Hola Amigos,
Another week has sped by, and I'm not sure we have much to show for it! I downloaded our little camera, and it had a few photos from yesterday, and my big camera had nothing! Nada! Zilch! I use our photos to remember what we've been doing, and evidently....not much this week.
Oh wait! I remember now. I pruned our Nopal cactus that resides at the end of our drain line. Over the several years it has grown there, it really took off. I got out my machete and leather gloves and started hacking. I cut off 3 1/2 wheelbarrow loads full of Nopal paddles! And got plenty of stickers in my fingers in spite of the leather gloves. The weather was so nice that day, and I was in a gardening mood, so I also pruned 5 or 6 of our little palm trees. We have a nice big stack of trimmings that need to go to the dump now. Below is a photo I took of it last April. Each one of those buds bloomed or grew into 2 or 3 or 4 more big paddles! It was huge!!!
Ben has started working on new projects in his woodshop. Since we had a drip in the cabinet under our sink, he rebuilt the slide out tray that fits under there. Then, just as he was finishing it up, he turned and noticed the exact same tray from the other side of the cabinet that we'd taken out and stored because the water filter system jug was on that side. He didn't need to make a new tray at all! Oh well, at least he got some good practice. Now he is starting on a couple of new cabinets for our garage bathroom where we will store our Costco purchases of toilet paper and paper towels (if you shop there, you know how big and cumbersome those packages are!) That bathroom was the only place in our house where our contractor erred on the size, and built it about 1 1/2 feet bigger than on the plans. So, we have room for the cabinets (Ryan insists since they won't have doors that they are technically shelves, not cabinets!) Whatever...we'll have more organized storage space soon.
Yesterday Ben decided to go to the lumber store in San Jose to get some melamine board for our new cabinets, and our new friend Sandy, who is also a woodworker and needed some fresh materials, decided to go with him. When Sandy's wife Debbie and I heard the plan, we thought we should help them out. We had a great day, stopping at some of our favorite places and showing them. We visited a segunda (second hand store), City Club, two nurseries (where I took all my photos yesterday!), our favorite carnitas restaurant in San Jose (Sandy said that stop was worth the trip! They took home an order to go!!). We also stopped at a seed and feed store, which had dried chilis and spices and all kinds of other dried things that we have no idea what to do with! We finally made it to the lumber yard as our final stop, because we knew that the melamine would stick out the back. The guys unloaded everything, (all the plants we'd bought and the other goodies from City Club) and loaded in the wood products, then reloaded the other things. While we were doing this, we got a call from Ryan asking for one more item, available at City Club. So we stopped there on the way out of town and got that one small item. THEN.... we had a further discussion about whether or not to stop at the segunda, because we both had seen items we liked during our first stop in the morning. We decided "yes", and after a bit of negotiating, they bought a wardrobe, and we bought a skinny table. So...more stuff was unloaded, new "used" stuff was put in, and things tied down. We looked a bit like the Beverly Hillbillies truck by the end of the day!
Here are a few more photos from our trip yesterday.
This flower is from a vine, and they don't have any available to sell! He did point out a few seed pods that weren't ready yet. Maybe I'll go back in a month and see if they have some, and I can grow it from seed.
I'm always impressed with the seed crops the palm trees produce at this nursery, and how fast things grow. Wish I had some of that soil in my garden, instead of the rocks and clay I do have! Below is another example of palm seeds. These were shaped like little pears!
The second nursery we visited has more blooming type plants, so this is where we made all our purchases. I got a couple of hibiscus to replace the ones the cows ate, plus another Adenium and a Mandavilla.
More photos are in our February 2013 album, new ones are at the bottom.
Maybe I'll take more photos this week....and maybe not!
Here's some good news....the road grader finally worked our road. It has been in really bad shape since the rains in October, so we're happy that is will be nice for a while (until the next rain washes all those dump truck loads of dirt into the ocean!)
Hasta la proxima semana,
Tus amigos de Baja
Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam & Zoey
Another week has sped by, and I'm not sure we have much to show for it! I downloaded our little camera, and it had a few photos from yesterday, and my big camera had nothing! Nada! Zilch! I use our photos to remember what we've been doing, and evidently....not much this week.
Oh wait! I remember now. I pruned our Nopal cactus that resides at the end of our drain line. Over the several years it has grown there, it really took off. I got out my machete and leather gloves and started hacking. I cut off 3 1/2 wheelbarrow loads full of Nopal paddles! And got plenty of stickers in my fingers in spite of the leather gloves. The weather was so nice that day, and I was in a gardening mood, so I also pruned 5 or 6 of our little palm trees. We have a nice big stack of trimmings that need to go to the dump now. Below is a photo I took of it last April. Each one of those buds bloomed or grew into 2 or 3 or 4 more big paddles! It was huge!!!
Ben has started working on new projects in his woodshop. Since we had a drip in the cabinet under our sink, he rebuilt the slide out tray that fits under there. Then, just as he was finishing it up, he turned and noticed the exact same tray from the other side of the cabinet that we'd taken out and stored because the water filter system jug was on that side. He didn't need to make a new tray at all! Oh well, at least he got some good practice. Now he is starting on a couple of new cabinets for our garage bathroom where we will store our Costco purchases of toilet paper and paper towels (if you shop there, you know how big and cumbersome those packages are!) That bathroom was the only place in our house where our contractor erred on the size, and built it about 1 1/2 feet bigger than on the plans. So, we have room for the cabinets (Ryan insists since they won't have doors that they are technically shelves, not cabinets!) Whatever...we'll have more organized storage space soon.
Yesterday Ben decided to go to the lumber store in San Jose to get some melamine board for our new cabinets, and our new friend Sandy, who is also a woodworker and needed some fresh materials, decided to go with him. When Sandy's wife Debbie and I heard the plan, we thought we should help them out. We had a great day, stopping at some of our favorite places and showing them. We visited a segunda (second hand store), City Club, two nurseries (where I took all my photos yesterday!), our favorite carnitas restaurant in San Jose (Sandy said that stop was worth the trip! They took home an order to go!!). We also stopped at a seed and feed store, which had dried chilis and spices and all kinds of other dried things that we have no idea what to do with! We finally made it to the lumber yard as our final stop, because we knew that the melamine would stick out the back. The guys unloaded everything, (all the plants we'd bought and the other goodies from City Club) and loaded in the wood products, then reloaded the other things. While we were doing this, we got a call from Ryan asking for one more item, available at City Club. So we stopped there on the way out of town and got that one small item. THEN.... we had a further discussion about whether or not to stop at the segunda, because we both had seen items we liked during our first stop in the morning. We decided "yes", and after a bit of negotiating, they bought a wardrobe, and we bought a skinny table. So...more stuff was unloaded, new "used" stuff was put in, and things tied down. We looked a bit like the Beverly Hillbillies truck by the end of the day!
Here are a few more photos from our trip yesterday.
This flower is from a vine, and they don't have any available to sell! He did point out a few seed pods that weren't ready yet. Maybe I'll go back in a month and see if they have some, and I can grow it from seed.
I'm always impressed with the seed crops the palm trees produce at this nursery, and how fast things grow. Wish I had some of that soil in my garden, instead of the rocks and clay I do have! Below is another example of palm seeds. These were shaped like little pears!
The second nursery we visited has more blooming type plants, so this is where we made all our purchases. I got a couple of hibiscus to replace the ones the cows ate, plus another Adenium and a Mandavilla.
More photos are in our February 2013 album, new ones are at the bottom.
Maybe I'll take more photos this week....and maybe not!
Here's some good news....the road grader finally worked our road. It has been in really bad shape since the rains in October, so we're happy that is will be nice for a while (until the next rain washes all those dump truck loads of dirt into the ocean!)
Hasta la proxima semana,
Tus amigos de Baja
Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam & Zoey
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