The Canexican ......as she works in Canada and lives in Mexico

no internet

2012-02-11T09:06:00.000-08:00

I am all settled in my new home, everyday is a new adventure. For instance, apparently hanging curtains takes 2 weeks....maybe longer they care not up yet. Hanging things onto a concrete wall is not as easy as slamming a nail in the wall....this is also true for hanging closet rods, clocks, pictures.ect.
I also have no internet, I bought a TelCel 3G stick and was told it would work just fine, NOT! Does not work in my house, maybe concrete walls are too dense, whatever the case they will also not refund my money, which was not a surprise.
So I have no pictures, although I am writing stories which I will download someday for you. I do have some interesting ones. Be patient with me.

Another stellar performance at the hardware store

2012-02-04T16:49:00.000-08:00

I am getting fairly settled in my new home, but it seems everyday I need something, I guess that's normal when you start from scratch. Of course I had to go to the hardware store and make a fool of myself, some of my best idiot performances have been seen at the hardware store.....they should have video cameras there, maybe they do. I bet after work they sit in the warehouse in the back with a few beers and watch the funniest gringo movies. I bet I'm a movie star and don't even know it. My land lady told me I shouldn't plant certain plants, she gave me a long list of plants not to plant because the ants in the back yard would just eat them....I said "I'll fix that" I happened to watch my neighbor here sprinkle some white powder on the ground a few months ago and when I inquired (nosy neighbors must inquire) what he was doing he said it kills ants. So proud of myself I was for now having this information I marched off to the hardware store (I needed a few other things as well) So, in my very bestest Spanglish I asked for the white powder that kills ants, that worked fine, he sold me a kilo of it, I do know that a kilo is 2.2 lbs, what I still don't know is what 2.2 lbs of white powder looks like, or how much parsley you get out of 2.2 lbs (lots).....buying stuff by the kilo is still a bit tricky for me. Then it dawns on me that this stuff might be highly toxic (you don't say) and I remember that my neighbor has 2 little kitties and there is a puppy living across the street, so I ask (this is where it all got turned sideways) if it would kill cats and dogs. After I walked away with my purchases I ran the conversation that had happened through my head and I realized that I may have said I wanted to kill the cats and dogs, that would explain the change in his tone with me, I notice that his tone changed during out conversation, I figured there was some kind of a mix up but I had my powder so I decided not to worry about what was troubling him. I hope he doesn't live near me. Next time I need to take the time to rethink what was said instead of waiting until I am almost home.

I also needed a dustpan and broom, check out my dust pan, made out of an oil jug, genius or what? I asked if they had any "normal" dustpans, he said this was normal...ok. I do however remember my mother having a dustpan like this many years ago, but not made out of an oil jug, it was yellow and plastic I think,

I didn't buy a spade, because my land lady gave me one, a house warming gift maybe. The broom was made by her, this is what she does for a living, she makes brooms out of dried palms, this is an amazing broom for sweeping up your yard, it;s like a gentle rake.

Just need some shelves and curtains

Maybe some cozy cushions as well

This corner looks a little lonely

Need some pillows, maybe a lamp

This will become a desk soon, just needs a little love....most likely will involve another trip to the hardware store

Winding wool into a ball with the help of my chair

The cat next door, the one that I don't want to kill

Now, on to a totally different subject, have you ever seen such a cute playhouse, someone made this little house out of love. I noticed it after I came back from Christmas making me think it was a Christmas gift. The house is made out of card board and it is painted, the door opens, the windows have curtains, it even has Christmas lights strung around the roof and the around the windows. It has little flower pots hanging beside the door and window, and a little rocking chair in front of it. Someone put a lot of time into this, hardly any money was needed but lots of time, almost makes me tear up when I walk by. I love this. I've been meaning to seek a picture of this but kept forgetting my camera.

The big move

2012-02-01T07:32:00.000-08:00

The big move happened yesterday, I think it took all of 15 minutes. Fridges got swapped out, shower got installed....life is good.
My new casa does however come with a few quirky things, which I knew it would.
I needed to do some laundry and that's when I noticed that my laundry water drains into my back yard. I can see the reasoning behind it, the pilla is in the front yard, the property slops down in the back, so the water just naturally runs down. I have plans on a garden back there and while I am all for recycling water I don't think my garden will appreciate soapy wash water, and the occasional bit of bleach. Here is the low down on the pilla, 99.9 % of Mexican homes have one of these and when I go home I miss it, I would love to have one at home.

I of course don't spit in my pilla, I have a bathroom sink this year, most people don't. I will get the plumbing figured out eventually.

After a hard day of cleaning and organizing I decide to have a nice hot shower in my new shower, as I was standing there in the cascade of hot water reflecting on how blessed I am, perhaps feeling a bit smug with myself as well..... all the lights went out and the water stopped running, all the lights, it was some dark. Good thing I was done showering at this point I was just standing there enjoying the water...wasting water I guess it what it's called here. Good thing I had just unpacked and actually knew where the candles and lighter was. I find a towel light a candle and notice that the neighbors all have light (this is what I was afraid of) When all the lights are out that means it's not your problem but when only yours are out it's your problem. Then I remembered that when I was sweeping the sidewalk in front of the house I had notice that the breaker box was mounted outside on the wall of the house, I had thought to myself that that was a weird spot for it and wondered if people ever play jokes on each other and flick the switch as they walk by...humm. So I get dressed and head out there and sure enough I flick the switch and my lights come on. My shower must have flicked the breaker, will this happen very time I am in the shower...no se.

This morning the land lady came by and I told her what happened, she said "when it does that you have to flick the switch", right, but how do we fix that I ask, she says " when it does that you flick the switch and then it's fixed" Right...duh. That all sounds so easy but when it does that I am in the shower, naked and wet, and the switch is outside..... hopefully this was an isolated incident and won't happen every time...we'll see.

I also have some ubberly noisy neighbors, maybe after a while they will get bored with me once they find out I am really not that interesting, one lady inspecting my garbage that I put out last night and rearranged it, I must not have arranged it properly.

I also have a little convenience store right next door, a very small one that takes up the front half of a little house, the family lives in the back half, this is will be very ....convenient, and makes it way to easy to step next door and buy a bag of Cheetos.

The guy that drives the vegetable truck also lives 4 doors down, also very convenient. I did notice that when he drove up there were a lot of women that come out of their houses all at once and it seemed to be a social event, they kept him there for about 1/2 an hour (maybe even longer) chatting amongst themselves, he must know all the gossip on the Island. (they probably told him what was in my garbage....empty Cheetos bags) I always feel like I shouldn't be keeping him because he has a schedule to keep so I am always quiet rushed when I make my purchases. Now that I know that he knows everything (he must) I think I will make sure that he is my friend. The other vegetable guy (we have 2) is already my friend but this guy is new.

Whats not so convenient is that I have no internet and as I am only here for 2 more months (whaaaa, where has the time gone) I may not bother with getting internet this year. I will go into the mainland and look into it anyway and see what the cost is and to see how easy it is to disconnect and reconnect as come and go. I have a shopping list for the mainland anyway. I used my laptop screen as a mirror this morning....I need a mirror, and a garbage can, and a mop pail (still), and curtain, shower rods...ect.

As I get used to all the night sounds on my street I will let you know if the magic has followed me. And soon more pictures.

Automotive eye candy

2012-01-30T06:15:00.000-08:00

Those that know me know that I come from a family that have gasoline fumes in their veins...well not really, but we are "car people", some more than others. Some of us get butterflies in our stomach when we hear a engine rev up, it get us all romantic and swoony (some of us) When a snowmobile roars by leaving a trail of exhaust fumes some of us breath deep and say "aaahhhhh", you know that sound you make when someone is massaging that really tight spot on the back of your neck...that's the sound. There are also some of us (not naming names) that can't drive by an auto junk yard without stopping and seeing what treasures they can find and most of us (some won't admit this) drive by craning their necks to see if they can spot a treasure from the road. A few years ago some of us dug out the old beaten cars that were "resting" in back yards, hay fields, and old barns, cleaned them up, put new tires on, smashed the glass out and painted numbers on them, built a dirt rack in a hay field and started racing cars on Saturday nights. I searched for a photo of my old race car but I couldn't find it this morning. These next few photos are "eye candy" for any "car people" out there. I think when cars die in North America they come to Mexico and live here happily forever after.

Some of us also collect garbage furniture.....Check out my new desk, I have exciting plans for this, it involves some paint and some Mexican tile....exciting

This "car people" thing comes to me from my mother's side, on my father's side I have inherited a love of "weird and/or different things"....somehow the love of exhaust fumes isn't considered weird enough to go under the heading of "weird and/or different things". One different thing I am looking for is hat for my daughter (apple doesn't fall far from the tree here), she wants me to bring her back a hat like this, if you happen to see one like this somewhere please let me know. It's not your standard cowboy hat, it's taller with a wider brim. This cute guy is from the movie "All the beautiful horses" and she figured since parts of this movie was filmed in Mexico this would be the place to find a hat like this.

Wanna see my sore toe?

2012-01-25T07:14:00.000-08:00

Opps, it may seem I have abandoned you all, but that is not so, I have just been a bit preoccupied with getting my house ready and also been taking the time to sit down and actually study Spanish. I also have a friend that is helping me a lot. I have had a few adventures as well but of course didn't have my camera with me. I just don't pack it around with me anymore, maybe because I feel so at home here...we don't carry our cameras around at home do we?...well not always. The first time I came to Stone Island was 12 years ago and I took a picture of a little house like this (it wasn't this house) I carried it around in my daytimer (back when I still had a normal people job) and when my life got a little hairy and scary I would flip to this picture and imagine how some day I would leave the rat race and live here. I always joked saying "I just want a hut, a sack of rice, a sack of beans and a donkey to carry me around". When I get back to Canada I will dig that picture out and post it for you all, but it looked something like this; this place is adorable, evenings here would be absolutely enchanting.......way beyond magical must be a place called enchantment and this is it...I think. Can you see yourself here?

Enchantment

This is my neighbor a few door down, I've walked by it a few times and I have been meaning to get a really artsy shot of his ladder but as of yet (because of a fence) I have just sneaked this one;

At what point do you throw your broken ladder away?.......never is the answer

I love this house, I have watched it evolve over the last few years, people here build their houses as they have money. At home it takes 20 years to pay for a house, here it can take 20 years to build one, but once it's built here it is paid for, you are not a slave to your home here. Plus, most people here do not build more than they need...like us.

Really, ,who needs a home bigger than this? Isn't it cute, I'll bet next year it will have a fence or a patio.

With that in mind, here is another peek at my new house, which will also take me a few years to get all cute looking, oh, I have many plans. This is just the beginning.

The front

This is the back of it, it needs paint on the outside and it just so happens that I hate this kind of painting, so I will only be painting the inside for now, plus I have plans for a back patio, and a rooftop patio (next year) so I think I will wait to paint the outside until all that is built and then paint it all at once. Unless of course family comes to visit, then we'll bring out the paint cans right promptly, I am also guessing I could Tom Sawyer someone into painting it for me as well, I do have a sore toe to show off....isn't that what the first guy offered to Tom in exchange for painting the fence? (pause while I Google this, because I am a geek)
Here you go, right from Mark Twain himself. I love Mark Twain.

Say, Jim, I’ll fetch the water if you’ll whitewash some.”

Jim shook his head and said:

“Can’t, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an’ git dis water an’ not stop foolin’ roun’ wid anybody. She say she spec’ Mars Tom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an’ so she tole me go ‘long an’ ‘tend to my own business – she ‘lowed she’d ‘tend to de whitewashin’.”

“Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That’s the way she always talks. Gimme the bucket – I won’t be gone only a a minute. She won’t ever know.”

“Oh, I dasn’t, Mars Tom. Ole missis she’d take an’ tar de head off’n me. ‘Deed she would.”

“She! She never licks anybody – whacks ’em over the head with her thimble – and who cares for that, I’d like to know. She talks awful, but talk don’t hurt – anyways it don’t if she don’t cry. Jim, I’ll give you a marvel. I’ll give you a white alley!”

Jim began to waver.

“White alley, Jim! And it’s a bully taw.”

“My! Dat’s a mighty gay marvel, I tell you! But Mars Tom I’s powerful ‘fraid ole missis – ”

“And besides, if you will I’ll show you my sore toe.”

Jim was only human – this attraction was too much for him. He put down his pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest while the bandage was being unwound.

So, I have a sore toe if anyone is interested, I went to the mainland a few days ago (to buy paint) and I wore a pair of shoes (you have to wear shoes when you go to the city), these shoes aren't my friends yet and I have one big blister for a toe now, ,yes there is more blister than toe......nothing that a few walks in the salty tide won't fix.

Imagine a fresh coat of paint and a cute patio

Back yard, also has so much potential, Check out my banana trees

Bananas...this excites me, believe me when the day comes that I can step outside and pick a banana and eat it you will all hear about it.....I'm generous that way

There have been a few classic Mexican style remodeling blunders, this little house had a dividing wall right down the middle of it, 2 families lived in here, one a family of 4, I know this family because they had a taco stand, I don't know the people that well but I did have a close relationship with their tacos for a few years, and the other half was occupied by the lady that owns this house, imagine a family of 4 in half of this house. Humbles me a bit to realize how fortunate I am and makes me realize how grateful I ought to be for every thing in my life, I have such abundance of everything. Gratefulness seems to flow so much easier here than at home.
Anyway....Check out the spot where my fridge was to go, the space is short by about 3 inches, space on the left is reserved for my stove (that I will have someday)
But....I have a friend that has a small fridge and she would like a bigger fridge and we have decided (after extensive measuring) that we will swap fridges. I really hope I don't regret this. So "operation fridge move" is being organized as we speak. This will not be easy because she lives on top of a hill and has about 89 corners that these fridges have to clear....should be exciting. We will of course hire us some fine Mexican muscle....want pictures?

Imagine some nice bright Mexican tile on this back wall and some tile shelves in this counter. You can see my fridge on the left but it is blocking the one shutter on the window from opening...can't have that, I need to spy on the neighbors, and they need to spy on me.

And somehow, I am not sure how this happened, they ended up with a window in my closet, with the amount of dust that we have here a window in the closet would mean my clothes would forever be dusty, so it was suggested I put an air conditioner in it.....to keep my clothes cool? I opted to have it cemented shut. I really hope I don't regret this. Watch....we'll have a stifling hot winter next year and I'll wish I could cool off my underwear.

Like i said in my last post I am not going to buy a lot of furniture this year, check out what I call "Mexican Ikea" If you're Canadian you will get that, if not you can Google it. What you see here is a book shelf unit, a coffee table, a night table and a linen closet......and my shorts drying in the sun.

Mexican Ikea

But....I couldn't help myself, I have ordered a chair like this, it will be delivered on Sunday, right from Concordia where they make these. Seldom have I gone into a Mexican home that doesn't have one of these, usually it;s on the front porch or deck. 1600 peso delivered.....I couldn't afford not to...hahah.

That's all for today, now I must go paint, I am painting the interior of the house this afternoon....whhaaaa! Wanna see my sore toe!?

New Furniture

2012-01-18T15:53:00.000-08:00

I ordered some furniture last week and it arrived today. I need furniture for my new house but don't want to spend a lot (or any) money this year, I want to live in there first to see what exactly I will need and figure out exactly what I want. I am not the kind of person that rearranges the house and buys new furniture every few years. I feel if you take care of furniture it can last you forever...except mattresses, they need replacing once in a while. I don't even like new furniture I like old furniture, I feel it has more character and class. Luckily for me the fruit and vegetables still come in wooden crates here, I had 20 of them delivered to my house today. I washed them up today and will get to work tomorrow painting them. What you see here are, coffee tables, a night table, a linen closet, book shelves and a shoe shelf and who knows what else I can come up with. Pretty clever I thought......doesn't get classier than this.

My child's inheritance

2012-01-15T17:54:00.000-08:00

Did I ever find a treasure today, I scored big time. I also think it is a funny coincidence that I wrote about it yesterday. Cotton Sheets, real 100 % cotton, soft as silk and thin as paper, just like the one's I told you about in my last post. I am not sure what makes this cotton so soft, it seriously feels like they have been washed over and over, like the ones in your grandma's closet. It's a vintage cotton, but these sheets are new, they were in a sealed package. I found them at the Juarez market today and I actually even needed sheets, I bought a new bed last week (a double bed) for my house and now my twin sheets don't fit, they of course will get recycled into cushion covers or tables cloths, napkins...the possibilities are endless.

After I got home and ripped the package open and draped the flat sheet all over me and pranced around the house like a major crazy sheet ghost I realized that I had been so excited when buying it that I clearly wasn't thinking straight.....why on earth did I not buy another flat sheet to make curtains with? Imagine these white feather light curtains with a little redwork embroidered on the bottom edge flying like sails out of my windows (that have no screen or glass), they are so light they would move by blowing on them. I must go back....some day.

The Juarez market only happens once a week, on Sunday mornings...yes, I played hookie from church to go to the market today. Surely I can't do that two weeks in a row. I will just cherish these for now, they will after all be my child's inheritance....along with my harmony knitting needles.

I know you can't feel the softness .......

The price for these sheets, 50 pesos for the flat and 60 or 70 for the fitted, I always mix the numbers 60 and 70 up so I am never really sure, it's the difference of $1.00 so who cares.

I'll leave you with some pictures of the Juarez market, it's a crazy place, full of new and used stuff, it's takes up a whole block. All the booths are side by side and back to back, so side by side that sometimes you have walked yourself stuck....you know what I mean. Mexicans have no sense of space, not your spare or their space, there's is always more space to squeeze in one more booth, one more person on the bus, one more person in a car, one person on a quad.....there is always space. When you get to the market and you first get off the bus it looks like there is no space for you there....but there is.

To get to the market you have to first get on a boat to get to the mainland....a boat like this

Because it's 7:30 am the fisherman are just all coming in with their nightly catch

The fish cleaning table....one of many

Of course I stop and buy one of these hot deep fried yummies for breakfast

Check it out 2 kilos of Chilis for 10 pesos.....

A mount of grapes and strawberries

The radishes are unreal here, huge but yet not woody tasting

Of course I had tacos

There is everything here, food, clothes, groceries, tools, appliances, electronics ....everything, except a mop pail, I was looking for a mop pail

Another boat ride to get home.

I had a shopping list that looked like this;
A mop pail
A toilet brush
Coffee grounds

I came home with this;
A sheet set and pillowcase
1 Rosemary plant
1 Lavender plant
1 Toilet brush
One can of coffee
A bunch of Cloves....really much coves...like lots
2 hair thingers, by the way, the word thinger does not translate in Spanish, when you say thinger they know not what you talkin about like at home.
2 cloth Napkins (stamped to embroider)
2 balls of embroidery thread ........because that table cloth that I started embroidering 10 years ago will soon be done and I will need another project.....not likely.

I must go outside now and enjoy the magic, and dance around in my new sheets.

I was wrong

2012-01-14T17:57:00.000-08:00

I thought the evening would not be magical because it was cold and grey all day, but as soon as the sunset it warmed up and it is now hot (but not) the magic is just beginning.

Do you remember when....

2012-01-14T14:53:00.000-08:00

I am going to try to explain to you what an evening on my patio in my hammock is like, just as it is hard to explain the word "magical" it is hard to explain the peacefulness of a hot tropical evening, but here goes; it is magical, not in the scary black magic like voodoo like magic but in the unexplainable magic way.

Do you remember when you were a kid how hot it got sometimes in the summer? It doesn't seem to get that hot anymore, or maybe it's because most people have air conditioners now, or because our homes are built differently as well, I'm not sure what it is but it just doesn't get that hot anymore....except here, it's still that hot, even when it's not overly hot....got that? Remember laying in bed thinking it was so hot but you weren't hot, you laid above the cool cotton sheets and watched the curtains move in the breeze. It's that kind of a warm feeling that is in the air here, hot but not...got that, do you remember that? That feeling doesn't exist anymore at home. I think it's because the sheets aren't cotton anymore and the curtains don't move anymore. I'm thinking the curtains don't move because they are usually not made of cotton, cotton that has been washed over and over and over again making it light as silk and just as soft and thinner than paper, the slightest breeze moved them. Most people have blinds now, and usually the window is closed (because they have air condition) or the curtains are made of some heavy fancy expensive fabric and I've even seen little weights sewn into the bottom seams to prevent them from moving....well the curtain here still move, and the sir is still hot...but not. So picture this if you could;

On a hot (but not) evening all windows and all doors on my street are open, most windows have no glass or screens, curtains can fly like sails, we live side by side and back to back, not much privacy (privacy? whats that?) It's after 6 pm and almost everyone is outside either on their front decks, or in their front or back yards, under their palapas, some of us are sprawled out in hammocks, some are lazing on plastic furniture, sometimes there is a bed full of kids under a palapa or under a makeshift roof, babies are being rocked in rocking chairs, young girls are huddled together on a front step giggling at a cell phone, men are leaning up against trees, moms are stirring pots on open fires, kids are sitting on the ground watching a television that sits on plastic table in the driveway. In the distance the tide is rolling in and out, mesmerizing us all so that we barely hear the roosters, a horse neighing 2 doors down, the sewing machine next door humming away, a cowboy whistling a tune to anyone that will listen, someone is practicing playing the trumpet up the hill, a fire is crackling in the yard behind me, a baby cries somewhere, a motorbike drives by, it's rider is chatting on a cell phone, a gecko clicks his checks above me somewhere, a kid peddles by on a bike with a bag of tomatoes swinging from the handle bars, he is barefoot, and the crickets, always continuous like the waves. So much going on but yet it's peaceful and quiet, the peace and quiet survives through the neighborhood noise. Once I am in bed the curtains move and I smile, it's a dream and I am 6 years old in my bed and I have no worries or cares, what does a 6 year old worry about? Not a lot, but I am not 6....thank goodness, I am in Mexico and here, the crickets are alive and well, the curtains still move and moms can still sent their kids to the store..barefoot....and coke is still made with sugar and hot chocolate is still made with milk and we still use pretty Pyrex dishes.......Remember these, everyone had these, what happened to them, I blame Tupperware.
Check out this site to look up your old Pyrex dishes, http://www.pyrexlove.com/vintage-pyrex-pattern-guide/ There were so many beautiful patterns. This bowl is from the Spring Blossom collection # 401 and was manufactured in the 1970s. Would love to know if you have some vintage Pyrex dishes. Do any of the patterns bring back memories. I am heading off to the Juarez Market tomorrow, maybe I'll score some Pyrex....or some cotton curtains.
I stick my tongue out at you Tupperware, can't believe I bought into you during my youth...foolish youth.

All this magical stuff did not happen today because it is cold and grey out today....not complaining just sayin is all.

Random things

2012-01-12T20:08:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I had a hankering (yes hankering) for homemade yogurt. Once you've had homemade yogurt you are spoiled forever, and once you know how easy it is to make you feel like a dummy for eating crappy store yogurt for so many years. There are many ways of making yogurt and the web is full of all kinds of instructions, here is how I made yogurt last week with limited supplies. First you need a starter, so I went to the health food store in Mazatlan, it's on Zaragoza and I can't remember the name, across the street from the little Zaragoza plaza. Once you find your way there you buy a small container of their homemade organic yogurt which you will use as a starter. Your starter has to be plain yogurt, no flavoring or sugar. You take 2 heaping Tbsp of it and put aside, the rest you eat. If you don't want to make yogurt right away you can freeze your starter until you are ready ready. I checked the weather forecast and picked a day that was supposed to be hot. I heated up 3 cups of milk in a pot on the stove...you must stand there and stir so the milk does not burn, heat the milk to about 180 F (never boiling) try to hold that temperature for about 5 minutes at least, maybe even 8-10....I usually get tired of stirring at about the 5 minute mark and call it good. Now I put some cold water in my sink and put the hot pot in the cold water to cool the milk off fast, cool it until it is about 100F, then you put your 2 tbsp of room temperature starter into the milk and whisk to make sure it is stirred. Now you need an incubator, be creative. I pour the milk into a mason jar and put a loose fitting top on it (a little bowl turned upside down on the top, then I wrapped it all in a tea towel and put into a plastic bag and tied the bag shut. Then I set it out in the hot sun (on top of my fence) like so

Yogurt incubator

The longer your yogurt is incubating the tarter the yogurt, I find 6 hours is perfect for me, I don't like it too tart at all. Ideal temperature for incubating 32 C. Once done put it in the fridge, warm yogurt doesn't taste very good. If you want some flavoring you can add it at the same time as you add your starter, honey is nice if you like some sweetness, vanilla is good, play with it...remember if you use any flavoring you now can't use it as a starter, always save some for a starter. If you like your yogurt firmer you can add about 4 tbsp powered milk when you add the starter, I usually do but I didn't have any.
Now on to some other random stuff.....

I'm doing a little knitting in the evenings in my hammock

Went Geocaching in Mazatlan with a friend, not sure what that is? Check it out here http://www.geocaching.com/ One day we ended up in graveyard, graveyards here are like museums, full of art, full of history and beauty.

Petra lived for 99 years.

I see this bus all the time parked in front of an orphanage on Zaragoza, it was donated by the Rotary club in Grande Prairie a few years ago. If I remember right they also donated a fire truck and an ambulance. I saw a school bus today from the Lethbridge Rotary Club at the La Vina Church. Way to go Rotary Clubs!

Now on to the singing/whistling cowboy that lives 2 doors down.

This is Cowboys everyday riding horse, here he is giving his grandchildren a ride. He rides with them almost everyday.

This is the horse that he is training, when he rides him he ties a handkerchief (remember those) over his face

He is completely blindfolded and must trust cowboy completely to guide him.....it's been an interesting process watching the bonding between them.

This is the horse he is teaching a lesson, from my understanding (he took his time explaining this to me) this horse likes to put his head down and his bum up, I didn't understand that all because even with the tree around his neck it looks like he could still put his head down and his bum up. But I pretended that I understood him.....don't want to appear to be too stupid.

Moving on.....told you this would all be random. Do you remember Orange pop, the real orange pop, made with real sugar instead of corn fructose, in a real glass bottle? They still have it here, and the Coke is made of real sugar too.

The real deal

Now just some random shots

an artsy one

Misfortune

Done for the day

Why it's called Stone Island

Workin hard on the deep blue sea

Hope

How could you ever have a bad day if you start it off like this, gratitude flows so easily at sunrise

Pozole.....the reason for the pig

2012-01-06T08:08:00.000-08:00

I don't eat a lot of pork, I stopped buying pork that was raised for commercial resale (most pork in all grocery stores) after I read Dr.Rex Russel's book "What the Bible says about healthy eating" and Kevin Trudeau's book "Natural Cures", both these books changed my eating habits a lot. I do not follow all the recommendations in both these books because I am just not that disciplined. Removing pork from my diet was easy because I never ate much of it to begin with......until I met Mexican Pozole. I can no longer ignore pork. I would like to believe that the pork raised in Mexico is not full of toxins like our pork at home, I"m imaging the pigs are in a large pasture and are lazily grazing and resting in freshly turned straw every night after being fed a late evening snack of organic matter like watermelon rinds, orange peel, apple cores and some oats. That's my fantasy, let me have it please. I believe the sole purpose of the pig is pozole and he is honored to sacrifice his body to it. Every Wednesday is pozole day here on the Island. There is a lady (can't remember her name) that cooks up a big pot full over the fire. She is located across the street from the carniceria. Her pot is ready at about noon-ish. Bring your own container, if you forget the first time like I did they will scramble around and find you a container, when you bring your own make sure it has a handle to carry it because this stuff is coming right out of a hot hot pot and you need to be able to carry it. It always comes with a baggie of hot salsa....oh that stuff is soo good, seriously this salsa makes the pozole do not skip this, she also gives you a little baggie of shredded lettuce. Then stop at the tortilleria and pick up fresh tortillas and at the super for a container of sour cream...do not skip the sour cream either. When you get home cut up an avocado put it in your bowl with some salsa and some lettuce, a dollop (or 3) of sour cream, pour in some soup and enjoy. I love this stuff. I love it, so please do not send me emails telling me all the reasons why my piggy fantasy is wrong, untruthful, and that I am delusional and hypercritical....I know it's wrong which is why I call it a fantasy. Every Wednesday I am choosing to be delusional and hypercritical. Try it...you might like it too.

All this for 40 pesos, this is 1 litre of pozole, you can easily feed 4 people with this

Venados Mazatlan

2012-01-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

Just before Christmas I took in baseball game here in Mazatlan, every year since 2000 I have gone to at least one game a season and every time the Deers have won, I have never been to a losing home game. This year the Deers had a very bad season, I believe they finished the season in last place, but....they won the day I was at the game 7-4 and it was a great game. I am not a baseball fan but I love the excitement that seems to flow like electricity in the stadium, it creates a sense of camaraderie...of belonging, and patriotism.....and a few other reasons....one being the sausage

opps...all gone, sorry guys, this is of course after I ate the sausage but before I licked the toothpicks

Now to try and boost my ratings a bit here.....my favorite shot of the night

What can I say......it was all good that night

I must confess though, I didn't take this shot, I did.....but I wasn't close enough and my zoom isn't strong enough but a friend was braver than me and walked right up to this fine gentleman and was patient and waited for him to get up from his seat on the bench. Thank-you #12 Jose Garcia

Wonky Pictures

2012-01-05T08:29:00.000-08:00

I have some catching up to do, sorry for being away so long. I have had some difficulties with uploading pictures and I know how boring it is to read pages of text with no pictures so I just gave up an procrastinated dealing with the issue. This is what some of my pictures look like when I upload them, they look fine in my camera, they are fine on my computer and I have had no problems loading them onto Facebook, so I am convinced it is Bloggers problem. I have sent them a message and as of yet no response. Sometimes if I upload the same picture many times I will eventually get one that is not all weird, and sometimes not.

This is my excuse for being so far behind, that and life has been a bit busy...isn't it always? I did go back up north for 11 days for Christmas and a wedding, it was nice to see family and friends again but traveling so far in a short period of time is always tiring and I always feel so displaced and unorganized, especially since I couldn't stay in my own home as it is rented out....but all in all a great trip and glad to be back in the land of sun, sand and surf.....and tacos.

Happy New Years

2012-01-04T19:41:00.000-08:00

New Years came and went fairly uneventful here on the Island. A few small fireworks and a few loud fiestas, what happened at midnight I don't really know as I was in bed way before that. I did attend a potluck New Years Eve supper at the trailer pNark at Contessa and Colin's rig http://www.contessajewall.com/ and even managed to deep fry up a batch of German New Years Cookies, which really aren't cookies, they are more like fritters but we have always called them cookies. I rarely make these because I don't like deep frying at home and usually my mother makes them on New Years Day, but since my house here is so open and the smell doesn't linger too long I have actually done a little more deep frying here. I am having problems uploading pictures so I copied this page from http://www.mennonitegirlscancook.ca/ plus they are much better at photographing food than I am, and it is a great site for recipes and pretty food pictures.

I made a second batch on New Years day and invited a Mexican friend and her family but the rest of the family couldn't make it so it was just her and I. She shares her recipes with me all the time and it was nice to have something to share with her. We ate, laughed and chatted and I even taught her to play "Dutch Blitz" , A card game that you will find in almost any German house hold. At one point I left to get something from the kitchen and I come back to find my table moved...humm, apparently your table needs to be square with the world. She had positioned my table so that the corners are pointed North, South, East and West, apparently this is important, have no idea why.

Are you square with the world for the New Year?

This is a recipe repost from several years ago but I think it is worth a reminder today that tomorrow is the day to heat up a pot of oil, make a batch of raisin fritter batter and call your friends and family over to celebrate a new beginning to the new year.
Every year we open up our shop to our extended family. I use a campstove to heat the oil and ask everyone else to bring something savoury to share for a late afternoon meal after the little ones have napped.

Here is Anneliese's recipe. Pick one and begin a wonderful tradition in your home.

2 tablespoons yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup sugar
5 beaten eggs
1/4 cup melted cooled butter
2 1/2 cups warm milk
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
4-6 cups raisins (or you can eliminate the raisins all together as some prefer them plain)
7 cups flour
additional sugar for dipping or rolling while still warm

Sprinkle the yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar over the warm water in a large bowl.
Let the yeast mixture sit until it becomes foamy.
Add the sugar, beaten eggs, melted cooled butter, warm milk and salt and stir together really well.
Add the raisins and 4 cups of flour and beat hard with a wooden spoon.
Stir in the remainder of the flour and cover with a lid or plastic wrap and allow to double for about an hour.
Heat the oil to 375 and using two tablespoons drop spoons of batter into the oil. When cooked on one side, they will naturally turn over. Test the first few with a toothpick to be sure they are cooked in the center. If they are not quite cooked in the middle, try making them slightly smaller. Do not overcrowd your pot. (see photo)
Once evenly browned, remove them using a slotted spoon to paper towel.
You can roll them immediately in sugar or allow everyone to have their own technique for dipping into sugar while eating them. If you want to freeze the leftovers, roll them in sugar first.

This has been a wonderful year for the Mennonite Girls Can Cook. We are overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunity this blog has allowed us. Without all of you who support us we wouldn't have a reason to post our recipes here or have a book that we can use to fund raise for feeding hungry children. We are so blessed by your friendship and we pray that we will continue to be a blessing to you through sharing what God has given us in our faith and heritage.

From all of us at MGCC . ..may you have blessed new year!

Casa de Renta

2012-01-04T17:53:00.000-08:00

I am doing a little commercial for a friend. My friend Yazmine Ibarra Moreno along with her husband and some other family members have spent the last few years building this rental complex/duplex, It is finished except for some future plans of some landscaping and some other upgrades that will come in time. Now it needs to earn it's keep and is ready for rentals. There are two units in here, the one on the left is a cute little studio and on the right a very spacious 2 bedroom unit. Let me give you a tour.

Your big front yard, fully fenced with a nice palapa that is just waiting for a hammock

Entering the studio, your front room with the kitchen to the left and bathroom on the top left corner

Cute little kitchen with fridge, stove with a little oven, and microwave, neat tidy and functional

Your typical bathroom, toilet, shower with hot water and sink

Now lets move on to the two bedroom unit

Mid size oven with stove, microwave and mid size fridge, spacious dining area and cozy sectional furniture in the living room

One bedroom has two twin beds and matching night tables

Nice closet to keep things organized (both bedroom had a closet like this)

On the left is a TV with a cabinet

This is a big bathroom, sink, toilet and shower

Master bedroom had a double bed and again matching night tables....ignore the funny color on the bottom, I am having problems uploading my photos

There is a washing machine on the front patio as well. All furniture in both units are new as is all bedding. This complex is one block in from the beach, so while you do not have a beach view you are across the street from the ocean (you can see it from the entrance) and you can hear the ocean from inside. I Love falling asleep to the sound of the ocean, I've given up the beach view this year but I can still hear it all day long. This is a great way to live in the middle of a Mexican neighborhood and experience very day Island life and still have all your luxury amenities that you are accustomed too, like hot showers, running water and a washing machine ect..
To get more information and for prices you can call Yazmine at 9-81-90-15 ...or 9-81-93-15 or 66-91-41-59-90...

She also has a facebook page under Casa de renta Please don't ask me for prices, if you are serious give her a call, she does speak quite a bit of English, if you have a problem understanding each other I will assist in any way I can but I don't want to be in the middle of pricing negotiating.

Heading North

2011-12-18T19:54:00.000-08:00

I am sorry for not keeping this updated lately, I have had some difficulty with up loading pictures and videos (I finally learned how to use my video camera) but that is only 1/2 of my excuse, the other half is that I have just been too busy living life outside the house. I just can't seem to sit in the house long enough to get anything done.

Now I am heading north for 11 days, I am going to Canada for a friend's wedding and to spend Christmas with my family there. I will miss Christmas with my Mexican friends here, regardless of where I am at Christmas there will always be someone that I will be missing, that is just how it is when you live in two countries. I am not taking my laptop with me (this is our first trip apart ever) So I will see you in time for the New Year.
Since I can't post pictures I will leave you with this. The Canadian version;

And the Spanish version;

A Commitment

2011-12-06T09:43:00.000-08:00

I made a long term commitment the other day, it seems I have decided that this will be my winter home for a long time. More and more this place feels like home and as my Spanish improves little by little I get to know my neighbors and friends here a little better and understand their way of doing things better. The more I understand about this culture the more I feel like I belong here. When this little house was shown to me last week I didn't hesitate and have agreed to rent it year round...yes, year round. I will no longer have to pack up all my stuff at the end of the season, well....I will have to pack it but just not move it. When you leave a house unattended here you come back to mouse and gecko turds and mold if don't pack it up properly. My little house has a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and a big living room and most importantly a little yard which is like a blank canvas right now. I am already planning how I will landscape the yard and what I will plant. There are already 2 banana tress that have little bananas on them. I am excited for the yard and also very excited to finally be able to buy some glass dishes, I have plastic dishes because of all the packing and moving each year, and I'll finally buy a glass wine glass....priorities are in order here. All this fun has to wait until February when the people that I am house sitting for are back. In the meantime I make plans, gardening plans, then I change my plans, then I make new plans, then I see a garden and I change my plans a again...you get the idea. Here is a little peek at my new casa, I have to think of a name for it.

The first thing that will happen is the big tree in front will get a major pruning, I did not come to Mexico to sit in the shade

Blukicks.....shoes

2011-11-30T19:41:00.000-08:00

In the last post I briefly mentioned falling in love with a friend's shoes. You can read up on the shoes here, http://www.blukicks.com/ If you should decide to order some, if you could please put in the promotions comments "referred by Yasmine Moreno". Yasmine used to work for Victoria in the US and will be compensated for every referral.....just trying to help her out here, and I really love these shoes. They are more expensive that what I usually pay for shoes, but I have come to learn that I must treat my feet better if I want them to keep taking me places and these shoes are really comfortable and are a nice sturdy shoe. These are not flimsy shoes that you will throw out after a few days on the beach. You could even run in them...I think. My picture is crappy but I really wanted to show you the insole which they do not show you on the web site but is what made me fall in love with these shoes.

First....this is the weird thing that is happening to all my pictures when I try to post them here, there is a distortion on the bottom, they don't look like this in my files. Anyway....check out the removable insole of these shoes with the little cushions on them, I really really love these shoes.

Where the fat fart is

2011-11-30T19:19:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the events that have happened since I last posted, but not necessarily in this order;

There was a meeting (reunion) of 4 friends on a balcony facing the ocean at sunup. I arrived with my own coffee because I am now a cream snob. The conversation is tangled in Spanish and English. When we end up not understanding each other we just change the subject and start over again. There was a lot of laughing and good food. I learn a new recipe and a few new words. When I get home I find the iron but can't remember what I needed to iron anymore. I eventually find the silverware as well, in a hidden drawer of the serving table. I feel settled.
Throughout the day I keep an eye on the old gentleman next door, it looks like he is breaking in a very skittish horse. He is gentle, slow and so patient, his touch and his voice seem soft. When he finally mounts the horse he has a handkerchief tied around the horse's head, the horse is completely blind, totally trusting the cowboy. It's beautiful and I am reminded of another "Cowboy" who was near and dear to me, he would have loved it here.
A week ago I gave someone some cash for some coconuts, today 2 guys in a red truck pulled up and unloaded 18 coconuts, I tried to pay them, they said they had already been paid. This is how things are done here, I like it.
One evening a lady showed up at my gate, "Are you Maria?" Yes I am. She says "Danny says you like tamales, would you like to buy some". I buy 4 beef tamales from her. They were so very good. This is how we do things here.
I've tried to do some beading, but forgot to bring a needle threader, a beading needle is so hard to thread without one, I gave up. I go to my friends house to see if she has one or at least can tell me what it is called in my new tongue. She doesn't know what I am talking about, she gives me her sewing basket full of notions to search for it, she doesn't have one. I think her sewing basket is a 100 years old though. Oh well, I can't sit still long enough to do any beading yet anyway. I should be studying Spanish.
This is what I learned today;
Hacer el pedo gordo to make a fat fart - to make a stink, a commotion,
example: aqui esta el pedo gordo - here is where the fat fart is meaning this is where the commotion is or where the shit is happening.
Now this is Spanish I can use, there is always a commotion (a fat fart) of some kind happening here.
Today when I walked the beach in the morning I was so deep in thought I didn't hear a heard of horses behind me until they were almost on top of me, 30 plus horses ran past me spraying me with the ocean. Herding them was a young cowboy in surfing shorts, sandals and a hoodie, no shiny cowboy boots, belt buckles or hats, these are not rodeo showoffs, cowboy is a way of life here. 6 horses decide to make a break for it and head towards the plantation, cowboy is on them real quick, not his first day in the saddle. He managed to merge them all around a 90 degree corner and up a very narrow road past the RV park, they kicked up a sand storm but they all made it.
The surf must be ideal today, the boys are out, some in wet suits... that's serious surfing. They entertain me for a while and then some start heading in...to school I hope, but they noticed the gringo volleyball game in front of the RV park, they get a welcome wave, drop their towels and boards and join the gringos. The gringo all move to one side, they will play against the surfers. It's old retired beer bellied gringos against young surfers, not much of a contest. After only 2 serves I can see the gringos will get their soft butts kicked, but I am sure they knew that.
I get home and see a mouse in my garbage, I don't think fast enough and he gets away.
I try to do my homework from my bible study class but my Spanish brain is not working, I go to a friends house for help. I fall in love with her shoes, we discuss shoes, tamales, ironing and new bed sheets, I forget all about my homework, oh well, tomorrow is another day.
When I get home my neighbor is feeding his puppies for the first time, it's hilarious. They keep falling into the bowl, their faces are covered in food. He is standing by to teach them some table manners but they are not ready for that.

My evening is delightful, a starry sky, twinkling Christmas lights around my palapa, Mexican music coming from 2 houses down, the neighing of a horse, the ticking sound of the palms in the breeze, me in my hammock with my Spanish verb book on my lap, a cup of tea and a pastry from the dessert truck. Soon as the music stops (it always does) cowboy starts whistling as he is touching his horse, when the horse lifts his legs up to kick he backs up, keeps whistling, and pets the horse again. Soon the horse stands at ease as cowboy strokes his flanks, he is singing now, softly. Roosters start talking to each other, Cowboy leaves his horse tied to the big tree. I think I hear crickets.
I tried to post some pictures but for some reason that just didn't work today...that's how it is here sometimes

A quick geocach and some other stuff

2011-11-20T19:06:00.000-08:00

I decide it's time to attend church on the mainland to see some people I haven't seen since last winter. Shoes are a problem this morning, Flip flops have worn a hole between 2 toes (this will heal soon) I take the beach route to the dock so I can soak my toes in the salt water. All of a sudden I smell coffee, real coffee, not instant, who has real coffee at this hour?, restaurants are all closed, I look for movement somewhere, nothing. I almost whimper out loud at the thought of real coffee. At the dock I put my flops back on, I hate shoes. I am lucky there is a boat waiting at this end, Captain is eating breakfast, he jumps up to help me (was I looking lame?) I tell him I'm in no hurry (I always factor in some grace time when heading in), he says no we'll go now, I am the only passenger, he spills his coffee. It's warm out, I enjoy the ride, different than last year. The docks are busy in the morning, fishing boats coming in to unload. Because I am lame I wait for a bus, I am the only passenger again (not for long). I check my hair, oh my gosh, 4 barrettes and a hair clip can't contain the frizz, must get hair cut soon. It's hot, always feels hotter on the mainland, must be the concrete. I notice the bus takes a different route, must mean the malecon is closed, must be a parade, maybe a holiday, or maybe both. Soon I see dancers and little Mexican revolutionaries everywhere, military, police, firefighters....it's a parade. We take a detour, this is why I always factor in some grace time, you never know. My stomach is growling at me, will not have time to have breakfast now, I pick up a croissant at Panamas, I imagine how much butter is in there, I like butter, I wish I had time to pick up a coffee, croissant with coffee, oh how good that would be. I don't have time. I get to church, friendly faces everywhere, but so many people, so many. I think I have lipstick on my neck.They serve coffee but have no cream, I suffer quietly, not really, I'm being dramatic. I end up with too many lunch invites, wonderful friendly people here. I am so blessed. I have 45 minutes to burn before Spanish service starts, I splurge and pay 36 pesos for a Vanilla Cappuccino, give me a break, I heard about a guy that paid 100 pesos for a lime squeeze the other day.(just saying is all) I stop at a drug store and splurge again and pay 46 pesos for a bar of soap, it was a forgotten item on my list the other day, this hood is way outa my budget, but it said "aroma de seduccion pasion espanola" on the box, you don't need Spanish to know that this soap should get me some.....good smellin cleanliness, it better, for 46 pesos. I also buy some Vanilla, will make my own Cappuccinos from now on. I wish I had my croissant now, I feel I wasted it. More familiar friendly faces at Spanish Service, the worship takes me deeper, I don't want to stop, neither do they, it takes longer. I don't stay for the message, I have friends waiting. We go on a geo cache hunt. What's that? Check it out http://www.geocaching.com/. This is new for me, we actually find it, is's been tampered with, or the wind got it. We walk down the malecon, craziness everywhere, there is an airshow going on, a free show and the reminisce of a parade. I smell sweat and sunscreen and think of my hoochy soap, I am so thirsty, coffee is so dehydrating, I should stop drinking it. I feel bad for all the babies and little children that had no choice but to come out today, when babies are crying they are not having fun anymore, take them home. I am so thirsty. My toes don't hurt anymore. We find a nice place to eat, I have fish, Dorado, and a cold Pepsi, in a plastic bottle....they had nothing in glass, except beer, wasn't that desperate yet. Food was great, service was great, the company was awesome. I take a bus to the docks. I walk home bare foot on the beach, once home I throw my flops in a corner, have a glass of orange juice, check my messages...no messages, Head back to the beach for my sunset walk, I walk past my old house, the tanaka is overflowing with water, I laugh, remember me writing about my water issues last year? I holler "your tanaka is overflowing" he already noticed and is coming to turn it off, he laughs, says "it;s not the first time or will it be the last", it's running water all right, it runs and you run after it. I walk the beach and feel like I am the luckiest person alive, but I know it's not luck, Jesus loves me and He has blessed me. I feel like jumping in the ocean again, all these years here and I have never once jumped in. As I walk past my old house againvon my way home I see the second tanaka is overflowing, dude comes to shut it off, he laughs, he says "I am getting it figured out, I have it on a timer now, I just need to remember the time" yup, I had the same system, you remember the time when you hear that water is hitting the ground somewhere, I miss that quirky place. I wonder if he still has to pour a bucket of water into the toilet to flush it, maybe he fixed it, men do that...fix stuff. I forget to get my feet out of the tide for bit before coming off the beach, now they are wet, all the horse poop on my street sticks to them, oh well, I have a soap for that now. Soon after I get home the lights start flickering, I find some candles, just in case we loose electricity. I hear the wind chimes chime, I run out real quick, there is a slight breeze, I want to dance in it, then I remember white girls can't dance....or was that jump? I put water in my kettle in anticipation of my cappuccino tomorrow morning, I try to remember if I am supposed to be anywhere tomorrow, I don't think so. The dessert truck doesn't come today.

Bliss 2011

I'm in the water

My favorite spot to watch the sun setting

The boat is literally sailing into the sunset

Sunday morning

2011-11-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

I get ready for church, I find one wrinkle free outfit, I have new black flip flops with some rhinestones on them, my toes nails are polished, my hair looks good too, soft and shiny, it must like the water. I realize that my bible is in storage, I will go without, moments later I walk past a mirror, my hair is all frizzy, I put on a hairband, Maybe I'll cut it short again. I dodge the horse poo on the road trying to get to church with clean toes, it doesn't happen, I arrive with dusty toes, shoes and sweating, it's so hot already. Everyone is sombre, a member of the congregation died last night, I don't get all the details, there is a new pastor giving the message, someone passes me a bible, I manage to follow along.*
After church I go to leave, I am summoned back, we follow 2 funeral home vans, I am assuming we are going to the deceased home to pay our respects to the family, my black pants feel like they are on fire. I'm not sure what is expected of me, I follow my friends. We arrive at the home, some members of the congregation stand back and don't go into the house, I join them. I say a silent prayer for the family, my headband hurts my head. I see Nina, we embrace, she cries, I say " I'm sorry" my heart breaks for her, I don't know how she is related to the deceased. I wait until I see others leave and hope it's appropriate to leave, I don't know whats expected, I hope they will have some grace for me if I am not doing the right thing. My pants are still on fire, a tractor and trailer of tourist pass me, they are laughing.....at my frizzy hair I'm sure. I'll never be a lady. There is a dead cockroach lying on his back on my kitchen floor when I get back. I open the fridge to get some yogurt and the side shelve inside the door falls off and my flaxseed oil hits the floor and spills all over, nice. I'm hungry but not for yogurt, maybe I'll go buy a chicken. As I get ready to head out I hear the produce truck, I run out, he is new, I don't know him. His papaya is rotten and so is the cantaloupe, I buy some tomatoes, his last avocado, 2 bananas and some limes, I'll buy some tostadas and make guacamole for lunch tomorrow. I see my thermometer that is hanging in the shade under my palapa shows 26C. I head off to the chicken place still wearing my hot black pants. Same people at the chicken place, I order 1/2 a BBQ chicken and sit down to wait. I chat with 2 ladies from church, we watch the chickens run around under the tables and the grill, one lady asks me which one I want, we laugh. A man walks up and waits at the second counter, no ones acknowledges him, he awaits. A boy on a motor bike pulls up with 2 plastic shopping bags full of raw beef, he has a harpoon pierced through his ear lobe, a lady takes the meat from him, she walks away and he waits to get paid. Man at the other counter says to no one in particular "do you have any ceviche?" no one answers him, he waits, no sign of impatience or annoyance on his face. Harpoon boys waits. My friends food is ready, they leave. "do you have any ceviche?" again, girl at the grill looks under the counter and says "no" she hesitates a bit and yells towards the house "grandma, someone wants ceviche". Grandma is sitting on a chair, says "ok" but doesn't get up. Man leans against counter and is watching traffic go by. A little girl knocks all the plastic cups off the counter onto the ground, her mother gathers them up from under the table and shoos a curious chicken away. Harpoon boy goes next door and buys himself an ice cream, no one is in a hurry, no one is annoyed. Grandma gets up and goes into the house and comes back with a container of ceviche and serves the man at the table, he looks happy, she gives harpoon boy his money, he drives away with one hand, ice cream dripping from the other. My chicken is ready, I ask for a glass of horchata as well, she pours it into a plastic cup, they have no lids, I ask or a fork and knife, they don't have any, will a spoon do. "yes" I now have a precious spoon. I manage to not spill my horchata on the way home. At the next corner I notice a business transaction, a boy hands over money to 2 other boys carrying pails, one boy hands over a pail...of fresh fish. I like it here. A few men are setting up band equipment at the cantina, I remember it's Sunday, the only day for live music, they stop playing at 10 pm, I like it here, you can party it up and still be home in bed at 10 pm. Back at my house 23 horse are trying to get shade out of one tree, there is a lot of poop, my pants are stuck to me like glue, I may as well keep them on as I don't think I can get them off, my thermometer says it's 28C now, it;s 1:30pm, my wind chimes have not made any noise yet at all. I start looking for a hammock, I find a sewing machine. A cowboy rides up with 10 saddled wet and sweaty horses, a lady takes them into her yard and unsaddles them and sends them back out, they immediately roll around in the sand/dust and huddle under the tree. Soon I find an ironing board, no iron yet.

* The message today as I understood it; It was about the importance of reading the bible. The word of God is essential to your walk with God. If you are not applying the word of God to your life you are not walking with God. If you are not continually reading the bible you don't have the word of God written on your heart, you are walking lost in the dark, no sun, just darkness. Think of the word of God as the sunrise, it comes everyday, there has to be a sunrise in order for there to be light, but yet the sunrise is not spectacular every day, It doesn't wow you everyday, but every once in awhile it is spectacular and it can stop you in your tracks and take your breathe away and cause you to look up in awe. That is like the word of God if you read it everyday, some days you will feel like you don't get anything out of it but if you keep reading God will choose the time and the right words and you will be moved, to do something, to change something, or to learn something, a light will go on and It will be spectacular and it will be just for you.....just like the sunrise.
This is what I got out of the message this morning, not saying this is what he said.

I have arrived on Stone Island again

2011-11-13T19:34:00.000-08:00

I have arrived on Stone Island. My friend Danny picked me up at the airport, with his sister Nina’s truck because his isn’t working. He had to take the starter out yesterday and drop it off somewhere in Mazatlan. He asked if I minded if he did some errands in Maz before we headed to the Island.....no problema, I am so excited to be here, and I am on vacation and there is no rush. As we are driving in he asks “are you hungry?”Well, let me thinkyes! We stop at one of my favourite places on the street off of the malecon by the fisherman’s monument. It’s called “negro...something” There was a short debate between us about what my first meal should be, should it be Chilli Rellenos or Tacos? That was a tough one, in the end we ended up having Chilli Rellenos and a Toni-Col in a glass bottle. It was awesome. I was trying to taste, smell and hear all at the same time...without choking of course, the traffic, the music, the ocean, the Carne asada, the humidity.....oh the humidity, did I mention it was 30C? He tells me about all the drama that has happened in his life since spring, some good, some sad, some bad. We have a good visit.

After some running around we head to the docks, Danny does a near impossible parking manoeuvre, I’m astounded, he laughs and says “everything is possible in Mexico”, yes because only a Mexican would even dare to try.

The captain of the boat taking us across shakes my hand and welcomes me home with a big grin....oh no, that was me that had the big grin, I was the one sitting at the bow of the boat with a goofy grin on her face, sticking my head out the side like a dog does on the back of a truck, it was sooo hot and the breeze felt so good.

We arrive on the other side, the big welcoming sign has been repainted a bright purple, nice. Danny gets on his quad to hunt down the key to my house I ride on the back of a taxi/truck to the house. The landlady and Danny arrive at the same time as I, she has the key, someone has cleaned the house from end to end, I am so happy.

I do a quick inventory and notice there is no toilet paper, I make a list and change into cooler clothes and head to the store. As I walk up my street I dodge horse poo, I smile, I’m home. I walk past my old house, I’m a bit sad. I notice the local cantina is empty, but it’s still early. Chabela has built a fishnet fence; it’s fast becoming green with vines, nice. Peanuts are roasting at the peanut place; I’ll pick some up on my way back. I see we have a new little Super Corner store sponsored by Tecate, our first liquor store in disguise....maybe. I reach the store and I smell the fish market, a fresh fish fry would be so good, but not today. I’m not even sure if all my utilities work. I realize I forgot my list, I “wing it”. At the till....no at the counter, (there is no till, people here know how to count and make change) I notice my paper bills in my pocket are a waded up soggy mess already...oh the humidity, it’s hot. I think of how much the kid at the counter has grown since I first started living here, I try to remember when that was, I think 2007, he’s a young man now. I end up with 2 bags of groceries, I’m annoyed, I hate carrying stuff, heavy stuff, I can walk forever but hate carrying stuff. I envy women with husbands; they have someone to carry their stuff. I should have bulging biceps by now. I hate carrying stuff. I pass the peanut place and decide I have too much stuff. I pass Danny hard at work in his mechanic shop, he hoots, I hoot back, if you hoot you don’t have to stop and chat. Soon after I get home I find lots of mouse turds, should have bought some mouse traps. I have water in the house but not hot, no surprise. I don’t have internet, I’m told on Monday I will be connected. I have electricity but it seems the stove is gas; I have no idea how to turn that on. I’m drinking water as fast as I can, it’s hot, my hair is damp and flat and my clothes are sticky, I am happy. I notice that in the plantation across from has been ploughed; they are getting ready to build a resort, that makes me sad. I keep looking at the time, I don’t want to miss sunset on the beach, I am not sure when the sun sets these days, I have no internet to look that up. At 4:00 I head for the beach, about a 30 second walk, I walk past my old house I am sad again. As I step onto the beach I could have cried for joy, its home, it truly is. If one can have 2 homes I have it. I can almost feel my shoulders start relaxing, maybe it’s my imagination. I see my friend Contessa from www.contessajewall.com sitting in front of her RV reading, I stop and we share a quick whats new and whats not on the Island, so good to see friends coming back. Some of us don’t see or talk to each other during the summer months. Geeks like Contessa and I keep in touch through our blogs....sorry Contessa, at least we’re not nerds. I carry on, I must greet the ocean, the beach is long, it’s beautiful, I want to just jump in, I really do, I want it all over me, I want to soak it all in, but I would drown, I can’t swim. I take my shoes off, the water is warm, I walk, I breath, I meditate on how blessed I am to be here. A man with about 6 horses passes me, he grins and waves, he knows me, I watched him go to and from work every day last year, and the year after that. I walk for about 30 minutes and turn around to go back. I pass some surfer boys; they are here almost every evening too. I come off the beach before the sun has set, oh well, tomorrow. I wish I had bought some coconuts, I am so thirsty. I’ve had a headache since I got off the plane, I drink more water. There is everything in this house you could ever need except I can’t find the silverware. I’m not ready to cook yet but I would like a spoon to eat my yogurt in the morning. There is a blender maybe I’ll make a yogurt shake. I wonder what time the produce guy comes by in the morning. The dessert truck comes and I’m excited, I buy a pastry even though I missed sunset. Last year I had tea and a pastry every night at sunset hence the 20 extra pounds in the spring. I make another grocery list and head to Miguels tienda and restaurant, its pitch black outside (or stick dark in German) my street has no lights, it doesn’t bother me, I am home. I pass the cantina again; there are 2 people in it, no Saturday night bar brawls here. I order 4 taco even though I know I should only have 2, I’m not too smart when it comes to food. As I sit and watch the lady squeeze my oranges for my litre of orange juice I realize I forgot my list again. I remember I wanted tea, she doesn’t have any. Tacos come with 3 baggies of sauce, one is salsa, one caldo one is guacamole , in my haste I mix the salsa and caldo up and pour the whole baggies of salsa on my tacos, it’s soo good, I have guac and salsa running down my elbows, it’s hot, very hot.....member not too smart with food. I eat them all. I spend the rest of the evening trying to suck the flavour out of tongue, it’s so good. I save my orange juice for breakfast, don’t want to change the taste on my tongue. My head still hurts. I spend the evening sitting outside writing this story on paper with a pencil and listening to the sounds of my neighbourhood. I am content. It’s still hot. I remember I have a thermometer in my suitcase, I hang it up, it’s 25C at 7:30 pm, it feels hotter because of the humidity. I am happy. There are many many extension cords and power bars in this house, I try to figure out what powers what, I mange to turn on some lights. At some point I realize I am filthy dirty, my feet are black, this place seems to do that to you, I have a cold shower. At 8:00 I go to bed, I saw all the chickens and rooster outside on the street on front of my house and I know the first night will be rough; I should get an early start. My head still hurts.

I sleep soundly until midnight and then I get up and turn some lights off, I sleep until 2 and then the roosters are up, from 2 to 6 it’s a restless dance with me and the sheets, I loose track of time and get out of bed at 7 and start the coffee maker, it’s daylight out, I missed sunrise, I’m annoyed. I can’t remember when the last time was that I missed a sunrise, so annoyed. The water truck comes by, I don’t need any water. I hear a commotion outside, a cowboy has just herded 23 (I counted) horses in from the plantation and parks them in front of my house. I wander around the house with my coffee in hand and find a hot water tank but have no idea how to make it make hot water. I have a cold shower again. I discover all my clothes are wrinkled and I can’t find an iron. I put on a pair of black capris which I know I will regret but they are not wrinkled. My headache is gone, my street is very quiet, the roosters are asleep. I wonder if I were to hide the silverware where would I hide it. I eat my yogurt with a measuring spoon.

Sorry no photos today.

Too be continued;

Surrender by Marc James in Kona, Hawaii

2011-11-10T12:41:00.000-08:00

One of the last things I do before I go to the airport is surrender my keys, I put all my keys to everything away. Keys to my house, my car, my work, my mailbox etc... It's a hard thing for me. My keys are a part of me, they go with me everywhere, I don't leave the house without them and I can't get back into my house without them. I can't start work in the morning without them and I can't leave work without them. They are in my possession every minute of the day.....until I leave the country, then I no longer need them. Which makes me feel a little helpless, like I have lost some control. Thank goodness I know that the less control I have the better off I am, because it is not until I give up control that God can take over, and when God takes over I am always ok. Lots of time I wonder where God is in some situations and why he is not taking over but it is not that he is not there....I haven't given up control,He must just sit and watch and shake his head I am sure. Normally it is easy to surrender when things have totally spun out of control and we know we can do no more, then it is easy to cry out to God and surrender but we must learn to surrender ourselves to God completely every day....yup, everyday. This is difficult....when we still have the keys in our hand but a little easier when you are not holding the keys.
Today I surrendered my keys.

I will leave you with this today, see you all in Mexico

The last days of life in the North

2011-11-10T11:59:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry for not posting anything for such a long time but I have been a bit preoccupied with preparations for heading south for the winter.....way south. You would think that since this is not my first time preparing for migration I should have this all figured out and down to a routine. Not this year I don't, but I will next year. I am of course hoping you all don't remember my plan last year to make a migration manual to make this all easier, the manual didn't get made. I just made a whole lot of "mental notes" which we all know are not notes at all, just fleeting thoughts. So once again I had to do it the "old way" which is making a to do list and then losing it a week later, making a new list and losing it a week later (because I make these lists on scraps of paper) and finally deciding to go without a list, this program is called "winging it", I don't think it needs an explanation.So for about a week my bedroom floor looked like this:

And my desk at home looks like this;

I usually come back to Canada in mid March to April sometime which is just in time for tax time so it is best I get organized for that before I leave because when I come home there is so much going on that my head is usually spinning for awhile.....not to mention taco withdrawal as well. It's a bad time to be looking for a lost receipt.
My office at work needs to be organized as well, don't like to walk into a mess in the spring.

Then during all this came Halloween, not that I am a big Halloween fan but that is usually when I harvest my pumpkins. This year I came across a wonderful recipe, I can't find it now so I can't give credit but the credit does not go to me.

Take 2 smallish pumpkins and scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff, just like you do for carving and drizzle some olive oil in it and put about 3 cloves of garlic in it and put them on a baking sheet and bake until a knife pierces it easily. Let it cool off and scoop the flesh out and put in a blender with some oregano, also the garlic you put in, some salt and pepper and puree it and put back into one pumpkin, this is an amazing dip for garlic bread or crackers.....and so festive looking. I loved it and will look forward to it again next year. Will be growing little pie pumpkins just for this.

Then I had a wonderful surprise, I went to visit my grandma just before I left and she gave me my Christmas present early since I will not be here at Christmas. A hand made quilt, that she made....by hand. Last Christmas she made one for each of her children (11 of them) this year she is giving her grandchildren quilts for Christmas, they won't all get one this year because there are way too many of us but I am the oldest grand child so I was among one of the first to get one. I will treasure this forever. I will leave it in Canada. A little bit of excitement for me when I return.

The Halloween spooks

Then just as I thought I had all my ducks in a row I was given another gift...sort of a gift. One of my cousins dropped this off at my house.....a moose hide. It is hunting season and I have many hunters in my family ( I am risking some criticism and controversy here). I like to make moccasins and I needed some hide, hunters shoot moose up here in the north every season and the hides normally gets left in the bush which I think is such a waste.The meat gets eaten, we are not sport hunters, everything shot gets eaten, each moose usually gets divided and shared with a few families. I grew up eating moose meat and I still eat it. It's part of our life up here and that is all I am going to say about that, I don't think I need to defend this any further here. If anyone has questions or comments about this feel free to post them but I will most likely respond to you by email stead of starting a debate thread here. While I welcome all opinions anything mean will be deleted.
I wanted this hide hand tanned and smoked the old fashion native way and by the time I found someone to do that for me it was getting too cold outside and now I have to wait until spring. So I just spread it out on our lunch table at work and let it dry for a few days and then put it in our pump shack at work where it will freeze nicely. This means that as soon as I return I must deal with this before it completely thaws. Which means I must come home before it completely thaws. Hope we don't have an early Spring (never thought I'd say that) Tanning the hide by hand instead of chemically makes it super super soft and smoking it makes it a little bit water proof.

You know you are a red neck when....there is a bloody moose on your lunch table and it doesn't bother you to sit there and eat your lunch.

Next year this time I will have some moccasins for sale. I have cut out some of the front flaps and packed some beads and plan on getting the beading done this winter in Mexico so that when I return I can just assemble them. They will look like these, I made these last fall. There was an unfortunate accident with them but they did survive (somewhat). The first pairs that I will be making will be little little baby ones because they are quick to make and should be an easy sell ( I need to make my money back from the cost of getting the hide tanned) For the baby ones I will not make them this slipper style as they fall off babies feet too easily, I will make them mukluk style or "wrap arounds" as they are sometimes called.

Soon I will sitting in front of a tequila sunrise on the horizon (or a tequila sunset) with plenty of time to bead away. Soon.

Mexican Hot Chocolate

2011-10-05T19:07:00.000-07:00

Those that know me know I am not a chocolate fan, at all. It's the sweetness I don't like, I also don't like gooey, slimy, soft substances. I can handle a few chocolate chips in an oatmeal cookie, or maybe even Napoleon ice cream, but no more. This is why I like Mexican hot chocolate, it is not too sweet and has cinnamon in it as well. I don't mix it like they suggest on the box with 2 triangles I only use 1 per cup giving it just a hint of chocolate. Frothing it in a blender is just pure Mexican genius as well. Once again I will mention the funnest thing of all is the box it comes in, regardless of brand it is always in a hexagon shaped box with the chocolate in a round disk with perforated triangles. I recently had a pantry mishap (not talking about it yet) which resulted in a very through cleaning and I discovered I had 4 boxes of chocolate and 6 bags of horchata and cebada .... yes 6. Someone needs to drink a lot of horchata here in this house, I wonder how it would taste hot? Anyone ever try?

Notice my santa cup. It was the cup that my child always left santa's milk in on Christmas Eve (seems like a million years ago). It is my favorite cup, and I always use it for coffee, tea or hot chocolate. It is the right size, the right roundness, and it fits nicely in my little saucers. Sometimes when I am too lazy to wash out my blender I use my little hand blender to froth up my milk.
I recently found another use for Mexican chocolate, chocolate banana bread. Check out the recipe on this site, I did make it and it was wonderful, of course I used whole wheat flour and brown sugar.....it was great!
http://www.confessionsofafoodie.me/2011/08/i-used-to-be-monkey-in-another-life.html

Will there still be room for me?

2011-09-29T19:40:00.000-07:00

Copied from the Mazatlan Messenger

Isla Amaitlán Resort on Stone Island Breaks Ground

Filed under Homeno comments

Artist's concept of la Isla Amaitlán, advertised in English as "Mazatlán's Garden City."

Employees at the 125 hectare tourist resort on Isla de la Pierda (Stone Island), a joint venture of Korian real estate company based in Durango and the 5,000 ejidatarios inhabiting the Island, began clearing land for the first phase of the project earlier this week.

Surrounded by coconut palm plantations, grading machines began clearing the first two hectares in preparation for the construction of a vacation show home, a botanical garden and an artificial laguna. Construction of the first of 66,000 tourist accommodation units is expected to begin in January, 2012 generating employment for over 1,000 workers.

When completed, the resort will offer visitors 13 kilometers of virgin beach and a natural marina of 9 kilometers.

Negotiations between the real estate investment company and ejidatarios began in May, 2008 and after obtaining environmental and land permits, the project is now ready to begin in earnest.

Master Plan creator, Brazilian architect and urban planner Jaime Lerner, envisions an environmentally sustainable resort which will include:

100% recycled garbage
mixed energy sources: solar, natural gas and conventional
100% recycled residual waters through suction drainage
underground cables
elevated construction to allow for absorption of rain water, avoidance of floods
70% green area
95% of construction no taller than surrounding palm trees (18 meters)

Total investment for the Isla Amaitlán resort is pegged at $120 million dollars, the initial phase of which will cost $2 million dollars.

(from Noroeste and files)

Oh my, it's actually happening. There was been talk about this project for a few years now along with many stories, many predictions, some of the locals looking forward to this and some not. I have always been hoping that it would not happen. I don't much like change, and I have a hard time adjusting to "new things" (still don't like my new coffee maker that I have had for a year) Makes me wonder if there will still be room for me here or will I have to move on? Could I leave all my wonderful friends that I have made over the years, they don't have the option to leave like I do, they have to stay and learn to live with this. Maybe if they build this slowly enough I might not notice and get used to it (like how my electric bill got slowly quadrupled over the last 10 years) If I did leave where would I go? The Sierra Madres have always interested me, could I head to the mountains and leave the ocean behind? Or could I find another Mexican Island somewhere? Island life is so quirky and unigue, and it suits me...I think. I guess I'll just head over there and see for myself.

It's all over.....but the packin

2011-09-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

I have an official migration date of November 12, that's the day that I fly out of Edmonton to Mazatlan where I will take a short boat ride to Stone Island, my second home. I have a box in my closet that I will be putting things into that I don't want to forget to take with me, and a "to do" list going of things I need to do before leaving. While my head is sometimes far way these days I must focus at the tasks at hand, like work and winterizing my yard. Putting away the garden is almost as much work as putting it in. I love putting away food for the winter, canning and perserving, and freezing but I don't do as much these days as I used to just because I am not here for 5 months and I must say I miss that. I do squirrel some away, I'll be back mid March or Beginning of April and it's not until June or July or even August until I will be eating fresh vegetables again so I like having some stuff stashed away for when I get back. I love coming home knowing my first trip does not have to be to the grocery store to stock up on food, I can just go shop in my freezer and storage. I have some beans, tomatoes, and beets in the freezer, I have some potatoes stored away as well. I also got busy this weekend and make some salsa, one can never have too much salsa. Her e is a little photo essay from the last 2 weeks.
There was a lot of Zucchini in my life and so I had to get creative;

I call these zucchini canoes, I sliced a fairly big zucchini lengthwise and cut a V out of the middle and sliced a bit off the bottom so that it laid flat making a little canoe. Then I put a slice of bacon in the hollow V and baked it until the bacon was cooked then I put a slice of cheese on it and some basil and a little dab of olive oil (the bacon did not provide enough fat like I thought it would) and some green onions, then I baked it a wee bit more just to melt the cheese....it was so good.

I invented Zucchini lasagna, a layer of noddles, a layer of last years homemade pizza sauce (the last jar) a layer of sliced zucchini and dry cottage cheese (mixed with an egg) and one more layer of noodles and sauce and then some cheese, it was so good I had to have a glass of wine with it. Next time I wouldn't be afraid to add more zucchini.

I also dealt with my tomato collection this week. I had some amazing tomatoes this year. I spend the little bit extra and bought some organic seeds and I must say it paid off. My organic tomatoes were amazing, they had a sweetness to them that I had never tasted before, like they were infused with sugar. They were big and knobby looking, just before they would turn red they turned pink, I had never seen that before. I made a big batch of salsa with some of them and also just froze some. I have really simplified my method of freezing tomatoes. I used to peel them and cook them and then can them in jars, then I discovered a few years ago that that is not necessary. Now I just cut them into a few big chunks and put them in a jar and jam my hand in there to mush them up a bit to squeeze the juice out and close the jar leaving about an inch of head space to prevent the jar from exploding from expansion. That has been my method for the last few years. This year my freezer is getting a bit full and since jars are so bulky I put them in ziplock plastic bags. The bags will also make getting the tomatoes out a bit easier when they are frozen, sometimes (ok, almost always) I forget to take my jar of tomatoes out of the freezer in the morning before going to work and then in the evening when I want to make supper my tomatoes are still frozen and near impossible to get out of the jar.....trust me, jamming a knife in there trying to break it up to shake it out will just result it you smashing the jar...yup. So I think my plastic baggie will be much more user friendly. Now, peeled tomatoes look a lot nicer in your chili, stew or soup but I don't mind bits of peel in my soup/stew/chili or whatever, plus garden grown tomatoes don't have a thick peel anyway, no more blanching and peeling for me. This method is a whole lot easier, especially when your tomatoes don't all ripen at the same time, you can freeze a baggie at a time as you have red ones.

Monster knobby tomatoes

Baggies for the freezer

Home made bread, with garden fresh pesto, cheese and tomatoes......my favorite summer sandwich. In order for my tomatoes to fit on my bread I had to cut the tomatoes vertically instead of horizontally, otherwise one slice as way too big to fit the bread.

Then one night there was rumors of frost so I quickly harvested what was left of my crop at the golf course.

The raised bed on the 11th tee box was just stunning all summer and kept us in squash and zucchini for most of August.

I collected a dashboard of tomatoes out of the bed above. The tomato plants were the runty ones that didn't weren't worth keeping in my greenhouse and instead of throwing them in the compost bin I planted them in the bed just to fill space, we'll see how many turn red.

The last of the zucchini from the 11th tee box

I also harvested my little wash pad garden, don't you just love my wagon, I always feel so farmer-ish when I use it. If I ever get me a farm I'm going to buy a golf cart and a wagon just like this.

This little homestead like space was home to our potatoes. In July sometime I suddenly decided to plant potatoes here instead of grass, it was late for planting but again I just wanted to fill the space so that the weeds didn't take over. Turns out that the weeds came anyway.

We did still manage to harvest a box of small potatoes.

And then it happened, -4C one frosty morning.

You can see the moon, that was the warning, a clear night on a full moon will usually bring frost.

Now my garden looks like this;

The squash plants hanging from the arbor look like bats

Looks a bit spooky I think

I think I'll leave the sunflowers until Halloween and dress them up

The view from my kitchen window is not so great anymore

My next door neighbor knows how much I love my garden and came over to ask if I was ok and offered her condolences. I was however, very ok with all this, it was a bit of a relieve to have it over with. Now comes clean up. In may look all drap and creepy in my yard but at work it is absolutely stunning right now and I am so blessed that I can enjoy the fall scenes there now. Here are just a few shots.

We have had very interesting skies

We have had some of the most beautiful sunrises and I haven't missed a single one.

Long beautiful shadows just seem to dance all around me

Mixing colors

Trying to hang on to the green a bit longer

The waters seem bluer these days as well

leaves falling everywhere turning everything to gold

Still lush and plush, makes me want to take my socks and shoes off and run barefoot

Little bits of color are showing up everywhere

With the weekends getting colder I spend more time indoors now.....baking to keep the house warm.

French bread, banana bread and of course zucchini bread

I also started knitting, isn't this the most adorable little old man like sweater?

Isn't this the cutest thing ever? I don't have any little men in my life right now but now I have a gift on hand should I need one. One thing that frustrates me is how you can always see where I stopped knitting flat and starting knitting in the round.....how do I correct this, what am I doing differently?

One last harvest picture and then I promise I am done blabbing about my garden

Sorry I lied.....I had to add my little pumpkins

Many crab apples, and same old same old garden pictures

2011-09-04T18:50:00.000-07:00

A friend dropped off 2 bags of crab apples and then my sister invited me to pick crab apples at her house, this is how I ended up with 6 bags pf apples. Yes sir yes sir 6 bags full. I turned them all into juice. It is so simple. Cut all your apples in half and put in a big bowl or pot, pour boiling water over them and let them sit for 24-36 hours. Strain (no mashing, just straining) the now beautiful pink water into a large pot (or 2) and add sweetener to your taste. I like honey, and I don't like my apple juice too tart, I think I had 18 cups of juice to about 1 1/2 cups honey. Boil this for about 10 minutes and pour into hot clean jars, no need to water bath as they will seal. Let stand on kitchen counter for at least a week so you can admire how pretty and pink it is before putting on your cold storage shelf. When you are done straining the juice off the apples you will be left with buckets of perfectly fine looking apples, you will be tempted to do something with them, do not....do not make pie with them. There is no flavor left in those apples, your pie will not taste like apples, you MUST put them in your compost bin. I know, it seems wasteful. I think on a cold winter day this juice would be really good heated up with some cinnamon and cloves, but for now it is good cold on ice with a few mint leaves.

On the left raspberry rhubarb juice, then pretty pink apple juice and some pickles.

Another friend had way too many cucumbers so I made 3 jars of pickles, I normally don't do pickles but I knew I would not be able to eat them all. I am also blanching and freezing beans as I pick them from my small patch.

I figured that since I was doing something new like making pickles I should go all out and really make something new so I made these beautiful Asian Moon Pickles. Got the recipe and picture below from Liesl's site here http://nestinground.blogspot.com/ I forgot to take a picture of mine but they didn't look near as pretty as Liesl's. I couldn't find black sesame seeds anywhere so I had to settle for the ordinary white ones. I haven't tried them yet. Thank-you Liesl.

Tomatoes are at all different stages

More tomatoes

My afternoon snack at work, I get my 5-10 servings of vegetables in before supper, I've learned to eat tomatoes like apple...no core or seeds to spit out

This is my garlic harvest , minus 1. Need to plant more next year.

From what I am reading this squash is ready to be picked when he is not shiny anymore, I'm getting a little impatient, they are still all bright green and shiny and Jack frost is breathing down our necks here.

These are organic brandy wine tomatoes and they still growing and not turning red yet, they are in the greenhouse so harm of frost but I'm not sure if I should pick them or let them be.

This little guy will soon be pie

This guy wants to be the "prize pumpkin".

IS there any other flower that is more wholesome and farm-like than sweet peas?

My ivies have decided they are tired and done for the year and are putting on one last show for me

The weather has started to turn on us, we had one morning at 3C with about 5C being the normal now. Our days are still nice, anywhere from 15C to 25C but with a cool fall breeze. It's at this time that I start thinking more and more of my Mexican home and friends and of taco of course. I really start craving tacos and toni-col, and tostadas, etc. I also start thinking of knitting, I actually started a little knitting project, a little baby sweater, there are no babies in my life but it couldn't hurt to have a gift on hand and it is a very easy quick project just to get my kntting groove on. The pattern can be found here :http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/baby-sophisticate

I have also been drinking Mexican hot chocolate in the evenings, I don't even drink this stuff when I am in Mexico because it's just not cold enough there for hot chocolate. Those of you that know me know I don't like chocolate but this chocolate is very mild and not too sweet and mixed with cinnamon. It's more like hot frothy milk with just a hint of chocolate. Most of us North Americans coming home from Mexico have a few of these boxes in out suitcases, usually more than we need, I think we are just infatuated with the hexagon shaped box...I know I am. There are many different brands but the box is always hexagon shaped.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibarra_(chocolate)

MY garden makes making lunch so fast and easy. Boil a pot of water with some carrots, onions, garlic, add some noodles, a tomato consume cube and at the last minute some swiss chard....so good.

"Always Something"

2011-09-01T19:12:00.000-07:00

I watched a movie awhile back, I don't recall the name of it now, where a man had named his boat "Always Something". I think my home, my car, and my job should all be named "Always Something" in fact my whole life could be summed up with those 2 words, or at the very least I should have it printed on a T-shirt because;
There is always something that is falling apart or needing to be fixed in my home
There is always something making a funny expensive sounding noise in my car
There is always something keeping my bank account balance from being all that it should be
There is always something that keeps my hair from being as cute as it could be
There is always something that keep me from getting ahead of the dirty laundry
There is always something that seems to be more important that reading "War and Peace" (I really want to read that fat book)
There is always something that interrupts my morning devotions and quiet time
There is always something that keeps me from having lazy relaxing Sundays
There is always something in the fine print that keep me from cashing in on my air miles
There is always something that didn't get done at the end of the day
There is always something that seems to delay my trips
Always Something...............

Jam spatter and tomato juice

2011-08-21T19:46:00.000-07:00

I did not disappear, I did not run away, I have not been kidnapped by giant Zucchinis, I didn't get strangled by disgruntled Nasturtiums and I didn't drown in a giant pot of raspberry jam.....that was a near miss, there is a lot of jam in this house, more than any one human being should ever have. There was one heck of a mess in my kitchen, two weeks later I am still finding jam splatter in places.

This is one of my favorite recipes, raspberries, saskatoons, a banana or two, strawberries if you have (I didn't this time) add a sweetener, I like honey but was out so I used brown sugar, add some vanilla (lots, love love vanilla) mash with a potato masher and put into jars and freeze...it's that simple. Put some on ice cream, on a pound cake, on an angle food cake, on your pancakes, on crepes......or invent something new to eat it with.....please let me know I have 15 pints in my freezer.

Why such a mess if the recipe is so simple you ask? I have no idea what happened

There was a wee bit of raspberries left over so I just put in little baggies and into the freezer, there may be a cobbler or a raspberry coffee cake or 2 in my future........or 10

I also made some raspberry juice, also very easy. Pack raspberries into quart jars and then fill the jar with vinegar, cover and let sit on the counter for 24 hours (or 36 like I did) squeeze it through cheese cloth, or a colander like I did and all the seeds came through too...oh well, cheese cloth next time. Measure your liquid and put into a big pot and add equal amount of sweetener (I like honey or brown sugar and I don't do equal amount....I do not have a sweet tooth) then bring it to a boil and boil for about 10 minutes (or so) and put into jars and freeze or put in a hot water bath (Like I do because my freezer is getting full) This is very concentrated, when mixing with water just taste and mix as you like it. This is a very pretty bright red juice and might be good with vodka ..... just saying is all.

There are no pictures of the jam, maybe because my camera got lost in the messy kitchen or maybe because by the time my jam was done the place just didn't look very picturesque at all, but there are 19 1/2 pints of raspberry jam in my pantry. Somebody needs to eat a lot of jam around here, I don't even like jam, I would not ruin my toast with jam. From now on no body leaves my house without a jar of jam. So why do I make jam if I don't even like it? I have a source for free raspberries and I am German, and my people do not ever let food go to waste and we like hoarding food like no body's business, and I like making jam, and it impresses people and it's so so so pretty. Is that enough ands for you.....mostly I make jam because I have some friends that love jam and I love gifting them some jam. Jam is a pretty gift.

Then, the lady at the greenhouse had an abundance of ripe tomatoes and so my German hoarding bone (different than the funny bone) took over again and I came home with two bags of ripe tomatoes and made tomato juice, my version of V8.

Tomatoes cut into quarters, about 3 stalks of celery and some dried chili peppers (I only brought home about 89 lbs of them from Mexico...the hoarding bone thing again) I bubbled it on the stove for some time and put through cheese cloth (no seeds this time) and hot water bathed for some time. I must say I got the chili amount just right, it has just the right amount of kick to it. Salt the rim of a chilled glass and dunk in a celery stick and oh my......lovely. Might be good with beer...just saying is all.

Lovely tomato juice in my pantry

Now, lets go for walk in my garden

Beans, corn and squash living very happily together...really together

There will be pumpkin in my freezer this winter.....and I won't be here, seems like my planning is a bit off

The pumpkin and squash fence

The squash made it to the top of the arbor

I also have a little garden at the golf course and my radishes there are almost as big as ..... golf balls of course.

The little garden on the 11 th tee box , squash, zucchini, pumpkin, corn and tomatoes.....it's a vegi jungle

I dug my garlic out, note to self....plant more next year

How big do my tomatoes want to get before they start turning red?

This sunflower has hit the roof

I love my pea fence, peas, sweet peas, dill, some onions (got smothered) and the ever so bossy Nasturtiums

The peas never made it into the house, I just picked a bowl full and then sat outside and ate them.

I've discovered that I am not the traditional gardener that my people are, the Germans like having everything in nice orderly straight rows, but I love to see my tomatoes tangled up with my cucumbers with some bossy nasturtiums poking through

A beautiful tangled bed

more tangled cucumbers and tomatoes

The view from my kitchen window....it makes me smile

For some reason my pictures are a bit blurry this week, maybe because it all went so fast. August seems to be in a rush to get it over with. I have to admit that this rush gardening is tiring. When you live this far north you are always trying to push your garden faster than the pages of the summer calender pages and August is the last page, if we are lucky the garden could survive into September...lucky. I tend to just want to give up by mid August but then I know my fresh vegetable lunches at work would be over so I have my old sheets ready to start covering if needed, most of the tomatoes and peppers are safe in the greenhouse but most of my squash is not ready to harvest just yet.
As the summer comes to an end I start getting lonesome for my home on Stone Island and my Mexican friends, I start thinking of tacos more and more. I start making a to "do list" and a "to bring" list I start listening to Mexican music and reading in Spanish more. I also start to think about knitting, as knitting is a winter thing for me, I am itching to start a knitting project. I have an old favorite wool sweater than needs to be repaired. I've had it for year and it is starting to unravel at places. This sweater rides on the seat of my tractor at work almost everyday, it hasn't been washed in years for fear it will fall apart but it will not survive another season unless I give it some love.

Can you just feel how cozy this sweater is, it is like my security blanket.

I love love the feeling of being all wrapped in a big wool sweater, I just love that the wool I am wearing was once on a sheep, it's liking hugging a sheep all day. Wool is just so real and pure. I would like to always wear wool but it can get too hot....even way up here. This sweater was always too big, the neck was always to open for me and I have always wanted to rip it and reknit it into a more snugger fitting sweater with a turtle neck instead of the wide open neck, I think it would be warmer if it was snugger, I've just never taken the time to take that project on, the thought of ripping it is kind of daunting to me, in some places it has almost felted already. This is a project I always start thinking of this time of year....will it be just thought again or will it actually happen this year?

Just in case you are thinking that everything is wonderful on my little urban farm I will show you some rotten tomatoes, I seem to have some bottom end rot...again. It's lack of calcium in the soil or inconsistent watering from what research (goggling) I've done. I am feeding my dirt egg shells and have been very faithful with consistent watering this year...so tell me why this is happening again?

Garden Promises

2011-07-31T18:25:00.000-07:00

I have to tell you I just haven't had a lot of ambition to do anything inside the house lately, including writing long winded blog posts so I've been cheating and just posting a lot of pictures and short commentaries. I promise I'll go back to boring you with all kinds of stories once the weather stops being so nice...seriously, it's been hot hot hot and more hot with a few short little rain showers in between, which my garden is lovin, let's have a tour and see what promises it is giving me;

The Zucchini are making some pretty big promises.....we'll see.

There is a promise of a pumpkin pie

The very first red tomato promised to be delicious .......

and was.

The rest were nobby and not perfect but yet so delicious.

Delicious very time.

yup.... I never get tired of fresh tomatoes.

and promises of more.....

promises of tomato sauce, tomato soup, tomato juice and salsa

Promises of some split pea soup

Beans and squash aren't making any promises yet.....I'm watching closely.

The celery is promising to be amazing if I just had the heart to cut it...it's so beautiful I don't want to.

This squash is promising to make it to the top of the arbor but isn't actaully promsiing any squash yet, oh well I guess you can't have it all.

The strawberries promised me many many strawberries and then only gave me a handful, and now they are again promising me many many, how many times will I fall for these tricks? I've been courting them all summer and soon they better put out or get out of this 4x8 bed that could be used by something more productive.

The beets, have fulfilled all promises, they are beautiful, juicy, healthy from top to bottom and have kept me peeing red all summer.

The poor beans, I couldn't protect them from the grasshoppers, I fought a hard battle with the garden hose and the pasty flour, but yet, they are still promising beans.

The raspberries seem to be holding out on me......not making any promises.

I promised to have have more relaxing Sundays.....and I did (once)

The cucumbers are still promising to get on top of the Nasturtiums, and I promised to throw that rag on the line out...opps

There was promises of rain.....and it rained.

That's it, that's all I have for you this week. ~~I promise I'll have more next week.~~

Whats on the wash line today?

2011-07-23T14:32:00.000-07:00

I went to my mother's a few days ago and she asked me if I needed a rug for my front door. I actually do need a rug for my front door. She showed me a rug laying on a chair and I wasn't really interested in it but underneath it was a very familiar rug that really caught my eye. One from my past, way back when, when I was a kid this rug was always in front of our door. "oh my, are you giving this away?" I asked. No, she said "I would like to throw it in the garbage". I'm shocked, she was going to throw away one of my memories. How could she even think of throwing it away? I snatched it up as if I had just rescued a lost puppy, I had saved a memory from the trash. I put it in my car safe and sound vowing that this rug would sit in front of my door for the rest of my life. Let me tell you about the rug;

The rug on the left is my rescued memory rug

My mother was recycling way before recycling was cool, she was crafting way before it was cool. Do you remember pantyhose?

Pantyhose was something that a lady in my mother's generation wore everyday and they never got thrown in the garbage regardless of how many snags and runs they had. First they were patched with clear nail polish....do you remember this? Then eventually they were saved to make rugs. She cut them into long thin strips and then sewed all the strips together, making 3 strips and then she made one long long braid, then sewed the braid together into a round rug (by hand). After awhile the rug didn't want to lie flat so she completely ripped it apart, unbraided it and crocheted the long strips into a rug. It is just a single crochet with an increase at the each end. This rug has got to be at least 30 years old, well used and only has a few small holes in it. It is my new treasure. This makes me wonder if I will end up (or maybe have already) throwing something out that my child will think of as a great treasure. Funny how different things spark fond memories in some but not in others. I look around my home and wonder what could be a wonderful memory for my child, and would it mean anything to me? Is it my old toaster, is it my fruit bowl, or my tea cup, is it a certain pillow case or a chipped saucer? Who knows. I'm not usually very hasty to throw stuff away but I really think this rag could go in the trash as soon as it is dried, what do you think? It used to be a dishcloth and then it became a rag, I had not realized in what shape it was in until I took a step back to admire my laundry hanging on the line (like I always do) I never get tired of looking at the laundry on the line, it is always a beautiful sight (except for that one sad rag) I promise once it's dry I will throw it away.

Can you believe I went to the trouble of washing and hanging this rag to dry?

Almost forgot a garden shot

They are here!

2011-07-18T18:35:00.000-07:00

I did it, I snooped under a potato plant and found beautiful, baby potatoes. So new, fresh and perfect. So perfect that you need only hose off with the garden hose and plop them in the pot. I slightly sauteed some Swiss chard and garlic in olive oil, sliced the boiled potatoes on top, topped with some onion greens, a dollop of butter and little thick cream. Served with the first baby beets and a spoonful of farm fresh egg salad. My first perfect garden meal this summer, I would like to eat this everyday. This is my favorite way of eating potatoes, in Canada that is, the Mexican potato is a ubberly delicious as well.

You know you're a redneck when.......

2011-07-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

A friend stopped by my house the other day and asked if I could help her get her lawn mower to the repair shop with ol’Blue (my truck) , I looked at her a little sheepishly with my head down, you see ol’ Blue was a bit indisposed at the moment. A few weeks ago I had hauled home some manure home for my gardens because I have learned that you can just never have enough manure. I didn’t clean the box of the truck out very well after I was done, leaving some manure in the grooves in the floor and in the corners, and then it rained. Apparently when they built ol’Blue way back in 1986 they didn’t put drainage holes in the floors and so the box filled with water, and water and manure mixed together makes manure tea, otherwise known as gardeners gold....or at least that is what I call it. As soon as I drive out of my driveway and get to level ground all the tea will pour out of the crack at the bottom of the tailgate spilling it all over the street....my manure tea wasted on the pavement....can’t have that. So I have not driven it saving the tea to water my plants as needed, but since it rained I haven’t had to water a lot and so there sits ol’ Blue in the driveway with a box of manure tea, too precious to be wasted. I had planned on making some manure tea in a big garbage can but just had not gotten around to it yet, the rain did it for me.

The beautiful manure tea

Whats new in the garden you ask?

2 1 jar of pesto in the freezer, ate one already

The cucumbers are climbing the willow teepees, and are blooming

The ~~first~~ second bowl of Saskatoons

The pumpkin is moving upwards, have I mentioned how much I love creeping, crawling and vining plants.....I love love love them

The peas, onions and Nasturtiums are getting very very friendly, I worry about my onions, they don't seem to be getting very big onions

Here is a surprise, I had one little runty Nasturtium left and decide to fill a space between 2 cucumbers, this is now the biggest Nasturtium in the whole garden, the cucumbers, which you can't see now are going to have to start climbing up or get smothered.

Patiently waiting for the first red tomato

The greenhouse jungle of peppers and tomatoes

The watermelon and Marigold have married and have become one

The grapes are so tiny I had to zooooooom in real close, I think I will set the table with the finest china when I sit down to eat these 9 grapes, it will certainly be an event

Here is a shot of the ugly garden bed, the Raspberries. Last year I planted Raspberries but forgot to water them (I know, so dumb) so in the spring I got some from a friend and tried again and they died as well, so a week ago I got some more and they are not looking so good. I wanted to create a privacy hedge with them against my chainlink fence. At this rate it will take years.

Pathetic Raspberries

Potatoes are in bloom, I have resisted all week to check underneath for tiny little fresh potatoes, perhaps this week I'll have a peek

Wild mint picked at the golf course, I dry it and make tea with it.

The most beautiful lilies I have ever had.

The green fence is creeping, soon the squash will help it out

Rain, another attack, and a tart

2011-07-10T08:39:00.000-07:00

It rained, finally. We got 1 1/2 inches over 24 hours. It was very welcomed and we could have even used more. I came home from work soaked but I didn't care, I could almost watch my garden grow.

Some of my tomatoes have huge flowers on them, my labeling system failed me (again) so I don't know what is what, I planted a few different kinds of tomatoes. Any type of pen or marker either gets faded by the sun or washed away when watering.

There is hope for strawberries, more than anything I want to have a bowl of strawberries and cream every evening.

Celery has been voted "most improved" this year. I was so disappointed last year that I only planted a few this year and someone gave me the tip of tying the leave up and the stalks will get bigger....it worked. Now I am sorry I didn't plant more.

Peas are blooming

I believe the watermelon has just figured out that the string is his ladder, the little Marigold that just grew voluntarily is trying to be his friend but I'm afraid that it's going to get smothered soon.

The pea fence filling in nicely, the peas were starting to get way too friendly with the onions in the row in front of them so I had to interfere a bit and guide the peas to the net. I have to keep an eye on those peas.

Basil coming alone......there will be pesto in my freezer this fall

The front yard potato patch is looking good, apparently. I need to plant more next year, I see some empty space.

Liesl over at http://nestinground.blogspot.com/ posted a delicious picture of her blackberry tart so I used her idea and made a rhubarb and Saskatoon torte and had enough dough left over to make a little pie for my neighbor. This is so simple and easy and there are no rules, use whatever fruit you wish, make it sweet or not, use nuts or not, use coconut or not, use your imagination or not.....just follow Liesl's recipe if you're afraid to venture alone.

It was good for breakfast this morning.

I recently learned that you can freeze pesto, so today I will be making some pesto. I picked the basil this morning, do I ever love picking herbs in my garden, it makes me feel so French.

Now to report on the bad news, once again there was an attack. This time my peppers were the victim. It seems somebody cut off the stalks, falling them to the ground, it was a clean cut making me suspect the cut worm. I lost 3 peppers plants over 3 days, of course when the first one fell I thought maybe it was an isolated incident and after the second one I thought "surely he is done now", it wasn't until after the 3rd one that rage set in and I started goggling the problem. The solution appeared very easy, little cardboard collars for the plants. Seemed to easy to be real, but I tried. I figured if cardboard didn't work I would use 2 inch PVC pipe. But it's been 4 days now and no more attacks.

The fallen peppers

Cardboard collars

There may be one more casualty, one of my cherry trees never did anything after I transplanted it, it didn't get any new leaves, or bloom, for the longest time it didn't loose a leaf either but now it has lost all it's little leaves and looks very sad, like a few sticks in the ground. I talked to the lady at the greenhouse where I bought it and she said to leave it alone and it might just perk up yet. If by next spring this is no improvement she would give me another one. So I wait and watch, and hope. Isn't that what gardening is all about? Waiting, watching and hoping.

But it's Sunday and I must go now and eat tart and fresh buns and butter.....oh, I baked buns too but forgot to take a picture.

A Little Sunday nostalgia

2011-07-03T06:20:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I tend to get a little nostalgic on Sundays, I often long for the Sundays of my childhood. I grew up in a community where people did not work on Sunday, not ever. Some didn't work for religious reasons and for some it was just an age old tradition. Not only did they not go to their regular paying jobs they did not work at home either. They did not mow their lawn, clean their house, or cook and certainly certainly did not wash their underpants on Sunday like I do. Sundays were lazy and relaxing, it was the day where you enjoyed the fruits of your weekly labors. It was a picnic from sun up to sun down, the best food was stored and saved for Sunday, because you did not cook you ate cold cuts (that means bologna) and fresh homemade bread and butter, and peanut butter and jam...and get this! Cookies, squares, pies and dainties...yup, cookies on the table as part of the meal. It was great, but I must say the day didn't always start off great..nope. Sunday was the day that mother wanted to dress us up (3 farmhands or Tom boys if you will) in pretty Sunday dresses, now this is a story in it’s self but just to give you a quick picture imagine trying to dress a wild alley cat in your little doll clothes....don’t forget the tights. I may be exaggerating a bit but it was not pleasant but after a few hours all parties involved got over it and we went on with “having Sunday”. Just because we were wearing dresses didn't mean we couldn’t scrabble through barb wire fences, climb trees and chase horses, or play baseball, although at the end of Sunday our tight looked like wild dogs had gotten a hold of them. Poor mother, all she wanted was little ladies for one day a week. She deserves a metal for the afford she put in. All in all, Sundays were great, reading books, playing cards, putting together a jigsaw puzzle, cross stitch pillow cases (just kidding) cousins would come over, or we might even go to the river, skip rocks, maybe fish, mom and dad would always have a nap, during this time we’d eat more cookies. There was no work, just fun and relaxing........and this is the Sunday that I miss, I want Sunday fun and relaxing, I want there to be food in the fridge and clean underpants in the drawers. I don’t want to race around like a mad person and still end up going to bed Sunday night with the house looking a mess. I am busy thinking and planning how I can organize my life so that I could sit in my backyard admiring my garden and reading War and Peace (have never had time to read this book) eating bread and butter, marmalade, jam jams and pie......and, here’s the biggy...be at peace about it. Not sitting there thinking “oh, I should have mowed the lawn; I should quickly do one load of laundry...etc”. So how do I get there? Is it even possible now in the 20th century to sit and relax for a whole day without doing any work? Am I even realistic by wanting this? I believe I am and I believe it can happen because I also believe that that is how it was meant to be. So where do I begin? It has more to do with me than anything else.....I need to get it together and get organized. So, grab your needle work and cross stitch and come on by my house and we will have ourselves an old fashion Sunday the way it
was supposed to be. We'll sit here, on my new benches.

It's a smelly world

2011-07-01T18:35:00.000-07:00

For about the last 2 year I have tried really hard to live a clean life, eat clean, keep a clean and environment friendly home and yard. During this time I have experimented with a few different cosmetics like deodorants, shampoos, soaps, laundry and dish soaps. I had a successful soap making experience a few winters ago and have been able to use my own soap for showering, I do use it for my hair during the week when I am working but I find it doesn't leave my hair very soft and manageable at all and after awhile it tends to look a bit stringy even after using a conditioner of lemon juice and vinegar. So I bought a bottle of rather expensive clean shampoo at a health food store a year ago and use it o n the weekends, that seems to balance it out. During the week I am rarely social, the only place I go is work so I really don't care how my hair looks. On the weekend I clean up and put on my "good" clothes, even though I am still not overly social but I prefer my hair to not feel and look like I have a burnt hay bale on my head. This morning I ran out of "weekend shampoo" so I rummaged through my sink cabinet and found an old bottle of "unclean" shampoo (also found many other things, I need to rip that cabinet out) so I used it and I was overwhelmed at the smell in the shower and have been able to smell it all day. It was just plain shampoo, no fancy scent like Herbal Essence Passion blast or explosive fruit bomb or anything like that, just normal shampoo. (supposedly not scented) When you stop layering all kinds of scents everyday you tend to be more sensitive to the scents out there, I am often overwhelmed at other people's smells as they go by. It seems the whole world is over scented. I smell it all now, it may just be a deodorant or a scented body lotion, perfume and aftershave is almost intolerable to me now, I almost have to stop breathing when someone walks by me leaving behind a wiff of that. Yet I can clearly remember having a bath with a scented bath oil and washing with a scented body wash, maybe even using a scented body scrub (how dirty was I anyway back then) and then the scented shampoo and conditioner, once out of the shower using a scented body lotion and then a deodorant and the make up and finally ending with a good dousing of perfume...yikes,how people didn't fall over in my wake is beyond me. At the time I obviously didn't smell all that. Now I smell it all, I smell toxic cleaners in people's homes , I smell fabric softeners and laundry soaps. I never used to notice any of these things which just shows how we slowly become desensitized.....to everything, television, the media, food addictions, money, greed, the language around us. It happens so slowly that we don't realize it. Monster size changes can happen in our lives but if they happen slowly enough we don't even notice. Things in our environment can happen and we don't notice....or do we? Are we noticing now that we are running out of oil? Or will there have to be no oil before we notice it, like I had to go to no scents before I even noticed them? Monumental things happen ever so slowly, things like Monsanto and Genetically modified food. We slowly got used to our food being modified and changed to something that isn't food anymore. Not only did we get used to it slowly we are even liking it and are demanding it....yup. We want bigger strawberries in the grocery store in December and we don't care how they get that way, we want cheap meat and we don't care what's in it. We have compromised taste, quality and health for convenience, aesthetics, quantity and affordability, and we didn't even notice what we compromised. I seems to me that you could fool us North Americans into almost anything if you did it slowly enough....how dangerous is that?
I once heard a story of a pastor in in a very staunch and rigid church in Europe somewhere that wanted to move the church piano from the left side of the stage to the right (have no idea why) but he knew the congregation would not except such a huge change so he moved it over 1 inch every week until it was on the the other side and no one noticed.
Are you slowly being moved? I know I've been, and I am trying to make my way back, by wearing a burnt hay bale on my head ........ only during the week.
Check out The Story of Cosmetics. The Story of Stuff is good too. I love these videos, they are made so that all of us can understand them.

Here is a story on that shows what can happen when we don't pay attention and compromise way too much. I'm using the word compromise because I just can't seem to find a word that explains what we have done to end up here. If you have a better word let me know.

Check out what happened to the tomato while we were sleeping, or being too busy developing new perfumes.

How Industrial Farming 'Destroyed' The Tasty Tomato

Listen to the Story

Fresh Air from WHYY

[37 min 19 sec]

EnlargeJoe Raedle/Getty Images

Florida workers harvest what they can from the DiMare Farms tomato fields, a month after the January 2010 freeze that caused a statewide crop shortage.

text size A A A

June 28, 2011

If you bite into a tomato between the months of October and June, chances are that tomato came from Florida. The Sunshine State accounts for one-third of all fresh tomatoes produced in the United States — and virtually all of the tomatoes raised during the fall and winter seasons.

But the tomatoes grown in Florida differ dramatically from the red garden varieties you might grow in your backyard. They're bred to be perfectly formed — so that they can make their way across the U.S. and onto your dinner table without cracking or breaking.

"For the last 50 or more years, tomato breeders have concentrated essentially on one thing and that is yield — they want plants that yield as many or as much as possible," writer Barry Estabrook tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "They also want those fruits to be able to stand up to being harvested, packed, artificially turned orange [with ethylene gas] and then shipped away and still be holding together in the supermarket a week or 10 days later."

***Tomatoland:* *How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit***
By Barry Estabrook
Hardcover, 240 pages
Andrews McMeel Publishing
List Price: $19.99

Read An Excerpt

Estabrook, a freelance food writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times and The Washington Post, looks at the life of today's mass-produced tomato — and the environmental and human costs of the tomato industry — in his book Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit. The book was based on a James Beard Award-winning article that originally appeared in Gourmet magazine, where Estabrook was a contributing editor before publication ceased in 2009.

Estabrook says the mass-produced tomatoes in today's supermarkets lack flavor because they were bred for enduring long journeys to the supermarket — and not for taste.

"As one large Florida farmer said, 'I don't get paid a single cent for flavor,' " says Estabrook. "He said, 'I get paid for weight. And I don't know of any supermarket shopper who tastes her tomatoes before she puts them in her shopping cart.' ... It's not worth commercial plant breeders' while to breed for taste because their customers — the large farmers — don't get paid for it."

As a result, customers have become accustomed to the flavorless tomatoes that dot supermarket shelves, says Estabrook.

"I was speaking to a person in their 30s recently and she said she had never recalled tasting anything other than a supermarket tomato," he says. "I think that wanting a tomato in the winter of winter — or wanting a little bit of orange on the plate ... is inherent in a lot of our shopping decisions. We expect an ingredient to be on the supermarket shelves 365 days a year, whether or whether not it's in season or tastes any good."

Let's Call The Whole Thing Off?

Though most of our tomatoes come from Florida, the state isn't necessarily the best place to grow the crop, says Estabrook. Most tomatoes are grown in sand, which contains few nutrients and organic materials. In addition, Florida's humidity breeds large populations of insects, which means tomato growers need to apply chemical pesticides on a weekly basis.

Trent Campbell

Barry Estabrook is a former contributing editor atGourmet magazine. He currently blogs atpoliticsoftheplate.com.

"In order to get a successful crop of tomatoes, the official Florida handbook for tomato growers lists 110 different fungicides, pesticides and herbicides that can be applied to a tomato field over the course of the growing season," he says. "And many of those are what the Pesticide Action Network calls 'bad actors' — they're kind of the worst of the worst in the agricultural chemical arsenal."

Florida applies more than eight times the amount of pesticide and herbicides as does California, the next leading tomato grower in the country. Part of this has to do with the fact that California processes tomatoes that are used for canning — and therefore don't have to look as good as their Florida counterparts. But part of this also has to do with consumers.

"It's the price we pay for insisting we have food out of season and not local," he says. "We foodies and people in the sustainable food movement chant these mantras, 'local, seasonable, organic, fair-trade, sustainable,' and they almost become meaningless because they're said so often and you see them in so many places. If you strip all those away, they do mean something, and what they mean is that you end up with something like a Florida tomato in the winter — which is tasteless."

food

'Ripe': One Man's Quest For The Perfect Tomato

science

Taking Tomatoes Back To Their Tasty Roots

opinion

You Say Tomato, I Say 'Love Apple'

the picture show

Hair On Tomato Seeds! And Other Science Visualizations

Interview Highlights

On tomato nutrition today versus 40 years ago

"My mother, in the '60s could buy a tomato in the supermarket that had 30 to 40 percent more vitamin C and way more niacin and calcium. The only area that the modern industrial tomato beats its Kennedy-administration counterpart is in sodium."

On working conditions on tomato farms

"Of the legal jobs available, picking tomatoes is at the very bottom of the economic ladder. I came into this book chronicling a case of slavery in southwestern Florida that came to light in 2007 and 2008. And it was shocking. I'm not talking about near-slavery or slavery-like conditions. I'm talking about abject slavery. These were people who were bought and sold. These were people who were shackled in chains at night or locked in the back of produce trucks with no sanitary facilities all night.

"These were people who were forced to work whether they wanted to or not and if they didn't, they were beaten severely. If they tried to escape, they were either beaten worse or in some cases, they were killed. And they received little or no pay. It sounds like 1850. ... There have been seven [legal cases] in the last 10 or 15 years ... successfully brought to justice in Florida involving slavery. And 1,200 people have been freed. The U.S. Attorney for the district in Southern Florida claims that that just represents a tiny, tiny tip of an iceberg because it's extraordinarily difficult to prosecute a modern-day slavery case."

On undocumented workers

"I've seen estimates that nationally, 70 percent of the low-ranking farm workers are undocumented people from southern Mexico and Central America. These people arrive in this country — they're often shipped here from their home villages — and they arrive in a land where they certainly don't speak English. Many of them don't speak Spanish because they're indigenous so they're more comfortable in these indigenous languages.

"They're stuck in the middle of the Everglades in some trailer camp. They don't know where they are. They're frightened to go to the police because they're here illegally and also because back home, the police are often thugs and you don't want to go to them anyway. So they're completely vulnerable. They don't want to make any noise — they just want to work, make a bit of money and that leaves them totally vulnerable."

On how the Florida tomato industry is improving working conditions

"There's a group called the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) that's named after a small city in Florida. And the CIW is this loose, grass-roots collection of people who've been working, really since 1993, to improve labor conditions. The growers had steadfastly refused to as much as speak to these people until last November when the growers came forward and said 'OK, we will sign off on what's called the fair food agreement,' which gives the workers the right to get an extra penny per pound of tomatoes they pick. They're paid on a piece basis. A penny a pound — big deal. But that's the difference between making $40-$50 a day and $70-$80 a day for a tomato worker — the difference between barely able to feed your family, if that, to a crummy, but OK wage. In addition to that, there's such radical concepts as time clocks in the fields ... the requirement that they put up tarpaulins so there can be a shady area in these fields where people can have lunch and other breaks, which is also a new concept."

A little disclaimer here; I mention every once in awhile that I work at a golf course during the summer, before you jump on me about golf courses being an abomination to the environment let me defend myself by saying that I try to live as clean and environment friendly in my home and yard as I can to atone for my environmental sins at work. I guess I hope it buys me some environmental brownie points. Plus, the course I work at will not be visited by Tiger Woods anytime soon and will never be on TV (unless Tiger does come of course) and so we do not have the money for all the expensive chemicals that makes courses on TV looks so pristine and perfect. We actually have dandelions...plenty of them , should really start making dandelion wine.

Oh Canada

2011-06-30T20:07:00.000-07:00

The great bean attack, and some other ramblings

2011-06-26T12:44:00.000-07:00

First, let me brag a little bit to my southern friends, the ones that wonder why on earth I would want to live so far north. Check it out. It was so hot even the thermometer was sweating.

We are getting some heat but yet no rain. The golf course needs rain and so does my garden but most of all the farmers are saying if don't get a lot of rain soon (like now) they will have no crops to harvest and this makes me sad. For them it is their livelihood whereas for me I can always do another year without garden fresh organic cucumbers.
Lets have a look at my garden, my garden report isn't all great this week. There was an attack.....on my beans. Someone was attacking my beans. I couldn't find any bugs, they must have ate and ran. I have beans in 4 different beds and they attacked 2 beds, the other 2 are fine.

So I gathered up some chewed up leaves and went to my local greenhouse and asked for advice, I was told it looks like grasshoppers. Apparently they are very little right now and hard to see and don't make that sound yet (you know, that sound they make) She had a big bag of 'stuff" there that would scare them away and told me you had to wear gloves before even opening the bag, I decided that if you need gloves to handle the bag I don't want it on my beans. So I did what we all do when we want to know something....I goggled it. I learned that the best way to keep grasshoppers away is get chickens.....I sure would if I could, some of you already know that in my fantasies and dreams I have 2 chickens in my backyard but in real life the town bylaws say I can't....and don't even get me started on what the neighbors dogs are allowed to do and yet are legal to have (that's a whole different post) anyway.....here is where I found my info http://pestcontroloptions.com/insect-control/get-rid-of-grasshoppers-the-eco-friendly-way So I had to try the flour method. It says to lightly dust the plants in the morning when they are covered with dew and not to do it when it is windy. When is it not windy here? And I did not have an empty salt shaker and there was no dew this morning so I made my own dew with the garden hose and used a sifter as my shaker and as you can see it did more than 'lightly dust" It looks like a snowstorm came through here. Eat that grasshoppers! I will defend my garden from now until the fall with whatever it takes. If this doesn't work I might even put on some gloves and get some "stuff'.

Now, on a happier note, there was a new batch of compost a few days ago. This is always exciting for me because I have struggled with m y composting recipe for a long long time (years) Things started looking up when I got a second bin last summer, now when one is "cookin" the other is being filled, it seems to work much better and faster. I now get 2 batches of compost from each bin a year. One batch from each in the spring and one batch each in the fall.

Compost bin 1, I love this, bought it at a yard sale many years ago (about 7 I think) I like that it has drains in the bottom to collect the compost juice.

Compost bin #2, check out the beautiful brown compost that just spilled out the bottom, nice and soft with no big lumps except for a mango and avocado pit once in awhile, I don't think those things ever decompose.

In hopes of Saskatoons, pie, jam, cobbler, crisps....summer goodness

Geraniums are my favorite, they are easy to multiply and winter fairly well indoors. I have a friend who bought a $4 geranium 20 years ago and still has it, it looks like a small shrub now.

The green wall is moving....slowly

These squash have a huge job ahead of them, they are to cover this arbor

This pumpkin needs to learn that it is to climb up this stick to get to the wire fence

The shade bed is starting to look a little greener

I love that I get a wiff of lilac as I walk through my gate when I come home from work...such a nice welcome home.

Potatoes....fresh baby potatoes soon....I hope

Can you smell them?

Tomatoes in the greenhouse

Looking a bit knobby.....means they are organic and not modified I guess

They (whoever they are) say you can't grow eggplant up here but I don't always listen to them (whoever they are) So I had to try it out for myself, so far so good.

Drumroll.......there will be a peony this year. This peony has not had a flower in about 3 years in the front yard (too much shade) so I moved it to the backyard last fall and it like it there.

The 3 sister garden bed is coming along, squash, beans (the non attacked beans) and corn

This itty bitty little green thing is teaching me patience.......asparagus

This funny looking geranium has only got about 7 leaves on it but has 2 big bunches of flowers on it.

There are high hopes for many strawberries

I was all proud that my strawberries were letting out many runners, I was thinking this was a good thing and then I read online somewhere that you are supposed to cut the runners off until after you have picked the strawberries, if you don't cut them off the plant focuses more on producing more plants and less on producing berrries...achhhh! Will I ever get it all right? So I rushed out in my housecoat (I was reading this at 4 am) and cut off all the runners and now I am watching like a hawk for new runners with my clippers in my hand. How on earth did my grandmother and mother ever garden without the internet for information way back when? No wonder the old party line phone system was always so busy.

look what I found at a yard sale, I have always wanted one of these. A little outdoor fireplace

My lunches for this week is chickpea stew, only I didn't have chickpeas so I put in soybeans, rice, last year's green beans, fresh radishes on a bed of spinach...always. I made a banana loaf for my morning snack and bought a bag of organic apples for my afternoon snack.......I sound like a kindergardener having 2 snack times, but hey, I eat a lot. I have never been one of those girls that can survive on a slice of sticky white bread and half a grape.
And...speaking of apples, remember the apple tree I bought a few weeks ago? I picked about 15 little wee apples off it the other day. The lady at the greenhouse told me not to let it have apples this year, this was almost painful for me, tiny little hopeful apples getting plucked off and thrown in the compost pail. So sad. I also have dreams of picking my own apples (along with having chickens) The first time I picked apples was in Mexico in my aunt and uncles apple orchard and it was such a thrill, it still thrill me when I pass by an apple orchard. There is just something so magical about a big red apple hanging from a branch and it's edible right there, no prep needed, pick it and eat it.

This is a picture of myself and my child picking apples in my aunt & uncles orchard in Cuauhtemoc Mexico, this was before I had a digital camera, not before they were invented (I am not that old) just before I had one.

My daughter eating cactus jelly...very carefully with the tongs and knife so as to not get any prickles, she looks like she is concentrating very hard on her task, it's a delicate procedure.

Since I was digging through the archives I dug out this oldie as well. Trinidad at http://livinginnayarit.blogspot.com/ wrote about a cactus fruit she used to eat in Mexico and I thought maybe it was this cactus fruit. This picture was also taken in Cuauhtemoc, we would hold on to the red ball which was covered in prickles with a pair of BBQ tongs and then slice the top of the ball off with a knife and then scoop out the jelly with a spoon and eat it. It was full of little seeds almost like a pomegranate but a little smaller, it was so good. My aunt said back in the day when they were poor they would make jam out of the jelly. I have no idea what this stuff is called, if there is anyone out there that can tell me please do.

Since I am digging through old photos and bringing up Mexico memories I will leave you with a little Sunday nostalgia; there are 2 songs that you hear in Mexico all the time. The first one is Las mulas de Moreno which is rather a silly song but has a very catchy chorus and beat, I could never really figure out what the song as about because it goes from throwing lemons out the window to feeding chicharrones to the ducks to a drunk guy watering his machete and sharpening his horse, I always thought it made no sense because I must have lost something in the translation but it really is just a silly song......I think. You won't be able to help it but sing along.

Here are the lyrics in English;

If you want to go get
The mules of Moreno
If you don’t want to go on foot
Saddle the horse

What do you think? Fine, fine, fine,
Very good, very good, very good,
Very very very very goooood

I got up by sincho
I went through tambojo
When I made it to cojinsillo
I ran into the plumber

What do you think? Fine, fine, fine,
Very good, very good, very good,
Very very very very goooood

I have my caravan
Full of chicharrones
That I throw at the ducks
My love why are you sad?

What do you think? Fine, fine, fine,
Very good, very good, very good,
Very very very very goooood

In a tub of water
I found the drunken guy
Giving water to his machete
And sharpening his horse

What do you think? Fine, fine, fine,
Very good, very good, very good,
Very very very very goooood

When I passed your window
You threw a lemon at me
If I through the lemon back
Why is it even necessary?

What do you think? Fine, fine, fine,
Very good, very good, very good,
Very very very very goooood

In the edge of that valley
I have a goat tied up
If the goat should get loose
What a beating I would give it

What do you think? Fine, fine, fine,
Very good, very good, very good,
Very very very very goooood

If you want to enjoy
The mules of Moreno
Take them by the stream
So that no one will see you

What do you think? Fine, fine, fine,
Very good, very good, very good,
Very very very very goooood

With this I say farewell
To the ranch in San Francisco
Until another year
Swimming through the desert

What do you think? Fine, fine, fine,
Very good, very good, very good,
Very very very very goooood

The second song is an old love song that has been sung by Enrique Eglesias and Pavarotti, it is usually sung by a Mariachi band with the whole crowd singing along, I don't know who the original artist is, the song is Cielito Lindo. Until I goggled it today I didn't even know what the name of the song was I always just called it the ay ay ay song.

Here are the English lyrics ;

Through dark tresses, heavenly one,
a pair of deep brown eyes,
lower as they approach,
a stolen glance.

Refrain:
Ay, ay, ay, ay,
sing and don't cry,
heavenly one, for singing
gladdens hearts.

A bird that abandons
his first nest, heavenly one,
then finds it occupied by another,
deserves to lose it.

(Refrain)

That beauty mark you have
next to your mouth, heavenly one,
don't share with anyone but me
who appreciates it.

(Refrain)

If your little mouth, my dark girl,
were made of sugar,
I would spend my time
enjoying its sweetness.

(Refrain)

From your house to mine
there is no more than a step.
Before your mother comes,
heavenly one, give me a hug.

(Refrain)

Cupid shot off an arrow,
heavenly one,
And though he was playing,
I was wounded.

(Refrain)

And so ends the week and another starts

2011-06-19T19:38:00.000-07:00

I don't have much excitement to report this week. We up north here are whining about wanting rain.....all of us want rain, I know everyone is used to the farmers always whining/complaining about rain, not enough of it, too much of it, rained at the wrong time and so on and so on, but right now we are all sounding like farmers. We just want rain! I added up our rainfall this season from my weather diary, from April 08 to today we have had 18 mm of rain. Yes I keep a weather diary during the golf season and I measure rainfall .... a bit geekish, I know.
Regardless of how parched the land is I of course can always find a mud hole at work to fall into.

I actually do have a bit of excitement that I almost forgot about about. Remember one of my favorite things at my house in Mexico, the concrete counter? I loved this counter because it was the right height for me for once ( I am tall) and it was so solid that I could roll out dough on it, transplant plants, block a long scarf on it, it had many used and I wished I had a work space like it here.....well, now I do.

Favorite work space in Mexico .... uh! coconuts, I miss coconuts

My new work space i n Canada

It has a sink.....how cool is that?

I built it all by myself, which is why it is not square or straight but I love it. whenever I bring in vegetables from the garden I hate how I always have a mess in the kitchen. Even when I hose off the produce with my garden hose I always manage to bring in grass and dirt bits. Now I can wash them on my nice work bench and scrub them and even cut and dice them up. By the time I am done with them on this bench they will be ready to eat. I can also use this bench for other things, today I folded my laundry on it after it had dried on the line. How awesome to walk into the house with the laundry all folded, or walk into the house with the salad already in the bowl. I might even install a second sink, we'll see after I test it out, right now the only produce I am eating out of my garden is spinach and the occasional radish.

Laundry day

Today I made a batch of rose water, I found instruction here; http://www.care2.com/greenliving/rose-water-how-to-make-your-own.html# There is an abundance of roses at the golf course and it took me all of 20 minutes to pick a bucket full. I have foraged at the golf course for many things since I started working there. Last year I picked Saskatoons, wild raspberries, rose hip, a few strawberries and I have brought home many a willow for different projects as well. As I was wandering around picking roses today I was wondering what else I have there that I just don't know is edible or useful. Anyway..... back to my rose water, of course I had my roses in my "stil" and cooking before I read all the instructions (I tend to do that) I realized that I didn't have enough ice i n my freezer so I only got a small jam jar of rose water and it didn't smell as delicious as I had anticipated. I thought it would smell very much like the roses but it just has a faint rose smell. I will use this on my face and see how I like it. I was hoping to use it in my laundry rinse water as well. I use homemade laundry soap that is made of lard (tallow) and sometimes I get a wiff of myself and I smell a bit lardy, so I thought if I put a bit of rose water in the rinse water it would make me smell more like a rose garden instead of a french fry, but since I just have a jam jar I will have to make another batch....and have more ice on hand.

Beautiful, soft and silky rose petals

I can't stop taking pictures of my pea fence, I love it. The wood that I used to make it also came from the golf course.

The strawberry bed is looking promising

waiting and waiting for beets

so you have to look very closely and I know the picture is blurry but can you see the itsy tiny cluster of grapes?

My lunches this week will be fish, rice and steamed vegetables ... on a bed of spinach

and baggies of fruit, 1 peach, 1 apricot, 1 apple, 1 orange and 1 banana for each day

I also made a cake, I found a recipe for a layered fruit cake, it was a layer of cake and then a layer of rhubarb and saskatoons and then a layer of jello and then a layer of cake again, sounds good right? So I go to the store to get jello and take my rhubarb and saskatoons out of the freezer. After the cake in in the oven and I am cleaning up my kitchen I see the package of jello on the counter, what the heck? How did I miss the jello, I look at my recipe and it doesn't call for jello, but I went to the store to get this jello just for this recipe then I realize it wasn't layered either, I look again, and I was following the wrong recipe on the page in the cook book. I am so annoyed at myself and disappointed in my cake. It's edible but now great....oh well, next week I will try again, I still have the jello.

As I writing this it started to rain and it looked like it was hailing and I thought to myself as I am looking out of the window "oh if that is hail we are so going to complain about that" but in the next second it stopped.