September 7, 2022 A cat showed up a couple of days ago at the house that we're renovating.  He's a handsome Siamese and just came in out of the jungle.  I have no idea how long he's been on the loose.  But he showed up, and walked in the back door, and thru the house and out the back door and then took off again.  He was very shy around the workers.    My supervisor did get a photo of him. He was an answered prayer for me, because I'd been wanting to get a couple of outside cats to keep the property clear of snakes and rodents.  In case you don't know, if you feed them just a small amount of food, cats will naturally become hunters and find what else they need to survive.  And they're very good at it instinctively.  In my case, I can get some cats from the shelter in Merida, but my concern was how to get them to the ranch.   In Patricio's case, he came to us.  My guys started calling him Patricio which is a Spanish name equivalent to Patron.  They say he wa

 September 6, 2022 I was driving thru Teabo today to the rancho and passed a vendor in the Palazzo with a pickup truck of furniture and several pieces sitting on the pavement.  I pulled over to inspect his work and found a beautiful handmade table and chairs for my dining area.   Even though I'm not ready for it yet, at the equivalent of $250.00 for the table and 4 chairs, I couldn't pass it up.  I got them and put in my storage room to stain later.  The attention to detail is incredible.  And each piece was made by the man from trees that he cut himself, planed, carved, and assembled.

                    New Road                                                                                          Old Road             The new road is about 1/3 graveled.  I made the journey today and it was so nice.  Frankly, the worst part of going to the ranch, and I dread it every time, is making the trip on the old road 20 minutes each way.  This new road will make the trip about 3 or 4 minutes when finished.    Video here of the drive:

September 5. The solar panels were completed today and now we're running the power cables into the newly topped off solar panel bodega.  You can see now in the photo below it's as tall as the house.  While the man was there to connect the panels, he made an updated drone aerial of the improvements as of today . You can see the newly enlarged white roof of the house and the solar bodega, and the solar panel array behind the house.  Also all of the planting beds are finished and we now (thank goodness) have all of the 120 fruit trees plants.   Much progress! I ordered doors and windows made from a local Mayan carpenter.  He cuts the trees himself to make his wood and then assembles the doors and windows to look old in the Mayan tradition.  The windows and door are both 2 panel doors and will (not in the Mayan tradition) have screens over the outside.  They do not have glass.  If you open the panels, the windows are open.  Close panels the windows are closed.    The rain has slowe

We have finished building the 7 planting beds in Corral 3 and 7 more beds in Corral 4.  Now I have 420 square meters of raised beds with 5 to 8 cm of good red dirt in each one.  If my projections are correct, in 2 years, from 4 of the beds, I should be making about 100 kg a day of just asparagus.  Plus about 1,000 cantaloupes per season and at least 500 watermelons. Also assorted other varieties, including strawberries, which I've only recently learned how to grow from the skins of other strawberries.  

 September 1, 2022 The Solar Bodega has risen to its top.  The small block casing you see on top is for the water tank to sit on top of.  Now it's time for the rock veneer face to match the adjacent casa you can see in the back. This is looking at the back corner of the solar bodega and solar panel array is to the right of this, behind the bodega and house. The masons completed work today on the casings for the windows and doors which should be set in place in the next day or two. This will be the living room, dining and kitchen at the far end.  We still have to cut in a window over the sink.  I've kept the old rock wall for the first house to have in the living room. This is the former one room of the original casa, which will now become a bedroom with back patio and a new wall will be built to divide a bathroom and laundry area.

August 31, 2022 We have finished the rock veneer on the front of the house extention and now we're waiting on the blacksmith (Mayan term for welder) to come and install a metal frame for the front porch awning.  (see below for what I'm imagining) We continue to plant the fruit trees.  It takes a little time with each tree, because we have to hammer most of the holes out of limestone rock.  We made them very large and now we plant the tree in the middle, after putting small rocks at the bottom for drainage.  Then we fill in around the tree with a m3 of good red dirt that is heavily mixed with fertilizer for root growth, 2 liters of cow manure, and 1 liter of 20:1 diluted bull's blood.   The trees are planted in between the planting beds to give partial shade to the beds in future years as the trees mature. We've started to face the front of the solar bodega with the rock veneer.  When the veneer is finished I'm going to build a little porch cover over the door and wi

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

 

August 26, 2022 We've built 7 planting beds in Corral 3 and the same in Corral 4.  Each bed is about 15m long (50') and 2m wide (80").  So that is 15x2x14 or about 420 sq. meters total with approximately 10 cm of soil deep.  That's a lot of dirt to be put in the beds to raise them up for growing.  And in Mexico, why use a machine to do the work of 5 men, when you can just use 5 men instead?  (More on this culture in another article) And the masons continue on with their stone work.  By the way, what you're seeing in reverse here is the view I'll have from my front porch every day.  Lovely, I think.  

 August 25, 2022 This shows the distances on the new road "from" the ranch back to the pueblo, in meters.  Example: 1+300.00 means it is 1.3 km from the ranch entrance back to the intersection of the new road and the old road (blue).  We started laying gravel at the pueblo and are working back toward the ranch.  As of today, we're at about 2+020.00.   So that means we have about 2 km to get to the ranch.  It's the rainy season here now, which means that it rains about 30 minutes every afternoon.  If that's all we get, it runs away fast.  But if we get a one, or 2 hour deluge, it means the gravel trucks can't haul for 2 or 3 days.   And then if it does dry out enough to haul and rains again the 3rd day, we stop again. It gets frustrating.  But like the tortoise and the hair, we will get it done with diligence and perseverance.  Every day we plant a few trees.  It's not a speedy process, because 1. we have 120 fruit trees, and 2. I'm very particular abou