Aminals!

We’ve only been here less than two weeks and the place is turning into a menagerie.

There is the inevitable cat that likes to sleep on the chair cushions at night. It leaves a cat smell so I have to do something about that. All our property is mostly surrounded by iron bars so anything can wander in. I’ve ordered some plastic mesh from Amazon so that should help a lot.

The other evening, the lot next door was invaded by eight cows wandering through. We have no idea where they came from or where they were going; it was fun to watch though.

I had to chase a tiny frog from off the patio as he would have gotten stuck there and died of dehydration.

There is a herd of turkeys that lives somewhere on the street and we often hear, and sometimes see them gobbling up and down the road. There may be one less soon as Christmas is coming and I’m sure they’ll wander into the yard sooner or later.

We get the odd dog wandering in too, so I think we really need the plastic mesh.

On a different note: After the sad circumstances of our landlady’s husband being killed, there was a brief rumour that her nephew, who owns our house, wanted to sell it to save her the responsibility of managing it. We had a nice conversation with Blanca and she told him to hold on to it and that she would manage it fine. Phew! we really didn’t want to move again.

Blanca is a very tough and courageous woman. Her husband was murdered in Oregon last year and she now has to handle things alone. When she came down here, two of her suites were badly damaged by water leaking in somehow. She has help from a neighbour and I’m sure when her tenants get here they will help also. Two of the couples are Jim and Ylda as well as Art and Linda. We also offered to help if she needs it.

I fancied a steak so on the way into town for groceries we stopped at the new butcher shop that had opened up a few years ago. We ordered two Angus t-bones. They were huge and costly. I lit the BBQ and cooked one of them over charcoal; it was delicious. It was way too big for just one of us so we shared it and still had some leftovers for a stir fry the next day.

The roads are still wet from the rain storm the other day but are drying up rapidly. We almost got stuck trying to go to the store the other day.

Papa Gallo’s isn’t open just yet so we found a very nice alternative that makes great margaritas. We don’t go every day but it’s tempting as there is a nice breeze blowing in, off the ocean, and of course, there are the margaritas.

It feels as though things are starting to open up here. We enjoy this quiet time before the tourists come. We have been meeting up again with all our Mexican friends and a few norteño friends also.

The temperature has been 30C every day so far but it’s not as bad as we expected. We manage it with a fan on the patio and one in the kitchen that we move to the bedroom at night. It’s very pleasant in the mornings and evenings. We won’t be getting our palapa this year but I asked for a shade cloth, so we will wait to see where that goes. If we don’t get one by the time Blanca goes home in a few weeks, we’ll buy one ourselves and put it up.