September 29, the feast of St. Michael the Archangel is marked in bold letters in San Miguel's religious calendar. No surprise there: The town is named after that feisty angel.Except for celebrations surrounding Holy Week, it's the biggest event of the year among the faithful, and even among those who score only más o menos …
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Living the American dream in Mexico
As deep as you may get into the heart of Mexico, hundreds of miles from the U.S. border, reminders of America follow you everywhere.Tee shirts trumpet American products and in some cases totally inappropriate American slang.You might see a very proper-acting middle-aged woman with "HOT MAMA!" emblazoned across her tee shirt. You wonder: Does she …
Las Pozas in the time of the butterflies
One of several spring-fed pools ("pozas") at Edward James's phantasmagorical jungle retreat. Hush and listen carefully. You may hear Edward James' snickering, giggling and even belly laughs coming from the myriad moldy crevices, rotting vegetation and crumbling concrete creations at his surrealist jungle retreat of Las Pozas. He started building it in 1945 and kept adding …
Design changes
The Google blogger machine presents you with infinite design and layout possibilities. Or if not quite that many, enough to leave you cross-eyed. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours picking a new set of elements that I think make this blog cleaner-looking and easier to read. I hope it works.Aside from changing the appearance …
Gobble-gobble on the range
On the way to town this morning Stew spotted a group of turkeys working their way diagonally through a field next to our ranch, pecking, pecking, pecking the ground for any trace of seed, worms, weeds or whatever turkey crave. At first we thought it might be a flock of wild turkeys, but then we …
A river of flowers
Rain has been scarce this year but that hasn't completely stopped the annual wildflower display around the ranch. Clever survivalists they are, wildflowers instead have concentrated their blooming and reproductive efforts along drainage ditches, the edges of ponds and puddles with some water still in them, and anywhere else the reduced amount of moisture has …
Changó in San Miguel
As I coursed through the menu, somewhere between the baba ganoush and the falafel, she caught my eye.Her gaze was tranquil but the huge sword on her left hand also reflected strength and determination. The crown on her head, the flowing white robes and a small crenelated tower to her right in turn suggested royalty …
The lure of memories
Though neither one of us is an antique-y, living-in-the-past type, Stew and I somehow have become archivists for both sides of our family. At this stage our collection of family artifacts, documents and photos, which has survived several moves and the death of all of our parents, is both impressive and a bit strange.Stew has …
A year without cosmos
Except for a patch growing by our driveway it appears the Lady Upstairs may have cancelled the annual outburst of cosmos which in a good year covers countless acres of open land around San Miguel.The ones growing by the driveway, typically spindly and with flowers delicate as fine silk, attentively follow the sun as it …
Our not so big or fat Mexican wedding
Except for the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love" and other American romantic oldies wafting from a boombox resting on the counter--and the ear-to-ear smiles pasted on the couple's faces--you couldn't tell a wedding was about to take place.We were on the second floor of a largely empty shopping center that once housed a …
El Rancho Santa Clara 