The Return of the hummingbirds

So far, the bees have not returned to our hummingbird feeder. Nevertheless, Barb has been looking for the HummZinger feeder which claims that it prevents insects and bees from getting in. I looked in Windsor, Ont. when I was there, but no luck; no luch in Mexico either. She looked on Ebay and the company website, but they do not ship to Mexico and wanted over $100 shipping to send to Canada! However, Barb started calling pet stores in Halifax and lo, the store in the Dunbrack Mall, near the Sobey’s, have them for a cost of $26! Barb bought one on her credit card and hopes that her friends, Dawn and Gordon, who are coming to visit us in the middle of September, will bring it down with them. Unlike other feeders, this one is flat, like a flying saucer; it doesn’t have nearly the capacity of the one we have, but that is probably good. After about 3 days, the syrup starts to ferment and the hummingbirds can’t consume more than a fraction of the syrup in that time. After about 3 days, we had been letting the bats finish each batch off.

The other purchase Barb has been anxious about was a composter, very difficult to get in Mexico. Some had been advocating a hole in the ground with a little fence around. I think that in the dry season especially, the stuff would dry out and not decompose very well. However, we did locate a woman who has been importing them from Germany and has now arranged for some to be manufactured here. She lives way on the other side of Guadalajara, past the Costco store and mall that we go to. Barb had been calling and emailing her to set up an appointment to get one for over a week. Finally, she called back yesterday saying that she had been away. We are planning to go Wednesday. The State of Jalisco, where we are, is saying that all municiapalities must implement a 3 stream program for waste similar to that in Nova Scotia by September. I’ll talk about that in my next post.

This rainy season is quite mild. We had not had any rain for about 3-4 days. About 3 a.m., there was some rain; however, at 7:30 there was a thunderstorm and heavy rain for perhaps half an hour. Then, it reduced to a steady rain until about 10 a.m. After that, it cleared up and became sunny before noon.

Brunts return to Nova Scotia

We took Tarra, Jeff & Aiden to the airport at 7 a.m. Their plane was to leave at 8:30. The last few days were busy, but I think that Jeff and Tarra did enjoy themselves. Jeff and Tarra were pleased with the walk up to the chapel. The views of the town and the lake were great. Also, at each of the turns for the switchbacks going up to the chapel, there was a small shrine representing one of the stations of the cross. Jeff took a lot of pictures.

On Thursday, we all went in to Tlaquepaque. There are lots of shops and with the street closed off to vehicles, it is very pleasant to walk along and to go round the square. We had lunch in one of the restaurants. By about 4:30 or so, everyone was tired of walking and window shopping, so we started back for the Lakeside (the term for the area along the north shore of Lake Chapala). Someone in Ajijic had recommended a restaurant in Chapala, called La Luña, as being very authentic Mexican. It is on the main street leading from Chapala to Guadalajara. It is not at all fixed up for Gringos; however, the food was good. After dinner, we all walked down to the waterfront, out on the pier and then along the ‘malecon’ (walkway along the water) to the east. There are a large number of stalls selling all sorts of goods and foods. By the time we got back to the car and drove home, it was after sunset; we were all so tired that we went to bed almost immediately (just after 9 p.m.).

Friday, we tried to take it easy as the Brunts were facing the trip home on Saturday. After a couple of weeks, we put the hummingbird feeder up again. It was only a couple of hours before the birds were returning to the feeder. At night the bats also returned and Jeff got several pictures; it is tricky because they move so fast and with the short delay for focusing, often they are gone, before the flash for the picture. So far (Saturday evening, after 2 days), no sign of the bees returning. Barb BBQ’d a good sized pollo (pronounced ‘po yo’)--i.e., chicken--on the still new BBQ. The ‘beer-can’ roaster does a very nice job and we had the last dinner with them at home. Tarra fixed strawberry Margaritas. They are really good (much like a strawberry daiquiri), much better than the other Margarita recipes we have.

More with Brunts

On Saturday, we drove to Jocotepec. On the way, we stopped at the organic farm set up and run by the two Canadian women whom I’m mentioned before. We drove around Jocotepec, which is bigger than we had realized in our previous visit. We spent some time in the square and then stopped at a restaurant called, the Iquana, in San Juan Cosala, which is a little more than half way back to Ajijic. It is spread out on a bluff over-looking the lake, a great view and some of the children were swimming. There was even entertainment by a Spanish singer/comedian, at least I assume so by the way most people were laughing. Unlike most restaurants in Ajijic, aside from us, virtually all the patrons were Mexican. We returned tired, but pleased with the outing.

Jeff and Tarra spent last night in Villa Eucalytus and will be there again tonight. Last night with Aiden went well. The one problem was that when he was quiet and asleep, Barb would wonder if he were alright. She would then go in and he would wake up and cry. That reassured her. This happened even in the middle of the night. We had a short thunderstorm (only about 5 flashes with thunder) about 3 a.m. Aiden slept through that, but was wakened when Barb went in to check on him.

Half way up the mountain above Upper Ajijic is a shrine of some sort, which is visable everywhere in Ajijic. It is white so stands out from the vegetation around it. Tarra and Jeff were planning to walk up there today. They had forgotten their camera and dropped in here late this morning. I gave them a ride up as far as the houses go in Upper Ajijic and there is a trail going on up. We haven’t heard yet how that went. Jeff had looked it up on the internet somewhere and was anxious to go.

The organic garden group had a guest speaker at LCS today. He lived for some years in Jocotepec, but moved to B.C. when his sons became teenagers. He is a bit of an expert on the ecology of Lake Chapala and his second book is on some to the history of Lake Chapala since the Spanish conquest. That book is officially being published this Saturday. It was an interesting lecture and the profits (quite a big crowd) goes to support the educational programs of the organization; the founders are very dedicated ecologists who do a lot of work in the schools and work with students from the technology school in Jocotepec.

Un problema automóvil

Except for a little sprinkle, it has not rained since the Brunt family arrived. The last 2 evenings, it has clouded over and there was even distant thunder and/or lightning; however, nada rain. Tarra has expressed a wish to experience a good thunderstorm. The forecasts keep promising a thunderstorm, but not so far. They have another week before they return to Halifax.

Yesterday, I went out to start the car and nothing happened when I turned the key. At first there was enough power to lower windows, but an hour later, the battery was completely dead. I had seen an ad talking about Subaru, so I tried to call the number; no answer. I then decided to walk to the address given. I walked all the way to the other end of Riberas de Pilar (about 5 kms) in the hot afternoon. I could not find any sign of the either the establishment or the address. By the time I got back (I took the bus for part of the way), it was too late in the day. Today, I called what looked like a relevant auto shop speciallizing in electronic aspects and is very close in San Antonio. He came right over. Giving our car a boost, it started right up; however, he took it to his shop to diagnose what was wrong. It turns out that the voltage regulator was bad and it ruined the battery. That happened to me with another car. Anyway, we have the car back, but I’m not sure that Subaru will honour the warranty when we are in Mexico. Not having the car, we had to revise plans for the day and did not get far from the house. Jeff and Tarra have booked a room in a local B&B called, Casa Eucalytus, for 2 nights next week. It is only a few blocks away from our house, but it will give them some time by themselves. We are going to try to look after Aiden. They are really looking forward to that.

The pronunciation of automóvil is almost exactly the same as in English. My Spanish/English dictionary gives 3 other terms for automobile, 2 of them being cognates of English words as well--un auto, un carro and un choche. Learning Spanish is fun.

Tarra, Jeff & Aiden

Tarra, Jeff and Aiden arrived even 20 minutes early on Sunday night. However, by the time they got through immigration and customs, it was almost an hour, or almost 10:30 p.m. Barb had a hard time waiting so long. There were a couple of little girls who screamed when their grandparents finally came throught the door. I thought Barb was going to do the same thing. By the time we got home and got Aiden put to bed, it was about 12:30 a.m. Tarra & Jeff had been up since about 2:30 a.m our time! Monday was a bit of a quiet day as they were recuperating. We had purchased a small wading pool, which was a great success with Aiden. We did drive to Chapala and back. Today, they all went to the gardening lecture at LCS and walked around the center of Ajijic a bit. Tonight we went to the Garden Restaurant. There is a large grass area (with grapefruit, lime, mango and banana trees); whenever Aiden got restless, one of us (Jeff especially) would take Aiden for a run. There are 4 peafowl, which were intriguing for Aiden. Maybe at some point, we’ll get Jeff or Tarra to give some of their impressions and reactions to being in Mexico.

Here are a couple of pictures of Aiden. He is extremely photogenic and strikes a model-like pose whenever he knows his picture is being taken. He is so good that it is almost impossible not to keep snapping more and more photos.

To bee or not to bee

Our hummingbird feeder has been taken over by bees. At first there were just a few, but very quickly the number increased. They would go down into the holes for the hummingbirds to stick their beaks in. Then inside, many of them got in the liquid and would float up inside. They were also all around the outside. A couple of the hummingbirds would dart into one of the holes if it was empty, but the big yellow birds when they tried to land, would find the bees swarming around them; they would have to fly off without getting anything. On Thursday by the late afternoon, there were dozens of dead and dying bees inside the feeder as well as large numbers on the outside. We didn’t dare to take it down until night when the bees on the outside had gone. This morning, I emptied out all the dead bees. These bees didn’t seem that agressive in attacking, but many of the bees down here are ‘Africanized’ and can be aggressive, attacking with little provocation, sometimes simply sounds. I don’t know what we will do. Barb found an ad for the “humzinger” hummingbird feeder which claimed that it could keep out bees. Even though we did not have the feeder out today, the bees were still buzzing around. In fact, this evening when we were planning to eat out in the courtyard, 3 bees got into my wine and were rapidly in the process of drowning! I don’t know why because the wine was 13.5% alcohol so there couldn’t be too much sugar in it. We gave up and came inside for dinner.

Barb bought almost a dozen plants on Wednesday along with some compost (again surprisingly inexpensive). Most of these are climbing, flowering vines for along one wall and in front of the 3 large trees in front. Rosendo was digging holes today and Barb planted about 7 or 8. There are a few more to do over the weekend. After about 10 days or so, we finally got a good rain last night and this morning, although bright sunshine by this afternoon. During a break, we were talking to Rosendo. It seems that he spent some time in California as a gardener in the 1980s. He was in Los Angeles and Sacramento. His son-in-law has excellent English so he may have been raised in the US.

We are getting ready for the arrival of Jeff, Tarra and Aiden on Sunday night. They chose to fly with American Airlines because there would be only one stop in Atlanta before coming on to Guadalajara. However, there is a very long delay of about 6 hours in Atlanta. I expect that they will be very tired when they get here. They didn’t have any cribs at LCS when we when for rentals, but they did have a raised, padded playpen that we hope will work as a bed for Aiden. It will be very exciting to have them here.

Music and a movie

We went to the 2nd concert at Viva la Música yesterday. It was a couple who play the guiter and flute. Both teach at the Univ. of Guadalajara Music Department as well as other things. Again, it was very enjoyable. Today we went to a showing of the 1987 movie, “The Mission”, starring Jeremy Irons and Robert de Niro. It was held in the disco lounge behind the Plaza Garden Restaurant on the town square. Apparently, the space used to be a movie theatre, but was converted to a disco dance hall during the last year. This event (the first as a trial) was organized by the writers’ group. There was a discussion of various aspects of the movie afterwards. Because the hall is associated and directly behind the restaurant (you enter by going through the latter), one can order drinks and even food. It started at 11:30 a.m. although the movie did not get under way until about 12. It went until after 2. It was shown from a DVD so that when blown up for a large screen, the quality was not terrific. It was all filmed in various parts of South America with stunning scenery. Also, because of so many echoes, it was difficult at times to understand the dialogue. I enjoyed the movie, but others wanted to show what great critics they are by ‘dising’ it. The writers’ group raises money for scholarships for budding Mexican writers and all the money raised is to go for that purpose. Admission was only 50 pesos/person. They’ll probably do another one.

The Open Circle talk yesterday was about the experience of a retreat in Buddhist monestaries. I had expected not to like it very much. However, it was interesting and the lecturer was very good and funny. He has been a teacher of yoga and meditation for many years, but he was not super serious. He said that he had never been interested in being a monk; monks were crazy people. He in fact had a very interesting career as writer and producer for TV. He was very firm about not reading more into meditation than was really there. When asked about chanting, he said that it was useful in clearing the mind of distracting thoughts, but not to do it for too long. Chanting for too long could make you crazy. About mantras, he said that the root words meant simply ‘controlling the mind’. He said not to read any more into it than that; it was not a kind of abracadabra or magic. Reading all the Buddhist scriptures did not help you in a retreat because there it was just you alone with yourself. Coming to terms with that was something you had to do on your own. Anyway, it was refreshing not to have someone gushing and breathless; I am usually convinced that there is a lot less than meets the eye with people who are dewy eyed.

Yesterday, we went to a different restaurant, Ninette. It is a bit more expensive than many other restaurants in Ajijic, but the food was absolutely delicious. There are still so many restaurants we have not yet visited.