Wet Heavy Clothes

Buen dia!
It is beautiful here, warm, but not too hot, a gentle breeze, very nice.

The Amapas are coming out on the hillsides. They are not in full bloom yet. I think maybe this weekend or next week.

And yet another new rose. This one smells and does not stand upright, it is a little leggy, almost wispy. I think it is a climbing rose, but the man who sold it to me said, oh no, it does not climb. We will see.

Little white butterflies are flittering through the yard, the vermillion flycatchers are in the mesquite. So still and quiet, they must be having a siesta. Cookies is asleep on the cool shaded concrete and the breeze is rustling the plumeria leaves. The limon tree is in bloom and the sweet scent of a very delicate perfume is floating in through the open door.

Somewhere in the distance a rooster is crowing and a cow's bell is tinkling. It is a very nice day.

And Senor is playing bridge.......

Before he left, I asked him to hook up the washing maching so I could use it.

Below you can see it is hooked up. The long PVC pipe goes from the machine, on the other side of the window, through the torn screen, and out to the yard. The water drains out of the machine, into the pipe and out to the yard..........................perfect plan..................keeps the limon tree, the amapa, the gardenia and some of the herbs nice and wet.

I filled up the washing machine which now has only one working cycle (the other four are broken). After the usual twenty minutes it takes to fill a medium wash load I noticed the yard was looking pretty wet. So, after checking the machine I realized it was not even filling with water. The water was just flowing from the machine and out the pipe to the yard. I had just watered those plants for twenty minutes.

After turning off the machine I attempted to fill it again. As I watched, again the water went straight out the pipe.

I tried one of the non working cycles just in case they might have decided to work again. Nothing.

So I am now wishing Senor was not at bridge playing until possibly five pm because there is a broken washing machine here, full of wet heavy clothes...................

A Rose Story

Buen dia.
I am so proud of myself.
Not only did I find two of the garden shops on my trip to Navajoa, I found a lovely boulevard loaded with shops, parked the truck in a too small parking space, and shopped until I ran out of cash. None of the stores would take my US credit card, which is good. I saw alot of things I wanted.

I did buy another rose. Is this also a Peace rose? I bought more petunias, too.

I really do have a fondness for roses. In Washington they were difficult to grow. The lack of sunlight made their blooming stages very sporadic. But at one time I did have about twenty beautiful roses and one August they were in full bloom, all at once. I had placed a pretty little iron garden bench there and the smell was tantalizing. One day I saw Ian and a girl from down the street, sitting on the bench together. They were about ten years old and it was a very sweet scene.

I had an enormous Dolly Parton rose, sweet smelling Joseph's Coats, Pink Delights, Yellow Candlelights and many more. Anytime someone came over, I managed to help them find their way to my rose garden where we would sit and have a cup of coffee.

We were busy planning a trip to Florida and I was working out arrangements for someone to take care of the yard and Snowy and Ivory, our two pretty white cats.

The morning of our trip, before leaving for the airport, I walked out to the rose garden for one last look. I also wanted to get some photos to take to Senor's father who claimed he had the bigger Dolly Parton rose. I thought mine was bigger and intended to prove it.

Every one of my roses was gone, vanished, zilch, nada one left, all nibbled to the ground, during the night.

The house next door was an underground earth house and up on top of the roof was a mama and two baby deer, looking pleasantly full and content, munching on our neighbor's roof grass.

It was time to leave. There was nothing I could do. I scribbled off a note to the girl who would not be watering the roses and cried all the way to Florida.

I am determined to have a rose garden again. And fortunately, I have not seen any deer in Alamos.


Now, what is this fruit? I know, I could google it, but I would rather hear from a real person, with experience. How do I open it? What do I do with it?

I bought seven of them from a little boy who called it a....... (sounds like peachie).
I am looking forward to hearing what it is.

A little update on the casa. The fifth roof has just come down. It is the one that was caving in when we bought the casa. The window is where the front door will be. Senor and I are in disagreement over the door. He drew a picture and said...............here is the front door........................ i said............................wait a minute, i have a picture of our front door.

So we compared drawings and they are nothing alike. Senor drew another picture. I made suggestions. He drew another. I made statements, not suggestions. He said........................... the iron man is coming early manana to give an estimate. I said.......change this and this and left. I have not seen the newest drawing. But then, I have not seen the iron man either.
This wall separates the front door room and the garden room which will all be one room when this wall comes down.
I hope this gives you an idea of the space. I will keep you posted on the door.
Oh me, I should be studying my Spanish. This is a very good, but difficult course. If I do not study every day, I get behind. But I don't study every day. So it is a problem. I need to finish the coyote fence. I need to cut glass. I need to plant my petunias I bought at the nursery. I need to skype my mom. Oh, the iron man is here. Now, I need to go see Senor's newest drawing.

I am practicing little sayings. Here is one I have just learned. You can save it and remember it after the snow and cold rain are gone and you are out working in your own rose garden:
No se enreden en sus rosas!
(don't get twisted or tangled up or in trouble in your roses) adios! linda lou

The Rose

Hola Hola!!!!

Senor gave me a chocolate rose yesterday, made in and shipped all the way from China, in a box with a five year expiration date. Of course, I said thank you and he then suggested I could put it in water and not much later we got this one at the tiangus. The pink tinged petals are lovely.
Does anyone know the name of this rose? I am very eager to find out.
It does not seem to have a perfume, but the colors are very soft and pretty yellows and pinks.
Below are some photos from yesterday's Carnaval parade. The new ATV vehicles, which are leading the parade (and are by the way, illegal to own and operate in Alamos) belong to policia.




Mexico has beautiful women.

Even the old women, who have already lost all their teeth, have a glow about them that is absolutely beautiful. The women who work in the tortilla factories and obviously eat those tortillas ALOT have a deep unmistakable beauty. Maybe it is in their sparkling eyes or their eager smiles. Maybe it is just the dimple at the right side of their mouth, maybe it is the fullness of their dark faces or the sharpness of their cheekbones. They are all beautiful.

Below are some of the beautiful young women in Alamos.



Here is the Carnaval Queen, La Reyna de Carnaval.

Last night we went to the Plaza and I was able to get off one photo before the batteries went dead. It was a very lively place, children running everywhere, cracking paper filled eggshells over everyone's head. I bought my bag of twenty five eggs for diez (ten) pesos. They were going for fifteen, but I knew the family, so they gave me a deal. The man took off his cap and offered me his head. I cracked an egg over his head and I was immediately hooked.

I cracked another over the head of my friend Chayo, but I asked first because she had about six children with her and I did not want to start a riot. She then proceeded to hit me with an egg. Her granddaughter got Senor good and I would have loved a picture of that.

Silly string has been introduced here and it seemed to be very popular on one corner of the Plaza, where both girls and boys were fully covered and trying to untangle the mess from their clothes and hair.

Below is my one photo........................ I was unable to get the beautful queen and her court as they modeled on the Carnaval stage and had photos taken by everyone in town who owns a cell phone or camera.

This is what is left of my egg bag this morning. I cracked quite a few eggs last night.

Now, I am off to Navajoa to buy a pot for my rose. I am also going to the market for capers and and blue cheese and mushroom soup and the new cd by Alejandro Fernando.

que tengas buen dia!! linda lou

The Elusive Bongos

Buen dia!



I awoke at daybreak to a raucous beating of what sounded like a hundred bongo drums. I had heard them throughout the night and knew the Carnaval celebration was in full swing. All night music played, voices echoed, dogs barked, men and women and children laughed and howled and shrieked, donkeys brayed, roosters crowed, birds squawked, crickets chirped and we slept and woke, slept and woke, slept and woke.



At six, the church bells called for mass in the bedroom. Even with our windows closed, my eyes were wide and my ears were ringing.



The bells agitated Cookies who began to meow and claw at the door to get out. I went out with him.



It was surprisingly quieter outside than in the bedroom.



I could still hear the bongos, in full beat. I put on my jacket, hopped on new old bike and went in search of the bongos.



The air was cool and it was barely light. I pedaled out towards the beisbol stadium, not a car on the road. Not a soul in sight. No early morning buses creeping by, filling the sweet air with exhaust. No trucks bringing in produce, no trucks taking out workers.

I thought maybe there was a large fiesta still going on inside the stadium........there was nothing there and the sound was farther away now. I thought I could hear it coming from the airport, so out to the airport I pedaled. I could hear nothing once I got there. And I thought.......well, they have finally stopped.......................now I will go home and get back into bed.



As I rode up Hidalgo toward town, I could hear them again, sounding somewhat closer. I rode to the La Capilla Barrio.......................nothing there.



I saw a Mexican man I knew and asked him.....................where is the music coming from........................he hid his tecate behind his back and shrugged and pointed to the Nueva Creacion Barrio and it did seem like the bongos might be there. I rode all the way out there........nothing. But then it seemed once again like they might be coming from town.



Back into town I rode and I saw nothing. The drums were very, very faint. But it almost sounded, for a moment, like they could be coming from the south, up on the hills near our house.



I rode across the arroyo to La Campana. I rode out to the Ecology Place. At every corner the drums teased. Sometimes they drifted faintly on the wind and then, around the next corner, they beat solidly from back across the wet arroyo I had just crossed.



At the Plaza I stopped for a photo of the Carnaval stage. I stopped for a few other photos of quiet empty streets. I went over to Olas Altas. Not a sound. I heard a bongo beat three times from back near the Plaza. I rode back. The only people in town were inside the church, listening to a hushed mass.

As soon as I returned home, the bongos were beating savagely and I sat in the Hilton Garden Room and listened to them for quite sometime. I told Senor where I had gone and why. He listened and pointed in the direction of the drums. Then suddenly, he pointed in a different direction. Neither of us could determine the origin. They sounded close and to the north and then, a change in the wind, and weren't they coming from the east? Or was that across the road and to the west? Now they were very far away in the distance. Could there be more than one group of bongo drummers?

A little later, I was again sitting in the garden room. I heard a chicken cluck. It sounded like it was over in the field to the north. I got up to look and saw nothing. It clucked again and I got up again. It sounded like it was coming from the same place. I finally found that chicken, right by the gate, out in the street, behind the adobe wall, in the west. But that is not at all where the sound came from.

There is a rooster crowing right now and it sounds like he is back there in Jesus' yard. Now Jesus does not have a rooster. Just a minute. I am going to go and listen.

The rooster is somewhere down the street, I think.

Sound is a funny thing here. You never know where it really is. I have decided that is because it is just everywhere.

Their Faces Tell This Story

Buen Dia.

There will be an Alamos production next week, of Little Red Riding Hood. Produced and directed by the traveling Missoula Montana Childrens' Theater, over one hundred children have been trying out this week and last week for parts in the play.
The Childrens' Theater has been here before, but this performance will be unique. It will be in English. Children have been eagerly writing the English words in their notebooks and memorizing lines and songs.

One of the local teachers, seen in the photo below, places a very strong emphasis on English as the second language and teaches English classes at several schools, in addition to his regular courses of mathematics and language. This teacher also happens to be my Spanish teacher and is extremely well educated and bi lingual.

The cast has now been chosen, costumes will be fitted on Monday and over a hundred children will begin rehearsals for the play which will be next Friday and Saturday evenings in the Palacio.

I thought you might be interested in seeing some of the photos I took last week when the children were still coming to tryouts. Their faces are so beautiful. Their eagerness amazed me. Their attentiveness and behavior were remarkable. Keeping over a hundred school kids quiet is not an easy task. Yet there were only a handful of adults and the children knew the expectations.

I think their faces tell this story...............................

adios! linda lou