What we've worn, never to be worn again When Stew and I moved down from Chicago some twenty years ago, the packing began in an orderly fashion, boxes clearly labeled and sealed—books, tools, kitchen utensils and such—but we were nowhere finished when the crew from United Van Lines showed up. The pace of the packing …
A cluck-cluck here and a cluck-cluck there Several years ago, Stew and I came upon a traffic accident we didn't quickly forget. A semi-truck filled with what must have been hundreds, maybe thousands, of chickens caged in wire compartments had just overturned and its load had turned into a bloody pile of dead and wounded …
When you live in the country, driving home on a lonely road after dark is scary. Sometimes it makes us wonder why we didn't pick a place in-town to live, easily accessible by an Uber or kind friends who would take us home. No, we're not afraid of roving narcotraffickers, highway robbers, bandidos or other …
Served with sides of racism and xenophobia about immigration If we all could get past the sheer lunacy of Trump's assertion that Haitian immigrants eat the dogs and cats of people of Springfield, Ohio, or destroy the local economy, this could be a propitious moment for both parties to inject some rational, fact-based thinking 0n …
The Republican run for the White House turns even uglier Kamala Harris hasn't yet been formally nominated as the Democratic Party's candidate for president but the mud-slinging already has begun. A 2021 rant by JD Vance, now the GOP vice-presidential candidate, has resurfaced that targets Kamala Harris, Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and Secretary of Transportation Pete …
What we've learned from the dogs that visit us daily When we bought the land for the ranch about 15 years ago, even before we began construction nine months later, a motley welcome wagon of "campo dogs" began coming to visit and indeed never left. Their numbers varied and sure, at first this bony, flea-bitten …
Offer critters shelter and they will come When we bought our three-hectare ranch (approximately seven-and-a-half acres) about 13 years ago, the land had been ravaged by nature and man, the victim of decades of erosion and overgrazing. We decided to let two-thirds of the land lie fallow, a gesture that in current eco-speak in Britain …
Are the usual pieties of putting an animal "out of its misery" sometimes self-serving? Stew and I seem to be on a sad streak lately in the pet department. Our Alpha dog Lucy died about eighteen months ago, quietly and I should add mercifully, because she spared us the decision of having to put her …
El Rancho Santa Clara 