my principles went up in smoke (literally)

The spring season in Mexico means that the leaves fall from the trees. The rainy season has arrived, and that will bring new leaves, but the fallen ones are one more item in the daily struggle to keep nature at a more comfortable distance. Life in the tropics really seems to be that constant battle of nature vs. humans: fighting back the dust and mud that threaten to overwhelm the house, keeping the streams of house ants at bay, preventing mold from consuming clothes and curtains, and trying to keep out the mosquitos, cockroaches, weird big things with wings, scorpions, and small biting/stinging/smelling things.
But the leaves: every day the neighbours are out raking leaves on the street. They rake big piles and every evening the air is heavy with smoke as they burn them. (I am stupefied that they generally burn them at the base of the mango trees. It seems like a good way to burn the trees down, but perhaps there is a reason behind what appears to be insanity.)
Anyhow, in my know-it-all way, I've been quite critical of the daily leaf burnings. I don't particularly like the smoke, but really, what amazing compost material that is going up in smoke!!
Determined to work on improving our soil quality at the property, I have been raking and preparing for compost making.
However, I have now lost count of the DAYS I have spent raking. The property is bigger than I originally thought. Like with the mangoes, the leaves threaten to overwhelm. There is no way to compost all of them!

(we burned some)

Sigh. Yet another moment of eating-my-words, hypocritical, having my principles smacked in the face of reality.

As I pointed out to Debbi later that week, parenting is really just the same. Nothing like having a live kid in front of you to challenge all your assumptions, and to trample your pre-arranged ideas and principles with the hard face of reality.

And fortunately, the rainy season has started so my principles are now too wet to burn.

mangoes: the sweet itch

We have been overrun by mangoes.
Out at the property, the ripe mangoes fall to the ground and become smelly breeding grounds for flies and bugs. With just a few trees, the mangoes have actually become overwhelming! There is simply no way to eat all the mangoes that are there, and I love mangoes!
I decide on a two-pronged approach to beat back the mangoes. I pick up all the rotting, freshly fallen fruit, and Luis buries some of them and we make a pile to try composting the rest. Then, with a rake, I knock down all the green mangoes that I can reach, and get a crate-ful to bring to Luis' grandmother, who hopefully can help us cope with the overabundance.
What I painfully learned in the following three weeks was that mango sap is closely related to poison ivy. I noticed some stinging on my skin while harvesting the mangoes, but wrongly attributed it to insects. NOT SO! MANGOES ARE ACTUALLY POISON IVY!
The rather extensive and unattractive rash on my arms and stomach (how did it get there? It is not like I rolled in the piles of mangoes) STINGS! Sort of feels like being eaten by ants.
I bet you want to eat a mango now...