Some people have received an e-mail supposedly from me, directing people to a video in "Youtube". I didn't send any such thing, so don't open any link and just delete the message. Thanks.al
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Life without, or at least fewer, gringos
At the heart of the forbidding, fortress-like Biblioteca building in the center of San Miguel is the homey and beautiful Café Santa Ana, a colonial patio with a large tree and fountain in the middle. A few of the tables are under the open sky but most are protected by a high overhanging roof, and …
A trail of tiny chapels, part two
The ancient and tiny building, with no identifiable religious symbols, sat alone atop a barren, cratered hill, looking like an abandoned space station waiting for someone to arrive."¡Hola E.T., mi casa es tu casa!" Its weathered wooden door was shut tight with a large padlock. There were no holes or cracks that would let you peep …
When the babes come marchin' in
Photographing baby animals around the ranch is cheap but irresistible blog material. Félix the gardener found the little rabbit under a cactus, where it had been cornered by Lucy who spends her life going after rabbits but never catching any. Like dogs who chase cars, Lucy wouldn't know what to do if she actually caught one. …
The yearly cosmos festival is about to begin
Cosmos plants have sprouted by the tens of thousands and are beginning to cover even large rocks. Last year's display of wild cosmos flowers. The mostly cool, moist weather of the past few weeks has set off an explosion of vegetation all over the ranch, but the best is yet to come: Waves of pink cosmos flowers--hundreds …
Continue reading The yearly cosmos festival is about to begin
From ennui to anomie
Six years after moving here we've discovered an unexpected benefit to living in San Miguel, besides its near-perfect climate, colonial ambience and lower living costs: Insulation from the hailstorm of news--including "news", commentaries, extrapolations, speculation, pundit-fications, fear-mongering and sheer media noise--to which Americans back home are subjected every day.During the first several months in Mexico …
Trail of the Indian Chapels
As one travels around Mexico, urban areas and countryside alike, the overwhelming economic and cultural power of the Catholic church is inescapable. There are churches bumping into other churches, sometimes two or three on the same block, perhaps with a convent or school sandwiched in between. The churches vary in size and splendor but none …
Try the smut soup
Huitlacoche soup will be a hit at your next dinner party as long as you stick to its original name derived from Nahuatl, a Mexican indigenous language. American corn growers call huitlacoche, a fungus that develops in some ears of corn, "corn smut" and treat it as a pest. Other folk call it "corn fungus", which …
On the pulque trail
The pulque madonna of SosnavarSlowly emerging from her house, which is almost totally buried by dense vegetation, Doña María Ascensión at first seems like an apparition, a latter-day Virgin Mary coming out of a grotto to meet a supplicant. As she comes nearer, though, hers is not the ever-youthful face of a saint but a leathery …
Fire in the patio
At least until winter returns we have set up our breakfast headquarters in the front patio. It's a setting almost too pleasant if such a thing is possible. When the house was built we had connections built in from the amplifier in the living room to speakers in front patio and the back terrace, controlled …
El Rancho Santa Clara 