This is a fairly long read for my blog, so unless you have time you should probably not start right now, but save it for later.
I have not thought much about outdoor critters, especially crawly biting things, since we moved to the Oregon coast nine years ago. Even in the summer there it does not warm up enough to allow many types of pests the luxury of survival. We have one type of small green snake there that comes out for a few months and it seems to make a living eating slugs so we encourage them mightily and provide good places for them to hide. We do have some nasty spiders so gloves are advised for some activities, but really nothing there that is too dangerous like the things I grew up with in Tucson, although we do have some big things that are to be avoided like Black Bears and Cougars. But the Sonoran Desert has things living in it that are especially adapted to a tough environment. Like scorpions.
Julie reminded me how much she disliked scorpions when we noticed one between us and the television set a couple of nights ago. It was small, maybe 1 ¼ inches long, and not smart as we define it because I walked right up to it with a book and smooshed it easily. Of course this activity put a temporary stop to the video we were watching and required that we scour the condo with a flash light and remake the bed, but I was able to rationalize this episode as just an occasional bump in the road if you want the warm climate of the Southwestern Desert in February. Julie was uneasy with the event, and my explanation, but she is a really good sport about our adventures so she was able to sort of put it behind her. She hardly slept a wink. Besides, the next day we were up before the crack of dawn anyway to go fishing offshore so she did not lose too much sleep at any rate.
Even though we were fairly pooped from less sleep than we have grown accustomed to and we had been fishing all morning, tiring us further, we just had to eat some of the fish we caught for dinner that night and settle into another video. Lo and behold another little bugger crawled out in the same general area between us and the TV. Julie screamed while simultaneously jumping from her chair and in one continuous motion flattened that scorpion as though it was nearly molten metal on an anvil. No second thoughts, no apprehension, just instant death to one of her least favorite of God’s critters. In fact, I am certain that she believes that God had nothing to do with the placement of the scorpion on Earth.
Well, the next day we spent a considerable time looking at the possibilities for other rental properties and, finding nothing suitable, getting the joint sprayed and certain openings properly sealed. In Mexico one does not have easy access to many of the types of things one would find any day of the week at Home Depot, so our Canadian host / property manager graciously tried his best to find the finest things in his arsenal for sealing up the many cracks around our patio door.
Construction techniques here are different and they would give the building inspector back home an instant brain aneurism from the sheer ingenuity of what can be accomplished with sand, cement and a few rudimentary tools. But these techniques sometimes leave gaps between windows and walls, doors and their frames, roofs and supporting walls - gaps large enough to be mistaken for a kiva doorway in some instances, and which would be big enough to handle the world’s largest scorpion migration. Luckily we did not witness such an event or at this very moment I would be writing this from Barrow, Alaska where those creepy crawleys do not exist in February.
I find it interesting, in a morbid sort of way, that contractors here can build an entire house using a concrete beam and column system, filling in between the columns with fired adobe bricks or concrete blocks, put on a solid concrete roof and then decide where electrical appliances will be needed. Once determined, the workers then chip away routes through the bricks to run electrical wiring, which is all eventually covered up with a sand / cement stucco. I believe that this sort of thinking is derived in part from the structure of the language. Compared to our use of English, Spanish is sometimes backwards, which is why we see roadside stands advertising “Taco Fish.”
So, this is a long way around to bring you to my Taco Fish Theory of Scorpion Invasion and why we may be spending the remaining month of this vacation in Alaska. The gap in the house construction is brought about by language structure. Think about it. We in the States have standardized our window and door sizes and build our openings to those sizes, while here in Sonora they mostly build the structure to some pleasing dimensions, then fill in the holes with custom made doors and windows. Thus there is a propensity for gaps around these areas and scorpions are just curious enough in their pursuit of a meal to sneak there way into our vacation dreams. Taco Fish everyone!
(Next Issue: Why the Britts drive on the left side of the road and how that thinking affects their sense of humor – or as some would say – the lack thereof.)
I have not thought much about outdoor critters, especially crawly biting things, since we moved to the Oregon coast nine years ago. Even in the summer there it does not warm up enough to allow many types of pests the luxury of survival. We have one type of small green snake there that comes out for a few months and it seems to make a living eating slugs so we encourage them mightily and provide good places for them to hide. We do have some nasty spiders so gloves are advised for some activities, but really nothing there that is too dangerous like the things I grew up with in Tucson, although we do have some big things that are to be avoided like Black Bears and Cougars. But the Sonoran Desert has things living in it that are especially adapted to a tough environment. Like scorpions.
Julie reminded me how much she disliked scorpions when we noticed one between us and the television set a couple of nights ago. It was small, maybe 1 ¼ inches long, and not smart as we define it because I walked right up to it with a book and smooshed it easily. Of course this activity put a temporary stop to the video we were watching and required that we scour the condo with a flash light and remake the bed, but I was able to rationalize this episode as just an occasional bump in the road if you want the warm climate of the Southwestern Desert in February. Julie was uneasy with the event, and my explanation, but she is a really good sport about our adventures so she was able to sort of put it behind her. She hardly slept a wink. Besides, the next day we were up before the crack of dawn anyway to go fishing offshore so she did not lose too much sleep at any rate.
Even though we were fairly pooped from less sleep than we have grown accustomed to and we had been fishing all morning, tiring us further, we just had to eat some of the fish we caught for dinner that night and settle into another video. Lo and behold another little bugger crawled out in the same general area between us and the TV. Julie screamed while simultaneously jumping from her chair and in one continuous motion flattened that scorpion as though it was nearly molten metal on an anvil. No second thoughts, no apprehension, just instant death to one of her least favorite of God’s critters. In fact, I am certain that she believes that God had nothing to do with the placement of the scorpion on Earth.
Well, the next day we spent a considerable time looking at the possibilities for other rental properties and, finding nothing suitable, getting the joint sprayed and certain openings properly sealed. In Mexico one does not have easy access to many of the types of things one would find any day of the week at Home Depot, so our Canadian host / property manager graciously tried his best to find the finest things in his arsenal for sealing up the many cracks around our patio door.
Construction techniques here are different and they would give the building inspector back home an instant brain aneurism from the sheer ingenuity of what can be accomplished with sand, cement and a few rudimentary tools. But these techniques sometimes leave gaps between windows and walls, doors and their frames, roofs and supporting walls - gaps large enough to be mistaken for a kiva doorway in some instances, and which would be big enough to handle the world’s largest scorpion migration. Luckily we did not witness such an event or at this very moment I would be writing this from Barrow, Alaska where those creepy crawleys do not exist in February.
I find it interesting, in a morbid sort of way, that contractors here can build an entire house using a concrete beam and column system, filling in between the columns with fired adobe bricks or concrete blocks, put on a solid concrete roof and then decide where electrical appliances will be needed. Once determined, the workers then chip away routes through the bricks to run electrical wiring, which is all eventually covered up with a sand / cement stucco. I believe that this sort of thinking is derived in part from the structure of the language. Compared to our use of English, Spanish is sometimes backwards, which is why we see roadside stands advertising “Taco Fish.”
So, this is a long way around to bring you to my Taco Fish Theory of Scorpion Invasion and why we may be spending the remaining month of this vacation in Alaska. The gap in the house construction is brought about by language structure. Think about it. We in the States have standardized our window and door sizes and build our openings to those sizes, while here in Sonora they mostly build the structure to some pleasing dimensions, then fill in the holes with custom made doors and windows. Thus there is a propensity for gaps around these areas and scorpions are just curious enough in their pursuit of a meal to sneak there way into our vacation dreams. Taco Fish everyone!
(Next Issue: Why the Britts drive on the left side of the road and how that thinking affects their sense of humor – or as some would say – the lack thereof.)
No comments:
Post a Comment