San Miguel Photos

Starting the Process to Return to San Miguel de Allende

2011-08-02T19:55:00.001-05:00

Yes it has been 3 1/2 years since we left San Miguel for what I had hoped was going to be an exciting and rewarding period back in the Bay Area. There were several business related issues that needed to be addressed when we made the decision to return but also some personal items that both Jo Ann and I wanted to clean up.

Now it is looking like the time is right to start planning the process to return home and close the chapter on living in California and for that matter back in the US. As I reflect on the period we have been back up here, it has been great, but I am more than a little concerned about the lack of leadership at both the Federal and state levels. Couple that with the ever increasing cost of living here in the Bay Area and I just don't think it makes financial sense to stay here.

We are talking about the timing of the move back and I believe we will be in San Miguel by late October. This, of course, depends on a number of factors including the sale of our house up here as well as getting all of our "stuff" moved back down to San Miguel. Oh the joys of border crossing and the government bureaucracy associated with moving goods across the border.

So for those of you who still may have this blog in your rss reader or who have it book marked, yes, I am going to recommence the postings as well as my photography (both on this blog and my other one San Miguel Photo of the Day). In the interim the posts will be about the process of moving back home, the hassles and inconveniences that are sure to arise and the personal conflict that always happens during such stressful activities. I hope you will enjoy them, and may engage with them in creating a conversation that others will find interesting.

Soon I will be back and hopefully life can revert to the more peaceful pace that is living in San Miguel.

Adios 2007 y Adios San Miguel

2007-12-31T11:39:00.001-06:00

Another year bites the dust today and I sit here this morning thinking back on the past year. It has been a great year of exploration and adventure, learning more about myself and my outlook at the world and most importantly of friendships and family. It has been a wonderful year and one where we learned to care and ride the horses, that we finished the renovation of the rancho and the extensive gardens, were able to fully (well almost) communicate with people in the campo, were invited to weddings, first communions and other significant celebrations in the pueblos around our rancho, worked extensively with Patronatos por Niños in the local schools and generally had a wonderful experience. It was also a year that for the first time in almost eight that I started working close to full time again.

Well it is this last point that is going to dictate the upcoming year as we have decided to return to the Bay Area and will be leaving San Miguel. It is our plan to leave San Miguel around the middle of March as I commence working full time in 2008 and I need to be back closer to San Francisco and the South Bay.

The experience has been wonderful and one that I would recommend to anyone who is looking to experience life in a different country with different cultures, customs and languages. We have established many friendships that we will carry forward and continue, but at this point of time we feel we must continue our adventures and move back.

Because of the work commitments and preparing for the move, my postings both here on this blog and on my photo of the day blog at www.sanmiguelphotooftheday.blogspot.com will be much more limited than what I was able to do during the past two years. I hope you can understand.

So happy new year and may 2008 bring you continued happiness and good health.

Blessing of the Horses

2007-11-19T12:45:00.001-06:00

The Blessing of the Horses is an annual festival in the small pueblo of San Martín de Terrenos, which is located near the city of Guanajuato. The festival covers a three day period, commencing on the 9th of November, with the main function being the blessing of the horses on the morning of the 10th of November.

Last Saturday at 8a we depart from San Miguel de Allende to make the drive to San Martín , the objective of today's adventure being to visit the festival in San Martín related to the blessing of the horses, cowboys and bike riders. The town of San Martín is a sleepy small town on the road to Guanajuato that many drive by on their way to the airport in Leon, but few ever notice that it exists. That is true except for the one week of the year when the festiva for the blessing of the horses is held.

People come from far and near, there are buses that come from Celaya, Querétaro and even Pueblo. But what is more impressive is the people who ride their horses and bicycles for a full day or two to get to San Martín and sleep out in the fields surround the town.

After crossing the pressa Allende, we are almost an hours drive from San Martín, but we are already encountering groups of bicyclers who are peddling to get to the Chapel of San Martín in time for the misa. It makes the drive very stressful as the roads in Mexico, for the most part, do not have paved shoulders or bike lanes, thus we are having to share the road, while driving like a local (which is fast and aggressive).

Finally after about an hour and a half's drive, we arrive at San Martín. Even though we have been to this festival before, it amazes me to see all of the people, buses and the size of the open air market.

For the first hour or so we amble around the open area market, sampling food stuff and looking at some very nice albeit inexpensive clothing. The candies are excellent (no we did not buy any of these), the nuts very tasty (yes we did buy some) and the grilled bread was heavenly (we are going to a religious festival).

Once we arrive to the entrance to the Chapel, the leaders of the events ride into town.

I especially like the man who is in costume looking like he is the new sheriff in town.

For the next hour the various groups of riders are assembled in front of the Chapel. It is amazing how they are able to pack these horses in so close with no incidences with the horses getting spooked.

Once all of the riders were put into position, the priest came out and gave a blessing and threw holy water on the horses and their riders. Then the doors to the church were opened and the walkers and bikers were let in for misa. What is amazing is that the horses then had to stand there for two and a half hours while the walkers and bikers paraded through the church.

While we knew we had some time, we then went looking for someplace to have comida as there was not going to be any good photo-ops until the horses started to leave.

So we start walking around looking for some place to eat when we look up and are amazed at the way the various street vendors have hooked up to the electricity.

We found this excellent stand that was serving a variety of Mexican cuisine, all of which was excellent. The operators were from Puebla and the whole family was working including their cute little daughter.

When we returned to the Chapel, I discovered that I had shot the entire film card in my camera and my extra ones were in the car. Thus I was not able to get any good shots of the horses leaving but I hope I have shared enough already in this posting.

The Blessing of the Horses at San Martín is an excellent festival that any person who enjoys horses or Mexican festivals needs to visit. We had a great time. If you want to see more photos from San Martín, please check out my complete set at flickr by clicking here.

Traveling el Camino Real to Querétaro

2007-09-03T19:25:00.001-05:00

This past week we decided to take the old road from San Miguel to Querétaro, which runs past the pueblo of Jalpa. We had been warned that the road in the rainy season can be very difficult so we took our Ford truck, which is not as comfortable as the other car but very reliable in tough terrain.

This route has you turn off the main road to Querétaro at the road for Jalpa, which is still a very normal Mexican road (good surface except a lot of pot holes) and after a while we came to the pueblo of Jalpa.

The first thing you come across in Jalpa is this wonderful old church as shown below.

In front of the church is the pressa which is very large and on this wonderful day provided excellent reflections of the hills across the pressa.

On the grounds surrounding the church are a number of old ruins that kept calling out to us. We tried to discover what they could have been used for but we will never know.

Across the pressa there is also this beautiful cross on the hillside.

As we were leaving the church, we saw this elderly woman come to the front door of the church to offer her prayers for the day.

We had heard that there was a wonderful old hacienda call the Hacienda Jalpa which has been recently renovated and from it's web site looks very wonderful. However we did not get down to the hacienda so we can not comment on it, maybe next time.

We headed back to the truck to continue our journey when we see the same elderly lady who was at the church walking down the road. We stopped and asked if she would like a ride and of course she said yes.

Talking with her it seems that she has lived in Jalpa for her entire life and now lives in a small rancho about 15 kilometers from Jalpa. Her life is taking care of her family, most of whom still live in Jalpa so she walks into Jalpa on almost a daily basis. While in Jalpa she will visit with her family and do her grocery shopping and then walk back home. I would guess she was happy to get a ride from three gringos and shorten her long walk.

Upon leaving Jalpa the road changes from modern construction methods to those used in years past, empedrado and dirt. These road really do slow your speed down as the empedrado is very bumpy and the dirt roads were very muddy from all of the recent rains.

After what seemed like a long while driving on the empedrado and dirt roads we came to this small outdoor alter which looks like it celebrates mass only on the 6th of May at 8:30. It was in the middle of nowhere but it was so cute that we just had to stop and take some photos.

Continuing on we came to another small pueblo (which we do not know the name of) that was obviously having a festiva soon. There were these four crosses and all the banners. Everything looked so joyous and happy.

Slightly after this pueblo we started the decent into Querétaro and the return to large metropolitan problems (over crowding, traffic, etc.). However for a couple of hours we were able to transform ourselves back to the country as it existed many years ago. Yes there were some cars but most people traveled by foot or burro and they were not worried about the latest fashions, crisis on wall street or other world events, but only about their families and friends. It was a great trip.

Rancho Santa Marína

2007-08-29T14:20:00.001-05:00

There is an organic farmers' market that is open on Saturdays in San Miguel de Allende in the La Carpa near the Aurora. One of the times Jo Ann and I were visiting the market, we stopped and talked with a vendor who was selling organic cheese made from sheep's milk. He explained to us that they age the cheese in caves using techniques that have been followed for many years. As we talked we both thought that this would be a fun road trip and he agreed that we could come on down to tour his rancho.

So last week a group of us took off from San Miguel heading towards Atongo, which is in the state of Querétaro, not far off of the toll road that heads to Mexico City. We had called in advance to ensure we could take a tour and everything seemed ready.

We arrived at Rancho Santa Marína right on time, but alas the gate was locked and we called and called to no avail. Finally I started honking the horn on our car and someone came out and told us that the person we were suppose to meet was not there. However shortly after that this young lady came out and introduced herself as Deanna, who was the on site veterinarian, and she would be able to give us our tour.

We started the tour by walking through the automatic milking facilities. Unlike cows, the sheep only get milked once a day and that would not be commencing until after 1p or so. Deanna said that we could be able to return to see the facility in full swing.

The next stop of our tour was to visit with some of various herds of sheep. They are kept in distinct groups so they can manage the production of milk. Here are a couple of photos of the various herds of sheep.

The rancho is certified organic and produce all of their own feed so they can ensure that the sheep are feed only the highest quality foods and grains.

After touring some of the various herds (there are over 300 sheep on the rancho), we went to the gardens surrounding the main house on the rancho. The gardens are very beautiful and have a great mixture of flowers, native plants and fruit trees.

After the gardens we went to the building where the make the cheese and where the cave is that is used to age the cheese. The production facility is very modern and very sanitary looking. It is run by one woman who was very focused in what she did.

Then we got to see the cave, which has a big glass wall so people can look in on the various cheese. I was lucky enough to be invited in with my camera to take some photos of the cheeses in the cave. All I can tell you is the aroma of the cheeses was absolutely fabulous. Here a couple of photos to give you an idea of what they looked like, but there is no way that I can duplicate the aroma.

Deanna told us that the cheeses are aged for three months in the caves. What is interesting is that it takes the milk from ten sheep to make one kilo of cheese, so you can do your own math to understand that this is not a very large production business.

So after so much temptation, we were finally given the opportunity to taste the cheeses. What was interesting is that we were able to taste the cheese of two different ages, one that was in the cave for only two months and one in for the entire three months. There was a significant difference between the two, much fuller and much more tasty.

Our final stop was to go back to the automatic milking stations, where they were in full swing for the afternoon milking. You can see for yourself how this process works.

So the plan is to try to organize another tour of this rancho for the Down to Earth garden club of San Miguel sometime in October. The owners of the rancho are offering us a full tour together with a tasting of cheese and wine for 100 pesos per person. This tour and tasting was great fun and I think that the entire group will greatly enjoy the trip. If you are interested in coming please visit the Down to Earth Garden Club web site at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gardensma/.

Festival de Música de Cámara en San Miguel de Allende

2007-08-14T09:07:00.001-05:00

One of the highlights of the summer season here in San Miguel is the Chamber Music Festival that takes place in late July and early August. The series features a number of chamber music ensembles and soloists and has been presenting the festival for 29 years. If you wish to learn more about this festival you can access their web site by clicking here.

One of the main locations for the concert series is the Teatro Angela Peralta, which always has banners and other signs for the concert series as you can see below.

Jo Ann and I live out in the compo and do not come into San Miguel often as we do not like driving at night. However, this year one of the events were being held at the Santuario in Atotonilco. This church is a world monument as designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and is part of a submission to have both the town of San Miguel and the Santuario designated as a World Heritage location.

The concert at the Santurio features the Rossetti String Quartet and was held in one of the chapels of the Santuario that had recently been renovated. The chapel was absolutely stunning in its beauty. The ceiling murals looked like they had just been painted and all of the artifacts were like new.

I did take a number of photos of the concert, but I have to apologize in advance, the lighting was very low and I had to take the images only by hand holding my camera, which does not have any image stabilization. So with the apology out of the way, here are some of the images from the Santuario.

So yes the ambiance was beautiful, but how was the music and the acoustics. The music was absolutely wonderful and the acoustics were as if the chapel had been built for musical concerts. Both Jo Ann and I just loved the concert and the setting. Here is a image of the Rossetti String Quartet as the return from one of their breaks between performances.

I can only hope that the festival will return with another venue to be held in the Santuario next year. I really recommend that people should go and enjoy these concerts, they are superb.

Too Much of A Good Thing?

2007-07-30T13:18:00.001-05:00

For the past few weeks we have had a significant amount of rain. Living in the high desert having enough rain is always a concern, but for the past week or so we have had more than what I would call normal. It is starting to impact the farmers as their crops are starting to rot in the ground. Also the people who live in the pueblos in the compo can not travel the roads that cross the arroyos as they are flooded.

As you can see below the farmer in the property next to our rancho was trying to plow his fields for a late season crop of corn and beans. However after we got almost 2 1/2 inches of rain on Friday, he got stuck on Saturday and can not move his tractor.

It is also curtailing some of our favorite activities, like trail riding with our horses and biking around in the compo. As you can see below we have a small lake in our riding ring so we have not been able to give the horses much exercise for the past week.

We know of farmers who had cut their crop of alfalfa and had it baled hoping to get it sold before it rains, only to have it rain that evening and ruin the entire crop. This has to be so disheartening to these farmers as they have an excellent crop but then can't get it to market before it rains and ruins the crop.

I hope that we can have a few days of sun and dryness so that the water can be absorbed by the earth. However, I do hope that we continue to have this excellent rainy season, only I hope it can space itself out more evenly over the remaining months of the season.

As an update, I know that I have not been spending too much time writing on this blog. I hope to start again posting about the exciting and interesting things that happen living in the compo in Mexico. However, please continue to enjoy my almost daily photos of life in Mexico which you can find by clicking here sanmiguelphotooftheday.blogspot.com.

Out in the rain with nothing to wear

2007-06-10T10:19:00.001-05:00

So for the past week, weather.com has been showing that San Miguel could be in for some wet weather, but alas we have had no rain since May. For the past couple of days, the skies have been dark and broody and we have had a lot of thunder and lightening, but still no rain. Yesterday weather.com said that we had a 60% chance of thundershowers and the skies were overcast but nothing looked too threatening.

With this background information in mind, around 10a Jo Ann and I saddled up the horses for a long trail ride out towards Las Cañas over to Palo Colorado and returning through Rancho Viejo. When we left we never even considered the possibility of rain and left all of our rain gear at home. I was kicking myself at little into the ride for not bringing my camera, but we were in for a long ride and I did not want to turn around to get it.

About half way into the ride I said to Jo Ann that the skies looked threatening and maybe we should turn around. We continued to debate for a while until I was persuasive and we turned around instead of continuing on to Rancho Viejo. When we were about 40 minutes from home the rains started and I am not talking about light drizzle, we are talking about large very cold drops of rain. Within five minutes we were soaked throughout and were trying to race home as fast as we could. The real challenge for us was having to take the horses back down into the arroyo which is a drop of about three or four meters. This was going to be difficult with the heavy rains and the steep slope. The other issue that I was concerned with is that the arroyo starts flowing after about one centimeter of rain and can be gushing after about two and half.

We were lucky that we had no problems transversing the slope and the arroyo had not yet started flowing although it was starting to get very wet. We made it back to the rancho totally drenched but everyone (horses included) were calm and glad to be out of the rain. It was still pouring after turning the horses back into their stables when I remembered that we had also left all of the windows open at the house. So off I run in the rain to close up the house and wipe up all of the rain.

After cleaning up the house and changing into some dry clothes, wouldn't you know, the rains stopped almost immediately and the day started to dry out. This morning it is one of those beautiful desert mornings with everything clean, crisp and very green.

Morale of the story, everything always reverts to its mean and even the weathermen get it right once in a while. Yes I could have been more considerate of the weather, but who wants to haul around all of the rain gear if you aren't going to need it.

Entering my favorite time of the year

2007-05-20T08:43:00.001-05:00

As the year continues to migrate from the hot and dry months of April and May we are starting to enter into the rainy and more temperate season of June through September. It is during this time of the year that the gardens explode with fruits and vegetables, everything starts to flower and turns brilliant shades of green and best of all, Jo Ann's garden is teeming with fresh produce.

Last night we had one of Mother Nature's spectacular displays of a desert storm (no not the current administration's type). We had lightening and thunder for several hours and yes we even got a little rain, not much, but enough to wash the dust off of all of the plants.

But what really excites me about this time of year is the ability for Jo Ann to just stroll out to her gardens and pick what ever produce is ready and to create dinner using only the freshest produce that you can get. And it is even better to know that it has been produced using only earth sustainable techniques, compost and other organic processes.

Of course it helps that Jo Ann is a trained chef so being able to whip together a new plate based solely on what is fresh, which seems overly difficult to me, is to Jo Ann what it is like solving a cross word puzzle. Start with some basics and experiment from there.

So to share what the gardens are looking like, here is a little virtual tour of Jo Ann's gardens.

One of our favorites, the french green been, better known as haricot verte, we will enjoy these through out the summer.

There is always an abundance of lettuces, we always have at least three or four different varieties.

What garden in Mexico can exist without Cilantro?

Carrots and more carrots, not only do we enjoy carrots, but we have two horses and two burros who also do.

One of the vegetables that we grow almost year round is Rainbow Chard, it is so colorful, it can be cooked or eaten raw in a salad. The colors of the stems always are so bright.

And of course anyone who knows Jo Ann knows that she loves flowers of all types and varieties. Here is a wonderful sunflower that just screams "look at me".

So we now have the garden in almost full production, the tomatoes are growing in front of our eyes, the melons and squashes are spreading out over the vast territories we gave them and we will soon have more produce than we can eat. We always share it with our friends and neighbors so if you are hungry, come on by.

One final note before closing, the San Miguel Down to Earth garden club is touring the organic gardens at Rancho las Glorias del Huerto this Tuesday from 9:30 to 11a. This is a commercial farm that produces only organic fruits and vegetables. It is on a much grander scale than what we do, so it will be fun so see how someone else produces organic food. If you are interested in joining this tour, please visit the groups web site here.

Earth Day Plus One

2007-04-25T09:28:00.001-05:00

So I can now officially declare the renovation of Rancho La Luz completed as this past Monday we cut over from using electricity generated by non-renewable sources to electricity generated by solar panels. Yes all of our electrical requirements for our house are now provided by renewable sources and that means an end to the various voltage regulators and UPS units, standing in line at the CFE offices to pay our bill, the various fluctuations in power supply, the numerous power outages and best of all not having to race home to unplug the computers when we see lighting on the horizon.

Both Jo Ann and I have wanted to do this since we lived in the Bay Area but we never had sufficient sunshine or financial resources to accomplish our objective. But now we can say that we really made a committed effort to help sustain the source of our lives.

We have always tried to implement Earth sustainable techniques in our orchards, gardens and landscaping, using native plants and trees, composting methods, solely organic fertilizers and insecticides, drip irrigation and lots of mulch, but we have always been tied to one of the power monopolies (PG&E, MP&L and lately CFE). Now we can say good bye as long as we keep our systems well maintained and functioning.

We used a local contractor to do all of the work, Solar and Heating Solutions here in San Miguel de Allende and they were great to work with. The installation went very easy and the cut over almost seemed anti-climatic, I guess I expected fireworks and parades but all we got was a big drop in the spinning of the CFE meter.

Alas, this is not to say that the entire rancho is now on solar. I still need to replace the pumps for our main well and irrigation systems so that they can also be added to the solar system, but I need to find more money before I can even think about proceeding on that next phase, but it is a big step for us here at Rancho La Luz.

Tropical Garden in the Desert

2007-04-12T08:06:00.001-05:00

Two weeks ago the Down to Earth garden club here in San Miguel de Allende had the grand opportunity to visit one of the most spectacular gardens in San Miguel, if not in all of Mexico. The house and garden are located very close to the Sterling Dickinson orchid gardens in a very serene setting in the hills over looking San Miguel.

What makes this garden so special is that it is practically a topical oasis in the middle of the high desert environment of San Miguel. The garden design takes advantages of multiple levels and vistas as the property scales down a steep hillside and creates multiple "rooms" within the garden. It is truly a joy to walk through this garden and enjoy the peace and quiet that it has created.

There is a vast combination of tropical plants, native plants (to the San Miguel area) as well as grasses, fruit trees and other wonderful plants.

So instead of trying to describe the wonder of this garden, I have presented a few of the images that I took during the tour of this beautiful garden.

A wonderful yucca in bloom.

Such a wonderful fountain.

The fruit trees were just loaded with fruits.

Beautiful bears breeches in blossom.

The paths were so wonderful and looked like they had been there for years.

How do you get a lily pad pond in the middle of the desert.

And where does this walk way go?

What is truly amazing is that this garden is only three years past the completion and it is so lush and wonderful. I sure hope that we will be able to come back to visit it sometime in the future. For more images of this garden please visit my flickr collection here.

Color Overdose

2007-04-10T07:42:00.001-05:00

Last weekend we went to a great party to celebrate the groundbreaking of a Chapel, which is really going to be an art gallery. Of course the party was on April first so it was all a spoof, but a lot of fun, none the less. One thing that really hit both Jo Ann and I was the large number of guests at this party and the diversity in all manners. The guests spanned numerous generations, numerous economic classes and ranged from artesians to ranchers (yes we fit into that category).

The party reminded us of the many parties we use to go to in Muir Beach, which had the same bohemian type feel to the community. In retrospect, Muir Beach and San Miguel de Allende are very similar, both are off the beaten path, outposts for people looking for adventure and nonconformist views and people who just like to have fun.

The big difference we have found between the two is that in San Miguel, there is color everywhere. All of the buildings, all of the clothing, everything takes color to an extreme. We really enjoy all of the sensory feelings of the use of color and the colonial feeling of San Miguel. However, as much as we enjoy the use of color the buildings, gardens and art exhibits at this party took our senses to an overdosed level. It is great, but maybe not for the weak of heart, when it comes to experiencing color.

So without further discussion, here are some images from the Celebration of the Groundbreaking for the Chapel for Jimmy Ray.

An image of the casa from the patio area.

Colors, colors and more color.

A self portrait?

One of the many gardens.

One of the many pieces on exhibit for the party.

Another of the pieces on exhibit.

Now this is an alter that I could pay homage to. I enjoyed how they have used so many empty wine bottles through out their landscaping.

Now is this a scary scare cow or what. I wonder if it really works.

Daylight Savings Time Changes

2007-04-03T09:04:00.001-05:00

This past Sunday morning we finally changed over to daylight savings time here in Mexico. This year has been even more trying than most as the US changed over to daylight savings time on March 11 and for three weeks I have been having to manually adjust different appointments that I had in the US with the times here in Mexico.

I have always looked forward to the change over to daylight savings time as it felt like the change extended the day. This was especially true when I was working as an accountant in Southern California, during the busy season, I would leave the house in the morning darkness and return home after work in the evening darkness. At least then it seemed that the change to daylight savings was the reprieve from the long hours and lack of sunshine.

However with the current change in the clock, things are getting pretty crazy. My day starts at the usual 5:30a when I boot up the computer and work on some of my consulting projects. Before the change over of the clocks, I would take the dogs out at 7a, open the gates for the construction crews and go feed the horses and chickens. The sun would be up and it was always an enjoyable walk around the rancho.

So now that we have sprung forward an hour, when I go out at 7a it is still dark with the sun just starting to peak over the mountains to the east. But to my surprise the construction crews are still showing up at around 7a and start mixing cement and working even though there is not very much light.

Of course the horses are confused as they don't live by a clock, they rise and rest with the sun and of course who has ever seen a rooster check the clock before claiming it is morning. So now they are getting feed before what is normal for their body clocks, but I have too get out so I can have the rancho ready for the construction crews.

However, that is not what is exhausting me these days. What has become the real problem is that now the sun does not set until close to 8p and we are working in the gardens until then. It use to be that we would put the horses away around 5:30p and close them up around 7. Now we are turning them in at 7, closing them up around 8 and coming into the house around 8:30. This is making for a very long day as I usually still have an hour or two of work remaining on my consulting projects or my photographs. No wonder I am exhausted and collapse into bed.

Spring Concert at el Charco

2007-03-27T20:03:00.001-06:00

Music in outdoor settings is always so wonderful. I think back to the Hollywood Bowl, the Pageant of the Masters, summer concerts at the UofM and the concerts at Mt. Tam. These were always wonderful events with great music, great weather and wonderful environments. Well now I have to add another location to this listing of great venues, that being the canyon in el Charco del Ingenio jardín botánico.

Last week the jardín botánico sponsored an outdoor concert of four saxophone musicians and the music, the setting and the ambiance were outstanding. The group played a variety of music from baroque to jazz and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Here are some of my photos from the concert.

If you would like to check out more of my photos from the concert please click here.

Dia de Festiva en Rancho Viejo

2007-03-23T19:45:00.001-06:00

The past weekend the local pueblo near our rancho had a weekend festival. These are major events for the community and typically everyone in the community participates. The pueblo of Rancho Viejo has two of these festivals each year, one in March and one in May. The festival in March commenced on Friday which is fairly typical of these celebrations. This festival included fireworks that ran from 6p on Friday until around midnight and then started again on Saturday morning and did not seem to stop until the festival was over on Sunday afternoon.

These festivals include the usual carnival rides and lots and lots of snacks, foods and drinks.

Here is a couple of niños enjoying one of the rides.

These festivals always seem to be about family and the children always have a great time.

We did not actually venture over to the festival until Sunday, which was the day for the blessing of the horses and the charreada demonstration.

For the blessing the pueblo delgato leads all of the horses to be blessed into the chapel of the principal church in Rancho Viejo.

Upon the return from the chapel, the charreada demonstration commences. The local cowboys demonstrate some basic horse handling and maneuvers.

Then the final phase of the demonstration is the riding of the bulls by some of the young men from the pueblo. Here are three of the "lucky" young men who were selected for the ride.

But then here is one of the bulls that they will get to ride.

To say the least the bulls had the better time of the ride than the young men. However it was a wonderful day out enjoying the festival, the wonderful people of Rancho Viejo and the environment in general.

el Charco del Ingenio jardín botánico

2007-03-11T18:37:00.001-06:00

One of the jewels of San Miguel is the botanical garden in the hills over the city. It is a place that I enjoy to visit although I don't get there enough. In the past two months, I have been to three lectures/tours of the jardín and every time I see something new or unusual.

The past week we had a lecture on using cacti and succulents in your garden design with an add on topic of how to propagate cacti and succulents. The lecture and tour was given by the curator of the cactus collection Martin Smith.

Other than to recommend that if you enjoy native plants and trees, cacti and succulents, you need to go and visit the jardín now as spring is hitting the desert plants and everything looks so wonderful. Instead of my expanding on what I saw, I am only going to post a number of photos from my last trip there. If you want to see more of my collection of images from el Charco, visit my flickr collections here and here.

Walking Around San Miguel

2007-03-04T18:45:00.001-06:00

At least once a week I try to escape from the work around the rancho to head into San Miguel with my camera. Having lived in many large and smaller cities, I am always amazed at the activity and congregating that occurs in San Miguel. In Los Angeles you are always in your car and you can never just stumble upon some gathering. In Chicago, we walked everywhere but the city is so large that at the end of the day we would hear about some great concert or street festival, but we never were even close to being there. In San Francisco we lived across the bay on the west side of Marin County and it was a long drive (not distance, just time) to get into the city. Then of course in Mendocino and Northern Minnesota the locations were so small and thinly populated that there never seemed to be anything going on.

But that is sure not the case in this town. A lot of times I will come with camera in hand and just walk about the centro part of town and shoot tourists, vendors, or anything else that captures my eye. Then there are days that I will walk up to the main jardín outside the Parroquia and be surprised at the activity going on.

Two weeks ago I was walking up Aldama to the centro jardín and I spied this man totally focused on his painting.

Upon arriving at the jardín, I found out that there was a food festival

and a rock concert by some of the young students in town.

Then walking back down to my car with all my groceries I shot a couple of other photos of people just getting around town.

Here is a vendor selling some food products

a lady walking her dog

these girls heading out after school to play some fütball

and this man also walking home after his daily shopping trip.

However, there is so much going on at our rancho and so much going on in town that I sometimes miss really good festivals and events. This happened to me yesterday when one of my friends, Jennifer, sent me a great photo of this man in costume and head dress for the celebration of El Señor de la Conquista, that she took on Friday. Oh boy did I miss a great photo op but it will be here again next year and there will probably a good photo op tomorrow, such is life in San Miguel.

If you like Botanical Gardens and Photos

2007-03-01T08:34:00.001-06:00

One web site that I visit often is the Botany Photo of the Day which is written by UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, a department of the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. This site has a daily selection of plants and trees that I always find interesting.

Well last week I submitted one of my photos to their flickr group and this week it was selected as the photo of the day on their web site. So I recommend that you add this to your rss reader so you can follow what they are posting. You can also see my photo by clicking here.

Life can be so hard

2007-02-18T08:48:00.000-06:00

Jo Ann and I volunteer for a local organization called Patronato Pro-Niños de San Miguel de Allende, A.C. (PPN). PPN provides total medical and dental care to the young children who live in the compo areas surrounding San Miguel. If the family has limited or no resources to pay for medical care PPN will pick up the bill, while almost all of the medical services are provided by local doctors, dentists and other care organizations. It is a great organization that is always in need of financial supporters and volunteers.

As volunteers we will go and visit the local schools that are in our area and talk with the directors and teachers about the program and their students who need medical care. Most times the level of care needed is basic dental work and vision examinations, primarily for eye glasses.

However, sometimes when we talk to the directors, the situation can be much more dramatic. This past week we visited on the schools that is only about 10 kilometers from our home. During the discussion the Directora introduced us to a young boy who is very attentive and energetic, but who can not speak. She told us that the child's mom is not willing to accept help and the child is basically left on his own. There are local schools that can help this child but the mother is not willing to enroll the child even though there would be little to no financial obligation. What can we do to help, we keep asking ourselves, but we can not force the mother to extend the effort to help the boy.

Then there was another situation that is even more disheartening to us. Over the past year we have gotten to know a young boy, who is about 11, when we were out biking in the compo. We saw this boy at the school and the Directora told us that he needed some vision examinations and probably will need some glasses. She then went on to tell us that the father who is around 60, recently went blind, the mother needs major dental work (she is losing all of her teeth), the oldest daughter, who is over 30, lives at home and is an alcoholic, and there are seven other children. The father can not work due to the blindness and there is no social security or welfare organizations in Mexico so this family is in dire straights. It is so bad that the oldest boy was so hungry that he left the family and is somewhere in the US working. The family has had no contact with him since he left so they don't know where he is or how he is doing. PPN is trying to help this family by giving the father and mother references to different organizations that can help them with the blindness and dental problems, which is very helpful. But without financial support and with no ability to find employment, this family is suffering. Again we continue to ask ourselves, what can we do to help.

These are such a difficult situations but not ones that are limited to only this community. There are so many needy families here in Mexico and only so many organizations and volunteers to help. Living down here you really gain an appreciation as to why men, boys and even total families will risk their lives to cross the border to try to gain some type of employment up north. We are trying to help, but the organizations need more financial support and volunteers so if you can please contribute financially or volunteer your time, both are needed.

Visit to Las Glorias del Huerto

2007-02-15T08:58:00.000-06:00

This past week we made a visit to the organic gardens of Luis Saurez which are located near Atotonilco. His rancho is called Las Glorias del Huerto and it is a magnificent garden where he grows using methods that are certified organic.

Many years ago his rancho was farmed with mainly corn. When he commenced farming the property, he converted all of the techniques to organic and ceased using any chemicals. He initially planted alfalfa which he continued for 15 years primarily to rebuild the soils. Alfalfa is part of the legume family so it feeds the soil and has VERY LONG ROOTS that also help to break up the hard pan. Thus he continues to use alfalfa as a rotation crop to regenerate his land.

Luis employs two full time gardeners and as summer comes with the increased production and of course the rains he employs more as need be.

He composts everything that the garden produces including pasture grasses and uses cattle, sheep and goat manure that he ages and works into the soil. He has primarily three different types of soil on his property and works at mixing them together since combined they make a very rich soil but separately they are not good growing mediums.

For pest control purposes he only uses artemesia and sages, which Luis believes work just fine and are totally organic.

The rancho will commence selling produce in the next two weeks, although it will be primarily salad related products, lettuce, radicchio and arrugula. He had to stop selling last year earlier than normal due to the very cold period in December but usually has to stop with the first frost. Luis is also hoping to employ more covered/protected growing areas so that he can extend his selling year round.

This coming year he will be planting fruit trees to diversify the microclimate of his property.

The Down to Earth Garden Club of San Miguel will be having a tour and discussion with Luis at his rancho on the 22nd of May from 9:30a to 11. If you are interested in attending, please register with the organization here. If you would like to see more images from our tour of the gardens, please check out the collection at my flickr portfolio here.

Almost Off the Grid

2007-02-14T12:17:00.000-06:00

Yesterday commenced the final phase of our renovation of Rancho La Luz, this being the installation of solar panels and the electronics for moving the rancho's electric requirements entirely to solar power. We commenced the renovation around the first of April last year (I guess it was an April Fool's joke on me to think we would have finished this work by the end of September) and have completely renovated the buildings, the landscaping and now moving from the grid to the generation of electricity by solar.

We are using a local firm called Solar & Heating Solutions here in San Miguel de Allende to procure all of the necessary equipment and to install the system. Once I am done with this project, then I will be able to get rid of all my voltage regulators and UPS systems. That will be a real benefit.

I hope to have some photos of the transformation of the rancho once we are done. Trust me to say that it has been a major transformation of the rancho and we are really happy about the work that we have done.

Is it my Spanish or just a failure to communicate?

2007-02-08T08:27:00.000-06:00

For the past two years Jo Ann and I have been working very hard on improving our Spanish. In fact for the past eight months we have been taking intensive language training. We can now have full conversations with the people who live near our rancho and are able to communicate very well with the construction and landscaping crews who speak only Spanish.

However over the past week we have had several "issues" where we either don't fully understand the culture/customs or we have the typical example of a lack of communication.

The first incident happened two days ago. Tomas, our ranch hand, has never really had full time permanent employment and has two boys in high school who we employ during their vacations from school (summer break and Navidad). However now the boys are back in school and Tomas has a lot of work to get done before the rainy season starts. So as the day was ending I told Tomas that I thought we should hire him an assistant to help with the work, such as mixing the concrete and carrying the heavy materials. Upon saying this I could see Tomas was not happy about this offer. I mention that it would only be until his boys are out of school for the summer in case he is concerned that we would not hire them again. I continue to back track saying that all we were trying to do was to help him and if he does not want the assistant that was fine with us. So was our offer viewed by him as criticism of his work, did he think that we would not hire his boys again, did I use the wrong words or tenses, or was this something that culturally we did not understand?

The second issue happened yesterday and is really a combination of two events. We were going out to Las Cañas primeria school to give some training on using the new educational software that we installed last week. We had asked the oldest child of Agistina if she could help us with training as she uses the software and knows how the programs work. So the prior day, Agistina tells us that we should pick up Alicia at their home at 11:15. However yesterday morning Alicia's father Aturo comes by and tells us to pick her up at the Rancho Viejo school at 11:15. So we go to the school at 11:15 and find out two things, Alicia is not there and the teachers from Las Cañas primeria are coming for computer training to Rancho Viejo. We are very confused to say the least.

We head off to Alicia's home to see if she is there, but alas she is not, her mom says she is probably out at our rancho, so we head off there. Yes she is there and we don't really know how our plans went astray, but we have found her so off to Las Cañas we go.

We get to the school and it is locked up tighter than a drum. We don't know what went wrong, but clearly the directoria of the school either forgot to tell us that they had a change of plans or did we not explain ourselves clearly.

It can be extremely frustrating to be in a land of extremely friendly people, who speak a language that you do not fully comprehend or understand. Sometimes my head seems to explode as I try to absorb all of the nuances and tenses of Spanish, but we are making progress. However, days like these past two really raise questions about your communication skills and your understanding of the new language. This is something that everyone needs to experience as it can be oh so humbling.

Arbustivas y Plantas Necesario Anónimo

2007-02-06T07:44:00.000-06:00

Ok, I have having a little fun with the title, but when Jo Ann and I go to a plant sale, we usually go crazy. So over the past weekend we headed into San Miguel de Allende to visit the annual plant sale which is known as Candelaria. Usually held within the beautiful confines of Parque Juarez, this year it is being held in the parking lot on Cardo. Well, first impressions were that it looked like a typical flea market that we would visit when we lived in SoCal. However upon closer investigation we found some beautiful flowers, shrubs and trees.

One of issues that I have with Candelaria is that it really does not promote or market local or native plants. It is really focused on selling plants that have lots of color that will not necessarily do well here in the high desert environment of Mexico. But this is the result of capitalism, doing what will sell, not necessarily what is good for the local environment. The following is a good sample of what you can find at the various vendors.

One of the concerns that I have heard a lot from many locals who are very knowledgeable in plants and trees, is that the vendors stress the plants with fertilizers and other performance enhancing substances to have them in full bloom with fruits, just for the show. Thus in a lot of cases people will be very disappointed that the beautiful plants that they had purchased soon thereafter die or look significantly wilted. It is thus imperative that when you are purchasing plants here to really look at the root ball and the stock, and not look at the color of the flower or the fruit.

I am always amazed by the entrepreneurship of the Mexicans. I had been wondering how they were going to get power to the vendors for the dusk and evening hours, well as you can see, they solved that problem also.

We did find a couple of vendors who had great products and the plants and trees looked like they had been well cared for. So what did we buy, well we got two limon trees, one fig tree (I love figs), eight roses and a bunch (I really mean a whole lot) of herbs for Jo Ann's new herb garden. We also purchased several other plants that will be used to supplement our new landscaping.

Saturday and Sunday we spent planting the new herb garden and some of the trees. Well it was a great weekend to plant if you are the plant, but not so great if you are the gardener. We had drizzle and light rain all weekend, so out come the wellies. We would then end up the day with a cup of hot tea to warm up before settling into a delicious dinner. It was a great weekend!

If you would like to see more of my photos from Candelaria (and there will be more as I am sure we will venture in again for more plants before it ends, please visit my flickr collection here.

Garden Design with Cacti

2007-01-28T08:29:00.000-06:00

This past week Jo Ann and I attended a wonderful lecture presented by Martin Smith, the curator of the cacti collection at el Charco Botanical Jardín in San Miguel de Allende. The purpose of the lecture was to discuss how you can use cacti and succulents in your landscape and garden designs in lieu of using the more traditional plants and flora that most people from the US are accustomed to.

During the lecture Martin covered many landscape design concepts and how the use of cacti and succulents can be both attractive and eco-sensible. The plants that are on display and for sale at el Charco are solely native plants to Mexico and so are able to handle the disparities of the temperature, the potential of draughts and the high winds that we can experience living here in the high desert.

Through out the lecture Martin also covered a number of key design concepts that he integrates when he is designing gardens both here in San Miguel as well as in his home country of England. These concepts include the use of the rule of thirds, complementary and contrasting colors (using the artistic color wheel), implementing odd numbers and using repeating patterns. All of these concepts can greatly enhance the ambiance and serenity of your gardens and outdoor living space.

As we walked through the various cacti gardens, Martin would demonstrate hands on how they had transformed the various cacti gardens. Here are two examples of gardens that they completely transformed into one of the most engaging gardens that I have experienced.

If the concept of learning how to use cacti and succulents in your garden and outdoor living space, and you missed attending this lecture, we are having a similar session for the San Miguel Down to Earth Garden Club on the 22nd of February from 3 to 5p. There will be at charge of 70 pesos for members of el Charco and 100 pesos for non-members. If you are interested please go to the group web page here.

Update on the Pozo

2007-01-23T06:05:00.000-06:00

So we have good news on the status of our well. It seems that with all of the recent development in and around our rancho, there has been a lot of churning of sand in the aquifer. One of our filters for the well had gotten plugged with sand and other particles and the plumber on Sunday did not think of checking that when we starting talking about more significant problems. So the good news is that we now have again a good functional well and can proceed with finishing our landscape project.

The good news is that this problem allowed Jo Ann and I to talk further with our architect about water conservation and other eco-conscience techniques. We were again assured that what we are doing is very draught tolerant and after a year or so, will not require any significant water usage.

So I have finished installing the drip lines for the trees that have been planted and we will hopefully be done with the project in the next ten days to two weeks. ¡Esperanzadamente si los dioses sonríen en nosotros!

You Don't Know What You Got Til It's Gone

2007-01-22T08:34:00.000-06:00

Credit to Joni Mitchell for the title to this posting. It has been a very difficult weekend here at Rancho La Luz. On Saturday afternoon we noticed that the pump in the water well had been running almost non-stop for several hours. This is highly unusual so I opened up the access doors to the cistern and found that we were not getting much water from the well.

On Sunday this problem continued and our plumber came out to investigate. It seems that either our pump has failed or the aquifer level has dropped below the level of our well. Neither of these situations is good, but replacing the pump will of course be easier and quicker to repair.

What makes this extremely upsetting to me is that we are a week or so to finishing all of the landscaping at the rancho. Although almost all of the plants used are native and are very draught tolerant, however they need to be watered a lot during the first two or three years after planting so that they can get well established. My stress level is over board and I have been a very difficult person to live with this weekend (sorry Jo Ann).

Both Jo Ann and I are very eco-conscience, using organic fertilizers, composting and drip irrigation, but without water there is nothing that you can do. I only hope that we can solve this problem quickly and not have any permanent or lasting damage to the plants.

Today the plumber is coming out with someone who works exclusively with pozos so hopefully we can get our problem solved. If not, we will start buying water from a private source and using extensive conservation techniques that we learned living in Marin County during some of the draughts there. I hope to have some better news for everyone later today. Hasta pronto.

The Good, Bad and Ugly, a typical week in Mexico

2007-01-15T07:40:00.000-06:00

The past week has been a wild week for me. As I sit here on Sunday evening, I am exhausted (and of course a little sore, but more on that later). The week started last weekend, when Agistina and Tomas (two people who work on our rancho) wanted to give my wife Jo Ann a surprise birthday party. Agistina prepared a excellent and extensive meal of mole, rise, frijoles negro, cerveza and of course tortillas. Tomas had arranged for a local band called Trio Dos Generaciones to play. So around 2 in the afternoon they showed up at the rancho with their families and we had a great celebration that lasted long into the evening.

Jo Ann had a great time and I believe that everyone else did also.

Then on Sunday, we went to the final fütball game of the year. Our local time, which is called Team Chivas (like the very popular one here in Mexico), had won the class C league here in San Miguel and was going to play the Class B league winner from Rodriguez. Well there is definitely a difference when you move from one class to another as the result was the ugly. Our team got pasted by a score of 4-0 but it was a lot of fun, even if the final run had to come to an end.

One Monday, I commenced a quick trip up to McAllen Texas. When we moved our belongings down here to Mexico, we had a complete inventory of these goods, that had been certified by the consulate of Mexico in Saint Paul Minnesota. When our movers got down to the border in October, they rejected one item on the list, a small garden trailer that goes on the back of the ATV. I use this trailer to move tools and supplies around the rancho and it is clearly off road. We argued over the phone but to no avail, the movers were not going to bring it as they were sure the Mexican customs organization Aduana would reject it and require it to be off loaded. The movers held this trailer for me at their warehouse, so the trip this past week was to pick it up, together with a bunch of drip irrigation supplies I had recently purchased.

Monday was spent driving up to McAllen, Tuesday was loading up the truck with the trailer and the supplies that I had purchased and then Wednesday was crossing back across the border. When I came to the Aduana check point, I had all of my receipts for the drip supplies and the certified inventory that included the trailer. Well, they wanted to see all of the receipts, but never even asked about the trailer. I paid my duty and headed south. That sure was a lot of time spent to get the trailer that no one even seemed to notice.

Thursday and Friday we spent riding the horses and working around the rancho. Most of the major renovation projects are getting close to being finished, I can't wait as I am tired of having the workers around all the time and not having a lot of peace and quiet.

Saturday we decided to go on a bike ride and headed out towards Galvanees. We were about ten miles from home when I punctured my rear tire. The puncture was very large so that the slime that I have in my tires could not stop the leak and I could not fix it while we were out in the compo. So Jo Ann gets to ride home and I start the long process of walking home.

Sunday arrives and we are looking to ride the horses over to Palo Colorado as the weather is just wonderful. We are finishing up our ride and Jo Ann decides that she wants to gallop her horse one last time, so we take off on a trail that we ride a lot. While in a full gallop, Chandon (my horse) gets spooked by something in the brush and decides, on her own, to turn left and jump over this large patch of brush. Well I was surely not expecting this, and I am far from an expert in jumping, so I hang on for dear life, but after we land, I loose my balance and fall of my horse. I am scraped and bruised, but nothing too serious, I just ache.

We mount up again and ride on home, this time very slowly. After cooling the horses down we turn the out in the pasture and head off to lunch.

After we finish our lunch we decide to walk up to the stables to see how everyone is doing. Well to our major surprise, Moet is running loose outside the pasture. It seems that the one of the burros had gotten between the fencing and some cacti and in a panic knocked down a portion of the fencing, the problem being that this portion was also attached to the gate, so there was nothing to stop any of the animals from walking out. We quickly (well as quickly as a person with a lot of aches and pains can) temporarily repaired the gate and got all of the animals back inside the corral. What a way to end up a very busy and active week. Now I just want to sit here and enjoy a glass of wine and try to forget the aches.

So how was your week?

Horse Tales

2006-12-31T19:16:00.000-06:00

The past week has been another hectic week, what with all of the festivals on going as well as bringing our two horses into their new home. The stables are very nice as you can see below.

After just three days both Moet and Chandon have adapted to their new location and routine extremely well. We have been riding them for several hours a day almost every day and they seem to enjoy trail riding very much. Both of these horses were previously involved in Charreada so they had lots of experience with riding in the ring, but not very much trail riding.

Here you can see Jo Ann is enjoying herself with Moet out in the compo.

We have also had a slight change in our animal family. Our ranch hand, Tomas, has a elderly friend who broke his leg this past summer and because of osteoporosis he is not able to walk any more and needed something to be able to ride to the market. So we gave him one of our burros that we had used to ride before (Pascale) and also one other as burros, like horses and dogs, are pack animals and we did not want to have Pascale leave a lone. So this week we also said goodbye to Pascale and Panchita, but it is great to know that they are going to a place that they can really make a difference and will be loved and well cared for.

We have one other horse story that we wanted to share. Last week as we were preparing to ride our horses from where we had been stabling them, we talked with our vet who also gives riding lessons. She told us that horses have great healing and development capabilities. She once was given the challenge to try to teach two young girls whose parent's had been serious drug users. These children had terrible learning and attention disabilities, and had recently been given to their grandparents to try to raise them. They required special tutors and schooling as they could not properly interact with other children and could not grasp the lessons at the public schools. After almost a year of riding lessons, these two girls are now competing in competitions for youth horse riding. But even better because of these sessions with the horses the girls have now advanced so that they are able to go to the public schools and have a normal childhood that they can enjoy. Now that is something amazing.

So as we pass 2006 and enter 2007, Feliz Año Nuevo y espero que usted tenga un Año Nuevo próspero!

Feliz Navidad at Rancho Viejo School

2006-12-24T09:07:00.000-06:00

Last week we were invited by Agistina to attend the Christmas pageant at the Rancho Viejo school. This is an annual event were each of the various classes present a play, march or song that is based on Christmas and the nativity scene.

So we arrive at the appointed hour and start the usual process of waiting for everyone to arrive before it starts (remember patience). There are a large number of interesting piñatas, that will not be broken until the last day of school celebration before they break for the holiday season.

So about 40 minutes after we arrive, the pageant commences. First there is some dancing and singing by the second and third grade classes.

Then these beautiful angels take the stage and lead a session of dancing and singing.

The final part of the pageant commences which is a scene that starts with Satan leading a group of people down the road to ruin. There is a mixture of adults (the teachers) and the children. During this part of the pageant, I find it very interesting that the skit also addresses the relationship of alcohol and evil. During the part that Satan is leading the group, the adults are portrayed as drunkards and lazy, but then an angel appears and lead them to the Nativity scene where ultimately the three kings arrive with their gifts and praise.

If you want to see more of the images from the pageant please go to my flickr set at http://www.flickr.com/photos/sanmiguelphotos/sets/72157594430003983/

It was great fun even for someone who does not usually partake in religious festivals. I also want to say that I am sorry that I have continued to be diligent with my postings. I have been spending a lot of time with the new Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom betas as well as preparing the new stables for our horses which now look to be arriving on Tuesday.

So there will be more postings as I start to free up more time. But in the meantime Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo.

Reflections

2006-12-11T09:20:00.000-06:00

Wow it is hard to believe that it has been just over six months since I moved to San Miguel de Allende. During this time I have only left my adopted country once for a short project and I can't say that I have missed much of anything of the life I left behind. In fact I have an upcoming project that will take me to Toronto and New York and I am so not looking forward to going.

During this six months, much has happened to Jo Ann and I, we have completed a significant remodel to the house we acquired, commenced the reforestation project, adopted four burros and a compo puppy, commenced a project to stop the erosion on our rancho, became significantly involved as volunteers in the Patronatos por Niños organization, learned a new language, made many new friends (both gringos and mexicanos), had my first major biking accident in over 25 years, acquired two horses and added stables to the rancho and finally almost have completed a major landscaping project on the land that surrounds the house.

Although we did not spend lots of money on these projects (we don't have it to spend) we did learn a great lesson about life in Mexico in general, and construction work specifically in Mexico, and that is patience. The work is excellent, but it does not always go at the pace and schedule that you would like.

With Jo Ann up visiting her parents this past week, it made me start to think about how I compare living in Mexico to the other places we have lived . This includes both So. Cal, San Francisco, Mendocino, Chicago and Northern Minnesota as well as comparing it to London, Paris and Southwestern France where we spent significant time due to my work commitments. I have to say overall, I have enjoyed my time in Mexico more than all the others, although each has some wonderful traits and all of these experiences have been so enjoyable.

So what are the five things that I enjoy the most here in Mexico:

1. The people who live here, their attitude to enjoying life, their desire to help you when you are in need and the culture of Mexico in general

2. The food it is excellent and oh so diverse

3. The climate

4. The ability to bike and ride our horses in a variety of terrains and locations just by riding from our rancho. Also not having to follow a road that we need to share with cars

5. The vast amount of activities that always seem to be happening in and around San Miguel. There are so many nights that we collapse into bed and say that we have never been so active in our lives.

However there are always things that we leave behind that we miss when we move to a new location and it is not any different here, so the five things that I miss about living in the US.

1. The availability and ease to purchase just about anything. It is much more difficult to purchase certain items like electronics, computers, landscaping supplies, etc. that were vastly available north of the border. I never understood how good the people of the US have it as it relates to access to a multitude of goods at very cheap prices.

2. The access to technology and the internet. Yes I have broadband but it is not as fast nor as stable as it was nob and since I am a techno-wienie this upsets me greatly.

3. Access to college football and basketball. We don't have a TV down here so I do not get to see or hear much in the way of NCAA football and basketball. Yes I get updates via ESPN and CBS on the internet, but I don't get to watch many of the games.

4. Friends and family. Clearly it is not easy to make visits to our old friends and family who still live nob and this limits our interactions to email and the telephone. I do miss my almost daily conversations with Matt where we would debate college football and basketball, MLB (especially the Twins) and US politics. These are just not topics that my friends down here have interests in so it is something I miss.

5. Well I can't think of another items that I miss, so I will leave it at four.

All in all, I am very happy to be down here with Jo Ann and our pack of animals. It has been a great adventure and one that I am looking to continue to explore.

Gran Charreada

2006-12-10T17:19:00.000-06:00

I can't believe it was two weeks ago that Jo Ann and I with two of Agistina's niñas went to the Gran Charreada. This is really the only true nationally organized sport in Mexico and is similar to the American rodeo. We were prompted to go as the local San Miguel de Allende team was competing against two other teams, one of which took second place in the national finals last year. To say the least it seemed like a good time to go to experience the national sport of Mexico.

So what is a Gran Charreada, it is a competition of nine different events that earn points both on skill and style. It starts as any sporting event with a lot of pomp and ceremony, with all of the charros in formal attire and their caballos similarly decked out.

The Charreada is a family affair as many of the charros' families are in attendance and during the pre-competition events, will ride with their fathers.

After the opening ceremonies, the charros present themselves to the audience and prepare for the competition.

There are nine individual competitions, where each team is given points based on performance (time and success of achieving the objective) as well as style points, all of this based on experienced judges.

The first event Cala de Caballo is where a charro puts his horse through various exercises to demonstrate the ability of the charro and the caballo. These exercises include a controlled slide, half, full and triple turns, a reverse walk among others.

The second event Piales en Lienzo is where a charro tries to catch a wild mare with a lariat by the rear legs of the caballo. Points are awarded for the distance needed to stop the mare and the charro has three attempts to accomplish the task.

The third event is the Colas en el Lienzo where the charro rides alongside a bull, wraps the tail of the bull around his leg and tries to get the bull to fall and roll as he rides past.

The forth and fifth events are grouped together. It starts with bull riding where the charro tries to ride the bull until it stops bucking so that he can properly dismount. The charro must remove the bull rope and the bell rope during the event for points.

The fifth event is the Terna en el Ruedo, where a team of three charros attempt to rope the bull, one by the neck, one by the rear legs and the last ties its feet together. There is a maximum of ten minutes time allotment and points are given for rope tricks and time.

The sixth, seventh and eighth events are combined together. The sixth is the Jineteo de Yegua which is similar to the riding of the bull earlier except it is on a wild mare ridden with only a rope. Again the charro must ride it until the mare stops bucking and then properly dismount.

The seventh event is the Manganas a Pie where a charro on foot has three chances to rope a wild mare by its legs cause it to fall and roll once. This and the next event were the two events that we did not enjoy as it hurt for us to see these horses fall as they did, but luckily none were seriously injured.

The eighth event is similar to the previous, except it is Manganas a Caballo, where the charro attempts to rope the wild mare from horseback. The charro has three attempts to accomplish this and points are granted based on time and for rope tricks.

The final event is el Paso de la Muerte where a charro riding bareback attempts to leap from his horse to the bare back of a wild horse and ride it until it stops bucking. It is clearly the most dangerous event of the nine, but also the most thrilling.

Through out the Gran Charreada there is a group of Mariachis playing in between the competitions. Their music is so enjoyable and traditional.

So how did San Miguel do, well they performed well but only took second place. That is very good considering the competition but I believe that they felt that they could have done better. It was great fun and I expect that we will be back again before too long.

There are more photos in my flickr set which you can see here.

Luck and Hard Work

2006-11-24T08:17:00.000-06:00

The campo area surrounding San Miguel de Allende is largely agricultural and has at times been called the breadbasket of central Mexico. However in contrast to the US a lot of these small farms are extremely manual and do not have the vast resources that the corporate farms in the US process.

We have been told by our neighbors that for most of these farmers and the small shepherds whose herds graze in the surrounding areas that it is hit or miss on whether they can provide the necessary financial resources to make it to the next year.

So as Billie has been saying in her blog the weather here has turned down right cold and the growing season is quickly coming to an end. Over the past week as Jo Ann and I have been riding around the campo I have been amazed at the degree of success some farmers have achieved compared to others.

Here is a good example of two adjacent small farms. One planted alfalfa and is harvesting probably the last of a successful harvest, the other planted corn too early in the year and will harvest nothing.

A big difference between successful and unsuccessful farmers is the availability of irrigation. Here in Mexico they still are using very primitive irrigation methods, but to have access to a well certainly improves your success ratio. As you can see here, this farmer did not have access to irrigation and planted his corn too early.

Not only do some farmers not have access to irrigation, some don't even have access to mechanical equipment. As you can see this farmer is still using a burro and a horse to plow his fields.

So on this day after the US Thanksgiving Day as most Americans head out to their local malls for black Friday shopping, please stop and consider how the majority of the world lives. Here in the campo for many a day of giving thanks is just a warm casa with enough food on the table. I love living here in Mexico, it has opened my eyes and mind to understanding what is important to us and the value of friendship and adventure.

Cacti Propagation

2006-11-19T19:03:00.000-06:00

Tuesday started out a bit on the cool side, it was almost 50 degrees but not bad considering it was mid-November. We headed out to el Charco botanical jardín for a lecture and demonstration on cacti propagation given by Martin Smith, the curator of el Charco's cacti collection.

Martin is a most interesting individual who is British and was first introduced to the study of cacti at age four. He has dedicated his life's work to the study, cultivation and protection of cacti.

Martin began the class by giving us a background of cacti and succulents. First off, all cactus are succulents, but not all succulents are cactus! Another interesting point he made was that agaves (which are very plentiful here) are not cactus, but a member of the grass and orchid family, which is very interesting and not something I would have guessed. Needless to say most of us were surprised by this fact.

The first part of the seminar covered soil mixture which consists of two parts tierra negra (basically a fine silt that contains nutrients), two parts coarse sand, one part tierra lama (or river silt) and one part pumice gravel which can be acquired at a local building supply. This mixture is used for all propagation methods. Martin stressed that it is most important that the soil mixture be open and free draining.

Next he gave the group a demonstration of the different methods of cactus propagation. These included cuttings of vegetation such as leaf, stem or small side plant and planting from seed.

We finished off the class by being given a tour of the garden's collection of cacti from around the world, although most of the collection is from Mexico. The variety of the plants was astounding! We really enjoyed the lecture and demonstration and highly recommend it to anyone who has a chance to attend a future seminar given by Martin.

To see more photos and commentary from this wonderful seminar, please check out the photo set at my flickr page here.

Welcome Moet & Chandon, plus a Frida update

2006-11-18T11:03:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned last week, we have added a little more to our group of pets here at Rancho La Luz. Last week we completed the purchase of two horses, Moet and Chandon. Now you can probably appreciate that we do enjoy a little drink of the bubbly, but also Moet, which is Jo Ann's ride, is very bubbly and quick to canter. Chandon is more of a love bunny, but is also a lot of fun to ride.

Here is Moet.

And here is Chandon,

While I am at it, here are two more, one of Moet and one of Chandon.

We are now in the process of building two new stables, a tack room and a place to store their alfalfa. We had always planned on doing this, it is just that we ended up accelerating our plans to get the horses since the opportunity arose.

I also promised an update on Frida, our compo dog that we found two or so months ago. She is doing wonderful now that we have been able to rebuild her immune system and get her better nourishment. She had been covered with lice, maggots and fleas when we found her, but now she is doing great. When we found her she weighed less than five pounds, but as of today she has grown to 18 pounds and as you can see below, she is very healthy and a lot of fun to have around.

For more photos of our animals and our travels around San Miguel de Allende and the rest of central Mexico check out my flickr page.

The Rains Continue

2006-11-16T08:05:00.000-06:00

Here in San Miguel de Allende the rainy season is suppose to have ended and we should be moving into winter with the gardens and trees moving into dormancy. However, what is suppose to be isn't and last Friday evening we had a fairly heavy rain, although most of it occurred while we were sleeping.

Once the clouds cleared Saturday morning, Jo Ann and I decided to take our normal Saturday bike ride, we had hoped to bike into San Miguel and have lunch. This is a great ride, about 50 kilometers total since there is not straight line other than the main carrterra and we refuse to ride along it as there are no shoulders or bike lanes.

Riding through Rancho Viejo we noticed that everything was much wetter than we anticipated, in fact in several places we had to navigate around several major water holes.

When we got to the carrterra Palo Colorado, we realized that it had rained much more than we initially thought. As you can see here, the road was under water in many places and we abandoned our initial plans and decided to take a shorter route through Taboada and then to Atotonilco.

Everything was a muddy mess but we continued a long our plan, when we were about half way to Atotonilco we found probably the only person or animal that was enjoying the muddy results of the recent rains.

It took us a lot longer to compete the ride given the weather, but it was a great ride, although as you can see below, I had a lot of clean up to do afterwards.

Well at least I did not have to do the laundry!

Who Controls the Schedule?

2006-11-07T09:26:00.000-06:00

The past week has provided a lot of challenges to my personality regarding schedules and appointments. In the past I have been almost anal regarding the importance of being on time and achieving deadlines, however down here in Mexico, well it is just not the same. Here are just a couple of recent examples.

First I have been dealing for two weeks in trying to get our plumber and electrician to come out to do a final days work. This work is starting to get in the way of completing our landscaping project and the construction of the new garage. We call and make appointments, but alas no one shows. We will keep on trying.

Second, I had a doctor appointment last Wednesday. I showed up on time (well within the norm for Mexican on time) and there was no one at the office. I waited for a couple of minutes and then called my doctor on his cell. He told me that he had an emergency at the local hospital and that his secretary was suppose to call me, but she had not nor was she there to reschedule my appointment.

Third, last Thursday we were told that the movers who were shipping our furniture from the US were going to be at our place in the afternoon to unload. We were excited and got everything ready and waited. By five in the afternoon we were deflated and called again to find out what was happening, well we were told that because it was the Day of the Dead, that the driver decided not to complete the drive and that they would have to come on Friday. That was fine, but could someone please have called us.

Finally, on Saturday we were suppose to met the person who we are going to buy two horses from. She is a trainer and gives lessons on riding but when we showed up there were two lessons going on and several people trying to talk with her. To say the least we just decided to reschedule to a less hectic time so we could talk about the horses and complete the deal.

But there are also things that make living in Mexico even for a schedule fanatic like me. Last Tuesday we had to go to a lab in Querétaro for a special test and we had never been to this place. Well the road was under a lot of construction and we got lost. We called the lab and told them where we were and guess what, they sent someone over to show us the way to the lab. Have you ever heard of something like this in the US.

So living in Mexico the schedules and appointments are a bit more fluid and subject to change. However the people are so friendly and supportive, you just have to laugh and enjoy the day. But isn't that what life is all about?

Almost back to normal

2006-10-30T07:30:00.000-06:00

The past couple of weeks have been very busy which has kept me from many of my normal activities including writing posts to this blog. Hopefully I will get back into a more comfortable routine and will be able to get back to two or three posts a week.

So last Monday Jo Ann came back across the border after packing up the rest of our stuff from the US. Her two cousins Matt and Jerry shared the ride with her so from Tuesday until Saturday we were heavy into the tourist scene. On Tuesday we bummed around San Miguel as well as going to the weekly Tiengas for some shopping.

After the trip to town and the Tiengas, we then did a hike down to the arroyo and up the dry river. Since we have not had any rain for the past two weeks, most of the river bed is dry. However the dogs found one nice large pond and made the most of it.

On Wednesday we hiked from Rancho La Luz to La Gruta though the small town of Rancho Viejo. It is about a five mile walk each way as we go through Atotonilco, which has this wonderfully restored church.

And of course a bunch of street vendors that are selling various religious artifacts.

The pools at La Gruta are from the thermal springs in the area and are so comfortable. The grounds are very tropical, which is so different from the normal local vegetation, but beautiful just the same.

Thursday then held a wonderful tour at the Hacienda Las Trancas, which is a little north of Dolores Hidalgo. There are so many wonderful images that I took at the Hacienda, but I will limit the posting to only a couple.

Here are the stables of the hacienda.

And here is one of the beautiful bedrooms.

After the tour of the hacienda we went into Dolores and had lunch and bummed around the town. Of course no visit to Dolores can be made without some of the delicious ice cream that they sell at the central jardin.

Friday was another day of bumming around San Miguel and Saturday Matt and Jerry returned to the chilling state of Minnesota. It was a very nice visit, but Jo Ann and I were exhausted from the activities. We were a little upset though with Matt and Jerry, they seemed to have left their Minnesota weather down here. Saturday night the temperatures dropped to 0 (32 for those of you in the US) and many of our recently planted native trees and shrubs were touched by frost. This sure seems early but I am sure that Jo Ann will be able to coach them back to health.

This week is also one packed with many activities. First and foremost it is the festivals for All Saints Day and the Day of the Dead. There is also a circus in town that we want to go see. We also have our on going landscaping project and today we start our last project, that being the construction of the garage. Then we stop!

So here's a big thank you to Matt and Jerry, they had a safe trip home but we hope that they will return again soon. It wasn't our normal week, but we enjoyed playing the tourist, it is just not something we do often.

End of the Rainy Season, Not Yet!

2006-10-15T17:40:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago we commenced the final project related to the renovation of Rancho La Luz, this being the landscaping surrounding the house. We had decided to delay this project until we had a good probability of the rainy season being over so that all of the dirt moving and the re-grading of the yard. As I have commented in earlier posts, we have a problem when it rains, as the water runs down from the pasture and right onto our front porch. Also we wanted to establish some more typical rancho style gardens, including a cactus garden.

So two weeks ago we commenced the project and started to reshape the yard around the house. The idea was to establish some burms that would channel the rain water away from the house and to create some interesting elevations to plant on.

We were making great progress and had started planning on where the driveway, walkways and the new garage were going to be placed. This work requires a lot of raw materials and a talented crew to select, place and secure the rocks into the cobblestone type driveway and walking paths.

As you can see we have plenty of the raw materials,

and a very talented crew.

However on Friday afternoon we started to hear thunder and by 3p it was raining hard. Other than a short break in the rain between 6 and 8p, it rained steady until 2a. When I got up on Saturday, it looked like I was back living in Minnesota as it seemed that we were in the land of 10,000 lakes.

Here it new driveway, just don't stop or you may not get moving again.

And this is the new garage, yes it now looks like a swimming pool which Snickers and Frida are enjoying but it will someday dry out and we will have a place to park our truck.

It rained again on Saturday, almost as hard as it did on Friday evening and as I sit here on Sunday, I am wondering when we will be able to recommence the project. Clearly the project is on hold for a while, I can only hope that we get some sunny and windy days which will help to dry out the soil. The good news is that I did not have to water all of the native plants that are part of our reforestation project, but the bad news is that the landscaping is on hold and every time the dogs go outside, they come back a muddy mess.

Planes, Automobiles and ..... Snow?

2006-10-13T08:03:00.000-05:00

I was going to call this post Home Alone 2 as Jo Ann left San Miguel on Wednesday to visit her parents and to prepare the move of our furniture down here to San Miguel. However Jo Ann has encountered another of those lovely trips that the airlines do not want to have published.

She was scheduled to leave the Leon airport at 7:10 so off she goes at 3:45a to reach the airport in order to comply with the "rules and regulations" of the airlines. After checking in and going to the gate all she sees is a dark airplane (well at least the plane is at the gate). At 7a there is still no signs of life on the airplane so she calls me and I check the web which shows that the flight is still scheduled to leave at 7:10 without delay. Around 7:40 the airline's web site finally shows that the flight is delayed but she should still make it in time to catch her connection.

At 8:15 Jo Ann goes to ask the lone ticket agent what is happening with the flight and she is told that there is a major fire at the DFW airport,. I then checked the web and I can't find any notice of this "major" fire, so I relay the news that this comment is quite suspect. Around 9a Jo Ann calls again to say that they are boarding so she may still make here connection. Alas after boarding they had to deplane as they were told that there was mechanical problems.

So finally around 10a they are boarded and take off. Of course, Jo Ann misses her 11a connecting flight from DFW but is able to catch the 1:10p flight to MSP.

When she arrives in Minneapolis, it is snowing and the temperature is 32, this is October 11, not December. To top off this flight from h*ll the airline lost her luggage and told her that they had no idea where it was located, I am sure glad they have the high tech systems to track luggage.

Her cousin Matt was there to pick her up and they made the five hour drive in blowing snow and windy conditions. Gratefully they made it safely, but there was about 2 inches of snow on the ground.

Yesterday it continued to snow with the high of only 34. I just got off the phone with her this morning and at 7:30 there is close to seven inches of snow on the ground and the temperature is 22 with a 15 degree wind chill. I did not have the heart to tell her that it was 65 and sunny down here, she will probably read this and scream.

Last night the airline called to say that they had found her luggage and hoped to get it to her on Friday, however, if not it would not arrive until Monday as FedEx does not deliver on Saturday where we have our house in Northern Minnesota.

Jo Ann is in great spirits considering this trip but as someone who use to travel and average of 200,000 air miles a year in my professional career, I am just amazed by how the level in the airline industry has continued to decline. No wonder no one wants to fly any more.

Follow up on patience

2006-10-06T06:57:00.000-05:00

Since the post earlier this week, I have had to face more events that have been testing my boundaries of patience. As I mentioned we have commenced a project to re-grade the land around our house as the current grade allows the water from our heavy rains to drain to the house and creates large ponds of water outside our front door.

We have not had any flooding inside the house but on several occasions this summer it was close. Thus this project was commenced and as you can see there is a lot of dirt being moved around by the back hoe.

However on Wednesday afternoon the back hoe tore up our main electricity lines and the house was completely without power. I am grateful that our contractor and electrician were able to come out any by 9p we had partial power back to the house. Then yesterday they came back and established power to the rest of the house, albeit via a temporary solution where I have power lines running all over the ground that need to be inserted into PVC conduit and buried underground. This was suppose to be done yesterday afternoon but I could not find them to determine when we were going to get the work done.

I was starting to have a significant break down as I also have a friend in town who needs some major computer work done (she can't get her computer to boot properly and I need to get there to deal with it), we have several appointments today with local schools related to our work with Patronato Pro Niños and I really want to get the power lines underground before anything else serious can happen.

Then around 9p last night I get a call from my contractor and he says that everything will be done today (I am writing this on Friday morning), but that they had another emergency and could not get out there yesterday. So I relaxed and realized I need to slow down a little and just enjoy the process.

Then this morning I was reading some of the blog postings that I have in my rss reader, and I came upon this touching story about some blind children learning to deal with their lost of sight. I guess I just to realize how insignificant my problems are compared to some others that really have some difficult issues to deal with. You can read this posting at http://www.mexicanpictures.com/headingeast/2006/10/blind-leading-blind.html

Learning patience

2006-10-04T07:39:00.000-05:00

From wikipedia, patience is the ability to endure waiting, delay or provocation without becoming annoyed or upset, or to persevere calmly when faced with difficulties.

People who have known me for a long time, know that I am not a man of patience. In business we always had to deliver to the client before their expectations (we almost always did), in sports we always had to win (although we didn't) and sometimes (many times?) in my relationship with Jo Ann I demand perfection (which is also a major fault but we can discuss that later).

So moving to Mexico is opening a whole new chapter for me, it is the need to learn patience. I have three examples of why you need to learn the art of patience if you are going to move to Mexico.

Last week we were suppose to start a project to re-grade the front yard of our property. The current slope has all of the water from the rains run down to the front door of the house and creates a lake outside the front door. Although we have never had it flood into the house it has been close so this needs to be done. Well they were suppose to start last Tuesday, but did not show. We got an email from them that said that they had machinery problems but would be there Wednesday. Guess what no shows on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. My old self would have been going nuclear demanding that they get over here and start, etc. etc. However, I was able to just let it go and they did come this past Monday and are doing a wonderful job.

We are also almost done with the renovations to the house, we have four relatively small open items left on the contractors punch list. Well I have been calling him for three weeks and sending emails, he finally called me yesterday to say that he was going off to vacation this week but would be out that afternoon to close out three of the open items and arrange for the fourth to be completed. Well guess what another no show, and I can either blow a gasket or I can just continue to try to reach him this week before he goes on vacation.

Finally and probably the most frustrating is the problems I having with my Internet provider. I love the Internet, the ability to research new things, to view various photoblogs, to communicate with friends, etc. so to me high speed Internet is a requirement. We don't have a TV but I can not live without high speed Internet (you get my point). Well for the past month I have been trying to get my Internet access stable, it is up, down, fast, slow, just completely unstable. So yesterday they came out and swapped my broadband modem saying that would solve the problem. Well last night I was down for the entire evening and this morning it has been up and down. I know that these guys are trying very hard, but they blame TelMex (who provides the DSL connection), the need for a new high speed router in their back office, and who knows what else. I probably get most upset about this problem but I am learning to live with sporadic connectivity. However, I do have hope that this one can get solved.

So moral of this posting, is if you are coming to Mexico, don't expect customer service like you get in the US. It is a different culture and the people you are working with don't have all of the latest technology and tools. They try the hardest that they can but sometimes things just don't work out as you planned. That is just part of the adventure.

Commencing another project

2006-09-26T11:49:00.001-05:00

Am I glutton for punishment or do I just like to have too much too do? This is a question that I need to ask myself often and most times I don't know the answer.

If you have been following my previous posts you will be familiar with our reforestation project but we have now decided to expand this. I have been referred to an organization called Grupo de Acción Interdisciplinaria Ambienta A.C. (GAIA) that is working to improve the watershed management of the lands in Guanajuato. This referral came from the el Charco del Ingenio jardín botánico and has continued to open my eyes to the groups that are working to enhance the lands, waters and plants around San Miguel de Allende.

I met with Ata who is one of the leaders of this group about how they can help me address some of my erosion problems as well as to enhance the arroyo that runs along the east side of my rancho. They have started to identify a plan that I will be able to implement that uses simple techniques to reduce the erosion and to ensure the sanctuary of the arroyos. I am sure that this project will also take several years to implement do to time and money issues, but it is amazing that there are so many organizations like GAIA and INIFAP around here that are trying to do great things but are restricted due to the lack of funding.

However this is not the only part of this new project that I am looking at. As Ata and I talked it seems like there is a real need to try to educate and provide eco-friendly landscaping tools and supplies, such as drip irrigation and compost producing tools. Thus we are investigating the potential of starting an import business to bring these products into Mexico and to try to educate the residence of the benefit of organic gardening and the use of drip irrigation. I am investigating the various hassles that this will require to set up and to try to estimate what the investment that will be required. And here I thought I was only going to be working on our rancho, boy was I mistaken.

What do you do in Mexico?

2006-09-18T17:25:00.000-05:00

I probably hear this question at least twice a week from my friends who live north of the border. Many of them just have a hard time understanding how we can be so happy living in Mexico and how we fill our days with personally rewarding activities and events.

So to try to address this question collectively, I have prepared this post with a summary of the past week, which I would say is generally representative of a normal week for us at Rancho La Luz.

Monday

Spanish language class from 8 to 10a.
Work in the rancho pruning the existing native trees and with our new additions that are part of our reforestation project.
Meeting in San Miguel with a craftsman who will repair the seat cushions for our outdoor furniture.
Meeting at the offices of Patronato pro Ninós, which is an organization that we volunteer. Patronato pro Ninós works with rural schools to identify children that need medical attention and provides the funding for these services. Today we were dropping off the names of the children we had identified the prior week so that the children could get referred to the proper medical specialist.
Work on some photos that I took over the weekend and Jo Ann worked in her vegetable garden.

Tuesday

Spanish language class from 8 to 10a.
Had the vet out to look at Keisha, our cat, and to update the rabies shots for the dogs.
Work in the rancho on the native trees and shrubs.
Drive to the Hacienda Las Trancas for a wonderful tour and lecture lead by the two owners of the hacienda, Kelley and Stephen Wilkinson. This tour was part of the SMA Down to Earth garden club. I still hope to have a posting on this wonderful tour with some additional photos beyond the ones that I posted on my photo of the day blog which you can see here, here, here and here.
Work on some of the photos that I took at the hacienda and Jo Ann worked with her gardens.

Wednesday

Spanish language class from 8 to 10a.
Worked with one of our contractors in finishing the new cabinets for our kitchen.
Meeting with one of the landscape architects that we are interviewing for the work to be done to re-grade the yard surrounding the house and the different ideas for the design that he was planning.
Visit to the school at Terra Blanca for Patronato pro Ninós where we identified about 25 children who need medical attention.
Meeting with our principal contractor about finishing up the work on installing our propane heater for the main living room and his estimates for building a carport for the rancho. Ouch, I thought everything was cheaper in Mexico, that is always not the case.

Thursday

Bike ten miles over to Rancho Jaguar for a lecture and tour of their gardens, lead by the assistant director of el Charco Botanical Jardin. I do hope to have a posting on this tour and lecture later this week, but I do have some photos here and here.
On our way to the lecture and tour we found Frida, which you can read in a previous posting here and here.
In the afternoon I had to take my truck in to the Ford dealer for replacement of the brake pads and needed to do some shopping at the local mercado and bakery. The truck was not going to be done until the next morning so I had to bum a ride home that day.

Friday

Spanish language class from 8 to 10a.
On the way back into town to get my truck we found Frida's sibling, so I had to chase after it to get it so we could bring it into the San Miguel SPA.
After picking up my truck I had a meeting with the Patronato pro Ninós organization again so we could deliver our listing of recommendations for medical attention and to request that the dental truck make a visit to the school at Terra Blanco.
I then had a meeting with a very interesting individual who is working with several family members to save the local arroyos. We discussed how we could work together as he was familiar with my reforestation project. He thought that it would be beneficial for both of us to research how we can reduce the erosion on our property and help retain the local arroyo that borders my rancho.
I also had a meeting to discuss how to resolve one of the last issues associated with the purchase of our rancho. It is basically extortion but it will help resolve this final open issue and we can move forward with completing all of the legal issues associated with our purchase of the rancho.
I did get some time to shoot some photos of the preparations for the Grito which is given every year on the 15th of September celebrating Mexico's cry for independence. This event which does not take place until very late in the evening of the 15th, is way too late for us to attend given that we live in the campo so this was my only chance to get in and see the preparations.

Saturday

We worked the entire day in the rancho, this time transplanting some of the roses into pots as they were not doing well in the ground and other general (and always continuing) tasks around the rancho.

Sunday

We got a very long bike ride in, this time heading out to La Gruella, which was about a 25 mile ride. It was a beautiful ride on a beautiful day and I got a number of good shots that I still need to process before I can share them.

So if you are still wondering if all we do down here is drink cerveza and eat tacos, I hope you are relieved that our lives are fuller than that. Although talking about cerveza and tacos is making me hungry so I guess I am off to the local tienda for some comida.

Hasta luego!

An Update on Frida

2006-09-17T20:16:00.000-05:00

It has now been three days since we rescued Frida and I can't believe how much she has improved since we brought her into our pet family. The puppy that I brought home on Thursday was quiet, non-responsive, covered with fleas and lice and seemed very sickly. Well Frida is now a very active and inquisitive puppy, who is taking food and water on a regular basis.

Here is an updated photo of Frida.

We had the vet over on Friday morning and as she was leaving the rancho she called us to tell us that she had seen a sibling of Frida on the same road that I found Frida. She was unable to catch him/her but armed with this information, I went out there and found her sibling. Since we already have four dogs (including Frida) I took her to the San Miguel SPA where I sure hope that he/she will be adopted by a loving family. As you probably have noted, I did not check to see if it was Frida's brother or sister.

The only problem that we have had since inviting Frida to join our clan is that the three big dogs are keeping their distance from her. I am sure that this will pass, but both Jo Ann and I would like to get everyone into one happy family as soon as possible.

Welcome to Frida

2006-09-14T22:29:00.000-05:00

This morning we headed out to the lecture and tour of Bob Haas' garden that was sponsored by el Charco. Since it was less than ten miles away, we decided we should bike to the event and not drive. On the way out there we saw this small but very cute black and white puppy, however since we were late we could not stop, even though we knew it was wild.

On the ride to the lecture we decided that we would try to rescue the puppy, but it would have to wait until later. So upon our return we went back to the spot we saw her and put out some dog food. Later in the day we went back there to see if the puppy had eaten any, or if we could find it.

Alas the food was not touched but we kept looking and after about an hour we spotted her. I followed her for quite a while as she was very scared. Finally I found her curled up under a cactus in the fetal position and shaking.

I had brought a long some cooked chicken and dog food and got her to eat some of the food so that I was finally able to pick her up. Once we got her home Jo Ann and I gave her a good bath (she has lots of fleas and other bugs), some food and water. It was at time that we decided that she was probably going to join the Erickson clan and we named her Frida. So please welcome our newest addition Frida.

Mucha Lluvia

2006-09-09T18:10:00.000-05:00

This past Thursday evening we got a long steady rain, it started around 8 in the evening and continued all night. It was not a hard rain, but one that was steady and continuous. Also there was lots of lighting and thunder, so the dogs were sleeping on the bed as they were scared.

The next result of this storm is that everything is very wet right now, we have a lot of rain over the past couple of weeks so the ground is very saturated resulting in lots of standing water.

So today we headed out on a long bike ride. Since most of our rides are off road we soon discovered that most of our trails were just impassible. We quickly were covered in mud and decided that it just wasn't a good day to enjoy a long ride.

Thus we returned home and decided to walk the dogs to the Rio Carman which borders our rancho and is usually dry. Along the walk we saw this interesting bird nest in the middle of this large cactus.

A little later we came upon these beautiful butterflies flying around in the pasture.

As we neared the Rio Carman, we came upon these bright yellow flowers that I have mentioned before. The flowers are so rich in color but never seem to open any further than they are shown below.

Finally we came down to the Rio and we could not believe that the Rio was still running at a fairly strong rate. As you can see below the water fall was running fairly strong even though the last rain was a couple of days ago.

An as you look south you can see that the river is running very well.

So as I write this update on Saturday afternoon, we are in the middle of another strong rain storm. It sure looks like there will be no off road bike riding for at least another couple of days.

Burro's Day of Beauty

2006-09-06T19:32:00.000-05:00

So this morning we had an appointment with our veterinarian to clip and file the hoofs of our four burros. Well you may laugh but this is really a hard job, as Jo Ann may enjoy a pampered day at the spa, but the burros really do not like to have this procedure done.

Geraldo, who is an outstanding veterinarian, comes out to our rancho as it really is not feasible for us to just load them up in the truck and drive to his office.

So the total procedure for the four burros takes about an hour and a half and at the end, I am exhausted. This is hard work for an old man, but someone's got to do it.

So below is a number of other photos of our burros on their day of beauty for your enjoyment. Oh by the way, I clearly did not take these photos as I was more than a little bit distracted.

Introducing something new

2006-09-05T15:47:00.000-05:00

I have always worked best with deadlines and commitments however in working with this blog, my postings have been sporadic and not always timely. Thus to improve my commitment to working on my photography and sharing my photos, I have decided to separate this blog into two separate ones. This one will continue to be photos and commentary about living in Mexico and what is happening down here in San Miguel de Allende. These postings will continue to be made as events dictate and will also contain photos that enhance the commentary.

The second one will be dedicated to presenting a daily image from my photography collection, hopefully taken that day, but if not it will be from a recent shooting. This blog is located at sanmiguelphotooftheday.blogspot.com. I hope you will continue to enjoy this rambling commentary as well as my commitment to share one photo a day at my other site.

This morning Jo Ann and Analle were out walking the rancho and picked this beautiful bouquet of wild flowers and I just had to share them with you.

No Share the Road Signs Needed

2006-09-03T20:05:00.000-05:00

Today was the longest ride that we took since my accident. We headed out to Las Cañas and then went on some very old roads, more like burro trails. We went almost 20 miles today so I think we are back in the saddle so to say.

While we were riding we came upon this road that looked just like some of the roads that we use to travel in California.

So what did we see:

2 pick-up trucks

1 car

2 wagons pulled by burros

3 shepherds watching over their flocks

Many beautiful trees, shrubs and plants

This wonderful looking old building that just made me ask when was it built and what happened to it?

After shooting this image, I turned and looked at Jo Ann, it also made me ask, what was she looking at?

So we did not quite get to Rancho Nuevo (it is funny we live near Rancho Viejo, which means the old rancho, but we were trying to get to the new ranch).

While we were returning we came upon this family that was going to the circus in Terra Blanco and we stopped and talked with them for quite a while. The families out here in the campo always seem so happy to stop and talk about anything. We asked where the road went, where they were going, did they enjoy the circus, and more. After some time we offered the children some candies that I always carry in my back pack and then one of the older girls said "Thank you" yes she new English but was happy to see that we could talk more than a little in Spanish.

One the ride back we did come across another shepard with a flock of goats. This one just was so cute.

Finally we came back to Terra Blanca and saw the circus that the family was riding to. This circus has been moving around our little universe of happiness for the past month. It must be a tough life, move week to week from one small town to another.

Some Beautiful Flowers

2006-08-31T15:26:00.000-05:00

Today while we were biking through Rancho Viejo on our way to Palo Colorado, we found these beautiful red flowers and bright blue morning glories.

It is gray and overcast today, a bit humid, but when you see flowers like these you just have to stop and look.

Arbustivas Nativas de Uso Múltiple 101

2006-08-30T14:37:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the San Miguel de Allende "Down to Earth" Garden Club had a field trip to the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agricolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP) to hear a lecture by the Directora Rosario Terrones Rincón.

The lecture commenced in the auditorium and covered the history of INIFAP and the native plants of Guanajuato. During this lecture we learned:

INIFAP was a research project that was originally funded by the Rockefeller family and was later turned over to the Mexican government.
In Guanajuato Mexico 100 percent (yes I said that) of the surface water is somewhat polluted.
The desertification of Guanajuato was commenced by the occupation of Mexico by the Spanish. Guanajuato use to have extensive forests of Mesquite and other trees, that were all cut down for use by the Spaniards to build the silver mines, churches and haciendas.
The desertification of Guanajuato has been expanded also due to the local agriculture and livestock industries that focus on mono-culture farming and ranching.
Rosario's program is focused on education of the rural community on properly caring for their lands, plants and trees while trying to reforest the lands of Guanajuato with native plants and trees.
Her methods are 100 percent organic and there are no chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
All of these native trees and shrubs have multiple benefits for the rural communities, including medicinal, fire wood for cooking and heat, artisanal, fencing and construction.
These trees and plants can also help remove both air and water pollution, create barriers for wind and water erosion and provide improvements to the micro climate.
Currently her funding has had significant reductions and she is in need of additional funding.

After this informative lecture, the DTE Garden Group boarded a bus to visit the nurseries of INIFAP and to see excellent specimens of these native trees and shrubs.

Here Rosario is leading a discussion of one of the many native plants that are grown in the INIFAP nursery.

The flower of the Fraile plant is a beautiful yellow and blooms twice a year. Also the fruits are used in the costumes of Mexican folklore dancers.

Here we have Rosario with one of her top assistants, Miguel, who is leaving INIFAP this December to pursue his Masters. It is a shame that she will lose such a talented engineer but hopefully he will return after continuing his education. Also the lady behind Rosario is Santa Ana Ríos Ruíz, who was the editor of the book "Arbustivas Nativas de Uso Múltiple en Guanajuato".

While we proceeded on the tour, we found this wonderful plant which has a flower like nothing I have seen before. Jo Ann said it looked like something that a fly fisherman would create, it was most beautiful. However this plant is almost extinct and they are trying to repopulate it again. It was interesting to hear that when the seed pods are ready to expend their seeds, that the pods burst open and capturing the seeds can be very difficult.

There are also many shrubs that have interesting berries, some edible and some not. Here is an example of such an interesting plant.

We also saw many wonderful Mexican wild flowers while we toured the nursery. This one is called Torretois/

There were so many interesting trees that we saw. Here is one that can be trained to grow straight up and has a wonderful trunk with green and red leaves, very interesting.

Then we came to this tree that was probably 20 feet tall with these beautiful white and pink flowers. I don't recall the name of the tree but it also was very interesting.

Finally we came to a section of trees were called Tepozan Blanco, which provide such a thick canopy that nothing will grow below the tree, not weeds nor grass. Also Rosario told us that the trees contain a natural and organic integrated pest management system that will keep all unwanted pests away.

Finally on our way back to the bus we came across this wonderful plant with these beautiful yellow flowers. I don't recall the name but as the photo below shows, it has a bright yellow color and a very interesting shape.

After the lecture and tour, I talked with many people of the DTE group. Everyone seemed very impressed with the research and work being done by INIFAP and were very concerned that the group has been losing so much funding. I am very hopeful that the DTE Garden Group will be able to think of a way that we can help INIFAP and especially Rosario with raising some additional funding as the group is doing such important research and social work.

If you are interested in looking at more photos about reforestation in Guanajuato or more specifically on our rancho in San Miguel de Allende, please continue to follow my flickr photo set call Reforestation.

Another Beautiful Sun Rise in San Miguel

2006-08-30T11:29:00.000-05:00

This morning as I went to walk the dogs, I was just stunned by the beautiful sun rise. Just spectacular!

And Then the Heavens Opened

2006-08-27T20:09:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we were sitting outside for comida and we commented to each other that it looked like we were going to get a little rain. The previous day the skies looked ominous and the lightening and thunder were down right scary, but alas no rain.

However as we looked at this approaching storm, we thought maybe we would get some rain and so it would be good to get the burros back in their corral and close down all of the out buildings. Well this storm moved much quicker than we thought and I was just finishing with the burros when the heavens opened.

The rain was not as hard as some that we have had previously but it was steady and a lot. After about 30 minutes, I was out on the front poach in my rubber boots having to pump the rain water away from the house as it had flooded the entire front patio but was still a ways from entering the front door, thankfully.

Once the rains started to subside, I got my camera out and took a couple of images, here is one of the roads out of our rancho, as you can see it is fairly flooded, so without a four wheel drive, forget it.

I also looked down at one of the edges of our property that is a lot lower than the house and you can see the water just ponding where it normally will quickly soak into the ground.

After the storm and all the necessary clean up, Jo Ann and I were able to enjoy and nice evening outside, the skies were clear and the air smelled so fresh.

However during the evening we were hit with another major storm, it rained for another couple of hours and I had to get up from sleep to unplug all of my computer equipment as it was lightening and thundering again.

But in the morning I was given a major treat, the sun rise was absolutely magnificent. As you can see from these three images the brilliant oranges contrasting the blue skies. Absolutely wonderful.

With my camera in hand, Jo Ann and I then headed off to look at the rancho and see if there was any damage from the storms. Luckily there was not but there was a number of new and beautiful images.

First we found this wonderful tree that we had not noticed before with these beautiful yellow flowers bursting out this morning.

Then we walked down to our arroyo which is always dry. Well this morning it was anything but dry, as you can see the water falls were running rapidly.

Then returning to our house we found these wonderful wild flowers that were just bursting this morning.

It was an amazing 24 hours, with the heavy rains and near flooding, followed by a stunning morning. Mexico is such a wonderful place and provides ample opportunity to take some stunning photos.

Reforestation status

2006-08-22T14:00:00.000-05:00

It has been over three weeks since we started our first phase of our reforestation project. In this phase we are planting over 350 native scrubs and trees and will be planting another 500 or so next year. The ground that we are planting in is extremely hard and difficult to dig in.

After cleaning out the old brush and a bunch of garbage that had accumulated on the property over the past who knows how many years, we staged all of the plants.

Once we had purchased all of the plants that we wanted for this first stage, we started to create a design for the layout of the area. This included creating some wind blocks, establishing areas that will have plants that will attract birds and butterflies with their flowers and aroma and finally areas that will create depth with the taller Huizaches and Mesquites.

Here we have laid out a number of the plants in one corner of the rancho that will be both a wind block and have flowers and aroma.

We have a couple of workers on our rancho that are doing the majority of the digging. It is hard work, even though we have two gas powered augers and an assortment of other tools and aids.

As I showed earlier the ground is very hard and a good day is to get 25 plants in the ground. There is a lot of work to dig the hole (both wide and deep enough), to properly mix composted material with the desert soil and to stake and water. This is nothing like planting in California but the net result should be wonderful.

Although the plants are not very tall at this time, we have seen that within four years the plants can be 1 1/2 to 2 meters tall which will provide significant shade and blockage of the wind. I can't wait to see how they progress.

Part of this project is also to provide additional protection to the newly reforested area. Even though our property is fully fenced with the aging barbed wire we are providing an additional barrier for the new reforested area as well as moving our burros to a separate area of the rancho so we don't have to worry about them getting lose and eating the new plants.

Last week we were visited by the Directora of INIFAP so she could examine our rancho and ensure that we had acquired the right types of plants for our climate and soil conditions. Luckily we had, but she had a couple of observations, one that we have some wonderful Huizaches Chicos as you can see below:

However down by our arroyo we also have a couple (not many) Huizaches that have the parasite Paistle in them. This parasite does not really feed on the tree but blocks the photosynthesis and will starve the tree.

So we are half way, maybe two thirds, but the work is slow and tiring. We also have to find the time to remove the Paistle from the existing trees before they starve the trees, but that is just one of around two hundred projects that I have on my list.

Next week we also have a field trip for the San Miguel Down To Earth Garden Club to INIFAP. Right now we have around 45 people signed up to listen to Directora Rosario Terrones Rincon speak about native plants and shrubs and then lead a tour of their nursery and experimental gardens. The lecture and tour will take around 2 1/2 hours so if anyone is interested in attending on the 29th of August, just send me a note.

Struggling with this Month's Topic

2006-08-20T20:51:00.000-05:00

I recently joined a digital photo club down here in San Miguel de Allende, having only attended one previous meeting. During these meetings, there is discussion on photography and using digital photography tools, such as Photoshop. Then there is a portion of the meeting for sharing of photos based upon a suggested topic, the first was People of San Miguel and this month's topic is Food in San Miguel. Finally the meeting convenes for a social hour of appetizers and beverages.

I would classify the group as a social photography group, rather than one focused on evaluating and critiquing photos, but it is a good group with a lot of fun and interesting people.

However, my dilemma today is that I am having a very hard time in selecting some of my photos that I believe are good examples of my techniques that fit within the topic that we are to be presenting. Being married to a trained chef we don't go out to restaurants very often so I have few photos of restaurants and food presentation at restaurants. Thus the best that I can do is to present some images of the local tiendas and tianguis that I have taken while wondering around San Miguel.

So tell me are these worthy of sharing at the upcoming meeting or should I try harder to find something more interesting and a better representation of my work?

Here is what I am looking to present at this meeting of the group.

Then there is one image that I really do like but it is not taken down here in San Miguel. This is a photo of Jo Ann working at the Gualala Farmers Market using my lens baby. I really enjoy this photo and am planning to use it even though it does not totally comply with the topic of the month.

So what do you think, try harder or are these good images to share that fit with the topic of Food in San Miguel?

Jo Ann's Garden

2006-08-19T10:11:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned last week, Jo Ann is away for another five days and although she has not said anything yet, I know that she is concerned about her garden. When we came to San Miguel de Allende, one of the first things that she wanted to do was to plant a small vegetable garden so that we could start growing our own food again.

The weather here is wonderful for growing most things, but the soils have been very depleted by over farming, so we first spent a lot of time tilling in organic compost (yes that is why we have the four burros and there seems to be a never ending source of this from them). After preparing the soil, we used our old rototiller from California and planted tomatoes, French green beans, basil, carrots, squash and much more.

We are also strong proponents of using drip irrigation and protecting the young plants with a cover cloth that allows about 85 percent of the UV in and most of the rain, but keeps the plants protected from insects and creates a humid greenhouse effect.

So how are things going, well I think pretty good, you be the judge yourself.

But of course, Jo Ann made sure that I would be properly supervised. So she made sure that Hershey and Raider would keep an eye on me and make sure I watered everything as needed!

A Beautiful Sunset

2006-08-18T21:45:00.000-05:00

Tonight was a beautiful sunset, the colors so vibrant and brilliant. I could only sit there on our rooftop and watch the sun set. Well I did run down and get my tripod and camera.

A Turn Around Day

2006-08-15T12:27:00.000-05:00

Last Friday my wife Jo Ann left for a week and a half to visit her parents back in Minnesota and to change the Realtor that we are using to sell our home there. I was very sad to see her leave as we have been having a wonderful time together since our move toSan Miguel de Allende in June.

I spent Friday night moping around trying to find things to do. After a while I put on a play list on iTunes that I had put together for Jo Ann and it just contributed to my sadness.

Saturday morning I woke up still feeling down and was missing Jo Ann tremendously. It was so quiet at the Rancho, we had no one working on the property that day and since we are so far from any other homes, I was feeling very isolated.

There I am cleaning up the burro pen and feeling about as down as I ever have, I mean this week I flip my bike and get ten stitches and a concussion, Jo Ann leaves for a week and a half and I am really struggling with my langage classes. But all of a sudden, the children of our maid show up at the gate of our Rancho and yell to me if I wanted to take them to a futball game in San Miguel de Allende. The youngest son's team was suppose to play but thier father had to work and they had no way to get to the match.

You would not believe how much fun it was to get away from the isolation (although the task of cleaning up the burro pen was still there when I returned). Just being around these children and all of the laughing and playing that they do, it really turned around my whole weekend.

Dual Postings on Vox and Blogger

2006-08-15T11:20:00.000-05:00

I am trying a new blogging service called Vox and will be posting messages to both sites for a period of time. The Vox site is located at sanmiguelphotos.vox.com so please take the time to look at this site and give me some feedback. The reason that I am looking at this site is better integration with flickr and the ability to use tags to categorize postings.

I am also trying out a new blog authoring tool from Microsoft called Windows Live Writer. I have written this posting using the new application and will give a more detailed review after I run it through the paces.

Hasta luego.

Bike Ride to Hospital de la Fe

2006-08-09T17:09:00.000-05:00

Jo Ann and I headed off today for a good bike ride and went out to Palo Colorado, however on the way home, something bad happened. I really don't recall the whole chain of events but I was going too fast over a tope and the next thing I know I have a Mexican family helping me up. They were so helpful, getting some hydrogen peroxide for my cuts and some tissues for my bleeding. I have no recollection of falling or hitting the ground but I was a bloody mess.

We walked home and together with our maid we headed off to the Hospital de la Fe to get stitched up and to check on the potential of a concussion. Well six stitched later and some antibiotics and other meds, I am at least walking around albeit sore. I don't have a concussion but I have some serious sores that are going to keep me off my bike for a good week or so.

The help at the Hospital was excellent and I really want to say thanks to the family that helped me up. Jo Ann remembers where they live, even if I don't, so we are going to go over tomorrow to say thank you. This fifty plus year old body is no longer able to ride like a youngster and I better start remembering that. Maybe the sores and aches can help me.

Reforestation, Research and Social Programs?

2006-08-06T19:43:00.000-05:00

These three words may seem like an unlikely grouping of activities. Just try googling the words and you will not find many topics that match such a request.

During the past 400 years the desertification process has progressed in central México. Where lands have previously been covered with temperate forest, sub-humid tropical forest and semi desert vegetation these have been gradually transformed into agricultural and rangeland systems, which are managed as monocultures. As a consequence, native vegetation is disappearing despite the needs for timber, forage, medicine and other derivates from native shrubs (such as honey and colorants used in local industries of rural areas).

A few weeks ago my wife Jo Ann and I commenced a project to reforest our rancho. It is located about twelve miles from San Miguel de Allende and has been severely depleted by farming, deforested and used as grazing pastures. Through this research we discovered an amazing governmental organization located just outside of Celaya. The organization is called the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agricolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP). The section of INIFAP that we have been working with is headed up by Dra. Rosario Terrones Rincón who has her Ph.D. from Cornell University and has been running the organization for the past five years.

We were first introduced to INIFAP a few weeks ago when we attended a lecture on pruning and caring for native plants at el Charco del Ingenio jardín botánico. During this lecture Kirti Mathura, curator of shrubs at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix AZ, lead a discussion on the beauty and benefits of using native plants. We have significant experience gardening and landscaping with plants native to both Northern and Southern California, but we have never landscaped with plants native to a higher desert elevation. We asked a number of questions and several people directed us to a book written by three people from INIFAP, including Rosario. The book has many photos which give great examples of the various plants and shrubs that are native to the state of Guanajuato. It is written only in Spanish so be prepared to spend some serious time with your translation dictionary as many of the topics are of a technical nature and not part of your normal Spanish conversational repartee.

After reading portions of this book we commenced our journey to Celaya to look at the nursery that is located at INIFAP and see what plants they had available to purchase. When we arrived we were directed to Rosario’s office where she spent several hours explaining the benefits of using native trees and shrubs as well as background information on her research. This is truly an amazing program where Rosario takes a team from INIFAP out to rural communities, (which have been identified by social workers). These communities have agricultural and ranching lands that have been severely deforested and can not sustain the local residents. In many of the cases these communities are maintained only by the women of the village as most of the men are up north working to provide for their families in México. During these sessions Rosario will teach the women about the benefits of planting native trees and shrubs, how to propagate seed for future plantings, what is the proper way to prune the trees for wood so that the tree is not destroyed and how to plant for agricultural production that does not diminish the land.

Rosario showed us some photos of these research sessions and explained to us that in many cases the plants had to be planted in newspaper and garbage. This is because all normal compost materials are fed to livestock and there is no other source of material to plant the trees and shrubs as the ground is tepitati and as hard as concrete.

After another week of discussions with Rosario we have now agreed to move forward with our reforestation project. We have purchased around 350 native trees and shrubs consisting of over 25 different varieties and are planning our order for next year’s plants to continue our efforts in reforestation. Rosario has asked us to assist her with her research regarding the use of drip irrigation on native plants as we have significant experience in working with this manner of irrigation. She has never had the funding to incorporate irrigation into her research so we will be jointly monitoring the effects that it has on the growth and development of the plants. At least I have a couple of months before I have to worry about installing the drip system should we have an average rainy season here in San Miguel de Allende.

I will continue to write about our progress with the plantings over the next several weeks with many photos on the plantings and the changes to our rancho. But if you want to just watch the progress, I will be posting a lot more photos than what will show up on this blog at my flickr set on reforestation at flickr reforestation

Traffic Jams in San Miguel de Allende

2006-08-06T19:35:00.000-05:00

I wonder if they have any reported road rage?

Mountain Biking Nirvana

2006-08-05T18:10:00.000-05:00

Chicken

Turkeys

Cattle

Pigs

Children

Cacti

shepherds

Dogs

Cats

Interesting Casas

Beautful Flowers

And who knows what else?

One of our favorite activities here in San Miguel de Allende is to trail ride on our mountain bikes in the vast compos outside of San Miguel. We have over eight different trails that we have identified all of them starting from our rancho, some go to Atotonilco, to Las CaÃ±as, to Las Palmitta and to Palo Colorado. We enjoy the colors, the plants, the people we met, the scenes we see. We always are carrying some extra candy so when we see some children we will stop and talk with them. It is such a great way to practice our Spanish as they are so direct and honest.

The terrain in some places is difficult and now with the rains upon, it can be very messy at times. Lately we have been coming home looking like we have been rolling around in the mud, but usually it is just the rooster tails we get from going through the wet areas, and as I said last Monday, one of the times I just slipped and fell into a large and dirty mud puddle.

No matter what the weather is like we always look forward to going for a ride, and when ever possible to stop and talk with the people we meet.

If you want to follow our mountain biking adventures you can see all the new photos at the flickr set I have set up for mountain biking at http://www.flickr.com/photos/sanmiguelphotos/sets/72157594224440572/

Can you top this excuse for being late to a dinner party?

2006-08-05T08:43:00.000-05:00

I would like to hear if anyone can top this excuse for being late to a dinner party. Last night we were invited to a small gathering of people, some we knew and some were from NOB, for a little gathering and then dinner at a traditional Méxican restaurant.

Jo Ann and I were waiting for our maid to finish up for the day so we could drive her home when I noticed that our four burros had gotten loose. When we had brought them into the corral yesterday afternoon, we must not have properly closed the gate and there they were running around our pasture foot lose and fancy free.

One of the men who are helping us with our reforestation project and I took off with the tethers to catch them. I still can not believe how fast they can run given how large and heavy they are. After chasing them for about 20 minutes, I finally was able to catch two and put the tethers on them. I gave these to Luis to handle while I continued my chase after the other two. Although I was not able to catch them, I was able to herd them back to the corral where Jo Ann lured them in with allusions of alfalfa.

I then had to run back to the far side of the rancho to help Luis bring the other two back as the small one refused to move and he could not get them to budge. So another ten or fifteen minutes pass and we finally have all of them in the corral.

Off I go back to the casa to change again and we finally head off to the party. We finally make it there about 40 minutes late, even after considering the normal socially accepted time of arrival. Our story was told several time and always got a good laugh as this can only happen in México. It sure would not be a good excuse in New York, Chicago or San Francisco.

So can you top it?

It has been a bad day

2006-07-31T22:23:00.000-05:00

Try to top this for a bad day, this morning I was head butted by a burro (and I mean the burro tried to push my nose through the back of my head), I fell of my mountain bike into a mud puddle (not a small one), spent four hours planting native shrubs and trees only to come in and have someone ask me if we had planted all 350 plants yet (we only have 43 in the ground) and then on the way in tonight I get kicked in the knee by the same burro that head butted me.

It was a good day in that we got a lot of work done around the rancho but I can leave this other stuff out of my normal day.

We love carnitas

2006-07-30T12:24:00.000-05:00

Last night we went to the Fiesta in La Palma, the small pueblo near our rancho. I will have a further discussion of the fun we had at the fiesta but first I must let my taste buds proclaim one of new finds. One of our friends in La Palma took us to this small carnitas shop that is off the main road, or should I say the only road in La Palma, to introduce us to the lady who runs this shop.

She gave some samples of the carnitas, and it just melted in your mouth. Of course we had to purchase a kilo of it for dinner last night, and a kilo was only 100 pesos, amazing.

The store is only open on Saturdays from noon until she runs out of the carnitas. We were told that she buys one pig for the carnitas and if it sells out, then for the next week she can buy two. If she only has one pig that week, the carnitas can be gone by 1p, so come and shop early.

It is such a joy to find a jewel like this store and to meet people who enjoy their occupations so much.

Desert Flowers

2006-07-26T18:44:00.000-05:00

Today was a beautiful day here in San Miguel de Allende, the weather after last nights storms was most enjoyable and there was a calming sense of tranquility on our rancho.

So I decided to pull out my camera and put on my Lensebaby 2.0 lens with one of their extension tubes and go shot some macro shots today. It was a wonderful time to go out and just walk through the fields and the cactus, looking for colors and scenes that I have not shot before.

Because I was using the extension tube, my camera lens was about two inches from each of the subjects so when you see some of the images with thorns and stingers, please know that I escaped unharmed.

Below is one of my favorite flowers that we had in both Southern California and Northern California, Mexican Sage is so colorful and really easy to grow.

I found several stands of different cacti, each which had it own unique message. I thought that the following image was extremely interesting with the thorns but also the defect in the plant that looks like an eye is staring at you.

All of the cacti shrubs are now full of berries, and these look so inevitable, except for that darn thorn sticking out from the top.

Even though we are past spring, some of the Napali cactus are still flowering and the one below was only two days or so from when it first opened it's blossom.

Of course the bees are always out and about, today they seemed extra busy. No matter what I did the one below did not care that I was only an inch or so from where he was doing his business.

The Vonage Saga Continues

2006-07-26T14:52:00.000-05:00

So this past weekend my friends who went up to San Antonio Texas to scout out some real estate for Sensual Chocolatiers picked up a new Vonage router for me. On Monday they gave it to me and I was most excited to try to get back on line to communicate with the world again. Well I obviously set my expectations too high, thinking that it would work out of the box.

After five hours of working with the Vonage technical staff in India and the Linksys/Cisco technical staff both somewhere in East Asia and Irvine, they came to the conclusion that this router was not functioning properly and I would have to return it to the retail store where I bought. No they can not just send me one from Linksys the manufacturer, I need to go back to CompUSA in San Antonio to return it. Well that sure is not very convenient as it is a nine hour drive each way.

At least I talked with CompUSA in San Antonio and they will mail me one and will credit me when I finally get to return the non-functioning one to them. I guess this is what has happened to our technology companies, they treat customers like dog poop and now turn out commodities and not quality products. As someone who has spent over 15 years in the software industry, I am ashamed and embarrassed that these companies call this "service" customer service, it is a dis-service. I remember when you use to be able to call Dell, Microsoft and other major companies and actually talk to someone and get a problem solved. Not any more you now talk with a junior tech rep living somewhere in Asia who has less knowledge of the product that I do, how can they help?

And the problem is not just software, I also recently purchased a Epson RX600 printer and the printer jams about every fifth page. I can see what the problem is, there is a small piece that has a slight bent to it and catches the paper when it runs through the printer. So when I call Epson they tell me I need to send in the printer as they can not send the small part. However when I explain that I am in Mexico they say I need to return the whole printer to them but they can't return it to me as they can't ship to Mexico. This is an unworkable solution as the cost of all this shipping will cost me more than the entire printer, again they just don't get what it takes to give quality customer service.

Good Morning San Miguel

2006-07-26T14:47:00.000-05:00

Last night we had some rain together with thunder and lightening, however, this morning the skies are clear and the colors vibrant. I just love the mornings here with the sounds of the chickens, burros, and birds waking up and of course the joyous cries of the children. This is a wonderful place.

Vonage Customer Service Sucks!

2006-07-16T15:57:00.000-05:00

I know that the purpose of this blog is to present visual images and to describe the joys and difficulties of living in Mexico. So this one may be a little off base, but Vonage provides us our telephone service with a US number so friends and family can call us regularly. I have been a
subscriber of Vonage for almost three years and have been happy with the service. In fact, I would say that I have recommended five to six people to become subscribers of Vonage.

However, over the past week I have been ready to scream at them. Last weekend my Vonage router started to fail. I spent almost all day Monday on the phone with them talking to their
customer service group in India but could not get anywhere close to getting the service back up and running. Then at the end of each call, the tech rep would try to sell me more services, phone lines, new products, etc. I could not believe what I was hearing. Here I was a customer with a non-functional product and they want to sell me more and new services, I am sorry but I don’t get it.

Then twice I was able to getthem to transfer me to Level Two service, and both times I was on hold for overan hour, once someone picked up but then hung up on me and the second time I just gave up.

Finally I sent an email to them asking for a new router or to have someone call me who could help me fix my problem. Guess what response I got (yes I did get one) your equipment is out of warranty, you must buy a new one at a retail store and then we can help you.

This is the type of support that you give to a customer who has expanded your customer base and supported the company. No wonder the company’s IPO has been one of the worst in the history of stock offerings. This company just does not get customer service 101.

As a friend asked me, how I would compare their service to companies in Mexico and I have to say there is no company in

Mexico

that provides worse customer service than Vonage.

Another Friday Night and we ain't got no power

2006-07-16T15:55:00.000-05:00

Last night we had a wonderful rain in San Miguel. It was steady but not too hard. The gardens cried in happiness and I am sure the farmers were rejoicing in celebration as it has been unusually dry this summer.

However, for another Friday night (well this time it was a Saturday evening) we lost our electricity. This time it came back after about 15 minutes so it was not like last weekend when we were out of power for over 12 hours.

But after a rain like last night, we get a morning that is just spectacular, the sunrise, the clear vista and the clouds. I just wish I sit here all day and enjoy this view.

By the way, the reason that my posts lately have been so sparse and infrequent, is that I have become a partner in Sensual Chocolatiers (www.sensualchocolatiers.com). This is a very exciting opportunity as the company has built a factory in Jalpa, outside of San Miguel de Allende and we are expanding into the US. We have just raised a equity round from some angel investors and over the next couple of months will be opening retail stores in the US and implementing a internet store front and a chocolate of the month club. If you are interested in receiving more information on Sensual Chocolatiers please send an email to info@sensualchocolatiers.com. I do hope that I will be able to get my posting frequency back up to two or three posts a week, but now they will include updates on the progress of Sensual Chocolatiers.

Happy Birthday Alicia

2006-06-29T13:40:00.000-05:00

This past Friday we were invited to the birthday party for the daughter of one of our friends who lives in the village near our rancho. Alicia was celebrating her 11th birthday and we thought the party was going to be from 4 to 5 p.m. Of course everyone needs to understand that we were told this in Spanish and although our language skills have improved greatly, we are still novices in many forms of communication.

We show up at the socially acceptable time of around 4:20 and we find that there is hardly anyone there. Thus we help Augustina, Alicia’s mother, set up for the party and help entertain some of the children who have already shown up.

It is a lot of fun as I have my camera and Jo Ann gets some of the children to do gymnastics in the yard. As they are doing summersaults and headstands, I am able to show them the images on the LCD viewer on the back of the camera, it was a lot of fun, and a great way to practice your language skills.

As the party starts to unfold, some of the children bring out Alicia’s pet hamster. The kids have a great time playing with the hamster, although I am not sure it was reciprocal.

Around 6p Alicia’s father Arturo comes home and is greeted joyously by both of his daughters. Although Mexico may not be a wealthy country financially, it is so amazing to see how many families are truly happy and content with their lives.

Jo Ann and I talk many times about the various places we have lived in the US, from SoCal, to NoCal to Chicago to Minnesota and never have we seen some many communities that financially do not have much, but emotionally and spiritually have so much. Maybe a number of my fellow boomers should come to Mexico to see what happiness can be all about.

The fun of the birthday party moves from the yard with all the children running around to dinner, where we have a wonderful meal of grilled chicken, rice and these absolutely sinful Rancho Beans.

After the meal, Arturo brings out the piñatas, one for the girls and one for the boys. Now I have never been to a party where there is an authentic piñata so this was a real treat for me.

Even Jo Ann got into the action and was blindfolded and swung at the piñata, however, I promised to keep those photos hidden as her swing did not look at all like Barry Bonds.

After both of the piñatas are opened and everyone has picked up their candies, we move back to the dinner table for cake. As you can see below Alicia only had to blow out one candle which she did just fine.

However, after the candle was out, her friends helped her to “enjoy” the cake by pushing her face into the frosting. It was great fun.

Both Jo Ann and I feel so grateful to have been invited into the village of Las Palmas and our adopted new country of Mexico.

Chasing the Burros

2006-06-27T17:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning I was running late and was in a hurry but still had to move the four burros out from their pen. So I tried to handle more than one at a time but then our dogs got in the middle of the pack and guess what I only got two of them tied up. The other two, well lets just say that they started traveling around our 50 acre rancho.

I was running after them and they would just bound ahead and then stop to eat. Jo Ann was watching this and I could not tell if she was crying or laughing, probably both. After about twenty minutes of chasing them, they decided to gallop off toward the house. But guess what Jo Ann had left the gate open and they were able to run out of our property into the large (and I do mean large) ejido property that borders our property.

We were lucky that some of the masons working on our house were able to help us, but we finally corralled themand brought them back to where we wanted them to graze for the day.

Such is the daily adventures of living on a rancho in

Mexico

. Of course those of you who may remember me from my time living in California,will probably not believe that this is where I have evolved to, but it is great. Sorry no photos on this adventure, but I just did not have the foresight to bring my camera nor did I have the time to stop and go get it, maybe another time and place!

Dia de los Locos

2006-06-19T09:29:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the Dia de los Locos here in San Miguel. What an amazing event where it seems that the entire city is either in the parade or standing along the streets watching the parade. As you can see below, the streets are packed with people, and this was almost an hour before the start of the parade.

The parade was initiated many years ago, some say in the 18^th century but it originated with masked farmers who marched through town handing out fruits to the wondering residence. The festival in San Miguel is one of the year’s biggest festivals with over 10,000 people who danced, marched and handed out candy for almost three hours.

Many of the masks focused on futball this year with the World Cup matches going on in Germany and of course the Mexican Presidential election. I was surprised that there were no burning effigies of the

President George W. Bush, given the hot issue of immigration. The following is some images of the various masks and costumes that we saw during the three hour parade.

What a great day to have a festive, the crowds were
wonderful, the colors splendid and the weather almost perfect. What a great way to spend a Sunday in our
newly adopted Mexican town.

Moving to Mexico, Day Three and Four

2006-06-13T07:58:00.000-05:00

Sunday morning in Wichita and we are getting a very early start again. Our goal today is to make it down to San Antonio Texas so we can make our final assault across the US/Mexican border. The weather is very nice as it has cooled off very much from the prior day, however the forecast is for the temperatures to escalate again today.

So we are driving down through Oklahoma and then enter into Texas, the landscape again continues to vary from green farm country to more of a high plains and then to the flat boring plains.

One of the few scenes that changes is the various road side signs, we have seen many and several of them just make you laugh. Also to keep our minds on the job at hand Matt and I play various traveling games, like counting the number of hawks, eagles, cows, pigs, etc. You can see we are very very bored.

Since we have entered Texas, one thing we have noticed is the lack of quality rest areas. We finally find one and it is just packed with large commercial trucks as well as cars and other sorts of transportation, such as a bike rider. It is around 98 outside and we are all over heating from the temperature.

As we come into Fort Worth, the traffic comes to a halt as they are doing road construction work on a Sunday afternoon. It seems to take us two hours to get through Fort Worth and we are now behind schedule, but I am sure that we will make it up.

As we drive south from Fort Worth, we are amazed at how different the scenery looks, it is less planned, more run down and not very inviting.

We finally make it into San Antonio around 7p and check into the hotel for the evening. We take the dogs out for a walk but can not find any type of park to walk them, so we have to stay on city streets as we are on the south side of the city and not in the nice Riverwalk area.

Early Monday morning we pack up hopefully for the last time and head out for Mexico. We are crossing at the Colombia Bridge border which does not open until 8a. So we leave San Antonio around 6a so we can get down there when the crossing opens. As we get down to Encinal Texas you can see the various commercial trucks queuing up for the border crossing and we stop at the last gas station before crossing to fill up with sodas, water and chocolates.

As we cross the Rio Bravo into Mexico we come to the first stop of the border crossing. Here we get a red light which means that the Aduana (customs) agents want to inspect our vehicle. The agent was very professional and asked me a number of questions, which was interesting given his limited English and my limited Spanish, but we finally settle on a duty charge for the goods that I am bringing across.

After I go and pay the duty charge, Matt and I have to leave the pets and get our Tourist visas and I need to get my Importacion Temporal de Vehiculos (vehicle permit). We complete this process and are told that we can enter Mexico. Then about 25 miles later we come to a second Aduana inspection site. I am not sure what the purpose of this one is, but we are given a green light and we vamous rapidly. At this point, all of our research says that we are clear of the border crossing inspections, however about 10 miles later we come across another road side check point and we get waived over. At this inspection, the agent starts asking me about our contents, but I explain that I have already paid my duty at the crossing and show him my receipt and all of the formal stamps on it. He then wants to see the health certificate for the pets and only asks about our smallest dog Snickers. I am glad that both Hershey and Raider are not barking and making a tense situation any worse. I continue to explain that everything has been taken care of and he checks our vehicle permit, then all of a sudden gives everything back to me and tells me I can depart, which I do as rapidly as possible.

Now that we are through what should be all of the border inspections and have left Nuevo Laredo behind, we start our drive which will initially take us around Monterrey.

One thing that both Matt and I notice is how nice the Mexican toll roads are. Although I35 was in good condition until we got to Fort Worth, the Mexican toll roads seem newer and in better condition.

Leaving Monterrey we start heading up some steep mountains that lead to Saltillo. Based on our notes for the drive, this is the most dangerous part of the drive because of the steep elevation and the number of large commercial trucks that drive this road. We were also struggling with the elevation as our Ford truck and the trailer were fairly well loaded and we slowly climbed up the hill.

One issue that we discovered on our drive is that even on the Mexican toll ways there are no Rest Stops that you are use to seeing on the US Interstate Highways. However there are very nice facilities in many of the Pemex gas stations that line the toll ways. Also one other point you notice is the complete lack of any of the typical US fast food restaurants, it was nice not too see the hundreds of McDonalds, Burger King and Taco Bells.

The directions we were using to get from Laredo to San Miguel used a number of old road side signs which were in the shape of a bull and were advertising Magna Osborne. Matt and I could never figure out what they were advertising, but later we were told that they were advertisements for a Spanish liqueur that ceased doing business in Mexico, but never had the signs taken down.

As we were heading down to San Luis Potosi we saw an experimental farm on the right side of the toll way. It looked like an oasis in the desert, but again we never found out what they were specializing in or what types of techniques they were experimenting with.

Once we passed San Luis Potosi we exited the toll ways at San Luis de la Paz and drove to Delores Hidalgo and then turned on to the road leading to San Miguel.

When we were about five miles from our new home, we encountered a long procession of cars and trucks following a large truck hauling an extremely large load, so large that the vehicles on the other side of the road had to pull over so this truck could pass. Well as luck would have it, we were inching a long and all of a sudden, we get rear ended by a small car who was rear ended by a truck. Because everyone was going so slow and our trailer had a moveable rear end, we had not visible damage and were able to Rancho La Luz.

We arrived around 7:30 in the evening and were greeted by our contractor Luis Alba, whose crew is doing a wonderful job out our renovation. After doing the minimal amount of unpacking Matt and I crash after three and half days of driving. We covered almost 2500 miles, averaged around 14 mpg and had no vehicle problems until we got to within five miles of home. Not a bad adventure.

Moving to Mexico, Day One and Two

2006-06-11T11:08:00.000-05:00

Friday morning June 2 around 7a CDT. We have finished packing the trailer and the truck, we have walked the dogs and we are getting ready to start the adventure to Mexico as well as for Matt who is going to purchase a new home back in Minneapolis.

So around 7:30 we crank up the truck and start the journey which today will take us down to Minneapolis. This is the shortest part of our journey as it will only take us 5 hours or so and the remainder of the trip will be averaging between 11 and 12 hours a day driving. One of the reasons that we took the short trip on the first day is to make sure that the trailer is packed properly and that we don’t have any movement or other problems with the stuff we have packed in the trailer.

We arrive in Minneapolis around 1p and Matt’s closing is not until 2, but it is very hot and humid in Minneapolis. We do find a good parking spot in a fairly shaded area so the dogs and Keesha will be protected and we go in to Don Pablo’s for our last Mexican meal in Minnesota. Well it was bland and not at all authentic, but it fills the hunger and Matt is off to his closing.

My sister, Julie, and her youngest daughter, Alexa, also come over to say good bye to me. It was a very nice visit and I am glad to be able to say good bye as who knows when I will be coming back to Minneapolis in the future.

After Matt completes his purchase we go over to his new home, it is a wonderful house in a extremely nice neighborhood that is close to shops, the lakes and the theaters.

That evening Matt’s brother throws a welcome back to Minneapolis party for Matt and we all sit on the steps outside the house drinking wine and eating BBQ as there is no furniture in the house and it is still so damn hot.

Early the next morning we load up the truck and start the second day of the adventure. So far we have gone around 250 miles and today our goal is to progress from Minneapolis to Wichita Kansas, which is around 500 miles or so.

After bidding farewell to Minneapolis, we are tooling down I35 with Matt driving the first leg, actually I did not want to try to navigate the city streets of Minneapolis and I had not had my morning cup of coffee, so Matt was the pilot.

Driving down I35 we see the rolling hills of Iowa, Missouri and Kansas, everything is very green, but the temperatures are still very hot, so we do not stay anywhere long as we do not want to leave the dogs and Keesha a lone in the truck.

We do stop in northern Iowa and while I am checking on the truck and the trailer, oh and of course giving Keesha some food, Matt is out trying to walk the dogs. As I see him walking back to me, I have to ask “who is walking whom?”

We do pass by Des Moines where I went to college and I am amazed at how the city has grown. Like all of the medium and large towns in the US, it seems that they have all expanded significantly over the past 25 years. I am also reminded of our friends the Fifos who live near us in Ely, but use to live in Des Moines. It is Frank who build the trailer and the doggy sleeping car for us, and I wanted to say thank you to him and Retta for their friendship and help.

So around 6p we pull into the Holiday Inn Express in Wichita. It is hot and humid (have I already said that several times?) so we check in to the hotel and then take the dogs for a walk. While we are going to a local convenience store we see some of Wichita’s finish busting some people. I am not sure what was the cause of the confrontation but clearly something is wrong as there are two police cars and a third showed up shortly thereafter. Well I am glad that is not me as it sure would ruin your Saturday evening.

As you can see the trip has been fairly uneventful so far (thankfully) and we are on schedule and have not had any problems. Please continue to read on for the trip update for day three and four. Also if you want to skip ahead and look at the remaining photos, please go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/sanmiguelphotos/sets/72157594161715579/

One Last Paddle in the Boundary Waters

2006-05-29T20:30:00.000-05:00

It is Memorial Day in Ely and it is hot and humid. Just a week ago it was 30 in the morning and today the highs are suppose to get up into the low 90s or high 80s. We are hot and getting tired of packing for our trip to San Miguel so we decide to take a break and do one last paddle into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. It took Jo Ann probably two or three nanoseconds to agree that we needed to get out and away from the chores of packing.

So we loaded up the ATV with the kayaks to head down to our landing at Farm Lake which is one of the entrances to the BWCA.

As we head out to cross Farm Lake the winds are strong and in crossing against us. It is exhausting but we do get across relatively quickly but we do need to take a break from the paddling.

Where we stop is one of the many cabins on the edge of the BWCA that have no power and are accessible solely by boat. These places are truly wilderness cabins compared to our “log cabin”.

We enter the BWCA through the Kawishiwi River which is a beautiful place to paddle a kayak or a canoe. The river never flows too strong and the trees along the river keep the winds down.

While we are slowing down for another rest I pull out the camera again and shoot this image of the paddle and the water with Jo Ann’s reflection in the background. It is so serene and peaceful in the BWCA.

We finally turn around at one of the portages along the river as we are having Jo Ann’s parents over for Memorial Day’s dinner. As we are leaving the BWCA I have so stop and say good bye. This is one of the world’s truly beautiful places and such an enjoyable place. It is one of the many great things that Ely has to offer and I will greatly miss it.

So as we are leaving the BWCA we come to a place that will always have a special spot for me. Two summers ago we had our niece Alexa up for a visit. We took her out for a paddle and a picnic. It was a beautiful day when we left, however as can happen up here the weather changed and the winds picked up. Well as Alexa and I were trying to paddle our canoe we just could not make any progress and in fact many times were flowing backwards until we pushed ourselves ashore. Jo Ann was able to navigate her kayak back to our landing and was able to get our great neighbor Frank who is a regular at rescuing wayward paddlers who are leaving the BWCA and trying to cross Farm Lake.

Well while we were waiting for Frank to come with his power boat, Alexa (who is a drama queen of the grand cru) kept telling me that we were going to die. Well of course we did not die or get eaten by a wolf or a bear, but were rescued like many others.

So as we left the BWCA I had to shot a picture of the location were Alexa and I were waiting for certain death. I was sad to see that the lot is now for sale, maybe Alexa will want to come up and buy it, not.

So I say good bye to the BWCA. It is beautiful and if you want to really see what nature is like without man’s intervention, please come up and paddle in God’s country.

Less than One Week Until the Next Really Big Adventure

2006-05-27T13:41:00.000-05:00

So it is less than one week before I start the migration from Northern Minnesota to the Colonial Highlands of Mexico. Jo Ann and I have spent the past week getting our truck and the trailer ready to go and have just started packing. Wow, I can’t believe how much stuff we want to take or looking at it from a different perspective, how little space you have with a Ford truck and a small trailer.

We have tried to get everything broken down into groups based on priorities as to what is needed at our ranch and what will be hard to obtain down in San Miguel. However, as we lay all of the stuff in the garage, I almost break down in tears as to what will fit and what I still want to bring. Oh well, it is only possessions and you have to start to ask yourself, “is it really needed or can we get by without it”.

So the plan is to finish the packing by Wednesday this next week. On Thursday we will take the dogs for one last hike of Bass Lake and then early Friday, Matt and I will be off from Ely to Minneapolis. Although this is an exciting day for me, as I start my migration to my newly adopted country, it is also an important date for Matt as he is closing on his purchase of a new house back in Minneapolis. It seems that we are all leaving Ely this year, all for different reasons, but the two of us are commencing on new journeys on the same day.

Then early Saturday morning Matt and I will start the journal from Minneapolis to Wichita and on Sunday we will continue down to San Antonio. Assuming that we are on schedule that has us crossing the border in Laredo on Monday morning and if all goes well (which of course it will not) we will be in Rancho La Luz by Monday evening.

The scope and magnitude of this upcoming move is starting to hit me as I start to comprehend what a major change in our lives this move will be. Although the move to Northern Minnesota was traumatic it was still to a location in the US and we did not have any language issues (ok yes they do speak funny up here but it is still an English dialect). Now we are off to a different country where we will be the foreigners, where our grasp of the language is basic at best and our understanding of the culture is only evolving. However that is part of what is attracting us to this latest chapter of our adventure that is called life.

So check back in over the next several months to get some updates on how we are progressing with our move to Mexico and how we are adapting to our new adopted country.

Spring in Ely

2006-05-27T13:18:00.000-05:00

Memorial Day weekend in Ely and we are preparing for our move to San Miguel de Allende Mexico. The weather is beautiful, the lakes are fully of boaters and fishermen, and the gardens are in full bloom.

In order to save some of my sanity, I went out and shot some exposures of some of the beautiful flowers that are in bloom. Although the season can be short here in the Northland, the spring flowers make you feel so happy, especially after the long cold winter.

Enjoy some of our gardens and the color that is in full bloom.

Halfway Through the Renovation

2006-05-21T07:54:00.000-05:00

For the past two weeks we have been at our ranch in San Miguel working with our contractor on the renovation of the house on the property. The weather has been wonderful, with most days in the high 80s to low 90s, and then nice cool evenings. We have even had some late afternoon thunderstorms which should help to address last year’s drought conditions.

Jo Ann and I have significant experience in working on renovations of older homes, but we have never done one outside of the US let alone working in a language other than English.

Well I have to say this has been one of the most enjoyable renovations that we have ever worked on. The crews are most professional and the quality of the workmanship has been great.

One of the first projects we needed to do was to fill in an old unused swimming pool. What we are doing is to turn the major part of it into a large cistern holding tank and the remainder into a root cellar (which will also be used as a wine cellar).

Then we wanted to completely redo the kitchen in the house. Here you can see the state of kitchen after the crew demolished much of the old counters and removed the old appliances.

The work on the kitchen was going much faster than we expected, especially considering that we were having to use the kitchen during the renovation since we were living in the house as the work was proceeding. Here you can see the kitchen now with most of the new tiles installed and the new appliances.

We also wanted to completely remodel the master bathroom which included demolition of the entire existing bathroom, replace the counters, the sink and the toilets as well as changing which side of the shower the shower head was one. One of the amazing things about construction in Mexico is how patient they can be when having to move things like water lines through the brick and concrete that is used in almost all of the construction. Here you can see that all of the tiles were removed and the water line was moved from the left side of the shower to the right. For me that would have been a major effort but for the crew it was just another day on the job.

When you are working on renovation in Mexico, you need to learn that most of the work on the structure is done in brick and concrete, so when the crew needs to move an electrical outlet or a water line, they need to chink away at the concrete and move the line. Well after two weeks of this chinking, I can tell you it is the only irritating part of the process, it seems that someone on the crew is always chinking away and it settles into your brain like brain sludge.

One of the last parts of the project was to paint the interior and exterior. Here is am image of our new exterior color.

As the image below shows, you can see the old white color of the ranch, which was faded and in need of an update, compared to the new color of the ranch.

So at the half way point we are excited with how the house is proceeding and impressed by the work done by the crew. Now it is only the half way point and much can go wrong as we work to complete the project, but I have to say it has been the best renovation that we have ever worked on. If you are looking to buy a home in Mexico and need to have work done on the house, don't be afraid, it is easier than working with remodeling contractors in the US.

We are excited about completing the work as I am heading down to live full time in less than two weeks, so hopefully the crew will be done and I can settle in with the dogs awaiting Jo Ann's arrival.

Celebration at Puente del Carman

2006-05-17T08:06:00.000-05:00

Wow was Saturday evening an interesting night. It was another beautiful day at our ranch in San Miguel and then in the late afternoon a magnificent thunderstorm blew through. Though out the day we could hear a festival that was happening at the small village about 5 kilometers from our house called Puente del Carman which had music and fireworks blasting all day. However, when the storm blew through the music ceased and all was quiet.

The storm was gone in a little under two hours and as soon as the rain stopped the music started again and of course the ever present fireworks erupted. When we went to bed around 11p the festival was still going full speed, which was not a surprise. However, I awoke at 4:30a and guess what, I could hear the music still blasting away, in fact I would say it was louder than ever. Then at 6a the fireworks commenced again, so the festival continued through out the evening. I have not been at a festival or party like that probably since I left college.

So on Sunday morning, we decided to walk down to Puente del Carman and see the festival first hand, since we had already experienced it the prior evening. It was so great to see all the people milling around and looking so happy to be with their families.

There were children everywhere always laughing and giggling, especially at these gringos walking around with their camera. However we were having a great time experiencing the festival with our new neighbors and watching all the children.

Then we came upon this Ferris wheel called “The Titanic” where these two boys were just howling and laughing. I just love the smile on the one boy who kept watching me as I shot this image.

We had such a great time just walking though the festival and seeing people who are happy to be with family, friends and to enjoy the sense of community. I hope that we can develop this same carefree sense of happiness as this community when we are with friends and family.

New Additions to the Rancho La Luz Family

2006-05-14T10:14:00.000-05:00

It did not take long but we have now added four burros to the animal community known as Rancho La Luz. Those of you who knew us from our Gualala farming days, know that Jo Ann and I have a weak spot when it comes to taking care of pets and other animals. So when we heard of the opportunity to get these four burros from a great new friend who did not have the space to allow them to graze adequately, we jumped at the opportunity.

So without further ado, here are the new additions to the Rancho La Luz community.

So we have Fernanda,

Panchita and Primavera together,

Another of Panchita

But I seem to be missing one of Pascual so that will have to come later.

But we have one last image to share and this one asks the questions "who do you think is really walking whom?"

Happy Trails to One Man's Best Friend

2006-05-11T11:22:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, our best friend Matt's dog died. Obie was one of the cutest and most enjoyable dogs you could ever know.

We all are missing Obie, it was a very sad day on Monday earlier this week. Although Obie had lived a long life, most people still mistook him as being a puppy and not an adult dog. He had a look that just made people happy and a prance when he walked that said, I love life. However doggy Alzheimers disease over came such a wonderful dog and we all miss him.

To quote Matt "He was one of the finer things that happened in my life. He made me a better person, certainly a healthier one. Think of him kindly, he was my great pal. He deserved a better fate."

Good bye and thank you for being part of our lives.

Ely's Version of Starbuck's Coffee

2006-04-30T13:51:00.000-05:00

Many people have never had the experience of enjoying Campfire Coffee and their view of sophisticated coffee is from Starbucks or Peets. Well when you go hiking in the woods, there are no coffee houses or barrister and you have to make do as best you can.

So on the recent hike and picnic we put water in an old coffee can and put it on the fire.

To get the best coffee you need to get the water boiling which requires a very hot fire.

Then when the water is boiling, you throw in the coffee and let is boil some more and hopefully the grounds settle to the bottom of the can. What you end up with is an enjoyable cup of coffee that really tastes good when the weather is cold and windy.

Tale of Two Springs - Part Two

2006-04-25T19:29:00.000-05:00

So now it is the first week of April and we are back in Ely. For Ely the weather has gotten very warm for this time of year but as you can see, this is not the same spring that we had last week in San Miguel. On Wednesday we decided to have a hike and a picnic on the Bass Lake trail so we packed up the troops and headed off to the trail.

As we were walking the first thing we noticed is that the snow had melted significantly, and the creeks that had been frozen over just two weeks ago were starting to run. As the image below shows there still is ice but we now are having some run off.

Then as we came around a bend we saw the first of the new spring growth. This plant is something the locals call Princess Pine, but it really isn't a "pine" tree, but it sure looks like it.

The Bass Lake trail then runs down to High Lake and although the ice was still very thick on Bass Lake you can see that it is starting to recede on High Lake. It is always a happy time when the ice does finally drop as it really means that we have started the transition of the seasons.

As the trail continues around Bass Lake you come to Dry Lake Falls where the creek from Dry Lake runs into Bass Lake. During the summer this will be an area that will be very crowded with many of the tourists as it is usually very sunny and the children can sit in the creek and have the water running around them.

However at this time of year, the water is very cold, there are no tourists yet and we can enjoy the serenity of the seasons with out interruptions.

Tale of Two Springs, Part One

2006-04-23T20:31:00.002-05:00

I can't believe it has been almost a month since we came back from San Miguel this last trip. I have had some out of town projects since we came back to the States and of course we are preparing for our next trip to San Miguel in May. However, I wanted to present a two part posting about the differences in the spring season between San Miguel and Northern Minnesota.

Here I have posted a couple of images from our walking around San Miguel, which highlight both the beautiful colors and varieties in the high desert, but also the beautiful blossoms of the cactus when it is in bloom.

The Jacaranda Trees were in full bloom and could be seen all around the city. I have never seen these trees before when they were in bloom and they are gorgeous.

There were also many flowers in bloom that I would have considered normal in either Northern or Southern California, but I guess the topology is similar and I understand that just about anything that can grow in California can grow here.

Here are a couple of other examples of what I was talking about.

But of course when you are in the high desert, you can not experience spring without watching the cactus blossoms as the plants come out of their winter slumber. I really enjoy the cactus in bloom.

Now hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get some examples of spring in Northern Minnesota, which of course will be several weeks after we had the start of our spring time in San Miguel.

Rancho La Luz

2006-04-13T11:33:00.000-05:00

Wow, what a long day, but we finally did it. We have purchased a ranch about 12 miles out of San Miguel de Allende on the highway that heads to Dolores Hidalgo. It is a beautiful property that has been previously been used for agricultural purposes and seems to have a very good water well that has been used for farming purposes.

The purchase/sale transaction had a number of complications, none of which individually would seem difficult, but when viewed all together they were. However, with the help of the Notario, the work of our brokers from Re/Max Colonial of San Miguel, the seller and his tenants we were able to over come them and close the transaction.

After the closing we went out to visit the property again and it was another beautiful day in the country. Once the sun set we headed back to our apartment in San Miguel and started to celebrate.

We have decided to make this our full time residence and will be moving down to the ranch in June. We still have to sell our home in Ely, and of course there is the entire process of moving our personal goods down, but we are so excited about starting to make Mexico our new adopted home.

We have previously owned and operated an organic farm and orchard in Northern California so we think we know what we are getting into, however, no matter what happens it will be another adventure.

Rocking the Jardin en Domingo

2006-04-07T14:57:00.000-05:00

We arrived in San Miguel late Saturday evening and quickly unpacking from our long day of traveling we hurried off to have a wonderful dinner at Tio Lucas. As usual it was crowded even at the late hour but the music was wonderful and the service tremendous.

However, that evening around 2a we heard a marching band playing in the street outside our apartment, and then if that wasn't enough the group started to shoot fireworks off. This festival or celebration or what ever you want to call it, continued until around 6a so to say the least we did not get a very good sleep that evening. Oh well, such is the life in a small apartment that is very near el Centro. So after a couple of morning naps, Jo Ann and I started out to resupply the apartment.

Later that afternoon we headed out to walk around town as the sun was bright and shining and the weather beautiful as usual. After walking up to el Charco and then back to el Centro we came upon a small concert in process at the Jardin with many people dancing and enjoying the wonderful day.

Although the sound system was not the greatest, the weather was wonderful and it was so great to see all the families and tourists standing around and enjoying the concert and being together outside.

We really enjoyed watching the guitarist jamming some of these old Bay Area type sounds. The afternoon really reminded us of our lives in Muir Beach and going to the Muir Beach Volunteer Fire Department picnic every Memorial Day weekend, such fun.

So while the group played, many people took to the streets that surround the jardin and started dancing. There was one couple which really caught our eye as they seemed so serene and at peace, even though there were all these others out there strutting their stuff.

Of course there was also others who were really enjoying the music and putting on more of a show than others.

With the sun shining and everyone having fun we enjoyed an ice cream cone and talked about how much we are looking forward to moving to this little place in paradise. We are so happy to have found this gem and can't wait to start this next chapter of our adventure called life.

Leaving Ely today to Return to San Miguel

2006-03-24T06:34:00.000-06:00

Today we commence our latest trip from Ely Minnesota back down to San Miguel de Allende. It is still snowy and cold here in Ely, which is normal for Northern Minnesota at this time of year.

On Wednesday we took a hike around Bass Lake and Dry Lake with Matt and all of the dogs. It is very nice with the temperatures in the mid 20s and the dogs running the trails without leases.

However, reality set in yesterday and we had another inch of snow. It has not been a hard winter this year but the winters up here in Northern Minnesota can be so long, that you just get cabin fever.

However, tomorrow we will be in San Miguel and the temperatures will be in the mid 80s and the sun will be shining. This is a week of business rather than vacation as we are going down to try and close our purchase transaction of Ranchero la Luz which will set in process our relocation from Minnesota to Mexico. It is a very exciting week for us, but also one that will trying I am sure.

So although I have high speed access in our apartment in San Miguel, I am not sure how active my postings will be for the next week. Hopefully we will have a celebration sometime this week and will have some images of the Ranchero.

Bon voyage.

Everyone Loves a Circus

2006-03-23T18:29:00.000-06:00

It was the evening of Valentine's Day this past February when Jo Ann and I were walking up to la Parroquia and we saw that the church was under a sea of circus lights. As we walked over we could see that the circus was in town and they were putting on a short exhibition and there was probably three or four hundred people sitting in the chairs and in the jardin waiting for the show.

Well I had my Olympus camera, but alas no tripod and so I kept waiting for the show to start hoping to get some nice photos. The first image is of the Parroquia under the circus lights and was probably around 6:15 and the ISO settings were at 640.

Finally as the clock ticked to around 7:15, the performers started to assemble and prepare for their performance. During this time, I kept shooting images and to get decent images, kept moving the ISO settings higher, until finally the only shots that I could get were being shot with my ISO at 1600. This image of the performers awaiting for their time, the shutter speed was 1/10 sec. and f/4.5. As I said earlier I did not have my tripod so there is some movement as I tried my best to keep it still.

I also was having to deal with the lights coming from the background buildings but since there were so many people in attendance, there was not much I could do to move around and get a better sight line. However, the colors from the circus lights and the colors of the costumes were beautiful and I did not want to mess these up.

The evenings in San Miguel can be so wonderful, with the stars, the moon and the wonderful temperatures, then finding something like this on Valentine's Day was so very nice.

Jo Ann working at the Gualala Farmers Market

2006-03-21T18:38:00.000-06:00

For the two years that we lived in Gualala, we were active members of the Gualala Farmers Market. On one Saturday, Jo Ann was approached by a local artist who asked her if she could paint Jo Ann's picture while working at the market.

The actual painting is wonderful, however, I recently purchased a LenseBaby 2.0 lens for my Olympus and was trying it out on a number of exposures. It is a lot of fun to work with this lens and I really enjoyed how it created the blurred image of Jo Ann from the painting of her.

I have used it to photograph our dogs and cats and am working on using it in some macro type shots. It takes a lot of practice, but I am really enjoying the final output as I learn how to use it properly.

Farming in Mexico a long the old Spanish Silver Trail

2006-03-20T15:01:00.000-06:00

In March, Jo Ann and I were on a mountain bike ride that followed the old Spanish silver road from Guanajuato to Dolores Hidalgo, although we only rode from Santa Rosa to the Haciendo las Trancas. It was a very beautiful trip, but one that started at around 8500 feet and dropped down to 6500 feet. The ride itself was an extremely challenging ride, not for beginners, but covered around 25 miles and went through some of the most beautiful vistas in Central Mexico.

Our guide, Beto from Bici Burro (beto @bici-burro.com) was wonderful and conveys not only good biking ideas, but also the history and culture of Colonial Mexico. At about the half way point, we stopped for some water and came across this farmer who was tilling his land in preparation for the upcoming raining season. Since there is only the trail that we were biking on to get to this location, you can see he does not have a big John Deere tractor but must rely on the historical farming techniques. We spoke with him for a long time and it was very interesting to learn that as long as there is sufficient rain, he and his family are well provided for and all is good. However, last year there was not sufficient rain and the production was not sufficient and it has been a very difficult year.

Here in Mexico, there are no subsidies or grants to farmers and they must care for their own families and friends. However, the people seem so much more at peace and generally happy when compared to the people of the US who expect their ration of entitlements. Maybe progress is not always good, if it does not bring satisfaction and happiness.

Well back to the image and off my soapbox, I took the photo in RAW format and did all of the black and white processing in Photoshop. I love the capability that you get from using the RAW format and not having to worry about white balance when shooting. Regarding the bike ride we had a great time on this ride and would strongly recommend the tour for any moderate or advanced rider and we would also recommend Beto and Bici-Burro as they have many different rides and hikes that are in the area around San Miguel de Allende.

Fishing the Back Bay of Ft. Myers Beach

2006-03-20T14:57:00.000-06:00

P3130929_edited-2, originally uploaded by Jon of SMA.

Last week I was in Florida for the Minnesota Twins Spring Training season with my wife's cousins. We had a great time seeing four baseball games in five days, biking around 75 miles, watching a lot of college basketball and the World Baseball classic and of course getting in some boating and fishing.

Although I do not fish, I was a long with my handy Olympus and caught Jerry thinking he had caught the big one. Well it turns out this was nothing but a big snag.

I will have more photos of the baseball games and the beach later after I can get them all processed through the Camera RAW processing and converted to jpegs.

Visiting the Sterling Dickinson Jardin

2006-03-19T09:40:00.000-06:00

P1310240_edited-1, originally uploaded by Jon of SMA.

Jo Ann and I spent a wonderful day visiting the orchid garden in San Miguel. This garden has hundreds of interesting plants, orchids, cactus and trees. The flowers will be at their best in April and May so if you get a chance to visit San Miguel, you should make sure that you tour the jardin.

Welcome to San Miguel Photos

2006-03-19T07:52:00.000-06:00

So here I am enjoying a beautiful day of skiing with my wife Jo Ann. As you can see this exposure is still from cold and snowy Northern Minnesota and not from the warm and enjoyable San Miguel, but there will be more from there soon.