Last Saturday for Carne Asada

The construction project in West Melaque has come down to the last week so we decided to have a carne asada party on te last Saturday. Only about two months work this year because of a mix up on Seguro and a troublesome Presta Nombre. Next year should be smoother and be able to work for a full 3 months. Workers can only work while the Canadians are here to oversee the work and to pay them and Seguro.

Harris and Audrey bought the meat and for the first time I had marinated pork asada (adobada). I bought all the veggies, avocados, carbon (charcoal) and a cubeta (bucket) of cerveza. After plenty of work and plenty of food, everyone was too tired to drink many of those small Coronitas (small Coronas). I came home with 5 of the 24.

So Thursday will be the last day of work and Harris and I will get lessons on how to paint the rebar with a cement wash. We were thinking to paint with the usual orange protection paint but the Maestro says the cement won't stick to paint. When they are ready to work again and go higher .... just tap the rebar and the cement will fall off. 

Chef for the day

Beef, pork and onions

Serve yourself

Cooked and to be cooked

Property clearing

Let property go around here and it will revert to jungle so I and my neighbor have been working on cleaning three lots in West Melaque for the last three days. Two lots are owned by Ron and Dora in San Miguel and the other owned by Audrey and her husband who are either Canadian or Alaskan. I just know they live way up there in the cold. They will all be down this winter to start working on projects.

One of Ron's two lots are for-sale (he's not sure which) but both Real Estate signs were down or halfway down and I couldn't even get to the upper one. A different weed, almost a small tree, likes to grow on the upper lot and it was extremely difficult to cut. After Hugo cut it I sprayed around the sign and a bit more to see how this weed reacted. We may be able to control it better with spray next time ?? 

The lower two lots had different weeds and easier to cut but someone had dumped a cutup palm and various pieces of garbage and a large tarp on one. Hugo thinks we can just burn the palm when the pile of cut brush dries out ..... but would have to be sneaky because the Melaque laws about burning are stricter than out in the country where we live. Another reason to spray so you don't have to clean up the mess after.

So I finally bought a back-pack sprayer which I should have done years ago. I think the first one I priced was around 1500 pesos so I bought the 300 peso one and struggled with it ever since. I did some serious shopping this week and found a number of back-pack sprayers between 500 and 600 pesos. Couldn't pass it by. I sprayed most of my property this last month but ready for the future and maybe Hugo can make a little money with it.

Upper lot - There's a fallen sign there somewhere

Cleaned and sign refastened 

Lower two lots - before

Lower two lots - after

Fumigador de Mochila - The one I bought