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 patches of hair missing, a badly broken leg and was hungry and very thirsty.  He looked up at me begging me to show him some mercy.  He became our dog as soon as our eyes met.  We already have 6 dogs so it's not an easy decision to add another.

The next day we took Moochie on a 2 hour drive to the vet in Tepic.  He checked  Moochie's leg and said it had been broken for a while and was already healed in place (about a 45 degree angle from straight).  I asked if he could re-break the leg and straighten it.  He said there was the possibility of nerve damage if he did.  He told us Moochie would adapt to walking on three legs and be just fine.  He gave him a worm shot and some shampoo for the skin problems.

Back home the other dogs weren't happy about the newest member of the pack.   They weren't really sure what it was.  The females nipped at him and let him know he wasn't needed or welcome.  The other dogs did their best to avoid him.  Moochie adapted right away and made himself at home.  He was oblivious of the other dogs' unwelcoming signals.   He was perpetually friendly and energetic.  Teething puppies bite everything.  Eventually Penny, our fluffy-not fat-chow-pitbull mix adopted him and became Moochie's own personal Beenie Baby.  Penny has rolls of fat in all the right places so Moochie can chew on her with out causing her a lot of discomfort.  She chews back in a very gentle way.

After a few baths Moochie's skin problems cleared up and now he has a beautiful, shiny, black coat.   We put him on a diet of hamburger, yogurt and fresh eggs with dry dog food when ever he wants it.

In the beginning Moochie had an darling little bark which sounded like: "Maf-maf."   It's becoming more adult-sounding.  He's changing before our eyes as babies do.  He delights us with his antics and we have taken lots of pictures to remember his puppy days.  He's already reached the big boy stage where he avoids mushy stuff like hugs and kisses.  You've got to get them while you can and he puts up with us.  

Moochie follows us everywhere:  up the stairs, down the stairs, all over the farm.  Along the way, a nice little miracle happened.  His leg became straight and there is no trace of the break.  He's perfect.

We're not sure what Moochie's lineage is. He's husky like a Rottweiler, but not quite a Rottweiler, so we've decided he's a Ratweiler, a breed of his own.


Where did we get the name Moochie?  It's a variation of "muchisimas!" And he is!
Wally

   

 

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 her living here we helped to care for her children while she worked for the gringos who live in the area.  We thought things were going well except that she never had money and her children weren't well cared for.  After a frighteningly sudden and violent sickness we discovered that she was an addict when we took her for emergency care.  We set down some rules in order for her to continue living with us and in the end she vanished with her children on Christmas eve.  All of her things are still here and we have not heard where she is.   Because we love them, we keep hope as our focus rather than fearing the worse for them.

We don't always get the "good" part in helping others and we never like it when we have to be the heavy, but one of the things we are learning is not to interrupt the lessons life is teaching.  By interrupt, I mean not rush in to "fix" things. The sooner we learn the better for everyone and no one is without effect on others.  During this difficult situation, we met many loving people who wanted to help, some of them as poor as the little family.  There is a strong unity on the side of good that is a marvel to witness.  That's a good thing to report in these times.

Despite the bombardment of bad news blaring from our satellite radio, where as Thomas Merton puts it:  "each day's disaster is the greatest announcement replacing the noise that went before it and yielding to the noise that comes after it so that eventually everything blends into the same monotonous and meaningless rumor", we deliberately resist the drone and actively hope for better things for ourselves and the world, and we notice that when we do everything moves in tandem as we exercise our hope.

Our farm is living proof.  Each year things get more beautiful, more productive, richer in every way.  Wally has expanded our collection of exotic tropical fruit trees further and everything is thriving.  Last year was a great year for mangos and soon our new mangosteen trees will produce their first fruits.  We continue to have volunteers from around the world.  Wally has refined his systems so that things run smoothly and efficiently.  We find there's not so much need for volunteers so after February it will be just the two of us.  We hope the change will leave us more time for personal projects.
 
We are hoping that 2010 will be all you hope it to be.  The psalmist says, "Constant has been my hope in you,"  Constant.  Hope in God and in goodness and be at peace ..constantly.

Love,
Wally & Amaranth

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 the day was a phone call we got at the end of the day.  Our friend Carol delivered a gift to a 4 year old boy that lives a few houses from her.  He's a sweet boy who entertains himself by making boats out of palm branches and string.   Whenever I'm working at Carol's he always comes over and sits with me asking a world of inspiring questions.  His parents are poor and live in the garage of an abandoned house.  I bought him a scoop loader that has a remote control and Amaranth wrapped it in pretty paper and ribbons.  When Carol gave him the present he was thrilled, jumping up and down.  This was the first wrapped present he had ever gotten.  He thought the box was the gift.  He was absolutely happy to have a pretty box.  Carol had to show him to unwrap the present and his eyes grew brighter as he realized the contents.  Boys love machinery.  He danced in circles and shouted with an uncontainable happiness as he waited for the toy to be freed from its wrappings.  He drove his little toy around forward and backwards, lifting and lowering the bucket, the amber light on top flashing.

When we first married we decided to create our own traditions and this is one them:  to celebrate Christmas by giving Christmas to the ragamuffin children in our lives.  The children give us the gift of wonder and innocent joy.  For Carol the neighbor-boy's sheer happiness was multiplied in her and that too was a gift to Carol.  When we're told it's better to receive than to give it's true.  Nothing can come close to it. 

Merry Christmas,
Wally & Amaranth

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 the experience but they just clam up.   What else can you expect from a clam.  We haven't been very generous with them up to now.  Why should they talk to us.   I don't eat clams.  I prefer peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  I might eat a clam if they went well with peanut butter and jelly.  Then again I think the whole point of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is that you don't have to kill anything to make one - nothing that breathes anyway.  The chickens asked me to put in that last remark.  We have standards here on the farm.  We do on occasion sneak down to the village and buy a whole barbecued chicken.  We shower thoroughly before entering the chicken pen,  hopefully removing all traces of chicken as food from our being.  I'm not up to having 60 knowing eyes staring at me.  Chickens have long memories.

We have Jamshed taking care of the gardens, including watering.   This clears up time for me to work on all the equipment that is waiting for my magical mechanical skills to put them back into working order.  I'm nearly finished with a Land Rover a friend gave me.  It was in sad shape.  I had to go through all of the wiring.  After that I removed the fuel injection, computers, etc and converted it to a carburetor  I also made my own distributor by combining the Land Rover distributor with a GM HEI distributor.  Enough tech talk.  Suffice it to say,  I can now work on it and best of all understand all it's mood swings.  There's two kinds of mechanics.  You have the modern day parts-replacers and the old fashioned mechanics who actually repair things and take pride in their work.  I'm the old fashioned kind.  Don't tell anyone -  I have enough to do.

The year is coming to a close and we're happy.  Every day we do what ever we want.  We eat wonderful meals.  Our freezers, cupboards and fridge are full of the wonderful things we grow here.  We have everything we need.  For Christmas this year were giving each other a poem.  That's what you get for someone who has everything.

In the past three years we've shared our home with over 100 WWOOfers.  We're ready to explore other ways of meeting like minded people.  We have a warehouse full of interesting stories the WWOOfers left us with.  In case you don't know.  WWOOfers are members of an organization with a really awful name.  I think it stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms.

We're looking forward to the coming year and all the adventures that await us.  We plan to do more exploring both inward and outward.  It's a great big beautiful universe we live in.  We wish you all well and hope you'll find the time to come visit us sometime.

To all of the above I say Amen and good night.  
 

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 just married and there was a lot of things from our past to process together and many hopes to re-shape to our shared life.  We were alone without obligations to family or friends and we were sharing a big project.  It was a good environment for growing as one.  It made us think of monastic life because it was barren of the things of the world and all things familiar, and it was centered around a simple life style with a single focus - us.  We joked that we were not monkeys but monk-ies.  Still are...

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 it by bringing it in at night to sleep in a basket.  They need warmth.  Each day we'd take it out to join the rest of the flock to peck around.  One evening  it was trying to get up to the nesting perch with the rest of the chickens.  I lifted it up and put it into a nest.  We watched as it jumped up on a lower perch and scootched over to a young chicken we call "the runt".  The runt eyed it suspiciously at first but allowed the baby to snuggle up against her.  We were happy and thought it would be nice for the runt to have a companion to be with at night since she normally stayed alone on the fringe of the flock.  Later when I checked the runt had taken the chicklet under her wing in a most loving  and grown-up way.  We went to bed feeling relieved that the two had bonded. In the morning Amaranth discovered the chicklet on the ground with the runt standing guard beside it.  Amaranth brought the chicklet into the house to warm it.  I put it on my chest and talked to it trying to stimulate it from lethargy.   After a little time it raised its head peeping excitedly and then slowly settled into its final rest.  We've seen this before in other chicks we've cared for.  Someone told us that his father who had been in a coma woke up and said he was going across the street to get a piece of pie and then he died.  Makes you wonder.  Some say animals don't go to heaven.  I say why not.  There's plenty of room.

We had two other mothers hatch out more babies.  Two of them came tonight.  Amaranth went out to check on things and found them on the ground peeping.  She deposited them under their mother.  Life goes on.

We've been having a lot of rain lately which is rare for this time of the year.  We're glad for it but it postpones our plans for planting.  You learn to adjust on a farm.  All the regularly scheduled events go out the window when mother nature changes her mind.

We've added 17 new fruit trees to our collection:   Durians, the stinky fruit which tastes heavenly, and  miracle fruits which have the magical ability to temporarily change your taste buds so that sour things are magically sweet and sweet things sweeter, also a curry leaf tree and several more varieties of mangosteens, and a brazilian cherry.  There's a world of wonderful exotic fruit trees out there.  This farm is becoming a Noah's Ark of trees - two of every fruit tree on earth!  Every time I look around and think we have no more room I find a nook or cranny just perfect for one more tree.  We've also removed a few trees in favor of diversity.
We keep a careful caring eye on everything noting the needs and making adjustments.  We are enriched by the process of husbanding just as the trees and plants are.  Plants move at a different pace than us but their response to care is so rewarding.

The vegetable gardens are coming along too.  Each year we move things and mix things around, try new varieties.  We are looking to make things better and more harmonious for all.

Well it's late for me and sleep awaits.    Wally

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 chickens, ducks, geese, goats, dogs, stragglers, ragamuffins, Christmas trees, flashing lights, kings, angels and Jesus - all the ordinary everyday things along-side the extra-ordinary.

Advent is about waiting. Not the kind of waiting that makes you tired and anxious to race to nowhere, frantic to control, consume. Advent-waiting is paying attention while developing a taste for the heavenly in each little thing that makes a present of itself - the present moment, the only place to savor the fullness of life.

I like carrying this happy anticipation in me; it is like being pregnant. I don't know what tomorrow brings but it is for my perfection, God alive and at work in me. I am be-coming as I go and what I will be I don't know. It will be a surprise when I get there.