November Days

A lovely scene a few miles away, but typical of the landscape here and you must squint to see the mountains in the background.

Walked down the main avenue of La Penita this morning and saw a couple of plastic Christmas trees on the sidewalk in front of a shop and had to stop and think "What month is this?" Realizing Christmas is just over a month away, it was very strange to me and hard to imagine this holiday being celebrated down here in any way, shape or form I would be familiar with. I read in the news that Oregon was shipping trees down to Mexico, so now I wait for a real tree, not a fake one. I don't know if these Oregon trees will show up in Nayarit, but maybe Puerto Vallarta. I will miss trimming the real tree, and will never submit to trimming a fake plastic one.

I have to start my Julebord menue list (Julebord is the Norwegian Christmas Smorgasbord). I plan to do it here in Mexico to feel something of the customs of a cold Minnesota Christmas celebration. Let's see, lutefisk and lefse, ris crem (rice cream dessert flavored with almond and whipped cream), Jarlsburg cheese scalloped potatoes, meatballs and lingonberry reduction sauce (hmmm yummy, the best) and Emily brought her own canned lingonberry preserves from the low bush cranberries she picked in the arctic (Fairbanks, Alaska). Just kidding earlier about the lutefisk. I never made it in my life and probably never will. Or maybe I should start up the old family tradition I grew up with, and make it now that I live in Mexico....but where would I get it? The lefse I have never made either, and I was hoping maybe some Minnesota friends would bring it down when they fly into Puerto Vallarta in December. But alas, I may need to learn to make that too.

After sweating so much the last 55 days down here, my skin is silky smooth and ohhh so soft. But lately it is a little bit cooler, maybe not 91 but maybe 89. Big difference. And the humidity seems to have dropped, so I feel more normal now, a little bit. Watching Hurricane Sergio but it seems to be weakening, so perhaps we will get some rain only out of it. It has been 40 years since two hurricanes formed in November in this part of the Pacific.

Lately I have been printing photos of the birds we saw last May in the laguna or estero (estuary) in La Penita. Also I have been taking more photos of flowers, with my closeup micro lens. Tuesday early we drove south and took a short drive down a dirt road looking for a nice landscape with fields and mountains in the back. I need to capture this beauty now before all the lovely, lush green turns into brown as winter approaches (not all brown, some green remains). But it surely has been incredibly beautiful here after the rainy season turned the landscape into a thick lush flowery world of green and gorgeous colorful flowers. There are also less bugs, except oddly a couple of small crabs were around on the patio a few days ago, which I had not seen before here in this house. One got in the house, I just scooted it out with a broom, and in the morning it was dead. Guess they are giving up on summer.

This will be a busy weekend in town full of tourists, as Mexico celebrates Dia del Revolucion on Monday November 20, which is a National Holiday. No school, and there will be a parade in La Penita with the school children marching. Later in the day at the bull ring there will be bull fights, and in the evening on the square bands playing, dancing and food.

Gets dark early here, 5:30 and light at 6:00 or so. I love the mornings, and maybe tomorrow we will get out and do a beach walk for exercise before we meet friends for coffee and mango smoothies at George's Coffee. He has the book exchange, so we are happy to have this place to meet friends, and hang out at occasionally.

Our dinner tonight was Emily and Luke's idea: fresh guacamole and chips and Mango Smoothie (not fresh, its not the season here, but we get pretty good frozen ones at Sam's Club in PV while we wait for fresh ones again.

Here are just a few flowers I see in my neighborhood and at Mar de Jade resort in Chacala.






























This gorgeous little flower is abundant in my neighborhood.




This strange flower was hanging in my front yard.





This unusual double lavender flower we saw in San Francisco, (San Pancho) the little town south of here, is called Tapate, and is used as a medicine for pain.





The Hibiscus is common here.

As I whiz by on the highway and see so many flowers I have to remind myself to return sometime and photograph them. I haven't done that, but I do walk around my neighborhood and am amazed at the variety around me, some are just growing wild.