Friday, January 21, 2011

this year's baby.......




Our original black and white cat, appropriately named Mama, has been with us for 3 winters now. Each year she presents us with a new baby. This is the newest one. We have no idea where she has them, or where she keeps them until they are old enough to get around the neighbourhood. Maybe she only has one, or maybe only one lives........









Anyway, this dear little boy is just old enough now to jump down from our courtyard wall (or climb down the tree) to get to the food box.











He is still nursing on her, but she won't let him go for long, and he is gobbling down the cat kibble, so is on his way to being independent.











Here he is peering in from the tree - very skittish, of course, no petting any of these guys and gals, but it is endless entertainment watching them come and go and eat every day. In the summer when we are not here, our wonderful house sitter feeds them once a week, and that seems to get them through. Cats are much more able to fend for themselves food wise than dogs. We have Christened this little guy Maya (just in case He turns out to be a She).
Posted by Picasa

household projects......




So we wanted an umbrella stand in the back which we could move around as needed. The heavy metal or concrete ones are $80 (that's dollars!!) so we resorted to strapping it to whatever was handy. Then Daf found an old wooden cable spool in someone's yard, paid them 100 pesos ($10 dollars), painted it up purdy like, put a few tiles on top and.........













Voila!!!!! A sturdy moveable umbrella holder!!! You will notice the clever use of pvc pipe to hold the pole in place, but I am going to cut a really long piece of it so the pvc will go all the way up to the handle. Will be even more sturdy in the wind, and will look better.













Miki's project this last week was to refinish the wooden counter/bar in the kitchen. Some day we would love to have it tiled, along with that little shelf on the back wall, but the original wood was looking very tired.











She sanded the whole thing down (we brought a sander in our luggage this time), and put on 2 good coats of marine paint in a Coco colour. We would have loved a bright blue, but marine paint down here only comes in wood tones.....weird, eh? Anyway, it looks lovely, and has a little centre piece of white tiles to set off the dark wood!
Posted by Picasa