Los Jordan Polings Vamos al Ecuador

Bananas ( guineo ), oranges ( naranja ), lemons ( limón ), and watermelon ( sandía ) are common everyday fruits in the US; they are available year round in most supermarkets and, with the exception of bananas, are all grown in North America. There are a number of tropical fruits that are everyday fruits here in Ecuador that you will likely recognize as more exotic; these include pineapple ( piña ), mangoes (mango), passion fruit ( maracuyá ), and papaya (papaya)* to name a few. Our family has found the pineapples to be particularly scrumptious the last month; we've successfully managed to consume one pineapple per day. No problema . For today's post, I wanted to write about tropical fruits that you've never heard of. . . Perhaps reading about them will make you want to come visit us! Naranjilla : The naranjilla is a small spherical fruit, about the size of a plum, with a thin bright orange peel. The flesh has a tomato-like texture (gelatinous pulp surrounding small edible...

Sherman and Nutella are three weeks old today! After a late introduction to the family, Nutella is officially part of the crew. She continues to be surprisingly docile in our hands, though she clearly prefers being outside in the dirt. Sherman, while physically bigger, is a little more of a fraidy  pollito  and often comes running into the house looking for comfort. Dillon recently discovered that Sherman, in particular, loves to perch upon his shoulder and take naps. Sometimes Nutella joins him. Brynna loves to snuggle and hold Nutella, who has a propensity to fall quickly asleep in her hands. These chicks have definitely been therapeutic for the entire family and welcome additions to our first week of home school studies. We love them dearly, though to be honest, we all are a little sick of wiping up their poop. Thank goodness for tile floors.  

We moved on from reading Little House in the Big Woods to Farmer Boy this week, and it strikes me as ironic or coincidental or some combination of the two that we were invited to hike up to my friend Mirian's finca to milk her two cows this weekend. It is funny that as Laura Ingalls Wilder is describing proper care of livestock, milking techniques, and pasteurization in the 1800s, we in our own way are experiencing these very concepts in 2022. Luckily, we have no winter snow to contend with. Just summer rains.  This is the "nice" cow, Zoilita. She's preggo but still giving milk to her older calf This is the "mean" cow. Her calf was just 8 days old. I would be mean too if I had an 8-day old and someone was stealing my milk.  Dillon did a pretty good job. Tired hands. :)

Have you ever considered -- I mean really considered -- where the hot water for your shower comes from? Have you opened the little closet and gazed lovingly upon your water heater? Thanked her for her years of service? Honored her for her quotidian commitment to your comfort? Most of us only give our hot water heater a minute of our attention on the rare occasion that she fails us, and then amidst curse words and unplanned expenditures, we replace her, only to shove her replacement back into the closet not to be thought of again for the next decade. Well, I say, in my name and at my request, go find your hot water heater and give her some credit. She has an important job, and she's pretty good at it. A nice hot shower is not something to take for granted. Here in rural Ecuador -- as in so many parts of the world -- hot water is a luxury most people do not have access to. Luckily, running water and flushing toilets are both fairly standard in these parts, though some houses do stil...

Hands down, my kids' favorite Ecuadorian treats are the naranjas . Yes, the oranges. And specifically chupando naranjas , which, translated literally means "sucking oranges". Their orange predilection isn't particularly surprising; all three tend toward fruititarian, and their daily fruit consumption on any given day is impressive. Ecuador is a wonderful place for fruititarians to call home; tropical fruit is abundant, delicious, and more often than not, growing somewhere nearby. It is the end of orange season in La Josefina; lucky for us, there are actually two orange seasons per year; a new fruiting season will begin in November. The eight or so orange trees on our rental property still boast plenty of delicious oranges from the current season, though most of the edible fruit are way up on the highest spine-filled branches and require acrobatic prowess to get to them. To loop you in on our fun, I will walk you through the process for harvesting and consuming ora...

Brynna has been repeating a little mantra for the last few days, "This feels like home. This is home." And I cannot really tell whether she is using the mantra to convince herself of this truth or because our little house and La Josefina really do feel like home to her. I am beginning to believe it is the latter. Sometimes she chants "This feels like home. This is home" when we are doing something that feels quite home-like, e.g. sitting around the dining table eating muffins or sprawling on the livingroom floor playing "I Spy". At other times, it feels a little out of place, e.g. when a gaggle of chickens wanders in our front door.  Back in Quito, I shared with the kids how I have found that a novel place becomes familiar and feels like home surprisingly quickly once four basic steps occur: 1) you get your bearings, 2) you find a way to safely meet your basic needs (food, toilet and sleep) 3) you make a relationship with one or two people, and 4) you gene...

Jonah made a Lego Shadow memorial sculpture Sad news from the equator: we lost our chickie Shadow yesterday. We are sad. Shadow had been the smaller and weaker of the two chicks since we brought them home, but she did seem to be  growing. The day before yesterday, however, she had some trouble walking and over the course of the day grew progressively weaker. Despite some attentive nursing on Dillon's part, she died peacefully yesterday afternoon. Yes, there were tears. After the tears, the kids were willing and interested -- for Sherman's sake -- to get another baby chick from the same hatch.  And so, we introduce you to Nutella. She is not quite attached yet but is surprisingly snuggly and permissive of Brynna's displays of affection (i.e. squeeze hugs).  Brynna snuggling Nutella Nutella in Dillon's hand In related news, Sherman seems non-plussed by the loss of his little sister. He continues to be curious, a little hypomanic (dare I say) and extremely attached to a...

There is a sweet scene in Little House in the Big Woods in the chapter titled "Going to Town" in which Laura and Mary are anticipating their first trip to town by playing pretend, but they have no idea what a town is, and they cannot even imagine what a store might look like. Of course, our kiddos are well acquainted with towns and stores, and yet, shopping for random life necessities in an Ecuadorian town is definitely different than shopping for the same items back home.  Last week when Paul and I took the 45-minute ride to La Man á , we left our kids behind. This week, we brought them along. Like Laura Ingalls, Brynna donned a favorite dress and asked to have her hair braided just so. My girl. The boys were excited to ride in a camioneta again.  My memories of La  Man á  are not exactly glowing. When I was a Peace Corps volunteer, I rode in to La  Man á  every few weeks to call my mom and buy a few groceries, but I never lingered; there just wasn't muc...