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Articles written by Sondra Ashton


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  • Looking out my Backdoor: Spring is sprung

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Mar 15, 2024

    The wolf-whistle bird is back. This sharp-voiced bird returns every spring. It has two very distinctive calls. When I hear its voice, I instinctively jerk my head around to see who is either trying to get my attention (Hey you, over here!) or is teasing me with admiration (Wolf-whistle, I kid you not). Then I laugh at myself. Foiled again! The wolf-whistle bird doesn’t sound anything like a love bird, does it? This avian character sounds more like the kind of birds your...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: The uneventful life

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Mar 8, 2024

    “Have an exciting evening,” my daughter wished at me after a phone call over the weekend. “No! No! No!’ I cried vehemently. “Not an exciting evening, Never! Wish me a calm and peaceful and uneventful evening, please.” One never knows what energies one might release with a casual word or two. I’ve had enough excitement in other periods of my life. Today I sit in front of my blank page with absolutely nothing to say. Life is good. Quiet. No waves. No storm clouds....

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Miles to go before we plant

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Mar 1, 2024

    It is interesting to contemplate that a mere 2-month-old baby has accumulated more frequent flier miles than I have in the past five years. The comparison is easy. My mileage is zero. More astounding is that little Marley’s flights cost more than the sum total of all my flights, domestic and foreign, inclusive of but not exclusively: multiple domestic flights, Hawaii, Alaska, Mexico, China, Japan and India. Who could have imagined this farm girl could have visited so many...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: To Tapir or not to Tapir

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Feb 23, 2024

    Michelle called. “I need to take Blue to the vet in Tala tomorrow. Ana can’t come with me because she is overseeing the work crew building our new guest house. Would you be able to come along with me?” “What time do we leave?” Michelle picked me up. Blue, tucked in his kitty carrier, never made a peep the whole trip. Michelle and I filled the air with words covering multiple spectrums. Background: Blue is an elderly cat, not in the best of health. Michelle feared...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Here a little, there a little

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Feb 16, 2024

    Why do the little changes take up so much space? I should qualify that with an addition, “in my head?” Really, most changes hardly make a dent in my consciousness. Change is constant. My favorite bowl slips from my fingers and shatters on the tile floor. Blip — gone. The rubber tip on my cane wears out. I replace it. Lola The Dog celebrates her birthday (OK, I celebrate her birthday). I notice she has quite a few more white hairs. Change, like a river, always moving....

  • Looking out my Backdoor: All my noisy neighbors

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Feb 9, 2024

    First things first. Our Baby Marley is home. She is home, ready for the hard work of getting healthy and growing and looking at everything around her with those big eyes. We are so grateful. And we are so grateful for all the friends and strangers who cared, who in small ways took our baby in their arms and into their hearts and helped her heal. Thank you. That dog of mine has put me into the habit of greeting the rising sun on our first walk of the day. Believe me, before...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Making my Retreat Center in the kitchen

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Feb 2, 2024

    Life is tough. At times, life is tougher. I’m on the periphery of that tough life but I feel it just the same. Baby Marley is still in the hospital in Billings. She’s not out of the woods, but slowly on the right path, healing from RSV and pneumonia and detoxing from the drug that kept her paralyzed during the worst of her personal storm. Mom and Dad still camp out in her room. Meanwhile, back home in Glendive, Grandma Dee and Grandpa Chris and Uncle Tyler are taking care...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: I'm all shook up!

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Jan 26, 2024

    No, that does not refer to an earthquake. If you are of an age, you will recognize this as a song sung by Elvis when he was a youngster himself, around 1957. “I’m in love. I’m all shook up!” Love manifests in many ways and early last week my world and the world of my family was all shook up. My great-granddaughter, Baby Marley, was diagnosed with RSV and pneumonia. Along with her mom, Jessica, Marley was transported from Glendive to Billings on a life-flight. Her...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: I am a plaid flannel shirt

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Jan 19, 2024

    My friend Jerry wrote me this week. Skipping the personal stuff, he asked, “Is it possible for you to create a 501 3C to raise money in U.S. to help people in need in Etzatlan?” Once I picked myself off the floor still hooting, I wrote back something like the following. A 501 3C? Oh, Jerry, I thought you knew me better than that! You ask me to do a suit job. I am not a suit. I am a well-worn flannel shirt. I am a lot of things, my friend. I am an artist, an inventor, a...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Scratching the Seven-Year Itch

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Jan 12, 2024

    I have lost three entire nights of sleep this week, misplaced where there will be no finding, scratching the seven-year itch. You could also name my malady the Grass Is Greener Syndrome. The grass is never greener. It just looks that way from across the fence. This is not an unusual occurrence for me. Something within me likes the challenge of new experiences. Frequently over the years while I’ve lived out on my little chunk of quiet, peaceful Paradise, I’ve cast my eyes...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Animal stories

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Jan 5, 2024

    It was a dark and stormy night. Oh, wait! Different story. It was the day before New Year’s Eve. Leo and I were sitting in the sun chatting after he had mouse-proofed my washing machine with a length of screen and duct tape. Mice are on the move every year during corn harvest when they temporarily are forced out of their home and well-stocked grocery. My washing machine sits tucked away in the back corner of my patio, outdoors. This is not the first time mice thought the...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: My Magic Bed Jacket

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Dec 29, 2023

    My bed jacket. It is a sign. A portent of things to come. Christmas Eve, I went to Oconahua for a traditional Mexican feast of tamales and hot chocolate with my friends. When I returned home, a gift bag stuffed tightly with something rather heavy, sat on my patio table. I reached in and pulled out … a jacket. This jacket is made of that plush, fluffy stuff, like a baby blanket. Thank goodness it is not a pale pastel. I’d have to gift it onward. No, amazingly, the jacket...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: The world is my apple

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Dec 22, 2023

    Or, one might say, this week, apples are my world. Every year I put a lot of thought into my gift giving for Christmas. Grandchildren are easy. Gift certificates. They are of the age where money is the better choice. Gold, right? For the babies, my grandchildren, my daughter handles that chore for me. She knows best what they want, need and enjoy. The hard part is for us few who are here this holiday season in Gringolandia. We are old. We already have everything we want. If I...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Weirding my way into winter

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Dec 15, 2023

    No longer can I remain in denial. I am an addict. I am addicted to sunlight. When I lived in Poulsbo, Washington, on the Kitsap Peninsula where it rained 10 months of the year, I remember how hard it was by February to keep up my spirits. That is normal behavior, pretty much. Now, these years later, after a mere couple (2) cloudy days with rain, and I begin to wonder if a Prozac Big Gulp would really work. Having grown up in a country of constant drought, I love the rain....

  • Looking out my Backdoor: A different kind of day

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Dec 8, 2023

    Interesting how we carve time to suit particular purposes. I won’t look it up, but thinking about it, I’d not be surprised that our universal way of dividing our days started with the Industrial Revolution, as a way of getting the workers to be where and when the bosses wanted them to be. That is as political as I am willing to be this morning. My day began yesterday, actually. It rained yesterday, so that jiggered up walk times with Lola, but we managed to wriggle them...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: I don't know

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Dec 1, 2023

    I don’t. Truly, I don’t know. Life is so much more interesting when I don’t know. When I “know,” I limit myself to where it is difficult for new and different information to filter into my brain. Hey, because I already know! A closed door. Right? Take something simple, like tortillas. What is there not to know about tortillas? I feel pretty puffed up that I can make decent corn tortillas. I seldom make flour tortillas because they always come out looking like...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Pardon my turkey

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Nov 24, 2023

    One of the many things I have come to respect about the Mexican culture, the Mexican people, is their ability to celebrate. Times may seem grim and the larder near empty, but they somehow will scrape together beans, tortillas, tomatoes and peppers, gather family and neighbors into their homes to share a feast, and maybe even shoot off a few fireworks, always with music in the background, even if from a radio. Remember radio? We, my friends, in our country, seem to have...

  • Looking out my Backdor: The Winter of, The Summer of, My Disillusionments

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Nov 17, 2023

    My friend Jim from Glasgow sent me a short video clip of the Little Rockies, Three Buttes, Snake Butte and the Bear Paws. Immediately, I yearned, homesick. I shared the video with friends. “This is my beautiful country.” Their response, not unexpected, “Ah, yes. Uh huh. Beautiful,” as they looked for an exit. Which brought on this following chain of thought. To some this will sound as though I am describing two foreign countries, and I am. Both countries have...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: There is a hole in our lives

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Nov 10, 2023

    There aren’t many of us here on the rancho. Not all of our houses have their people. But the last several days, we who are here, me, Nancie, Julie, Lani and Ariel, Tom and Janet, frequently found ourselves running up against, no, not a wall, but a hole. This hole has a specific size and shape, exactly the size and shape of Leo. Leo helps all of us with gardening, planting, pruning, mowing, cutting, watering. But Leo is more than a gardener. He has helped all of us, at one...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Life is not a bowl of tortillas

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Nov 3, 2023

    Last week, a registered historic hotel in Glendive burned. The night the fire was started was also the night of the first winter blizzard. Firemen from a hundred-mile radius came to fight the fire which razed the hotel and a neighboring building. My daughter’s office is in the upper floor of a building adjacent to the hotel. Firemen battled the blaze all night and the following day to keep her building from burning. For three days the hotel fire smoldered and flared. For thr...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Wait Until We Get Back

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Oct 27, 2023

    Two of my friends are touring Italy. Their husbands did not want to go. The women said, “That’s okay. We will go ourselves. You keep the home fires burning.” When we get back, we will have so much To tell you. One friend, the one from Washington, Sends photos, photos of famous palaces, pictures Of hotel rooms, of food, of streets, of stores. Now and then we see a picture of each of them, Usually sitting at a plate of food, looking glad. Or looking exhausted. Or, one...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Instruction Manual: Care and Feeding of a Funk

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Oct 20, 2023

    The other day I found myself feeling a little low, a little down in the dumps. The problem is, I was enjoying the feeling, to some extent. The next problem is that I found it so dag gone hard to maintain the slump. We don’t come with an instruction manual so I figure it is high time somebody writes one. ***This does not apply to real depression. Depression is a serious matter. For real depression, see your doctor. Please. One of my friends said, “It’s your bio-rhythm....

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Job application for sports person

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Oct 13, 2023

    Dear Editor, I recently spotted an opening for a sports person for the newspaper. I didn’t read the description closely but am confident I could quickly polish and perfect my qualifications for the position. When I was 9 or 10 years old, before we moved to Montana, my dad took me to a Cardinal’s game at the stadium in Louisville, Kentucky, a skip, a jump and a slide across the Ohio River from where we lived. The game was at night and the field was well-lighted. I did...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: October is the best month!

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Oct 6, 2023

    September ended here in my little patch of Mexico with record-breaking heat. The heat I can handle. The humidity is brutal. Early this morning, 70 F, humidity in the 90s, go hang laundry on the line, come inside with sweaty wet hair. In the afternoon, when it is 90, when I return to the house with dry laundry, I’m hot but dry. When we Montanans say, “Yes, but it is dry heat,” we know what we are talking about. October will be different. Won’t it? And the critters, oh,...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Writing down a quilt

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Sep 29, 2023

    Usually I sit down to write with something specific on my mind. Today I have a scrap of this and a scrap of that. What does one do with scraps? One makes a quilt. Michelle called. “Let’s go to the Plaza for cake.” In the Mercado a teeny coffee shop recently opened, fancy drinks and baked goods. They make the best carrot cake. Michelle, Ana and I found a bench in the shade in the Plaza, where we enjoyed our drinks and cakes put our worlds in order. During this time, I...

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