The Plucky Ladies · 28 December 07

I had just adjusted my soft lumpy pillow filled with lamb’s wool and pulled my thick cover (three wool blankets, a flannel sleeping bag, and duvet) back over my head to shield my eyes from the 5:30 am sun and sound of howling wind, when I heard the sound of chickens on the other side of the bedroom wall. Now the chicken coop isn’t too far away, but I’d never heard them so close. Since Mariela is constantly going in and out of the “gallinera” or laying room to visit the eight scrappy kittens that were born in one of the boxes built for laying, I jumped up thinking we’d left something open. Sure enough, a dozen of the precious hens were enjoying a little bit of freedom.

It was challenging running round in a blanket trying to outsmart the plucky ladies, but fortunately, like all domesticated animals, they stay in a pack and knew the way home. Thus begins another day at the Estancia Rio Verde. A tourist asked me the other day “What do you DO here when there are no tourists around.” I looked at her like she had three heads, but then I remembered how this place looks to an outsider- simple, calm, quaint, boring?

We are living in a little casita that is part of a small “commune” of buildings that include a 1r- room hotel, restaurant, housing for dozen workers, shearing barns (for shearing the sheep), a rodeo arena, and a municipal building with a small museum, library, school, and multi-purpose room for everything from Sunday Mass to a gym for the kids.

There is no “typical” day here, but I’ll try to give an example. I pull myself out of aforementioned 30 pounds of blankets to build a fire for Mariela before she gets up to dress for school. She’s attends the local school with 5 other ranch children aged 5-13. She wears a uniform of grey polyester pants, a starched (well, it was, once) white shirt, green tie and grey sweater. On Fridays they get to wear blue sweat pants. It’s quaint and she’s learning some Spanish but mostly I think they show her Barbie movies on the computer. She was kicked out for a week for refusing to take her head off her arm on the desk- OK, so it’s not “August’s school.” Bun now she says she loves it, but if you ask her what she loves, she’ll tell you it’s the school breakfast and lunch which is homemade and lovely.

If I’m feeling lucky I try to take an hour for myself to run along the beach or up the small Rio Verde or to see the flamingos. The mornings tend to be the calmest weather, and at least once I’ve run in shirtsleeves! Then the next 10-12 hours fly by as I split my time between baking everything from scratch in the kitchen, serving gorgeous lamb asados (bbq’s) to groups of tourists, working in the vegetable garden, sewing, and organizing the chaos of a business in South America. Sometimes we sneak in a siesta, but mostly we rest for meals together and at the end of the day enjoy delicious Chilean wines and the infamous pisco sours.

When Mariela is not in school, she spends her time with the kittens and gathering eggs, strolling around the grounds trying to pet foals, picking flowers and working on one of her many art projects. Mariela has procured a four of her half-sister Josefina’s 40 Barbies and can spend hours dressing and playing with them. She has a little friend who is seven named Carolina and they spend a fair amount of time together giggling and trying to communicate. In the evenings a generator turns on and every TV starts blaring the news, telenovellasc, and cartoons. My obsession to keep Mariela away from the TV has completely relaxed- so who cares if she watches Sponge Bob or the Simpsons or Barbie commercials, she’s learning Spanish!?

What I’ve learned in Patagonia
Never try to estimate the weather.
Never open the car door on the side where the wind is blowing, and never leave a car door open.
How to chop wood.
You don’t need a recipe.
You don’t need a refrigerator.
You don’t need lights.
If it breaks, you fix it yourself.
You don’t need a hammer- even though there are 10 around, you can never find one. Wrenches and rocks work fine.
You don’t need to buy new canning jars.
Lamb’s tongue is chewy.
Everything works out in the end.

What Mariela’s learned?
If you yank on something it’s likely to break.
Runts are a part of life.
You have to kill something before you eat it.
If someone shows up who happens to speak English, get as much conversation out of him or her as you can- you never know when the next one will come.
You can wear your clothes more than 1 day.
Hello Kitty, Barbie, and Dora all live in Chile.

Comments (11)

We love you!
I wish I was there right now I know how to hit things with a rock!

mike    Dec 28, 01:17 PM #

As Mariela’s Great Uncle—nay, make that fantastique, no, fantastico, Tio Fantastico!—I am enraptured by her new world and in complete awe of her parents giving the bright little star a new hemisphere in which to shine. A specialist in the run-on sentence category and in fragments and independent clauses (never mind arbitrary and pointless parenthetical phrases), I am happy to see life lived so abundantly by my beloved nephew and his gorgeous, towering intellect of a bride.

But I want for knowledge. Is this a permanent move? A project? A plan? Is the wind constant? Do natives fly kites? Are there windmills?

I look forward to seeing more photos and to trying out your recipe for cottage cheese pancakes. No skeptic I, having enjoyed Sue’s cooking many moons ago over Thanksgiving in Vail.

Lovely to receive your slow food news and family writings. Proud, very proud.

Love,
Uncle Cliff
Basalt, Colorado

Clifford Fewel    Dec 28, 01:38 PM #

Sue, we miss you all! We spent around 6 hours getting ready for skiing today and around 8 minutes on the slopes. The new joke in the house (which I am sure is old for locals) is “Tea?” “Why not?” as we wait in line for the chairlift. I am starting a slow foodsoup kitchen in Chicago at the Hull-House Museum called the Experomental Lentil- send recipes!! Love, Lisa, Marc, Henry and Josie

Lisa Lee    Dec 28, 04:15 PM #

We have copious amounts of snow, Teton Canyon is groomed, but what we don’t have is you and Christian. We miss you and look forward to hearing more stories from your new (temporary) home.

Janet Conway    Dec 28, 04:41 PM #

Mariela-
I remember that time when you came over to my house. That was fun. I think it was spring time. I miss not seening you at school. It’s christmas break right now and I’m home with my parents.
Love William

william wusinich    Dec 28, 07:45 PM #

you guys are incredible!! Sounds like another amazing South American adventure. Give my regards to Patagonia. I’m in Hong Kong right now with Dana (from the seakayak trip) and we were just talking about you guys. Have a great time. Hope we get to see you when you return.

laurie strasburger    Dec 28, 10:42 PM #

You paint such a vivid picture…I feel like I’m there…or I wish I was anyway. I’ve got my own Super Baby now – who along with her 2 year old brother – keeps me more than busy. I think of you guys often, though, and if your time in Patagonia is a fraction as awesome as it sounds – I’m sure it will change you forever. You’ll have to tell me again how you manage to do these things! All the best in the New Year – Linda

Linda Knapp    Dec 29, 06:41 AM #

Wish we had the time to come down and visit you. All of our love and best to you! We miss you tons and surely miss Mariela’s amazing antics! She is too cute! What a rebel.
Mtn. Athlete contnues to kick my butt, but I am totally addicted and I guess I have you to thank for that….I guess in a sick, torturous, sort of way. Miss you tons and Happy New Year! Look forward to more stories!

Jannine    Dec 29, 10:24 AM #

Dear Susie, Christian and Mariela,
We are glad to know that you are well and enjoying life. I am happy to know that another kitty lover is present in the family-has her Aunt Missy shared the pond story concerning my cat and her in VT. It would be a good item for Mariela to her list of what will happen if you do this to a kitty.
I hope your joy and pleasure with your life continues in 2008.

PS Susie, if you want to feel more guilt free about Mariela watching TV and you have a DVD player let me know-we have hrs and hrs of laser disc loony tunes from the 30’s and 40’s English, wacky and fun for the parents too (these are the ones that we the shorts in movie pictures that our parents went to see to during the war, so really for grown ups too. If nothing else they laern a lot about the WWII). Hannah will also send her selection of good movies for her that she enjoyed at her age, not a Barbie movie among them. Email me and let me know either way
xxoo

Betsy Kren    Dec 31, 01:32 PM #

And I learned in pategonia that the distances are vast, the skies are huge, to visit the neigbours, a car is essential and that the welsh diaspora must be over the border in the next country and there are great stories to be told at the Rio Verde – from polar swimming to naming rights for uncharted mountains to world travel stories.

Brendan Tarring    Jan 15, 05:39 PM #

Sue, It is so refreshing to read your prose and gain a flavour and reminder of Patagonia and the Rio Verde. We would love to transport ourselves back to the Estancia for a parilla, share a bottle of wine and chat for hours by the fire. A few more days on a horse and who knows-maybe some belated confidence?
There has been no skies on our travels to compare with this.

It is strange being reminded of you here as we search the aisles of Trader Joes and whole foods and think of those we miss in San Fransisco.

Thinking of you three and love to Pippa and Sebastian

Tanya xxx

Tanya Harris    Jan 16, 01:29 PM #

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  Jul 5, 11:05 AM