We haven't had any significant rain here for months, and that, in addition to a heat wave for the past couple of weeks, is making me doubt my own propaganda about San Miguel having the "perfect climate."It's been pretty miserable indeed, temperatures up in the low 90s. Not Baton Rouge, Houston or Phoenix miserable, mind …
Continue reading What is this? Summer, spring, early rains or what?
This blog doesn't often stray into the arts-and-crafts area, but Félix and I last week built this clay brick "condo" for our succulent collection that we're both really pleased with, and feel it deserves some celebration.We needed an attractive, and space-efficient way to display the burgeoning collection of succulents we've collected over the past three …
Continue reading A mid-rise condo for your collection of succulents
Old age is like a car turning over 150,000 miles; no matter how many times you've changed the oil or rotated the tires, things start going clink, clank and pfft. In older people, a sputtering memory is assumed to presage dementia. We fret about finding ourselves in the day room of a nursing home, drooling and …
Initially my interest in succulents and cacti (the latter a subset the succulent family) was mostly practical. The soil around here is very poor and rain comes only during a narrow, three- or four-month window; the rest of the year the landscape is bone-dry. Succulents seemed custom made for such harsh conditions, though I quickly …
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 …
"Grace" is a concept usually associated with theology, as in how God's grace saves sinful humans from eternal damnation. I look at it from a more earthly and ephemeral perspective: Unexpected, wonder-full moments of beauty open to us if we only take the time to pause, look and savor them. Maybe both ideas of grace …
Quiotes are us: The huge stalks of thetequila agaves appear suddenly, andjust as quickly shrivel up and vanish. Succulents do weird things, particularly when they decide to flower and set fruit, and none is weirder—or more impressive—than the display of the tequila agave or Agave tequilana, if you want to get botanical about it. It starts …
The spring solstice won't arrive until Tuesday at 10:15 a.m. but at the ranch we've been enjoying a spring greening since late February, thanks to the succulents, cacti and other xeric plants already blooming even though not a drop of rain is expected for several months.Longer days and warmer temperatures spur this spring hubbub. Shallow-rooted …
Continue reading Spring arrives early at the ranch and succulents and cacti lead the festivities
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 …
Continue reading Nine reasons why the cold wave that grips San Miguel doesn't bother me that much
It's time to plant now that the rains have finally arrived As Saturday Night Live's premier journalist Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, "It just goes to show you, if it's not one thing it's another." A month ago the ranch was tumbleweed-dry, the levels of the rainwater in the cisterns had dropped down to eighteen inches and brush …
El Rancho Santa Clara 