The Guadalajara Reporter

Repairing roof tile and tar paper, watching the sun present the first slice of day, learning rural lessons about getting older

“Caray, that’s a good one.”  Paco Ruiz Gonzales grinned as he squinted into the slip of early morning light.  It was a couple of days before a mountain Christmas cold enough to show your breath.  We turned to face a slice of the red disc growing above the distant southeastern horizon.  It was a chill morning, but as soon as the sun crested the far Michoacan peaks, it began to change.

Paco and I had been throwing short stacks of bricks and roofing tile up to his 17-year-old son, Jorge.  Some of them smelled faintly of last night’s skunk that had passed building materials piled just inside the corral gate.  The characteristic olfactory evidence of his passage was blunted by the attractive aroma of horses.

“That skunk’s going to get himself killed, Paco said.  “Coming down looking for water, chicken eggs, garbage ... whatever.  All the fields have dried up here.  No easy-picking nests of anything left.   He got into Jose Navarro’s chicken coop the other night and took several pollitos.  The dogs will get him pretty soon.  He’s too bold and foolish.”

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