Looking out my Backdoor: February is the longest month

Winter, we are weary.

Whether she gambols like a bleating lamb or roars like a lion, we welcome March after the grim days of February. Skies may still be gray but a fleeting scent in the air says winter is over and spring is here, or nearly so. Snow may fall, temps hit the low scale but spring will burst forth, even in Montana. The calendar tells us so.

I’ve no complaint, I admit, here in my mountain valley in Jalisco. But friends and family live in frozen Montana and even worse, in drizzly gray-to-the-utmost western Washington, so I keep a weather eye on other places.

This morning, I found three more corn plantings, caches of the squirrel-who-hates-me. I’ve yet to figure out what the rabbits eat. Perhaps their nibbles are small, a pruning with little damage. I catch glimpses of them only before sunrise but my yard is well-fertilized with leavings.

Iguanas lounge with impunity on the brick walls enclosing my yard, awaiting their chance to savage favorite flowers. Lizards of several varieties skitter across the patio as soon as the sun is out.

I don’t mind lizards because they eat bugs, unlike their vegetarian cousins. Though I took exception to the wee lizard in my shower enclosure. The thought of standing beneath water, eyes closed, head full of shampoo, and stepping on his cold little body undid me. I asked Leo to please remove the critter.

My favorite pair of partridge doves are sitting on eggs in their nest in the air plant on the lower branch of the jacaranda tree. To me the nest seems vulnerable to attack. But I have to imagine most threats to eggs or babes come from above so I suppose the low-hanging nest is well placed.

Perhaps I hang onto Montana weather because, even after three years, I have little understanding of weather patterns here in this mountain valley. Montana weather and seasons seem “normal” to me.

My Jacaranda, a huge canopy of green most of the year, sheds its leaves in spring. Today it is nearly naked but not shivering because on the top branches I see tiny buds which in a few days will burst into lavender clusters and eventually clusters will merge into a purple umbrella. After five or six weeks of color, new green leaves will push the flowers off, to float to the ground.

This year, I will get to eat mangoes from my own baby tree, first time, hopefully in July. My mouth watereth.

Lest you think all I do is sit in my garden admiring fruits and flowers and birds and growling at lizards, though I can think of few better ways to live, I tell you, I do have a social life.

In the weary month of February I went with John, Carol and Leo to the top of the caldera of Volcan Mount Tequila, a trip I’d long contemplated.

Several days later John, Carol, Jim and I explored the gold and silver mining town of El Amparo and over the mountains on the trail to the backside of Ahualulco.

The opal mine of San Martin outside of Magdalena, a short drive from home, is nothing more exciting to see than a pile of red rocks in a quarry. With picks in hand, Pat and my cousin Steve and Jim and I hammered rocks into bits and pieces in search of opals. I brought home several small opals. My best chunk of opal I picked off the ground, walking from here to there with “eyes peeled.” I will go again.

Some of the best times are the simple times when we come together for food. Just yesterday, Pat and Nancie, Julie and Francisco and I dined at the Casa de Romero. I had a chunk of pig leg baked to perfection, tender and moist, full of flavor. I ate a small portion and brought home enough to graze on for several days; the whole meal cost 110 pesos, less than five and a half dollars.

No matter what I might have planned, each day dawns with its own agenda, “weather” or not! Today I am back in the garden, watering, pruning, admiring. That pair of doves I mentioned? I think they think I am their grandma with a pocket full of crackers.

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Sondra Ashton grew up in Harlem but spent most of her adult life out of state. She returned to see the Hi-Line with a perspective of delight. After several years back in Harlem, Ashton is seeking new experiences in Etzatlan, Mexico. Once a Montanan, always. Read Ashton’s essays and other work at montanatumbleweed.blogspot.com. Email sondrajean.ashton@yahoo.com.