CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT MEXICO : Its official name is not Mexico, but the United Mexican States. Although its flag was created in 1821, it took 147 years to become official in 1968. Home to the largest pyramid, did you think that the pyramids of Egypt were second to none? The Great Pyramid of Cholula measures 450 meters by 450 meters, rising 55 meters above the plain where construction began around 300 AD. Spanish-speaking country with the most inhabitants, Logic would say that Spain is where Spanish is spoken the most. But with more than 120 million inhabitants, Mexico surpasses any other country. There are 68 recognized languages, One of the most unknown curiosities of Mexico is that there are 68 native languages ​​and 364 recognized linguistic variants in the country in addition to Spanish. Surprisingly, Mexico does not have any official language. The world's largest beer exporter, the Corona brand is the best known in other countries. Coca Cola is the preferred soft drink,

  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?

  Today is Jult 27 and these new butterflies showed up in mass this morning.  It was about a month ago that yellow and purples showed up.  I don't know enough about them to know what it is, so I asked in a FB group if this is a Monarch.  It is not.  Monarchs start their migration from central Mexico and go north to the United States as far as North Califonia.  This beautiful fella is actually a moth.  But beautiful nevertheless. I discovered a month ago, with my rock side walk, if I keep it sprayed with water, it form little pools of water everywhere, and the butterflies and moths come in and gather around it for a drink.  I've also been told this is why they have "stopped over" on their journey here, because I have abundant supplies of water and there is no other spot for 3 km away.    These Adelpha also love to feast on spoiled fruit.  I accidentally left a banana outside that I forgot about and it was completely black and completely covered in the beautiful creatur

  I have been working now for over a year on the first part of development of my ranch into a community of 5 or 6 families who desire to live a peaceful, sustainable, and off-grid lifestyle, with pueblo life, in Yucatan Mexico. Now I am ready, and starting, to extend the road back to serve 4 additional tracts of land from 12.5 hectares to 26 hectares for interested buyers.   First we excavated out the largest rocks and leveled them.  Then we smooth some dirt over the surface to make it more level.  That is what we have done in the this video.  We are about 1/2 back now to the densest trees.  In a month we will bring in gravel and cover this dirt to make the road all weather.

  I love learning new things.  But sometimes learning a new thing, just means you find out that the old thing you thought you knew was wrong.    We've been working, off and on, on a new bodega (storeroom or garage) so I can have a place to put my tractor in out of the rain.   Things kept coming up that would demand attention.  But now we're back at it and needing about 600 more palm leaves to finish the roof.   The leaves that are on it now, I bought for about 7 pesos each (30 cents US).   And I guess I've got about 15,000 pesos spent so far and need to spend 6,000 more.   I was telling Salvador to get them ordered, and looked over at a palm on my land and asked him could we use those leaves.  He said certainly. Now my first thought was "why didn't you tell me this before I spent 15,000 pesos.  But then I realize, he didn't tell me because I just told him to buy some and that's what he did.  He gives his opinion when I ask for it. The long and short is I

Isaiah 61:3 says:  I will appoint unto them, that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, and the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness.   For many years, I have always made it a habit to try and consider in my decisions, the "unintended consequences" that can sometime come from even the best choices.   This is a video of my taking some of the plants and cutting them into smaller pieces to try and multiply the plants from 2 to 12 plants . I shared some months back about giving my co-workers instructions to clear out a fence row on both sides of a rock wall.   And they did exactly what I asked the to do.  However, a few days later I took a walk down the rock wall, and discovered, to my sorrow, a large pile of mature aloe vera plants that they had either cut up into pieces, or pull up from the ground and attempted to burn.  My heart sank.  I certainly wasn't mad at the guys.  They did just w

  I have mentioned before that the Maya like to make things happy.  They respect nature.   Previously, I've written that I was going to through out some old tortillas and one of my helpers pulled them out of the trash and asked if he could tear them into pieces for the birds.  I said "of course".  And then he told me that the tortillas would make the birds happy, and when the birds are happy they sing, and when the sing, the trees are happy and the land is happy, and when the land is happy it is a happy place to work. What a lesson. So I'm planting 5 hanging baskets this morning, Monday July 17, 2023, of Albahaca seeds.  I'm putting about 10 seeds per basket and the package says they should come up in 21 days.  We'll see. I've planted these before because I wanted to have my house surrounded by a pleasant fragrance.  And I learned a lesson.  When they came up, I separated them, and planted each separate plant in a flower bed.   I goofed.  Separated they di

  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

  In the pueblos of Yucatan, there are no supermarkets like you'd find in a larger town or city.  The closest supermarket to me is about 30km away in Oxkutzcab.   Instead the pueblos have small neighborhood stores called Tiendas that might be 15m2 to 20m2 and they have the basics.  Sort of like a convenience store, except even smaller.  These stores would not have meat, because you get that from the butcher who kills a cow every few days and only sells fresh meat.   They would have eggs, and a few items of produce and bread and lots of sweets.  My pueblo has about 3,000 people and probably 50 tiendas.  It is planned that the tienda is close enough that you can walk to it because every day you go and get what you need that day. Besides the tiendas, every pueblo will have many tortillerias.  Again, they are located in neighborhoods so you can walk every day and get what you need.   The idea of buying a week's worth of anything is alien to these Maya people. I go into the pueblo h

  The rainy season officially arrived this past Sunday night, the 14th of May. Thank goodness.  Now we stop watering my asparagus and coconut trees and let Mother Nature take over for a while. It's now been almost 9 months since I planted the first Asparagus.  And contrary to all the naysayers who said I could not grow it here in Yucatan, my plants are healthy, full and growing.   Next year we'll have some spears but two years from now (the 3rd year) we'll have 100's of kilograms of asparagus weekly.  Woohoo! Also shown are the progress of my coconut trees that are growing in bags, to be sold in 4 years at retail in Merida.  The first ones are very tall now for less than a year old.  Probably 80cm and the newer ones are almost 30 or 40 cm. Next year will be a great year for the farm!    Click here for video of the progress

  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

  For me, I feel like I have many advantages living near the small Maya pueblo of Mayapan.  It's only about 3,000 and everyone is friendly.  No crime.  Lots of fresh food and meat. But there are some disadvantages.  1 is there is nothing like what most people would call a supermarket or large grocery store.  The nearest one is about 30km away and it's not a really large one.  But it is a supermarket.   There are no banks or ATM machines.  No one takes debit cards.  Everything is done with pesos or barter.   There are no gasoline stations closer than 15km away.   There are not big stores to shop at for a big selection.  But pueblo life goes on and people live with what they have. To make up for no supermarket, the pueblos have little stores called tiendas.  They are generally about  15m2 or about 150 sq. ft.  They have the basics.   Some might be 1/2 that size.  And a small pueblo like Mayapan has at least 20 of them that I know of.  They are spaced all over the pueblo, because

  The vaquerias are on the 1st and 2nd nights, and after that begin la tradicional corrida de toros.  The fighting of the bull.   The corrida is in the afternoon with more dancing at night that may last all night.   Contrary to popular Expat myth, no animal is harmed in these corridas.  Quite the contrary, the bull ends up being the winner, and it is the men who are getting tossed into the air.   The bull is chasing the men who show themselves brave enough to get in the arena with it, and the lure the charging bull to them, and then are fleeing in every direction.  It is orchestrated chaos.  :-) The crowds roar with enthusiasm and are cheering the men, and the children beam with pride at the "bravery" of their brother, or papa, or son.  I personally think it's more analogous to the Running of the Bulls in Spain, with a bunch of your men, and a few older too, jumping in the arena to show their bravery with the charging bull. The entire event is very colorful, festive, and

 I live 90 km south of Merida Yucatan Mexico, near a trio of pueblos: Chumayel, Teabo, and Mayapan.  All 3 are only about 8km apart and many families from one, have family in the others.  Each has about 3,000 residents.  It's a wonderful, happy, friendly, peaceful, content, hard-working community that I've been blessed to become a part of.   Right now, and starting on April 29, 2023, there is a celebration going on in Teabo and Chumayel.  When it is over there, it will start for 7 more days in Mayapan.   It is not because of Cinco de Mayo (May 5th Independence Day) but coincidentally coincides with it. Each pueblo in Yucatan has a patron saint, and this is the week in the pueblos to honor the saint.  In Mayapan it is Santo Cristo del Amor. In another video I posted and another blog post, I mentioned the slaughter of the pigs that most families have been raising for the past 3 months to share this week during the fiesta.  That too is a family affair that concludes with the deep

  Today we harvested the last of the ears and stalks from my first corn crop I've grown here on my Ranch.  As I have mentioned before, the Maya will plant their corn on June 1 to coincide with the beginning of the rainy season.  However, I have water and irrigation pumps, so we can grow 2 crops per year. click here for video This corn was planted on January 15, and came up 6 days later.  We began collecting ears of corn about 10 days ago, and the last ears were ready today. In the video you see the men cutting down the stalks after picking the ears.  We will take the stalks to Chumayel and selling to a cattle rancher who will grind them into feed and we'll sell the ears at market. When all is said and done, I don't think that I made a dime profit growing this early corn.  I didn't lose money, and I managed to give my guys work to do and the crop paid for their labor.  That's just fine with me.   We'll plant again in a couple of weeks, and that corn will grow its

 Today is Monday, May 1.  In the pueblo near me, the fiesta began on Saturday night, two nights ago, and last all week. The days of fiestas are to honor the saint of each Pueblo.   Parades, getting dressed up, booths of all kinds, party lights, music, and of course bull fights.  2 nights of celebration followed by 5 days of La tradicional corrida de toros with dancing at night.   It generally coincides with Cinco de Mayo but it is not a celebration of independence.. Many, and maybe most, of the families in the pueblos have been raising a pig for the past 3 or 4 months in preparation and anticipation of this week.  And Saturday was the day to slaughter the pig for the families own celebration this week. The slaughter and preparation is a big family affair. My superintendent, Salvador, asked me on Saturday morning if I would like some of his family's pig and I was eager to accept.  I told him a few ribs and some pork loin would be my favorite.  He brought both to me this morning, and

 I have a large tree by my pool.  It makes a tiny fruit, that the Maya (and myself) like.  It's not very fruity, because it's so tiny.  But it has a soft shell on the outside that peels away easily, and then you pop it in your mouth, and suck the fruit off, and spit out the pit.  The Maya enjoy them more like a piece of candy than a piece of fruit. In Maya it is called Huayum and I'm not sure what it is in Spanish. I noticed about the first of March, I started getting tiny pieces in my pool that I'd have to clean out every couple of days.   5 or 6 or 7 pieces.   The birds like them and would fly into the tree, peck a little at them, and knock them off the tree into the pool.   Day by day, the quantity increased, I suppose as the fruit was getting mature and ripe.   Besides knocking them into the pool, they knocked many more to the ground.   About 2 weeks ago, April 15th, there started to be forty or fifty pieces a day in the pool and it was getting filthy.   So I draine

My helpers had gotten off and I expected to see them leave to go home.  Instead, a few minutes later, Salvador and 2 of the others, Diego and Pedro, came walking past my house with something that had smoke coming out of it, and my 9 meter extension ladder. Click here for video I asked Salvador what they were doing and he said they were going to get 2 big wasp nests down from trees, to take home and eat.  I had heard of this before, because Liborio showed me a small nest he knocked out of a tree and he told me that he loved to cook and eat the larvae. I decided to go and watch this and wondered how on earth they'd get them down out of a tree that needed a 9m ladder.

Sometime yesterday, or perhaps the night before, a small snake about 30 cm got on my front porch, with its rough surface, and sloughed off its skin.  I didn't pay any attention to the old skin laying there when I walked out yesterday, but my dog saw it.  And he was not happy about it.   I guess Logan can pick up the scent of a snake from the old skin, and he thinks it is still a snake.  I imagine he's spent a total of 4 or 5 hours staring at it yesterday and today. Click here for 3 minute video It's one of the funniest reactions I've seen between a dog and a piece of dead flesh.   I am happy though to know that he at least knows what a snake smells like, so if one gets in the house, he can alert me to it.  I can't imagine what his response would be if the snake was alive and started slithering around. Fortunately, I've got a very good feral cat, Patricio, who does a splendid job of keeping the area around my house free of snakes and mice.  Apparently he missed o

I've posted before about what a nuisance the iguanas are to me here on the farm.  They are a predator to many of the vegetables I'm trying to grow and I wish I didn't have any here.  I don't want to just kill them and considered trapping them and carrying them away.  But then I discovered that a couple of my workers really like to BBQ them and eat.   So I started paying my guys a bounty of 10 pesos (about 55 cents) for everyone they catch and kill.  That's worked pretty good and they've probably removed 20 or 30 in the past few months. I also got 2 plastic decoy owls from Home Depot to mount on a tall post.  Those didn't work.  I think the Iguanas figured out they weren't real.  But the heads are mounted on a swivel spring to help them appear alive.   The problem was they head just didn't move that much or often. I had an idea about how to remedy that and cut a big plastic coke bottle and mounted a large clear plastic sail on the back of the head.  N

I posted earlier about when we planted this corn in the middle of January.  For corn it is possible to have 2 crops per year here, since there is no frost or winter.  This corn will be ready to harvest about the end of April.   Click here:  Here's a short one-minute video I made this morning while watering. The Mayans will plant their corn in June, because that is the start of the rainy season and they need the rain to water the plants.  I have free electricity and unlimited fresh water and an irrigation system, so we are able to plant in January and keep it watered with the sprinkler towers I had built. When we harvest this corn, we'll clear the stalks and fertilize the ground well with cow manure and then the last week in May, we will plant more. Also, very interesting to me this lesson.  About 3 weeks ago, I had to go to Merida for the day.  On the way home there was a severe storm with 50kph winds and heavy rain.   When I got back to the ranch at 5:00 Salvador was still her

 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