Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Pic-of-the-Week for January 28, 2014

Hola Amigos!

I was told from Chicago this morning to "Stop the presses!"  Rebecca was on her way to the hospital at 7AM Chicago time, where it was -14F!!!  (That's right ... MINUS 14 degrees.)  Good grief.  I'm not sending this out until we hear the news of an arrival.  We might even get some photos later today, and as soon as I do, I'll post them on my Facebook page and my Picasa January 2014 album. 

OK .... at 10am  I got an email with the subject:  We have red hair, and the message "8lb 4oz".  I'm sure more info will be coming, but this is it for today!!!  Hooray! 


That is pretty exciting news, and everything else pales in comparison!  Ben is on one of his marathon shopping trips to La Paz today, so he'll be gone most of the day.  I'll be here holding the fort, and waiting for pictures of baby Eleanor!  I will probably do some gardening, including some bean stringing.  I'm hoping for a good crop of my Blue Lake Green Beans by March.  We just finished up the last of the jars of beans that I canned last year.  I noticed when I walked by yesterday that there are a lot of little bitty weeds in this bed, so I guess I should weed it before I string it.


Yesterday was our 46th wedding anniversary, and we celebrated at a local "fancy" restaurant.  It does have a beautiful view (we could see our house across the bay), but the food and ambiance (noisy kitchen!) was a bit of a disappointment.  Next time, we'll just hire Fransisco, our favorite chef from El Barrilito Restaurant, and have him cater our meal at home.  I'm sure it would be MUCH better.  

We have wild sunflowers in our yard, and probably always will, they seed themselves so easily.  This year we seem to have an abundance of butterflies at the flowers.  I took my newest camera out the other day when Ben pointed the butterflies out to me, and took a few shots.  They turned out very nice!



There are a few more butterflies in our January 2014 Picasa album.

We had a visit the other day from our favorite waitress, Claudia, and her new baby boy Andres.  He was very sleepy and cuddly, but I had to get a couple photos of him.  He's the one I made a quilt for that I finished last summer. 

There is a new construction project started down in Vista del Mar below us, so that will be the end of our "quiet" neighbhorhood.  There will be a concrete mixer going, and pounding and sawing (metal rebar!) and music to accompany the work.  Maybe we could hire the neighbor who lives right next door to this project to sit on her balcony and sing to them, rather than them turning on their radio full blast???  What do you think, Mary??  Maybe you and Stefi could serenade them?   Look at those stacks of rebar by the stone wall that they'll be cutting and bending!  Wow! 
 
I'm just hoping it doesn't go up too high to block our view! 

I have one more week here in Baja; I'll be leaving for Chicago next Tuesday.  Hopefully, the weather will be warmed up there a little bit by then.  (A cousin in Oregon is sending warm clothes to Chicago for me!!  Yay!)   I have to do some training so Ben knows how to send out the "Pic" from my PC.  I'll be leaving my computer for him, and just taking my Kindle Fire and camera.  And yes, I will take lots of baby photos for you!  (And me!)  Maybe Ben will even take a few photos here??? 

Hasta la proxima semana,
Los abuelos felices (the happy grandparents),
Harriet & Ben, Ryan, Sam & Zoey

   

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Pic-of-the-Week for January 21, 2014

Hola Amigos!

First of all...no new grandbaby yet.  They're prepared and ready to go, but she isn't quite ready to make her appearance!  Yesterday, the 20th, was the due date.  

In the meantime, I'm working on my packing list and getting things ready to go (Feb 4).  I've made a couple of simple flannel blankets (like receiving blankets) for her, and I found another nice size piece of flannel yesterday, so I'm going to make another one!  Rebecca requested a box of Abuelita chocolate to make hot chocolate, which is appropriate!  (Abuela is grandmother, abuelita is little grandmother!)  This grandma will be happy to take Mexican chocolate to them.  Hmmmm....that abuelita looks more like MY grandma, not me!  


I started a new quilt yesterday for another baby due this spring.  This one has lots of little pieces, but it should be fun!  It's just going to take a while to get all the pieces cut.    I seem to have some fabrics that last forever, like that cute green with the little squigglies.  I've had it a long time, and that fabric has ended up in quite a few quilts. 

After four or five years since it was washed out by a hurricane, the road through the Buenos Aires arroyo is being paved.  Not sure what took so long, but every time it has been paved in the past, a hurricane arrived in the summer strong enough to wash out the pavement.  Arroyos, by definition, are a dry washes, or dry riverbeds.  It is where the water passes to the ocean when there is lots of rain, and believe me, they get lots of water then.  This time, they're putting in fairly thick concrete, so it will be interesting to see how it holds up.  They're getting ready to pave the next arroyo, too, and I'm sure the folks who live out that way will appreciate it greatly.  Since it is such a nice smooth, straight stretch of road, I'm sure they'll put a couple topes (speed bumps, or sleeping policemen) on it.  Mexicans just LOVE open road where they can go fast, since it is so rare!!  


This week is the annual Lord of the Winds tournament here in Los Barriles, and according to the wind forecast, not much wind!  January is usually the windiest month of the year here, but this year it seems to have been less windy than usual.   Makes for more pleasant conditions for the spectators on the beach (not being sandblasted), but not too great for the people trying to get their kites in the air!   The beach beyond the road above is where a lot of the action will be happening.  It will be nice if the road is ready to use!  

Oh!  Alexandra!!  The gardenia you gave us is blooming and it smells wonderful.  I planted the bush so that this flower is farthest away from the sidewalk, and it is hard to see, but you can smell it as you walk by!  Mmmmmmm! 


I got my green bean crop planted the other day, so I expect a nice crop of beans by March.  I looked in my photos from last year in January, and the beans were already up and strung by this time, and well up to the wire.  Then, as I continued to look through the photos, I was reminded that a cow got in and enjoyed eating the leaves, but left most of the blooms.  They recovered, and I got a good harvest...eventually!  Hopefully, the cows and burros will stay out this year, since we put in even more fence last year after that happened!  We're just glad that there aren't any goats in our neighborhood, because we don't have a goat fence.  Those stinkers could get through our barbed wire fence like it wasn't there. 

We watched the Seattle Seahawks pull off a win against San Francisco on Sunday in the comfort of our own home... we set up my laptop with the big screen and found the game.  It was very comfy!   We've been invited to Ellis' house for the Superbowl; he has a real TV!  Big screen and all!  


While sitting on my sofa recliner watching the game, I looked to the left and saw the neighbor's cat on one of his favorite spots... on top of Peter's roof.  



This was my view of him from my chair in the family room.  The one above is with the zoom lens. It drives my dogs crazy when they're sitting on their favorite lounge chair on the veranda, and can see it,  but can't get to that cat ..... argh!!!  (They suffer so!)

That's about it for this week.  Ben did get his car trailer finished up yesterday, and now he's ready to start another project.  I wonder if I should make some suggestions???  I do have a few things on his "to-do" list, but they're probably way down there in priority. 

A few more photos have been added to our January 2014 album.  By the way, we have visitors scheduled for Feb 19 - 26, but nothing "inked in" after that.  If you're getting tired of snow and fog and rain and cold, it's time to consider a Baja vacation.  

Tus amigos de Baja,
Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam and Zoey






Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Pic-of-the-Week for January 14, 2014

Hola Amigos,

Another week gone by *whoosh*!  Where did it go?  Well, Ben and I spent about 2 hours on Friday morning waiting our turns at the Immigration office in Cabo San Lucas.  We will FINALLY be getting our permanent Immigrant status, which means we don't have to do an annual renewal of our immigration status ever again!  Hooray.  We tried to do it last year (we were eligible), but, to tell it shortly, used the wrong fellow to help us with the process last year and ended up with the same status as before.  (The laws and procedures were changing right when we were renewing, so that didn't help at all!)   We should have our new cards in a week or so, hopefully before I leave for Chicago in early February!  This picture is from last year, when we were still smiling because we thought these were the correct cards!  (NOT!)  At least while we were in Cabo, we got to eat at a nice restaurant, bought some nice baby clothes in the mall, visited our favorite money exchange place, a wine store, Costco and Home Depot!  Phew!!! 


Our newest grandchild has not arrived yet.  The baby is due on January 20, and Rebecca has been 10 days late with each of her boys, so we'll see if a girl will come any earlier.  Maybe next week!   Thankfully, the weather in that area of the US is starting to warm up a bit.  You realize that I have no gloves, no warm socks, no boots.... My wardrobe is definitely of the summer variety!   February in Chicago should be balmy, right??

The weather here has been pretty nice; a few windy days, then a few calm days, with temps in the mid to high 70's.  We do seem to be having more sunny days this year than last year.  That is always nice, because on the windy days, you can always find a sunny spot out of the wind.  Ben claims that the hot spot is wherever he's working on his car trailer!  He's had it re-painted, has rewired it, and has installed a new plywood top on it.  We'll be pulling the car trailer with our 1928 Ford Woody on it for a car show in Washington this summer, so getting the trailer done is high on his priority list. Two trips to La Paz were necessary last week, because when Ben was paying for that nice pre-covered plywood (used for concrete forms), the clerk was loading two bad sheets along with the good ones.  They were not willing to deliver to our house, so he had to travel all the way back there to exchange them.  He was not real happy about that!   If you're wondering how Ben gets a car on this trailer... it's no problem, as long as it is a Model A!  The distance between the wheel wells is about 1" wider than the wheels of a Model A.  This trailer is great for hauling anything on Baja's narrow roads.  (It also takes a good guide to get him lined up right...that's me!)  Ben and Ryan spent a lot of time underneath this thing yesterday getting the plywood bolted on!  Lookin' good!   

I must admit that it has been a pretty quiet week here.  No special trips anywhere (other than Ben's trips to La Paz), so no special photos.  I did wake up to a beautiful sunrise the other day, and went up on the upstairs deck to get a shot of it.  



Then I turned around and shot a photo of our upstairs bedrooms from the carport deck. Isn't it nice and rosy in the morning glow?  And look....you could lay in bed in the mornings and watch the sunrise from there!  Or, if you felt so inclined, you could do pull-ups from Ryan's pull-up bar on the right there.... or maybe not.  The lounge chair with the cushion is looking pretty good!  (It is one of those non-windy, sunny spots!) 



I was told that the name of our exotic looking agave plant is Agave Attenuata.  Thanks, Susie and Jerry, for giving us the plant originally, then letting us know what it is!  It is also known as "Lion's Tail", "Foxtail", or "Swan's Neck".  And yes, it is still blooming and drooping further down.  A smaller agave is also blooming, but it's bloom is only about a foot long.  

Our friend Alexandra, who has a place down here where she spends as much time as her job allows, gave me the Gardenia plant she bought at the Saturday Market a few weeks ago.  She told me that a bloom was just about ready to open, and was sorry she had to leave and miss it.  Well.... it looks just the same!  I did get it planted in a nice spot, and I'll watch it carefully and take a photo when it DOES bloom!  Right now, it looks like this...

It was an interesting hole to dig for this plant.  I kept hitting big chunks of concrete, and it didn't take long to figure out that our contractor had dug a BIG hole and buried, instead of hauling off, the concrete they broke out during our construction project last year.  Once I got the chunks out of the ground, it made for a good space to fill in with good dirt.  That flower bed used to have some really nice dirt in it! 

I've added a few more photos to our January 2014 album.

Hasta la proxima semana,
Tus amigos de Baja,
Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam & Zoey

PS.  The dogs each got a bath, so it is safe to come visit us!  :-)

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Pic-of-the-Week for January 7, 2014

Hola Amigos,
Welcome to 2014!!  I managed to get the correct year on my title with only one try!  That's pretty amazing.   We had a very quiet New Year's Eve...went to bed early.   I woke up when I heard our clock bong 12, and immediately after that, several very loud fireworks went off.  Zoey spent the rest of that night under the bed!  Poor girl...she really hates loud noise...and the dark...and anything different. Anyhow, we're already a week into 2014.  Things are different this year in Baja.  The government has changed a bunch of regulations, and value added tax went up 5%.  Some things, which weren't taxed before because they were classified as food items, are now NOT classified as food, so they get the full 16% tax charged.  That includes dog food, so I told my dogs they were in trouble when the current bag is gone! 

We spent New Year's Day at a "Taste" (Tas-tay) in Santiago.  A Taste is a horse race; two at a time, down a long straight-away about 600 meters, or 1/3 of a mile.  We got there early to grab a good spot at the finish line, and spent our time visiting with friends, snacking, and playing games, and watching the water truck go back and forth up and down the track.  After an hour or so, the horses started showing up.  

 Then they exercised the horses, walking and trotting up and down the track for another 1/2 hour or so.

In the meantime, we continued to visit, eat, and play games!  We also people watched.  This is very popular social event, and lots and lots of folks show up to see and be seen.  The gal in the blue blouse turned quite a few heads! Notice her 5" heels on her boots (at a horse race???)  


Lots of Gringos attended, too, including this fellow.  I loved his shirt, and pointed it out to Ben.  Since Ben was wearing his John Deere hat, he had to go compliment this guy on his shirt!  (He said he found it at a thrift store in the US somewhere to wear down here!  Love the little burro!!)  

Eventually, the race was run, (with plenty of betting going on) and the horse I chose won (didn't put any money on him...too bad!)  Lots of excitement for about 15 seconds!  

Then you wait for the next two race horses to show up!  We were just about ready to give up and go home when the final two horses were prepped for the race and ready to go.  That race was run when the sun had gone down!  While waiting for that race, we were entertained by a little boy.  He would dance around and then jump on his empty plastic pop bottle to smash it.  He really had the moves!  


I don't think his mother appreciated him getting his pretty jeans dirty rolling in the dirt doing his flash dancing, but he was having a great time! 

We had a visitor to our garden last week.  Very pretty, but the doves didn't like him/her one bit!  This pretty little Sharp Shinned Hawk was helping control the White Wing dove population.  We put out seed to attract the birds, and there are a LOT of them.  Makes for quite a bit of excitement when a hawk swoops in and helps itself to a nice fat, freshly fed dove!   I love this hawk's one-footed stance! 

 
Our agave plant continues to grow and bloom.  It is a traffic hazard in our courtyard now, and a bit difficult to avoid as we walk by!  It just keeps growing and drooping further and further! 


I have started a January 2014 photo album.  

Hasta la proxima semana,
Tus amigos en Baja
Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam & Zoey