The Democratic presidential primary is still a long ways off and at the moment it looks as disorderly as the proverbial herd of cats. But as a devoted voter—I've never missed a presidential election since I became a U.S. citizen in 1970—I have begun winnowing down the mob of presidential wannabes, even if my evaluations …
Author: Alfredo Lanier
My husband and I live on an off-the-grid ranch outside San Miguel, along with the challenging but dear company of four off-the-street dogs and three cats. My interests lie in politics, writing, photography and sundry forms of spirituality.
A rainy Sunday reverie
Late yesterday afternoon I was watering one of my garden beds, a chore which four months into the relentless dry season, challenged my patience and optimism.Surely, in six weeks or so—I said to myself—the rainy season will jolt the plants out of their brownish stupor and the ranch will bloom again.After a light dinner and …
Let's break out of our own political bubbles
While looking around for other blogs I ought to be following, I ran across one that I found both gripping and moving, written by a young Cuban woman, still living in the island, who offers grim vignettes of the day-to-day struggles of life in that country. A link to her blog, "Generation Y," appears on …
Continue reading Let's break out of our own political bubbles
Return of the killer heirloom tomatoes. We hope.
It's with a humble heart—not gloating, mind you—that I report, perhaps a bit prematurely, a looming bumper crop of five or six kinds of heirloom tomatoes plus lettuces, radishes, peas, carrots, beeets, string beans, chard, squash, cucumbers and other greens, here at the ranch.Sadly, this is happening while our friends in the U.S. and Canada …
Continue reading Return of the killer heirloom tomatoes. We hope.
Reader comments, lost and found, sometimes months after the fact
This morning I spent a couple of hours poking around the settings of Blogger.com, the platform for my blog, trying to determine where the reader comments were going. I've received numerous gentle complaints from readers that their comments were not being published, or that they couldn't figure out how to leave comments.I think I found …
Continue reading Reader comments, lost and found, sometimes months after the fact
Our campaign to restore a sliver of Mexico's nature
Once upon a time, say, 400 or 500 years ago, oaks—encinos—and other large trees, were said to grow on the mountains that punctuate the horizon surrounding our ranch, and on the nearby valleys. As the tops of the oaks reached for the clouds their roots dug deep into the ground to keep both the trees …
Continue reading Our campaign to restore a sliver of Mexico's nature
A giant step for Mexico's little brown people? Hold that applause.
Stew and I watch the Oscars, a day or two after they actually take place, with the invaluable aid of a recording machine that allows us to zoom past commercials, logorrheic acceptance speeches, clips of movies we've already seen and other time-wasters, and effectively condense the three-hour marathon of self-indulgence into a more bearable package, one …
Continue reading A giant step for Mexico's little brown people? Hold that applause.
My date with Lupita, the beachfront masseuse
Six months ago I was diagnosed with crepitus, an annoying but hardly fatal ailment. Perhaps because of arthritis, the vertebrae in my neck crick and crack, and as a result, muscles on the right side get sore. This should not be confused with decrepitus, at my age a far more widespread and insidious problem, particularly …
Continue reading My date with Lupita, the beachfront masseuse
Here comes da (Mexican) judge
The six-month legal battle to keep someone from stealing a strip of land in front our ranch has been instructive. It's taught us patience, that legal wrangles take time to resolve anywhere, and that pulling out your hair in desperation while waiting for a resolution is only going to get you bald spots. Also, it's …
One stiff, a mummy and a funeral
Early Tuesday morning, in front of a small abandoned building on the road to the town of Jalpa, a kilometer in from the junction with the highway between San Miguel and Querétaro, and four kilometers from our ranch, two bodies were found, one hogtied and neatly bundled in a blanket, mummy-like, and the other more …
El Rancho Santa Clara 