Iguana in my Moringa

Iguana in my Moringa tree

I don't get very many due to my vicious cat.  Hope he picks a proper time to come down.  There's a dark grey one next door but this one is a pretty green. Wonder if he's eating the leaves as they are supposed to be healthy.

Counterfeit $100 US here in Melaque

A taxi driver took it but banks wouldn't. He might have even given some change from it. Good quality but looked like it had gone through the wash 20 times. Frayed around the edges. My neighbor bought it for 100 pesos with hopes I could help. All I could do is send it to Seattle to have it checked out. Sent registered mail on the 9th of November and it just arrived on the 24th of December. Sister took it to a bank and sure enough it was fake. I thought Mexican mail was slow but it took 15 days to get from LAX to Seattle.

A little bit of Christmas flavor

Gotta have a little bit of Christmas flavor even though I'm not doing anything today but staying home. I doubt Hugo and family will come over because music was still blaring when the sun came up. Same with my neighbors across the street. It's some kind of an obligation to party all night on certain dates.

We were going to have dinner at my place yesterday but the road out here is still too sloppy so we took stuff over to Ron's. We brought a roasted chicken and Lorena made breaded shrimp (camaron empanizado). Ron bought two chickens and Dora made a couple salads.  Harris brought a couple buckets of beer. Great time and we came back with lots of food ... mainly for Hugo and family.

Found this on Facebook

Moon last night with IPhone

Moon with cheap camera - behind the cloud

Christmas Eve dinner

Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the R&R Hall of Fame

My friend Glen just posted this on Facebook and I hadn't thought of them for awhile. After seeing them at Winterland in San Francisco Paul became my harmonica teacher.  I used to play along with their records for hours. Pretty good story in the article below.  Didn't know he died so young.

The latest batch of artists bound for induction into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has been announced, which means that for the next few months, you’re going to read and hear a lot of arguing about who deserved to make it and who didn’t — and this year, that’s going to include plenty of head-shaking over one act in particular: the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

How the Paul Butterfield Blues Band Earned Its Spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

One of his best - poco loco
Well we were a little loco in the 60's

Homework translating Spanish to English

Yari has been getting quite a bit of English homework and rather than me doing it all I have them using Google Translate. They either get a paragraph from the teacher or create something themselves like 2 Christmas cards we did yesterday. I have them type the Spanish and a close translation appears in the English box next door. Google is not good enough to always make sense, Yari or Lorena may misspell or not leave spaces between words, or they may use an informal Spanish that Google has no idea about. They still like to use BOY instead of VOY and this may help convince them what is internationally correct.

Generally they both are getting pretty good at searching the Internet, finding articles and cutting and pasting text and graphics into a word document. I still fine tune the translations and help with page formatting in Word but now they just call me rather than me doing it myself.  Very Good !

UNAM Biological Station in Chamela

UNAM Biological Station in Chamela had an open house Dec. 6th

It was probably eight years since I'd been there and it was the time of year everything was brown and dry. This year all was green and pretty. The last time there wasn't much to see except a short walk on their loop trail with plants marked. This year they really put on a show. At first we thought it was going to be too dry and educational but the more we walked around we found neat stuff for the kids, a puppet show and some very nice displays.

The girls decorated a paper butterfly on a stick, made a parrot mask, made pinwheels and got some nice coloring books. Surprised there was no food or drink available but we brought a cooler with sandwich makings and a coke. Pretty long drive up there but glad we went.

Butterfly booth

Puppet show

Don't buy parrots - it's illegal

Nahima and Lorena decorating a butterfly  

Butterflies native to this area

Listón rojo for an eclipse

A listón rojo is a red ribbon

I was watering my lime trees and was amazed to see hundreds of new blossoms for the first time in almost a year. I suddenly realized limones like sunshine. Two weeks ago  we cut down the huge Neem tree that was shading most of that back corner.  Also cut down a large flowering bush that shaded them a bit.

I told Lorena about them and she said that I need to tie a Listón Rojo around a branch so that in an eclipse the flowers won't fall and the fruit will mature.  We stopped at the papeleria and bought a meter of red ribbon for one peso. I don't know when the next eclipse will happen but she also mentioned a strong moon .... so lets be safe.

Literally hundreds of blossoms 

I thought I had a before and after ... but now they have sun (back left)

"A custom widespread in Mexico is that when it is announced that there will be an eclipse, people put red ribbons or any metal object in the fruit trees in order to prevent the fruit from falling or not maturing".

Time for the Weekly Bugle

Glen and I had a relaxing day at the beach with almost nobody there around 2 in the afternoon, more came later. We solved most of Canada's and the US political problems, talked about local characters, water problems and a few medical issues that older folks like us are supposed to have.

Carnitas El Sorry

Couldn't resist this. I bought carnitas a number of times here in the past but never noticed the sign

I posted earlier about Lorena and the two girls fishing in the street but didn't think you could actually catch these little things. Yesterday two nieces gave these two to Nahima. I don't think they will last that long but Lorena says they last awhile and get bigger. How these things get here or why they would even want to live where it will be totally dry in another month ?? 

A Yari built mailbox to Santa - she made it for school

Elizabeth Warren's wake up call

The Speech That Could Make Elizabeth Warren the Next President of the United States

Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke on the floor of the Senate on Dec. 12, 2014 about the provision that Citigroup added to the omnibus budget package.

Huffington Post Article

I was going to post about a few things that have happened around here lately but I came across her speech so small stuff is gonna wait. I will add this one little graphic as of this December.

Not slowly, no E-Cigs, no patches ..... just quit !!!

Oregon Renaissance Faire

Oregon Renaissance Faire 1969 in Eugene 

Picture found on a foto archive site

Metal frame and parachute

Actually I thought before 1969 but I'll go by others memories on this. The reason this was a bit of an issue for me was I told the story of first setting up this fair, clearing a little ground, helping people make shelters and and sheds to show their wares. On some message board or Facebook somebody challenged me and said it's always been the Oregon Country Fair. Now it a documented part of history

Friend and I didn't quite get the Renaissance part of it and we had been playing with Geodesic Domes so we built one. Back then they threw away re-sawed lumber (1 3/4 by 1 3/4) and the heavy plastic covers put on on flatbed rail cars. Tie all your struts together with screw eyes and bolts and cover with plastic (Georgia Pacific label inside). I had my homemade candles and a friend his ceramics.

A University women's group was struggling with a shelter so we built them just the frame work and they covered it with tie-died sheets.  Sun shade and attractive was most in demand.

The guy that built the dome above we only met there and he hadn't gotten the Renaissance thing either but there were lots of people playing with Domes in Eugene back then. We originally thought it was an Arts and Crafts Fair which it really was. Hippies and Arts and Crafts. We were asked later to not do the same next year as they wanted an "Ol' English" style to it. 

History of - Oregon Renaissance Faire

Corrales Beach in the Municipio of Cabo Corrientes

Road from El Tuito

In the municipality of Cabo Corrientes, 58 kilometers from El Tuito, is Corrales Beach

I've been to Tehuamixtle and beaches south but didn't venture north. I don't remember if we ran out of time after all the back road driving, were tired or just didn't know there was much further north to see. I've since run across two Blogs from that area probably run by the same people. They have a big chunk of land and it's run "loosely" like a hippy commune. At least you can work for your stay and they sometimes have caretaker openings. Gonna have to take the time for that trip and probably over night to make is relaxing.

Mayto Beach Blog

Tehuamixtle Bay Blog

Rancho Sol y Mar

In the village, where President Porfirio Diaz, early last century ordered the construction of a ocean lighthouse. Fishermen inhabiting offering fresh seafood.

Naranjitos, Mayto, Tehuamixtle and other beaches are located on the coast. Corrales is the last beach that can be reached by land.

Article on Corrales Beach where I stole the pictures

and text from Spanish

Long Harbour on Salt Spring Island BC

Thanks for the memories talking about eating lamb.

It just came up and reminded me of my sheep ranching days

This Ariel photo is from the 1950's when I used to spend summers there

The spread 

Large 2 story almost log cabin/country home left of the pier

Caretaker to the right

Three sheep barns that are hard to see off the clearing behind

High tide would come into the enclosed patio on the water

My grandfather was a retired (ship captain) gentleman sheep rancher and grandma looked after the purebreds along with most of the other household chores. They had a house in Seattle but spent close to six months at "Long Harbor".  I guess they could call it Long Harbour because they owned the whole 900 acre peninsula. Perfect way to corral livestock is put a fence up across the base of the peninsula and the water does the rest.

So my parents would get rid of me and ship me off to the grand parents for the summer and I couldn't have been happier. Me and Pete, my best friend the Black Lab. We walked the beaches, the dirt roads and went crab fishing in the row boat.

Neighbors were an interesting character that lived just outside their property gate. He built a 3 level log cabin up the hill with dirt floors ... that's all I remember about him or the house.  Not a rich man at all but my grandparents liked interesting people.  Also "birders"  like in Audubon Society.  Grandma was one and her friend had an Eagles nest next to her house and binoculars. 

I remember soft boiled eggs (English style), dry English mustard and the best English butter cookies that I would hide in the dresser to eat later.  Really liked that squeeze thing to squirt out a star shaped cookie.

Long Harbour

So back to the eating of lamb chops or rack of lamb. I made a comment because every spring we would go out on the tractor and gather up abandoned lambs and bring them back and bottle feed them for close to a month.  A little hard to think of eating them  They were almost pets after a month but forget you as soon as they can survive without the milk. They grazed in the field but also were grain fed. Sheep are not real smart.

Old enough we cut the tails off, slapped tar on the wound and kicked them out with the others. Shearing the adults was another interesting project but required professionals. Salt Spring was quite a sheep raising intensive place back then .... I don't think so much anymore. Professional shearers may be hard to find now days.

Those two Islands in the harbor were supposed to go to my dad ... but they somehow got lost.  Would have been only a money pit anyway so welcome to whomever owns them now.

Now a million bucks to buy anything in the area .... so farmland in Mexico is my choice !!!