Pic-of-the-Month for March 28, 2020

Hola Amigos,

What a difference a few weeks makes!  The birds are still singing and the fish are still jumping, and in our first post at the beginning of March, we were not too concerned about the nasty Corona virus.  But things changed rapidly here, as in the rest of the world!  

Seen on my morning walk the other day; a Pitahaya cactus bloom.

We took my brother Rich to the airport on the 17th of March, and since then, have been mostly staying close to home and avoiding social contact.  We canceled our "Feeding the Hungry" Fashion Show for the 20th of March (one of the first functions in the area to be canceled), and since then, every other social function has been canceled here, and around the world.  Thank goodness we still have internet and telephone to communicate with each other.  Even though we're "senior citizens", we've been trying to help others as the need arises, including several single ladies.  

Today there are 10 confirmed cases in Baja California Sur, 8 in Cabo San Lucas and 2 in La Paz.  The kite boarders are still out when the wind blows, but the Mexican Marine Board has closed the harbors; no fishing boats can go out, and no other boats are allowed to come into port or go out.  I guess if you're on a yacht on the high seas, you'll just have to stay there!  The airports are still open, but with a lot less flights.  Depending on how this plays out, we may just be here a good part of the summer.  We usually leave in late June.  This year, who knows?!  Will the border still be open?  Will it be better or worse in Oregon?  So, in the meantime, we're staying here and praying for the best outcome.  

A bucket of green beans 

We do feel that this is a very safe place, and it is our only "home", so we are very comfortable, and our fridges and freezers are full...especially when friends leaving town empty their refrigerators in our direction! (We even have plenty of toilet paper on our Costco shelf!)  My garden is also producing some wonderful green beans and tomatoes!

Now that we're home-bound, Ben is getting many "home improvement" or maybe just "home maintenance" projects done.  He's cleaned his shop, waxed his tools, and is building a wooden rack for his drills to hang from.   He refinished some old Mexican wooden chairs for our friend Pat, fixed this and that, and is just heading off to the hardware store for the 3rd time today to get a couple of new outdoor faucets for some that have broken recently. (Oops, I just broke one today!)    We go to town for groceries, to go to the bank to get money (they limit it to 3 customers at a time inside), and to help the local economy, we occasionally eat out at several different restaurants who have the tables set far apart.  I've been doing more cooking (since we're eating at home more often), and I've got several embroidery projects going.  I'm also wanting to start a new quilt, and have a few pieces cut out, but changed my mind about how I want it to go together.  So I'm still thinking about it!  


Zoey and I are still walking.  We haven't been going up to the monument, but still get in about 2.5 miles each day.  Oh, that bright yellow flower I showed you in the last letter, and am showing you again?  That is a Yellow Prickly Poppy, all parts of which are poisonous!  You can even get sick if you drink milk from a cow who ate the plant!  Our current orchid crop is doing fantastic.  These are all plants that are blooming again.  We've had them at least a year.  I keep them outside on my courtyard counter (shaded with a palapa roof) when they're not blooming.  They seem to like it! I'm also experimenting with our Dendrobium orchid, to see if I can start some new ones.  I chopped some stems up, and have them in damp sphagnum moss.  

Today, we managed to get a new project started, because it is pretty easy to maintain a social distance here.  We are having the west wall of our house painted.  It is BIG!  The workers showed up just before 8am, as promised, and immediately went to work power washing the building.  They are now patching all the cracks, and it's looking very nice.  Ben went to the store and bought plenty of paint for them.  They finished the cracks this afternoon, and are painting around windows and doors, doing edging. We are pleased with the work we see them doing. We got a price from several others for the entire house, and kind of choked!  But we might have this fellow do some more of the house if we like what we see.  By the way, the color should be very similar to what you see here.  (We hope!!)

  

Here's what it looks like as they're starting to put paint on around the edges of windows and doors.  We like it!  You can see the new paint especially around the window and at the bottom of the wall.

Crowded beaches of Buena Vista; Los Barriles in the distance.  Look!  A family of 4!

We wish we could invite you down to enjoy quarantining with us at our casa in beautiful Baja, but that is just not practical, unfortunately.  We hope that you are all staying healthy and filling your time with good things to do.  Our children are isolated in their parts of the world, and are all good right now.  Let us know how you are faring, and don't forget;  GOD IS IN CONTROL of this world.  

I leave you with this benediction from the book of Jude in the New Testament.

24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

25 To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

I have added some new pictures to our March 2020 album.  Enjoy! 

Hasta la proxima vez

Tus amigos en Baja

Harriet, Ben, Sam & Zoey

Pic-of-the-Month for March 11, 2020

Hola Amigos,

We have a reminder on our Google Calendar for every other Tuesday that says "Write Pic-of-the-Week".  I usually just ignore it, but Ben mentioned today (in jest, I think) "have you written Pic-of-the-Week?"  "Nope!"  But now I feel a bit guilty, so I guess I'll get 'er done!  

Since our last missive, we've had three sets of guests; one set  of 4, one set of 3, and now my brother Rich by himself.  The first group was Ben's brothers John and Greg, and Greg's wife Cherlene and daughter Georgina.  It was a quick trip for them here at our place, as they spent the first part at a time-share in San Jose del Cabo.  Several days after they got here via Aguila Bus, Ben was able to take them whale watching at Magdalena Bay to a new place (for us), and it was quite successful.  So successful, we took the next guests there, too!  Those 2 day trips included an overnight stay in La Paz, so that was nice for the guests to spend a bit of time there as well.  Below is John, me, Ben, Greg, Cherlene and Georgina in front of La Playa restaurant, shortly before they had to leave.  

Our next guests were our friends George and Carolyn from Oregon and George's brother Paul from Texas.  They were all supposed to arrive the same day, but George and Carolyn didn't make it to the Portland airport from Salem due to a major truck turn-over accident on the I-5 freeway in Portland.  They had to reschedule and come the next day.  Paul made it in from Texas just fine, so we picked him up the first day, and then made a return trip to get the late-comers the next day!  See what lengths we go to for our guests?   

We had to go the the Round Bar at Rancho Buena Vista with them on International Margarita Day to celebrate properly.  Rancho makes some of the best Margaritas in the area!

I got to go on the 2nd whale watching trip and took some fun pictures of the whales.  We have never seen so many whales spy-hopping!  Over and over you'd see them popping up to get a look around!  

One whale came very close to the boat, and George almost got to pet it, but he said his wife and brother were holding onto his belt so he couldn't get quite close enough!!  Anyhow, our 2 hour trip was plenty of time to see an abundance of whales.  To see more whaling pictures, I've created a Sackinger Vacation album.  And, you get to see a few more things they did on their vacation!  They left here to spend the next part of their vacation on a Mexican Island, Holbox.  Never heard of it?  Me, neither, but they'd been there before, and it is supposedly very unimproved, but that's changing rapidly.  It's near Cancun on the other side of Mexico.  

Shortly after they left, my brother Rich arrived, and he is looking at a nice quiet, warm, two week stay.  We just need a bit more sunshine!  We've had quite a bit of cloudy weather since he's been here.  I took him on a walk down the beach to the Round Bar, and he only got his foot wet once!  (I told him not to stand too close to that rock!)  We have taken him to several music nights (another one Wednesday night) so it hasn't been completely quiet for him.  

I'm continuing my daily walks, and I've been getting up to the Flag Monument more often. I didn't make it up for the ceremony on Mexican Flag Day (February 24) since we had company, but we have a great view of the monument from our guest room balconies upstairs, so I got a picture of the flag while it was still up.

That's one big flag on a very windy day!  Notice the crowd is still there enjoying the ceremonies and dancing and speeches.  Next year, I hope to make it up.  One of the problems with getting there is no one seems to know when it's supposed to happen.  Our local "news rag" said "anytime between 9 and 2!!!  And that's exactly correct!  
  

Anyhow, when Zoey and I get up there, we always sit on a little wall and have a drink of water and rest a bit, but Zoey doesn't like to wait around...we usually are ready to go within a few minutes.  Besides, it is mostly downhill all the way home!!  👇

I also like to look around for interesting things, and some thistles are starting to bloom now.  They are rather pretty at this point!  
We also see the local burros regularly, and I saw the whole group of them not too long ago.  We met at an intersection in the roads, and they decided it was a good place and time for a dust bath!  They were so cute!

Ben and I are getting ready for our second "Feeding the Hungry" Fashion show this season.  We've moved the show to the springtime, so this year it's rather overwhelming.  At least we get to wait for a whole year for the next one.  We've been putting up posters and soliciting donations and setting up vendors and trying to find people to help with everything.  It's pretty amazing how it all comes together in the end, God willing!  We're trying to raise enough money so the hungry of Los Barriles (about 25 families are being helped) have funds during the summer for necessities.  Here's one of the large posters Ben put up (while I held corners level and handed him screws and washers and drills). 

The garden is doing fair

this year.  The corn crop is pretty much a failure.  I must have bought defective seed...the corn just isn't coming up like it should, and I'm very disappointed in the crop.  I think it need's cousin Tom's encouragement!  We even enlarged our garden area and added topsoil.  Fiddlesticks!  Next year I'll have better seed, I hope.  The beans are just about ready to start picking, and the tomatoes are getting huge!  We've enjoyed quite a few cucumbers (got rid of mildewed leaves and nasty bugs, and they're still producing.)  We've had a lot of cilantro, lettuce, and spinach.  So all in all, it's been a fair garden year. Guess I'll have to go to the Farm to get good eating corn next summer!  

He's saying "can't you grow bigger corn stalks?  I get to eat it when you're done with it, but can't it be a little taller??"

I've created a March album, and you might want to see more pictures in the February album.  

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