Our First "Improvement"....

I thought y'all might like to see those tamales we bought from the street vendor...

I like to make tamales, but I can never get mine to look so nice.  See those corn husk ties?  It just amazes me how they get tied up so neatly.

And that Jack Crevalle/Toro...  the fish we got from Christian...

It didn't taste "fishy" at all....  not really mild like halibut, but not as "dark" tasting as tuna or swordfish...  actually pretty tasty.  Hey...  look at the dinner plate....  I bought a couple of "Day of the Dead" plates last week just for the fun of it.  I'll write more about that when the day gets closer.

Our first major change to our house...

I had written before that a Weber grill came with the house.  We use our front porch like a room...  an all purpose room.  This is where we eat, where we hang out...  and where we'll use that grill.  The picture above shows the bricks that Bill wanted the guys to use for a BBQ stand.  He set the bricks about where he wanted them...  at the height he wanted... (the bricks were stacked by the driveway)...  and when the guys working on the wall next door had time they came over and built the BBQ stand.  In the above photo they are taking apart Bill's template...

There was a bricklayer and his tender.  The tender, Juan, lived in the USA for 16 years and speaks English very well.  He was helping me with my Spanish as they worked....  See the hole in the back of the bricks?  That's for the propane line to snake through....

TahDah!

The end result!  The propane tank is just behind Bill...  he put it in the space and hooked it up today.  Juan did some other work on the doorway to the utility room (a bit of an euphemism... its a room under the stairway that holds the hot water heater and some cleaning equipment)...  Anyway, the door stuck... Juan knocked out some ragged concrete...  Bill worked on the lock...  Juan put down some fresh, smooth concrete and now the door closes.  These guys will be doing more work for us... running a new sewer line etc.. soon, and we haven't paid them yet.  No report on how much our improvements are costing us at this time.

Enough domestic stuff...  let's go for a walk!

I don't have any field guides for this part of Mexico, so at this time I don't know what kind of butterflies and insects we're seeing.  I just know that they are outstanding!

It always just astounds me how different butterflies and moths look when their wings are opened as opposed to when they are closed up.  This guy was on an orange I have in the yard.  I almost wish I had a butterfly net so I could capture them and study them up close.  I'm still trying to get a shot of the huge white one that looks like a few sheets of toilet paper floating around ;-)

Rufous-bellied Chachalaca

It sounds like a whole herd of these guys move through our neighborhood every morning.  They are loud - very loud - and call back and forth from tree to tree.  A big bird (think peacock size)....  they squawk and just carry on...  for a few minutes or much longer.  

I remember that when we lived in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas we left grapes and other fruit out for them on our picnic table.  So far I haven't done anything to entice them closer.  Heck, I haven't had the first visitor to my hummingbird feeders...  maybe I've lost my critter touch.

I write about our walk along River Road...

This is a view from the road, looking across the river...  more or less into the jungle.

There are houses nestled in the hills higher up...  some overlooking the ocean...  all requiring either a vehicle or a long walk to get there.  Our friend Memo encountered a boa constrictor one day as he was walking home, so it's pretty wild there.  We're told there are crocodiles in the river...  so far, we've never seen one.

But, today we saw...

What is it?

I'm not sure...  a tiny reptile of some sort.  Not a frog; doesn't really look like a lizard....  whatever, it's about 6" or so long... including its tail.  The swampy area that runs alongside the river isn't a place I'd ever even think about trying to cross on foot.  Too wild for the likes of me!

 I seldom get a chance for a good shot of a Great Blue Heron, but this guy let me take several photos of him.  It was a good day for herons, egrets and the such...

This little Green Heron was at the lagoon....

We also saw Yellow-crowned Night Herons, Snowy Egrets and Little Blue Herons....

I'm lovin' it!

I didn't bring my Dragonfly field guide with me, but isn't this guy beautiful?

We see so many species of dragon/damselflies - darting here and there in the air around us. 

Our walk takes us along the river and onto the beach... There we're right at the Pacific Ocean and we never know what we'll be seeing...

Today we saw these guys fishing...  Maybe they'll catch some Toro and take them home for dinner.

We've been here in our new home just under 2 weeks, but already we feel so much at home.  Fifteen years ago, if anyone would have told me that we'd be living in our own home in Mexico, I'd have thought they were talking about someone else...

Guess we just never know....

That's All For Today!