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

I awoke this morning to ...

.... this sweet old neighbor cleaning the front of my house. He lives around the corner and is always a pleasure to meet. Always lots of smiles, jokes and general jabber. He doesn't hear very well and didn't know I was there until I walked up to him. His progress below shows where he took a break but he was soon back and finished it all. Just another pleasure of living in Mexico. I'll try to give him 100 pesos tonight or tomorrow if he'll accept it. We'll see

Cleaning those palms

If you would have been watching my web cam a few hours ago you could have seen two late teens up that palm tree cleaning it on their way to a prize of about 10 coconuts ready for harvest. They used a ladder on this one (non-professionals) but another in the back supplied them with 10 more from ground level.

I love these exchanges of work for coco's. In my other house in Melaque I had a prolific and very tall tree that would produce 40+ coco's 3 times a year. A guy would cut the troublesome fronds, clean the dead stuff, clean the yard and haul it all away in exchange for the 40 coco's.

This time it started with a 7 year old neighbor helping me clean the side of the lot and street. I didn't know him, he just wanted to help. Then he spotted the 2 coco trees and said his big brother would clean and cut them. Very nice kids, all went well ... and now there is less garbage to fall into the yard