Okay, I say.....................

Buenas tardes. We are having a lovely day, skies are filled with gray clouds and a good wind is blowing at us from at least three directions. I went out early this morning for a walk with a friend. We went to La Aduana where it was peaceful and green, rolling hills and a gentle sprinkle to keep us cool. It's been awhile since I have shown you some casa photos. Looking at the photos helps me realize that things may not always move as quickly as I want them to, but they do get done.



I want to show you outside because I just finished mowing the yard yesterday and it looks pretty good. Everything is incredibly green, it just sparkles.
On the left is the plumeria, now void of its beautiful cinnamony pink flowers, but lush with huge green fan leaves. The really tall green tree, in the center, is the amapa, without its brilliant lavender flowers, but full of dark green leaves. More plumerias are on the far right. The only things out here two years ago were the amapa, plumerias and the limon tree and the huge palm. All of the palms we have planted are getting tall and full of fronds. They look great.
Below you can see the parapet wall over the portal. It will be plastered in. The wall works so perfectly. Senor has the roof and wall slanted so all the rain runs down to the end and pours off over the edge. (One day all that water will be caught up into a new cistern).

To refresh your memory, the left window behind the mesquite goes to the laundry room and the higher one on the right, to the bathroom to be. The roofed in section of the new portal is overhead. We sit out here in the evenings, its especially great in a good storm, lots of dry shelter.
Inside the bathroom to be, Umberto is plastering the walls. Where there are gaping holes, he adds chopped up adobe and then throws the plaster up on the wall.

If you think his hands and the wall are the only things covered in plaster, think again. I was livid and purple faced when I went in there, where the new stained door for the closet has been stored, and saw plaster on the door. I went to Senor and looked him in the eye...................there is plaster on the new door, and I WILL NOT, let me repeat this, I WILL NOT RESTAIN THAT *^#+ door.

The door was out of that room in two seconds, completely washed down in five minutes and a sheepish looking Senor came to me and said.........door is all clean again.

Now it is not Umberto's fault. He is clearly always intent on the project in front of his face. Now it is not Senor's fault either, but he is the same way. I am sure neither of them even noticed the door was there.

But the door is a sore spot for me anyway. I am always looking at it, to see if it has moved, to see if it has been rotated, any indication that this door which has been stained and ready for over a month is ready to go to its place in the wall.

Senor and I cannot even talk about it. But more on that later.

There is the long bathroom to be window that you saw in the other photo.

In this photo I am looking through the window to the covered portal outside. The plumeria tree is straight ahead. Today the walls are being smoothed down. Umberto takes a board and runs it over the plaster to smooth it.

Senor has a lot of light switches. Three and four in a row, for fans, overhead lights, sconce lights, and sink lights. And they are on the other side of the room as well. He says if you walk away and forget to turn off a light, well, voila! you can turn it off from the other side of the room as you walk out the door.....okay, i say. It really is amazing that he has done all this electrical wiring himself.

And it is amazing that he has done all this plumbing, too. People ask me, how does he know how to do all of that? I have to say I don't know, he just does and what he doesn't know, he looks up on the internet. So, the plumbing for the shower has gone in. We still do not have the propane hooked up, and when November comes, I think I will still be biking down to Dolisa for a hot shower.

I talked with someone the other day and she said.....wait, are you complaining about THAT? .................hell, I didn't take a hot shower down here for three years................okay, i say. Now it is plastered over.
Here is the plumbing for the toilet..........................and hell, she continued........i had to use a bucket for five years...........................okay, i say.
Pvc pipe to the sink........did I really want to show her that? Hell! You are going to have a sink!.......................i say, okay and make mental notes about things I will show people when they come visit.

These photos are taken from between the doorways of the kitchen tool room and the bedroom.


All of our plants look great. I keep saying this, but it is true. So many of these palms were just babies, only several feet tall when we put them in and several have grown two and three feet. Some are over six feet.

Now, briefly back to the door. About a month ago Senor asked if I wanted to prep the floor of the closet so he could put in the concrete floor. Of course! So I prepped the floor with a mixture of some goopey stuff that levels the floor and helps the concrete poured over it adhere to it, with no cracking. I don't know what it is, you would have to ask Senor. It dried for over a month.

So during the month the West Wing is so full of stuff, you can barely walk into it.
Here is the deal. When the closet door goes up, boxes and bins and tools and all that stuff in the West Wing go into the closet. All the tools and bins that clutter the kitchen tool room and the bedroom go in the closet. Closet door gets locked, we get more space, things are easier to keep clean, things are safe and I could go on and on about the benefits.

When I was sick several weeks ago, Senor did the floor, which comes before the door.

He poured the cement and used a trowel to create the patterns. It is still drying in the photo.

Above is the acid stain he will use to stain the floor.

Below is the test of the stain. I love the colors and I love the way he created the patterns. The whole floor of the casa will be done in the patterns and the stain.

But back to the door. The floor is done. I love it. The door is clean again, standing in the corner, ready to be put into place.

I have been so ready for the door to go up, but Senor knows what needs to be done and when, so over the past few weeks, whenever I have asked about the door, I get the evil eye. That tells me with out words there are more pressing things and it will happen when it happens.

When I was telling my friend about this in a hushed voice in case Senor came into the room, she SAID.......................hell, you have a door, i had sheets on sticks instead of doors, even for my front door, have you ever woken up to a skunk sitting on your bed?...............................okay, i say.

So, I no longer bring up the door. It will become a part of the house whenever it is supposed to.

I have reorganized the West Wing and we can at least sit in there and enjoy it. And when the cold weather comes, we will light a fire in the little kiva Senor built.

Besides, it is just a door and I am lucky, I have shower curtains now on real tension rods instead of sticks and sheets.

Now this is a nice old photo, from November 2007.

Same place in the photos below.

As I look at these photos and think back on how the casa looks in that November photo, I know we have really come a long way. Okay, I say, ................enough about a silly door, enough about being overrun by bins and boxes.

Now all this looking has pooped me out, a good little rain is falling, Cookies is asleep on his back, senor is already on siesta, time for me to join..............................adios, linda lou

Fish and Snake

Buen Dia! We have had more rains and more beautiful sunsets. I think September is the hottest month of the year and it is the buggiest. Senor disagrees, he seems to think it has cooled down a little and says it's not too bad. I can hardly wait for October........Foreigners seem to be coming and going here, getting in a few weeks in town and then, returning north for awhile. This has been the case with Senor's bridge partners. They have been coming and going. Unless he makes a run to the Fereterria (the hardware store) or the OXXOO (like a 7-11), I have not had much time alone in the last three weeks.

So, imagine my excitement when Senor said he was going fishing on Sunday, with his friend, Ramon. We will probably go just for the morning.................he said................oh, please, i will make you guys a lunch, stay as long as you like......................
I made a lot of plans. I can do this or that or that or this and Senor will not be around.......HOORAY!

On Saturday night Senor got out his fly rod and all of his flies. He looked them over, got them lined up, got them cleaned and then, neatly tucked back into their boxes. Early Sunday, I made sandwiches, packed boiled eggs and oatmeal cookies and put them in the cooler, hoping this much food would entice them to stay away longer.

On the way out of town, Senor bought eight tecates for Ramon, a couple of cokes for himself and some bottled water. After picking up Ramon, they drove for an hour and a half up to a lake on an ejido.

Almost fifty percent of Mexico is ejido land and everyone, both Mexicano and foreign, seems to have their idea or speculation of what that really means. Our Mexicano friends say, ejido land is government owned farming land. It is land that was once owned by rich landowners and farmed by the peasant people who lived on it. If it was farmed consecutively by those people for two years, the government negotiated with the wealthy landowner and bought the land for the community of farmers. Eventually the farmers were given rights to the ejido and this could be passed down to their children. Ejido was considered their land.

There are however ejido lands along the coast, and in other areas, that are used now for things other than farming and while foreigners cannot purchase ejido land, it has been sold to them anyway and then, sadly, in certain circumstances, taken back.

The ejido land around Alamos, and there is a lot of it, is mostly farmed or fished. It is land that, when you are on it, you want to be on it with a Mexican compadre and this is out of courtesy to the Mexican community that lives on it.

Senor took these photos on the drive to the lake.

They finally arrived at the lake. There is a small dam on the opposite side. There was a huge sign explaining net fishing was not allowed. Senor and Ramon saw a lot of net fishing going on. The men below are net fishing, but Senor did not want to get to close for a photo.

Below a small adobe casa is being built right on the water's edge.

There were a lot of families fishing and cooking around the lake that day.

Senor's fly rod caused quite a stir and a few of the men, stopped their fishing to visit and check it out. He spent a lot of time trying to explain how it worked, but could not find anyone interested in trying it out. Even Ramon was afraid to give it a try which is interesting because it is not that different from how they fish.

Most Mexicanos fish off a coke or gatorade or other type of plastic bottle. The string is wrapped around the neck of the bottle and then, unwrapped and held loosely in the hand and thrown as far as possible into the water. A lead weight drops to the bottom and the hook, on which there is a camarone (shrimp) floats there and attracts the fish. If there is a bite, the line is hauled in.

Very few fishermen have rods or reels and most have never seen a fly rod.

The man below is an exception and has a rod and reel.

The little girl below was shy about getting her photo taken, but you can see her bottle. She has unwrapped the string and thrown it out. Senor said she fished like that for hours, fully concentrated on what she was doing, but never caught anything.

Senor says the water was very deep. Often hooks were caught on something and the men simply started walking out into the water and when it got over their heads, they dove down to unsnag the hooks.

Below Ramon is getting fruit from one of the trees.

Now back at home, as soon as they left, I pulled out the nice list I had made.......... a nice looking to do list that would keep me busy all day, without Senor coming in and out of the door, without Senor running a whirring saw, without Senor banging nails in a wall or using a whining drill.

Peace and quiet, Cookies asleep on his back on the floor in the West Wing. I decided to sweep the kitchen tool room floor. But it is, after all, September, and it is very hot. So, I stopped and went into the bedroom and turned on the mini split. It was so nice and cool. I grabbed what looked to be a good book, laid down and stayed in there reading until Senor came home. I forgot about my to do list. What a perfect day.

Back at the ejido, Ramon and Senor are doing a little exploring and they find this.

Ramon says it is a boa constrictor.

Senor threw down his sharpie so we can see the size of this thing. He said it was very lumpy and Ramon said it was full of food.

Ramon also says it is too dead to take home and eat. Well thank goodness for that. I am not sure how I would have felt if they had brought me a boa constrictor and asked me to just cook it right up.

Back at the lake, Senor decides to take his fly rod and go to the other side, near the dam. It is very deep there and the first strike gets him a small bass. Other than the men who are net fishing, he is the only one to get a fish. But when he and Ramon leave, the little girl still has a determined look on her face and continues to unwrap and throw, and wrap, unwrap and throw and wrap.



Senor comes home before dark, the tecates and cokes are gone, the oatmeal cookies and eggs are gone. The only thing in the ice chest is the little bass.

He cleans it, cooks it and accidentally leaves the hose running all night.

The little bass was delicious! Much, much better than a boa constrictor, I think.....

Fiesta Electricity

Buen dia!

We are getting closer to Dia de Independencia, and here in Alamos, you can feel the excitement stirring in the air. You can hear it in peoples' voices. You can see it in the horse's hooves as he practices the dance on a side street. You can hear it from the schoolyard portal as the band practices. You can see it as the city works at a fevered pace, cleaning, repairing, painting and decorating.

The archway is getting a fresh coat of paint.

The signs Bienvenidos and Alamos are made of red white and green light bulbs.Outside of town, near the Pemex, are the new lamp posts. Because Alamos is a Pueblo Magico, the highway is soon going to be lighted all the way to Navajoa.Colorful banners, flags and streamers line the streets.

The Palacio is decked out in its finest green white and red, with new potted plants outside the doors.

We heard the first fireworks last night. I can feel the fiesta electricity!

adios! linda lou