Una orquidea grande

Domingo 09 Mar - Sábado 15 Mar 2014  How we do enjoy listening to the church bells and the singing coming from over from the Capilla de la Sagrada Trinidad across and up the street from us.. While having a spanish lesson with flashcards on our mirador, with Gardi laying at our feet, we saw over a dozen zopilotes (turkey vultures) floating along on the air currents overhead. Lots of butterflies too, and a couple parrots flew by. A truck with policemen drove by. The one standing in the back looked up and waved to us. 

Carmen started a 1500 piece jigsaw puzzle. Once she starts a puzzle, she is rather addicted to it. What ever she does not get done in the mornng before looking at the puzzle, just does not get done that day. There could be worst addictions, of course.  Carmen cut Dan's hair and of course Gardi loves having the clippers run over him, just the body of the unit which vibrates strongly. He climbs onto Dan's lap and pats the clippers until he gets his turn of the massage.

Dan has been unable to check our Sandander local bank account online, so we went to the bank to get things straightened out. The bank officer made a phone call and handed the phone to Dan. He had to keep telling the guy on the other end of the line to speak more slowly. It can be most difficult to understand a phone conversation in a foreign language when there is background noise at both ends, at least for our old ears. We left the bank with a newly reset password, being assured that he could now check our account from home. Guess what! No can do!-  Now the token which supplies a new countersign number to type in when we want secured info is not recognized, although it seems to display it's 8 digits when the button is pressed. We must go back to the bank again.

Celia, a block west of us, came up to the house and asked us to come and look at a blossoming plant she had. It is a huge Dendrobium nobile orchid, about 2.5 to 3 feet diameter, just starting to bloom with large flowers of white and purple. With the buds just starting to open, we should have more than 200 flowers, all 2" to 3" in size.  We bought it for $16 US. It is in a wire frame and she had two others, one of which is in a tree crotch. Apparently this particular orchid, native to the Himalayas, is a source of some very effective natural folk medicines.  Celia came back the next day because she had heard the two men from Cosco down again talking about us seeing the land they had for sale. She said we could buy her property, which is a normal width 10m lot down on Calle 9, but its very deep and goes back to the creek. No thank you, tho' we would like to see the area behind her house where she says she has an orchard. Another lady was admiring our out-front garden and asked if she could have a start from a verbena plant.  Carmen believes she is bringing a piece of hers that is a different color.

Carmello stopped by with more flowers for sale. Yes, we bought a few more. This must stop, as Dan told him, as we have really no room left for more plants. He told us he was waiting outside our gate monday for us to return, when the police stopped and told him to move on and fined him MX$300 for loitering. Apparently they thought he was up to no good, and so were they just protecting us? Or was the problem that he did not have a license for selling? Or did he just look like a campesino they could lean on?  He took them to a neighbor to reassure them that he indeed did sell plants to us, and he always waited for our return. Carmelo has been telling us that our Pata de Cabra (Pink Orchid tree) needed drastic action.  So we clipped it way back and put lots of cuttings into a pot. We're hoping to get a healthy plant again. It is certainly ill, with all the branches turning black and all leaves fallen, which apparently is not the norm for his supposedly hardy tree.  We also have a pot in which we planted some seeds from the dried pods, in case the Bauhinia monandra cuttings don't take.

The fellow from Honduras stopped at our door again, asking for mexican coins. We gave him a juicebox. Also the fellow who hurt his leg was here, ditto. A lady selling avocados came by, but the bag she handed us had squishy fruit in it – so, no thank you. A woman in a wheel chair accompanied by five grown children rang our doorbell. They had two small cans for money. Did not understand their story but we gave her some pesos. A lady stopped to speak english to Carmen for awhile. She is a Jehovah Witness and is here for a few months. She was raised in Jamaica, and then spent the next 40 years in the US in Massachusetts, Florida, and North Carolina. Her next move is to western South Carolina. She is living presently with a mexican family about five blocks south of us, and she said that everyone has told her that an english-speaking couple live here. We had a nice chat and she will stop by again.

We had lunch at Ania and Frank's wednesday – a surprise birthday celebration for Tamara who is married to Tim (from California). They live near Coscomatepec, 40 minutes north of here. The cake was a cheese pie with pear topping and final garnish of filbert stuffed candies. As usual, Ania's meal was superb! Seems that their kitty will be popping forth with kittens soon. Can hardly wait to see them. Hope her delivery will be safe. Carmen had a cat that would have died in delivery had she not been there to help her by straightening a kitten that was crossways in the birth canal, so Carmen worries about other small mama cats. Well she has to have something to worry about...!

Cosme was here again wanting to spray our plants. Carmen has bought spray and takes care of them herself. He tried hard to find some insects. There are always a few, but some of his “insect” finds were in fact soot. He is the person who sold us our first orchids, all tiny. He seemed perturbed when he saw that we have purchased more and larger ones from others. Celia came by to see that we had carefully put the huge one, we bought from her, in a proper location. She thought it should get more sun or be hung in our bugambilia tree, where of course it would get no sun. Dan pointed out that we put it in thesame orientation on a south wall comparable to where she had it. The piece of vanilla orchid from breakage a year ago, which we had potted in moist medium, is finally sending up it's new growth

We went to IMSS clinic again friday to get two appointment slips for Dan. This is the at least the eighth time that we went for the envio to the opthamologist. Finally it was ready, along with the one for urologist. We then went to the IMSS hospital to pick up an appointment slip for Carmen's next eye exam. Come back next friday, we were told. We walked two blocks east of there to a commercial meat market, where we purchased a pork roast, tilapia, ground beef and arrachera beef, all at excellent prices. There was a special on the tv news about seafood going up in price, since demand is so high this time of year during Lent. The wholesalers have imported shrimp from central america because they could not supply the heavy market this year.

We have been looking for magnesium sulfate to fertilize out plants with. To this point, no luck. Tim and Tamara, who are farmers, told us the only place that carries it is FYPA (Fertilizantes y Productos Agroquimicos) a local firm with branches all over Mexico.  Driving home from Córdoba, we saw their sign along the bulevar and stopped to inquire. This was only their main office, and we had to wait outside until we could be buzzed up into their suite of offices. Behind the closed gate and entry to this company was a most beautiful set of office buildings. Would never guess it from the street front -- gorgeous landscaping inside the compound also. Once upstairs, we learned they only sell it in giant quantities. Would take us a few more lifetimes to use a ton of it at two tablespoons per gallon of water, but it also was available in 50kg bags under another label. They did give us a list of their agrochemical stores where the product was actually available. We'll check that out sometime when we're in east Córdoba--chances are a clerk at the store will know someone who buys from them and repackages for retail consumption. 

To finish this week off, we took down our exension ladder from it's high storage spot and Dan got up onto the parking entry roof to re-cement (caulk with adhesive, actually) an end barrel tile that he was afraid might fall off. A job he had not looked forward to.

Then there was the unfortunate besucona (gecko) Gardi invited in to visit.  Either slow, old or particularly unwary, it let Gardi catch it three times. First time he carried it into the house and we at first thought it was a small snake. Did our feet ever come up off the floor fast! Carmen caught it and put it back outside.  Inside, Gardi was inside wondering where the big part went to. The tail, which was still squirming all over the place, he finally ate. Yum. Well maybe they are yummy, we will probably never try one. Now Gardi cat went back outside and almost immediately came back inside with the still lively gecko. Again Carmen put it back outside. This time further from the house in some heavier bushes. It took about ten minutes before we saw Gardi again bringing it inside and we quickly picked him up, along with the wiggling gecko in his mouth, and put them back outside with the door firmly closed behind them.