Note to self: Planted today 1.19.23 Forget-Me-Nots

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I'm building a Pueblo set on a hill, for myself, and 5 or 6 other expat families, who desire a Peaceful, Paradise rural lifestyle with solar-powered-living, abundant fresh food, and off-grid sustainability. We are located approximately 90 km south of Merida, Mexico, in the Yucatan near the pueblo of Mayapan.

Note to self: Planted today 1.19.23 Forget-Me-Nots

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- January 19, 2023

Planted today 1.19.23

200 Forget-Me-Nots and 60 Albahaca

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Machines don't remember my name

- October 03, 2022

As I've already told anyone reading this blog, my pueblo near the ranch, is Mayan. I guess most pueblos in Yucatan are too. Mayan in Yucatan are the indigenous people. Many things in life in the pueblos go on today as it has for a 100 years or more. There are still some pueblos here that are not on a road, but far off the roads, have no electricity or running water, no schools, and life exists today for the inhabitants as it did 300 years ago. The pueblos offer many colorful traditions, that probably gringos would find "backward" or primitive. It's fine with me. I'm looking here for simple and peaceful, and Mayan living has helped to wean me off the steady-slow-IV-drip of consumerism I've lived with in the states for many, many years. At my ranch, 3 km from the pueblo, I have 5 men from the pueblo who work for me clearing, planting, climbing trees, killing poisonous snakes, animal care, plant care, fence building and sometimes just helping me up o

Fresh pork ribs from the pueblo in Yucatan Mexico

- October 26, 2023

The Maya eat almost everything fresh. They think frozen food tastes funny. And many Maya families don't have a refrigerator anyway. All of the meat is cut fresh and beef and pork and chicken are readily available from one of three different vendors in the Pueblo 7 days a week. They take a different day to slaughter so they don't compete with each other. Beef is 130 pesos per kg. Pork is 120 pesos per kg. and Chicken is about 100-110. However, most Maya families keep a pig or two in the back yard and multiple chickens for their own family consumption. Salvador, my superintendent was slaughtering his pig Saturday night and on Monday morning brought me a kg of fresh pork ribs. My price: 100 pesos! About $5.20 USD or $2.52 USD per pound. They were delicious and I guess would cost four times as much in the states? Video link

Oh! That cow is going to die tonight?

- August 27, 2022

Some Yucatan pueblo culture. My pueblo is Mayan. There are several cultural changes that I've had to learn there. One, there is no grocery store meat counter in town to run to and grab a pound of ground or a steak. I knew there were places around the pueblo to buy meat because driving through town I'd see big and small pieces having up above the open-air counter. Beef and whole chickens, and sometime what I thought look like pork ribs. In my pueblo there are 3 meat vendors. You get meat from one of the 3 families in town that offer fresh meat. Generally speaking, the Mayan people don't like frozen meat or vegetables. They like everything fresh. I've noticed for a long time, that some afternoons, I'd drive thru the pueblo and see a small, medium or even large cow tied up to a light post in front of a market. They are always just standing there. Today this fellow (and trust me, he was a fellow) was just sitting there looking left and right at the few car

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Machines don't remember my name

- October 03, 2022

As I've already told anyone reading this blog, my pueblo near the ranch, is Mayan. I guess most pueblos in Yucatan are too. Mayan in Yucatan are the indigenous people. Many things in life in the pueblos go on today as it has for a 100 years or more. There are still some pueblos here that are not on a road, but far off the roads, have no electricity or running water, no schools, and life exists today for the inhabitants as it did 300 years ago. The pueblos offer many colorful traditions, that probably gringos would find "backward" or primitive. It's fine with me. I'm looking here for simple and peaceful, and Mayan living has helped to wean me off the steady-slow-IV-drip of consumerism I've lived with in the states for many, many years. At my ranch, 3 km from the pueblo, I have 5 men from the pueblo who work for me clearing, planting, climbing trees, killing poisonous snakes, animal care, plant care, fence building and sometimes just helping me up o

Fresh pork ribs from the pueblo in Yucatan Mexico

- October 26, 2023

The Maya eat almost everything fresh. They think frozen food tastes funny. And many Maya families don't have a refrigerator anyway. All of the meat is cut fresh and beef and pork and chicken are readily available from one of three different vendors in the Pueblo 7 days a week. They take a different day to slaughter so they don't compete with each other. Beef is 130 pesos per kg. Pork is 120 pesos per kg. and Chicken is about 100-110. However, most Maya families keep a pig or two in the back yard and multiple chickens for their own family consumption. Salvador, my superintendent was slaughtering his pig Saturday night and on Monday morning brought me a kg of fresh pork ribs. My price: 100 pesos! About $5.20 USD or $2.52 USD per pound. They were delicious and I guess would cost four times as much in the states? Video link

Oh! That cow is going to die tonight?

- August 27, 2022

Some Yucatan pueblo culture. My pueblo is Mayan. There are several cultural changes that I've had to learn there. One, there is no grocery store meat counter in town to run to and grab a pound of ground or a steak. I knew there were places around the pueblo to buy meat because driving through town I'd see big and small pieces having up above the open-air counter. Beef and whole chickens, and sometime what I thought look like pork ribs. In my pueblo there are 3 meat vendors. You get meat from one of the 3 families in town that offer fresh meat. Generally speaking, the Mayan people don't like frozen meat or vegetables. They like everything fresh. I've noticed for a long time, that some afternoons, I'd drive thru the pueblo and see a small, medium or even large cow tied up to a light post in front of a market. They are always just standing there. Today this fellow (and trust me, he was a fellow) was just sitting there looking left and right at the few car

End of Rainy season and time to start watering

- October 23, 2023

Rainy season in Yucatan begins about the middle of May and continues thru September. That means it usually rains in the afternoon for about 15 to 45 minutes. Clear sky before, and clear sky afterward. But I noticed this week, that the fruit trees and asparagus ground is very dry. It's been nearly 3 weeks since we got a rain. That is too long without water. We got out all the water hoses and connected them and started spraying today, and I see now that we should plan on doing this once a week, unless we get a good rain in between. I found that a slow 10-count on everything gets the ground pretty soaked.

Pouring the cement flooring and being a privileged minority

- September 23, 2022

I was impressed that they put down a vapor barrier on the ground before they pour the cement floor. They said it helps keep bugs out of the house and moisture too. The biodigester installation is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. One day soon, I will be in that small minority of people in the Yucatan who can flush toilet paper. It's not the level of notoriety I had hoped for at this stage of my life, but it is nice to be in a privileged minority in at least one matter.

Note to self - 1.19.23 Transplanting Asparagus in Yucatan for retail sale

- January 19, 2023

Maybe a reader would be interested. But I'm making this note to myself to refer to later. I planted 500 asparagus plants in mid August 2022 in two rows in my raised-garden-beds. Each row had 3 rows of asparagus with about 75 plants per row. September nothing. October 19th, 60 days later, they popped up overnight. A month later, on November 21, 2022 they were about 30 cm tall (12"). You can see them in the rows between the coconut trees I'm growing (for sale). The coconut trees give the plants partial daytime shade from the very hot Yucatan sun. On November 21, 2022 I decided to pursue growing asparagus for a 2nd income stream. To raise as potted plants to sell retail in Merida in 3 years to expats and nationals who would like to buy a mature plant and begin cutting spears from the plants immediately. 2 mature plants would provide a couple of small family enough asparagus for their own needs to eat it as often as they'd like. The mature, ready-to-harvest pla

Harvest time now for honey in the Yucatan

- May 13, 2023

My neighbor on the next ranch has 10 beehives and is always offering to share some with me. Of course, I cheerfully accept, and still try to buy a liter or two from him. Mid-April begins the heaviest honey harvesting time. Starting April 15, he, more or less, collects 90 liters of honey every 15 days. So he got his first harvest April 15, then 90 liters May 1, and today 90 more. He has told me that he'll get 90 more the end of May and then one more harvest the middle of June. Then the collection stops until November and December. Then nothing in January and some in February and nothing in March. Then the process repeats itself next April. Click here for video of harvesting honey today in the Mayan tradition He has told me that I have enough land that I could put in 40 hives in 4 different locations of 10 hives each. I have decided though to put in Melipona bees, which are stingless and unique to the Yucatan. They only make about 1/5th honey that he makes, but it sells

Bananas in the making in Yucatan

- October 11, 2023

These are not my first bananas. I made 2 other bunches on trees that the wind knocked down before ripe. The banana plant is not really a tree. It is a succulent, so it does not get a woody trunk. Actually, banana "trees" are a fruit making firm. But now I'm got 2 trees with clusters on them and have taken care to get them propped up good to withstand the weight and the wind. These are about 60 days from being ripe and ready to eat.

Note to self: Big horseflies are gone after only one month in Yucatan Mexico

- August 03, 2023

I've always had a few small flies around. But I've controlled those with a sticky glue trap that I keep hanging up near the porch. About a month ago, some big flies showed up that I've always called Horseflies. They bite. and it hurts. It doesn't sting like a bee, but the bite still hurts. It has seemed like there were hundreds of them around. I've kept myself sprayed with Off Repellent and that has kept them from landing on me. And I have a friend bringing me some fly trap bags that I know from experience are great for catching them and killing them. But this morning, Thursday, August 3, 2023, I was in the pool cleaning it, and got out, and it dawned on me there are no horseflies around today. I'm not prepared to say they are gone for good. But today they aren't here. I'll keep an eye on the for a while and also see if they perhaps just have a one month lifespan?

The Joy of watching my Maya co-workers learn a new skill in Yucatan Mexico building rock walls

- May 17, 2023

In the Yucatan for hundreds of years, the Maya have made walls and fences out of rocks. They call them Cotes. It's just a lot of big rocks, and a few small rocks stacked on top of each other. The weight of the rocks makes it strong. Periodically some of the top rocks get knocked off and you just walk along and ut them back in place. There are men in the pueblos who build these walls for a living. I had them build some for me. But I decided I needed about 300 more meters and would prefer to pay that money to my co-workers rather than hire others. I asked my men if they could do it, and they said they didn't know. They had never tried, because that is what the Cote builders do. I told them one day, I thought they could do and we'd give it a try. For the first couple of days they were not as fast as the "pros". But by the 3rd day that had picked up the rhythm and were going just as fast. They beamed with joy to discover that they could do this. I beame