Update to Nature, Late May

Things do bloom here after all, and it is wonderful. Even the plain green stuff has new growth of brighter crisper green, and there are blossoms in trees and plants that I thought were dead. The rainy season isn’t here yet, but it’s on its way. The nights are really sticky hot and new insects are making themselves known. But so are birds, and butterflies, and millions of baby chicks. They are so adorable when you watch them follow the mom around and learn how to scratch for food; but then you just turn around and they’ve turned into teenagers, and they leave their mess all over the front porch, and make noise when you’re trying to sleep.  And baby goats! They wrestle each other like puppies, roll around, charge after each other, butt heads, etc. And so many different markings I have never seen. Pinto goats, striped goats, grey speckled goats, etc. There are some brown ones with sorta pointy ears, and once in a while I will see one almost hidden behind a shrub and for a split second it’s a deer and I’m back in Volcano. Doesn’t happen often, but it’s a trip.  

There are lambs as well, but the sheep here are big with really long skinny legs and look more like ponies than the sheep we know. Their wool is more like dreadlocks that have never been groomed, and some are black with that really bad henna job on the ends. Not good.  And they lose each other all the time so they are constantly crying for a mom, or a baby. Not like those cuddly things in the hills around Stinson. And somehow I don’t think I would ever want to eat one of these, although I have no compunctions at home. I remember when we would be driving to the Coast, and Sheila would get all mooney, and “Oh, nushka, look at the babies!” and Annie and I would go, “Right. Let’s eat ‘em!” Not here, but I have learned to make a good pasta sauce from tinned mutton. The food nazi in retreat.

Early one morning though, when I was at the beach, I saw a man washing a flock of sheep in the ocean. One guy kept the rest of the flock off to one side, and the other man would pick up a big sheep and carry it out into the deep waves. Some were fairly passive, but some really struggled to avoid the water. There was no stopping him, he was big and strong, and he kept each one up to its neck in salt water for a really long time while he washed away at it. Go figure.