Hi all,
I'm still stopping by and trying to read and catch up. I've got some pics to share. First, a dragonfly that we saw on our way down. We were up in the highlands and there are a lot of lakes in the area. I snapped the pic to share here but then forgot I had it.
In the same area, these flowers were growing wild everywhere. They look kind of familiar but I don't know what they are.
We've been in Mérida for about a month, we were over on the coast before that. Things are moving with the house but slowly. We have final enough plans that we've submitted them for a building permit. It's a historical district so we need several permits, we're hoping those will be done by next week and demolition can start. The rainy season happened while we were gone and the yard is so overgrown we can't get into it. Also, the roof leaks in the kitchen and water came in the front door. I told you it was a ruin, well, it has not improved any. It was scary walking in with the floors wet, the smell of mold and a bazillion mosquitoes breeding in there. I have to keep reminding myself that we're adding a floor so the roof is going anyway, the front will be sloped out and the stoop built up, the mosquitoes will get killed and my pond will take care of any new ones. Ponds are a great mosquito abatement project I discovered, they are so attractive to the females that they prefer to lay their eggs there and the fish eat them.
I'm spending most of my time pricing stuff like appliances and getting the dimensions so the kitchen and laundry room plans can get finalized. Also deciding on things like tiles and doors. I'm really excited about one feature of the plans that has a long, narrow pond inside in the hallway. The hall of the house runs the whole depth of the house and is very wide, about 8', and one length of about 15' will have this indoor water feature that is open up 2 stories to the sky. It's mainly to let light in but I immediately saw it as a pond that I could have tropical fish in. In the architects design, there were stone spitters along the wall that dribbled water into it. I am thinking that if I had stone planters along there that overflowed into it then they would work like a bog filter and I could keep the water clear and the fish healthy. What do you think? It will be 15 or so feet long and only about 2' wide. I have visions of schools of brightly colored small tropical fish living in it.
We've added another dog to our menagerie, when we arrived at the RV park here there was a starving doberman puppy running around. She had some health problems and has spent about 2 weeks so far at the vet but she is doing really well now and we've named her Cuba. The vet thinks she is 6 to 7 months old. She's got these enormously long legs, I feed her 3 times what our other dogs eat and it seems to just disappear in her. She doesn't have worms or parasites so I guess it is all going into puppy energy and growth. She's still really skinny but she has a ton of energy now and she is very sweet.
Oh, and this guy lives behind us in one of the sewer drains
He's a Yucatan Spiny Tailed Iguana and when I looked him up it said they do not make good pets because they are aggressive and mad all the time! I'd say he's mad because everytime he starts sunning himself, we let the dogs out and he has to pop back down his hole.
I'm going to try and find the aquatic gardens I've heard about that have lots of water lilies, if I find them I'll take lots of pics.
Jonna
