Ranger Félix, our gardener with the X-ray vision and the quadraphonic hearing, has spotted several mockingbird nests all over the ranch. Stew says he saw one out the shower window too. Their vast repertoire of songs and trills is in the air right now, this being the mating and nest-building season, when the males seek …
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Are we ready to memorialize Trump's presidency?
With only 18 months left in his first term—though many of his supporters fervently look forward to a second—it's not too early to do some preliminary thinking about how Donald Trump's exciting presidency will be publicly commemorated.The Jockey shorts would be particularly distracting in a presidential portrait. When presidents leave office plans are drawn at least …
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When does populism become authoritarianism?
Except for the gasoline crisis a couple of months ago, I must confess that I have not followed the performance of Mexico's new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (popularly known as AMLO) since he took office earlier this year.The avalanche of political news from the U.S. pretty much eclipses what goes on here—at least from …
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Fifo the Cat says: Demasiado calor
This won't come as news to anyone who lives in San Miguel, but it's been hot, borderline miserable here for the past two weeks. I don't care if it's hotter in Houston or New Orleans. I live here, not there.All winter we had to listen to people in Chicago, New York and Boston moaning about …
After the fall: Yoga
Lying on a hospital bed several weeks ago, following my horseback accident, the first thing I thought was, "Well, this really sucks!"Then Stew and I agreed this debacle might well be a omen, among other things, pointing the way back to some sort of exercise regimen to help me mend whatever damage was done to …
An afternoon at the opera
"Dilettante" is a word that may have been coined to describe Stew's and my knowledge of opera, which is about a yard wide and a sixteenth-of-an-inch deep. Yes, we're familiar with the one about the bullfighter and the cigar maker; and the other one about Egyptians and Ethiopians. But that's pretty much it.But thanks to …
Study: Too many vegetables will make you nuts
May is the time of the year when, despite the relentless dry weather, vegetables start erupting from the garden faster than we can figure what to do with them. And we haven't even reached Tomatomania yet, which starts around June.Cornucopias are overrated.It's a problem easily avoidable, except for people like Felix and me: The solution …
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Ah, those adorable expats of San Miguel
I've seen this VW Bug around town before, but never talked with the owner who, I've been told, is Canadian. This time his creation was on the parking lot of the Mega supermarket.Can't tell you what his schtick might be: Irrepressible creativity? A deep-seated craving for attention? Hippie flashback?Or about some of the logistics: How …
Queen for less than a day
During these bleak days toward the end—or so we fervently hope—of the dry season, when the landscape looks like it's never to going green up again, cacti and succulents step up to brighten our sagging spirits with their unexpected and lavish blooms. And you'd best be ready with your oohs and aahs, and camera, to …
Uncle Vlad and his unsinkable Russkies
Last week I finished Adam Higginbotham's Midnight in Chernobyl, a thrilling, if at times technically dense, account of the world's greatest nuclear disaster, just in time to tune in the first installment of an HBO documentary on the same subject. Such are the benefits of all that spare time offered by retirement.Chernobyl, officially the V. I. …
El Rancho Santa Clara 