Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Pic-of-the-Week for May 26, 2015

Hola Amigos!

I got a late start on our weekly letter today, because as soon as my dogs saw me getting dressed, they started going crazy!  In their little brains they were thinking "pants + shirt on Mom = WALK" and "GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO!!!". Really, I do get dressed every day, and I think they're just trying a new ploy to get me out the door!  At least it wears them out for a while!  Sam even got a tummy shower when we got back home, since he usually wades in for a drink, then drags his belly in the sand the rest of the way home (by default, being a low slung dachshund!)  I was thankful to them for dragging me out there, because this is one of the first things I saw.... a double blooming Pitahaya cactus!  Love it!!  A bee is working on the lower part of the bloom to the right.  


This is what the cactus actually looks like; not very attractive on it's own, but those flowers (and the eventual fruit) sure make up for it!


OK.  We've got a little less than two weeks before we head north to Oregon and other Northwest states.  We have been getting some garden projects done, mostly pruning.  That included our volunteer Fan Palm.  Ben pruned leaves as high as he was comfortable on our ladder, then we hired Ben Hur (yes, that's his name), a young local Mexican whose family prunes palms for a living.  His Dad is nicknamed "Monkey" by the locals since he can climb trees so readily. Anyhow, Ben Hur came over and cleaned up the stem ends quite a ways up, using his climbing tools (no spurs).  


He used an exacto knife type tool to do the trimming, and it looked very nice when he was done.  Ben (Purkey) chatted with him and found out that he is 18, finishing up high school this week, and planning to go to University this fall near Guadalajara to become a dentist!  I was thrilled to hear that.  He is such a pleasant young man, and we've known him for 15 years and watched him grow up.  

After the palm tree prunings and the bougainvillea pruning and with all the other stuff that was already in the back of the old blue pickup truck, Ben and I loaded the truck and made a dump run.  When we got there a Mexican lady (dump caretaker?) came over to help.  Ben asked me to tell her we didn't need help, so I did.  She then came over to my side of the truck and started chatting with me in Spanish.  Her first question was "you speak Spanish and your husband doesn't speak Spanish?"  I agreed with her, she laughed and we continued to chat and watch Ben work.  It was great practice for me.  (Those verb tenses need work!!)  I think she understood most of what I said, and I understood most of what she said.  I should do that more often (speak in Spanish, not go to the dump!)  

The weather has been pleasantly cool in the mornings (high 60's), and in the low 80's during the day.  We've also had quite a few cloudy days, which is good for when Ben wants to work on our front door (although he does take the doors down and puts them in his shop to work on them).   The weather forecast is promising hotter weather later this week, though.  We haven't used the air conditioner in our bedroom yet, but did test it so it's ready to go.  I'm sure Ryan will make good use of it this summer when he moves down to our bedroom.  

Ben got a pleasant surprise last week from Claudia, the Mexican lady for whom he made the kitchen cabinets.  She had Edgar Fuentes make him a wooden car! Edgar is the brother of Arturo, the contractor who built our house in 2002.  Ben was thrilled!  This is a REAL woody!  The wheels turn and everything.  


Some others also had a pleasant surprise last week.  I cleaned out my corn crop and hauled it outside our fence.  The burros found it, and we spotted them chowing down after our walk the other evening.  Yum!  


I started with a flower picture, and I'm going to end with a flower picture!  This is a bloom from the Cholla (choya) cactus.  It reminds me of a wild rose bloom, and I love the sweet pink/lavender color.  Probably not a color you'd associate with a cactus bloom.  


More photos are in our 2015 May Picasa album.  Just scoot on down to the bottom of the album to see the latest photos. 

OK.  I lied.  I've got to end with this sunset photo from the other night.  Taken from our roof, our agave "tree" is on the right, Los Barriles  is in the distance with lots of fishing boats moored in front. 

 
Hasta la proxima semana,
Tus amigos de Baja (until June 12)
Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam & Zoey


Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Pic-of-the-Week for May 19, 2015

Hola Amigos,

Ben and I had a busy weekend, separately, and together!  Ben left Saturday morning with the '28 Ford Woody for another La Paz car show,

 and I stayed home so I could play the piano for church on Sunday morning. Ben participated in the parade through downtown La Paz Saturday evening, and the car show on the Malecon on Sunday.  After church and breakfast at Tico's on Sunday, I checked on the Aguila bus schedule, and bought my ticket.  There are numerous buses going north and south daily, so I chose the 1:30 PM bus, went home and packed a bag, and had Ryan drop me off.  The ride was very comfortable; the bus was a fairly new Volvo, and it had AC and nice curtains on the windows to keep the sun out.  It started out pretty full, but people got off regularly so that there were only 3 or 4 of us left at the final destination, the Malecon in La Paz.  That stop was most convenient for me, since it was right across the street from the car show where Ben was waiting!  I'd recommend it for anyone wanting to take a day trip or overnight trip to La Paz from our little town.  

There was a very nice Ford Shelby Cobra there (a reproduction) that got almost as much attention as our car!  Rumors are that the owner got it up to 170 mph on the highway to Todos Santos (nice road, smooth and straight.)  It has a nice 427 racing engine in it (Ben was impressed!) In the photo with the car are Hector Manuel and his wife Rossy, who put on the show twice a year.  Lots of work, but the man loves cars!!  



The engine compartment photo doesn't mean much to me, but I though the guys would appreciate it!  Vroom!  Vroom!!

We're getting some other things done around the house.  On a cloudy day last week, Ben took off one of our double doors and re-finished it.  It still needs another coat of Spar Varnish, but he ran out, so that's one of the things he was able to pick up while he was in La Paz.  No excuse now!  Oh...and the other door needs to be refinished, too.  They do tend to fade in our hot sun.  He also sealed above that chino wood beam over the door.  Ryan said it leaked pretty good during the hurricane last September.  


We've got a great view of a little bird nest ... a Ground Dove built a nest in one of our Banana trees right outside our bathroom window.  I counted two little white eggs in the nest, and she is faithfully there every day.  It is a nice cozy little spot; shady most of the day.


We've seen quite a few young birds in our yard when we put out the bird seed. They're the ones following Mom or Dad around fluttering the wings and screeching "feed me!"  Cute!  

We're starting to get in our "summer prep" mode, getting things ready for our departure in mid June.  It seems like our irrigation batteries all start dying about now, or lines are plugged.  And, even though Ryan will be here again this summer, we are trying to get the amount of food in our freezers down to a reasonable amount, especially the seafood.  Ben also has to go to the local water company and show them that he is still alive, and still gets his "Old Man" discount of 1/2 off our water bill!  That means a trip to Santiago (about 15 miles away) and of course, lunch at Palomar restaurant just down the street from the water company!  Ben got us some mangos from El Coro, (they're famous around here) and I've been drying some for snacks for our trip.  Yum!  And today, I'm going to attempt to make a Mango Sorbet (with a touch of Tequila). I've had the recipe a long time, but never tried it.  This is the season, with ripe local mangos available!


Our weather this spring has been interesting.  We're still having some cloudy days, and it rained several times last week as well.  It is starting to get warmer, and the humidity is rising, although the lows are still in the high 60's.  That makes for very comfortable nights with just a fan.  No AC being used yet!  Last year May was REALLY hot, so this is a nice change.  

More photos are in our 2015 May album, and I do get captions on them eventually!   Ben took some nice La Paz shots.  

And for your "flower of the week", here is a lovely red Hibiscus blooming in our garden.  And yes, we grow ferns here (they're almost a weed in this bed).  



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



Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Pic-of-the-Week for May 12, 2015

Hola Amigos!

What a great week!  Party! Party! Party!  My birthday was abundantly celebrated!  On Tuesday evening some neighbors invited us to their Cinco de Mayo party at Rancho Buena Vista.  It was a catered affair (pig roast) planned for about 100 folks, but about 175 showed up!  (Happens about every time for parties like that here, it seems.)  We had live music and good food (as long as it lasted) and dancing and visiting with friends.  Lots of fun!  

Wednesday was my birthday party at our favorite restaurant, El Barrilito.  There were 30 of us, and even though that was his normal closed day, Francisco put on a party for us, and WOW!  The decorations were amazing, and the food was fantastic.  Again, we had to send some folks away (including a few we knew) because we were only planning for the 30 of us who were there.   

Ben "surprised" me with a really nice rustic stool from Miraflores leatherworks. It even has my name on it.  I used it the other day at my kitchen counter, and it worked great!  

Ben had everything planned except he didn't know that our friend Duke was going to bring his accordion to play some music for us!  He is great with it, and that got us up dancing (the women, anyhow).  Then Duke said he was playing a song for just Ben and I, and miracle of miracles, Ben actually got up and danced with me through the whole song!  You can see him smiling in this photo, like he actually might  have enjoyed himself a little bit (he'll deny it, I'm sure!)  


I've posted a bunch more photos in our 2015 May album, so you can check it out for the party pics. 

We took a ride out to the little settlement of El Chorro to pick up a handmade doll for our granddaughter, but the seamstress was in San Jose that day.  We had a nice drive and visit with Jeanette, our community choir director, at her home there in that little town.  She brought the doll to me a few days ago, and I immediately fell in love with it!  I gave her some fabric that I used to make a dress for Eleanor last year, and a picture of the dress, and she came back with a duplicate dress, even to the tie in the back!  Pretty cool.  I asked for the red hair.  Most of the dolls she makes look a bit more Mexican, with dark hair and long dresses.  
Today we're going to the airport to pick up a friend of Ryan's, and tomorrow we're going in to pick up Ryan!  His friend made the trip arrangements before Ryan got his new remote job, and it turns out that Ryan is in Florida for several days at the company's annual meeting.  We'll take advantage of the trip to town and visit Costco and Home Depot, and we're taking our friend Pat to do a bit of shopping, too.  

Ben is getting ready to go to another car show in La Paz this weekend.  The fender that got dented several times by our swinging suicide door is at the body shop, and hopefully it won't happen again, since Ben has installed the leather straps to limit the door swing (from the leatherworks in Miraflores!)  So, hopefully it will be done in plenty of time.  He is also finishing up some other things on his "Honey do" list.  Pretty amazing all the things that got done this year!  

We have lots of birds here, and we can certainly tell it is spring as far as they are concerned.  We have seen many nests, including another one in a banana tree, and quite a few Oriole nests in our large palm.  We have one or two Orioles that land on our bedroom windows every day at about 7am and sing and sing.  It drives my dogs crazy!  (I told Ben that the bird sang "Happy Birthday to you" to me last week!  He had a hard time believing it, but it's true!  

This is a White Wing Dove nesting under the palapa at Jeanette's.  Notice the pretty turquoise blue around its eye.  Their nests never look too comfy!  Hopefully there are some fluffy things in the middle.  



For your flower picture this week, here's one that's interesting, but not too pretty, and it smells pretty bad, too!  These are the buds on our little cactus.  And here's an open flower.  They are kind of little fly catchers, as they are fuzzy and trap the bugs that go in to investigate.  (Yummy!)  


The weather has been fairly cool for May.  Lows in the 70's and highs in the 80's, and we've had lots of cloudy days.  Gives us no excuse for not working in the yard!!  (Which I did yesterday....got a lot done!)  Our dogs have been knocking down our corn stalks, and we find them (especially Sam) with at least one cob a day.  The little stinker!  We've been able to keep the cows and burros out, but we forgot about the dogs!  I pulled out my bean crop and harvested a few volunteer tomatoes.  

OK.  Places to go and things to do!  

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


Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Pic-of-the-Week for May 5, 2015

Hola, Amigos!  

Feliz cinco de Mayo!!  Not too widely celebrated here in Baja, and no excuse for closing the banks.  See Cinco de Mayo history  to figure it out!    We've been invited to a party here tonight, so we'll make sure to celebrate properly.  

Yesterday was the 16th anniversary of my 50th birthday, and I enjoyed a quiet day at home.  I made myself some Carrot Cake cupcakes (I used 1/2 batch of my favorite Wilma Ausland recipe), and then our friend Pat came over and delivered some wonderful looking chocolate cupcakes!  I invited her to join us for dinner of steak and corn (fresh from the garden), and then she beat us all at Mexican Train!  I at least didn't come in last...Ryan took that honor.  Ben fixed me a lovely Margarita before dinner, and I pulled out the birthday napkins I've been saving for 16 years!  



Ahhhh.... another lovely evening on the veranda!

Friends invited us to their home for a Kentucky Derby party on Saturday.  Never been to a KD party before, but we had loads of fun!  There were horses (on a stick), lots of wonderful food, betting, hat contests, and more!  Ryan won first place for men with his hat creation, and Ben was runner up.  I had a beautiful hat, but the competition was stiff, so the guys in the family brought home the goodies!  

 Ryan's hat had a bunch of tickets on it, and he had written "Place Your Bets" around the crown.  Ben's hat had a couple of pictures of Derby horses racing stuck in the band, and someone stuck some $100 bills (not real, unfortunately)in the front.  Mine just wasn't  over the top enough.  It was rather elegant, instead!  

This is the horse race portion.  Roll a dice and move ahead.  Bumping of other "riders" was involved, and it was a lot of fun.  They only managed to get one race in with all the other activities, but it was fun watching.

Today is Ryan's first day on his new "remote" job.  He got hired by a company that does all their work 100% remote.  He'll be working from here in Baja doing Web Marketing optimization.  They hired him in time to make it to their annual meeting, which happens to be in Fort Lauderdale, FL this next weekend!  We're all very pleased for him.  

We're going to leave Ryan to himself today (except that when we leave, Sam and Zoey will go upstairs to be with him).  A friend invited us over for breakfast of Huevos Rancheros, then we're going to go for a ride in the country to visit another friend and pick up a hand-made Mexican doll for our grand daughter.  (If we can find the place!!  We do have directions, and she said it's "easy-peasy".  We'll see!)  

While gardens in Oregon have some of my favorite flowers blooming.... lilacs, iris, rhodies, etc., we're having to make do with our cactus flowers and hibiscus, and fresh corn from the garden.  Oh well....we'll probably survive!  

The weather and sea water is warming up gradually.  We've still had some cloudy days, and the breezes and switching around to the south and east.  It's very enjoyable most days.  


I've started a May 2015 Picasa album, and someday I'll get captions on the pics! 

Tus amigos de Baja,
Harriet, Ben, Ryan (who must be working upstairs...he's very quiet this morning!) and of course, Sam & Zoey