So Joel G and his palm tree charro showed up this morning. What a performance!
You know what charreada is? It’s Mexican rodeo on steroids, and uno charro is a cowboy on steroids. A really good charro is indistinguishable from his horse: when you watch such a rider, you understand where the idea of the centaur came from. The difference between a charro and a horse, far as I can tell, is that horses are crazy only part of the time. One of these guys’ entertainments, aptly named the paso de muerte, is to get a half-wild mustang flying around the perimeter of a ring, pursued by several men on horseback, and then jump from one barebacked mount onto the bare back of the reinless, frantic beast…at a dead run.
And now you know what machismo is: these characters define it.
So the palm tree guy has to climb to the top of these trees—my yard has five of them, thanks to some mindless former owner—and cut off last year’s dead growth, the six- or eight-foot-long flower stalks, and a lot of debris. To get at the stalks, he also has to remove most of the current year’s new palm fronds. In addition to being big and heavy enough to suffocate a man, these things are lined with razor-sharp thorns shaped like tiger claws. All this is done eighty feet or more off the ground. He is, in short, a man who knows no fear.
This photo’s not very good, but from the three trees in the background, you can see how tall the things are. The power lines are a block away, in La Maya’s neighborhood: my utilities are underground.
It’s a very messy job. Palm fronds, flower stalks, dirt, insects, and debris go right into the pool. Joel hauled the large stuff out of the water, but he couldn’t get all the fine dirt and litter off the bottom. So, as usual after the annual palm-tree enterprise, yesterday morning I spent six hours cleaning the pool: started at 6:00 a.m. and finished around noon. This is why I dread having the job done: that and the cost. Joel charged only $30 per tree to risk his man’s life, but what with the traffic fine, I didn’t happen to have $150 laying around in the budget this month. Click on this photo twice to see all the chaff that’s flying out of the tree as el charro works on it.
I did make an interesting discovery: a garden hose with a high-pressure squirter on it does a mighty fine job of cleaning tiles. The alkalinity in the pool’s water is too high, and so calcium deposits are growing on the tilework. At the same time, I’m told the pH is too low to add more acid (don’t ask! I took high-school chemistry, too, and I don’t get it either). So the tiles have to be cleaned a couple times a week, which is a job. Yesterday I really didn’t want to get into the dirty water to scrub down the debris-coated tiles, so it occurred to me to squirt them off. Lo! The white crud squirts off, too! I couldn’t believe it. Not only that, but the pressurized water rinses algae and dirt off the pool walls, especially in places I can’t easily reach with the pool brush, and bats it right out of the inlets, outlets, light frame, and gadgets for attaching a volleyball net. This is going to make my life 100 percent easier.
Transplanted a pretty little vitex tree that volunteered some years ago and has outgrown its pot. I hope this will make a nice patio tree one day, or possibly a landscape item for the downtown house. It makes a beautiful deep-blue blossom and can grow into a lovely tree. The one in my front yard is getting pretty big.
At the Safeway, they were selling chuck roasts for a glorious $1.27 a pound! I grabbed five pounds and had it ground for me and the Corgi. Cooked up a magnificent hamburger spiked with feta cheese—excellent barbecue combination! Wrap the burger around the feta, grill to your satisfaction over charcoal and, if available, hickory chips. Awesome!
After all the banging and crashing with the palm tree cutting and the pool cleaning, along about 5:30 in the evening the phone rings and voilà, there’s Gerardo! He’s lleno de disculpas for not having called: no, he hasn’t fallen out of a palm tree. He took his family to San Diego. They stayed for a week with a brother-in-law and had a great time. He was sorry not to have taken after the palm trees this week (Gerardo, being mas hombre than Joel, does not hire a guy to do this job: he climbs up in there and has at it himself, leaving one of his half-wit flunkies on the ground to do the clean-up). So, he wants to meet and talk about landscaping M’hijito’s digs this afternoon.
To top off the day, Her Deanship’s secretary called mid-afternoon, trying to summon me to the Presence. I was forced to admit that Macavity wasn’t there…now I’m supposed to show up over there this morning.
So, to work (such as it is).
Whew, I’m so glad to know that Gerardo is safe to trim another palm. And thank goodness for family who live in vacation spots. I owe much to my brother and sister-in-law for inviting me to stay a week in glorious northern New Mexico this month. Opening our homes to friends and family is one way to vacation on a tight budget. I’m reminded of when we were kids and visited Grandma’s house with no greater expectations than to spend time at Grandma’s, basking in her love, devouring her good cooking, and playing with cousins.
I was actually worried about Gerardo! Glad to hear that he was just out of town.
And good grief – I thought that my two pin oaks were bad for the shedding and limbs and acorns. At least they only have to be trimmed up every five years or so to keep them off the roofline.