The rest of Wednesday

So the rest of the day went pretty well. I didn’t need to leave the gas station so early because when I got to the grocery store to buy wine and some cinnamon and butter for bread in the mornings, it didn’t open for twenty minutes!! Siestas here are for everyone, and the store closes from 1 – 4:30 pm. Pretty nice, eh? I found some butter, cinnamon, and three boxes of wine (1L each), and my total was less than 12 pesos - $4 dollars. Unbelievable!! The ride back on the horrible bike wasn’t too bad, though slowing down was tricky and necessary a couple times. I made it back in time to get instructions from Jorge and tell the others. No rest for me! We planted spinach all afternoon. It was fun poking the little plugs of soil out of the tray. We got a lot done and even got some weeding done, too. Nobody knew who was supposed to take the mare down to the end of the huerta to eat, so Sean and I went. The chain was missing because Luis never took it off yesterday. We looked and looked, but the horse was not only in the corral; she had full access of the the bosque. I tried to talk to Jorge about it, but my Spanish failed me. I didn’t understand completely, and I am sure he was just as frustrated that I didn’t know what he was saying. I heard tree and cabin (volunteer house). Around the tree with the hammock, I found some plastic stripping. I guessed that maybe the horse doesn’t pull hard enough to break it when there is plenty of food around the stake. I invented some new knots and tied her up down at the end. Five minutes and four pieces of plastic later, Manteca, as she is called, was free. Sean and Myrna walked her back to the corral and looked harder and longer for the chain. There success was obvious when thy returned with Manteca. Silly me! Sean, Myrna, and Match walked into Ya Ce for some meat. Vida, Kaitlyn, and I started cooking. We had lentils, polenta, onions, and salsas to work with. I wanted to try to make patties to fry, but it didn’t work out that way. Nonetheless, our crispy polenta with mashed lentils and sautéed onions and spices was more delicious than imaginable. We had red wine with bread, vinegar, and rosemary infused oil. What a feast!! When the other three returned, we placed some cards and drank more wine. It felt a little like family dinner or something – cooking, wine, talking, and music. Key ingredients to life! Vida’s friends were in town (as opposed to out of town, but not on the farm), so I went over for a sleepover. It was a lot of fun. We layed in our sleeping bags and talked for a while before dreaming…ah, dreaming…tori