South From Mulhacén: "Good fences make good neighbours."

Mending Wall

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BY ROBERT FROST

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."

Look closely for the lizard on one of our walls, built by Manuel

This poem has floated through my mind over and over during the past few weeks. You see, we have a good neighbor who makes good fences, or walls. But the mind is an odd thing.

Manuel has lived on the mountain for about 15 years. He and his wife, who he met when she was 14 and he was 20 live in a nearby cortijo with their black lab, "Blues." Manuel is learning how to play the blues guitar, and therefore the name. As one of our British neighbors told me, "none of us could survive up here without Manuel's help." He does odds and ends of jobs for various neighbors and we learned that wall building is a specialty of his.

Our property had many lovely walls when we arrived, but in making it our own, we wanted to add some. We met Manuel first at a social gathering and Sam mentioned that he had a few things he could use help with. A couple weeks went by and then one evening about 7 pm Manuel showed up and started working - it was August and the days were quite hot, so evening was best for this type of work. He has been coming 5 days a week ever since.

He arrives promptly at 8:00 and leaves by about 2:00, but he only ever charges for 5 hours. Blues comes along and occasionally wanders inside to see what I'm up to, but mostly he is a faithful companion at Manuel's side. Each day we prepare a cooler for him with a bottle of water and two beers, and I fix him coffee each morning - black with one sugar.

If you know Sam, you know that he rarely hires anyone to do anything because there is little chance that it will be done as well as Sam could do it himself. This is not the case with Manuel. Sam has been amazed to meet someone who works as hard as he does, and we have not had anything but total satisfaction with his work. He is definitely skilled with walls, and also with steps, and we are proud to live with the results of his work. Frequently Sam is outside working on a project as well; one day Manuel walked over and squeezed his arm commenting on how strong Sam is; he clearly respects Sam's work ethic as much as Sam respects Manuel's.

The lower wall was already here but we have had Manuel add the upper wall

Stairs, also by Manuel

In other news, we finally got our car back, on Wednesday, so only a few days later than anticipated. We learned a great deal during the 8 days we didn't have a car. We are now confident using the bus system between here and Granada, we have learned our way around Granada by walking all over, and we have hiked home from the bus on two different routes up the mountain. But it is good to have a car again.

And today we took a gorgeous hike. We drove further up the mountain for 15 km and then parked and hiked uphill for 90 minutes. We ended at about 8800 feet, or 2700 meter elevation and ate our lunch looking at the view. At one point I realized that we could see our property way below!