Cactus Flower

Yesterday was the annual procession of cowboys in our little town of Sobradinho, Bahia.  It's a Catholic tradition.  Our town has three Catholic chapels, one in each of our three neighborhoods.  The parade starts at the far end of our linear town at the first church and heads down the main avenue with all the cowboys on horseback following the statute of the Virgin Mary on donkey drawn cart.  They make their way to the main church in the far neighborhood where all the cowboys participate in a special mass to bless their year. Regardless of the religious connotations, the parade is lovely to see.  All types of horses and all types of "cowboys" big and small.  Some years there is even a man riding on a old Zebu bull.  Sadly this year the bull did not make his appearance. We see real, live cowboys in their full leather outfits at least once a week riding down the avenues of our town, in the fields near our house herding cattle and goats ba...

It's a windy day on my front porch today.  Yesterday was an odd day in Sobradinho with very dark clouds most of the morning.  We don't use any electric lights during the day most of the time, but yesterday was so dark I actually kept the lights on for a bit.  You can see above that the light comes in quite nicely from the porch. We actually work hard to use as little electricity as possible.  The front door is open most of the day and is only closed late at night.  The doors have slats to let in the wind flow to help keep the house cooler - not that it helps a lot on really hot days! Inside someone is quietly reading on the couch for a bit.  Outside from the porch today you would see Byron starting to work on the big water pipe that goes out to the sewer box.  He thinks we have some roots from our big nut tree impeding the flow of things.  Just another crazy thing that missionaries might find themselves doing on the mission field.  Dig...

This week's post doesn't come from my front porch but rather from under my kitchen table! Aren't they adorable.  I found them like this in the afternoon after both had been given a much needed bath and left outside to dry for a bit.  They often sleep close together but this was just too cute to not take a pic! After Girl and Tiny passed away at the end of last year, I couldn't even think about getting more pets.  Then the cat showed up, then Wishbone (the white one) and then little black Spunky.  It seems that God just sent them all our way.  I didn't want anymore pets to tie me down to this place.  I think in my puny mind if we had no more pets we could move on easier.  Furloughs and moving about are rough on MK pets and the ones that love them.  I worried many a night while in the States on furloughs about my pets back in Brazil. When it's time to move to some new spot in Brazil or go on a furlough, I'll just have to trust God once...

Do you have some memory that includes recalling what you ate and how good is was? I do!  I can recall several moments in time because of the incredible taste of some dish or dessert.  When Byron and I traveled to Salvador for our twentieth wedding anniversary, we ate at a small Italian pizzeria in the little village of shops at Praia do Forte.  The workers were speaking Italian to each other and even had Italian music playing on their speakers.  They baked the pizza in a large brick oven and we could see into the oven from our table.  I had bruschetta and Byron had some pasta dish.  I can still remember the smells and sounds and the taste of the food. We had been traveling with Uncle Harold Reiner to see the cave paintings of Capivara and the Serra das Confusões in the state of Piaui.  We had crossed over the top of the "Confusion Mountains" the night before.  We were all tired, hungry, and slightly lost.  But we had to keep going on or ...

Look what pulled up in front of my porch this past week!  A real, bonafide 1929 Ford Model A.  The owner had come by for Byron to take a look at the wiring on the headlights.  Last month the owner found out about Byron's mechanical abilities and asked if he would have a look at his old car.  The fellow had come upon it a few years ago and was working to get it road ready.  Byron helped him out and now the man is running all over town - but didn't have any headlights for night runs!  Now he has headlights, too. Can you imagine?  Here we are in the middle of nowhere Brazil and someone in town has such a car! It was a real treat for Byron to help work on it.  Byron wouldn't accept any payment at all, so the owner bought him a new dress shirt for church - which was much needed and accepted! Check back next Friday to see what comes by my front porch! Thanks for stopping by!

Some very happy cows chowing down on a neighbors cut grass thrown out in the field in front of our house.

Today starts the beginning of a new series of blog posts.  Every Friday I plan to put up a single video or photo shot directly from my front porch here in Sobradinho, Bahia, Brazil.   Today's clip is from last week.  I was actually standing on the sidewalk and not technically smack on the porch, by the way.  Our region of Brazil is very dry and receives a limited amount of rainfall every year.  Once every forty years or so, that amount shrinks substantially making for extreme drought conditions.  We have been in a drought of about three years.  Imagine living in a place where it rains about one time on one day once a year.  This January we had some of the biggest total annual rainfall of the past five years - yes, all in one month's time!  There was much flooding to say the least.  And our grass began to grow again after how many years?  We water it minimally with run off water from the washing machine.  But we rarely...