Lunch with Hector and Ricardo

As I was walking down the driveway this morning, I met Hector and Ricardo, arriving to carry on working miracles in our garden. I turned around at the bottom of the driveway to see them disappearing up the stairs into our back patio, each with a large Crape Myrtle tree (delivered yesterday by the Urban Tree Farm) on his shoulder. A Blippable moment for which I was unprepared.

I opened the back door at lunchtime and the most wonderful smells came wafting down from the upper terrace. I followed my nose to the informal lunch table in the shade of the oak trees--a grill placed on a couple of beams OilMan has stored up there to build his garden shed. At their invitation, I joined them for tortillas with chorizo, and grilled onions and jalapeños, topped off with a little lime juice and avocado. I had warm juice dripping from my chin and my fingers, but they seemed to be more practiced in containing every drop within their own tortillas. Certainly beats a tuna sandwich!

Now they are building a drystone retaining wall in order to level a spot for the aforementioned garden shed. The work these guys have done in four days would have taken us weeks!

Today is Dana's birthday. It is shaping up to be just another day as far as she is concerned what with soccer practice for one kid ending just as basketball practice for the other one begins. For us, every day we have lived here has been made more special because of her tireless assistance on everything from unpacking boxes to digging holes and building steps in our garden to walking Ozzie. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Dana--you are #1!