Pic-of-the-Week for May 24 (or 25), 2016

Hola Amigos,

It's a cloudy, rainy day today, and we are hearing some thunder rolling.  Kind of refreshing after some rather hot and humid days.  The last two weeks have passed in kind of a blur.... a car show to attend, boat parts to get fixed and/or ordered, finishing my latest quilt top, spending lots of time dealing with Zoey and her injury.  We've also been busy getting things done here that need doing before we leave for the summer, including some major gardening and cleanup. Ben-Hur came over and cleaned up our biggest palm, and it is looking very trim and tidy.  (He hauled everything away and cleaned up all the bits and pieces from our driveway, too!)   Ben-Hur is a young man we've known since we moved here; his Dad has been the local palm tree pruner for years.  The good news is that Ben-Hur has higher aspirations, and has graduated from High School and is going to college in July.  

Ben is still working on pruning our Mesquite tree, and it is a bugger to work on, and clean up after (it is very thorny!)    We had our gardener over to do some weeding and a bit of pruning, and she's dangerous (to palm trees!) with those pruning shears.  All of our palms now have their "summer" hair-dos!  

One of our showiest cacti bloomed this spring, and I managed to get a shot of it in the early morning light.  I've never seen so many flowers on it at once!

Here is my finished quilt top, which is on the way to Oregon today to get batting, backing and machine quilted.  It should be done when I get to Oregon and ready to put the binding on.  

Zoey:  She is actually improving.  I can go a day or two without doing a laundry now, although we do get the mop out pretty regularly!  She is requesting to go outside to pee, and she can stand for long periods of time with very little support, although her legs do get shaky.  She is very mobile with her skootching on our slick tile floors, and walks pretty fast with the sling I made to hold up her back end.  We can see her pushing herself up sometimes with her back legs, and swinging them in coordination with her front ones, at least for a while, but not doing any weight bearing on them.  I'm still doing the electrical stimulation daily, and she doesn't mind it at all (unless I turn it up too far!)  Anyhow, I'm much more optimistic that we can do a 6 day drive with her without too many problems.  (And then travel all summer!)  She has lost a lot of weight!  She was about 22 pounds, and is now around 17.  Here she is getting her "spa" treatment.  Zap!  Zap!  Zap!

Ben attended another La Paz car show.  He had the 29 Pickup all ready to go and loaded on the trailer when he got a call from our friend Hector Manuel, who said "I hope you're bringing the  28 Woody, because I've been promoting it on TV and radio, etc.".  So.... he needed to switch cars.  Not an easy process, because we only have one working 6 volt battery!  He unloaded the pickup from the trailer and parked it out of the way of the Woody, but where we could push it into the garage later, put the battery in the Woody, backed it out of the garage and washed and polished it, and loaded it on the trailer.  Then we pushed the pickup into the garage!  Phew!  And it was a HOT day.  He did well at the show, and again won the prize for the oldest vehicle there.  (I stayed home to take care of my dogs).  You can see why Ben likes going to these shows.....

We have a couple of bird nests that we're watching in our banana grove.  The Ground Dove babies hatched a while ago, and they're pretty cute.  Nice and snug in their banana bunch!  (There is another one behind the one you see).  

The other is an Oriole nest in a banana leaf, right outside our bathroom window. The Mama is sitting on the nest in this picture (tail towards me), and I hope they hatch before we leave about June 10.  (Taken through our screen with my phone camera!)  

Ben was successful in getting some of the bad boat parts repaired/remade in Cabo San Lucas, and it was MUCH cheaper to do it here, and the parts are now stainless steel!   Ryan will bring the rest of the needed parts back with him from Portland when he returns next week. 

You won't get a picture of our dump run yesterday (I didn't take a camera).  The cows who were roaming the dump were very grateful for our mostly fresh palm leave and tree trimmings.  We're going to wait a while before we make another trip (yes, we have more stuff), since the dump is very, very full, and they need to get a bulldozer in there to work it in.  Ugly.

Our time here this spring is winding down.  We expect to leave around June 10, and we will be spending some of our early time in Oregon with our daughter Rebecca and her family.  Can't wait to give those grandkids some hugs!  

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

Pic-of-the-Week for May 10, 2016

Hola Amigos!

Another beautiful day in the barrio, AND another family birthday.  Today is Ryan's 38th!  Happy Birthday, Ryan.  Whoa.  How did that happen so fast?  Of course, I'm a year older as well, since my birthday was last week (May the fourth be with you....I've heard that a few times!)  Today is also Mexican Mother's Day, so I get to celebrate that twice!   We were also invited to a Cinco de Mayo party at Rancho Buena Vista by some neighbors, and we enjoyed a lovely evening around the pool with friends, a pig roast and great music.  Our friend Mark and his band Skeleton Key played some rockin' songs.  

Of course we are NOT partying all the time.  I have been spending a huge amount of time with rehab for Zoey.  No, she is still not using her hind legs, but we are trying all the tricks of the trade to strengthen them, including this rack that Ben & I put together for her.  It lets her stand and put some weight on those back legs.  Her tail just keeps wagging!  The best place to use it is outside, where she can piddle freely, instead of inside on my tile floors!  Sure is a good thing they are tile, because it is easy to clean.  We've made weekly visits to the vet in San Jose, and he was actually a bit encouraged yesterday.  We did have a bad spell a couple weeks ago when she was throwing up all day and some other bad symptoms.  We took her back to the vet, and he gave her Vitamin K, Antibiotics, this and that, and prescribed some different dog food (easier to digest), and she is doing much, much better.  Now, if we could just get her to tell us when she needs to go potty, and wait for us to get her outside to do it!  Thank goodness my washing machine is still working well!  I've also sewed together a sling to use to walk her outside.  Her front feet work just fine, thank you very much, and she goes lickety-split, usually trying to go under a truck, or through a bush.  It sure doesn't work for me to follow her too close!!  

We won't be putting the boat in the water this spring... it has some mechanical problems, and Ben is hoping to find the replacement parts down here instead of ordering them out of the US.  Of course nothing is easy about repairing boats, and he has hired a local Mexican, Chuyito (or is that Chuito?) to do it for him.  He hired a fellow with a tractor to pull the boat out of its parking spot near our driveway, then pull the engine to get to the bad parts.  Ben then built a dolly for the engine and he and Ryan (with a smidge of help from me) got it up on the dolly so we can move it around as needed.  

So, this is an ongoing project, waiting for parts to show up!  

Another project I started today is drying bananas.  Our first stalk of the year is ripe, and I probably put about half of the bunch in my dehydrator this morning.  I used every tray in the thing, which is 5 layers.  

I've also started another quilt that I hope to get put together before we leave in June.  I'll then take it to my friend, June, in Brownsville, and she'll quilt it for me, and I'll have a summer project to work on putting on the binding.  It's not quite half done, as I'll do 12 squares (or 12 pinwheels).  

The last "current" project we're hiring done!  Mario is here today putting tile around our laundry tub and washing machine.  It was on Ben's list of things to do, but I think it's pretty cool that he's willing to hire someone to do it instead!  A lot less frustration on his part!  (Pictures later!)  We even scrubbed our laundry tub when we took it out this morning so Mario could put in the tile, and it cleaned up quite nicely.  

We have a month left here this spring until we migrate north for the summer.  We'll be leaving early enough to spend some time in late June with our daughter Rebecca and her family at the Oregon Coast.  Sure hope we get some decent weather for that!  (Or that the house they're renting is real big for active kids!)  We're hoping to get our projects completed and get Zoey a bit more ambulatory (other than her skootching, which she can do remarkably quickly!) before we head out.  

I've started a 2016 May Picasa album.  

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

Pic-of-the-Week for April 26, 2016

Hola Amigos,

It's another beautiful day in the neighborhood...temps in the low 80's, a few clouds in the sky, and a gentle breeze blowing.  Doors are open and most of the ceiling fans are on full time.  

We are enjoying our Nopal Cactus blooms now.  They are so pretty, and we have several of these cactus throughout the yard, so we'll see lots more of these!

Many of you have been wondering how Zoey is doing, and sorry to say, not a whole lot better...yet.  You can see in this photo where she sticks her rear legs straight out instead of tucking them under herself.   We have been making regular weekly trips to visit Dr. Felipe Martinez in San Jose, who has a very good reputation.  (He cleaned out a bad infection and stitched up Sam's rear end when he got bit by a German Shepherd 8 years ago).  He was hoping to see more activity in her rear legs by now, but she hasn't been improving much there.  Yesterday, we finally got a TEMS machine that works well on her, and have started electrical stimulation to her rear legs and back.  It takes about an hour to do, two times a day.  We have 7 to 8 positions to place the pads, and 8 minutes for each place.  You can tell it's working when you see her legs jerking in time to the impulses!   We have seen some improvements, including a wagging tail, and using the squat impulse when she needed to pee outside.  In the meantime, I've been doing a LOT of laundry, but I've come up with methods to save myself some work.  I use plastic shopping bags for her to lay her rear end on in her dog bed, topped with a pieces of flannel scraps that I had left over from making diapers for the grandkids.  We also wrapped her dog beds in big black garbage bags, then cover that with old beach towels.  We take her for walks with her rear end in a sling, and she can move pretty fast!  The challenge is to keep her from going through the dog door (we don't fit!!) or under a desk or chair.  We're hoping for more improvement soon.  She can scoot around pretty well, and if she wants to get somewhere, she can.  She is also on diet dog food, with the goal to lose some weight so she doesn't have so much to carry around.  Ryan really wants to get a wheeled contraption made for her, but I'm hoping she'll start using her legs and not depend on a wheelchair.

In other news, we've been going to some pretty neat birthday parties.  Peter always has a great birthday party at his parents home at Lighthouse Estates.  I think he liked us singing Happy Birthday to him!

Last night we were invited to a surprise birthday party for our friends Babe and John.  And they really were surprised, which is a major accomplishment in this small town!  We had great music; a singer / guitar player throughout much of the night, and a top-notch Mariachi group from Cabo San Lucas.  They had four violinists, a trumpet player, a bass player and a guitarist.  And they could project their voices just fine, thank you very much!  (Birthday girl Babe is at the table wearing the black top with the white yoke.)   I don't have a picture of John, but he turned 90 yesterday!  

You know that we enjoy bird watching in our yard.  A few weeks ago, we saw a bird like we've never seen before!  Unfortunately, we didn't have our good camera outside with us.  A few weeks later, it returned; I slipped inside and got my camera, and we were able to take photos of it.  We sent these off to our local bird expert, and he and others identified it as a European Starling with a deformed beak.  Hmmmmmm...  maybe.  I'd like to think it's a more exotic tropical bird that we've discovered!!  What do you think?

There is progress in our little town!  Two dirt streets have been paved with a decent amount of concrete...they even put in curbs, and they meet Highway one with nary a bump or dip!  We're trying to figure out who has money or political influence that lives up there on the hill!  We are impressed, but we're wondering what will happen with the first good rain storm.  Where is that water going to go?  You're right...it's going to go downhill.  What is going to get washed out?  (No storm drains or sewers here).  We wait with anticipation for this big event!!!  

Not the best photo, but that is a nice concrete street running up the hill, and there are curbs.  

Ben has been working hard on getting our boat ready for some fishing in May, but guess what?  The engine needs to be pulled to repair something beneath it.  Sigh.... guess we should have sold it a couple years ago.  He hopes to figure out what he needs and buy it in the US when we're up there this summer.  (Then we can fix it in the fall......and SELL it!!!!  Ha!)

More photos (will be) in our 2016 April album, including a video of the Mariachi band (I hope).

Hasta mayo!
Tus amigos en Baja,
Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam and Zoey 

Pic-of-the-Week for April 12, 2016

Hola, Amigos,

April 12!  I remember that day in 1975 very well when our daughter Rebecca was born on a beautiful, sunny spring morning in Eugene, Oregon.  Happy Birthday, Rebecca!!!  

Another two weeks have gone by since our last post, and it has been fairly quiet.  No parades or car shows, no special excursions, no guests.  We are actually getting some things done around here!

We did have a gorgeous sunset last night, so I'll start out with a picture of that.

Our Amaryllis plants are blooming now.  We enjoy these yearly...this is one type of bulb plant that does very well here in Baja, unlike Daffodils and Tulips (not cold enough).

We did go to a birthday party for our friend Pat!  She had a great time.  

 The Quail are back in our yard.  They have been around, just not visiting up here on the bluff.  Now, we just need to see some little fluff-ball babies visiting with them!  

I posted a picture of a box Ben has made this year, and asked you to guess what he used it for.  We had quite a few guesses, but none correct.  Many of you thought we'd store wine in it, which makes a lot of sense to me!  Another guess was something to use with our Woody (another brilliant guess, but wrong), a place to store his "contraband", and even "storing guitars"???  I guess I'll never figure out why he made such a beautiful box for what he ultimately uses it for, and neither did you!  Ta-da..... grease guns!  He must have the highest class grease gun storage IN THE WORLD.  

The bad news this week is that Zoey injured her back when we were away at church on Sunday, and Ben found her immobile when we got back.  Of course being on a Sunday, non of the vets nearby were open, so we found one in La Paz who was available to see her, and took her in there Sunday afternoon.  He's pretty sure it is a pinched nerve in her spinal column, and gave her a prednisone shot and some pills to take.  So far, it hasn't made any difference.  She still has no use of her hind legs.  If we don't see improvement soon, we'll take her into a vet in San Jose for an x-ray to see how bad it is.  :-(  It's pretty quiet around here right now, and we're praying for the best for her.

The good news is that my bean crop is doing great!  I have now canned 16 - 1 1/2 pint jars, and expect to have a couple more batches.  It always feels great to see those jars lined up on a shelf!  (And they taste delicious next season)!  We still have enough right now to eat fresh ones as well as doing all the canning.

  
 I have started an April 2016 Picasa album, and there are a few more pictures there.

We are enjoying the balmy weather and looking forward to more sunshine and lovely days here.  

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

Pic-of-the-Week for March 29, 2016

Hola, Amigos,

Two weeks have sped by, and it's already time for another posting from Casa Purkey in Baja California Sur!

Spring has sprung, we celebrated Easter Sunrise service on the beach once again, and we are anticipating starting Daylight Savings time here in Mexico next Sunday.  The weather is warming up, the wind has quit blowing regularly and has changed directions, so we're starting to get winds from the east and southeast, the normal summer directions.  

The Easter Service went well.  We were up at 4AM, on the beach with all the sound equipment in the truck ready to set up at 4:30.  Ben and Ryan had all of it ready to go at 5:30AM.  The service went very well, other than our Spanish interpreter didn't show up until just before 6, and since he didn't say the Spanish part, the English portion was done just before sunrise at 6:15!  

You can listen to the service AND our singing from our church web site at http://www.eastcapecf.com/sermon-archive/ .  Yes, that's me on the piano, hitting a few wrong notes here and there!  (It's pretty dark at 5:30 in the morning, ya know!!)  I don't have any pictures yet from this year (I was kinda busy), but this is a lovely one from last year.  

Easter time is the most popular time of the year for Mexicans to vacation, especially here on the beach.  The weather is not too hot, the water is swim-able, and the music can go all. night. long!!!  In fact, when we got to the beach at 4:30, there was a group of people still playing their music loudly, and it continued at least part-way through our service.  They did eventually quit, and we enjoyed our time on the beach anyway!

Here's a picture of a camp set up where the dogs and I usually approach the beach.  There were actually 3 big groups right here; Dad and Mom and all the kids and aunts and uncles and lots of dogs!  

  
This is the more remote, quieter area.  There were volleyball courts and beer tents and so forth set up in the Los Barriles area.  That was the most crowded I think I've ever seen those beaches!  

All is back to normal now, and there was a contest for the kids...each one who delivered a full bag of garbage (and there was plenty) received a toy!  Not sure if that's encouraging people to toss their garbage or not....??

Ben has been busy working on his boat, trying to get it ready for fishing by late April or early May.  We had the upholstery re-done in La Paz, and we did the "bumpers" ourselves, and installed them last week.  (Padded boards that go around the interior so you don't "bump" your knees and legs against the side of the boat when you're fighting that big fish).  

He's also finished a woodworking project, pictured below.  It's a beautiful box that he made for a specific purpose.  If you can guess what he stores in this box, you get a week's free stay at our casa here in Baja!  (No big deal, all your stays here are free!!)  But give it your best shot!

Our Bottle-Brush tree is going gang-busters this year.  It is blooming like crazy.  You may remember when we had three blooms the first year, and were so excited!  This year, It's hard to even count the buds and blooms!  We are still thrilled with this tree, and are happy that it seems to be happy, too.  The top picture shows one flower blooming, and lots of buds.  The next is a close up of several blooms.

What is even more fun is taking a picture of these at night, where they look like fireworks!  Amazingly beautiful.  

Easter afternoon, (after naps!) we took a drive north with our friend Alexandra to show her the cave paintings in a remote area.  We stopped in El Cardonal for lunch at a new hotel / restaurant there, and discovered that the cook is the daughter of Mama Fuentes, who, with her husband Arturo, ran the Baja Beach Club restaurant that we used to frequent in our early years here.  It was just north of Punta Pescadero, and had the most wonderful Mexican food...very authentic and delicious!  The oldest Fuentes son, Arturo Junior, was the contractor who built our home here.  The restaurant has been closed several years since Arturo senior passed away.  Fortunately, Senora Fuentes taught her daughters how to cook, and we had a lovely meal there.  We're hoping to go back, in spite of the miserable roads!  

Oh, and we did manage to find our way to the cave paintings.  We took the dogs so they got some exercise, too.  

   
Going backwards in time, the week before Easter we decided we had time to take the Woody to San Jose Days for a parade and mini car show.  Going to these is always an adventure, especially when the car battery was dead the day before!!!  Yikes!  Ben charged it, and we managed to get it started and on the trailer the day before.  It barely started Saturday morning when he was driving it off the trailer, so we drove around a little bit to charge it up, then had breakfast.  It started again after breakfast, and we lined up for the parade  (they wanted us 1st in line, right behind all the floats)!!! We made it all the way through the parade, and to the car show, but needed a push when the car show was over!  Turns out the battery is bad, so we'll need to get a new one this summer in the States.  6-volt batteries are hard to find here in Mexico.  

As usual, our very photograph-able car had lots of pictures take of it.  I caught these two little boys admiring it!    Each car received this flag to use as they wished.  Ben insisted I have my picture taken with it.  Translation:  "I'm not old, I'm a Classic!"

We enjoy the parade route through San Jose...skinny streets and lots of folks waiting to see the sights. 

Our garden is doing well (besides the blooming tree!).  I am now harvesting green beans (yum), and am hoping I'll get enough to can a few batches.  We have also enjoyed lettuce and cucumbers lately, and are looking forward to much more!  

More photos are in our 2016 March Picasa album.  

Hasta Abril,

Tus amigos en Baja,

Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Sam and Zoey, who like to explore old petroglyphs

Pic-of-the-Week for March 15, 2016

Hola Amigos,

"Beware, the Ides of March".  Just sayin', since today is the 15th of March, after all.  Wishing the best for you all as you enjoy the day!

We said "adios" this morning to our last company of the year; Ben's brother Greg and his wife Cherlene and their baby girl Georgina.  They had a nice time here, in spite of some strange weather and a lack of whales when they went whale watching.  They did get to our beach and had a nice time using one of the few kids' toys we have here, a sand castle tool kit, and built some impressive sand castles.  They also did the requisite tourist shopping in Los Barriles, so the economy is thriving!  

We did the normal "fun" stuff; eating out a lot and going places and doing things.  I let Ben take them to San Carlos for whale watching, as I had some previous commitments here.  

Now we're getting ready for our church's Easter Sunrise service on March 27th. That always means lots of preparation and a very early wake-up alarm, since the service will start at 5:30am.  Ben & Ryan need to get the sound system set up and working before then....on the beach... in the dark!  I'll let you know how it went when we send out our next letter!  

Our garden is growing well; I did have some wind damage to the green beans when we had a very strong wind from the northwest (the bean row is on the west side of the house).  It really whipped the beans and burned the leaves, but they are starting to bloom, and we'll have some beans before too long.

Our current method of using bags of Miracle Grow potting mix to plant our lettuce and cucumbers in is going well.  The cucumbers really like it, and I've got a bunch setting on.  And when we're done growing things, I'll add the bags of soil to my planting beds.  

My Cattleya orchid, which I've just about given up on several times, continues to bloom for me.  Three buds this time!  The plant doesn't look so hot, but the flowers are beautiful.  So I guess I'll keep fertilizing and watering it, and otherwise I'll ignore the silly thing!  (It is outdoor all year, next to my Cymbidium orchids, which are also doing quite well out-of-doors). 

For those of you who hadn't heard, I made and sent a baby quilt to my friend in Guadalajara for her new baby.  And, it FINALLY got there.  We saw in the news that the government quit the requirement to have Aduana (customs) value the packages before they are sent from Baja to the mainland... about 2 or 3 days after the quilt was sent.  And then, once it got over to Guadalajara, the delivery company kept giving excuses for not delivering (bad address, no one home, etc.)  When she got it, she graciously took a picture of her baby on it and posted it on Facebook for me.  I love it!  This is why I make them.  Isn't he sweet?

Okay....I said that Greg and Cherlene and Georgie were our last company for the year, but if you get the urge to come visit, just let us know.  We'll be here until mid-June, and the weather is getting better all the time.  The Purkey casa is OPEN! 

We've got a March 2016 Picasa album you are welcome to review.

Hasta la proxima vez,
Tus amigos de Baja
Harriet, Ben, Ryan, Zoey & Sam (whose pointy nose has been in the dirt somewhere)