For the second morning in a row we woke to a fairly steady rainfall. The plants in the yard have been anticipating the rainy season for the last month or so. We have seen the jasmine bushes budding out, blossoms on our small lemon and lime trees, and new growth starting on all of our plants. Somehow the plants know that abundant rain will fall in January through March and they all start getting ready early.
Over the last six years we have learned to prepare for the growth spurt as well by pruning back trees and bushes and getting the ground area ready to avoid muddy areas. So we have been working (with the help of Javier and Leon) to prep our yard.
Yesterday we asked Leon to trim back our fig tree. Fig trees grow amazingly fast here and, if left untrimmed, will fill up a circular area over ten feet in diameter. We have regularly trimmed the errant limbs, but Leon suggested that we trim the fig tree back drastically to allow for only two or three main branches. Yesterday morning the fig tree looked like this:
Leon cleared out all but two to the middle branches and cut back the remaining sections.
After an hour or so the area looked tamed.
Mary suggested that we cut out a bit of the lawn area and make a walkway of stones to allow for drainage and clear access to the chicken coop.
We also cut back some grass that was invading the stone area and trimmed the plants.
The rascally chickens also helped in the trimming reminding us that we need to redesign the wire barriers around the tender plants to give the plants more room and to stop the now full-grown chickens from feasting on the ornamental plants.
In spite of the dry season and the intrusion of our ever hungry chickens, the plants are thriving and make for beautiful serene areas to sit and enjoy the beautiful Ecuadorian weather.
We are especially pleased with the jasmine plants along our deck area which are working to fill the air with one of God’s most pleasant smelling creations.
But, sometimes maintaining a yard here is a bit like one step forward and two steps back. Case in point – the front of our yard along the roadway has been a challenge. While we were on vacation the Canton (something like a county in the United States) brought in loads of dirt and rocks and resurfaced our road. In the process of dumping the road base one of the trucks caught the cables bringing telephone and internet service to the house and the graders pushed several larger rocks off to the side up and into our aloe vera plants.
The cables were re-strung and internet service was restored a few days after we got home, but it was not until yesterday that Leon and I tackled moving the large stones and weeding and cleaning up the plants.
You can see that we were not kidding about the stones being large! We still have to cart off a few stones the size of our wheelbarrow, but for now the plants have room to grow and should fill right back in with the coming rains.
Mary and I are planning a big barbecue event here in November. As part of that event we want to have a cornhole toss and horseshoe throwing competition. So we have been cleaning up and repainting the cornhole set and Mary is making new bean bags (actually corn filled bags).
The work on the horseshoe pits has actually been ongoing for over a year. We plan to make the pits on the west side of our yard along the fence line. When we moved in to the house that area was literally filled with trees. The problem was that one large tree in a neighboring property had grown out and over three smaller trees in our yard. The trees were shaded from any sunlight. One tree had been so starved for sunlight that it was growing parallel to the ground and reached over the roof line of our home. Another tree was dead for lack of sunlight and a small fruit tree was leaning over almost to the ground.
Javier and Leon both have worked to trim the neighboring tree back drastically so that no part of it extends over our yard area and to remove the dead tree and the large misshapen tree that had grown into and over the house. The small fruit tree was still enough of a sapling that we have been able to pull it more upright and we are working to keep it trimmed and watered so that it can fill out in the now open area.
We now have plenty of room for the horseshoe pits. But maybe some of you noticed the pile of wood on the concrete behind the little tree.
When Leon cut the dead tree out I could not bear to see the wood discarded. The tree was a algaroba blanco tree and is known for its’ extremely hard beautiful wood. We asked Leon if he knew of someone who could cut the wood up into sections so that we could make plagues or other novelties from the beautiful wood. Leon took one of the branches home with him last week and carried this pile of future plaques up to the door when he arrived yesterday.
That little pile of wood will keep us busy with many hours of art and wood burning projects! I was so excited about the prospects that I got out my sand paper and started to smooth out one of the pieces. The wood is extremely hard! After about two hours of sanding by hand I realized that I needed to borrow a power sander and put out a request on Facebook. A friend responded and today I bought some belts of sandpaper to use as soon as I get the belt sander down from our friend’s house.
But after a couple of hours of hand sanding without the power sander you can see the prospects.
This piece still has some deep grooves to sand out, but it is obvious that the work will be so rewarding. Now we will have to figure out what we will make with this beautiful wood.
Years ago we wrote a post titled, “Even the Weeds are Beautiful in Ecuador.” Well, now you know that even the dead trees are beautiful here where…
Life is good in Ecuador!
Congratulations, you’re cetainly getting down to grass roots. I’ve mentioned that we have land near Pedrenales. We are lucky to have fresh water just three meters under the land. We have just installed a pump which, as we live in Germany and are not technically minded, needed local help. We are beach front and have a few palm trees scattered around the place. We need to clear the land every three months, leaving it farrow. It’s been farrow for over 50 years and the earth is good. Any ideas what we could plant there? The locals suggested water melons (sandia) but this requires much labour.
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You are fortunate to have available water. As far as what you should grow there, I would trust the local people inasmuch as they have the long term experience and knowlege to help you. Our experience here though tells us that you can grow just about anything here as long as you put in the time to plant correctly, water often, and tend the plants regularly.
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Thanks for your kind advice. Yes we are lucky to have water. I’m told it’s an underground river. Even on the sand beach, if we dig we have water. We have a guardian but he knows less on the correct plants and flowers than we do
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I just love your oasis of a yard! And what a wonderful gift of the wood to be repurposed….Blessings abound!
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Every day we thank the good Lord above for the blessings of life in general and life here in San Clemente in particular. Life is so good!
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Your yard is beautiful!
Enjoy your communication!
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Thank you, and we enjoy your comments. Always good to hear from an old friend. Have a good day. JandM
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The fig looks wonderful ‘sculpted’ and will add lovely lines as well as filtered shade/light! I’ll bet that the trimmings will easily take root…
Two nights ago I dreamed that Ms Mary was piloting a boat along the edge of a tranquil river.. and I was toward the front and spotted we were getting really close to a sandbar…. she expertly veered us to the right and into deeper waters….
where in the world do these stories come from?!!!!!
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wow, that was some dream. I have been at the helm of boats before on Lake Erie. We always had to keep an eye open for fishing nets. Wonder what a dream analyst would make of it ? 😉 Deep water did bring to mind a song I heard quite awhile back.
” Go to deep waters, deep waters, where only faith will let you go.
Go out to deep waters, deep waters, harvests of faith will overflow.”
hugs
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nice song to pair with the dream! sometimes my dreams are so real, and i ‘visit’ people and places i’ve never been/seen – it’s as if i slip over into another life.. ha, perhaps we’re all over in that other life, ebbing back and forth in the dream state!!!!!
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