Huespedes

Domingo 16 - Sábado 22 Feb 2014  Harmony skyped us Sunday morning.  So good to see and talk to her and her family! The walls & downstairs ceilings inside of our house are painted white. When the sun is bright, it is interesting to watch the shadows play about on the surfaces. We think we are hearing some new bird calls/songs. Are they migrants coming or going thru here? Paying attention to little things like this in life bring us a lot of pleasure.

The outsides of the new porch storage cabinets got their coat of paint. After a touchup of missed spots, we will finally be able to do a good cleaning on the porch! It would really be good to hose it off every day – but that will never happen unless we someday in the far future have a housekeeper other than Carmen. Found some aphids on a rose bush. Not many so they simply got squashed. Hate to spray if not really necessary. Cosme comes by every few weeks asking if we want everything sprayed. We did let him spray for insects when we first moved in.

Monday was a full day.  A drive into Córdoba was first, mainly to pick up eye appointment orders at IMSS -- these were again not ready for us, as we were told the oftamología clinic was currently over-booked. We took the opportunity to stop by the shop where we bought our vacuum cleaner, to get the guarantee stamped and buy some replacement filter bags. Walmart finally had that all important cat litter today and Home Depot had some coated metal shelving Dan can attach to our upper walls, as barriers to keep the cats off the neighbors' roofs. Now for the good stuff:   With the porch cabinets finished, Dan moved an electrical outlet, covered over in the new bodeguita, to one of the front panels of the new cabinet -- much more convenient this way. He also reinstalled a hose reel on the front garden wall.  Dan enjoyed finally moving all the garden items from their crowded storage in the backyard bodega to their new home out front. Now with all the work done, we finally swept the porch floor several times and mopped it twice. My but it does look nice for the moment!

Tuesday morning the day started with much to-do, even before breakfast!  First Carmelo came and we bought six plants and he owes us a bit of advanced money so he said next time he will bring us fresh elotes (corn on the cob) from his little milpa. Unfortunately we do not care much for the white corn grown in this area.  It isn't bad but it's just not the sweet corn one gets NoB. While perusing his plants from the two full bags he carried, our front door bell rang. Dan answered it. Two fellows, hermanos (brothers) of Luís our crew foreman from Coscomatepec, came to tell us about a piece of property for sale up there. No, we do not want to build a cabin/house up there, and take care of another piece of property, though they are sure we do. However they got that idea in their heads is beyond us. Probably since our friends the Shattucks have a couple small cottage type homes with property there, they assume we must also desire to own property north of here, perhaps for a vacation home.  Dan promised to look them up next time we visited Cosco -- no harm in looking, right?  And perhaps we will come across someone just looking for a parcel of land that we can steer in that direction. We had a great day, in the sun/shade at 80ºF+ degrees, gardening. Planting, transplanting, weeding, pruning, watering. Carmen gave many starts away of a purple coleus, a pink & green caladium and some fuchsias. Nice to have starts to give to people passing by. Artemio, our area gardener, stopped to say hi, as did many other folks. Colyn took pictures of our garden. She will be moving to Veracruz next week. We will miss her. Also did some touch up painting. A busy and happy day!  We had huespedes (guests) for lunch wednesday, Ania and Frank.. It was good to see them after their six weeks away in Nayarit!  Only an Italian sausage on a bun (reminiscent of Carmen's life in Wisconsin when the summer party food was bratwurst with sauerkraut on a bun), with a huge lettuce, fruit & veg salad.  We finished up with lime meringue pie for three of us. Ania is not fond of this so she had homemade oatmeal cookies instead.  A couple of games of dominoes, and we were all ready for post-luncheon naps.

IMSS still had no envios (ex-clinic orders) authorizing our eye appointments for us on friday. We're to try again next wednesday or thursday.  We stopped at Metalurve and picked up a small piece of welded galvanized fencing.  On our way home, we took a road that we had not traveled before. Dan kept telling Carmen to look at a map, and Carmen replied that she would do so as soon as she saw some street signs. So very exciting to think that you are lost for awhile! Never needed the map, nor saw any street signs either, as we eventually wound ourselves back into a familiar area.  Carmen moved a few more plants around. Dan still is helping some folks, remotely, with their accounting. He also got the bent steel frame (which had been welded last week by Mauricio) painted and ready for attaching the fencing.  

Saturday was such a lovely day, that we did a walk into town, mostly in the south side in the old fraccionamiento Fortín where the older upscale houses are located. We had originally hoped to buy there, but the houses we saw there were all way too large and expensive. We very much enjoy commenting about the many house styles and landscaping as we pass by. On our walk we stopped at the Suites María Antonieta, where we rented three winters ago when we were house-hunting, and had a chat with Carlos, one of the owners. He showed us their new alberca (swimming pool) and invited us to use it any time we liked. Next we saw and talked to a neighbor five houses south, who was downtown with her husband and little boy. Stopped at the Super Ahorros for apple yogurt, and continued on towards home. A vehicle pulled up beside us and the driver tooted the horn. Carlos, our neighbor two doors down, had stopped to offer us a ride. We took him up on it just to be sociable, though we were out for the exercise. Must start doing regular walks around town soon --so much to see, and winter is now behind us!  

La bodeguita

Domingo 09 - Sábado 15 Feb 

We've generally had high overcast skies since our crew was here.  But, sunday and monday were sunny again and our laundry was on the line by eight am.  We did not want laundry hanging while the work was being done on the house. With the sun, the days are near 80ºF, but the nights are still cool.  Tuesday it rained and was foggy all day. We need weather like this on ocassion, to keep our various cloud-forest plants happy. The plants then love the sun when it come back.  We find this area has just the right variety of cool-warm, cloudy-sunny, wet-dry to keep us (and our garden), contented. Carmen did not need fresh flowers this week, but when she saw what our flower man had in his arms, she just had to have some of those gorgeous snapdragons!

We bought some salt cod a couple weeks ago. It is usually available in the US only around Xmas, but it's in the stores all year here. One of Carmen's favorite foods that Dan puts up with. It smells the house up when cooked for hours to tenderize it before making into a white sauce gravy to put over potatoes, so she waited until after the crew was gone to prepare it. Delicious as usual!  Our doctor last week told us to come to the clinic tuesday and the papers for our eye exams would be ready. Surprise surprise, they were not ready -- they said come back friday, and maybe they will have been processed thru.

Carmen finished the ground prep for new plantings along the new front yard walkway. Took her two days to dig up and pull apart all the dirt to a shovel's depth, trying to get all the grass roots out. Had a mop bucket's worth of roots to discard, and this was after our crew had stripped all the sod off. Next Dan rototilled after Carmen added sand and sawdust to the soil. Lastly we added commercial planting soil from Home Depot and lightly tilled it in. People walking past were fascinated with our small Ryobi tiller. Carmen has put over 50 small plants in this ground, all with a goodly amount of fertilizer at their base. She figures we have ground space for 20 or so more plants from Carmelo. We have high hopes for a beautiful flower-filled yard.  Colyn, who walks by at least once a day, said she has rarely seen flower gardens around here. She is right (although, with so many homes surrounded by high walls, it is hard to tell). Many flowering trees and shrubs, but not many smaller blossoming plants. Wonder which plants the insects will devour first? It would be quite a job to dig in systemic bug killer around every plant, which is what she does with all the potted plants.

Gardi cat has had a smoke gray cat visiting him through the gate, and now a short haired calico has come calling. They talk very quietly. The gray cat actually gets into our back yard area somehow, and leaves footprints on the top, windshield and hood of the car. The other, thinner, cat has been trying to squeeze thru the fencing out front, with no success. We bought a length of metal shelving to attach to our high wall at the spot where Gardi walks around on a narrow ledge to get to the neighboring roofs. Drove down to the Soriana hipermart and bought some Chinese meals for lunch. Still no more of Scoop Away litter at WalMart. The shelf is still bare after two weeks, and we hope it will be refilled before we really need it. Carmen always insists on being ahead on a couple of all important items, like her favorite cat litter.

There is a visible security presence here, with frequent police patrols thruout town.  Pickup trucks have two patrolmen in the cab, and two to four standing in the back with their semi-automatic rifles, continually driving around. Some of the trucks have a protective barrier around the (often masked) police standing in the back. They pass our house several times a day, and not at the same times every day either. Plus a few motorcycle cops sometimes pass by. A few days ago we were out front when we heard tires squealing going around our corner. Police in a hurry -- wonder what they were after? Recently we saw some new transito police vehicles in town – bright green three-wheeled motorcycles! Sure looked snazzy!

Mauricio was here tuesday and wednesday doing measurements for our new bodeguita (little storage) cabinet out front at the end of the porch. While we were out shopping Dan bought the two locks needed to weld into the cabinet doors.  Mauricio did the door and panel framing and skinning in his shop and then the final fitting & assembly here. Everything will be primed and then it is our responsibility to paint, at which time we will sand and repaint some spots on our other cabinets, stairway and fencing that he made for us earlier. He made it back with the doors to install, friday morning. Lots of noise from the porch, with the drilling, welding and hammering! He does great work! While he was here he replaced the mirador's ridge-cap piece that we had lost to a high wind many months ago.

We found some toasted salvado de trigo (wheat germ) at Walmart this week. What to do with it? For lunch one day we had pan-fried patties made of a mixture of diced pork, egg, salt, pepper and wheat germ -- very tasty. Next, oatmeal cookies were made with the wheat germ as half the flour. Oil in the cookies instead of butter. Yep, the raisins were pre-soaked in rum.

Recently, while Carmen was selecting thru the huge bin of fresh mushrooms at Walmart, another woman was standing next to her, examining the 'shrooms.  Carmen filled her bag and walked away a couple of aisles.  The lady followed her and started asking her questions about how to cut and cook mushrooms. Carmen did her best to explain, in her poor spanish, and answer the questions. The woman seemed happy and went back and filled her bag.

Carmen painted the insides of the new porch cabinets the same color as our upstairs railings and stairs up to the mirador. Sort of a deep reddish brown. Dan built and installed the wooden shelf needed inside the cabinets.  We'll finish the painting, and filling up the new bodeguita, next week. The front garden has come together nicely, and Carmen dressed it up with a covering of pinebark mulch.  Looking pretty nice out there!  

Soldando

Domingo 02 - Sábado 08 Feb   Sunday we did a good cleaning of our upstairs terraza with the pressure washer. Wanted it to be clean of the accumulated rain-speckled dust and cane soot when our crew had to work up there. Dan worked the pressure washer, whilst Carmen maneuvered a stiff bristled broom. The next good day for canefield burning will dirty it up again. The soot is not all bad – it makes a good fertilizer for our plants. Seems like we are seeing more cane on trucks that has not been field-burned. The refineries pay a  lower price when the leaves are with the cane.

Last week's concrete shelf work fixed the position for the new water heater, enabling Dan to drill the holes thru the wall for the various pipes.  At one point, when drilling the holes thru the walls, it required two hands inside at the very back of the corner cabinet, lying on the fixed upper shelf in the cabinet.  Once in there with the holes complete, the opening was so tight he just could not back out.  As he struggled to worm out of the tight space, Carmen had to grab him by the back of his belt and pull him out.  

Last week Dan worked soldando (soldering) up most of the sections of copper pipe/fittings to make the connections to the new heater.  Now before proceeding we had to remove the existing stainless steel sink, to provide access for final assembly and re-route the cold water to supply both the sink and the new water heater. Not as easy as it sounds. The back lip of the sink was under the wall tiles and there was a bump of concrete on the front of the hole in the countertop that had to be chipped off before the sink would slide/lift out at an angle that cleared the backsplash tiles. Hopefully with the reinstall and new caulking, there will be no more water leaks into the undersink cabinet. While sink was out, Carmen painted the cabinet interior white to make it brighter. She is considering painting inside the rest of the kitchen cabinets. She  also scraped, sanded and painted a bottom wall in our small "powder room."

Dan pulled out our cook stove to connect the propane to the new hot water heater installed on the front porch. The last hole drilled, thru the brick wall by the kitchen range, was for the flexible gas line, extended with a tee from our kitchen stove propane shutoff valve. We took advantage of having the stove pulled out to clean the grease off the stove sides. Also touched up with appliance paint on the sides of the stove where it had been scratched from sliding it in and out of it's space. 

Our crew of four were here at 7am monday. They worked three days this week to finish all their jobs. The crew removed the forms for the concrete shelves on the porch outside of the kitchen, and then tiled the the surfaces. Luis certainly does beautiful  tile work. The round hole in the shelf  thru which the heater flue will pass was plumbed and a matching hole was cut thru the roof directly above it.  Heri had the job of patching some corner spots where the rejas (steel security bars) had loosned up at the corners.  Carmen caught him about to paint one spot that he had not yet sanded smooth!  The whole crew worked on sealing up the other side of the south party wall.  At the end of the last day for the crew, Luis, Alfonso and Dan connected up the new water heater and tightened all the threaded joints to stop a few leaks.

Unfortunately Dan had a dental appointment tuesday morning and then wednesday we both had our doctor appointment (cita). We hated to be away, always so many questions to be answered by Dan, but, that is the way of life. We do trust them, so that is not a problem. We just missed some of the time with them. They are such happy fellows full of smiles and singing, even at the end of their ten hour days. Amazing!

With the sink out, Dan was able to finish up the new water line runs. One problem we wanted to fix, was to reverse the cold and hot sides, which were originally plumbed to the wrong sides.  Since the two supply pipes and the 2" drain line were installed very close to each other, with the copper pipes extending only a few inches out of the wall surface (with compression x npt valves attached there), working space was tight. It all worked out fine, with the new pipes up close against the back wall, one installed over the drain pipe and the other below.  Bringing the cold water over to the other side necessitated a lot of fittings (and 18 solder joints within 8" between the heater supply shutoff and the supply to the sink). He reused the sink valves, only having to buy a new shutoff valve and a (compression x compression) union to connect the cold water to the new lines.  The final solder joints were in the back of the corner cabinet where the lines right-angled thru to the corner of the porch.  He had to use a cookie sheet for protecting the wooden shelves and the electric conduit strung back there while using the torch.

The rest of our week seemed pretty quiet. Carmen worked digging up the soil around the new garden pasarela.  We got the the sink back in, all nicely caulked. We both worked and got the 4" flue pipes up thru the roof.  Next the big moment of turning on the water heater -- up to this point we had been running just cold water thru the lines. The electric ignition did not work – we will have to call a technician to repair it under its warranty. Dan took the burner cover off while Carmen held the match, and the pilot did ignite. We were happy to see that there were no water leaks under the sink and we had hot water! That is, until we went out front later to find hot water on the porch!  Oh darn, a leaky solder joint (the only one out of more than 50) -- not evident until the hot water had worked it's way past the paste flux. Thankfully it was outside.

Needless to say, the joint would have to be removed, fittings un-soldered, cleaned and then re-soldered. But, Dan had planned ahead and thankfully installed threaded unions (just so the heater could be removed without disturbing any solder joints) so the next day it was a relatively quick thing to detach that 3/4" section (between the heater and the flexible hot water line connected to the pipe going thru the wall) and make the fix.  It is good not to have to wait a long time for hot water at the kitchen sink anymore!   Back to washing a couple dishes at a time instead of stacking them up until there were enough to make the wait (for hot water from the distant main heater) worthwhile.

Albañiles trabajando

Domingo 26 Ene - Sábado 01 Feb   Sunday Colyn came for dinner and we had a delightful chat. Yes, we had the pork roast recently purchased. It was without a doubt the best pork roast we have had in years!  Since we now have our new Koblenz wet/dry vacuum cleaner, Carmen has been super cleaning one room at a time. Took three days to finish ridding the house of the soot we get from cane burning. Of course we could keep our doors and windows closed. But, who wants to do this when the sun is out and the air is warm?  On tuesday and friday Dan had the next couple of tooth-whitening sessions at the dentist.  Each session involved being fitted with a device designed to hold his mouth open, putting a protective coating on the encias (gums), painting a light-reactive bleach-like substance on the teeth, and then having a clip with strong blue light set in front of the teeth to activate the whitener for a period of about 45 minutes. 

Thursday morning, bright and early, our renovation equipo (team, crew) showed up.  Dan talked to Luís, the foreman, about raises for the crew, as the federal and Veracruz area minimum daily wage went up 3.9% this year (to MX$67.29, or US$5.18, per day). As skilled workers, our guys get about 3½ to 5½ times this minimum, for a ten hour day. There are also IVA tax increases on some critical things (gasoline, bus fares) that will affect our albañiles, who travel from Coscomatepec each day. Luis said it did not matter, but we felt it was our responsibility to recognize that they had higher costs this year, so we added a peso to all their hourly rates, plus an additional peso increase for Luís.

They are putting in a pasarela (walkway) on the north side of our entry in the front jardín similar to the ones on the south. We were going to keep grass there, but we have real dislike of using the weedeater to cut the small bit of grass there. After all, doesn't being retired mean you don't have to cut the grass any more? The worst part is the cleaning up of all the thrown-about grass. Already we have many plants just waiting to fill in the new planting areas that will border the new walkway.

Among other projects saved for the crew are: 1) Building a storage cabinet topped with a concrete shelf on the south end of the front porch for holding the new small hot water heater and garden stuff, which will be eventually enclosed with metal cabinet doors made by Mauricio.  Dan will be drilling holes thru the wall to make pipe runs to take cold water from the supply point inside under the kitchen sink to the new heater and a hot line back from the heater to the sink. In the process the sink will be reseated (fixing the constant leaks we've had there).  2)  Ceramic tiles (we'll use up our leftovers from the bathroom project) will be set on top of  the concrte shelf on the porch, and to seal and finish the floor of the base cabinet under the kitchen sink. 3) Redoing a couple of terraza tile joints above the new bathroom at both the east and west ends, where small leaks are staining the walls. 4) Addressing moisture problems on the outside of the party wall south of our house, to keep moisture from damaging interior walls on the porch and in the bath & upstairs medium bedroom. Seems the sealant on the south-facing wall has bubbled so it must be scraped off and re-done. The neighboring house is just finished on the first floor, with its second floor unfinshed brick walls in place with no roof.  The unfinished state of things is allowing rain to soak thru into our house walls. Our crew will reseal the joints and create chaflanes (bevels, sloped concrete joints) where exterior vertical surfaces meet horizontals.

Well – we had almost a year with our beautiful wall to the north. Someone has taken it upon his- or herself to decorate the wall with, what? Probably a name written in a fancy script to make it basically unreadable. We also saw the same tagging in the same color paint on a wall near downtown. Sort of like an animal marking it's territory? Our crew will re-paint the wall  -- we have LOTS of leftover blue paint we can use.. If it gets to be a problem and we get tired of overpainting with blue, we have considered just leaving it be and imprinting flowers overtop the graffiti to obscure and disguise it's message.

Our dearest kitties are closed into their small room upstairs so that the crew does not have to be careful when going in and out the doors and gates This also being the sewing room, Carmen spent time with them while she made heavy cloth sacks for a couple games we have, figuring it is better/quicker to mix the tiles in a bag, than on the table. As soon as the crew leaves at 5:30pm, we let the kitties out of their room and the first thing they do is to run down the stairs, after a quick check upstairs, and out the door downstairs to check out all the new changes. It is amazing to watch. One would not think they would care about such things. When the crew is not here, Gardi will go out front and sit on the porch bench about 4pm, and meow until Carmen comes out and waters plants, if they were not watered earlier that day. Whenever it happens, Gardi supervises -- seems like it might be his favorite time of day. Smij is getting braver every day, but will have no part of the watering. Dan waters the back area and we sort of take turns watering the upstairs terraza off our bedroom.

Our crew changes clothes in our laundry/shop at the beginning and end of their workday. There is a window/pass-thru between the laundry and our new bathroom. To give the guys more privacy, Carmen gave Dan a curtain and he installed the rod to hold it.  It looks good, and also finishes off the bathroom nicely.

The exposed other side of our south wall was worked on this week. The guys scraped off the bubbled impermeabilizante (underneath the paint there is an additional tarry coating) and discovered the wall has a few tiny cracks and one major horizontal one across it.  This was perhaps the major causes of the moisture in the upper wall, causing the interior paint to peel off. They are chipping out loose stucco, re-sealing the tar layer with the propane torch, and will be installing expanded mesh (metal desplegado) and stuccoing over the horizontal crack. 

The nights have been in the low 50ºFs and the days sunny (except for one rainy day) and below 80ºF. Our tall indoor dracaena has decided to lose leaves. Why? It is insect free, so is it due to too little or too much water, temperatures briefly below 60º, too little light or possibly a draft when the back door stands open? Can't think of anything else!  Our cut flowers which were purchased this week at the front gate are long stemmed as usual. Gorgeous white double daisies for our tall vase and delicate pink carnations for the table. The two-week old orange and green carnations still have some fresh looking blossoms so they were put in the vase with the new pinks, which have many buds so should last three weeks. All indoor vased flowers get fresh water, a rinsing and ends cut off every few days to prevent the putrid smell they would otherwise get.  Outside, we lost two plants to the cold nights.  We have been leaving our vanilla orchid wrapped with plastic sheeting when we get a period with nights below 50ºF --  with this extra care we hope to not lose the growing tips like a year ago. 

After three days of  trabajando (working), the guys have nearly finished the walkway. Hopefully all the grass roots were dug out. Perhaps we'll wait a few weeks before planting with the hope of getting any remaining grass roots killed.  We bought a couple bags of potting soil for the area on both sides of our new walkway. That side area was low and the new walkway was built the height of the center walkway, which of course means more soil is needed at the sides. Bought hopefully the final plumbing fittings for the kitchen sink and small hot water heater. Dan has been drilling holes thru the walls to connect water and propane lines. Also been doing much soldering of many little pieces in preparation. The base cabinet to the right of the sink needs to be empty (as the pipes will go thru the walls there and run along the back into the space under the sink).. Carmen did this plus a yearly cleaning there.

The newest food that we like is jicama (a brown-skinned, white-fleshed tuber) and Dan has been enjoying fresh guayabas (guavas).  Peeled and cubed, jicama is much like apple when put into a Waldorf-like salad, or with tomato. Also very inexpensive and full of vitamin C. Actually we have eaten it before, just never learned to like it.  When we think of it as a "fruit" it is much more appealing.