Mid-July, Tiny Pueblo

Sometimes, everything just falls my way.
The climb was everything I had hoped, and maybe more. No injuries, just sunshine, cool breezes, and perfect red cherries hanging right out over the pathway. We lived large in the back woods, me and Laurie. It was not a long hike, but it was a tough one, with spectacular views around each bend. It's the kind of hike that stays with you for years.
Back down here on the plains sunflowers bloom in bright rows. Combine harvesters clatter over wheat and rye and oats, cutting and threshing. They leave behind lines of chopped straw for the balers later on. They throw a fine dust of straw high into the air. The breeze catches it. Straw floats in the sky sometimes like a golden cloud. Some afternoons a rain of dust and straw descends on us, on the patio and dogs and hens. It is like a Gabriel Garcia Marquez story. Magical Realism we have to sweep up after.   
I bought a cabbage, a green one big as a child's head. It's probably the best cabbage ever. I have made two magnificent batches of coleslaw with it, and there's still half a cabbage left. Out back, the garden this year chooses to yield many, many bright yellow squash. Tomatoes? Peppers? Courgettes? Beans? No. Not yet. For now it's squash, and onions, and tender, mild garlic. 
I let the hens loose this morning, they leapt into the high grass, snatching little insects in midair, humming and singing their hen music. I ordered two laying hens this morning at the feed store, little black ones, the kind from Zaragoza. What more could you want from life, when you have two new hens coming in the next few days?
But the goods keep coming. Fred phoned to say he'd wangled his way into the little house museum in Cervatos de la Cueza -- a dusty backwater town on the way to Carrion de los Condes. There's a house there once inhabited by the San Martin family, whose sons rose high in the Spanish military and "liberated"  Argentina in the mid-19th century. Eventually the whole family died or immigrated, and the house was left standing on the edge of town, surrounded by a big wall. Someone a few years back realized they had a time capsule on their hands, and voila! An adobe house furnished in the style of a century ago, tiny rooms full of dust and epaulettes, crucifixes and rope beds. Best of all are the lightbulbs -- tiny bright lights like the backside of a firefly. A wiry brown fellow named Delfin keeps the keys. I will try to rustle up a Moratinos field trip over there. Modesto will love that place.
Speaking of wiry brown fellows, our very own Paco did a star turn on Edible Camino, a fine blog, not long ago. He was not named, but he was certainly honored. I will try to get this fabulous intuitive new $$#@ computer to share that with you.
And now that it's July, the church is open each day for the pilgrims. There is no diocesan funding for it this year, so some of us decided to just do it anyway. Modesto is the man in charge. Modesto loves showing pilgrims through the place, taking down their names, telling his tales to fresh ears.
Moratinos continues to change. The finca next door, the finca where Paco grew up and where his sister comes for weekends, is up for sale. It needs a lot of work, but it's got a lot of charm, too -- sorta like our place was when we bought it. Pandora's box.
Maybe someday we will have new neighbors there. I hope they are the good kind. If I win the big lottery this week, maybe I will buy it myself.