Pic-of-the-Month for May 2025

Hola amigos!

May is quickly coming to an end...already!  It has been a rather busy month, what with birthdays, major ditch digging (and filling), company, trips to La Paz and Cabo Pulmo....and eating at some of our favorite restaurants.  We have three more weeks before we leave for the summer, and we do have a long list of things to do to get the place ready for the summer and hurricane season.  And guess what?  Tropical Rainstorm Alvin is making an appearance tonight!  It's not a hurricane, but we have already received some very welcome rain from in front of the storm, and we're hoping we'll get a bunch more tonight and tomorrow.  Our tropical thorn forest (desert) that surrounds us is very dry, and the free range cattle have eaten everything they can reach.   

So, this is the earliest in the season that we remember a tropical storm happening...but like I said, it will be a Depression by the time it gets to us tonight, so bring on some rain!

My sister Shelley came to visit again mid-month (now that I've convinced her to come to Mexico, it's pretty easy to get her here....finally!)  She spent her birthday with us, so I got to spoil her a bit with birthday cakes and other fun stuff.  We walked together, did a tour of Cabo Pulmo (and had the mandatory fish / shrimp tacos at La Palapa restaurant there), and generally just let her relax and read books.  Since she is still a working woman, she very much enjoyed the down time AND the warm weather.

We sold a few things this month.  Several planned, one not planned!  

We sold our hot tub, which I personally had enjoyed for some years, but hadn't used it in a equal number of years!  So, a buyer was found and got together a crew to move it to their place.  $$$!

Then, even more exciting, our 1930 Roadster was sold to a man who has a Ranch restaurant near Cabo San Lucas.  He is using it for decoration, and just driving it around the "farm".  We did not get what we put into it, but we are happy with the final total.  When the buyer was talking with our friend and interpreter Magali, she showed him a picture of our 1929 Model A Pickup, and after a couple days, he called and said he wanted that one, too! (Sight unseen!)  WOW!  Ben said "YES", and he came to our place a few days later and picked it up on a car trailer.  We may have got what we put into this one, since Ben bought it for $75 when he was 13 years old, and got the major body-work done here in Mexico.  Anyhow, we now have room in our garage this summer for my 2018 Ford, and the Jeep, and the inflatable raft we still have.  Amazing!  

Ditch digging!  We replaced our water line coming into the casa from our meter, and also relocated the line on the far side of our west lot.  We hired a Backhoe to do that digging for us...this is hard, hard ground!  Ben also added a water filter in front of our pressure reducer, so that needs a little structure around it to protect it from the sun.  We need a pressure reducer because Ben has been measuring the pressure after many of our drip system hoses ruptured, and at times it was as much as 90 PSI!!  Way too much pressure per normal regulations.  We shopped all over La Paz looking for a 3/4" pressure reducer and there were NONE.  We did the "La Paz shuffle" that day, and each store sent us to another likely one, one after the other!  No luck.  But guess what?  We found one here in Los Barriles, and bought it "posthaste"!   Now at least the lines aren't popping when we water in our garden.  

Various cactus are blooming now and we sure enjoy them.  

This white bloom is a spiral type cactus that blooms at night, so you have to get up very early in the morning to catch the blossom open...and it only lasts that one night.

 

This is a Pitahaya dulce, or Organ Pipe cactus.  Love that shade of pink!

 

 

 

 

 

This is one I saw around the corner from our casa when I was walking, and it's a Pitahaya, too.  I haven't seen too many this year since it's been so dry, so this was a nice surprise.  

Gus will be 1 year old on June 2, and he and Pancho are actually improving somewhat in behavior.  If it hadn't been raining last night, we wouldn't have had those suspicious wet spots on several rugs!!  (They don't know what rain is, but they don't like getting wet).  I walk them both every time I go out, and if they poop out too soon, I let them rest, give them water, and drag them on home.  I can let them off leash on the beach, but I've got to watch them like a hawk.  I can't tell you how many dead little fish I've pulled out of their tough little jaws! Dang!  We all smell great by the time we get back home! 

They are pretty cute, and Pancho likes to rest on people's shoulders on the sofa (kinda warm for that right now), and Gus will snuggle right up to you and lick you to death.  Hopefully, when we travel for 6 days, they will settle right down into the routine and behave themselves!  

Speaking of travel, we plan to leave for Oregon about June 21, and will head directly to Fort Rock (6 day trip, 2000 miles), where our trailer is stored at our good friend's Katie and Mel's place.  We'll stay there for a while until we need to do doctor appointments in Bend, then our daughter Rebecca and son-on-law Tim and 3 grandkids will be coming mid-July to the Eugene area.  

Ben treated me to a 3-night trip to La Paz, a hotel stay, restaurants every night, and relaxation (no dog sitting!) for my birthday early in the month.  And we've been back for eye doctor and dentist appointments.  It's a regular trip, especially for Ben.  It's amazing how many things we NEED from La Paz.  This last trip, we went to Ace Hardware, and I said I need a new broom, but we walked out with a bunch more "needed" stuff!  Great store!  

As I wrap this up, the storm has pretty much died.  Hopefully, we'll still get a bit more rain.  We'll see!

Pictures for May 2025  <---  are here.   

You probably won't be hearing from us for a while, but if you are in Oregon or Washington and want to visit with us, let us know!  Just drop an e-mail or call us.

Tus amigos de Baja,

Harriet, Ben, Gus & Pancho

PS.  New home of the Model A's.  They each have a tent over them!

 

 

Pic-of-the-Month for April 2025

 Hola Amigos,

We are already here at the end of April, and another month has sped by.  Less than 2 months until we head north, but it is so nice here right now, we are taking advantage of it!  

 This is what our beaches normally look like.  Gus especially, is always on the lookout for (what he thinks are ) edible bites on the beach.  Little bitty fish, Sea Slugs, fish skeletons, and any trash.  The noses on the pups are amazing, and they can hone in on these little treasures on the beach with no problem (unless I have them on leash and can catch them first before they gobble something down!) It's 6 of one (they find something to eat) to half dozen of the other (I catch them first).  Anyhow, all this to say that Easter Week is very popular for camping on the beach in this area, and after it's over, there are even more treasures on the beach for them to find!  

Hundreds of Mexicans camp in our area of Baja, and this is a very popular beach.  You can see that they have all the necessities, and the county provides port-a-potties and garbage bags, so it is actually quite a bit cleaner when they're done than it has been in years past.  And they have a fantastic time.  This year, the weather was very temperate, and not much wind at all.  I saw people fishing, kayaking and swimming and enjoying the beach to the fullest.  Anyhow, anything they left behind, our dogs are finding!  

We did another home improvement project this month that I'm sure we'll appreciate in June, and also next fall when we return.  We had an AC unit installed in our family room!  That involved the electrician Carlitos to get the electrical straightened around for the 220 power, a concrete guy to build a small pad on the roof for the exterior unit, and an AC technician to install it.  We got it done in pretty decent time, in spite of the fact that Ben was gone one of those days.  In this picture, the helper is holding the box to try to catch most of the concrete chunks and dust.  It kind of worked! 

 

We tested it out, and it works just great!  We are going to put a curtain up over the door between the family room and living room to keep the cool in the kitchen/ family room area, where we spend the most time.  

The garden is winding down.  Ben and I pulled the beans the other day, and put all the old vines in our compost pile.  We also covered it with plastic so the pups wouldn't be exploring and eating any leftover beans and pulling the vines all over the yard!  They do like fresh green beans.  Whenever we went out to pick, they wanted to go with us, and they'd get right in there foraging.  

They weren't always discerning, and Gus would sometimes end up eating leaves or stems!  Ugh!  

Anyhow, the beans, lettuce, spinach, radishes are done, and the tomatoes are close to finished.  We do have a new crop of cucumbers staring up, and we'll be trying to keep up with them, as well as the newer squash crop.  Anyone need some fresh zucchini?  Our new lime tree is putting on a lot of limes, and there are 5 bunches of bananas that we hope ripen before we leave in June.   

I've continued with my daily walking, usually with one dog at a time now.  Pancho has turned out to be a "Pooper-outer"!  He will just lie down in a shady spot, and refuse to move!  So, I either wait until he's ready to go, or pick him up and carry him, or if I need to be somewhere or doing something, I'll call Ben to come get him!  Anyhow, I take Gus first, and he's always willing to go the distance, especially if I give him a drink part way.  When I get home, I'll take Pancho on a shorter route (much shorter!) just to get him some exercise.  So, in spite of the shorter distances for Pancho, I'm reaching my monthly goals, as we continue to adjust to each others' foibles!  

We attended our neighbors Hope and Brian's 2nd annual Easter Brunch.  They know how to throw a party, and believe it or not, we had an egg toss (eggs are very reasonably priced here).  It was a lot of fun, with a lot of good food, and visiting friends and neighbors, as well as meeting new people.  Picture to the left was the start of the egg toss contest.  I was the "official" photographer, and didn't participate.  See a couple videos of the toss in the April 2025 album.

 

 

 

 

 

We hope that you are all healthy and happy, and if you're in Oregon, we'd love to see you this summer.  Send us a note or call if you're interested, and we'll see what our schedule can do!  (Pretty open so far, except that daughter Rebecca and family will be in Oregon mid to late July.)   

Hasta la proxima vez,

Tus amigos en Baja,

Harriet, Ben, Gus and Pancho

Pic-of-the-Month for March 2025

Hola Amigos,

Another month is in the books for 2025, and we're already 1/4 of the way through the year.  Don't ask me how the time seems to go so quickly... especially as we get older! Of course, we've had a busy month here in beautiful Baja.

Now that Gus is almost 10 months old, and Pancho 8.5 months, we decided it was time to FIX them.  They weren't real happy about the FIX, but you can't believe how well they're adjusting to their cone heads.  The procedures were done a week ago Monday for Gus, and Tuesday for Pancho.  Hopefully the cones can come off in the next couple days, because our shins are suffering!!  They seem to be healing up pretty well.  

They are also getting better about sticking in the parts of the yard where we can watch them, although they do get carried away if the see a cow or burro passing by, or an extra fast and loud ATV.  This morning, they saw a Mama cow and her calf across the road, so had to bark at that from our side of the cattle guard, but they were blocking one of the neighbors from getting out!  She stopped and took pictures of them, because they were "too cute"!  This is the calf and cow they saw, who were just having breakfast outside our gate!  

I almost always see some interesting things on my walks.  Early in the month, I saw a sea creature right at the edge of the water that I couldn't figure out.  I finally decided, after watching the video that I took, that it was an octopus.  But a few days ago, someone posted a picture of the same or similar animal, and the consensus is that it was a squid!  I've never seen a squid here before, but I know they're common.  In fact, there's a place not too far off shore from us called the "Squid Hole", where we'll see boats jigging for squid. You can see the video I took of it in the March 2025 album, early in the month.

 Our major "home improvement project" this month was worth it, we hope.  We replaced the fence on the other side of the driveway so that the cows couldn't get in through (or over) the old rickety fence, and our dogs couldn't get out from underneath.  We think our fence hombre, Sergio, did a great job.  Ben did a lot of brush clearing before he started, but Sergio got in there and did a bunch more with his trusty machete.  We drug all the brush over to our yard, Ben clipped it all into fire pit sized pieces, and got out the chop saw to cut the bigger branches into firewood.  And the old fence posts, too!  We now have a very nice wood pile for next season!  The best part, our sneaky pups can't get out under the fence.  That wire mesh was a grand idea!

Meet and greet....or bark and moo.

Our Pseudobombax Ellipticum tree is blooming nicely! (Shaving Brush tree).  It's always beautiful in March.
 

The older lime tree that Ben threatened to cut down is now blooming!  Our beans have been producing plenty so that I can share with friends, and still have enough to can our supply for next season.  And the tomatoes are prolific!  Its a fun thing to try and keep up with all the produce coming out of our gardens!  Good thing I have a canner and lots of jars.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had company in March.  Our niece Chrys Purkey and her two boys love it here, and got to spend a week.  There was some nice calm, warm weather for them to enjoy their beach activities, including snorkeling, lots of walks and exploring, and some very good food.  It was very nice to have a human walking companion (thanks Chrys), especially when she helped with the pups walking. We had a great time with them.  Here's a selfie Jack took when we were out to Devon's favorite restaurant one night.  (We like it a lot, too!)

 We have three more months this season to enjoy our Baja home.  My sister Shelley is coming to visit for a week in May, but we still have room for you if you want to come see us and enjoy some wonderful weather.  We'd love to show you around, or just let you relax and enjoy the quiet!  The food is fantastic here (at our house and numerous restaurants and Taco stands). 

Again, the photo album is here:  March 2025

Hasta la proxima vez,

Tus amigos de Baja,

Harriet Ben, Gus and Pancho

 

 

 

Pic-of-the-Month for February 2025

 Hola amigos,

It's the end of February already, so here's another post about life in Baja with the Purkey's.

This month, our Hibiscus flowers started blooming again, after our cow invasion last June, I think it was, when our neighbor's ripe Mangoes enticed one in (tree branch hangs over neighbor's wall into our yard).  While she was already visiting, she decided to chew on the Hibiscus plants as well.  It's taken them 8 months or more to recover.  Sigh.  All the ones with nice growth have put out a flower of two this month.  (You can see them in our February 2025 album).  

However............

Another cow got in a week or so ago and ate every single nicely growing Hibiscus plant.  No more flowers for another year, if they survive!  Rats.  The cow also ate just a few leaves off my green beans (not as sweet as Hibiscus, obviously), then wandered over to the neighbors yard, where they chased it out.  

So, we have decided to re-do the fence line where we believe it got in.  The fence is very old and wobbly in a lot places, so we talked to the man who is in the process of buying that property and he said he's not planning on building any walls in the next couple of years.  We are going to put out the pesos to get it done for 2 reasons.  1.  No more cows in our yard from that way.  2.  No more pups under the fence to chase the cows and burros on the other side of the fence. We will be using a small wire mesh.  (Can you guess which dog, who is predominantly black, that would be?)  Does he come when called?  No.  Not when there's a cow or burro to chase.  Grrrr!!!  Still working on that one! They do like to come when we have the correct treats in our pocket (if the chase isn't too exciting!)  

So, yes, Ben has been clearing even more brush (on the fence line) and pruning Mesquite trees all over the property.  We have a lot of brush-y burn piles, so whenever it's calm in the evenings we've been enjoying our fire pit fires.  We will have Sergio, a local who's done quite a few fence jobs for us, rebuilding that fence line, too.   

Master bath shower

 

 Our home improvement project for February was to hire a tile guy, and he did 3 things for us.  He replaced the floor in the outdoor shower, he put new mop board tiles around the edge of the veranda (many of the old ones were falling off), and a new floor in our master bathroom shower.  We love all of it!  He did a fantastic job.  

Ben has a tile saw, and this guy had never seen or used one before!  But after he used it for a while, he was very pleased with how easy it was. 
 

Outdoor shower

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gus and Pancho continue to be a "bit" of a challenge to train and train and train!!  I walk them over a mile every day, they still eat any poop they can find before I can yank on or shorten their leash, they bark at any dog they see, jump up on people they meet.  I've occasionally been letting them off the leash so they can run on the beach, but the disadvantage to that is that their sharp noses can find every single fishy smelling thing on the beach.  The other day, Gus ate a tiny 2" fish, a sand crab, and would have tried a puffer fish if I hadn't got him and Pancho away from it.  (The liver of the puffer fish is deadly to dogs).  So, I have to keep an eye out for them all the time.  It's not the most relaxing part of my day!  One thing I started doing for both dogs is having each of them wear a harness to hook them to the leash, instead of their collars.  I decided to do that when Gus slipped out of his collar on the leash to bark at and bother a cow, and would not come when called.  It took me over 5 minutes to get him back in leash.  I was not a happy dog walker that day! 

 They do love sunshine, and our front door is often open so they can rest on the rug and enjoy some rays.   And they are awfully cute.  And they do keep us on our toes.  Chairs in, things put away, doors closed... Will we survive this story?  Keep tuned!

Our garden is doing fantastic.  Beautiful lettuce and spinach, beets and tomatoes.  The beans will be ready to pick in a few days (as long as the cows stay out!) The corn is doing very well, and Ben just planted our next squash crop.  (The old crop was getting tired!)  We give away a lot of it, and enjoy eating the rest.  Just today, we went to our rancher friend Arturo's place and picked up more bags of cow manure to use in our garden.  (And some yummy ranch cheese and 18 beautiful brown chicken eggs.)   

We took a drive through the neighborhood the other day in the '56 Jeep to see some new casas that have been built on the hills of Buena Vista.  Beautiful view from up there!  In this photo you can see our house, right in the middle of the picture.  It's slightly pink in color.  

For those of you who want to come down here and build a vacation home, there is property available very near us!  Also, our neighbor Brian is selling off half of his lot, where his container houses used to sit.  You could be our neighbor, on the other side of Brian and Hope!!  

In this sign, our house and property is just at the bottom right (out of sight).  $90K for a lot!  Grab it up quick!  

Weather is warming up a bit, and while we're having temps in the 70's and not too much wind, it will be getting warmer and days longer quickly.  We don't do Daylight Savings time in Mexico any more, so we'll be the same time as Pacific Time when you guys change. 

Enjoy your March.  I think our March will be coming in like a lamb, and hopefully, going out like a lamb!!  

Again, this month's picture album, with captions to explain on about every one of them, is at February 2025.

Hasta la proxima vez

Tus amigos de Baja,

Harriet, Ben, Gus and Pancho  

 

Pic-of-the-Month for January 2025

 Hola Amigos!

Can you believe the first month of 2025 is almost over?  Me, neither!  Time to get out a Pic-of-the-Month!! 

It's been a pretty quiet month after all the excitement of Rebecca's family visit at the end of December.  Partly because we both came down with the cold that they generously shared with us!!  Ben got it first, and I held off until he was pretty much over it, then I got sick for a couple days.  Interesting thing was we were mainly just congested, but didn't feel sick or achy.  Ben cut a lot of brush in our yard and worked in the shop during that time, and I continued on my daily walks except for 2 days. 

The picture is from our newer lot (next to our casa) where Ben spent the most time cleaning up brush.  There are a few areas that are pretty overgrown, but Ben is now getting a handle on it.  We also have plenty of brush to burn on our outdoor fire pit... we don't haul any of it off to the dump.  It's either burnable or composted.  The pups are enjoying exploring this area.  We're surprised they don't pick up more stickers in their paws, but they seem to do just fine.  We also like to watch them racing around this area now, doing the "zoomies"!  You can't believe how fast a dachshund can run!  They've also found a few nice places to dig holes, and we don't care!  Gus seems to have a nose for ants, and has pointed out several serious ant holes to us.  We are letting them outside of the restricted courtyard area, but we have to watch them closely.  They do tend to wander if allowed, especially over to a brush pile in our neighbor's driveway that had a snake carcass on it for a while!!  Ugh!

The garden(s) are doing quite well.  As you can see, the tomatoes are starting to get ripe, and Ben has been picking one or two yellow squash daily (we give a lot away!)  The beans have been strung, a second planting of corn has been done, we enjoyed our first lettuce picking yesterday, and have been eating radishes for quite a while.  We are also enjoying bouquets of roses from our rose garden.  This is the time of year they seem to do best here.  I remember the first time I saw a rose garden here in December or January and was amazed that they were doing so well.  (We're still trying to figure out what grows best and when here in Baja!) 

Ben's woodworking project this month was to make a Lazy Susan for our dining tables.  He glued together various pretty wood that he had, got his lathe all adjusted and built a stand so he could work on the end of the lathe, and smoothed out the glued together wood.  It turned out beautiful!  

The wood used, from the middle out, is Black Walnut, Palm, Eucalyptus and Maple. 

We took a trip to La Paz earlier in the month to do our Dermatologist visits.  Ben goes quarterly, i go bi-annually.  She zapped quite a few spots on me, and wants me to come back to check on a few of them next month.  It's a good excuse to spend the night and go and visit Tom and Karan, and eat with them at one of their favorite restaurants, KM14, and have a delicious dinner!  

Ben took the '28 Woody to a little car show in town (Los Barriles) last week, and the guy in charge said if they were giving out prizes, he would have won the grand prize!!  It is a lot of fun to drive around town!  

Ben has had the '30 Roadster in La Paz now for a while.  He took it to our painter friend, Edgar Majalca, who took it to a car show at the end of November.  At the car show, he found a buyer for us, but at the same time, something broke and the fan hit the radiator and ruined it!  (Not anyone's fault...it would have happened if we were driving it, too.  It was equipment failure in an almost 100 year old car!)  In the meantime, Ben found our friend Mike in Bend had a radiator for him; he ordered parts and had them sent to Baja friends who would be in California over Christmas and driving back, and Ben had his nephew and brother pick up the radiator and box it really well (great job on the packaging, Bryan & Ken!) to send to that same friend in California.  However, the friend got sick, and sent the parts with another Baja friend who was having a bunch of stuff sent down, and today, the radiator finally showed up!  The other parts came a couple weeks ago.  Now, he has to get the new radiator checked out at a radiator shop in La Paz, and then install the radiator and water pump.  In the meantime, the buyer said he wasn't ready to buy it yet....maybe this spring.  So we're hoping that happens in a timely manner.  We are enjoying the extra space in the garage, and don't really want to haul it back here if we don't have to!!   

We celebrated our 57th wedding anniversary on the 27th of the month!  It really is hard to believe it has been that long... neither of us feel that old!  We had breakfast and dinner out at a couple of our favorite restaurants here in town.  Got free Mimosas for breakfast, so that was nice!!  

My walking partner Jill left for a few months, so it's just me and my dang dogs walking now, or me by myself after their 1 mile daily walk.  They are getting a little bit better, but still try to eat every poop pile they see, the fresher, the better!  That's a good reason for a short leash!! I'm on track to make this month's goal, in spite of a couple sick days.  (But, I've also decided that my goals are very changeable when they need to be.)  

I've created a January 2025 picture album with a bunch of pictures of our quiet month!  

We have company scheduled to come visit a week in March, but the rest of the time is pretty wide open if you want to come see us.  Just think about sunshine and a beautiful beach, good friends and good food! 

Hasta la proxima vez,

Tus amigos en Baja,

Harriet, Ben, Gus and Pancho

 

 

Pic-of-the-Month for December 2024

 January 1, 2025 

Hola, Amigos!

Feliz Navidad y feliz año nuevo!  It has been a busy December, but I'm going to be short and sweet!  

Our daughter Rebecca and her family visited us here in Baja for the first time in 5 years, starting on Christmas Eve, and it was great.  Quite a bit more activity and noise than we're used to (but the pups have been training us to anticipate the unexpected!)  We ate very well, played games, did lots of hikes together, played with the dogs, and enjoyed our rare time together.  Hopefully, they'll be back in Oregon this summer so we will see them soon again.  Today, we are heading for La Paz with them to visit with cousins Tom & Karan and watch the Oregon Ducks in the Rose Bowl.  Go Ducks!  (We had a great visit with Tom & family, but the Ducks didn't to their part.  Sad faces all around).   They will fly out of La Paz to Tijuana on the 2nd, then visit friends in San Diego for a few days before flying back to their home.

This was our Christmas Eve dinner with pork tamales, and other yummy Mexican food.  

Ben got out the Woodie and took everyone to church on Sunday, followed by lunch at La Playa. On one day, they rented an ATV and traveled up on of the arroyos to a little water fall and running water, and did some hiking up the stream.  

We are eating produce from our garden now, including cucumbers and a lot of squash!  The tomatoes are getting bigger and the lettuce and spinach is coming up.  

I reached my walking goal for 2024 of 700 miles; by December month end I was at 785.  So, on to a new goal for 2025.  After yesterday's hike up to the Flag Monument, I didn't think I'd make it up that last little hill before getting home, but I did it.  Phew!  Both Jill and I were feeling our age.  Grandson Aaron (just turned 13) and Rebecca had no problem... Aaron could run circles around me!  

 

 

 

 

 

The pups are growing, and getting a little better behaved.  Given the opportunity though, Gus will still jump up on a chair and get on the dining room table to see what might be there.  Pancho looks sweet but he instigates most of the dog fights!  They do OK on their walks, but still look for fresh cow pies every chance!  

Ben surprised me and took them for a walk the other day.  That my be it for the unforeseen future!  (Aaron was practicing rock skipping.  He was getting pretty good!) 

Click on  2024 December  to see last month's album.  Lots more pictures there!

Hasta la proxima vez,

Tus amigos en Baja,

Harriet, Ben, Gus and Pancho

  

 

 

Pic-of-the-Month for November 2024

 Hola Amigos, 

I'm just a few days late getting this out, but we've had Ryan here and are enjoying spending time with him. 

November cooled down nicely, and morning temps have been in the 60's, and the highs in the 70's, and few windy stretches, just to get us used to it, I think!

The turkey just fit on the smoker!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner; Ben smoked a turkey again, and it was so delicious!  We made pies, mashed potatoes and gravy, Brussel Sprouts, and our friends brought rolls, cranberry relish, pumpkin pie, roasted vegetable salad and squash.  Yum!  I forgot to take pictures, because my phone was attached to our stereo playing dinner music!  Friend Jill did take one that got most of us here at the table.  We were very happy to eat out on our veranda as the weather was nice enough to do that... just a little windy.

We didn't participate in the November 20 Revolution Day parade with our Model A's this year.  Ben was in La Paz running errands, so I went to town and got to enjoy the entire parade, not just our little section!  It's mostly school kids of all ages;  marching, dancing, singing, doing acrobatics, and looking patriotic!  It's a big holiday in Mexico, and the streets are closed down for several days for carnival and dances.  Lots of fun for the kids! 

Ben's expanded garden is doing great.  It has a fence all the way around, with wind protection and bird netting.  He's been harvesting yellow and green squash daily, and the tomato plants are just starting to bloom and growing taller every day.  He started them all from seed when we got here in early October, so they're doing great.

I've planted some new geraniums and petunias in pots around the
house to add some color.  Hopefully, we can keep the dogs out of those
things! (They seem to eat many plants, maybe just because they're puppies.)  

We took advantage of Ryan being here,  and he helped Ben cut down our rather large Neem tree that was putting too much shade on Ben's original garden plot.  They tied a rope to the tree, and the other end of the rope to the pickup, and when Ben had sawed the tree through enough, told Ryan to slowly back up to pull the tree in the correct direction.  It was successful!  Tree down with no damage to anything, and Ben is almost done pruning up all the branches and stacking the firewood.  

Our pups, Gus and Pancho, are still puppies.  Meaning, they eat stuff they shouldn't, like charging cords (at least 4, maybe more), head phones (2 pair!) and ear buds (Ryan's just got eaten... :-(  ), my shoes (3 or 4 pair) that I have put up, but obviously not far enough, and books or papers (they LOVE shredding paper).  They're also working on eating my woven straw waste basket.  Gus is a jumper and can get things off the table if a chair is available. He gets stuff down, and Pancho helps him rip things up!  Grrr!  I have been walking them on a leash with 2 leads attached, and that works pretty good when I'm by myself, although Pancho tends to have to go wherever Gus goes!  Anyhow, every day I take them 1 mile, then I continue without them on the rest of my walk.  (Check out the video of them walking on the duo leash in my picture album.)  

 

By the way, I reached my yearly walking goal of 700 miles on November 30.  I still have one of the most beautiful places to walk.  God has blessed us richly to live here and enjoy this part of the world.  

 Ryan will be here for just over a week, and Rebecca and her family are coming just before Christmas for a little over a week.  We are doubly blessed with our children visiting this year!  

Oh!!!  The non-profit charity that Ben and I run won 2nd place this year in the 3rd annual Signathon, put on by a local real estate company.  Our prize was $1500!  That will help feed two families for a year.  Our partner, Gordon Blackie, got the idea to invite one of our participants (she receives grocery vouchers monthly) to set up her hot dog stand at the venue.  She managed to sell almost 120 hot dogs at 50 pesos each that afternoon!  (And they were delicious!)  We were pleased with the outcome, and were afraid if we won top prize 3 years in a row we wouldn't be invited back!!  (Just kidding!)  Contact us if you'd like to help Feed the Hungry in our area.  

Sad news for the Purkey family.  Our sister-in-law Sirrka Purkey passed away from cancer this last month, leaving her husband John, Ben's younger brother.  She will be sorely missed. 

I have created a November 2024 album.  Click on it to see what else we've been up to!

Hasta la proxima vez,

Tus amigos en Baja,

Harriet, Ben, Gus and Pancho