Pic-of-the-Month for February 2025

 Hola amigos,

It's the end of February already, so here's another post about life in Baja with the Purkey's.

This month, our Hibiscus flowers started blooming again, after our cow invasion last June, I think it was, when our neighbor's ripe Mangoes enticed one in (tree branch hangs over neighbor's wall into our yard).  While she was already visiting, she decided to chew on the Hibiscus plants as well.  It's taken them 8 months or more to recover.  Sigh.  All the ones with nice growth have put out a flower of two this month.  (You can see them in our February 2025 album).  

However............

Another cow got in a week or so ago and ate every single nicely growing Hibiscus plant.  No more flowers for another year, if they survive!  Rats.  The cow also ate just a few leaves off my green beans (not as sweet as Hibiscus, obviously), then wandered over to the neighbors yard, where they chased it out.  

So, we have decided to re-do the fence line where we believe it got in.  The fence is very old and wobbly in a lot places, so we talked to the man who is in the process of buying that property and he said he's not planning on building any walls in the next couple of years.  We are going to put out the pesos to get it done for 2 reasons.  1.  No more cows in our yard from that way.  2.  No more pups under the fence to chase the cows and burros on the other side of the fence. We will be using a small wire mesh.  (Can you guess which dog, who is predominantly black, that would be?)  Does he come when called?  No.  Not when there's a cow or burro to chase.  Grrrr!!!  Still working on that one! They do like to come when we have the correct treats in our pocket (if the chase isn't too exciting!)  

So, yes, Ben has been clearing even more brush (on the fence line) and pruning Mesquite trees all over the property.  We have a lot of brush-y burn piles, so whenever it's calm in the evenings we've been enjoying our fire pit fires.  We will have Sergio, a local who's done quite a few fence jobs for us, rebuilding that fence line, too.   

Master bath shower

 

 Our home improvement project for February was to hire a tile guy, and he did 3 things for us.  He replaced the floor in the outdoor shower, he put new mop board tiles around the edge of the veranda (many of the old ones were falling off), and a new floor in our master bathroom shower.  We love all of it!  He did a fantastic job.  

Ben has a tile saw, and this guy had never seen or used one before!  But after he used it for a while, he was very pleased with how easy it was. 
 

Outdoor shower

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gus and Pancho continue to be a "bit" of a challenge to train and train and train!!  I walk them over a mile every day, they still eat any poop they can find before I can yank on or shorten their leash, they bark at any dog they see, jump up on people they meet.  I've occasionally been letting them off the leash so they can run on the beach, but the disadvantage to that is that their sharp noses can find every single fishy smelling thing on the beach.  The other day, Gus ate a tiny 2" fish, a sand crab, and would have tried a puffer fish if I hadn't got him and Pancho away from it.  (The liver of the puffer fish is deadly to dogs).  So, I have to keep an eye out for them all the time.  It's not the most relaxing part of my day!  One thing I started doing for both dogs is having each of them wear a harness to hook them to the leash, instead of their collars.  I decided to do that when Gus slipped out of his collar on the leash to bark at and bother a cow, and would not come when called.  It took me over 5 minutes to get him back in leash.  I was not a happy dog walker that day! 

 They do love sunshine, and our front door is often open so they can rest on the rug and enjoy some rays.   And they are awfully cute.  And they do keep us on our toes.  Chairs in, things put away, doors closed... Will we survive this story?  Keep tuned!

Our garden is doing fantastic.  Beautiful lettuce and spinach, beets and tomatoes.  The beans will be ready to pick in a few days (as long as the cows stay out!) The corn is doing very well, and Ben just planted our next squash crop.  (The old crop was getting tired!)  We give away a lot of it, and enjoy eating the rest.  Just today, we went to our rancher friend Arturo's place and picked up more bags of cow manure to use in our garden.  (And some yummy ranch cheese and 18 beautiful brown chicken eggs.)   

We took a drive through the neighborhood the other day in the '56 Jeep to see some new casas that have been built on the hills of Buena Vista.  Beautiful view from up there!  In this photo you can see our house, right in the middle of the picture.  It's slightly pink in color.  

For those of you who want to come down here and build a vacation home, there is property available very near us!  Also, our neighbor Brian is selling off half of his lot, where his container houses used to sit.  You could be our neighbor, on the other side of Brian and Hope!!  

In this sign, our house and property is just at the bottom right (out of sight).  $90K for a lot!  Grab it up quick!  

Weather is warming up a bit, and while we're having temps in the 70's and not too much wind, it will be getting warmer and days longer quickly.  We don't do Daylight Savings time in Mexico any more, so we'll be the same time as Pacific Time when you guys change. 

Enjoy your March.  I think our March will be coming in like a lamb, and hopefully, going out like a lamb!!  

Again, this month's picture album, with captions to explain on about every one of them, is at February 2025.

Hasta la proxima vez

Tus amigos de Baja,

Harriet, Ben, Gus and Pancho