Hello, Again

Cue the end of a three-month hiatus:

And three, two, one...

Welcome back to my occasionally idyllic life in sunny Nicaragua. It is marginally painful to admit that I seem to have run out of new things to share in these pages. Day to day, tranquility tends to be dull, I daresay. Not to mention two resolutions for the new year that are ,amazingly, still in force as I write: to save serious money for a planned trip to Spain with my son next year; and to lose some serious poundage to ensure that I will be energetic and healthy enough for same. These two goals conspire to eliminate most occasions for socializing, dining out, investing in my surroundings with various garden or livestock projects, and any number of elements that filled this blog heretofore.

A sprinkler on a hot day is a welcome spot for grackles!

Still, there are topics of interest. For example, just as North America enters its spring season (not that anyone would notice, with four nor'easters!), we here in Nicaragua observe the start of verano, summer, the hottest period in the calendar year. Arguably, there are two seasons here, dry and rainy. But people here also acknowledge a winter season - invierno - which occurs around August through December, as far as I can tell, characterized by cool nights and mornings, and lots of rain. It is never actually cold. Otoño is the word for autumn, but I'm damned if I know when it is. July, perhaps?

At the moment, in high dry season, the lawn is becoming crunchy, and the deciduous trees have shed their leaves. The rain should return in May, with new greenery and cooler temperatures. Blooming banks of bougainvillea occur year round, and just this week, trees in the central park of San Marcos burst into riotous flower. Well, two days ago it was riotous. After a windy spell, most of the blossoms ended up on the ground this morning.

My beautiful shepherd Mitzi proved able to escape the garden fence, and reluctantly, I bought a 6-meter chain. It was wretched, seeing her tethered to the porch, but I simply could not risk having her end up as road kill on the PanAmerican Highway. I looked for a solution, and found it in the home of a recently retired couple from California, great walkers both, who wanted a sturdy companion. It's still early days, but I hope she has taken to her new home. I miss her galumphing presence, and the house seems so much bigger without her.

And I miss my chickens. Despite my Christmas morning adventure, I am thinking of buying a new flock of laying hens. Will think on it a little longer...

Merry Freaking Christmas

Ghosts of Christmas Past bring memories of my large family lining up at the top of the stairs while our dad went down ahead to plug in the tree lights and exclaim "Oh, my!" and "Wonderful!" at the tremendous bounty of Santa's visit.  We would troop down the staircase in a riot of greed, tearing into the presents with abandon, and in ten minutes, the annual orgy would conclude in mixed sighs of satisfaction and "Is that all?"

Here in Carazo, my sister Mary Mary again shared her Christmas vacation with me, and we have enjoyed visits to Granada and Leon, and each other's company, with many cervesas and laughs together.

This morning, Mary Mary rose early and let out the dogs. She made coffee, as I slept on, until I heard her  say quietly, "Trish, wake up. I'm so sorry, but Mitzi went after your last chicken, and it's still alive and needs to be put out of its misery. With your machete, maybe? And Merry Christmas." My young German Shepherd has a sort of sweet tooth for live chicken, as previously noted. My sister was upset. She had heard the clucking commotion, and had seen the apparently lifeless bird on the porch, only to approach the poor thing and see it suddenly stand up, a large chunk of feathered breast dangling ominously.

"Okay, I'll do it," I said. I put on my shoes and went out to kill my last egg layer, a beautiful, sweet chicken I had dubbed "Soledad," after her five sisters met their own bloody end at the jaws of Mitzi.

In the dim light of dawn, I took the machete and aimed it toward the scrawny neck of the trembling bird and took a whack. "Oh, God!" Oh, no!" The chicken flapped and scrabbled about until Mary Mary took a shovel and pinned it to the concrete porch floor. I took a few more whacks until I was sure the head was clearly separated from the mutilated body, and my sister held down the flopping hen until it stilled. The deed done, Mary Mary brought buckets of water to rinse away the evidence of our Christmas morning execution.

Soledad had flown the coop, as they say. The coop door was still latched, and no one is to blame, except maybe Santa, who somehow missed my chimney-less roof. Today, we head to Managua for Christmas dinner with my poet friend Ivan and his family. We'll stay the night, and then tomorrow, MM heads back to Pennsylvania to bring in the new year.

I guess I really do need more chickens like a hole in the head. Rock on, 2018.

And Then There Were, Well, Hardly Any

Shortly after posting my last blog entry, I took a nap one day during the afternoon . When I awoke, I headed outside to refill the various water bowls for dogs and chickens, as is my usual wont. At first, I did not notice the unnatural quiet. No bird calls, no squawking from the egg nest, no barking... I stopped and stared at the lawn, over which were strewn bits of brown fluffy bits I recognized after a few moments as chicken feathers. I looked toward the hen house and saw, to my horror, that the door was open. It was empty, except for the closed off portion where the little black hen and her sole remaining peep were housed, along with the two pullets left from the original eight. My beloved layers were nowhere in sight, save for small clumps of feathers here and there.

On closer inspection, those clumps turned out to be whole wings, tatters of feathered skin, feet... chicken parts everywhere. I looked at Mitzi, whose bloodstained jowls told the story. Brynn, the corgi, had napped with me, and Susie had never bothered loose chickens before. My heart broke for my dismembered hens. I was doubtless to blame for carelessly leaving the coop improperly latched, but I was also furious with Mitzi, whose grim efficiency in dispatching the chickens raised no obvious hue and cry to disturb my sleep.

I walked over the yard, numbly collecting leftover chicken parts, and chanced upon a lone survivor cowering in some shrubbery. She seemed almost grateful to be picked up and stroked as I walked her back to the chicken coop. Mitzi's pricked ears and eager stance signaled her willingness to finish the job, and I wondered if I could ever feel the same affection for her again. The brute had destroyed my lovely chickens, no matter that I had bought her to be just that, a brute to ensure my security.

Later, I reflected that the people who had bred Mitzi are in the chicken business, and they regularly feed their dogs the raw carcasses left after butchering the chickens for sale to restaurants. Of course  Mitzi saw my hens as meals, and when they strolled through the open door, she just picked them off.

Lonesome Soledad

This morning, one of the two remaining pullets was dead. I saw no signs of violence. I must be becoming inured to this constant death. My lone layer, now called Soledad, keeps laying and scratching and clucking as if all is well, and who knows if the scrawny pullet or the little hen and peep will survive. I have forgiven Mitzi for being herself. She really is growing into a beautiful Shepherd.

Mitzi , at seven months, is now the largest of the trio, shown here sitting politely for treats in the kitchen.

Some people who rescue abused animals stopped by today to ask if I minded boarding an unfortunate horse in the land surrounding my fenced garden. I said it was not my property, but if the landlord did not mind, I did not either. They showed me a picture of a skinny, pathetic white horse, and I expect they'll be bring him by any time now. I hope he doesn't keel over, too.

Miracle Metal?

Clearly, though the chicken coop could keep the chickens in, it could not keep the predators out. The word “zorro” seems to comprise any number of smallish predators, like foxes, skunks, lizards. If you lose a chicken, the word is dolefully murmured by all who hear about it. So whatever my zorro is, it apparently is not deterred by the mere appearance of a secure fence.

Here in Nicaragua, as in many tropical underdeveloped countries, corrugated metal is the primary construction material for many projects. And there is always plenty of rusty scrap metal around. Most of the scrap used to be roofing, but a rusty hole here and there requires replacement with new, and the original panels live on in other useful incarnations. It ain’t pretty, but that has never deterred a soul from using it to create an outhouse or outdoor shower, a dog house, or a water pump housing,

such as this, installed in my yard after a storm knocked out the pump’s motor. Jonathan built it entirely from scavenged materials. Can you believe it?

After the aforementioned massacre of half my new octet of half-grown peeps, Jonathan not only found me a little hen with three pollitos,

She's smaller than a football, and her comb is black! Mighty Mo and her babies.

but also went to work yesterday morning to try and varmint-proof the chicken coop.  As you can see, corrugated metal that used to be part of my roof has been stylishly refashioned to block any and all access points, save for the hinged door.

Jonathan thinks he has succeeded, and this morning, although all peeps were present and accounted for, the drama continued. It seems Mo, the mother hen (her peeps are Eeny, Meeny, and Miney),  is a total bully to the larger peeps, and they had to shelter in a hole in the hay, with no access to food and water. Now, Mo and her brood are in the dog carrier, awaiting a solution when Jonathan returns on Monday. I hope we have enough scrap metal on hand...

The Massacre survivors huddling in the corner.

You may also conclude that this scrap metal bears much responsibility for the shabbiness and makeshift appearance of so many barrios on the edges of towns and cities. Building codes are a luxury few can afford—that goes for curb appeal as well. I have a can of brown paint I’m going to open to try and disguise the rusty discoloration that now graces the chickens’ quarters. It will do little more than make it a bit less ugly, and if I didn’t love my chickens so much, I’d be tempted to chuck the whole thing. For now, I’ll have fingers and toes crossed that tonight, that old zorro—whatever it is—has met its match.

P.S. Tue. morning
Mo and brood are still in dog box; discovered two more dead peeps in the coop this morning. They were not torn up or mangled, but there had clearly been a violent scuffle. What is doing this? A snake? Rats? And are either of the last two survivors even female?

I cannot pour endless money into this hapless enterprise. Plus, last week, one of my cherished six layers got out of the coop (mea culpa) and was killed by Mitzi while I was asleep in the afternoon. A learning moment for both Mitzi and me, but this steady drumbeat of death is exhausting and utterly depressing. Johnathan could build a wood and mesh impervious container in which to raise peeps to adulthood, but that is another $100 or more. My eggs already cost about $1 apiece!

Well, I wouldn't bet a dime on the chance the remaining peeps will reach adulthood.

Friday Night Massacre

Nothing like a loaded word like "massacre" to overstate the latest life and death incident at Chez Gringa. And yes, of course it involves chickens.

When my sextet of egg-layers showed signs of diminishing production, I bought some peeps at the veterinary store and turned them over to Maria José's 10-yr.-old son Alfonzo to raise until they fledged. The eight peeps turned out to be six hens and two roosters, and this past Friday, MJ and Jonathan brought the youngsters to their new home in Juanita's former digs in the chicken coop. Juanita, I am sorry to say, went to her eternal reward, thanks to a fox or other varmint who beheaded her about a month ago. The chicks were nicely fledged, and as motley as is normal here in Nica. The largest was black and white-striped, mainly Plymouth Rock, I imagine. Three were whitish, and the others were brownish and orangish and black. Mutts all.

I planned to take some photos of my eight new arrivals on Saturday, but when I went out to the coop, I found only four chicks. Some predator had made off with the other four, squeezing under the fencing, no doubt. Just like that. Half the flock gone. That evening, I moved the dog carrier into the coop and locked up the survivors until morning, and now they seem no worse for the trauma of Friday night. Here dey is:

As luck would have it, all four victims were hens, which nets me two out of eight for my massive

investment. I must go to Niquinohomo to buy some pullets, as I did when I bought my current layers.

Hurricane Nate blew down the chayotera -- a framework for supporting chayote vines that yield that green pear-shaped soup vegetable that is ubiquitous in Central America. Roger and his machete went to work over the weekend and now I have a nice new trellis. New plantings come in tomorrow, and with luck, in six months it will be a leafy bower.

Mitzi, at six months, is almost full-sized. She is a leggy tween, gallumphing all over de place, full of life and perpetually hungry, and now, the biggest dog on campus.

Can You Spare a Cordoba?*

The summer has given way to autumn without a cessation in the utter sloth that has been my guiding principle for nearly four months. There remain many topics to be addressed in these pages after more than two years in my adopted country. Yet, my days seem to drift by in such beguiling tranquility that I feel no compelling reason to go out, save for the usual food shopping and my twice-weekly visits to the Academic Support Center at Keiser U. nearby. My steady diet of (mainly) English literature has had George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Graham Greene, and Richard Aldington on the recent menu.

*****

I am moved today to write a line or two about begging. I do not see a lot of it on my forays into Diriamba and Jinotepe, or even Managua. No more, surely, than one encounters on an average street in any North American city,  This is a country with incredible poverty, though, where even able-bodied people can find it impossible to obtain jobs that pay more than subsistence wages. Most of the individuals I see with an upturned palm are blind or missing limbs, or elderly and infirm. There are zero jobs for them; how else may they keep body and soul together?

During my first year here, I made several visits to the Department of Immigration in Managua. It's a big space, with numerous numbered windows to serve people wanting exit visas, emigres like me who want residential status, and visitors who want temporary visas. There are sometimes long lines, and there are a couple of people who work the lines of standees, looking for donations. One is a very old tiny toothless lady, to whom I regularly gave something. My lawyer, who usually accompanied me to Inmigración, conjectured that she might be comfortably well-off, as numerous persons cross her palm with folding money. I doubt it, but I don't mind the thought that she may do pretty well, in fact.

There are a couple of legless men in Diriamba who sit in particular doorways, with cups in hand. They do not beg, per se, there is no murmured verbiage or longing looks. Their obvious disabilities speak for them, and they do all right, I think. In this land of people who must juggle expenses and regularly do without, I have been impressed with the number who give what they can to these disabled neighbors. Spend a minute or two on the opposite corner, and you'll see nearly every passerby drop a coin or two.

There's an elderly woman who regularly stations herself at the door of the supermarket in Diriamba. She has no cup, and does not actually ask for money, but it is clear that she is needy. I always give her something, quickly, unnoticeably. She is my sister, I think. I'm the lucky one. There but for my pension and Social Security go I. And this kind of basic need is not grounds for social shunning. It happens to all kinds of people, and if there is no safety net, reasonable people must try to offer support.

I have traveled abroad and been warned about responding to beggars on the steps of some big church or at a famous attraction where tourists congregate. Throngs of beggars are unnerving and scary, really, and I can understand why we're advised not to encourage them. But somehow, when I see the quiet, rather reserved behavior of unfortunate individuals for whom there is no alternative but to accept assistance, I want to be on the side of being helpful. I actually budget for it.

In Nicaragua, I have learned that over-paying (i.e. giving a bicicleta driver 20 cordobas rather than the 10 he asked) is both smug and insulting. But I also understand that even little donations, offered with respect and simple human caring, can be the difference between sleeping well or hungry.

* At present, the cordoba is worth about three cents.

My Current Crush

The immortal Samuel Johnson has enjoyed perhaps the most robust afterlife of any other human being in history, thanks to the labors of his great friend and biographer James Boswell. I daresay most educated people know some of Johnson's oft-quoted witticisms, perhaps without knowing whom to credit. 

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." 

"I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read."

Or one of my favorites:

"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone 

who can do him absolutely no good."

We are indebted to Mr. Boswell not only for carefully recording so much of Johnson's wit and wisdom, but also for preserving the character and substance of the great man himself, his essence. And one need only peruse a few pages of Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language to grasp the vastness of his prodigious reading history.

My present absorption with Sam Johnson is that after nearly more than five decades of somewhat cobwebby awareness of Boswell's masterwork, I am actually reading the thing that has been called the great-granddaddy of all biographies, certainly the standard-setter for the genre for the past 225 years.  I do not know why it has taken me so long. I actually bought my copy some years ago, and I expect the small print and the gravity of its pedigree, in both subject and author, were intimidating.

It needn't have put me off. The book is a complete delight, interlacing the events of Johnson's storied career as an essayist, literary critic, lexicographer, and raconteur with verbatim accounts of conversations with the great man. The narrative is so delicious and compelling that I feel almost like an intimate of Johnson, along with Boswell and other members of the literary club that generated so much of the book's wit. It is a rare delight, to be carried along in the company of great minds, as I was also when reading Goethe's Italian Journey.

The descriptions and observations of Johnson by Boswell recreate a lively personage; I note that in film and BBC productions, Johnson has been played by Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid in Harry Potter films) and Peter Ustinov. I would cast Timothy Spall, another of the great, unpretty British character actors who fill the screen with the force of personality. And I have been further delighted to learn that Sam Johnson and I have much in common! We both have only one usable eye, are prone to melancholy (depression, in today's parlance), dress appallingly, cannot suffer fools, and read widely, guided only by the moment's appetite. Indeed, Johnson said that if one reads by design or plan, for the purpose of gaining specific knowledge, as we do in college, for example, we read with only 50% of our minds, as the other 50% is busy keeping us to the task at hand.  Clearly, Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson is a book to engage 100% of one's attention. Why did I wait so long?