It's dawned on me that during this time of year, we get a lot of wind.  I can tell because 1. I feel it.  2.  I see the trees swaying big and blowing.   3.  The windmill has to be shut down often because it keeps the water tank (See previous post Logan's Doggie Pool), full and overflowing. Looking back, it seems to have started getting windy about a month ago in the middle of February, and I remember that because I have several really big brush and tree piles, I need to burn, and I haven't felt safe about starting a fire that might spread to the other jungle. I've been noticing the past few days that it seems pretty still at night after the sun goes down.  And stays still until about 9 am when the sun has come up good.  The sun and the heat seem to make it more windy. Now, this is not to say there isn't always some breeze here in the Yucatan.  We are, after all, surrounded by the sea and the Gulf of Mexico and both of those always bring some breeze and the windmill

 I had a drone aerial friend come a few days ago and take some updated aerials for me so I could see the riding trails that we've worked hard on clearing the past four months.  Obviously, you get a different sense of perspective from a "bird's eye" view. After we were finished and I was reviewing them on my computer, and it dawned on me how ugly much of the land is right now. Much of it, away from the oasis of my home, is brown and looks bleak or dead.   And then I realized, it's because most of the trees have dropped their leaves.   The seasons here are much different from the USA.   I jokingly tell people that Yucatan has 3 seasons.  They are Not-so-hot, Hot, and Very hot.   Now the locals think that the "not-so-hot" season is winter.  It's funny to gringos because it simply means the daytime temperatures are usually in the high 70's to low 80's, (F) and the nighttime temperatures are in the mid 60's.   In the USA I guess we'd call

  Click here for video I got a dog a week ago from a lady in Merida who had rescued him from an abusive owner 6 months ago.  She named him Logan, so I kept the name.  He's probably 2 years old and is a Belgian Malinois breed.  They have good protective instincts and also are good jumpers. It's just so quiet out here by myself most of the time, that I decided it would be nice to have a dog around.  Plus I can go to church on Sunday night and leave him here to guard the house and stuff. We've had to come to an understanding on a few matters.  1. the big swimming pool is the Human swimming pool and not for him. 2. The doggie pool is by the windmill. He gets so dirty and would just go and take a flying jump in and all the mud on his feet would come off in the pool for me to clean out.   I took him down to the windmill where there is a water tank and when he saw it, he jumped right him.  So now, I'm not only the only person in the pueblo who has a swimming pool, but I'm

 I mentioned somewhere else in the blog that I have a very large cave near my house.  And about 6 weeks ago, I was sitting on the porch one night and pondering that I'd not been bitten by a mosquito since I've lived here.  In fact, I only remember one buzzing near my ear one time.  There are just not mosquitos.   There are however lots of mosquitoes in the pueblo 2.7 km away, and lots of them all over the Yucatan.  The cities like Merida are terrible with them.  But I'd had none.  Then one night a friend was visiting at night, and we were sitting on the front porch with the porch lights on, and we saw what appear to be a bird fly by in the dark.  My friend commented that it was a bat.  Wow!  I'd not thought about having them, and of course you typically don't see them since they only come out at night.    As I considered it, I realized they must be coming from the cave that is near my house.  It's huge with a tiny opening. There was my answer.  The bats eat all

  Click here for video I've been trying to keep my stuff water adequately since it's about to be the very hot season.  I had 3 sprinklers like you might stick in a residential yard.  But as my corn gets taller, I knew they weren't going to be able to reach over the tops of it. In Yucatan, a welder is called a blacksmith.  I had an idea and drew up a little tower that would be about 2meters tall that the sprinklers would sit on top of and shoot from a higher place. He charged me $80.00 to make me 3 of them.   Now it's made the watering job automatic and I don't have to have a man standing there moving the sprinkler around to get everything.  We just shoot these in a 360 circle and only have to move them twice in a day.

  We finally got cleared to the top of the small pyramid across from my house.  I'm sorry the video is not the best quality.  It was a very windy day.   At about the 40 second mark in the video, you can see the residue of some structure that some man made at the top.  This is definitely not nature made.   We have a lot more clearing to do, but this gives a very commanding view of my house across the road and the surrounding land.

I have made no secret of my ambitions here in the Yucatan that I'm trying to empower these Mayan people to rise up from their extreme poverty and make a good income.  It is an unfortunate by-product of poverty that one of the first "luxuries" to be discarded is education.  In my eyes, education is the ultimate and best steppingstone out of poverty. In the Yucatan, children can go to school for free thru the 8th grade.  9th-12 though cost money.  It cost about 1,500 pesos per semester, which is about $75.00 USD.  That doesn't sound expensive, but in the pueblo where the average monthly income is only the equivalent of about $125.00 per month for a family, it is a fortune and unaffordable for many.   Hence, they drop out after the 8th grade, and the boys go to the field to work, or go to Merida for construction jobs.  The girls start looking for a boy to marry or get them pregnant and then marry.  Often times in the reverse order. There are barely any job opportunities

  Click here for video You would have to see the jungle here to appreciate how dense it could be.  I've spent months clearing much land for planting and also around my house so I can see out.   But before the clearing, you could not see 5 meters in front of your face. Across from where my house is, there is a 20-hectare tract that I'm starting to clean up and sell.  I have looked at it from my porch every day for months and saw nothing but dense trees.   But after my guys started into it from the driveway, I was inspecting their work and could see that the ground started rising pretty rapidly.  I sent them up the incline with machetes, and by gosh! There was a small pyramid.   Now lest you start thinking of Chichen Itza or Cheops, forget about it.  This one is about 15m tall.  It would have been typical for some important official or area ruler to have been buried in 500 years ago when this area was a big commerce center for the Mayan.   In any case, we've begun the clearin