Mogli around the block

The puppies

For several weeks our dogs have been driven mad by a couple of roaming dogs that wander around hunting and foraging. The bitch is an underfed German Sheperd descendant, while the male is light caramel colored and with the face of a fox.

For weeks I have wondered where the puppies were hiding, and a chat with my neighbors on the beach revealed that they have all set up home in the woods behind their house. So off we went on Sunday to visit the puppies.

Mom and Dad


There´s four of them, two solid black and two mixed brown and black. One of the black ones has very short ears that stand straight up. All are very perky, and when we found them huddled against a log, they immediately started barking at us. That drew the attention of the parents who were resting a few feet a away, and who after some barking came to us asking to be petted. The setting was straight out of National Geographic, but we do fear for the fate of the puppies...

Summer food

Have I mentioned I love the farmer´s market in Piriapolis? Must be the only thing I love in the aforementioned town. One of the vendors at the feria goes all out every Saturday with the decoration, arranging the fruits and vegetables in funny patterns.

But back at the ranch, my own harvest has been increasing daily. We went from radishes, celery and submarine-sized cucumbers to a steady crop of mixed color tomatoes (cherry mostly), herbs, scallions, echalotes, and now we´re starting with the honeydew melons. The zapallito, a roundish variety of squash, looks like it will bury us in a couple of weeks.



Mixed cherry salad with fresh oregano and basil, all from the garden...


The harvest a few days ago.

While we are on food, and back in summer, when we are likely to go out more, I´d like to mention our two bad meals in a row at the same, wonderfully located La Corniche restaurant in Piriapolis. Why twice you may ask? Well, first time it was a group thing, second an invitation from a house guest who was as taken by the beautiful setting at the end of Playa Grande as I was. We gave it a second chance, only to find service worse than deplorable, and food as ineptly cooked as the first time. Stuffed chicken breast was so dry it made you choke, the milanesa was so chewey and dry it was fit for my dogs, etc. The service is hard to describe other than saying there was no service. However, the menu is almost as ambitious as last year´s at Trattoria da Piero, not a coincidence as it turns out the chef has migrated here.

On the positive front, we enjoyed a fantastic meal at El Abrazo, in Manantiales. El Abrazo is owned by two veteran chefs, Gabriela Sosa Díaz and Federico Gasparri who happen to be husband and wife. The location, a specially built house in the woods in Manantiales right off Ruta 104 is as usual very cool and low key. As usual because it was designed and built by Gabriela´s brother Fabian, our architect. There are a variety of possible settings, ranging from semi enclosed patios, a sofa outside in the garden, a table under a tent-like contraption, etc. I prefer inside, but all the outside areas and their lighting by candle give it a nice atmosphere...

The food was both gourmet-y, expertly rendered and delicious, as opposed to pretentious and bad. We had a great shreded, braised lamb served on a bed of mashed eggplant, a fantastic appetizer salad with cherry tomatoes, goat cheese and artichokes, and great seafod appetizer sampler, shrimp ravioli, etc. Desserts were also original and delicious, especially my guava concoction which included guavas in syrup, heavy cream and cookies. The service was great, professional and warm. I will go back soon before they close for the season.

The drought

The cows are so hungry and thirsty they are eating my hedge

Forget about the international financial crisis, my crisis is the drought, and it has taken over my life. Uruguay has been experiencing below-normal rainfall since 2007, but this year things got bad. The usually rainy winter and spring were bone-dry, and now the ground is hard as rock, the grass makes a crunchy sound when stepped on, and cattle are dying all over the country.

At home, I was unaware that the sprinkler system was not up to the task of hydrating the couple hundred shrubs and trees we planted this winter and spring, and woke up one day to find a whole section of the yard the color of mayonnaise in addition to severe wilting affecting everything else (the sprinklers´ reach is one thing on paper, and another when fighting strong winds in the opposite direction of the stream).

That was about a month and a half ago, and my life since then has been devoted to manually watering every shrub and tree, not to mention my beloved vegetable garden. The obvious idea of just increasing the sprinkler cycle does not work, because the sprinklers are set up to spray a wide surface of lawn and plants so we would soak the lawn, waste lots of water and maybe still not provide enough for the shrubs. Also, there is the risk of just draining the well dry if we pump water too many hours a day. Although I was told that my well had an extremely abundant flow of water that would never run dry, after two years of drought things may be different.

The vegetable garden, with tomatoes duly staked... It´s obvious now that I´ve overplanted and overcrowded the tomato patch... beginner´s over-enthusiasm I guess.

And on to the real family crisis, Barbi´s hand, he´s due back on the 30th from one month of physical therapy in Turkey where he made lots of progress, He is now able to use silverware with his left hand, able to drive, etc. Still many months left of rehab but he will continue in Uruguay. Between the accident, the two operations, the 7 weeks spent in Turkey in two different stretches, etc., we´re ready for some uneventful time this summer, looking forward to returning to our routine. Also, Marabierto desperately needs Barbi back so Mirtha will be happy to have him and has declared that accident season is only between April and June.

On the festivities front, we had a lovely family brunch at Conrad, meant to be the last one of the year, although we may have a last-last one with Barbi... As usual, our bolero singing friends Los Románticos livened up the proceedings, with much help from our table and especially from Aunt Myrtha who now dances with baby grand-daughter Josefina who is scarily well trained to party at her tender 8 months.


Brunch with Mom Mirtha, Aunt Myrtha, Josefina and Rosina...

Christmas is never a big thing in our family, what with everyone working like crazy till late on Christmas Eve, but this year we had better logistics thanks to Aunt Myrtha, and ended up having a lovely dinner at Las Ostras, with the two Mirtha/Myrtha, plus brother Rafa and friend Coco. The location at Las Ostras is superb, the food was very good, the service too, and there were other friends in other tables as well, so we had a nice evening.

Mirtha on the terrace enjoying the fireworks

Coco and Rafael

Besides wielding the hose, my other new activity preventing me from blogging is Oso´s vocation, fetching the ball that requires throwing all day long. I fear I will develop whatever elbow injury baseball players get from so much ball throwing. While the others collapse in the shade, groggy with the heat, Oso is still up for a good run and will prod me (bring the ball to my hand, require that I wrestle it out of his mouth, or faced with complete indifference, drop it at my feet.) Every 10 or 15 fetches he goes for a swim in the pool and comes back refreshed and energized... Maybe if I had not cut his hair he would be a bit more lethargic, who knows...

Oso sporting his summer cropped hair style. Actually the hair is growing out fast... Tulu is all of a sudden getting bulkier.

Call the man, or how to grow your own $23 tomatoes

It´s bring your granddaughter to work day at Marabierto


I first became aware of "call the man" as a Uruguayan cultural trait when my mother visited me in New York and insisted on coming to work with me, back in the day when I was working in the flea market at Spring and Wooster. After watching me pull a couple dozen loaded boxes from a basement into a truck, followed by a clothing rack that I "walked" along two cobble-stoned Soho blocks to our flea-market spot, whereupon I spent two hours retrieving the boxes, tables and other fixtures from the truck and setting up our "booth" for the day (you know, then undo everything 5 or 6 hours later), horrified, she demanded that I "Call the man." At that point I explained that anyone I had to call to do my job would have my job, and therefore, I was the man.

On a subsequent visit on occasion of my moving into my newly purchased condo in Jersey City a couple of years later, and after inspecting the yard and noting there was no tap anywhere to hook up a hose --hence my bringing the hose from the sink across kitchen and living-room into the yard-- my mother again decreed "Call the man. Get him to put a tap outside."My answer, in this case, was "There is no man."

Team Sousluaga, with Pelusa

In the first case "the man" was my own job description, while in the second example it was something I could not possibly do on my own (major plumbing) and that neither could I afford to hire someone to do for me. Hence the years of watering the yard from the kitchen sink.

But look at me now. I am certainly back to my roots, or becoming my mother, or both, probably. No two days in a row go by without some man or men coming over to work at our place. There´s the pool guy, who does the regular maintenance and is different from the solar panel guy. There´s the gardening crew (good thing I consolidated the two landscaping outfits I used to hire into a single one), and most recently there´s team Sousluaga, who first built a shed structure to place the solar panels, and this week is improving my vegetable patch making it into two very long wooden boxes with a sort of nylon wall behind it against the existing fence.

In between we have the guys from Telecom, the alarm company, who come to install new devices, fix a malfunctioning sensor or check the satellite TV or the weird cellular-based fixed phone on a pretty regular basis.

The vegetable patch encased in wood.


In a way, it´s a miracle. We work hard, earn money, and that money is enough to be able to afford all these people who are constantly doing things to improve our house. Considering we have neither the time nor physical condition, not to mention skills required, I am always in awe at the fact that we can afford to pay for these peoples´ services, considering we are not actually wealthy. We´re also in awe of the end product.

But then again, after factoring in the amount spent on landscapers, top soil, and team Sousluaga to set up my very fancy encased vegetable patch with windbreaker and all, we´re estimating a unit cost of $23 per tomato that comes out of that yard...

It works

I finally swam in solar-panel warmed up water on November 1, at 6 pm, minutes after the installer had left, at a perfect 26 C, or 78.8 F.

We had turned on the system at noon, on a test basis, so not at 100% capacity because our cautious pool guy Alvaro (not the same person as the panel supplier-installer) wants to double check the pressure on the pump and other technical stuff.

When he turned it on, we measured the pool at 20 degrees (68 F), and the water coming into the pool at 23.3 C (74). This low reading at the pool is because although the water from the panels was coming out at about 40 degrees (104F) there was a long stretch of pipes to warm up.

From what I saw during the installation, only a fraction was insulated, and improperly at that, and then there´s the entire length of the filter circulation which is also not insulated. So initially all the pipes and earth surrounding it needs to be warmed up before the water coming out from the panels and the water arriving at the pool have a similar temperature.

All this will eventually be fixed by Alvaro, but right now I don´t feel like engaging in further works, just patching whatever leaks remained, and maybe in February when we have to travel to Asia the rest can be dug out and insulated.

When is Google Earth sweeping by my neck of the woods again?!?!?!?!?!

Really, it´s pretty upsetting to keep checking for years and to see nothing more than the track my neighbor´s car made when using my lot as his drive-way earlier in the decade.

I have changed the template for this blog, and boy, what a relief. That previous one was suffocating, this new one is so airy and light, it´s great.

And another thing. I don´t know how to post without a photo. So here´s Lunes, Oso and Tulu ready to pounce on each other as they do all frigging day long... that is, when they are not chewing on pieces of halogen lamps, or on workers´ knives, or stealing and burying the workers´ stuff. They are something like 7 and a half and 5 and a half months now, so there´s still loads more fun to be had.

Just four more days for warm pool swimming

Luis the engineer seen in the pictures installing the panels says he will be finished on Thursday and the water will need a couple of days of filtering to raise the temperature. The water feels like 20 C (68) to me right now, so I have decided I will be swimming on Saturday afternoon. I only need it to be 24 degrees (75F) in order to swim comfortably.



The next project once this is over will probably be to turn the structure into a working greenhouse, with some PVC. My tomato plants are so buffetted by the wind that I feel like a serial killer for exposing them to such inclement conditions. Plus, I really do want to eat home-grown tomatoes, if possible year round.