Life Surrounded by Mountains in Central Chile

Many of you took care of Rachel while she lived for two years at the animal shelter, many others met her while we walked into town, so I want you to know that she passed from natural causes two weeks ago yesterday in my arms after she collapsed while on our daily walk.  She was an irreplaceable companion, always ready for an adventure, and I thank you for taking care of her so well when she was not with me.  She was a loving dog from the start, because you loved her.


On another happier note I want to share some photos of the vegetation in the reserve in Chile:  https://flic.kr/s/aHsmQSRpG8


I remember your worries about getting her through customs on your way to your new home.  Rachel was fortunate to have such a caring, loving friend.  She must have had a wonderful life in Chile.  So sorry for your loss.  


Copihue said:

On another happier note I want to share some photos of the vegetation in the reserve in Chile:  https://flic.kr/s/aHsmQSRpG8

 Many of these photos remind me of certain areas in Arizona.  Looks like similar climate and topography.


Elle_Cee said:

I remember your worries about getting her through customs on your way to your new home.  Rachel was fortunate to have such a caring, loving friend.  She must have had a wonderful life in Chile.  So sorry for your loss.  

 Thank you.  She and I had remarkable moments together.  These past few years I have watched my friend loose her strength and vitality.  I know that she knew how much I loved her, and I am comforted by that.  She fought hard to continue being together, and I was strengthened by the awareness.  We both clung to each other, to every moment we had left, until she no longer could remain standing literally and figuratively.  

I took this picture of her last year when I rescued a litter of nine abandoned puppies who were comforted by her presence, although she was fifteen years old then.  Debbie Hadu, Maplewood's animal control officer, told me that she found Rachel loose in South Mountain Reservation, she had been breast feeding a litter of puppies, but Debbie never found her puppies.  Knowing Debbie, I have no doubt when she assured me that she looked and looked for the babies and never found them.  I think someone stole her puppies and dumped her, but Debbie, the JAC and I worked hard to make it up to her.  I feel good about what we all did.


yahooyahoo said:

Copihue said:

On another happier note I want to share some photos of the vegetation in the reserve in Chile:  https://flic.kr/s/aHsmQSRpG8

 Many of these photos remind me of certain areas in Arizona.  Looks like similar climate and topography.

 I've never been there, but I hear many good things about it.  


The bond between dogs and humans is pretty incredible. 

So, so sorry for your loss, Copihue.


I just saw this and I wanted to say that I was sorry for your loss.  We are coming up on two years since my dog Koa died and it has been three months since we got our new puppy.  Having a new dog is a delight but she brings back memories of the dogs I have lost which is bitter sweet.  The soul heals with time but they are there in your heart forever.


Thank you, Klinker.  They get you and never really let go.  My first dog was a german shepherd, Viva, and now I got another one, because I wanted the relationship with a shepherd.  His family moved to an apartment, and they were looking for a new home.  Luck would have it that it pointed to me.  

Meantime, here is another Chilean writing about his dog's passing.  I hate the translated ending, but I do agree that it is extremely difficult to get it right.  If you read Spanish, I recommend reading that version.  

A Dog Has Died

BY PABLO NERUDATRANSLATED BY ALFRED YANKAUERMy dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.

Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.

Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.

No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.

Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.

Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.

There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.

So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.


The other dog is Jeremy who I picked up from the highway. He was about 6 months old and suffering from distemper. He is a great dog too. World’s most even tempered dog who is always happy, what else can you ask for?


UN PERRO HA MUERTO

Mi perro ha muerto.
Lo enterré en el jardín
junto a una vieja máquina oxidada.

Allí, no más abajo,
ni más arriba,
se juntará conmigo alguna vez.

Ahora él ya se fue con su pelaje,
su mala educación, su nariz fría.

Y yo, materialista que no cree
en el celeste cielo prometido
para ningún humano,
para este perro o para todo perro
creo en el cielo, sí, creo en un cielo
donde yo no entraré, pero él me espera
ondulando su cola de abanico
para que yo al llegar tenga amistades.

Ay no diré la tristeza en la tierra
de no tenerlo más por compañero
que para mí jamás fue un servidor.
Tuvo hacia mí la amistad de un erizo
que conservaba su soberanía,
la amistad de una estrella independiente
sin más intimidad que la precisa,
sin exageraciones:
no se trepaba sobre mi vestuario
llenándome de pelos o de sarna,
no se frotaba contra mi rodilla
como otros perros obsesos sexuales.

No, mi perro me miraba dándome la atención necesaria
la atención necesaria
para hacer comprender a un vanidoso
que siendo perro él,
con esos ojos, más puros que los míos,
perdía el tiempo, pero me miraba
con la mirada que me reservó
toda su dulce, su peluda vida,
su silenciosa vida,
cerca de mí, sin molestarme nunca,
y sin pedirme nada.

Ay cuántas veces quise tener cola
andando junto a él por las orillas del mar,
en el Invierno de Isla Negra,
en la gran soledad: arriba el aire
traspasando de pájaros glaciales
y mi perro brincando, hirsuto,
lleno de voltaje marino en movimiento:
mi perro vagabundo y olfatorio
enarbolando su cola dorada
frente a frente al Océano y su espuma.
alegre, alegre, alegre
como los perros saben ser felices,
sin nada más,
con el absolutismo de la naturaleza descarada.
No hay adiós a mi perro que se ha muerto.

Y no hay ni hubo mentira entre nosotros.
Ya se fue y lo enterré, y eso era todo.


Copihue said:

UN PERRO HA MUERTO

Mi perro ha muerto.
Lo enterré en el jardín
junto a una vieja máquina oxidada.

Allí, no más abajo,
ni más arriba,
se juntará conmigo alguna vez.

Ahora él ya se fue con su pelaje,
su mala educación, su nariz fría.

Y yo, materialista que no cree
en el celeste cielo prometido
para ningún humano,
para este perro o para todo perro
creo en el cielo, sí, creo en un cielo
donde yo no entraré, pero él me espera
ondulando su cola de abanico
para que yo al llegar tenga amistades.

Ay no diré la tristeza en la tierra
de no tenerlo más por compañero
que para mí jamás fue un servidor.
Tuvo hacia mí la amistad de un erizo
que conservaba su soberanía,
la amistad de una estrella independiente
sin más intimidad que la precisa,
sin exageraciones:
no se trepaba sobre mi vestuario
llenándome de pelos o de sarna,
no se frotaba contra mi rodilla
como otros perros obsesos sexuales.

No, mi perro me miraba dándome la atención necesaria
la atención necesaria
para hacer comprender a un vanidoso
que siendo perro él,
con esos ojos, más puros que los míos,
perdía el tiempo, pero me miraba
con la mirada que me reservó
toda su dulce, su peluda vida,
su silenciosa vida,
cerca de mí, sin molestarme nunca,
y sin pedirme nada.

Ay cuántas veces quise tener cola
andando junto a él por las orillas del mar,
en el Invierno de Isla Negra,
en la gran soledad: arriba el aire
traspasando de pájaros glaciales
y mi perro brincando, hirsuto,
lleno de voltaje marino en movimiento:
mi perro vagabundo y olfatorio
enarbolando su cola dorada
frente a frente al Océano y su espuma.
alegre, alegre, alegre
como los perros saben ser felices,
sin nada más,
con el absolutismo de la naturaleza descarada.
No hay adiós a mi perro que se ha muerto.

Y no hay ni hubo mentira entre nosotros.
Ya se fue y lo enterré, y eso era todo.

Pablo Neruda


It's been a while since Rachel died, I still miss her and Jake, and by the way I am not a Nobel laureate, so the poem was written by Pablo Neruda, and I unintentionally failed to credit him.  

Much has happened in Chile since I wrote last, and in two weeks we will have an election to accept or reject a new constitution.  The decision to right the wrongs was taken after the civil unrest, during an election to elect representatives to the committee in charge of the task in the middle of the worst part of the pandemic when a small fragment of the electorate showed up to vote.  Those who did show up were radical leftist and indigenous people.  I understand that the constitution used the Bolivian instrument as a model, and it is very radical.  Chile's total population of indigenous people is about 10%, but they were the most powerful group in the individuals who were elected by the constitution.  I have mentioned before that they are radical and violent.  They essentially partitioned the country into two.  It is expected that it will be rejected, and if so, no one knows how the population will respond.  We may end up in the news again.

I am posting some photos of Bryan Toro who lived in the reserve but now lives in Hillside.  I love his work.


Copihue said:


Much has happened in Chile since I wrote last, and in two weeks we will have an election to accept or reject a new constitution.  The decision to right the wrongs was taken after the civil unrest, during an election to elect representatives to the committee in charge of the task in the middle of the worst part of the pandemic when a small fragment of the electorate showed up to vote.  Those who did show up were radical leftist and indigenous people.  I understand that the constitution used the Bolivian instrument as a model, and it is very radical.  Chile's total population of indigenous people is about 10%, but they were the most powerful group in the individuals who were elected by the constitution.  I have mentioned before that they are radical and violent.  They essentially partitioned the country into two.  It is expected that it will be rejected, and if so, no one knows how the population will respond.  We may end up in the news again.

Those darn indigenous people acting like they were there first.  As a newcomer, I would definitely stick my nose in that business.  Seems prudent.


It sounds to me, Go, that you want to read the whole thing.  Here you go, and tell me what you thought of it.https://www.chileconvencion.cl/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Texto-Definitivo-CPR-2022-Tapas.pdf


What do you think will happen now that the new constitution was rejected?

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chile-forced-back-drawing-board-after-new-constitution-scuttled-2022-09-05/

SANTIAGO, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Chile will go back to the drawing board to redraft its Augusto Pinochet-era constitution after a new text got overwhelmingly rejected in a historic referendum vote on Sunday, a blow to the country's progressives, including young President Gabriel Boric.

Boric on Monday held meetings with political and social leaders over how to salvage plans for a new constitution, bruised by the vote that saw some 7.9 million Chileans reject the proposal against 4.9 million in favor, a larger-than-expected landslide loss.


It's hard to look at Chile today and to not see echoes of the early 1970s. Obviously, there are privileged people who would rather see the return of the junta than deal in an equitable way with the nation's disenfranchised. 


GoSlugs said:

It's hard to look at Chile today and to not see echoes of the early 1970s. Obviously, there are privileged people who would rather see the return of the junta than deal in an equitable way with the nation's disenfranchised. 

They’re all looking at Venezuela and it’s scaring people. Just the mention of the word “socialismo”… and immediately it becomes “comunismo”.

Beautiful continent. Beautiful people. 


Dear Beer lovers, I found something that I found amazing yesterday that I wanted to share with you.   A while ago we chatted about wine and beer, and you asked me if the beer is also good in Chile.  Well, there is a large community of german folks in Chile which came centuries ago and settled in the lake region of Chile, and then there was a large immigration wave during and after WWII.  These folks brought was they knew how to do:  brew beer and they have been adapting to modern beer drinkers.  Yes, the beer is great.  I like Stella Artois on hot summer afternoons, and yesterday I couldn't find it, so I asked the owner for recommendations, and he brought me to cervezas artesanales.  What is that? I asked.  It is unfiltered beer.  Well, it is not completely unfiltered, it is mostly filtered, but it has remenants of the microorganisms which allow the beer to taste like a mix of Kambucha and beer.  I love kambucha, and I like beer just as much. Is this somethng that was new to me, but not to all the rest of the beer drinking world?  


In order to add a comment – you must Join this community – Click here to do so.