Pic-of-the-Month for January 2025

 Hola Amigos!

Can you believe the first month of 2025 is almost over?  Me, neither!  Time to get out a Pic-of-the-Month!! 

It's been a pretty quiet month after all the excitement of Rebecca's family visit at the end of December.  Partly because we both came down with the cold that they generously shared with us!!  Ben got it first, and I held off until he was pretty much over it, then I got sick for a couple days.  Interesting thing was we were mainly just congested, but didn't feel sick or achy.  Ben cut a lot of brush in our yard and worked in the shop during that time, and I continued on my daily walks except for 2 days. 

The picture is from our newer lot (next to our casa) where Ben spent the most time cleaning up brush.  There are a few areas that are pretty overgrown, but Ben is now getting a handle on it.  We also have plenty of brush to burn on our outdoor fire pit... we don't haul any of it off to the dump.  It's either burnable or composted.  The pups are enjoying exploring this area.  We're surprised they don't pick up more stickers in their paws, but they seem to do just fine.  We also like to watch them racing around this area now, doing the "zoomies"!  You can't believe how fast a dachshund can run!  They've also found a few nice places to dig holes, and we don't care!  Gus seems to have a nose for ants, and has pointed out several serious ant holes to us.  We are letting them outside of the restricted courtyard area, but we have to watch them closely.  They do tend to wander if allowed, especially over to a brush pile in our neighbor's driveway that had a snake carcass on it for a while!!  Ugh!

The garden(s) are doing quite well.  As you can see, the tomatoes are starting to get ripe, and Ben has been picking one or two yellow squash daily (we give a lot away!)  The beans have been strung, a second planting of corn has been done, we enjoyed our first lettuce picking yesterday, and have been eating radishes for quite a while.  We are also enjoying bouquets of roses from our rose garden.  This is the time of year they seem to do best here.  I remember the first time I saw a rose garden here in December or January and was amazed that they were doing so well.  (We're still trying to figure out what grows best and when here in Baja!) 

Ben's woodworking project this month was to make a Lazy Susan for our dining tables.  He glued together various pretty wood that he had, got his lathe all adjusted and built a stand so he could work on the end of the lathe, and smoothed out the glued together wood.  It turned out beautiful!  

The wood used, from the middle out, is Black Walnut, Palm, Eucalyptus and Maple. 

We took a trip to La Paz earlier in the month to do our Dermatologist visits.  Ben goes quarterly, i go bi-annually.  She zapped quite a few spots on me, and wants me to come back to check on a few of them next month.  It's a good excuse to spend the night and go and visit Tom and Karan, and eat with them at one of their favorite restaurants, KM14, and have a delicious dinner!  

Ben took the '28 Woody to a little car show in town (Los Barriles) last week, and the guy in charge said if they were giving out prizes, he would have won the grand prize!!  It is a lot of fun to drive around town!  

Ben has had the '30 Roadster in La Paz now for a while.  He took it to our painter friend, Edgar Majalca, who took it to a car show at the end of November.  At the car show, he found a buyer for us, but at the same time, something broke and the fan hit the radiator and ruined it!  (Not anyone's fault...it would have happened if we were driving it, too.  It was equipment failure in an almost 100 year old car!)  In the meantime, Ben found our friend Mike in Bend had a radiator for him; he ordered parts and had them sent to Baja friends who would be in California over Christmas and driving back, and Ben had his nephew and brother pick up the radiator and box it really well (great job on the packaging, Bryan & Ken!) to send to that same friend in California.  However, the friend got sick, and sent the parts with another Baja friend who was having a bunch of stuff sent down, and today, the radiator finally showed up!  The other parts came a couple weeks ago.  Now, he has to get the new radiator checked out at a radiator shop in La Paz, and then install the radiator and water pump.  In the meantime, the buyer said he wasn't ready to buy it yet....maybe this spring.  So we're hoping that happens in a timely manner.  We are enjoying the extra space in the garage, and don't really want to haul it back here if we don't have to!!   

We celebrated our 57th wedding anniversary on the 27th of the month!  It really is hard to believe it has been that long... neither of us feel that old!  We had breakfast and dinner out at a couple of our favorite restaurants here in town.  Got free Mimosas for breakfast, so that was nice!!  

My walking partner Jill left for a few months, so it's just me and my dang dogs walking now, or me by myself after their 1 mile daily walk.  They are getting a little bit better, but still try to eat every poop pile they see, the fresher, the better!  That's a good reason for a short leash!! I'm on track to make this month's goal, in spite of a couple sick days.  (But, I've also decided that my goals are very changeable when they need to be.)  

I've created a January 2025 picture album with a bunch of pictures of our quiet month!  

We have company scheduled to come visit a week in March, but the rest of the time is pretty wide open if you want to come see us.  Just think about sunshine and a beautiful beach, good friends and good food! 

Hasta la proxima vez,

Tus amigos en Baja,

Harriet, Ben, Gus and Pancho