Teas and other things

Long time no post!

Things continue happening.

I want to start figuring out how to use some of the plants here to make teas and other useful things. I think chamomile is growing wild here. There is also lemon verbena for tea, and boatloads of rosemary that could be used for soaps or other things. It is difficult because there is rarely someone here who can identify plants, and I of course am basically clueless. Slowly slowly I learn!

There are visitors here for Dia de los muertos (the Day of the Dead). It should be fun to see the celebrations! We will go to Patzcuaro tomorrow to see big-city celebration, and then hit up small towns to experience the cultural event. Today if there is time we will put together an ofrenda. All of us will print pictures of lost friends and family and pets and remember them in celebration! It really is a cool holiday.

Here is a cool picture I took recently:

I'm starting to learn how to do a little editing in Gimp, but really I know nothing. It is a confusing program! The only editing I did on that photo... well, I don't know what I did. I clicked "Auto", and the program changed my picture a little bit. Strange.

I don't know what that flower is. Here is a coriander (cilantro) flower, which I had never seen before! It is a little blurry:

Pretty flower. Maybe in a little while the flowers will give seeds, and then I'll have coriander to use.

Happy Halloween!

Jaripeo

UPDATE: About five million people get to this blog because of the picture here on the right. What is it you are searching for?? I do not understand. Please leave a comment!

A lot of the little towns around here are named after saints, and host parties on the day of the year that recognizes the respective saint. Then, everyone from all the other little towns attend that town's party and everyone drinks and eats and has fun etc. They also host Jaripeos, or bull riding. Uricho had one last week and I got to see my first Jaripeo, which was not so thrilling and kind of strange.

I guess the bulls were a bit tamer during this jaripeo than most, but it was pretty silly in my opinion. The bulls obviously do not enjoy it, and people get really hurt. We saw one guy get stomped on and it did not seem pleasant. But, it was very fun to see *so many people* attending this event in this teeny tiny town. It is a giant party!

More and more visitors continue to come here, which is fun because it provides a variety of people to chat with. Soon there will be folks down for Day of the Dead. Things continue happening!

Morelia

I had a nice trip to Morelia last week. BIG city WHOA! Maybe twice the size of Madison. Mostly we did un-fun stuff, such as visit stores that I do not like with lots of fluorescent lights and busy stupid people blocking aisles. We went to:

*Costco. I'd never been to one before. It was fairly horrifying. Everything is in BIG BOXES and nothing is healthy or good. But, it is a good place to buy some things because they sell stuff in bulk. We also picked up a super cool telescope which has been really fun to play with, so that was a bonus! I haven't looked at the sky with it yet, except the moon in the morning a couple of days ago, but it seems fairly powerful. A good tool for this area, since the sky is so bright and clear!

*Wal-Mart. ECH! It is funny, Wal-Mart is the same everywhere. It is good to go there because we can get fruits with seeds that are normally not available, and try to propagate those plants here in the forest.

*Home Depot. Pretty much the same as the ones in the U.S., except everything is crammed into about half the space.

After the shopping in the big crazy stores, we took a taxi to the center of the city. We didn't spend a lot of time there, but Morelia will be a fun little town to explore. Pretty buildings and things to look at.

This picture is of the cathedral, which is similar to most cathedrals, so is nothing special but is kind of pretty. It is fun to notice the architecture here after my time in Spain last March. Very similar. Shocking!

Unfortunately, somewhere in Morelia I picked up some sort of virus or something that made me sick for three days. I got to watch a lot of good movies though, so it wasn't all bad. And I read "The Clan of the Cave Bear" which apparently was really popular... it is entertaining! And it's a series! And all 5 books in the series are here! So I am on the second one now.

We are preparing the place to accommodate more visitors. This month should be pretty fun-- Day of the Dead prepping for the end of October/early November. There are some folks from the U.S. coming, and likely some people from around this area.

And right now another composting toilet is being build! That will make four total. Lots of humanure!!