A little dog died ...

We take turns cooking dinner here in our apartment.  Monday was my night to cook - very easy because Richard had fixed his super risotto the day before and there were lots of leftovers.  I put a couple portions in the casserole dish to bake, and prepared a potful of carrots and asparagus to go along.  While things heated, I watched the street below.  6:30-ish ... tail end of the traffic rush ... drizzling rain.

I didn't see the car hit the dog.  What I saw was the man getting out of his car to walk back and pick up the dog he'd just hit.  Or maybe he'd seen it get hit.  He carried the small white animal gently, his hands under the shoulders and hips.  He laid it down on the parking strip, close to the sidewalk.  The poor little dog's legs twitched for a moment and then drooped.  The man went back to his car and moved on, leaving the little canine on the ground.

Maybe it was new to the neighborhood, a puppy, and hadn't learned the rules of the road yet?

Richard watched too, commenting he was pretty sure he'd seen that dog patrolling a few houses to the right.  The large, curly-haired white dog, next door to where this little one now lay, is the noisy one, barking at every passerby.  The fat, shaggy, golden brown dog who lives in the house in front of which this corpse now rested, came out to sniff:  first the butt, then the belly, then the face.  No connection, no response.  Que pena!  Pobrecito!

Cars passed.  The rain stopped.  People walked by, both on the sidewalk and on the street.  We ate our risotto with vegetables and then Richard moved into the kitchen to clean up, while I walked downstairs and next door to the grocery store for a box of grapefruit juice.

When I came back to my window, I watched two young men stand in the grassy median of the street.  Each hefted his back pack as well as some tool in the hand.  As they walked out of the median, crossing to the far sidewalk, I saw that one carried the spade of a shovel, while the other carried the handle.  The canine corpse was gone.  No doubt they'd lifted a plug of grass in the median and interred the little dog.  Rest in Peace.

Photo taken Wednesday night around 7 pm.  

I don't think the men had any connection to the little dog except that they saw a fellow creature in need of burial.  They left the shovel pieces somewhere behind that plywood-paneled truck and walked on down the sidewalk to the left.

"Lyf so short ... The craft so long to learn."  ........ Chaucer

Eye to Eye with Calbuco

View from my dining room table today, November 12

Thursday, November 6, 2014: 

We have no heat in this little apartment on Avenida Ramon Munita.  From my third floor window I look out across a neighborhood of small two-story casas, the stove pipes above their metal roofs spewing smoke that lays down flat in the cold northwest wind.  I'm so jealous of their fires!  I should have gone along with Richard down to the boat this morning, where he’s right now stoking Abrazo’s wood stove. 

Instead I chose to do some cleaning and sorting here in the new nest, hopeful that Don Pedro will call me back soon with news that he’s bringing us a heater.  We haven’t been able to figure out how to light the stove, but pots of hot tea from the gas burners sustain me.  Small challenges continue.  The apartment has no internet, and Don Pedro  suggested a USB modem.  But the one we bought at Falabella … well … after hours of puzzling with it, both at home and back at the tech desk where we bought it, the vendor agreed it was a bad piece of equipment.  By then I had no patience left for trying another unit.  Maybe tomorrow.      

Los colores de mi vida.  Note the black droid lower right by the stool!

Friday, November 7

Last night Don Pedro came up to see us, with his wife Erica and their two young teens, Cristobal and Catalina.  The chico carried the black metal cube with wheels that is my new best friend:  an electric heater.  Richard had figured out how to light the gas oven by then, so we were not totally frigid; and with all those bodies in the apartment, the windows were soon streaming with condensed vapors. 

Once the newly painted walls, newly covered floors and newly tiled bathroom tub surround had been admired by Erica, I asked my remaining questions (“What does this knob do?” etc.).  When Don Pedro advised us that the cost of electricity is very high, I feared he wanted to raise the rent already, but we assured him we would only use the heater sparingly.  Also, Erica agreed to investigate having internet activated in the apartment.  Then we sat around to chat for a few minutes. 

Catalina, had a question for me, her mother said.

“Do you have daughters or sons?” the chica asked.  At first I couldn’t make out her pronunciation of “daughters”… which embarrassed HER, of course.  Disculpa me!  We recovered.  They all laughed when I explained that the boat has been our hija y hijo.    

Both kids enjoyed the oportunidad to show off their English in front of their parents.  They study it in their schools.  Cristobal claims he has learned most from “the You Tubes.”  Catalina likes American music, and says “English is awesome.”  I’m glad.  Our Angelmo friend complains that English has such an ugly sound compared to Spanish. 

While we chatted, Don Pedro looked through our little picture book 

about the construction of the boat, and proclaimed our boat un tesoro.  Then he rounded up his own gang of treasures and left us to enjoy the electric warmth of our new droid. 

Saturday, November 8

Condominio Ramon Munita is about the same distance from the Mercado Presidente Ibañez as was our apartment in Los Almendros last year, but last year we had to walk UP a steep hill to get to the market.  This year we actually live on a bench a bit higher than the market, so the uphill hike, nowhere near as steep, is on the way home.

We find the Saturday morning market just as colorful, crowded, and fresh as we remembered … see pics in last year’s blog  "Saturday Morning Market" 12-9-13. 

The vendor with the gold tooth is happy to see us again, the ancient blind man still plays his accordion, layers of fresh fish and mounds of shellfish fill the tables, and the supplies of fresh-cut lettuce and parsley are still cheaper than the grocery store.  With laden back-packs we hike home, where Richard begins the ritual of creating his spaghetti sauce.  Teresita is coming for a 1:30 almuerzo.  She already loves R’s spaghetti. 

I bought a bouquet of flowers (the purple-white vallica) at the market, and Tere brings a pretty bunch of rododendro fucsia from her home. 

It’s Chilean tradition, she says, on your first visit to a person’s home, to bring flowers.  When Tere sees that we have a fine view of Volcan Calbuco from the dining table (when the clouds lift, that is), she approves our living arrangements, despite the fact we have “no natura” … no trees or gardens around the building.  

Here's the view without benefit of telephoto

We’re paying around $600/month … like last year… but this time the gas, electric, and gastos are included.  The building is not so elegant as Los Almendros.  We’re farther from the center of town.  It’s easy enough to walk down, when we have time and the weather permits, and catch the Costanera bus to the marina.  But on the return we usually look for a collective to get us back up the hills:  up to the level of the Jumbo grocery store, near where we lived last year … up again to the level of Avenida Presidente Ibañez … then up again to the top of Av. Sargento Silva.  You can see in the photo above that there’s yet another terrace of houses above us. 

Wednesday, November 12

The man from Moviestar came today so we are connected for internet and wi-fi, too.  Yay!  Hope all your connections are operating well, and that the news you find is mostly good.

Got to find a home ...

A glorious day in Pelluco, and a fine view from the window of Teresita's dining room:  yellow azaleas at the wall of her house, a gallery of rhododendrons and a snowball tree (copas de nieve), a whole park full of trees reaching down to the coastal road, the towers are apartment buildings in Pelluco, and the cityscape in the far distance is Puerto Montt.  Tere served us a quiche-like spinach pancake cut into appetizer sections (spinach from her own invernadero.  She also served a delicious ceviche made with salmon and vegetables, with her muy especiale mixed berry compote for dessert.

When she visited us in Bellingham this past summer, Tere had a good time washing, chopping, and cooking vegetables from our garden and greenhouse (invernadero) in between sessions of practicing her English.

Now, we do our best to converse in Español with our elegant hostess.  

She would love to have us move in with her right now, but we'll wait till January when one of her two rentals will become available.  In the meantime, we're staying at the Hostal de Los Navegantes, across the road from the marina, where we have a room with private bath, breakfast served downstairs, wifi, and a very nice fire in the stove on days like today, when the spring storms roll in one after the other and the rain showers alternate with hail showers outside.  I like the warmth and openness of the upstairs lounge, here, where I have the big table all to myself for writing and reading.  Don Pedro, the owner here, has an apartment in town he is almost ready to rent to us.  Not as high-toned a neighborhood as we had last year, and not as close to Centro, either, but we'll get to learn a whole new set of buses and collectivos, as well as a different group of vecinos.  The apartment we had last year is available once again, but there has been a 25% hike in the rent.  Don Pedro's place, with all utilities included, rents for what we paid last year.  Is it a 25% less attractive spot?  I guess it all evens out.  Maybe we can move in by Tuesday.  He's been retiling the bathroom, repainting, etc.  He's told us if there's anything missing as far as furniture or dishes, all we need to do is let him know and he will provide.

Richard is off in Puerto Varas today for lunch with the ROMEOs.  Did I tell you about them last year?  An adjunct to the ladies' English-Speaking Book Club, the Retired Old Men Eating Out might bring Richard into contact with someone who will know someone who will want to buy the boat.  If nothing else, he'll have a fine time talking economics, politics and etc with men from Oregon, Scotland, New York, and I don't know where all else.

I attended the ladies' book club meeting this past Tuesday, tho it had been transformed into a baby shower for the newest member, due to give birth next week.  I brought the books they'd requested from the States:  The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window & Disappeared, by Jonas Jonasson; and The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais.  I also brought two copies of The Women, by TC Boyle, even tho I hadn't read it yet myself.  Now that I've almost finished that one, I'll prepare a recommendation of it for the club.  The novel is about Frank Lloyd Wright's various wives and mistresses from the point of view of a Japanese architectural apprentice who lives and studies with Wright for nine years in the Thirties. "The stress and challenge of living with a genius ..." 

Before I leave you, let me add this little story:   

Soon after Richard and I got home to Bellingham this past spring, I met my friend, Dianne M, downtown for a pleasant reunion over Mayan Coffees at the Adaggio Café. In answer to one of her probing questions, I babbled about the ardent wave of love for my home I’d felt on re-entering my front door, stepping back into my own living room after having been away in Chile for almost six months.  The warm colors and cozy textures, shelves full of books, art on the walls, the carpet, the couch, the lamps and rocking chairs  … all so comfortingly familiar!  I hadn’t missed any of these things consciously, and that rush of happiness at being back amidst these objects and articles surprised me. 

Dianne had been rereading  The Wind in the Willows, probably preparing to share it with her grand-daughter one day soon.  Surprised that I’d never read it, she told me that “The warm sense of home” is beautifully drawn in this storybook.  Curiousity about what that is, that sense of home, and respect for my friend’s recommendation, soon led me to a delightful read.  And The Wind in the Willows brought me another sweet wave of surprise:  Mr. Rat, Mr. Badger, Mr. Mole and Mr. Toad deliver in their very different ways the spirit of deep satisfaction they enjoy in their homes.  But it was the migratory birds that best described my own feelings of connection with home!  You can read the whole story on line at www.gutenberg.org … but here’s a bit from Chapter 9 to show you what I mean. 

                                                                                       

Mr. Rat is feeling restless towards the end of summer.  He notices there are fewer and fewer birds in the neighborhood.  While walking his usual rounds one day, he spies three sparrows, talking together and “fidgeting restlessly on their bough.”

“'What, ALREADY,' said the Rat, strolling up to them. 'What's the hurry? I call it simply ridiculous.'

“'O, we're not off yet, if that's what you mean,' replied the first swallow. 'We're only making plans and arranging things. Talking it over, you know—what route we're taking this year, and where we'll stop, and so on. That's half the fun!'

“'Fun?' said the Rat; 'now that's just what I don't understand. If you've GOT to leave this pleasant place, and your friends who will miss you, and your snug homes that you've just settled into, why, when the hour strikes I've no doubt you'll go bravely, and face all the trouble and discomfort and change and newness, and make believe that you're not very unhappy. But to want to talk about it, or even think about it, till you really need——'

“'No, you don't understand, naturally,' said the second swallow. 'First, we feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest; then back come the recollections one by one, like homing pigeons. They flutter through our dreams at night, they fly with us in our wheelings and circlings by day. We hunger to inquire of each other, to compare notes and assure ourselves that it was all really true, as one by one the scents and sounds and names of long-forgotten places come gradually back and beckon to us.' …

“'Ah, yes, the call of the South!' twittered the other two dreamily. 'Its songs its hues, its radiant air!’ and, forgetting the Rat, they slid into passionate reminiscence …

“'Why do you ever come back, then, at all?' he demanded of the swallows jealously. 'What do you find to attract you in this poor drab little country?'

“'And do you think,' said the first swallow, 'that the other call is not for us too, in its due season? The call of lush meadow-grass, wet orchards, warm, insect-haunted ponds, of browsing cattle, of haymaking, and all the farm-buildings clustering round the House of the perfect Eaves?'

“'Do you suppose,' asked the second one, that you are the only living thing that craves with a hungry longing to hear the cuckoo's note again?'

“'In due time,' said the third, 'we shall be home-sick once more for quiet water-lilies swaying on the surface of an English stream. But to-day all that seems pale and thin and very far away. Just now our blood dances to other music.'”

Now, ain't that a fine depiction of the migratory spirit! 

May all your homes be blessed with the wheelings and circlings of sweet memories.

The Autumnal Migration: Smooth, Tho Exhaustipating

Challenges here, challenges there ... It's a good thing we're both patient, persistent, and resilient.  Last week I captured photos of my yard in Bellingham, where Richard had been working hard to get all the garden beds put to sleep for the winter.  Now, can I load one of those photos to this blog?  No!  Something has changed ... the photo link doesn't give me access to the photos on my Ipad anymore.  Google wants me to go thru Picasso?  Sheesh!

Tuesday morning, while checking thru the Canadian border crossing on our way to the airport in Vancouver BC, the customs agent asked me to tell him what had happened in New Orleans in 1975.  OMG!  I had no idea that raggedy old business might show up ... those charges were supposed to have been "expunged from the record."  Maybe that particular customs agent enjoyed flustering me.

And then there's the migratory flight itself.  Ours began on a beautiful new 737 that carried us over the Cascade Mountains and the Wind River Range and south over Pueblo, Colorado to Texas and a smooth landing at Dallas-Ft. Worth.  We had a brisk walk around the loop of E-Gates, and then a glass of wine at Pizza-Vino, where our waiter used my Ipad to take a photo of us.  (I'd post that photo here, if I could.  I tried to start this blog entry from that restaurant, in fact, but Google seemed concerned about security and I couldn't get in.)
The flight from Dallas to Santiago de Chile boarded at 9:00 pm.  An old plane ... none of those wonderful video screens at each seat, with nearly endless choices of movies or games, etc.  But the crew eventually served us tortellini and wine, and the overhead-mounted tv screens delivered Angelina Jolie as Maleficent.  By the time they started the movie over again, a little after midnight, we'd discovered that we could hear it in English on channel 11.  Then ensued some long dark hours of hip and spine and shoulder pain as we bent and stretched and tried to sleep.  But HEY!  Think of how the birds must feel after using their OWN wings to fly all those miles.  I guess we had it easy.
After a few hours wait in the domestic terminal at Santiago, we flew on down to Puerto Montt, where our lovely friend, Teresita, met us and drove us to the Hostal de Los Navegantes, near Marina Reloncavi.  ( Imagine a photo of Tere, here )

Abrazo floats peacefully at the dock ... and the Hostal's bed was warm and comfy.  At breakfast this morning we met a couple from Seattle who have also just returned to their boat here.  Their boat is on the hard, so they'll be polishing up the fiberglass and arranging to have her put back into the water with plans to sail south to the Beagle Channel and Cape Horn.  We'll be polishing up the For Sale sign, and getting Abrazo's galley operating, while we look for an apartment or a house to live in.

Soon I will study the new photo protocols; maybe my next entry here will be more colorful.  It was great to be "at home" in Bellingham this past summer, but you know ... I'm happy to be back "home" to the warming spring season here in Puerto Montt, now that the transition trip is done.

You have transitions of varying shapes and sizes every day, no doubt.  We wish you smooth shifting and plenty of endurance!

Tender Torteloni in Capitan Pastene

Sunday, the 19th of January, Richard was enjoying his usual Skype call with Brother Bob, when Bob mentioned a travelogue about Chile's Lake District that had captured his attention.  A certain town in the hills, founded by colonists from Italy.  Hundreds of prosciutto hams hanging from a ceiling; long tables where Italian-speaking women rolled pasta strips, dotted them with filling and cut raviolis and tortelinis.  Bob had not held on to the NAME of this special town, but Richard was able to find it on the internet:  Capitan Pastene.  We had to go!  Over the next few days, R searched the net for maps, hotels, etc.  We decided to go on Monday, the 27th.  So on Saturday, the 25th, we hiked downtown to buy our bus tickets.  From the Costanera we could see 77 sailboats milling around in the bay, awaiting the starting gun.  This bi-annual Regatta is five days of races, with parties at the stopping points in between, south to the island of Chiloe.  The fastest boat are the Soto 40s, with their 10-12 person crews and their carbon-fiber sails.  

Buses Jac has a five hour ride north on Ruta Cinco to Temuco, for $14 a piece.  We'd rent a car there and drive almost 2 hours thru the hills to Capitan Pastene.  To get there before the lunch service closed, we bought tickets for the 7 a.m. bus.  Sheesh, I hadn't been up that early in months! We were excited to get out of town, though, and as it turns out, my Ipad has a delightful alarm clock. 

Comfy seats, especially when the air-conditioning works.

Beautiful landscape viewed from the car ... lots of golden straw ready for baling, huge John Deere and New Holland combines and balers working ... in some fields the grain stubble is disked ... trees embroider the drainages ... very pretty territory.

We drove west, but could look back to the east where the volcanoes rise.

Made it to L'Emiliano Restaurant right around 3 pm. Genny, the owner, came out to greet us as we parked, and her son, Patricio, the manager, welcomed us in English and made us comfortable at a table on the outside porch.  First the wine, with an antipasto tabla of prosciutto, copa, and local cheese.  Then Torteloni stuffed w spinach & walnuts, in Alfredo sauce, and Gnocchi dressed with Pesto. (Go to L'Emiliano Restaurant for a great tour.)  We finished with espresso and limoncello.  In bliss.

The only info Richard had found about staying in Capitan Pastene was very expensive, so he'd booked us a room at a place in Los Angeles:  El Rincon.  As it turned out, this wonderful hostal is some 10 miles north of Los Angeles.  We chose to take the scenic route up thru Angol and Coihue, and what with pot holes, traffic jams, and a lot of really slow logging trucks, it took us almost three hours to get there.  Vale la pena, sin duda.  Roland and Wendy welcomed us to their green oasis, where clusters of grapes hang from the pergola and burbling waters flow in hand-dug channels throughout the grounds.  They've sailed all over the world in every kind of boat, and promised to connect us to a broker in the British Virgin islands.  They'd never heard of Capitan Pastene, but we made them salivate with our stories.  And after the quietest night's sleep since we left Bellingham, we decided it WOULD be smart to keep our reservation for a second night despite the long drive.   

In the morning after breakfast, we walked the paths outside the hostal's cabins out to the river, across a channel to the huge vegetable garden, greenhouse, and berry patch that provides the basics for El Rincon's cuisine, and up the dirt driveway a stretch, just for exercise.  We told our hosts we would not sign up for dinner with them, since we intended to eat our fill in CP again.  They asked us to buy them a stock of prosciutto and copa, and maybe a pan of fresh pasta if possible!

Don Primo's is famous for his prosciutto, which we found to be indeed delicious.  His pasta was not as special as what we'd had the day before, however.  Just not as tender as at L'Emiliana.  (We went back to Patricio to buy a take-home for Wendy & Roland.)

At Don Primo's, however, I really liked the sign about a smile changing the world.  And our waitress, Marivella, was generous with her own pretty smiles.
Once stuffed again, we strolled around town snapping pictures.  There are large investments being made in new construction, improvements to the town plaza, widening of roads, refacing of sidewalks.  One side of town has recently bulged with a new burb in that awful-looking form we are seeing in many places here:  small identical boxes packed together on a flat spot.

Some still resist the trends.

Montecorone has great gelato.  We had such fun talking with Mabel, who owns the place, that we bought souvenirs and more prosciutto here, too.  Will have to go back another time to try her pasta, or pizza, or other treats.  

Before driving back to Ruta Cinco, thru forested hills and golden fields we learned that there are some normally-priced accommodations in this wonderful town.  Mabel will let us know the dates for the next Prosciutto Festival, and we'll make our way here again to stay a few days. 

Our last night at El Rincon was another pleasure.  Wendy & Roland have invited us to consider taking over for them sometime while they take a couple weeks' vacation to include Capitan Pastene themselves.    

¡Bandera Chilena!

Abrazo flies the Chilean flag at last: 

Richard took down the US flag, and then moved the Chilean flag from the "guest" position to its new place on the boat.  

The Chilean Customs bureaucracy has officially accepted the valuation of Abrazo as calculated by the tasador from a certain prestigious empressa out of Viña de Mar.  We’re specifically grateful to the tasador, himself, a young man whose Chilean ancestry traces back to the northern Italian area of Milan/Lago Maggiore from whence Richard himself descends.  This appraiser admired Abrazo immensely, inspected her thoroughly, required scans of her original plans, took the book I wrote about her construction in Bellingham, as well as the For Sale flyer (posted in an earlier blog), and also understood that R was going to have to pay a tax of 20+% of the boat’s official value.  We’re grateful to the Agente de Aduana, Sr. Arturo Bello, for his shepherding of the flock of papers through the Customs process.  He charged plenty, si.  Valió la pena, esperamos.

Several bankers played their parts faithfully as the thousands of US dollars were transferred across the country to New York City, and thence over the wires into the Chilean system.  Richard has complied with every request made by his chosen bank here in Puerto Montt, but they are not quite ready to let him have a checking account yet.  So when the money came in from the US, he had to take it en efectivo, cash ... and the largest bills available were 10,000 peso notes.  There must be a better way than taking a six-inch deep stack of paper pesos from one bank and having to carry it four blocks to the bank where the Agente de Aduana has HIS account … but that’s what we did.  I went along as bodyguard.  All's well.    

So, now:  Richard will adjust the sales price to reflect the fact that a buyer will NOT have to pay the 20% IVA.  The dollar is highly valued down here right now, around 540 pesos per.  Pricing is the new challenge.  Right around $56,000 US is the target, I believe.   

But it's not all work.  We had a wonderful time last weekend at a gorgeous performance of Mozart’s opera, The Magic Flute, La Flauta Magica.  

Neither of us knew anything about this work, but our Pennsylvania amiga, Nancy, has infected us with her enthusiasm for the opera, so we jumped at the chance to experience this music in the “world class” Teatro Del Lago in Frutillar.  You can't just call in your credit card number to reserve seats here.  You must call to reserve tentatively, then look for the email from the theater giving you their bank account info.  You email the theater when you've made the deposit, and they ask you to send a photo of the receipt!  Then you've got reservations.  What a system.  

Main floor ... we arrived early.  

 The pic I took of Richard in his balcony seat did not turn out well, but here he is, outside the theater, dressed for the opera.

We enjoyed the sopranos immensely, and the great bass voice of Sarastro impressed us.  It took me a week, after the performance, to read the program and understand the story, finally.  I just loved the way the two young men, Prince Tamino and the bird-hunter, Papageno, each followed his own path to success:  one by the righteous road, supervised by the wise old men, and passing thru hard trials, tests of character; and the other by the natural, winding, happy path of instinct, holding to pursuit of pleasure above all things!


Ah, there's more to tell of that trip to Frutillar:  a delicious lunch at the Lavender Casa de Té, where Kristina, the owner gave us a walking tour thru her blueberry grove and then up into the horse pasture to meet the studs and geldings and enjoy the view of hayfields, woodlots, acres of lavender a-buzz with honey bees, and the beautiful lake, Llanquihue, sparkling across to the volcanoes.
We stayed in a great farmhouse built by German colonists more than a hundred years ago, far on the other side of town from the theater.  Our transportation funds mostly went to a young man named Javier, who delivered us back and forth 3 of the 4 trips.  He brought his wife and two small sons along on Friday night when he met us outside the opera house for the 6 km drive along the lake shore, under the full moon, to our lodging.  And I'm sure he was sorry to hear that our last ride with him the next day was to the bus terminal so we could get back to Puerto Montt.

Next adventure, well, besides selling the boat, is north on Ruta Cinco for about 5 hours on the bus to Temuco, where Richard will rent a car.  We want to go to the tiny town of Capitan Pastene.  Brother Bob saw a PBS documentary about this town and told us about it last week.  The colonists who started the town in 1904 came from Modena, Italy and have made themselves famous for their Italian cuisine in the mountains of Chile's south-central region.  We hope to feast on prosciutto and pasta.  Then we'll get down to the business of marketing Abrazo.

  

 

¡Atropellada! in Frutillar

El Museo Aleman (the German Museum) in Frutillar inspired all kinds of sense memories for both Richard and me, including some from past lifetimes, I think.  

What a fine way to lay out a display!  The millhouse with its waterwheel sits well above the entrance gardens, yet far below the family farmhouse at the top of the hill. A spring house up there, outside the family home, where Mama kept her butter and her cottage cheese for cooling, marks the place where the water starts, in a stream that falls downhill thru green channels and rocky patches till it's channeled into a wooden chute to turn the water wheel. 

No está functionado ahora.   But the various millstones that used to grind the grains lay about.  Coarse meal, fine flour ... the miller could do it all.  

In the Perkiomen River Valley, where I grew up, at least three mills once worked the waters near my home.  Leidy's, Clemmer's, and Pennypacker's water wheels had ceased to function by the 1950's, but their names and their powers continued into modern commerce.  

Richard, born with a mechanical turn of mind, to a father who built dams for hydropower in the great Northwest, saw the power of the turning wheel clearly enough to recognize that this contraption was a lathe:  

No doubt the lathe was used to turn the banisters for the stairways inside the family home ... and what else, we wonder? 

On the way up the trail to the main house, we had a sweet view of the eucalyptus trees on the border of the museum property. These trees always connect us to Richard's Auntie Marian, whose home in Los Gatos, CA was surrounded by them.  

The eucalyptus also links us to our first visit to Chile in 2005 when we learned that Isidora Goyenechea de Cousiño introduced the tree to Chile because she'd discovered that its wood was really good for bracing the coal-mining tunnels in Lota.  Eucalyptus beams gives off a loud creak when moved or strained ... an appropriate alarm method in Lota's underground mining shafts that go for almost a mile below the ocean floor.   

Inside the Casona, many warm interior scenes of family life are easy to imagine.  The kitchen, for instance:  

Is that a bread-slicing device on the counter at far right?  I like the cast iron waffle iron on the table.  We had one of those on our boat, for cooking waffles atop the wood stove.  

I love the clean and sunny look of the "bath room" ... .  Can't help wondering, now that I think of it:  How did they get the used water OUT of those tubs?  With bailing buckets?  Throw the water out the window?  

Each room has special features; each has fine views from the windows.  I would love to have stepped into the nursery to have a better look at that castle/doll house!  

The view from the porch at the back of the house, face to face with Volcan Osorno across the lake. 

 Hedged gardens adorn the lower acres, with a blacksmith’s house and a barnful of ancient farm equipment on either side of the winding creek.  One more photo:  I'm only standing there for scale, so you can appreciate how big that agave plant is.  

Our tour thru the German Museum came at the end of our day in Frutillar.   

We'd enjoyed a delicious lunch of smoked salmon salad, and pork tenderloin with sauteed veggies at the Bistro in the Teatro del Lago ... where we made plans to return mid-month for Mozart's La Flauta Magica. 
In the shade of a huge tree on the lakeside, we enjoyed a free performance by the youthful orchestra from the town of Mellipuhue.  They warmed up with a circus theme from Strauss, and then enchanted us with their version of  El Pantero Rosado by Henry Mancini.

And now for the title story:  ¡Atropellada!  

When we first arrived in Frutillar, by bus from Puerto Montt - about an hour's ride - we walked a long ways around the lake, beyond where the sidewalk ends.  Richard wanted to see the marina, where 12 or so boats were moored, including three J-24's, the kind his buddy Carlos likes so well.  We had a good time talking about what it might be like to live in this lovely town on the very pretty lake, Llanquihue.  What might lake sailing be like?  

On the walk back towards the main attractions of Frutillar, we crossed the road at one point because maybe there was a little more of a grassy shoulder on that side.  I'm sure I MUST HAVE SEEN that broad, big, dark green road sign up ahead.  Maybe my mind registered:  big road sign - must be high enough for a normal woman to clear, walking underneath?  Or, maybe my mind was too much focused on watching the narrow, uneven ground.  Maybe the sun would have been in my eyes if I'd been looking up.  Maybe my sunglasses were smeared with sweat that blinded me.  Whatever!

I was marching along behind Richard, eyes on the ground, head tilted down, when that road sign, a billBOARD, knocked me down.  Crack went my skull against the sharp aluminum edge at the bottom of the sign, and down I went on my butt and left elbow.  What a shock!  And even more shocking:  the hot blood dripping and then flowing down the left side of my face!  Richard was very kind.  He sloshed water from his private stash, fished in my pack for the packet of kleenex I always carry, and swabbed my head wound - an inch wide gash at center scalp, two inches above my hairline.  He had me hold a wad of kleenex on the torn spot, while he dabbed away the blood on my face and hands, and even flooded the bloody spots out of my blouse while I recovered equilibrium.  Never a word of ridicule about not watching where I was going.  In fact, he tried to take the blame.

All's well.  Good to have these humbling incidents now and then, as long as we survive them, right?  

May your own focus on where you put your feet never distract you from what might whack your head!