a bygone winter ritual

Was a time, years ago, when most Florida families had backyard citrus trees. Most partook in an annual fruit gathering event - which provided all the seasonally fresh citrus for the taking.  Each family had either a tall ladder for the occasion or a long, big stick, kept hidden by the oldest kids.

Hard to find that same scenario anymore. But yesterday, I came across this nearly-forgotten scene, while stopped, sitting and waiting, during one of our other seasonal winter rituals - backed-up traffic.


An ancient tangerine tree (probably an early 'Dancy' variety), ripe for the picking.

changing out a room

My wife Sandy, recently made a gargantuan decision - to change out her bedroom furniture of many years. This required a little outside help, a credit card and the removal off all existing things in her current bedroom. After a week's progress, the majority of the sorting, the daily difficult tossing - and over a hundred pairs of loose shoes - all ended, piled-up on our living room floor.  Through this, even the dog appeared a little confused.

the final pairings with a few more needed to match ....

wheeler dealers

My local Triumph dealer (Hap's Cycle) parted ways with corporate after some 50 years of service. That left us local Triumph folk without a dealership within a 100 mile radius.  Last week, my old buddy Pete told me that a new dealer (Stu's Cycle) was arriving in his town - in Ft Myers, just 80 miles south. So, corporate Triumph sent out the big truck, the new bikes and all the sideshow.

Arrival of Triumph's 84 foot long semi, tractor-trailer in Ft Myers.

the new Bonneville 'bobber'

and for all those 'moto' men attending, even a shave was offered

My extra special, my old Bonneville pal, just recently turned 17 (now resting under it's cover).
Times might have changed but the ride remains the same.

Quartzsite (along the roadside)

From a recommendation from a couple years past, Knuckles and I stopped into Reader's Oasis Books in Quartzsite, Arizona on a whim - to meet up with Paul Winer - the "naked bookseller".  But suspected many, many other things goin' on all around, inside and out.


A rare shady outdoor spot at Reader's Oasis

Paul Winer (the "naked bookseller") with some of his visiting musical guests

If still interested, a recent NYT's article delves into the backside with just a pinch more.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/style/rubber-tramp-rendezvous-rv-trucks-vanlife.html?hpw&rref=fashion&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

sick as a dog

Started to re-organize my home office - of old paper work, files and general clutter etc - and hopefully, to toss out a good third of it.

Cleaning out the office closet area, I came across an old worn, brown-paper grocery bag filled with my Knuckle's old scripts, syringes, thermometers and topical dressings. A reminder from exactly 2 years ago when I had almost lost that dog due to a rousing, cross-country road trip, where he somewhere, somehow, picked up the near lethal fungal disease - "Valley Fever".  One year of overall medical treatment, together with the initial two weeks of critical care in a California emergency clinic - and combined, came close to $14,000 in veterinary expenses.

Today at my desk, he's still with me, and laying at my feet.  And am sure he's just as happy as I - to rid himself of those sick memories and those pills, so hard to swallow. 

Today, a happy, healthy Knuckles on his 9th birthday

The Pantanal; a major ecological shift

In July of 1989, I arrived into the interior of the Pantanal, by truck, boat and by horse back. I'd been invited for a personal stay by a good Brazilian friend, whose generational family owned a vast Brazilian ranch, and one supposedly, that still existed from "a hundred years past".

For nearly a century, "Fazenda Porangaba" had remained a totally isolated cattle ranch, and through those many years, held on to a singular 19th century way of life. Nearly the size of the Florida Everglades, this ranch land named "Porangaba", was smack dab in the middle of the Pantanal, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, which encompassed that far-away, remote southwestern border of Brazil.  July is their winter month, their dry month - a time when I spent three weeks there on a seemingly never ending landscape - first, as their invited guest, and second, as that rare outsider.

Then about ten years ago, I had heard rumors that Fazenda Porangaba had been sold.  And sold off - as a family owned and operated, sustainable land - to a large corporate agri-business with the great potential for future development.

The ranch's "Pantaneiros" (local cowpokes) - with their herd dog, on their cattle drive while crossing the dry seasonal wetlands of the Pantanal.

Our third day out, the "pantaneiros" rounded-up cattle into herding pens at Campo Eunice. One of the ranch's many outlying cattle holding areas.

Joao, a "pantaneiro" (cowhand) at Campo Eunice.

'Trail camps' throughout the Pantanal were set up for the ranch's long seasonal cattle drives.

A typical family's living quarters for the ranch's "pantaneiros".  Most cowhands and their families live many days from any town, without electricity or running water - and call home these tiny "ranchos" deep in the Pantanal.

  Joao's two daughters raised in their family's two room "rancho".

A cow's slaughter for the ranch-hands daily sustenance and a treat of fresh, warm blood for their domesticated pigs. (agency dupe)

 

 

Then, two days ago, I came upon this timely article from the New York Times's, digital edition.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/23/world/americas/brazil-pantanal-wetlands-michel-temer.html?hpw&rref=world&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

 

Another disheartening, follow-up article from the New York Times (October 13th, 2020)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/13/climate/pantanal-brazil-fires.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Climate%20and%20Environment 

My day wearing 'Bears Ears'

It was in the summer of 2006, when I stopped for a smoke, looked at the map and listened hard.   Where I would later learn in the surrounding stillness, of sacred sites and ancient pictographs - the over-all significance of Bears Ears.

Today, hard to fathom that our country's president has just rolled back nearly two million acres of public lands (for private use) of the surrounding, ancestral red rock canyons, at Bears Ears National Monument.

On Monday, the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, the Ute and the "Great Broads for Wilderness" - all filed suit in Federal Court in the hope of protecting these ancient lands from potential drilling and/or future mining.

My first ever visit - but to the Native Americans protesting this recent outcome, "It's a historical trauma our people have been through, over and over".

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/08/opinion/bears-ears-monument.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region


On that solo journey in southeastern Utah.