Earth Day Plus One

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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.