Besides clearing the land to make it productive, I had to immediately start clearing a path for a new 3 kilometer road.  As much as I wish I could have used humans for the work, the road clearing demanded a backhoe with a large, very large, hydraulic hammer on the back to break up large boulders that were in the proposed roadway.

 June 16, 2022 My first project finished.   I didn't get to exact-matching-before-photo.  I regret that. But this photo is pretty much standing in the sand spot as the groomed-photo below it.   Big difference.  It's the land that would be viewed from the front porch of the house when I finish it.  I wanted to see what I'd be looking at each morning to know the house was the one I wanted to update.  As you could see in the beginning posts, there were two to choose from.  I choose the rock-faced casa.  This will be what I'll look out on, to the left, each morning.  Now I'm working on the right-looking view that has a lot of palms in it. For the past 30 years of my life, developing land, I'm always amazed at the beauty of land after it has been trimmed and pruned and brought back from abandon and neglect.   Nature always seeks to go wild. And I believe that one of the mandates from God that man received was to "take dominion" over it.  In this case, it is

 June 6, 2022   My pueblo is named Mayapan Municipality.   But that is not to be confused with the ruins site of Mayan Pyramids and buildings in the Mayapan Archeological Zona about 30 km north of the pueblo.  The ruins of Uxmal are about 60 km west, and the ruins of Chichen Itza are about 120 km east. At the Mayapan Ruins you will see a few ancient sites, but the largest collection in the Yucatan is in both Uxmal and Chichen Itza

 Description here of the Ejido and how they started and how they function. Purpose of meeting. Photo of old road and proposed new road

 My little pueblo does not have a restaurant.  It has a couple of pizza places that will deliver but no indoor seating.  The nearest restaurant is in Teabo about 8 km away.  It has a lovely and quaint restaurant that is on the rooftop of the owner's house.   It's a simple and inexpensive menu with very friendly service and often times at lunch time during the middle of the week, I might be the only customer.   Today I had a friend with me and we ordered the same thing.  Battered chicken breasts.   This is what we got, plus tea to drink for 200 pesos total include tip (about ten bucks) After we finished eating my friend went to the bathroom and came back grinning.  She is a Mexican national, but still said that she'd never seen a public restroom designed this way when labeled as Unisex: I suppose I'm imagining that since the toilets don't have seats, they are primarily intended as urinals?  However, I was too embarrassed after seeing myself, to ask my lady friend, wh

 May 2, 2022 When I went to see the ranch for the first time, I came very close to just passing and not considering it.  The road from the pueblo out to the ranch was about 4 km long, and twisting, and narrow and almost beat your brains out from so many boulders and rocks in the road.  It literally took 20+ minutes to drive the 4 km.   However, I had a vision for repairing it and decided to pursue the ranch if I could get the permission of the local town Ejido counsel to let me make it better.   The surveyor came a few days ago to survey the boundaries of the ranch (shown in red) and at the same time, made a survey of the existing road from the ranch to the pueblo.  3.9 km long.   This is the original road going from the pueblo to the ranch: Here's a photo of what it looked like from the car: and to try and experience the horror of the 20-minute drive I made a short video so I could remember years from now the nightmare it was , back and forth. The ranch itself is comprised of 2 ad

May 2, 2022 The Rancho Onicheen was previously owned by a 92-year-old man and his 90-year-old wife.   Both of them Mayans and neither speak Spanish.  Both of them grew up on the ranch and his family owned approximately 90 hectares and her family owned the 20 hectares adjacent to it.  They lived there for their entire lives and raised their children on the ranch in the one room house with a few additional palapala huts as sleeping quarters. This is me with the owner in the second photo, and with him and his daughter and son and granddaughter in the first photo. The granddaughter does speak Spanish. We are all standing on the same porch of a feed store in the pueblo:

 April 22, 2022 In the Beginning, Bud sought a ranch  . . . .and there was a ranch. and lastly, the "Casa Principal".   The previous owner's one room home.  No plumbing.  No cabinets.  Dirt floor.  No kitchen.  Just enclosed from the elements with hooks on the wall for 4 hammocks.