Hola Amigos!
Whoa! Where did the time go? We have been so busy, but today, after the Fashion Show and before Thanksgiving, I thought I'd take a bit of time to catch up.
This is a heron fishing on the beach during my sunrise walk with Zoey.
Zoey and I have been walking most days, and we came across this in the road a few weeks ago. Thankfully, they were both dead. I moved one over so you could see them together. They're each probably 3" to 4" long. We also found a few of these around our house, and a couple Tarantulas, and lately, big old centipedes. It may be the rain, or the fact that our neighbor replaced his palapa roof (at least for the centipedes).
There are a lot of other, prettier things on my walks, including many flowering plants. With all the rain we've had this fall, things are blooming very nicely. This pretty yellow flower grows on a bush, and we finally found it in our Baja Plant book; it is a wild cotton plant! We also have beautiful blue Morning Glory, trees blooming, wild flowers galore, like the Datura (Jimsonweed) below.
I've only been up to the Flag Monument a few times, but now that the weather is starting to be cooler in the mornings, I think Zoey and I are up to going the extra mile. Right now, we're going 2 miles most mornings.
Ben and I were both very, very busy organizing our Fashion Show for Feeding the Hungry. With the proceeds from the show, we buy food vouchers from the local grocery store and give them to Chuy Castro, who administers the food program for our church. He gives these vouchers worth about $14 US weekly to families who need a little extra help. They can use them to buy meat, vegetables, fruit or whatever the family needs that week. (No alcohol or soft drinks). We had a nice crowd of people attending, some great presenters, a lovely venue with delicious food, some hard working helpers, and did a pretty good job raising some money for this next year. We were very surprised when we got there and found that the owners of the restaurant had a runway installed for the show! Fantastic!! The show was held on the 21st, and we both breathed a big sigh of relief that it was over for another year! Now, we need to get our supplies organized and wrap it up to see what we need to do for the next time. Here's a link to the pics the photographer took that night. FASHION SHOW
We invited our friends Janet & Tony K to come and present at this year's show. Janet owns a dress shop in Sisters, Oregon, and used to have a very popular one down here in Los Barriles. She was a hit with the ladies, and did a great job helping us here. We're sorry to see them leaving today!
Los Barriles held the Revolution Day parade 2 days late this year, because of the huge rainstorm (Tropical storm Raymond) that came through on the previous weekend. The freshly cleaned streets were covered with sand and mud!! City crews feverishly worked to get the streets cleaned again, and had the parade on Friday, the day after the Fashion Show. So, Ben and I got up early, and with our friend Sandy helping to drive, took all three Model A's to Los Barriles for the parade. I drove the '29 pickup, Sandy drove the '28 Woody, and Ben drove the '30 Roadster. We each had "royalty" in our vehicles.
And this guy is just too cute!
The next day, Saturday, Ben loaded up the Roadster for a trip to La Paz and a 2-day car show! (You think we have a relaxing lifestyle down here??) First stop in La Paz was at Majalca's Repintado, where we had the body work and painting done earlier. They wanted to "show it some love" for the show!
We enjoyed the time in La Paz at a cute little "boutique" hotel. Boutique means that you've got to call the hostess (there's no desk) and meet her to get your keys. You need a key to the front metal gate, a key to the door of the hotel, a key to your room, and the garage door opener that works the huge doors where we have secure parking for the Model A across the street!
Ben won a prize again, this time for "Best Ford". I think Hector Manuel made up that prize, and gave it to Ben in spite of him asking to not give him any more prizes! (He's running out of wall space in his garage!) Anyhow, it was fun to see all the other cars and people there. That's Edgar Majalca standing next to Ben; he owns the paint and body shop. (The gals are the "Quaker State" girls).
This car, like our others, is a popular place to get your picture taken!
I think we can start to take it easier now, other than we've got guests coming for Thanksgiving Day dinner!
We expanded our garden space, and just about have it ready to plant some things, but we had that huge rainstorm a week ago, and another one is coming this way tomorrow! When things get dried out a bit, I hope we can plant some more things!
Ben has been trying to get our Jeep in good shape, but it still isn't running quite right. He had Tony look at it while he was here, and Tony (an excellent mechanic) found some screwy things with the carburetor and automatic choke. Ben took it back to our mechanic (with Tony) and questioned the mechanic about the very used "new" choke. (Like, new in 1966!) Needless to say, he is working on it again, hopefully wiring it correctly and putting in all the correct parts. We have plans for this Jeep and places to explore around here, and need to have it running CORRECTLY soon!
We have a few other projects we can start thinking about now, like clearing more limbs from trees on our new lot, and doing some serious pruning on the Mesquite tree behind our veranda. In fact, Ben has purchased a small chain saw to help him with the project. Hopefully it will work well. We've enjoyed visiting with our new neighbors, who have cleared the lot next to us, and are thinking about starting to build part of it (garage and casita) within the year. With the heavy rain storms we've been having, we're finding some "leaky" places in our house, and will try to see what we can do about that (more buckets, maybe?) We would also like to add a new opening in our fence to get in and out of our new lot easier. Of course, we'll need a gate for that, as I don't think we can afford a cattle guard at this time.
Our neighbor Peter, on the other side, replaced his palapa (palm leaf) roof a few weeks ago. Sam and Zoey were very happy about that, because the old roof had a lot of leather straps holding things down. Sam harvested as many of those as he could find and brought them home! (All great except the ones with nails in them!) This one is still in the shape of the log it was wrapped around, but clamped securely in his jaw! It was interesting to watch them put on the new roof as it was a wrapped style, and ended up being a double layer, at least. Very pretty and smooth from the inside, and nice and fluffy on the outside!
More pictures are in our 2019 November album.
We hope you are all staying warm and dry. We're warm, but probably won't be very dry tomorrow when the next storm comes through! We wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, and thank God for all our blessings this year.
Hasta la proxima vez,
Tus amigos de Baja,
Harriet, Ben, Sam & Zoey
Whoa! Where did the time go? We have been so busy, but today, after the Fashion Show and before Thanksgiving, I thought I'd take a bit of time to catch up.
This is a heron fishing on the beach during my sunrise walk with Zoey.
Zoey and I have been walking most days, and we came across this in the road a few weeks ago. Thankfully, they were both dead. I moved one over so you could see them together. They're each probably 3" to 4" long. We also found a few of these around our house, and a couple Tarantulas, and lately, big old centipedes. It may be the rain, or the fact that our neighbor replaced his palapa roof (at least for the centipedes).
I've only been up to the Flag Monument a few times, but now that the weather is starting to be cooler in the mornings, I think Zoey and I are up to going the extra mile. Right now, we're going 2 miles most mornings.
Ben and I were both very, very busy organizing our Fashion Show for Feeding the Hungry. With the proceeds from the show, we buy food vouchers from the local grocery store and give them to Chuy Castro, who administers the food program for our church. He gives these vouchers worth about $14 US weekly to families who need a little extra help. They can use them to buy meat, vegetables, fruit or whatever the family needs that week. (No alcohol or soft drinks). We had a nice crowd of people attending, some great presenters, a lovely venue with delicious food, some hard working helpers, and did a pretty good job raising some money for this next year. We were very surprised when we got there and found that the owners of the restaurant had a runway installed for the show! Fantastic!! The show was held on the 21st, and we both breathed a big sigh of relief that it was over for another year! Now, we need to get our supplies organized and wrap it up to see what we need to do for the next time. Here's a link to the pics the photographer took that night. FASHION SHOW
We invited our friends Janet & Tony K to come and present at this year's show. Janet owns a dress shop in Sisters, Oregon, and used to have a very popular one down here in Los Barriles. She was a hit with the ladies, and did a great job helping us here. We're sorry to see them leaving today!
Los Barriles held the Revolution Day parade 2 days late this year, because of the huge rainstorm (Tropical storm Raymond) that came through on the previous weekend. The freshly cleaned streets were covered with sand and mud!! City crews feverishly worked to get the streets cleaned again, and had the parade on Friday, the day after the Fashion Show. So, Ben and I got up early, and with our friend Sandy helping to drive, took all three Model A's to Los Barriles for the parade. I drove the '29 pickup, Sandy drove the '28 Woody, and Ben drove the '30 Roadster. We each had "royalty" in our vehicles. 
These are kindergarten kids on a float.
And this guy is just too cute!
The next day, Saturday, Ben loaded up the Roadster for a trip to La Paz and a 2-day car show! (You think we have a relaxing lifestyle down here??) First stop in La Paz was at Majalca's Repintado, where we had the body work and painting done earlier. They wanted to "show it some love" for the show!
We enjoyed the time in La Paz at a cute little "boutique" hotel. Boutique means that you've got to call the hostess (there's no desk) and meet her to get your keys. You need a key to the front metal gate, a key to the door of the hotel, a key to your room, and the garage door opener that works the huge doors where we have secure parking for the Model A across the street!
Ben won a prize again, this time for "Best Ford". I think Hector Manuel made up that prize, and gave it to Ben in spite of him asking to not give him any more prizes! (He's running out of wall space in his garage!) Anyhow, it was fun to see all the other cars and people there. That's Edgar Majalca standing next to Ben; he owns the paint and body shop. (The gals are the "Quaker State" girls). 
This car, like our others, is a popular place to get your picture taken!
I think we can start to take it easier now, other than we've got guests coming for Thanksgiving Day dinner!
We expanded our garden space, and just about have it ready to plant some things, but we had that huge rainstorm a week ago, and another one is coming this way tomorrow! When things get dried out a bit, I hope we can plant some more things!
Ben has been trying to get our Jeep in good shape, but it still isn't running quite right. He had Tony look at it while he was here, and Tony (an excellent mechanic) found some screwy things with the carburetor and automatic choke. Ben took it back to our mechanic (with Tony) and questioned the mechanic about the very used "new" choke. (Like, new in 1966!) Needless to say, he is working on it again, hopefully wiring it correctly and putting in all the correct parts. We have plans for this Jeep and places to explore around here, and need to have it running CORRECTLY soon!
We have a few other projects we can start thinking about now, like clearing more limbs from trees on our new lot, and doing some serious pruning on the Mesquite tree behind our veranda. In fact, Ben has purchased a small chain saw to help him with the project. Hopefully it will work well. We've enjoyed visiting with our new neighbors, who have cleared the lot next to us, and are thinking about starting to build part of it (garage and casita) within the year. With the heavy rain storms we've been having, we're finding some "leaky" places in our house, and will try to see what we can do about that (more buckets, maybe?) We would also like to add a new opening in our fence to get in and out of our new lot easier. Of course, we'll need a gate for that, as I don't think we can afford a cattle guard at this time.
Our neighbor Peter, on the other side, replaced his palapa (palm leaf) roof a few weeks ago. Sam and Zoey were very happy about that, because the old roof had a lot of leather straps holding things down. Sam harvested as many of those as he could find and brought them home! (All great except the ones with nails in them!) This one is still in the shape of the log it was wrapped around, but clamped securely in his jaw! It was interesting to watch them put on the new roof as it was a wrapped style, and ended up being a double layer, at least. Very pretty and smooth from the inside, and nice and fluffy on the outside! More pictures are in our 2019 November album.
We hope you are all staying warm and dry. We're warm, but probably won't be very dry tomorrow when the next storm comes through! We wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, and thank God for all our blessings this year.
Hasta la proxima vez,
Tus amigos de Baja,
Harriet, Ben, Sam & Zoey
