Legends of the Mexican fall

Expats here sometimes muse nostalgically about the "changing of the seasons" back home, particularly autumn, when the leaves flip from green to shades of ocher almost overnight. In spring, nature then awakens and the landscape reverses to bright green; crocuses and other small harbinger bulbs peek tentatively out of the muddy ground and everyone goes …

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Nine reasons why the cold wave that grips San Miguel doesn't bother me that much

To hear folks in San Miguel groan and kvetch about the cold snap during the past several days you'd think we were at the dawn of a new Ice Age.Our cleaning lady showed up Monday seemingly mummified under numerous layers one of which might have been a blanket.The follicly challenged visiting minister at our church …

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When grasshoppers came to dinner

How do you maintain your ecological witswhen Mother Nature turns on you? We returned home after a couple of weeks traveling and Félix reported everything was fine, except for a not-so-minor detail: Our ranch is under attack by an overnight blitzkrieg of thousands, hundreds of thousands—millions for I all know—of chapulines or grasshoppers.I went out this …

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