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From Refuse to Reuse
Don’t believe what they say about newer being better. My home is equipped with appliances that are repaired and refurbished to be better than the original. When I was a new bride Wally told me not to throw away things that didn’t work anymore. An enthusiastic consumer, I never gave a thought to repair, always replacing the broken…
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Rose apples
Meet the rose apple: a delicious, lightly sweet, crisp fruit the size of a plum with the taste and perfume of a rose. Around the tropical world, rose apples are mostly eaten out-of-hand by children. They are seldom marketed. Wally planted two trees a few years ago and now we are enjoying their white, cheerleader…
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Meet Moochie the Poochie
Meet the newest member of our family – Moochie Carlson. I met him while leaving a restaurant in San Blas. As I was getting into my car I heard something crying and looked up to see a tiny little black and tan dog limping my way from under the car in front of me. He had…
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Hope in the new year…
New Year’s greetings from Slow Living Farm in Mexico! We hope all our friends and family had a joyous Christmas. Ours was a strange mix of joy and sorrow. We invited a young woman from Czechoslovakia and her two children to take refuge on the farm until she could find work and childcare. In the course of…
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Gifts for the giver…
Today we received many wonderful gifts for Christmas. Each year we spend Christmas morning delivering presents to the children who live on our road. They know we are coming. Their faces beam with excitement and happy anticipation. For most of the kids, these are the only presents they’ll receive all year. My favorite part of…
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Happy as clams…defined
Life on the farm is very smooth right now. All the chickens are safe. We have five babies running around, happy as clams. Where did that phrase come from? Most clams I’ve ever met are about to be eaten. Can being a meal bring us happiness? Anyone out there know? I’ve tried asking clams about…
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Up a teak…
Monk-ie boy! Reminds me of when we were building the house and living without windows, doors or screens or electricity. When the sun went down the mosquitoes feasted so we’d get under the mosquito net and stay there til morning talking about everything. We would check one another for ticks and joked about being monkeys. We were…
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More news from the pen
Hello this is Wally.After the last batch of posts I was starting to wonder if I was concentrating too much attention on the chicken part of our farm, but folks are always asking about our chickens so here goes. The Costa Ricana mother abandoned the last of her chicklets so we took over caring for…
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Advent in the slow-living lane…
Yesterday was the first Sunday in Advent. I love this season especially in Mexico because as the weeks approach Christmas you see the church interior blossom as in a time-delayed photography. The anticipation of Christmas builds slowly until finally on Christmas morning the altar is a full-blown manger scene with everything you can imagine including…
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Color magnet….
Sow rick-rack, get more rick-rack! A new friend, Carolina, who is a Huichol Indian made me a traditional Huichol skirt and blouse. The skirt is turquoise and the blouse is red and there are circles of rick-rack in blue, green and yellow around the skirt and blouse. It is a BIG dose of color. I…