Sitting here this morning beginning our new blog, I am smiling as I hear our two roosters calling back and forth. It sounds like a verbal macho battle. Our new rooster (Ganzo), like two of our dogs, has only one eye. His crow is also a bit pathetic as if he’d damaged his vocal cords but that doesn’t stop him from crowing back. Lucky’s four puppies can also be heard fighting and playing with each other. For some reason Lucky had her pups down on the river bank under some carizzo. After about a week she carried them up to the old abandoned house next to ours. One evening it poured. I checked on the pups and they were wet and trembling terribly from the cold. We brought them into the patio for the night and dried them good. The next morning I moved them into the dog house. They now like to sleep on the porch behind a big planter. Lucky’s been a great mom and Coby is now Tio Coby. He’s very patient with them even when they are biting his tail with their little sharp teeth. For the last few days the pups are venturing out into the yard. They play with the big dogs for a while then return to sleep. Of course Scooter wants nothing to do with the little bastards. If they touch him he growls and snaps at them. Lucky is now trying to wean the pups so she's gone for long periods and rarely allows the pups to suckle. I guess she figures she's done her time. Coby diligently keeps them company. The four pups have evolved into quite a challenge. It's a bit like caring for four one year olds. Some of my outside chores have to be done when the pups are asleep. They gather around my feet and make it very difficult to maneuver safely.

Feeding time is a zoo. The pups want what the dogs have. Dogs want what the pups have. Chickens want what the dogs have. Dogs want what the chickens have. Dogs want what the other dog has. Chickens want what the other chickens have. We truly have to be referees. Everything has to be planned and timed.

Lucky feeding her pups. 

Tio Coby was very nervous when the pups began to leave the house. He even tried to push them back in.

One of our hens disappeared for a couple of days. She returned then went missing again. This went on for a while and we finally figured out she had a nest somewhere in the brush. We are anxious for the day she returns with her pollitos. I’ll have to put a ramp in the doorway of the coop so they’ll be safe at night. The crowing continues and the two roosters maybe working up to a physical battle (probably not since Ganzo is a coward).

This is Gonzo our new rooster. The photo doesn't do him justice. He's very pretty.

Here's something you don't see every day!! Betty is our most domesticated hen.

From just a few rains everything is green again. It’s amazing how fast it goes from a dismal looking brown to a rich green color. The downside of the rain is that the bugs are back. We are constantly discovering new varieties. Some of the bugs like our plants and trees so we’ll be battling it out with them again. Some of the color schemes of the bugs are fascinating. Many are multicolored with strong colors and spectacular patterns. We are constantly reading about and trying natural repellents. The worst by far are the chiggers. The itching lasts for days.

You can see how green the grass is from just two or three rains.

A while back a friend asked if I could drive to Oaxaca to the bus station and pick up his nephew the next day. His nephew was flying to Mexico City then coming to Oaxaca by bus. The next day my friend and his wife got a call from their nephew. He’d tried to bring thirty thousand dollars into Mexico without declaring it. For a mordida (bribe) the officer was willing to let the nephew go. My friend didn’t have the money so they asked if I’d help. I wired the money from Banamex here to Mexico City to the account I was given. The whole thing ended up being a scam. My friend called their nephew who was still in California and had no plans of returning. It was a hard learned lesson. Bummer!! We were told later that most of these scams originate from prisoners who have cell phones.

Our last (and hopefully final) trip to Guatemala was our smoothest ever. The only problem was that about four hours from the border a village had blocked the freeway. The blockage was on a narrow strip of the highway in the middle of nowhere. I stopped behind a line of semi trucks. I got out and spoke to some drivers. They’d been there for twenty-four hours. The road was too narrow for them to turn around so they were stuck. They did give me directions though to bypass the blockage. We traveled through some interesting villages and lost about an hour and a half. One of the interesting things we noticed was that a few villages don’t use the little motorized taxis. They still use bicycles with a large rack on the front. Maybe it is because of the pollution factor? The blockade was still there when we returned so we had to go around again. The next day on our way home an official told me that the road was still blocked. Poor truck drivers. I was told the village had blocked the highway because the government had pulled the accreditation from a school. It seems that so many students were unable to pass their final exams that the government decided the school just wasn’t working. 

The next three photos are of the actual blockade. With all that time on their hands you'd think they could pick up their garbage.

Beth snapped these photos of the detour out of the truck window. The vegetation here is very dense. The two following shots show the bicycle taxis. I've mentioned before that Chiapas is very beautiful but it's extremely hot and humid.

We kind of fell into a caravan. Good thing because the detour was pretty complicated.

Some of the teachers here in Oaxaca are striking again. I read that a lot of the fuss is over the teachers having to pass tests in their content area. Blocking roadways wasn’t enough so they decided to block the Pemex factory that distributes gasoline throughout the valley. Stations quickly ran out of gas so traffic was greatly reduced. Many people were out of work because they couldn’t get any products. Here in Tlacolula they also blocked a voting location. The Federal police finally came and removed the teachers. I did read that one of the conditions the teachers were asking for was a hundred percent pay raise. You’ll see in the videos as we passed the two blocked areas that most of the cars are newer. Folks that are farmers cannot afford such cars. In fact we have only one friend that drives a newer model. He works for the electric company. There are a couple of nearby villages that told their teachers that if they leave school to protest, don't come back. The teachers stayed. Wish all towns and villages would do that. The kids ended up missing about two and a half weeks of school. The teachers stipulated that if they caught anyone taking pictures of their protest, they would confiscate either cell phone or camera. We ignored the warning and took these videos. We figured as were were on the highway, it was safe.

This video is passing the Pemex distribution center outside of Tule. Under the tarps are the protesters.

This video shows the teachers blocking a voting station in Tlacolula. Again mostly new cars.

Yesterday we signed papers to transfer our land into our names. It was quite a process getting to this point. We should have our title well before our trip to the US in November.

Felipe's grand daughter is here from North Carolina for the summer. Her sister's 3rd birthday was back in April and June18th marked our third year here. On the 27th of June we are going to have a fiesta celebrating the three events. We are going to provide the location, tables and chairs, and the cake. Margarita's family is going to provide tamales. Yummy!! Photos to follow in our blog next month........