feydesigns

On running again

December 31, 2013

A perfect 3 miles from my house to the beach and back.

Bandon City Park

down the Coquille Head stairs

Sometimes your feet are the only thing that will get you there.

Happy New Year… May life find us in the places we need to be.

Oh, spring!

March 8, 2013

Being Country Bred
by Mary Oliver

Being country bred, I am at ease in darkness;
like everything that thrives
in fields beyond the city’s keep, I own
five wooden senses, and a sixth like water.

These things I know
before they set their mark upon the earth:
chinook and snow,
mornings of frost in the well, of birth in the barns.

Sweet world,
think not to confuse me with poems or love beginning
without a sign or sound:
Here at the edge of rivers hung with ice
spring is still miles away, and yet I wake
throughout the dark, listen, and throb with all
her summoning explosions underground.

Tonari no Totoro

February 10, 2013

in my yard!

looking for acorns?

waiting for the Nekobasu

^.^

of Making Yarn

January 22, 2013

Spinning is …

wonderfully relaxing.

This is “Veggie Patch”.

Available with other handspun yarns at feyfound.etsy.com.

feydesigns etsy shop sale

January 9, 2013

oooh, ahhh.
a sale section in my etsy shop.
check it out! more to come!

Down the Stairs

January 4, 2013

Well.

Been waiting at the top of those stairs for a while, eh.

Let us head on down.

There’s Logan in front of me. I lost count at over 100 stairs. Below looked to be…
foundations of dwellings. I didn’t see signage anywhere. Of course the jungle was busy trying to take it back.

Logan and I poked around for a bit and then he spotted an open wall-tunnel doorway. Usually these doorways are closed up.

This was once a tunnel that ran along inside the wall. I let Logan go in first.

Nothing but some empty niches. Logan mentioned something about body part storage and we left. The air was different down there, heavier and older somehow.

Back up above we wandered slowly, getting tired. Harvey and Fiora rested on the stairs just outside the ancient ball court.

The ball court. You know the one where they had big stone hoops around their hips and and to hit a hard rubber ball with their hip stones into a hoop. Sounds easy right?

The hoops, or goals, are gone but the the court was lush.

By this time it was around 10am. Tourists were arriving by the bus load. We knew our magical time there was up.

We headed back up to the main area and I realized we needed to take our proof-we-were-here pictures.

Logan took one of Harvey, Fiora and I:

and then I snapped one of Logan:

Palenque is truly a beautiful site. I highly recommend this one, as it is small, easy to see in about two hours and the natural beauty is stunning.

Palenque

November 24, 2012

Every so often we get to stop and see something amazing on the long drive home from the Yucatan.

This year we decided that the lure of ruins…Palenque…

in Chiapas, was too strong to resist.

We asked our friend Jen about a place to stay near Palenque where we could have the dog. Many hotels in Mexico don’t allow dogs. She suggested an interesting, er, settlement, if you will, just outside the gates of the archeological zone. Her exact words were “hippie enclave”. We knew we’d be right at home.

Called “El Panchan”, it is at the foot of the road to the ruins. A rutted dirt road leads you into the jungle and several sleeping and eating establishments.

A small river winds through the area, full of black fish.

Did I mention the jungle? Yes, this area is all jungle. Turn your back and it creeps up on you.

We stayed at Margarita and Ed’s. Ed lost his battle with cancer a few years ago, but Margarita is still keeping the place going and we greatly enjoyed our traditional palapa roofed huts. With HOT WATER. Delicious.

We ate at the large on-site restaurant called Don Mucho’s.

They serve everything from traditional Mexican to pizza and calzone. Live music at 8pm on a wildly painted stage. Groovy man.

At 4 in the morning the howler monkeys woke us.

“Aw,” you say, “Monkey alarm clock, that is so cool!”

No.

No, it isn’t. Have you ever heard a howler monkey? At 4 am? In the dark? In a grass roofed hut with nothing between you and the dark jungle but screens and fabric curtains? HAVE YOU?

Okay, I admit, I had never heard a howler monkey before. Never. Not even on the National Geographic channel.

I honestly thought something … something large and feline and very, very, VERY hungry was coming to eviscerate and eat us.

So. Yeah. Here is a youtube video link to howler monkeys.

I hope you can understand my discombobulation and eagerness to get up and out of there and up to the ruins.

Thankfully the ruins open at 8am. We were there with bells on at 7:20. (Just so you know, when you buy a ticket to get in, it is good for the museum down the hill as well. Be sure to visit the museum. Many of the precious items and carvings (stela or stelae) that were uncovered at the site are located in the museum.)

Here’s Fiora at the entrance, telling me that the sign is in “English, Spanish AND Maya Indian!…wait, and something else?”

Parts of the Palenque ruins date back to 226 BCE (Maybe earlier? Depends on which research one reads.) but it seems it was most happenin’ during the 7th century. A medium sized site (as compared to Uxmal or Chichen Itza) it is easily explored in a couple of hours.

Sadly, The Temple of the Skull and the Temple of the Inscriptions were behind tarps and yellow tape with seemingly endless maintenance.

Logan and I were itching to climb. But we had to wait.

The area was all ready abandoned when Spanish explorers hit the area in the 16th century. The local Maya called the area “Otolum” which means “land with strong houses.”

I’ll say.

Amazing carvings on the supports.

All the buildings have signs in English, Spanish and the local indigenous language with the history and names.

Up and inside El Palacio.

See that jungle in the background? Guess who was up in those trees, howling their little furry faces off? The monkey talk reverberated out and over the ruins all morning.

Logan and I couldn’t wait to climb up these stairs. Templo del Conde, so named for the Conde/Count that stayed in the building in the 19th century. Nice penthouse.

A better perspective of the long climb.

Behind this set of buildings…

…two green parrots flew up from below, right at my head. I was the only one who saw them, unfortunately.

We are up high!

Okay, only about 750 above sea level, but still. Higher than we are used to here at the beach.

Just below this set of building, Logan and I found a set of stairs.

Where do they lead?

Stay tuned….

Morning Walk

October 27, 2012

Son and I like to get up around 7am and head out for a walk. Well, he rides the bike and I try to jog. So it is a walk.

We go out of our driveway and turn left– east. Chabihau has one main road going through it and we wander along.

Always the town dogs come out to say hello…

and a kitty who’d rather not be photographed, thank you very much.

Local fisherman out for the early catch.

Yes, he is standing on a pile of rubble, still on the beach from a hurricane that hit in 2001.

Boats all lined up.

A little further down the road are a set of palapas that are used on Sundays to hang out at the beach.

Rent is cheap.

Look! A flower!

I just love this yellow door.

The municipal building in centro is yellow too.

Back at home, all is well, and it is time for breakfast.

Can’t get enough of this view!

Hello October

October 4, 2012

We’ve been having loads of rain and gloomy cloudy-filled mornings here in Yucatan. Went for a short walk one morning when the light was low and soft. Found the above flower, I honestly don’t know what it is. Any guesses?

Oh look, it is a cute doggy in a hammock.

On that same morning walk I found a heron at the end of a neighbor’s pier. Just as I snapped the picture, a pelican flew by.

Crab! Tiny little guy. The birds were after him, I’m sure.

Just a few pictures. Don’t worry, the weather is still great and all is well. We hear there is a new Thai place about 20 minutes away. MUST GO TRY.

So I’ll leave you with this for now–

whatever you do–

DON’T TOUCH THE EMERGENCY BUTTON!

Hee hee, couldn’t resist. Snapped at a Pemex (gas) station outside Progreso.

Oregon to Yucatan 2012, por esto!

September 26, 2012

Oregon to Yucatan 2012

Safe and sound in Chabihau, Yucatan, Mexico. We arrived, breathless, on Sunday, September 2nd.
Of course we found no water, no electricity and two years worth of sand in the house. But true to what we love about this place; within seconds of our arrival, all of our local friends showed up to help. Alma helped me clean out the house. Ruben laid a cord from his place to ours so that we could have lights and fans and the refrigerator. Tino connected the water and started in on cleaning the yard. And even Francisco Leon stopped by to hook up the TV.

The place looks great so far–

We’re here. We’re happy.
Fi in the hammock–

And my coco trees are FULL of cocos!

It is warm and a bit humid, but we have the wind off of the sea, and, well, I *like* it hot.

Speaking of hot, our trip here was fabulous. We had the best border crossing ever. We got up at 4am on the 31st of August and we were at the McAllen/Reynosa border by 5am. We parked in the customs area and were quickly greeted by our own personal guide. “Fox” helped us with everything. Even filling out the forms, which we’ve done a million times before, but he was quick quick quick. He walked us from window to window; here, now here, now back over here. Pay this, put this sticker here, now pay for this.
It was wonderful.
Bless you Mr. Fox!

We hit the road without any troubles at all and spent our first night in Esteros at a funky roadside hotel.

Great fajitas with ice cold beer.

The next day we drove from Esteros to Cardenas. It was a long haul. Driving in Mexico is very interesting. You have to keep an eye on everything at all times.

See that car half in our lane with its lights on? It is passing that truck and we have to get over. That is just the way it works. It is actually a very practical way to drive, simply because you don’t have to be stuck behind a big slow moving truck forever– if you want to pass, the oncoming traffic is supposed to get over. And they usually do. ::cough:: Okay, moving on…

Topes topes topes. Some are nice and flat on top like this one–

Others will scrape off the underside of your car. We learned this fabulous technique of coming up to the tope at an angle…but this only works if one *sees* the tope in time.

There are many wonderful bridges on our route. Here is the Puente Tampico over the Rio Tamesi–

Of course these are all toll bridges. Some of the Plazas de Cobros are really fancy–

I think this should go on pinterest, don’t you?

Look at this giant fruit stand:

Oh Nom Nom.
(note the tope sign on the far left)

My top favorite road-side food in Mexico is Pollo Asado–

These places weren’t open -yet- when we passed through.

Wait, where are we going?

Anyway, we made it. By the way, driving here is not easy, please don’t try it without first researching where you are going. We use a GPS with the most up-to-date Mexico maps, cross referenced with a paper highway map that I purchased in Merida. Just thought I’d mention that.

Now that we’ve been here a few weeks and settled in, here are some pictures of the sea, sky and a bit of my kitchen remodel.
See the yellow cabinets under the sink area? Tore those out. They were bug eaten and useless. So we’ll just have the nice, bright barely used tiled shelves underneath. I’ll run a curtain to hide the underside of the sink.
Before: