Big Fun In A Tiny Pueblo - Details

Listing ID: 906

Title: Big Fun In A Tiny Pueblo

Description: The adventures of an American couple moving to a tiny Spanish town.

Category: Home & Garden : Relocating

Owner:

listed on: June 07, 2008 07:43:46 PM

Number Hits: 1 times

Recent Posts:

Sunshine + Spare Time + Stones - Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:21:00 +0000

Enough of life, death, and dogs´ ballocks. We´ve spent the last few dreary days hunkered down by the fire contemplating Being and Nothingness. Today the sun came out, and we decided it´s time to get back to Big Fun. In the bright morning we took the dogs and a walking stick and hiked out to Villa Oreja, maybe a mile east along the Camino. Paddy and Una (both still limping a bit) sat down on one of the benches for a rest. You might know Villa Oreja by now. It´s just a couple of benches and an irrigation well nowadays, a layby along the Camino between Moratinos and Terradillos. The tiny Rio Templarios babbles by, and tall trees shade the scene. Back a thousand years or so there was supposedly a monastery there, full of wicked monks. A local Good vs. Evil legend attached to the place, and is still played-out there (with plenty of liquid lubrication) every summer on St. John´s Eve. (I blogged about it before – put in “Templars” in the Lijit search box over to the right here. It´ll come up.) Two summers ago our English forerunners in Moratinos, James and Marianne, put coffee and bickies and a donations box out in the early mornings at Villa Oreja, for the pilgs to enjoy. The innkeeper in St. Nicolas, who claims divine right to all money spent by pilgrims hereabouts, thought their little breakfast service was a threat to public health. He called in the authorities and shut them down. Anyway, Villa Oreja has a vibe all its own. It´s quiet and pastoral and inviting, and it´s dead on the Camino. We like it. While Paddy and Una sat, Tim went down to the creek to hunt crawdads. I took Paddy´s walking stick, and started scratching in the dirt. A cross, with a dot in each quadrant. Then a hook up and to the right, to make the cross into a letter f. And from there, a loop over top. I learned it in a book, this drawing. It´s easy, ancient, and elegant. It turns into a classic Cretan design, with roots going back 3,000 years. And thus, dear readers, is how our first Labyrinth got started. I dragged the stick behind me to ensure the paths were wide enough to walk. We picked up rocks, and laid them along the lines. We didn´t have enough rocks, so I later went out the the Promised Land in the car and scavenged what felt like a ton or two. After lunch we went back to Villa Oreja and worked until the little job was done. It didn´t take too long. We´re pleased with the outcome. Why´d we make a Labyrinth? I don´t really know. I like outdoor designy-things that slip easily into the environment: simple fountains, bridges, pathways, grottos, rockeries. We both love old things, ideas with a long, misty history. People have been building labyrinths in meadows and cathedrals and gardens all over the world for eons, for reasons that aren´t really clear. Labyrinths (as opposed to mazes) have a reputation for deepening peoples´ spiritual practice, and I´m all for that. Many pilgrims are spiritual people. I hope they use the labyrinth at Villa Oreja. (Yes, I am aware that a labyrinth along an actual pilgrimage route is a tautology. But only if you consider a labyrinth to be a pilgrimage in miniature... Like medieval Christians did.) Most of those who pass by Villa Oreja will not even notice the rocks on the ground. If they do, maybe they´ll find them appealing, or interesting, or pretty, or even fun. (If they are 13-year-old boys, or evil innkeepers, they will probably enjoy a few joyful moments pitching them all into the creek!) God knows what the neighbors will think, if they even notice. There´s nothing out there to identify us as authors, except our eccentric reputation...and now this blog! If they ask us what that rock thing is, and why we put it there, I am not sure my Castellano is up to the task of explaining it. All I can say is the sun was shining. The benches and well-head and trees at Villa Oreja seemed to form an open embrace for a nice triple circle of stones. We had time and energy. I knew how to draw the design. We had plenty of rocks. We enjoyed ourselves. And doesn´t it look kinda nice?

Why I Cried - Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:23:00 +0000

It was a beautiful sunny Sunday, but I cried anyway. I worried the dogs. I don´t think they ever saw me cry before. ...But it´s not me, really. It´s my cousin Barb. Barbara is my cousin, maybe my favorite of all my many cousins. When I was small and gangly and lonesome, Barb was grown-up and beautiful and kind. She painted her toenails, and she showed me how to paint mine. After the enamel dried, she took me out to the barn and introduced me to the sweet comfort and company of animals, and the self-confidence that comes from practical wisdom. Barb had a bouffant hairdo then, and a French poodle so smart he could climb up and down ladders and howl along to the radio. Out in the field Barb kept a big Arabian mare, a breathtaking animal she could ride bareback and drive and push around fearlessly. Barb built the horse´s little barn. She set up the electric fence around the pasture. She shoveled the manure and polished the bridles and drove us to horse shows. In her hallway hung long rows of ribbons: red, yellow, and fat blue rosettes, even some silver trophies. She was amazing. She was tough and long-legged and beautiful. I wanted to be just like her. Over several years Barbara taught me to curry and saddle and ride horses, too. She showed me how to tie knots in a rope to make a halter, how to shift the gears on a tractor, catch chickens, lift sheep, pitch hay, pour beers, boil lobsters, plow snow and braise metal. When she went on holiday I fed the animals for her, even the mean roosters. When “everybody” went on all-day trail rides, Barb found a horse for me to ride, too. When my pet cat Flour died, she brought me Pete, a terrier pup she´d found wandering out on the road somewhere. Barb´s always finding animals, or animals find her. The broken ones she fixes up and frees, or finds homes for – one winter afternoon she had a lame swan in one stall of the barn, and two screaming peacocks in the next, along with the usual parade of ponies, goats, and horses. In the house, keeping warm in the bathtub, was an orphaned goat kid. A Peaceable Kingdom, in other words. The original. Barb is not overly sentimental, however. One Thanksgiving eve she tried to introduce me to the art of poultry butchering. Results were mixed. The duck and turkey ended up roasted, but my career as a chicken-plucker ended there in the back yard. Barb knew strange people and odd places, and she drove her Jeep up and over the steep hills of rural Western Pennsylvania seeking out breeders of Afghan Hounds or someone giving away guinea hens. One blustery Autumn day I followed her into a murky old-fashioned German “bank barn,” a two-story barn built against a hillside, with stock below and hay up above. We entered from the road, right into the second story, where the floors were carpeted with flattened cardboard boxes and fallen hay. Barb called out for the owner, who waved us over to where he was sharpening sickles in a corner. Suddenly everything vanished. I plunged downward through a hole cut in the floorboards, a chute used to throw feed down to the cows in the stalls below. I caught myself by my elbows. I dangled there, too shocked to shout or shriek, the corner of my eye catching sight of the horns of the cattle way, way below. All I could see in front of me were the backs of Barb´s cowboy boots. I swung an arm forward and grabbed her ankle. “What you doing down there, Beck?” Barb said, completely casual. She hunkered down and caught me by the armpits and heaved me right back up onto my feet. “Quit messing around now. We need to see the goats before we lose daylight.” The man with the sickle barely looked up. “Good thing you didn´t fall. Them are steers down there. They´ll eat you up, you know.” He chuckled. It was outrageously unsafe, covering up the holes with cardboard. At the time I was too terrified to even speak. Still, the most vivid memory of that afternoon was driving home in the dusk, wedged into the tiny rear seat of the Jeep, holding a nanny kid steady in my lap. She sucked on my fingers to calm herself, an unforgettable sensation! We named her “Little.” A good 30 years have passed. Barb still hangs on to the same wiry beauty, even though she is a grandmother now. She´s seen more than her share of suffering – sudden deaths, divorces, lawyers and lowlifes. She survives, and nowadays she´s a heavy equipment operator. She drives a forklift at the nuke plant in Homer Center, working 60-hour weeks during maintenance outages, and rolling out pavement on highway crews when the weather is good. She still keeps a crowd of critters. Two summers ago, when Paddy and I came to Spain to find a home, she kept Una for us. Una made a great pest of herself. Barb may be the only person patient enough to have done that long-term dog-sitting job. Barb´s one person I want most to see The Peaceable, because this place is so Her. She could look through the back yard and see exactly which stall would be best for firewood, for foals, for hay and straw – where the manure pile ought to go. She could get Gladys to lay proper eggs, she could calm the wildest donkey, and I bet she could make the chicken hut roof stop leaking. And she would love Spain. She has a capacity for cold wind and wide starry skies, squidgy mud underfoot and old, old adobe. She´d know the urge to re-use the beat-up hand-forged spikes and hinges. She´d adore the people here, even if she couldn´t understand the language. She knows what honest faces look like. And she knows how to be still, and silent. She knows how to just be...an important skill around here. Barbara´s got a wonderful life at home, but she also needs to see the cathedral in Leon, and the mosaic floors in the Roman villa over in Calzadilla. She ought to see the castle in Grajal, (home to a couple of doozy pitfalls!) and a Saturday market in Sahagún, and prancing Andalusian horses. She needs to eat roast suckling lamb, and drink really good wine, and bask out in the patio in sunshine with Bob singing in the background. Barb needs a good vacation. This place is perfect for the job. Barb has never been outside the United States. In July, when I saw her last, she assured me she´d apply for a passport and start saving up some money, that I could show her Spain sometime soon. I have been looking forward to it, a treat out there in the future. This week Barb learned she has cancer. It´s treatable, she said. She´ll start radiation therapy within a week, then chemo. There´s hope. And the nuke plant laid her off work, so she can claim Medicare health benefits. (Like millions of working Americans, Barb has no health insurance.) It´s not like she´s dead already. It´s the suffering ahead of her I cry for, and the very real possibility that she never will make it here now. It´s not about me, really. It´s about the person who gave me the dream that became The Peaceable. She´s gotta see this place. She´s got to. In a real way, it is hers.

Castration Anxiety - Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:56:00 +0000

I usually do my best to adjust to Spanish life, but today I very deeply miss at least one aspect of The American Way. Simply put: In the Old Country (the USA), male dogs are neatly “neutered,” or “fixed,” or “altered” at the veterinarian´s office. Here in rural Spain, we animal owners roll up our sleeves and pitch right in on Castration Day. Back where I come from, “spaying” or “neutering” pet animals is practically a moral imperative. Anyone whose pooch or cat or ferret still has all its equipment is looked upon as cheap, or irresponsible, or maybe so lacking in funds he should not keep a pet at all. Letting a critter wander through life with a sex drive and the accompanying nervous tics is considered cruel. Therefore, when you adopt a pet from the animal shelter, it´s already been “fixed” by the veterinarian on staff. And if a stray animal decides to take up with you, or a neighbor gives you a pup from his dog´s accidental litter, one of the first things you do is get him neutered. This is easy: You drop off the dog in the morning at the vet´s office, and you pick him up again in the evening. Yeah, he´s a bit beat-up, but he´s up and about and happy to see you. You have to keep an eye on things “down there” for a day or two. But it´s really no big deal. Here in Spain, a dog´s life is different... and a dog owner´s life surely is. Tim is a young Brittany Spaniel who showed up here a year ago – a handsome hunting dog who´d had enough veterinary exposure to own a docked tail and identifying microchip. But he also had two testicles. Of course we inquired at the Sahagun vet about having those removed, too. The vet looked at us with shock and dismay. “This is a beautiful animal! Why would you want to change him?” he asked. “He´ll get lazy. He´ll get fat. No!” he said. So we went away. And Tim has, in the months since, lost his mind whenever there´s a bitch in the village in heat. (They don´t alter the girl dogs either.) Tim really is a beautiful dog, and an all-around nice guy, too. But he´s high-strung. Tim pees on every vertical surface within 2 meters... this includes the neighbors´ front doors, the water fountain in the square, and sometimes Una Dog. And when he´s incredibly excited – like whenever we get up in the morning, or we return home from the shops – Tim sometimes whizzes on the ground beneath him. And last week´s adventures with a wired-for-sound 3-year-old boy made it clear that Tim´s testes had to go. And so this evening we took Tim to the new vets, a trio of handsome young men in Saldaña. At 6:30 p.m., Luis met us at the door. I handed him the leash and petted Tim´s head. “When do we come for him?” I asked him. “What time do you open in the morning?” Luis laughed uncomfortably. “I´m here on my own,” he said. “Come in and lend me a hand. It will be easier for the dog with you here. We´ll be done in an hour.” I won´t go into details, but I can tell you it took 20 long, harrowing minutes and about five injections to knock out this dog. Once he finally packed it in, Luis asked us to wait another minute or two...I wondered if we were supposed to stay and hand the doctor his tools? But Paddy´s face changed everyone´s mind. He was pale. His eyes wet and wide with horror. Tim apparently was not the only patient in need of anesthesia. Luis took down my cell phone number and sent us off to the nearest bar. Twenty minutes, half an hour, he said. “Don´t you worry,” he told us. “It´s all going normally.” They were thirty long minutes, spent waiting in a diner straight out of an Edward Hopper painting. (the famous one above, "Night Hawks," is at the Art Institute of Chicago...and there´s nothing like the real thing!) Paddy, being British, had a gin and tonic. Me, being American, thought about having a shot of bourbon and a draft beer, but I was driving the car. And I might soon be needed in the recovery room. And we were. A very floppy and drugged-out Tim went home in the back seat, whining and twitching his head back and forth. I carried him into the house and laid him in the dog bed near the woodstove. He´s been crying there for four hours now, but more and more quietly. His pupils are dilated, his tongue lolls and drools. He´s a sad, pathetic mess. Luis says that´s normal, and Tim has what amounts to a bad hangover. (Paddy and Una are dutifully sleeping next to Tim´s bed tonight, even if Tim´s not sleeping at all.) I suspect these horrific scenes are everyday life in the back rooms of American veterinary clinics, where animals struggle into and out of anesthesia without their owners there to hold their paws and whisper comfort to them. By the time we show up to take them home they are through the worst. We never see the hard parts. We never know what really happens. And that is why it seems so simple and easy. Because it is painless and clean and simple... for the humans involved. Yes, it is selfish to say this, but had I known we´d be serving as castration nurses I´d have probably done like so many Spaniards do, and let my dog get through life with his standard equipment. Or maybe I´d have traveled with him to a big city, where they´d just neuter him. He might have the same experience, and the same outcome. But they´d leave us out of it.