Nescafe

Buenas tardes!
I could not get Senor to take a moon photo last night. I am sure he would have captured something more dramatic than this, but here it is. Backyard 'Harvest Moon'.

Actually I think he knew, and so did I, the time to get this shot was as it first came up over the horizon, but I was busy barbecueing and forgot about it. This morning Senor took me to breakfast and I made the mistake of having a cafe con leche. I had a long early morning bike ride and not a smidgen of caffeine. So, I just decided I would have one at breakfast. Cafe con leche here is microwaved milk, a container of Nescafe and sugar. You add what you want to the hot milk.

I only added one teaspoon of Nescafe and a tiny bit of sugar. That is really good stuff, Nescafe.

But when we got home, not only did I finish the weeding under the unfinished portal area, I started weeding in the yard. I weeded under the limon tree, around the bricked in plants, out by the asador, by the fountain to be, over near the mesquite, really all over the place.

Tell me you can see the difference under the unfinished portal area. If you can't see a difference, do not tell me anything.
My hands hurt, my legs hurt and my back and hips hurt. Really, my everything hurts.

When it got too hot to weed, I painted half the door to the bedroom.

When it got too hot to do that, I painted the new iron door handles for Senor.

After that, I tried to sweep the dusty West Wing.

I drank four Topochicos, they are the equivalent of club soda, which I think it disgusting. However, for some reason, I could drink these all day.

Am I rambling now?

Breakfast was at nine.

The West Wing was just too dirty to sweep, so I went out to the yard and tried to set fire to all the weeds and brush I had pulled, too wet. So, I kindly asked Umberto to haul it out to the compost when he was done working for Senor.

Then I began to rake up all the limes under the limon and Umberto came and asked me if he could have them. I said yes, but I could not quit raking.

All this time Senor kept cutting something on his tile saw and carrying it into the bathroom to be.

I followed him in there.

The plastering of the walls in this room has been completed.

I know, it is awesome. Next will come paint, whenever.

But here is what Senor has been up to. He had whole milk for breakfast, lucky dawg.

He is decreasing the width of the fireplace so it will draw better. He has been cutting small triangular pieces of ladrillos and Umberto is mortaring them into place.

If you recall, this is the old original fireplace. Senor copied it and put in the one in the bedroom.
Fireplaces were not part of early Alamos architecture, so we are not sure when it was put in.

Oh dear meohdear. It is now after four o'clock in the afternoon. I have only sat down long enough to get out this post. I am just fixing to go and mow the WHOLE yard.

No more Nescafe.

adios! linda lou

Weed eating and Waiting for Georgette

Buenos dias!

We are waiting to see what Tropical Storm Georgette decides to do. She is currently screaming across the Sea of Cortez, trying to choose who to pick on. The weather reports say she will visit Guaymus, but you never can outguess a storm, so we should know later this afternoon.


It was very, very windy throughout the night and Cookies, who usually goes in and out, all night long and this means, of course, Senor and I take turns getting up to let him in and out, refused to go out. We got a very good sleep, even if we did wake occasionally to the strong winds rattling the metal window frames.

The last few nights have brought us some perfectly gorgeous clouds and some rain here and there, some heavy during the day and then, chipichipi at night.

Senor is good at a lot of things and he is very good at going up on the ladder, with the camera, to take cloud photos from the roof.

The photos below were taken by him last night and the night before.
The first five were taken to the west and the last, to the east, very nice.

You know by now that Senor is very sabe le todo, he knows a lot of stuff. He knows how to make things, how to fix things, knows plumbing, knows electricity, certainly knows his cement, he is a gourmet cook, did you know that? Plays bridge, poker, gin rummy, I could go on and on about his attributes, very smart guy. I like that.

If he does break something, or should I happen to do the breaking, before he will go and buy a new one of the thing that has been broken, he will attempt to fix it. We have a hand sander, broken, and he has been working on it off and on for over three months to repair it. Even when we saw the same one at Home Depot, he would not buy it......because he can fix it, someday.

We have a weed eater, I admit I broke it. He ordered a new base for it, two months later it arrived, but then he realized a spring was missing, so now, he has found a spring supply company that carries the spring and he has ordered the spring, which will probably come, someday.

I thought it might be easier to buy a new weed eater, but no, he can fix it.

The truth is, he probably can fix it, he almost always does and if he can't, then the parts will help him fix something else.

So, the unfinished area of the portal, where there is no roof (outside the kitchen tool room and bedroom), is filled now with summer weeds. Some are over three feet tall. I cannot get the lawnmower in because there is so much rebar there. I need a weed eater. But we don't have one because we are waiting for a spring.

I was pondering this on Sunday morning. Sunday morning is very good pondering time, senor likes to sleep in, Umberto does not come and I can sit outside in my pajamas and ponder as long as I like.

But after about an hour of this sort of pondering I felt like I should do something. And it was then that I decided I am a weed eater. I don't need the machine.

I weeded almost half of the area by the end of the day.

In my next post I will be prepared to show you what I have done so far. The work actually feels good and after working again on Monday and by Tuesday, all the unused muscles in my back and shoulders were feeling better and stronger.

Some weeds I can only slowly trim down to the ground and others, I can completely rip out.

Everything that grows here grows here well. People say you can put a Popsicle stick in the ground and get ice cream. But the roots are often as deep as the plant, so I am tugging and pulling and sometimes wasting water on the weeds to loosen up the soil.

If Georgette gets here this afternoon, I may just put on my rain bonnet and finish up the job.

And then, manana, the spring to the weed eater will probably arrive.

Check back in a day or so, to see what the area looks like!

adios! linda lou

New Lamp Posts

Hola. I am on my second bowl of rice. I never cooked rice in the states because it never turned out any good. Goopy, sticky, starchy old bland rice. A Mexicano lady told me her secret to cooking sweet fluffy rice and now, I cook it all the time, and I eat it all the time. The trick is to fry the rice first in butter and then add the water. At least it works every time for me.

I just popped open a Starbucks frappuccino bottle, too. I only get half of it. That's okay, I'm good.


On my next trip to Navajoa I need to replenish my rice bags and frappuccino bottles.

I went to Navajoa on Tuesday. The drive out to the arch was festive. I happened to get behind the truck carrying all the new lamp posts. I thought, way cool, I will follow them and see what's up. It was somewhat exciting because I have been eager to see what the new lights will look like, and wondering how far they would actually go up the highway.

Below are the pretty lamp posts at the archway. I had been hoping to see something similar.This is what they put up and as I continued on down the highway, I saw they had been put up all the way to Minas Nuevas, which is about five kilometers outside of Alamos, on the way to Navajoa.

They are not on the left, just on the right. And I don't see any signs of activity for them on the left either.

The activity looks like this.


So right away, when I got back home, I dragged Senor to the truck and drove him out there and he said.....hmmmmmm.

I suggested they could be solar, but Senor says no, because the 'activity' has electrical conduits in it.

These same lights line the highway coming out of Navajoa for a couple of miles, so my guess is, that the intention is to continue the lights, as I was told by a city employee would happen, all the way through, from town to town.

They are different, well, okay, they are interesting, they look very white, I guess. Well and they are really tall. I have not been out there in the dark to see if they are working yet.

Okay, really not at all what I expected...........so, the key is simply not to expect...............

I am home alone! It is a bridge day. There is not a single cloud in the sky and it is blazing hot.

I had a million things planned for this afternoon and now I find that this frappuccino has me yawning and I need to turn on the mini and just take a siesta.

que le vaya bien.................linda lou

Viva Mexico! Viva Alamos!

Buen dia! Feliz Dia de Independencia from Alamos, Mexico!


Last night I convinced Senor it was not too hot to take a little stroll down to the Plaza and see what was happening on the eve of the great diaz y seis as it is called here by many people.


Well it was too hot and there was not a lot happening. I got a few good sunset photos on the walk down and one photo at the Plaza. I wanted to get the burning oil cans, and as we walked on to the Palacio, my batteries died.

Didn't you bring back ups....................no, i am charging them for tomorrow.......well did you check the battery level before we came down here........no, well, sort of, i mean it looked good to me.................well, i am not going anywhere with you anymore unless you bring backup batteries............... and we were quiet for awhile.

This was the last photo I got in. We are coming out of the 'Kissing Alley' and to the church Plaza. A huge bandstand is being set up right outside the alleyway. A friend told Senor that the most popular band in Mexico will be playing starting at three pm. We will go down later this afternoon and see who it is.

But I think this is one of the prettiest night shots of the church I have taken, even though all the metal of the bandstand stage is in the way.

At eleven-thirty last night the fireworks woke us up. The explosions were huge and there were loud swishing noises before the sky lit up in huge steady puffs of greens and reds and whites, and then what sounded like millions of pellets landing in the streets. The show lasted for about twenty minutes and we stayed outside mesmerized. Each year the show seems to get bigger and bigger and this was as good if not better than ones we have seen in the states.

This morning I was up at five to start making scalloped potatoes for a breakfast we were going to before heading over to the parade. What should have taken an hour and a half of cooking took over two because I kept blowing the fuses. Finally I decided that the hot plate, the oven and a light and the radio were too much for one Mexico outlet. I should know this by now, but I tend to push the cooking to the limit, probably because my cooking situation is limited.

After a wonderful breakfast with many friends we walked up the street to the parade. I had six good batteries and I took over two hundred photos and did not change batteries once.

I have gone through the photos and it is so hard to decide what to show you. So, I am giving you my favorites now and one day I will get the rest on flickr or facebook.

In these photos, you can get a sense of not only the parade, but the beautiful colonial architecture of this town, and the shimmering palms and tropical flowers. You can see the committment the schoolchildren have in their town, glimpses of the four bands we now have, and you can see how the heat took its toll on a few faces.

You can see the mayor in his white suit and his beautiful wife to his right as they start the parade behind the white clad color girl guards and the newest band, the brass one that I you tubed for you during one of their practices.

And lastly, another youtube......horse dancing, which is about the most spectacular thing I have ever seen in Mexico. Watching the rider gently coax his horse into movements that are intricate and woven like a story, it is a thing of beauty to see.

Viva Mexico! Viva Alamos!