IN the village, sheep, goats, donkies, horses and chickens are everywhere. One of the local shepards herds with his bicycle - what a concept.

We enjoy eating the nopales which surrond our house, but we prefer to pay a few cents and have the women at the market cut the spines off - a delicate job. At the tuesday market we shopped out hearts out. For about $20 we got: 1 new nightgown, a bag of clothes pins, a scrub brush, 4 tacos for brunch and a slice of pizza, 4 nopales (cactus leaves), cilantro, mole paste, an onion, a garlic, a papaya, bananas, cooked pork, cheese, stuffed tortillas, big bag of pastries, and plantain chips. What a deal!

The plants aer strange and wonderful. These lollypop trees are my favourites.

Not a great picture but this is the view from the outhouse. It makes the trip out quite enjoyable.

There are wonderful trails from the house to the other homes in the permaculture settlement. This is a rock bridge (sorry it is sideways)

The house is 2 small villages and a bumpy cobble and dirt road from the "highway"

Here we are in San Jose de Gracias, Mexico at Jan and Joyce´s beautiful house.