Got Berries?

One of the main reasons we love being in Oregon in the Spring is the joy of berry picking. This year the strawberry season started June 2nd at one of our favorite fruit farms, Baggenstos Farms; we were there at 9am. After several very hot days, today was slightly overcast with a hint of sprinkles so we were lucky.

Here we are with 5 pounds of strawberries, and that doesn't count whatever we ate while picking!
We have enough to eat and share until the next trip.

Happy as Clams

Of course I am talking about us, happy as clams clamming, not about the poor little clams. Bryan was raised on this stretch of beach and followed his mother out as soon as he could carry a shovel. This is fun for us.

For some reason the low tides for the best clamming usually occur on some dark and rainy early morning. That doesn't stop us. We used to use the traditional shovel method but last year we gave in and now use a "clam gun." This misnamed tool is a large pvc tube, closed at one end by a handle but with a small hole next to the handle. When you insert the gun near a likely clam "hole" and cover the small hole with your thumb, a vacuum causes the sand and, hopefully a clam, to be sucked from the sand.


Our haul: the limit is 15 razor clams per day on one license. Guess who doesn't dig clams?

Wednesday Weekly Walking

Photo by Jane of Sherwood Merry Walkers

Within a few days of our move to Oregon several years ago, our friends Anila and Nere invited us to join them in a weekly walking group. Anila is in the black jacket, two to the left of my orange jacket and Nere is over her right shoulder. Note that I am the only one wearing gloves, wimp that I am about cold weather.

This group is part of a larger organization, American Volkssport Association, which sponsors walking clubs throughout the US. Our Wednesday group is informal and the number of walkers varies each week, although the distance of the walk is always 10k, or about 6.2 miles. The reward is that we always end near some pleasant, not too expensive, restaurant for lunch.

We are not walkers by AVA standards. The majority of the conversations involve meeting the club challenges of walking in all the state capitals or towns that have bridges or rivers or museums or whatever. Since we aspire to none of the above and we just enjoy the walks, we chat about other things and get to see interesting parts of the Portland area on our way.

We should get these people to walk on the hills and cobblestones of San Miguel. Now that is a challenge!

Musings on Mexico

We're back in Oregon now, settling in to the chilly rain and looking forward to a warmer afternoon to begin planting my community garden box, seen here from our kitchen window. I can guarantee you the view will improve by mid-summer!

Each time we are welcomed home it comes with the question, "Did you feel safe?" It is a strange question because of course we felt safe or we wouldn't have stayed. We live in a difficult to reach section of central Mexico where there are drugs, of course, but not an easy through route for trafficking to the north. There are far more problems along the coasts, along the border towns and north of the border on the drug routes, even up through Oregon.

This blog, Regarding Mexico: Biased News, Half-Truths Fuel Paranoia, from Salon.com discusses the media frenzy to make Mexico the scary enemy. Also a part-time resident in Mexico, the author discusses what she calls the "toxic cauldron media blitz" that Americans are being served, stressing that what is happening now in Mexico is non-random acts of violence which do not target tourists in general or Americans specifically. Take a minute, if you will, to read her thoughts on this.

Nuestro Señor de la Columna

At exactly midnight of the fifth Sunday of Lent, a solemn lamp and torch-lit procession leaves the town of Atotonilco and makes a 7 mile journey bearing the statue of Nuestro Señor de la Columna, shrouded in multiple layers of beautiful scarves, into San Miguel de Allende. I know it is midnight because we can hear the first of the fireworks which accompany the procession in the distance.
This morning, amid even more fireworks, we arrived at Ave. Independencia before light to meet the crowds streaming into town. Many residents of the neighborhoods had been up all night spreading fragrant sprays of fennel and chamomile on the streets and decorating the walls, trees and street with multi-colored fresh and paper flowers, purple and white balloons and crepe paper streamers.
Detailed religious images were created with colored sawdust in the middle of the street for the procession to walk on.
These beautiful columns, erected by one neighborhood, were made of stiffened cheesecloth with wood frames.
Arriving at the outskirts of town, the statue of the suffering Jesus and the accompanying statues of St. John and the Virgen of Dolores (Sorrowful Virgin Mary) are carefully unwrapped from their protective shrouds and carried through the streets, accompanied by Roman Centurions.
The pole on the right in the photo is actually a paint roller rod with an extension used to raise any low-strung streamers so the statures can pass underneath. They end up at the church of San Juan de Dios where the statues remain until Easter Wednesday when another procession returns them to their glass cases in the Shrine of Atotonilco.
This procession began in 1812 in an effort to stop a plague that threatened San Miguel's population. In 1823, the statue of Nuestro Señor de la Columna was commissioned to request a miracle and has been carried nearly every year since.

Spring has Sprung in SMA

You know it is Spring because the children are converging on the center of town waiting for the Spring Parade. Every little bee, butterfly, elf, fairy, farmer and, yes, scarecrow, is out and about.
Makeup is applied,
last minute adjustments are made,
and straight lines are attempted with the help of holding a rope.
They're off...


I'm not sure what medieval ladies and knights have to do with spring but this couple seem content.
I think this little guy is the Twittering bluebird
Sorry, that's all of the sweetness until next spring.

Fun with Trasteros

Last week we drove to a particularly handicrafty grouping of towns around Lake Pátzcuaro in the state of Michoacan. Our goal was to buy two carved wooden shelves, or trasteros, in the traditional Mexican style. These shelves are used for storage in the kitchen or dining room.

Entering the woodworking village of Cuanajo, we saw several being loaded into a truck. The charming driver, who was on his way to a larger town to sell them, insisted on unloading some for our perusal. Here are Yoli and Bryan supervising.

We bought two but Yoli wanted a different style. The driver left his loading crew by the road while he drove with us around town to peer into sawdusty workshops trying to locate one with a fish motif.

We were successful but the search took nearly an hour. When we asked the young man why he was being so helpful, he explained that he had lived and worked in Texas for several years and really appreciated the help he got from Americans there.


Here are our two purchases with their legs cut off, painted to go with our house, and hung to display some of my plates. Are we in Mexico yet?