The Golden 8 Energy Balancing Exercises

Today began with a QiGong class at 10 a.m. on the roof of Ana Ruth's in the Fox den.  QiGong is a mixture of Tai Chi and yoga with some Brain Gym and other Foxy goodies thrown into the mixture.  Four contestants/athletes showed up.

We call this move - "playing dead".

Lots of interesting moves were executed to almost perfection by the participants, in the hour,  including the following 8 Energy Balancing Exercises ...

1.  Reach for the Sky
2.  The Archer
3.  Between Heaven and Earth
4.  Look Back and Let Go
5.  Head and Tail
6.  Inhale Exhale
7.  Karate Punch
8.  Energy Jump

Betty has a favourite restaurant on the beach called, "Karen's", that serves tacos in a hot sauce,so around 1 p.m., off we went.  Along the way, we met Rose, from Dryden in northern Ontario.  She had just received a baby chihuahua from a lady in Mexico who couldn't look after it anymore.  Her name was Pippi ...  Sue wants to bring a chihuahua home, so that her new cat, Exene, will have a play mate.  I guess we will have to check out the Humane Society in Puerto Vallarta.

Here is Pippi at 3 months ...  http://youtu.be/cAOfTAhe9t8

We did finally get to Karen's on the beach, ate the fish, and picked up more tiles for the table we are going to create.  Sue ate some "hot" sauce on her fish that didn't agree with her stomach.

The day ended with another "ok" sunset.  It was hot today!

Mexican Critters Rule!

The day started with a stunning sunrise over the Sierra Madre mountains.  As is our habit most mornings, Robert and I joined the ranks of joggers, cyclists, and walkers on Cardenia Street, the main street that runs parallel to the beach.  We walk for several miles on groomed walkways past many resorts, until it is time to turn around and 'boogie' back to the solitude of our tree house for porridge and fruit.  Today, we met some of our animal friends, the coatimundi, who inhabit the densely marshy woods near the lush and very expensive hotel complexes.  The coatimundi have been conditioned in this area to wait each morning for the tourists to come out of their hotels with food scraps and feed them.

Here are 4  interesting facts about this cousin of the racoon ...

1.  Coatis often hold their taisl erect so as to keep troops of coatis together in tall vegetation. 
2.  These intelligent "hog-nose" racoons have a very flexible snout.
3.  Coatis are omnivores and their diet consists mainly of ground litter invertebrates, such as tarantula, and fruit.   They also eat small vertebrate prey, such as lizards, rodents, small birds, birds' eggs, and crocodile eggs.
4.  They can be kept as pets and it is possible to litter train them.  Keep in mind that they are "wild" unlike the dog and cats in our houses today.

The pelican is a popular bird on Bucerias' beach.  It can have a wing span of 10 feet and can fly as high as 10,000 feet soaring on the thermals.  When it eats, the pelican catches prey in its large gular sack, squeezes the water out the side of its bill, moves the food until it is facing head-down in its throat, and swallows.

Sue is amazing with her camera ...  http://youtu.be/B3M5t52CTyg

The 10 hour bus ride

It is springtime here in western Mexico and the sun rises at 7:15 a.m.  It was warm and beautiful when we woke this morning, so after a hardy bowl of porridge with fresh Canadian maple syrup and local fresh strawberries, Betty, Sue, and Rob were off down the beach in search of coloured tiles.  Their plan is to cover a table found in the hotel with these beach clay tiles that wash ashore every day.  They have agreed that their theme will be the Mexican Spinytail Iguana, which is native to this area.

These lizards are primarily herbivores.  They love the tropical trees and they are very difficult to see.  Sue met eleven year old George today while walking over to Kathy's house to listen to a lecture on the Monarch Butterfly.  Like humans, iguanas can live to 100 if humans don't destroy their habitat.

Betty, Sue and Rob went to Kathy and Bill's house this afternoon to listen to Donna and Cliff talk about their trip to a mountaintop in Michoacán, Mexico.  They witnessed millions of Canadian monarch butterflies fluttering about in their secret mountain haven.  Fred Urquhart, a Canadian scientist, has been studying monarchs since the 1950's.  I guess the Monarch butterflies were the first snowbirds, trying to escape the harsh Canadian winters.  

Watch the "Flight of the Butterflies" at this link to discover their secret hiding place ...

http://myon.biz/37/play.php?movie=2174750

Jack wanted to show all of us his pet iguana which he named, "Poison", who lives on his window.

On their return trip back to the treehouse hotel, Betty, Sue, and Rob, met a Mexican hairless dog better known as a Xolos.  Xolos were considered sacred dogs by the Aztecs (and also Toltecs, Maya and some other groups) because they believed the dogs were needed by their masters’ souls to help them safely through the underworld.  They have been around in Mexico for more than 3000 years.   

A wedding also took place at Karen's seaside restaurant as the 3 old snowbirds passed by, but they were more focused on collecting tiles for their table.  The perigean spring tides were happening today, and the sun and moon were closer to the Earth at this time, making their gravitational pulls stronger, thus more tiles on the beach.

The day ended with a delicious Mexican meal consisting of Mexican baked chicken done in a apple olive oil sauce, baked Mexican potatoes flavoured with mantequilla and local harvested rosemary, fresh Sunday Mexican market carrots cooked to perfection, with strawberries and cream purchased from a local farmer called Pedro - Oh, the white wine was a Reserve Chilean Sauvignon Blanc!

There is one more 4 day trip to the Monarch butterfly reserve happening on Feb. 10 and Robert and Sue are contemplating going.  There is only one problem ... it is a 10 hour bus ride one way.

Beach Bum Betty

Betty was with our group last year here in Bucerias but she stayed in a condo about 2 blocks away.  (This year, she is in the apartment below us.  Today was a full day for Betty.)

Betty went with Kathy and Bill and MaryLynne and Steve to Costco downtown Puerto Vallarta.
(Betty has the membership card.)

Betty fell in her apartment last night while traveling from her bedroom to her bathroom in the dark.
(She banged her arm, wrist, and head.)

Betty went to the beach this afternoon with Sue and Robert.
(The water was calm and warm and the air was clear.  After 3 days of rain, it should be.  She saw large fish very close to shore, trying to return to deeper water.  The frigate birds were having a feast.  She also saw a woman with a pet butterfly.)

Betty went to the treehouse on the roof for supper with Rob and Sue.
(She had fish, chicken, sweet potatoes (camote), spinach and fresh salad,  with Sue's very expensive Balsamic vinegar dressing.)

Betty enjoyed the full moon and the fireworks from our palapa.
(She went home early to mend her wounds and try and get her ancient tv to work with the old coaxl cable.)

Not Even a Crumb!

     As a young boy, I remember meal time at my house being very competitive.  My mother did all the cooking, and my father did all the eating.  He was a construction worker, and he seemed to eat a great deal.  My mother would put all the food into bowls, and the bowls would circulate around the table.  My mother, my father, my sister, and my brother and myself took whatever we wanted from the bowls but whatever we took, it had to be eaten.  My father made sure of that.  Of course, to get "seconds", you could take more, if everything on your plate was gone.  There was only one problem ... my father was a big man with a big appetite and a big mouth.  His plate was always cleaned first, and then he would eat everything left in all the bowls.  I tried to keep up with him, but to no avail.  Once all the main course was devoured, my father would start on the dessert, and on Sunday, the dessert was always chocolate cake.  He would eat all of it if he could, so I gulped down my food, ate seconds, and then dove into the cake as well.

     I married Sue at 18 and immediately took over the cooking.  Sue didn't like to cook.  I made at least one cake a week and after years of experimenting with different recipes, I had mastered the best carrot cake in the world recipe.  Here is the recipe if you don't believe me ...

Foxy Carrot Cake
adapted from the Net

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 extra large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup canola oil
1/2 cup buttermilk
2/3 cups firmly packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup crushed pineapple, drained (or 1/2 cup of applesauce)
1 pound finely grated carrots
1 cup toasted chopped pecans
1 cup golden raisins
1 batch Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe follows)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Prepare two 9-inch cake pans by lightly coating with oil and lining with parchment paper.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt and nutmeg together in a bowl.  Set aside.

Mix the eggs, sugar, oil, buttermilk, brown sugar, vanilla, and pineapple together in a large bowl.   Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until fully incorporated.   Stir in the carrots, pecans and raisins just until evenly distributed throughout the batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake on the center rack for about 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean.

Cool cakes in their pans for at least 30 minutes before attempting to remove them.  Then, remove from the pans and peel off the parchment paper.  Continue to cool the cakes completely before frosting.

Ice the cake anyway you want, but I usually spread icing between the top and bottom layers, and then ice the whole cake.  Chill a bit to firm up the frosting before eating.

An interesting favorite Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

16 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon orange extract
3-4 cups confectioners’ sugar to taste

Directions:

Beat cream cheese and butter together until smooth.  Add extracts and beat just until incorporated.  Beat in sugar, one cup at a time, until frosting has the flavor and consistency you want.  You may not need to add all of the sugar.

Three years ago, we started to winter in Bucerias Mexico.  They have a market in a little seaside town called La Cruz, a few miles north of Bucerias, every Sunday.  There is a young couple, Todd & Lolita, at that market who sell their version of the 'best carrot cake in the world'.  First we bought one piece each.  It was great!  The next week, we purchased a whole cake.  We shared it with our friends and everyone raved about it.  The next week, we bought another whole cake and devoured it in the privacy of our rooftop tree house late at night when no one was around.

One week, we asked Todd & Lolita for their recipe, but they wouldn't share it.  I think they use the same recipe as I use above, but Sue disagrees.  She thinks theirs is better.  Do they use butter like me?  Do they add  pineapple or applesauce to make it moist like me?  Is it the oil they use?  Maybe they use yogurt or sour cream instead of  buttermilk?  

I am not sure, but what I do know is that as long as we are here in Mexico and as long as Todd & Lolita are making this carrot cake, we will be buying and eating it, and NOT sharing any of it - Not Even a Crumb!

Enterolobium cyclocarpum

     Last year, we lived on the roof of the quaint beachside hotel in Bucerias called Ana Ruth's, and for 65 days it was sunny and hot.  We did see one cloud.  It is February again, and we are here until March 31.  We expect the same weather as last year.  The rooftop has many tropical plants including orchids, bougainvilla, and succulents, and Sue and I pruned them, and watered them often.  They thanked us with their beauty and colours.  The largest parrot tree in Bucerias stands right beside the hotel on the kitchen side.  It is home for several Night Herons, and one very large iguana.  We love it!  It provides us with the necessary shade we need to escape the scorching sun at mid day.
     Yesterday and today it has rained steady.  Not just a typical rain shower like we would have on a summer afternoon in Ontario, but tons of water fell from the sky.  This was also moving day for us.  We arrived in Bucerias on January 26, and have been staying with our friends Kathy and Bill in their delightful Mexican hacienda.  
     Today, in the rainstorm, we moved into the tree house.  The only rooms indoors are the bedroom and the tiny bathroom.  That's what we like about our accommodation here. But today, the rain was challenging for us.  Of course, all the plants and the giant parrot tree loved the showers.
     Enterolobium cyclocarpum, better known as a Parota tree, has been protected here in Mexico since 2001.  The tree is prized for the shady relief it provides from the intense sun, and, coupled with its immensity, has made it a widely recognized species.  It is one of 5 precious hardwoods in Mexico, and is known for its resistance to termites.  It can reach heights of up to 140 ft, and its trunk can reach 10 ft. in diameter.

     The "parota" is a very leafy tree that grows fast. It is usually planted by farmers in order to offer shade to the cattle, especially during the summer.  Its foliage has high contents of protein and is used as an additional source of food for cattle.  January to April is springtime here in Bucerias.  This tree slowly sheds it leaves during these months, and at the same time, grows new ones.  March is a busy time for tree house people.  We sweep parrot leaves every day and we love every minute of it!

Our friend Betty arrived tonight.  She is in the apartment right under us.

the tree

the view