{p,h,f,r} September in Baja Sur

I'm finally getting it together after too many weeks of not remembering to link up with Leila et al over at Like Mother, Like Daughter for
{pretty}
We have had great weather down here all summer - cooler than usual, even days with morning fog! We had some good rain, although we could use another storm or two before the end of the season. Desert plants undergo the most amazing transformation with even a small amount of rain, and my desert garden at the front of the house looks better than I have ever seen it.



{happy}
After several cancellations (unexpected funeral masses, etc.), Padre (our parish priest) came out to our house on Monday to teach me how to make salsa with chicharrones. I'll be putting up a post with the recipe and pictures in the next day or two, but here's a teaser photo of him putting salt in the mixture.

We just got a seminary student to help in our parish, and it looks like he'll be staying for a year, which is longer than any of the prior students the bishop has sent. He'll be ordained as a deacon in January, which will be a huge help to Padre, who does not only daily mass but 5 masses every Sunday (and of course all funeral and wedding masses) all by himself! And of course that doesn't include everything else he does for us. We have a real saint in our midst, for which I am deeply grateful to God.

Anyway, Padre and the seminarian, Martin, will be coming for lunch on Sunday (there's just enough time between 2 masses to squeeze in a meal) and Padre is bringing chicken tinga, which he'll make on Saturday. He promised to teach me how to make it later, when he has more time. Estoy MUY dichoso! (I am VERY happy), especially that we have a seminarian-soon-to-be-deacon to help Padre.

{funny}
I'm not sure what she thought was so funny, but here's Quila (short for Tranquila, which she isn't) laughing at something. Well, at least it looks to me like she's laughing!


{real}
As you hordes of regular readers will know, I have a rotator cuff injury that is preventing me from:
1. cooking
2. knitting (I had to put aside my latest project when it was 2/3 done)
3. making the bed
4. hanging the laundry on the line to dry
5. washing the dishes
6. washing my hair
and on, and on, and on

My amazing husband with a servant's heart has picked up all the slack (except for the knitting!). I am deeply blessed by having such a godly man to take care of me. He is - and has always been - a model of how I want to be.

Mil gracias, mi querido!

Now amble on over to Like Mother, Like Daughter for more tales from blogland.

{pretty,happy, funny, real} - beach edition

Happy Thursday! As Mr. Rogers reminded us, "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...won't you be my neighbor?" In this era of electronic neighborhoods, one of the best is centered around the blog Like Mother, Like Daughter, especially the weekly linkup to share our pretty, happy, funny and real experiences.

The Pirate and I live about a mile from a huge beach - miles long - that usually is completely empty. The reason is that there is a nasty undertow there that will suck you in if you're foolish enough to try swimming there. But the beach is lovely, and the waves are awesome, and the dogs love the freedom of a visit.

The beach is perfect for walking and having picnics and riding horses and watching whales and all the other things you might think of doing on a beach. Most visitors to our town who want to get up close and personal with the ocean want to swim or surf, so they don't go to our beach. So it's left for the locals to enjoy, which we do.

{pretty}

Here's one of our dogs, taking a break from a lot of running. The two people you see were with us...and there's nobody else around!

{happy}

While we were at the beach with our guests, the only other people we saw were some people on horseback.

There aren't many shells on this beach because the dropoff is steep and the waves are large, but our guests looked diligently and found some.

{funny}

We found this dead puffer fish fairly high up the beach. Puffer fish (botetes in spanish) are a real delicacy down here - like lobster. If you don't know how to gut them, they have a sac that contains poison which can kill you if you eat it. But the local fish shop has them occasionally which is a real treat for us!

{real}


There are two bodies of water for people to enjoy on the Baja Peninsula - the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California (traditionally known as the Sea of Cortez). The Gulf gets most of the people who want to be in the water, because as you can see, the Pacific is a dangerous ocean to mess with. The waves on the day this picture was taken probably averaged 10 feet high, which is common here.

For more pretty, happy, funny and real things away from the beach, swim on over to Like Mother, Like Daughter and enjoy!

{p,h,f,r} - Animals edition

I told my granddaughters about {pfhr} and that I was looking for pretty, happy, funny and real things to post about. We came up with the idea of focusing on some (not all) of their animals to cover the bases this time, so without further ado:

{pretty}

This is Banana, one of several parakeets the girls have. When I suggested that we take a picture of one of the parakeets, the youngest granddaughter opened the cage and let out a couple of them, but wasn't able to get one to stay on her hand. She's got a lot of energy and the birds get nervous around her. Her older sister, however, is a whiz with animals. She's very calm which all the animals can sense and it makes them feel safe. So we got a photo of Banana next to the painting by the bird cage, since Banana's color goes so well with the painting.

{happy}

The youngest granddaughter just got a new kitten, Ivy Rose, because her other cat got squooshed. Both she and the kitten are happy to be together.

{funny}

This is a breed of rabbit called a Lion's Mane. This particular rabbit's name is Mr. Tumnus. This is the only photo of him where you can actually see that he's an animal and not just a disheveled clump of fur. My granddaughter (the calm one) has rabbits of other breeds which she can show at the county fair (she's in 4H, as are all her sisters), but for some reason the Lion's Mane breed doesn't qualify for showing. Maybe it's because it would be hard for the judges to tell which end is up.

{real}

This is Toby. He's 16 years old. We joke about our daughter-in-law running an old dog's home because they have 3 very old dogs (the other 2 are labs), and no young dogs (at least not currently). Toby is the oldest of the bunch.

For other {pfhr} posts that have nothing to do with animals but are interesting just the same, click over to Like Mother, Like Daughter.

{p,h,f,r} Hand Made

I'm joining the folks at Like Mother, Like Daughter for {pretty, happy, funny real} with a focus on things that the Pirate and I have made, and how they turned out.

{pretty}
At our last home I had a separate studio where I did all my fiber projects - knitting, crocheting, and what I called "nature weavings". I've had my works in various shows, but not the one below, which is my favorite of all. It used to hang in the hallway of our old house, but now it's on the wall right above my treadle sewing machine. It's one of the first things I see every morning. The yarn is actually more colorful than the closeup photo shows.


{happy}
When we moved down here to Mexico I didn't think there would be any point in bringing any of the sweaters that I had knit over the years, but I did bring one that I had knit long ago with a nubbly cotton yarn. I love that yarn and I didn't want to consign this sweater to a plastic tub in our storage unit, so down it came with me. It has been hanging quietly in the closet for the past 4 years, but the reason it's hanging on a chair in my bedroom is that I just wore it. Yes, after a couple of days of warm, sunny weather, the fog is bag and I'm wearing long-sleeved knits all day, PLUS sweaters when we go out in the evening. I'm sure glad I brought that sweater down here!


{funny}
I've been begging the Pirate to smoke some cheese for me (in his smoker), so the day that I asked him to smoke some chicken legs and potatoes for dinner - I had already partly cooked them - he decided to throw in some monterey jack cheese as well. As you can see, the right amount of time for chicken and potatoes is definitely TOO LONG for cheese, which melted down onto the chicken. Actually the "mistake" turned out pretty tasty!


{real}
When our oldest granddaughter was staying with us for a couple of months earlier this year I bought some yarn for her to have a knitting project. She found a pattern for a clapotis shawl and started it, but didn't get very far into it. I told her that I'd finish the shawl for her birthday, so last week I picked up the project and knitted it to the halfway point (it's a triangular shawl). However, when I started to decrease stitches to make the triangle I realized that the pattern had a major flaw in it (at least for the type of yarn that was being used) and I wouldn't be able to continue. Happily I had bought WAY too much of that yarn because the color is so lovely - actually a deep brownish burgundy - so I started the shawl again with a new ball of yarn and a change in how stitches were added and subtracted. This is the original piece, which I'm about to rip out so I can use the yarn in the new version (rather than using up more new balls of yarn).

{p,h,f,r}, vol. 9

It's Thursday, it's Thursday, a pretty, happy Thursday! As ever, I'm linking up with Leila and her admiring followers to tell you of some small but special moments in my past week. Hop on over to Like Mother, Like Daughter for more peeks into the marvels of ordinary life.

{pretty}
Our oldest granddaughter Jordan sent us this photo of her and one of her sisters with SUPER curly hair (their hair is naturally VERY straight, something they inherited from me). They followed this video: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RAPHSAPshJE to get their hair that curly without using a curling iron (they're really into being as low-tech as possible). I remember maybe 25 years ago longing to have curly hair just like Meryl Streep did in The French Lieutenant's Wife (anyone remember that film?). But long hair and mucho chemicals don't mix too well on a long-term basis so I learned to live with my straight hair. If I'd had this video to learn how to get curls, I probably would have looked like Shirley Temple through most of my 40's (not a pretty thought!)


even more {happy}
Last week I showed you a photo of the shrug I had just finished. When I saw the picture in the post, I realized that I didn't like the tie that I had made, so I made a new one that doesn't jump out at you visually and does a better job of creating the ruffles. Here's the TRULY finished project:


{funny}
I have complained that it's a real stretch to find something funny to share, since I don't have any small children around who do cute things. But this week I have something! We went to the nearest city the other day for a doctor appointment and afterwards went to a very nice restaurant for lunch. Since my eyes were dilated I wasn't in any condition to be trying to take pictures of the restaurant (maybe next time), but as we were leaving the Pirate gave me something that through my half-shut eyes looked like a flier saying that they serve margaritas at 2 for the price of 1 all day. I stuffed the paper into my purse and we left. Today the Pirate asked me what I had done with the cartoon picture of us that the man had drawn and I had no idea what he was referring to. When he said he had given it to me at the restaurant, I fished the "flier" out of my purse and realized that it was a caricature of US that one of the restaurant employees had drawn! Here it is:

We'll definitely be going back to that restaurant to get our free margarita!


{real}
I am having an unending battle with our dogs to keep them from ruining my plants. They're pretty large - maybe 45 or 50 pounds? - and they are VERY frisky in their play. And they tend to be like Tigger, bouncing a little bit too enthusiastically and accidentally wrecking things in the process. When they go too far and I can't stand any more wreckage, I have the Pirate and his crewmate (a friend and neighbor) put up a fence to keep the dogs out of yet another part of the property. So far we've got 5 fenced-in areas; 6 if you count the vegetable garden, and when I saw for that for the last week the dogs had been running around our young mango tree and bumping it, causing fruit fall (which they then took all over the property) I got upset enough to decree yet another fence. This fence will also prevent them from digging holes near a beautiful young hibiscus in the same bed (which they keep doing). Here's the evidence:

And here's what we're doing about it (palo de arco sticks to be put in tomorrow as the vertical barrier).

hopefully that will reduce the dog-related frustration around here, at least for a while.

{p,h,f,r} vol. 8 - sewing and knitting

I got inspired by Auntie Leila's beautiful shawl that she made for Deirdre and decided to do a post that shows a couple of the things I've been working on now that they're finished.

{pretty}

This used to be a pair of white pants. I ripped out the inseam, reshaped it, and sewed it into a skirt - by hand. Then I dyed it. It has a really neat triangular section at the waist (the pants came like that) which is very flattering to the figure.

I love hand sewing, including darning. I got into it when I was reading Little House on the Prairie to the boys when they were small, and the description of Mary sewing by hand inspired me to try it. I've made a lot of clothes by hand, including a very complicated, tailored suit, and do a lot of my "repurposing"-type sewing by hand.

{happy}


I'm FINALLY DONE with this project! I got a little too creative and used 5 (FIVE!) different yarns for the front of this shrug, with strands of two different yarns at all times, in different combinations so it wouldn't be too stripy. Bad move! It wasn't hard to knit...it just took forever because I had to keep changing the yarn combinations, AND at the same time I had decided not to use a regular stitch pattern but basically wing it so the texture would be nubbly without any obvious repetition. Oy! What was I thinking? Anyway, it's over now (although I may make a different tie) and I haven't sworn off knitting or anything so I'm happy.


{funny}
I always have a hard time coming up with something funny, probably because I don't have any littles in the house who are a source of unending amusement. We do have 2 dogs who are amusing to us, but I don't want to bore you with dog pictures every week, so this part is always a stretch for me. So this week I'll tell you a funny story instead. I went to music practice with my husband last night - he's in the group that does the music for the main mass on Sundays. Down here that means two guitars (my husband plays lead), a keyboard, primarily to do rhythm, and six female voices, none of them trained, all of them altos with small ranges. They practiced for 1.5 hours last night, doing songs that they have done literally hundreds of times before and it was chaos! People sang off-key, they couldn't remember how the melodies went, the group leader (the other guitarist) couldn't remember what key the singers were able to sing in. The entire rehearsal was like that, and apparently it's always like that. They didn't bother to work out the glitches; they'd just go on to the next song. The amazing thing is, when it's time to actually play during mass, they always sound great - confident, strong, and on-key. Well, hey, I guess if it works there's no reason to sweat the details, eh?

{real}

This is my sewing machine. A long, long, time ago in a land far away I used to have an electric sewing machine. Then we moved to the country and homesteaded and I got a treadle, which I loved! However I still had my electric machine and my best friend had no machine, so I gave her the treadle (since she also didn't have electricity). Then eventually my electric machine died and I didn't bother to replace it because I was into sewing things by hand. But I really wanted a treadle machine again!

After many years we found one in a junk store and bought it. It was in great condition and also had the original manual! The first thing I sewed on it was matching aprons and prairie bonnets for my 4 forest grandchildren, who LOVE the Little House books. They literally wore those aprons until they wore out. Since then, although I still sew most of my clothes by hand, I use the treadle for other projects - pillows, curtains, etc. I'm about to start on a big quilting project so I'll be using the machine a lot in the near future.

For more pretty, happy, funny and real things, hie thyself over to Like Mother, Like Daughter.

{p,h,f,r}, vol. 7

I look forward to Thursdays because we can share the little moments in our lives that would otherwise be overlooked but for the theme of {pretty, happy, funny, real} over at Like Mother, Like Daughter.

{pretty}

This is a stand of corn about a block away from our house. It really IS as high as an elephant's eye - I've never seen corn this tall before! Here's a haiku that our oldest granddaughter Jordan wrote about corn when her sister Ayla told her on the phone that she was making corn pone and Jordan thought she said "corn poem"...so Jordan was inspired to write a corn poem:
Corn grows majestic
Silky tops wave in the breeze
The sunshine beats down

It perfectly describes the corn, verdad?

{happy}

We had a cabalgata in our town last Sunday. A cabalgata is sort of a fiesta for rancheros (Mexican cattle ranchers). It starts with a whole group of rancheros riding into town on horseback, then proceeding to the stadium where they have something like a rodeo but not the physically dangerous parts. The focus is on showing off their horses (and mules) rather than competing in physically challenging events. You can see from the photo that these are real working cattlemen.

{funny}

Bananas/plantains are the oddest plants. I thought you all might be interested to see what a banana looks like when it first starts out. I hope you can see that each fruit has an orchid-shaped flower at the tip. This photo shows 2 "hands" of fruit, and there will probably be 1 to 3 more hands that emerge from that big purplish/grayish bag looking thing below them. Once they emerge it takes 6 MONTHS or more for them to be ready to pick, and they have to be picked green if you ever want them to ripen. Definitely strange (funny?)

{real}

This is the road in front of our house. That's right - it's a dirt road. Most of the roads in our town are dirt. This, of course, means that it's impossible to keep a car clean - inside or out - around here for more than one day. On the plus side, taxes are quite low here since the town doesn't have to maintain many paved roads or provide libraries (although we have one run by a nonprofit group) or pay firemen (we have a volunteer fire department). Actually, our last home in the U.S. was bordered by a dirt road (although our driveway led to a paved road on the other side of our property) so we're used to having dust all over everything.

{p,h,f,r}, vol. 6

It's Thursday! {pretty}{happy}{funny}{real} time with Leila and her beautiful daughters. How much do I love Like Mother,Like Daughter? LOTS!) Thanks, Leila, for inspiring so many of us in so many ways!


{pretty}

We generally have flowers blooming all year around down here (mostly bougainvilleas and hibiscus), but some of the desert plants have recently bloomed. Here's my favorite - an aloe. Most aloes in the States seem to have red flowers, so this one surprised me the first time it bloomed. I love that warm yellow with a hint of orange.

{happy}

The Pirate did some clever work on the lower shelves of the bookcase he made so I can use them for yarn and fabric. This is what I see every morning when I wake up - all of them sources of deep satisfaction. My home altar, my books on prayer and Church teachings, my yarn, my fabric; what more could a person want? I know, more yarn!

{funny}


This is a metal gate that is used to lock up the entrance to a local cafe when it's closed. I love how they attached halves of coke cans to it and put plants in each one. Creative, pretty, and it cost nothing!

{real}

I've been working on knitting a shrug since last November. This is the sum total of what I've accomplished so far: 1 front piece measuring 8" by 16" and the other front piece which is smaller because I haven't finished it yet. This is probably the longest I've taken to knit anything, and it's the simplest pattern you could possible work with (3 rectangles!). The problem is, I decided to use multiple yarns AND not follow a specific stitch pattern (I wanted it to look really nubbly). This doesn't increase the difficulty, but it does slow the entire process down because I can never simply knit a row - I always have to be looking at what I'm doing to decide on the fly whether to make the next stitch a knit or a purl. AGGHHH! So of course I've found any number of excuses to put this project aside and work on other things (right now I'm sewing a bag for clothespins). But I've decided I must get this completed in the next couple of weeks because I can't stand to see it silently accusing me every time I sit down. Besides, it's finally getting warm enough to wear a shrug over a cami.

{p,h,f,r} vol. 5

It's Thursday, and time to link up with Leila and family for
{pretty}

This is our granddaughter Jordan with some pillows she made for a daybed on the patio outside our guestroom. She's an excellent seamstress at age 16. Both the maker and the pillows are pretty!

{happy} AND {funny}

When our "city" family visited recently, our son took his two younger kids to the beach to play. Plenty of "happy" here! And since I figure that you probably don't really need to see yet another picture of our goofy dogs, this will have to serve for FUNNY as well.

{real}

Our closest grandkids live 1200 miles from us. Our other grandkids (and our home base in the US) are 1800 miles away. We're still trying to figure out how to be a part of their lives when we are so far away. This blog is one of several ways we're trying to fill the gap of not being a regular part of their lives.

{p,h,f,r} vol.4

{pretty}

I was inspired to create a home altar by the photos that Sarah posted at her blog Faithworks. The wood statue was carved by my mother-in-law, who was one of my favorite people. The papers in it have the names of people I'm currently praying for. The framed picture is Our Lady Untier of Knots, which I love. The altar still seems to be needing something (flowers? candles?) but I suppose that the right things will present themselves as time goes along. I'm up for suggestions if anyone has any!

{happy}

We just had this area of our property fenced in so the dogs will stop digging up plants, and I immediately went out and bought 3 fig plants to put in there. I love mission figs, and I'm hoping that by having 3 plants the birds will leave at least some of the fruit for us!

{funny}

Our son (the one who lives in the forest with his family) decided it was time to turn over the soil in the vegetable garden in preparation for planting. So he took his excavator down there and REALLY did a thorough job!

{real}

The Pirate and I were reviewing our storage situation the other day and it became evident that having a single drawer to keep my yarn in is no longer an option. In our last house I had an entire wall of storage as well as a whole closet for my yarn. Most of that yarn went to my forest granddaughters when we moved (they all knit). But of course a yarn addict collects yarn wherever she goes, and I've bought yarn down here without having any specific project in mind. Unfortunately I've only been able to find one type of yarn in the entire state (knitting isn't a major activity here in Mexico). It's acrylic and polyester, fingering weight (which makes sense since it's really too hot down here for heavier weight yarns). Fortunately the colors this yarn comes in are DELICIOUS! Thus the excess yarn. I'm hoping that the Pirate will take pity on me soon and make some dividers to turn part of our bedroom bookcase into a yarn storage area.

For more lovely links, get thee to the LMLD blog: