Solar heaters (4 November 2021)

That time of the year. Installed the solar heaters again.

Mango or not? (3 November 2021)

 Mango, or not?

Our one and only almost ripe mango, blown off the tree this morning. It looks like it is hurt, or someone may be living inside..

It was very good, the dent is only superficial.

Jostle stone / guardacantón (8 november 2021)

Stumbled upon an article about "jostle stones" - stones placed at the corners of (old) buildings in the days horse-drawn vehicles and wood-iron wheels were all the rage, to protect the walls.

Then it dawned on me that the curious stone at the corner of our house actually *is* a jostle stone! Our house *is* from those days, and the corner used to be at a bend in the road..

"In cities the older guard stones as a concept have been replaced by objects meant for automobile traffic, such as curbs and guard rails. As a city maintenance object they slowly became obsolete and were discarded or reused for other city purposes. When they were incorporated as part of a building's structure however, they were difficult to remove and many remain as silent witnesses to early traffic on historic roads. Today such objects are treasured for historic reasons and are often protected as part of a city's cultural heritage." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_stone

In Spanish they are called "guardacantón" - "corner protectors" - https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardacantón

African death head hawk moth caterpillar (1 November 2021)

Found this in our garden fence, 12 cm long and 2 cm wide. Apparently it's an African death head hawk moth caterpillar.

 

Estrella welcome

Meet Estrella, Lucero’s older sister.

After seeing her in her cage 4 years, never let out, apart from the 2 times she escaped and ended up at our gate, she finally is with us. She is lovely, but quite attention seeking. We hope that betters soon. Now chipped and sterilised and vaccinated.

That means we’re at 7 dogs, which is way over our limit, but we’ll see how we fare.

Frangipani (Plumeria) 2 September 2021

Frangipani/Plumeria. Bought two new ones, big, but quite cheap. One is standard white yellow, but the other is pink and yellow! It has just one flower now, I can still hope it’s a multicolor one, like we lost a few years ago. The best thing is their smell. Luvvly!

lost...

BBQ (28 August 2021)

BBQ (28-26°)

Aperitif and salad (chickpea, cucumber, tomato, etc)

Thing

Chicken lime salt

Chorizo

Escalivada (Janneke Vreugdenhil)

Pff

Spark plugs (25 August 2021, March 2022)

Unhappy: the motor of the car ran a bit irregular at low speed. Jittering a bit when starting to drive. Not normal. Looked at the bill of the last workshop visit, no spark plugs were changed, and no valves were adjusted, a thing they did about every year, or two, in NL.  

Suspected a spark plug before valves, but asked them to take care of both, as it is 5-6 years ago since spark plugs and valves were looked at, still in NL. The valves did not need any adjustment. But, one of the spark plugs indeed was off. 5 spark plugs showed a white end bit, but nr 6 was dark. 

It now runs again as it should. (44 years!)

Happy again. Another triumph for engineer Jansen! 

Update March 2022: again trouble.  The garage determined the spark plug cables were bad, resulting in insufficient ignition. Well, new spark plug cables for this 40+ year old car are not so easy to find. Apparently my engine is very long, which it is, and needs a longer version of the cables than normal. That took almost two weeks! But now the motor runs smoother than ever. Happy again again.

Watermelon pickle (18 August 2021)

Making watermelon pickle, using the leftovers of Monday's salad.

A brilliant pickle, actually.

From: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2018/sep/08/watermelon-rind-skin-pickle-recipe-waste-not-tom-hunt

Pickled watermelon rind

Take 400g watermelon rind with a little flesh still attached, peel off the hard skin and cut into 3cm pieces. Put 275ml water, 100ml vinegar, a teaspoon of red pepper flakes, four teaspoons of salt and 100g sugar in a saucepan, bring to a boil, add the rind, return to a boil and turn off the heat. Fill a clean jam jar with the pickled watermelon and juice, top with a few slices of green chilli and screw on the lid. They’re ready to eat once cooled, and will keep in the fridge for a month or longer.

Fig marmalade (31 July 2021)

Suddenly we have ripe figs. They’re good! 3.5 kg figs, 2kg sugar, 3 oranges, 3 lemons, both zest+juice, 5-spice, extra star anise, cinnamon, vanilla, orange blossom water, elbow grease. Result is 4 liters jam.

For a special jar add some orujo or marc.

Kaasplankie (25 July 2021)

Kaasplankie, cheese platter, plateau de fromage, selección de quesos.

Which cheese is NOT Spanish, it’s one?

Hot (12 July 2021)

 

Vaczeuria, 2nd dose (5 July 2021)

 2nd AZ dose in. (Vaczeuria)

We were 15 mins early, saved an hour queueueing.

Car before us in the queue had two women, the driver left to do something at the front of the queue. Then the queue started moving.

Aaargh! If you get us stuck here behind you I’m going to and yell at you.

Then the queue started moving, still she wasn’t back.

Grr ! Damn! Blast! *naughty words*

Suddenly the car started moving, without a driver.

Brits.

Tex (25 June 2021 +)

Did we mention Tex yet? Here he is, at a small park here in the neighbourhood, May 2021. Some people encountered him, petted him, called in some officials for a chip test, but did nothing. Suppose he had fleas, can't have that in your car! So they left him but put his pic on Facebook.

Then a few weeks later, there he is again, at a house not far from here:

Went over there, and indeed he was there, but was afraid of us and fled, so we could not catch him. Apparently he slept on one of the neighbours terraces, and they fed him once in a while, and provided water. We said that if they could catch him we'll collect him. And they did. 

Skinny!

They do seem to get along well, so far.

Best friends!

Until...! There was some excitement, and a fight between Lucero and Tex, early October 2021. Tex got bitten like this, while Lucero was bitten across his head, and had a puncture in a cheek, which was nastily swollen..

Lucero bettered quite quickly, with antibiotics and anti-inflammants, but Tex not so quickly. This wound is in a nasty spot, as the skin there moves with every step. But, by applying honey-salve, and bandaging in December 2021 the wound finally closed. Currently the skin has it's black pigment back, but still no hair.

What to do. 

First advise: "cut off their goolies"! Tex is now a year old, which means his testosterone levels are super-high, irritating Lucero, causing trouble irritating Tex, etc. 

We hesitated to do an actual castration right away, as some dogs change their character, or become frightened. Fortunately there is a temporary and reversible solution: a hormone implant called "Suprelorin".  That sits under the skin, and suppresses testosterone. There are 6 and 12 month versions. The vet had the 6 month available, so they both got that. Then wait 2 months for their balls to shrink (really), and testosterone levels to go down. 

Meanwhile we needed to keep them separate at all time, or they'd fight again. And dog fights are no fun. Scary too. So, either Tex was free in the garden, while Lucero and Papaya were inside the house, upstairs. Or, text would be locked up on the cave room downstairs, while Lucero was free.  We had to keep that regime up since October 2021. 

Currently (May 2022) we still cannot let them free together. They are reasonably ok together, but there still are moments of excitement where they will growl at each other. Mainly Lucero at Tex, actually. That means we still have to keep up a dog watch where either Lucero is free and Tex on a leash, outside, or both on a leash outside, or one of them inside the house. A bit like the river crossing puzzle with the cabbage, the goat and the wolf..

There are cute moments like this:

But, as soon as one gets a bit agitated there still probably is trouble.

So, in March 2022 they both lost their goolies, and we now have to see how things develop. Currently the separation regime is bearable. The alternative would be to rehome either Tex or Lucero. Tex would have the better chance of finding a new family, he's a really very good dog. But were quite fond of them both, so.. We hope the best of their castration, and will see how things develop.

The table, sanding, oiling (25 June 2021)

 The table, sanding, oiling.