is bearing fruit. And I’m becoming quite acquainted with the unique design of tortoise anatomy.

Resisting the Tortoise Hibernation Instinct in 15 Simple Steps

Our tortoise, Speedy Gonzalez, has not gained enough weight after his summer long bout with pneumonia, dehydration and kidney disease. According to the veterinarian, he won’t survive months of hibernation. I've followed instructions to construct a terrarium for him, a winter hangout.

1.      Buy a very large plastic box (33 x 20 in. minimum).

2.      Take this unwieldy box to the vet’s shop where she demonstrates how to attach two clamp lights, (one for light and one for heat), a thermometer and a timer.  Purchase this equipment and a multiple extension cord.

3.      Assemble terrarium at home, lining the bottom of the box with shredded newspaper.

4.      Add a shoebox cut in half for Speedy’s sleeping quarters and plates for water and food.

5.      Insert Speedy.

6.      Check the next morning. The thermometer is way below the 27 degrees C necessary to activate Speedy’s metabolism. He isn't eating.

7.      Remove wet newspaper where he spilled his water.

8.      Place him in a box in the sun.

9.     Soak him in lukewarm water for half an hour to stimulate appetite and digestion.

10.      Feed him turtle food with a syringe as in previous months. Allow half an hour. This requires four hands.

11.  Gently massage his neck to relax and encourage swallowing.

12.  Tempt him with chunks of ripe banana and kiwi.

13.  Go to vet’s to change heat lamp bulb for a stronger one.

14.   Check thermometer the next day. Only 22 degrees.

15.   Repeat steps 1 through 15. Every day.

Earth, Wind and Fire (and Rain)

The peaceful, benevolent skies we encountered ten days ago in the wide open Patagonian pampa of grazing sheep and guanacos turned dark and turbulent this past week, releasing a two-day torrential deluge, isolating ranchers,  engorging rivers and washing away hundreds of sheep. Having recently explored that landscape heightens the distress.

Though we know that this is a land of extremes, it continues to shock and surprise. Last month, the news carried scenes of massive mudslides in the northern desert region and raging fires in southern forests. This week, without any warning, the Calbuco volcano, inactive for forty-five years, spewed columns of red hot lava and gigantic, lightning-pierced clouds of ash and stone skyward. The ash and gravel settled in thick layers on nearby villages, farms, roads and fields. Locals were evacuated until it was deemed safe to return their homes. We city dwellers watch in shock televised scenes of horses searching in vain for food under the rubble and people shoveling gravel off their roofs to prevent their collapse before the announced rains. Beehives are being trucked to uncontaminated countryside.

Weathermen check the direction of the winds which carried ash again into Argentina. Plane flights were cancelled. All this just a few weeks after Villarrica Volcano erupted. News anchors interview volcanologists and geologists to cultivate public understanding of these processes and dispel incorrect theories. (The volcanoes are all connected underground. Wrong. Old wives’ tales die hard. Many here swear that unusual weather signals the advent of an earthquake. Easy to understand the origins of this belief as the Chilean earth is continuously trembling somewhere up and down this long, thin country.)

The political ground is shaking as well. Scandals and corruption unveiled on both ends of the political spectrum undermine public confidence. Whatsapp buzzes with jokes and cartoons. A familiar story – illegal sources of campaign money at election time.

Ho-hum.

I feel the earth move under my feet,

I feel the sky tumbling down…

Patagonian Moments

Magellan Straits:

Is there anything as white as a seagull’s breast?

The Brookes Glacier creaks and growls as it shifts on its granite perch. Turquoise columns break off the glacier and thunder into the bay. Again and again. I watch in absolute wonder.

Our zodiac speeds past sculptures floating on the water’s steely surface.

I hear the mountain ridges proclaiming: We are. Impenetrable. Immovable. You are just passing through.

I learn the names of the hardy, local vegetation, adapted to this rugged climate: wild strawberry groundcover, berry bushes, mosses and gnarled beech trees of the Nothofagus family.

Beagle Channel and Darwin Cordillera:

Young, sleek seals frolic in successive arched leaps as if imitating dolphins.

The total whiteness of the Darwin Cordillera overwhelms. It is home to over six hundred glaciers.

 A full, yellowy moon glimmers in our wake as we navigate through the last of Glacier Alley.

Cape Horn Island:

One hundred and sixty steps to climb to the plateau, a palette of yellow, ochre, beige and green vegetation: tall grasses, robust shrubs, moist mosses.

On this mild morning, it’s difficult to imagine the force of the wind that ripped in two the steel albatross monument dedicated to shipwrecked sailors.

An albatross parallels our ship, its long, outstretched wings narrow and regal.

Torres Del Paine National Park:

Our first fauna encounter: two green and red charanga parrots peeking out of their tree house home- in- a-hole.

Glacier-carved peaks towering over teal blue Lake Nordenskjold contrast sharply with the bleached bones of skeleton forests we pass through. The extent of the stark landscape devoured by a man-made forest fire shocks. The recuperating shrubs and grasses spark hope.

Climbing to the Condor Lookout, I breathe in the fragrances of the vegetation enhanced by last night’s rain.

Estancia Tercera Barranca sheep ranch (east of the Park):

We joggle and bounce along the dirt road winding through the wide expanses of pampa – tufts of beige grass and prickly tough black shrubs.

 Sheep graze behind fences that pose no obstacle to the long-legged guanacos. Rocky bluffs rise in the distance.

The lights of the Estancia (sheep ranch). Nancy shows us our room, puts more logs on the fire in the living room and explains that the generator is turned off at eleven p.m. After that, no lights and no heat. It is a chilly night.

A stone path leads to the separate kitchen/dining area, warm and fragrant, where Carmen in a white chef’s hat serves us a savory salmon dinner with homegrown vegetables. Nancy and Carmen pamper us, the only two guests, and tell us their stories.

I've come to see the sheep and the gauchos, I tell them.

Oh, the sheep have been taken to another Estancia to be “bathed”, they explain, to be disinfected for ticks. Seeing my disappointment, they assure me the sheep will come back the day we leave.

The next day we pick our way through the prickly pampa shrubbery to climb a rocky bluff from where the pampa stretches endlessly in all directions.

Ready to leave the following day, I hear the shouts of the gauchos in the distance and run outside. Here comes what I’ve been waiting for – a moving wooly mass flows over a low rise, heading for its home pasture.

Listening to Glaciers

I just finished reading “The Lathe of Heaven” by Ursula Le Guin, my first excursion into science fiction. I decided to give a try to this genre after several visits to Mrs. LeGuin’s  blog, which inspired me to declare her as my blogger muse.

            The plot evolves on dual time tracks and alternate universes, leaving me perplexed. Mrs. LeGuin published the book in 1971, while the actual present of the story seems to occur in the early part of the second millennia, thus being in our past. Tenuous, permeable lines distinguish between present, past and future. This started me wondering about time. The present is now the past as I write, yet it was once the future.

            The story overwhelms with a plethora of man-made disasters: pollution, the greenhouse effect, continuous wars, overpopulation, famine and riots; and natural disasters: volcanic eruptions, plagues.  It’s frightening to accept that this scenario is our recent past and our present. Must our future be more of the same?

            Rain, thunder and lightning visited us some days ago. A welcome rain, but short-lived. In Chile’s dry, Atacama Desert region in the north, the driest in the world, entire small town neighborhoods were wiped out by sudden torrential rainfall and massive mud slides. While in the southern, water-deprived rainforests, a massive fire rages, requiring importation of firefighters from neighboring countries. Earlier in the month, the Villarrica Volcano flared up into a fiery eruption. All this in the month of March. It’s beginning to look like LeGuin’s world. I feel the future rushing towards us like a fast-moving train. World events reinforce that sensation.

            In the story’s present all the world’s mountains have lost their eternal snows, even Mount Erebus, an active volcano in Antarctica.  Soon hubby and I are heading to Patagonia where we’ll cruise the gelid fjords flanked by receding glaciers, amidst ice floes and marine wildlife. The Darwin cordillera alone has at least six hundred glaciers, some still unnamed.  I hope Ursula LeGuin was mistaken in her vision of a future with bare, glacier- less mountain ranges. If this excursion could take me into a science fiction world, I might be able to hear the glaciers whisperings and advice on their preservation.

I will pay close attention.

More Loose Change or

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The hummingbirds are back in town. Strange that they leave during the summer months. I wonder where they go. Maybe, like so many Santiaguinos, they’re escaping the heat.

Out on my walking route, ads on posts proclaiming “Perro Perdido”. How many dogs get lost just in our neighborhood! Mug shots of missing pets change weekly.

Went to see the movie “Selma” last night. I needed to refresh my memory about those events. Then I realized why I seemed to have a memory gap about those years….I was in Colombia in the Peace Corps then and had little contact with US news. It’s disturbing to me to think that was the situation in my country just fifty years ago. And it’s not over yet.

Fires rage out of control. Chile is living the consequences of climate change. Years of drought has converted much of the landscape, even in the normally rainy southern climes, into dry tinder, yellowed hills and fields replacing the once lush green ones. Now winds fan the flames through the hills of coastal Valparaiso, a tragedy that is becoming a yearly event. But amidst the fear and worry of hillside residents came moments of joy. Passersby noticed a burrow dug by a female dog under a pile of burning tires. A local man crawled in and, one by one, pulled out seven puppies of varying colors. Each rescued puppy elicited cheers from onlookers. They were then reunited with their clever mom who had taken cover beneath a container. A canine version of the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners?

The Lollapalooza rock festival came to town this past weekend. My son and his wife took their three young girls. Today – a Whatsaap photo of the ten-year-old twins performing at the Kidzpalooza, one singing before a microphone, the other playing the guitar. Wish I’d been there. Little teeny-boppers in the making. So soon.

Pierre Auguste Renoir said, “I like a painting that makes me want to stroll in it.” Oh, yes!

Loose Change

One night hubby and I clicked the numbers on the remote control hoping for a glimpse into the wonders of the natural world on NatGeo. Question marks appeared on the screen. We checked other nearby channels. Nada. Nothing. A message at the bottom of the screen informed us that the cable server had “rearranged” their grid of channels. Nobody consulted us. Where were our favorite channels? Just when we finally had the channel numbers engraved in our memories, they up and CHANGED them!

It’s like at the grocery store, when someone gets the brilliant idea to change the location of their products, and shopping takes an hour and a half instead of the usual hour. On my yearly visit back to my hometown, I head to a favorite shop and…it’s no longer there.

Slow changes, fast, surprising changes. Changes in our aging bodies. Stiffness getting out of the car. When did this happen?

The month of March charges in like a lion – not with cold or wind but with hordes of returning vacationers, massive traffic jams, Back-to-School frenzy and mind-boggling bureaucracy: income tax preparation and car license renewal. Yesterday I sat in a line for six hours to renew the yearly technical revision/smog control for my car. (My fault. I’d let it lapse.)

While I was stopped at a red light, a grizzled beggar approached wearing on his thin frame an over-sized blue tee-shirt with bright yellow letters declaring “Virginia State”. His eyes twinkled when he thanked me for the coins I handed him out the window.

Last week booming, house-rattling claps of thunder and flashes of lightning in the night. Usual in Florida but not in Santiago, Chile midsummer. Two nights ago the Villarrica volcano presented a pyrotechnic show, spewing red hot lava down its flanks. Add a few daily tremors up and down this long country and it’s clear why Chileans call their country the land of geografía loca, “crazy geography.