Our Yard!

So I was sauntering around the property, with my camera this time, and decided to show you my yard. Since we (think we) added the lot south of us to "our property", I saunter farther than I used to. Rocky went with me, and here are the highlights:

This is my new birdbath! A shallow frosted glass bowl with hand painted flowers, found at a thrift shop (segundo) in Calle Doce. It was 15 pesos, maybe $1.25. It's just going to sit there on those cacti skeletons until Ron builds me a stand for it. We have a gazillion birds, and only sea water for them to bathe in. And so far, the bees haven't found it...

This is my poor little Limon tree, I got it for my birthday. Limons are those small sour limes that you use for Mojitos and Gin and Tonics. Everyone here also squeezes one over restaurant food: it's said to take care of unneeded pathogens. This tree isn't doing well. When I asked the Senora at the Vivaro (nursery) how much, she said 70 pesos. When I grasped it's trunk and pulled it out of the line, half the leaves fell off. I said "How much now?" She laughed, said 70 pesos. I bought it anyway when I ascertained it was guaranteed. I'm going to back off on watering it (mimicking the local dry climate, according to Google sources) and see what happens.

My palm tree, however, LOVES water and is thriving.

This is one of four Aloes in the garden. Each one has several babies at their bases, and I'm told I need to dig those babies out and replant them or they'll not survive. I'm afraid: I have a doomsday effect on living plants, AKA brown thumb. I once killed an air fern.

Near the garden is my sweet Ella's grave that I keep embellishing. Now she has an epitaph (laminated onto a chunk of sanded 2X4), her bandanna, and a whole bunch of rocks and driftwood to ensure she won't get dug up by anything. Solar lights, too. I think it's finished now... I visit several times daily and talk to her, tell her to guard the house when we leave, and slowly but surely that horrific "end" in the vet's office is dimming. A little.

Ella Durham, 2001-2009, Good Girl!

 

As I saunter, Rocky's never too far. He stops often to roll in the sand a while, or stick his paw down a hole up to his shoulder. Here's Rocky in our "front yard" with the casita in the background. Now that he's allowed off leash, he still likes his strolls to be accompanied, otherwise he just curls up under a bush next to the casita, or lays in a lawn chair on the porch. His nickname is Fat Bastard.






This big cactus is a Cordon, I think, and it's just outside our property boundary. The top of my head only reaches the lowest of the green part. It's humongous, and houses lots of tiny birds in the holes. You can see the casita and Eileens's yellow house in the background. Rocky thinks these are trees, he sharpens his claws on them. His favorite claw-sharpener-thing is the board under the sewer hose at the back end of the fifth wheel.

 

I don't know the name of these cacti, but there are several on the property. In the background is the garage on the south property we think we've bought.

And back at the casita porch, I've taken down the coyote skull/shell/bone/cactus wreath and replaced my wood sign Durham Casita. In case telling people "it's the orange one with purple trim" isn't enough. In the adjacent pottery wall vases are palm fronds, aloe spikes, a javelina skull, and whale bones found in the hurricane debris piles on the beach.

So that's the yard. I sit up on the roof with my drink in the afternoons and survey our kingdom. Rocky sits in the other lounge chair. Birds in the roof palm fronds get upset and scold us severely, but we stay there through sunset.