Pic-of-the-Week for December 9, 2014

Hola Amigos!

We had another "kinda" busy week.  We took an outing to our friends' Mel and Katie's camp at Los Frailes.  They treated us to fresh seared tuna, chicken enchiladas and a great view of the ocean, birds and lizards!  They brought down their camper this year instead of a 5th wheel, so they've erecteda large canopy for an outdoor kitchen and dining area, a large tent for Katie's studio where she paints, and another large tent for guests.  It is a very comfortable setup for them, in spite of no electricity or running water.  This is all dry camping, folks, at it's finest!
 

 Contemplating the view.

Mel searing the tuna.  Katie had just taken the enchiladas out of the Weber barbecue...it is a multi-purpose cooker!

Cute little bird enjoying their solar powered (keeps the water moving) bird bath.  
 
It takes an hour to get there from our casa, and it is paved about 3/4 of the way.  The dirt portion had just been graded recently, so it wasn't bad, but the last 10 miles of the pavement is pretty awful...full of potholes everywhere, and difficult to maneuver around and through.  We survived, though (or the pickup did) and got back home safe and sound. 

We never know what we'll see on our beach walks.  I usually take the road that goes by our house down to the Rancho Buena Vista arroyo, then out to the beach.  It keeps my dogs away from other barky dogs along the way.  When we went down the hill into the arroyo the other day, I noticed some "fill" material that is being exposed from some of the last rains.  What do you think?  Could we get it to work again?  Evidently someone had some issues with this printer, so instead of a boat anchor, it became road fill!

 We also saw a bird on the beach that day that appeared to be slightly injured.  He could move pretty good, but couldn't fly.  Not sure what was wrong with him...I was just doing my best to keep my "bird dogs" away from them.  Zoey wanted to chase him in the worst way, but she does listen when I say "no" or "come".  Sam is another story.  He'll keep chasing, but he's slow enough to not do any damage.  He actually listened pretty good that day.

This last Sunday there was an Art Fair that we got to attend.  I managed to find some more of my favorite glass jewelry and bought a piece to replace one I had broken (one of the hazards of glass jewelry!)  I enjoyed looking around... it is so colorful!  Lots of things I can't afford, but at least I can enjoy looking at them.

On the home front, Ben has finished another item on his "Honey-Do" list; he repaired my wooden music stand (in spite of the new one breaking on him a few times).   He found a local Mexican who could match the stain color, and you can't tell it's not the original.  Did I tell you how blessed I am to have a husband who can do stuff like this?  Now he's working on a kitchen step stool to replace our rusty one.  *Big Grins!*  

Another thing on his list is the brick sidewalk on the east side of the house.  That one will be done today!  He's getting smart in his old age, though....this one he hired done.  Lot less wear and tear on the knees that way! 

 

Our Cardon cactus got moved from near the middle of the new sidewalk over to the right about 8 feet.  That took Ben, Ryan, Rick (our contractor) and Alfredo (his worker) to move the thing.  Phew!  BIG job.

I have been busy with music; music for our Community Choir group, and music for our Church choir group.  I'm the pianist for both, and it keeps my fingers nimble (hopefully!)  It's something I really enjoy doing, and I have read that being able to read music and play a musical instrument keeps both sides of your brain in very good shape. (What was I saying?...) 



The Christmas tree is up and decorated.  I've downloaded some new Christmas music to my Ipod and found some old Christmas CDs, and we're just about in the spirit of the season!  We don't do cards or much in the way of gifts, but we love to have people over to share in some good food and fellowship, maybe even some Christmas songs!  The weather has been pleasant.  Highs in the 80's and lows in the mid 60's, with windy days fairly often now.  We still have a guest room available if you want to come experience some sunshine, great food, lovely scenery, beach walks, hot springs, (or hot tub), kayaking, wind surfing... or just some laid back relaxation.  This is the place! 

More photos are in our December 2014 Picasa album.

Hasta la proxima semana!

Tus amigos de Baja,

Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam & Zoey

Pic-of-the-Week for December 2, 2014

Hola Amigos,

Where did 2014 go?  Can you believe we are already into December?  Only 22 more shopping days before Christmas!!  We'll put up our tree soon; Ryan just needs to haul it downstairs, and I need to move a bit of furniture and get out the decorations.  I got smart and left the lights on it last year.  It even survived the hurricane (I think Ryan moved it indoors at the time).  

We had a great Thanksgiving celebration.  There were 12 adults and a 3-month old attending.  We had some fun playing Bocce ball before dinner...

We had plenty of turkey because Ben cooked two of them on the smoker; one Wednesday and one Thursday.  

And we had little Emmi to coo over!  She didn't eat her share of turkey, but that was OK!  

Several of the men were willing dishwashers and dryers!!  What a blessing that was! 

We have almost finished all of the five pies that we had.  I gave the rest of one away to the neighbor yesterday (the extremely rich and deliciously decadent Pecan pie), and we had Apple, Pumpkin Chiffon, Coconut Pecan German Chocolate, and Ryan made his famous Key Lime pie.  We are just about ready to freeze up the remaining turkey for later.  We've had quite a few turkey sandwiches and a nice big pot of Cream of turkey soup.  And Ben will probably want to smoke another turkey for Christmas dinner!  

 I am happy to report that my zinnias are doing well, and have started to bloom.  They have a very nice mix of bright colors, so I'm happy!  I have also used some of the arugula for salads since it is doing well.  My spinach crop isn't doing so well.  I'll probably plant some more in about a month; it doesn't seem to like the hot afternoon sun.  

Our contractor should be showing up tomorrow to finish up work on the new sidewalk on the east side of our house.  He's been on vacation a couple of weeks, so we're anxious to get that project going again.  It also involves moving a pretty good size Cardon cactus that has done very well since we planted it.  We were going to curve the bricks around to the right of it, but the way it is growing, we decided to make the sidewalk square, and move that cactus back over by that agave about 8 feet away!  I think this cactus has grown six feet and done quite well since we planted it about 8 years ago.  The rumor was that they send out branches when they're about 50 years old, but I don't think this one is near that old.


Ryan and I enjoyed watching the Oregon Duck / Oregon State Beaver game on Saturday at our friends' home.  Ben... not so much (he's a die-hard Oregon State fan).  We're looking forward to the Pac 12 Championship game this Saturday.  They're playing Arizona, who happens to be the only team that beat the Ducks this year.  GO DUCKS!!! 


I have started a 2014 December Picasa album, but it doesn't have many December photos yet!  (It is only the 2nd, after all!) We'll try to do better next week because we have some outings planned this week.  

Our daughter sent out her photos for November, so I'm going to steal one and show you our cute grand kids.  

 

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

Pic of the Week for November 25, 2014

Hola Amigos,

Guess where we were this weekend? 

Yes, we took the '28 Woody to La Paz for another car show.   This photo is from first thing in the morning, when we were just setting up.  Hundreds of people came by, and probably hundreds of photos were taken of this car while it was parked there.  We also participated in the parade through town on Saturday night.  Everyone was very pleased to see our car, and they always love it when he beeps his oogah horn.  (Except for the cute teenage who crossed the street in front of us when we were stopped one time.  She shrieked!!)  

We didn't spend all day at the show like we have in the past, because they can last until late when the organizer, Hector Manuel Amarillas, passes out all the gifts and rewards.  Ben and I were surprised when he called our name for the prize for the oldest vehicle, because we told him not to award us prizes any more.  But he did, and he gave quite a speech (in Spanish) telling about our summer adventures with this car.  In short, he told us it was an honor for them for us to bring our cars to their show.  Awwwwww.....  

And of course, Ben likes the photo ops!!  Notice our woody on the poster in the upper right of this picture.  

I just got a call this morning from Hector Manuel, and he told me that there was a picture of our car in the state newspaper, so we're even making the news!  What fun!  (He's the man in the white shirt holding the mic in the photo above).

Did you notice (of course you did!) the shoes these Quaker State girls are wearing?  They'd been standing around for several hours in those things.  I can't imagine that they are comfortable, but they sure look impressive!! 

Earlier this week, on November 20, we had both Model A's in the Revolution Day Parade in Los Barriles.  We were the only motorized vehicles this time as there were no floats this year.  Not sure why not, but a Mexican friend told us it was because the teachers and mayor were too lazy this year!  We'll say its because they're still recovering from the hurricane damages.  Anyhow, there were no little children marching, just middle school through high school marching. 

We weren't even sure we'd have royalty to ride in our pickup, but Kenia showed up.  She is the beautiful niece of our friend Dalia.  She had the prettiest dress!  It filled up the back of the pickup!

Here's the queen in the next 10 years!  She knew I wanted to take her picture, so she lagged behind her Papa just a bit and gave me a great big smile!  The little ones participated in some dancing in the public concha, so they were involved too, just not in the parade.  

We are preparing for our Thanksgiving dinner this Thursday.  Ben is brining the turkey today, and he'll be putting it in our smoker Thanksgiving Day.  We expect about 12 of us for dinner.  I'm planning pies and figuring out where to put everyone.  Since we're all adults, we can't do a kid's table, and it has been pretty windy the last several days, so I don't know if we can put anyone outside on the front veranda.  Ben might even buy another turkey to supplement our 14 pounder!  

I'll leave you with a La Paz sunset which I captured while we were driving down the Malecon during the parade.  Many more photos of the La Paz car show and the November 20 parade in Los Barriles are in our 2014 November Picasa album.  I might even get some captions on them soon!

Happy Thanksgiving to our USA friends!  Don't forget to count your blessings!

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

Pic-of-the-Week for November 18, 2014

Hola Amigos,

Another stay-at-home week, at least for me.  Ben went on a successful shopping trip to La Paz one day, and Ryan has been there visiting friends since Saturday, returning via bus sometime today (he heard Ben is fixing his famous smoked pulled pork for dinner tonight!)  Ben invited our daughter Rebecca over for dinner tonight, too, and she thought is sounded wonderful (since she's in a place where they don't have pork to eat!)  Ben is busily concocting his spice rub mix while I'm writing this.  I am staying out of the way!!! Actually, he needed my help to sprinkle on the spices since his hands were all mustardy, and he needed to turn it to get the spices on both sides.

Rub all over with mustard.... sprinkle with the spice blend, and put on the smoker for an all day slow, smoky fire.  Yummy!  Ready to go on the fire!

 
 We were pleasantly surprised the other day when our friend, a contractor, showed up and said he was ready to start our next home-improvement project!  Yippee!  We are extending our brick patio from the clothesline area all the way to the veranda on the front.  Rick and his worker Alfredo managed to get the forms poured all the way from the existing patio on the south to the north side of the house in 3 days.  Now, Rick is going on vacation to Florida for two weeks, and will be back to finish up the project on December 3rd.  We even managed to keep the dogs out of the fresh concrete for each pour, although Sam tried once.  Fortunately, the concrete was fresh enough that Rick could smooth it out. The wide concrete areas are where our gargoyles spew out water on rainy days, and the bricks are so porous, we decided that the concrete would last longer.  

Notice the banana bunch next to the sidewalk?  Isn't that convenient when they get ripe, you won't even have to get your feet dirty when you pick one!

The drain line project also got finished this week, thanks to some hard work by Ryan.  That rock in the ditch was BIG, and flat on the bottom, and hard to maneuver!  With persistent shoveling and work with a pick and pry bar, he finally got it out, and rolled it (or maybe he hurled it?) over the bank!  Phew!  

Final joint hooked up and good to go!  Hooray!  This was probably a really good mosquito breeding ground! 
 

  
You know that things down here deteriorate quickly in the heat.  This time, it was the drain hose to our washing machine.  It was at least helping us keep the laundry room floor mopped, but not at our convenience!  Ben took it all apart, and managed to find a hose that would fit from the local hardware store.  He hooked it up, and it worked great.  It's a little stiffer than the original, but hey!  It works!!  Did I ever tell you how nice it is to have a husband who can fix stuff like this?  I am truly blessed!  Oh...see the curtain in the window there in the laundry?  I shortened a curtain I had kept since we moved from Eugene in 1984 (can you believe it?) and it looks great there.  It is to shade our 2nd fridge from the afternoon sunshine.  (Gotta keep the drinks cold!)

My friends Pat and Cheryl invited me to lunch last week at Bayview.  When we got there, we noticed a crowd on the beach in front, so we went down to see what all the hoopla was about.  As we got closer, we saw multiple camera people (big, TV type cameras), kids with signs, people with special T-shirts, and the local Turtle guy Noay (sp?) with a mature turtle, ready to go to the water.  She was outfitted with an antenna on her back!  Telcel, a Mexican cellular service, is sponsoring this effort to track the turtle and post it on the internet.  They're building a website and if I ever find out more about it, I'll let you know!  You may even spot me on the beach taking pictures of the turtle!!  Go Turtle! 

Some more photos are in our 2014 November Picasa album.  

I'll leave you with an arroyo sunset.

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

Pic-of-the-Week for November 11, 2014

Hola Amigos,

Happy Veterans Day everyone, especially to those of you who served the USA in the military in years past.  I salute you! And here are 104 horse mounted US flags at the Pendleton Roundup Parade to salute you!

 The local Baja California Sur government has instituted an admirable program here in the last several years.  They hire local people for a short term to clean up along side the roads here; picking up garbage, pulling and cutting down weeds, and hauling off the debris.  We were surprised last evening when we drove down our little dirt road and saw about 25 or so people cleaning on both sides of the road, some Moms with their kids along side (one even in a stroller).  We've seen them up on the main road, and were happy to see them on our road.  I didn't get a picture of them, but waved and smiled and got waves and smiles back!  They get a minimum wage for doing this, but it helps them, and it helps the community.  

In our own yard, we've had hired help to keep the weeds at bay.  They grow by leaps and bounds in the summer, so Ryan has hired Claudia to come in regularly to keep it neat and tidy.  There is some BIG stuff that needs taking care of, and that's when we call in Marco.  On Sunday, he pulled out a huge Nopal cactus (we have more of the same elsewhere), carefully dug out some sharp Agave, as well as some Blue Agave that was getting out of hand.  He tried to dig out the stump of a Neem tree we cut down last year, but couldn't get it to budge!!   He'll be back later this week to try again.

 
While he was trying to dig out the Neem tree, he discovered the ground water was about 1 foot below ground level.  OK, OK.... we decided we need to do something about this ground water, which is from our drain line.  If this soil wasn't solid clay and rock it would work fine.  So Ben went to the hardware store yesterday and bought a bunch of pipe and fittings, and dug up the junction box to see if the water was draining properly (it was).  Ryan found the end of the drain line, and I took our nice sharp new clippers and forged a path down the hill.  I'd already made a path here when we first moved in 12 years ago and envisioned it as our way to the beach, but in the meantime, we've put up a barb wire fence at the bottom to keep the free range live stock out of our yard.  Let me tell you, at this time of year, it is a jungle down there!! 

 Anyhow, Ben & Ryan got the pipe put in at the bottom of our property, and hooked up all the way up the hill.  Now they just need to dig out a big rock in the ditch, and hook it up to the end of the pipe at the top. 

Ben and Ryan are working at the bottom of our property, which is a mini-arroyo.  At least it was fairly easy digging here.   (See the jungle above??  Lots of San Miguel vine growing abundantly there, among other things!)
 

The "old" end of the line.  There's a nice big rock to dig out just to the left of this picture.

Dengue Fever, caused by the bites of infected mosquitos, has been a problem here this fall; our friends Ellis and Marsha came down with it last week, and we've heard of several others who have contracted it, including some in Vista del Mar below us.  Getting rid of our wet area will help, I'm sure!  

Enough of the sweat-producing, back-breaking work!  We were beat at the end of the day, and so were the dogs, who had to go up and down the hill to keep a watch on everything and everyone!  (Have you ever seen a dog get a drink out her water dish lying down?)  Ryan, who is young and strong, worked hard a good part of the day, then entertained a traveler from Poland and went camping at Frailes!!! 

Since Ben has recovered from his illness, we've had lots of company over.  A dinner date at our house is always colorful!  I've decided to use my locally made dishes all the time, (Ibarra from La Paz), and they are colorful!  We are still enjoying eating al fresco, in spite of it getting dark earlier.  We just pass out plenty of bug spray!!  Ryan came up with this method to hold down our table clothes on windy days, and it is working well!

I did finally get my 2014 November Picasa album up and working, so you can find a few more photos in there (including the dogs, M.T.).

And here's an "artsy" picture for you of some Palo de Arco and Ryan.
 

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

Pic-of-the-Week for November 4, 2014

Hola Amigos!
We woke up to a drenching rainstorm this morning, which is a good thing, as Baja always needs rain.  Hurricane Vance is going by to the south of us, heading east-north-east.  Here's a picture from Intellicast this morning...that little purple spot to the south of Baja is the eye of the storm.  Yep, we're getting wet, and it looks like Oregon and Washington are also getting wet (different storm)!  Anyhow, Vance was headed directly at us when it veered to the east. It is rapidly deteriorating into a tropical storm.  Looks like you get the moving picture!  Cool.
 



Ben is chauffeuring our friend Pat to La Paz today so she can visit Immigration.  Not the best day to travel Baja roads or tour La Paz (Pat's niece Cheryl who is also visiting has never seen La Paz) but the rain is slowing down some now.  Here on the home front, I get dog duty!  Pat left her new 4 month old Poodle pup "Button" with me to dog-sit.  She's keeping Sam and Zoey on their toes!  She weighs about 4 pounds...maybe 5, but she holds her own with Sam & Zoey.  (She is fast and agile and is wearing them down!)  

 Anyhow, windows and doors are closed here today to keep the rain out and Button in!  It is rather cool today…only 71.4 on our thermometer this morning!  The man who came to sell us some compost this morning said it was cold.  I told him “not cold, just

a bit of rain”!  We have quite a stream running by with the water coming off the top floor and the palapa roofs over our veranda.

Ben has started work on his 29 Model A pickup because he noticed some leaks.  He changed the oil (not an easy job when you can’t get the oil plug to unscrew and you have to remove the entire pan!) and added water, and it seems to be holding it’s fluids now.  I told him things leaked because it got so hot here this summer that they just boiled over!  He hadn’t thought of that!  We’re hoping to go to another car show in La Paz in late November with the Woody (which is running just fine, thank you Mike S.) Ben is trying to get the cars in shape for our community’s annual November 20 Revolution Day parade.  They are always a popular entry in the parade, and the Queen and her Princesses usually ride in the pickup.  So he’s got a deadline! 


We have been dining al fresco since we got back in early October.  We’ve added candles to the table since daylight savings time ended a few weeks ago, but it is still comfortable out there morning, noon and evening.  We do enjoy watching the birds from there.  This Cardinal showed up as soon as I put water in the bird bath!

It’s a short “pic” this week.  Not too much happening, other than a few more rounds on my rug!  (I’ve taken to shortening dresses of the correct color to come up with some more fabric!  This could get interesting.)  

I will start a November Picasa album soon.  Google seems to be having problems this morning and I can’t open up or create any new albums today.  Blogger, where I usually write this, is finally working so I was finally able to get this done.  

Hasta la proxima semana,
Tus amigos de Baja,
Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam & Zoey
PS.  The dogs are all sleeping…Button is under my chair.