Growing season

I was asked about our growing season here, and I'm happy to report that it is basically year-round since Guatemala is in the tropics!  I have grown flowers throughout my life in the different places we have lived, and I have gotten back into flower gardening this past year.

We don't have four seasons, but we do have a rainy season and a dry season.  This means the plants almost drown in the daily rain showers for half of the year, then face a drought the other half!  During the rainy season, I am learning which plants can't take that much water: for example, geraniums, which I replanted into pots and placed under roofs where they get the sun part of the day, but I can regulate their water.  During the dry season, I spend time watering everything once a week, including the St. Augustine grass, which is a thick vine.  

We had many rocks remaining from our builder's over-estimated purchase for using in our retaining walls, so I've been placing them around our yard to make garden areas around the grass.  I've recently planted different colors of hibiscus, hydrangeas, rose of Sharon, poinsettias, bouganvillea, and tropical azaleas, all of which bloom year-round here.  I've also tried planting spider plants outside, as well as mother-in-law tongues, which are doing well.  I'm enjoying it!

Plants at our local nursery are cheap, but they don't always live long, so I have to baby them and hope for the best!  I'm always fighting insects and fungus, but we recently found some products in town to treat them.  I even accidentally brought home some snails on my last purchase of plants!  Here are some pictures I took in our yard recently.

If you zoom in, you can see the hummingbird.

Geraniums hiding from the rain

Hibiscus on a young bush.  I have planted
7 varieties/colors and am waiting
to see how they do.

Rock garden on steep hillside

Training bougainvillea to grow up an old
swing set as an arch
(Our dog Lucy is in her favorite spot on the
bridge over our sand filter for kitchen sink
and shower drainage water.)

Another bougainvillea arch made of PVC pipes
(The small building houses our water pump
for drawing water out of the cistern
which is under the arch.)

Experimenting with color

Between carport and house

This anthurium was small when it was
first gifted to me by our builder,
and now it's several feet tall.

Discovering that some bougainvillea
prefer to be bushes instead of
climbers

Easter bread

In Chichicastenango, Semana Santa (Holy Week) is a very big deal.  Throughout the week, they close and decorate roads with "rugs" made of flower petals, and there are many processions carrying statues of saints through town at various times.  We mostly try to stay home that week, since getting anywhere in town is so complicated!  There is also a tradition here of all the bakeries making "Easter bread," which are large sweet rolls to be eaten with honey.  Our neighbors from the house you can see behind us in the video, William and Mercedes (probably in their upper 20s), brought us a gift of this bread!  It was indeed delicious!

Our dog Lucy followed me around,
smelling the sweet bread!

They are the size of my hand!

Thank you

To all of you who have supported us, both financially and in prayer, we say THANK YOU!!!

Another detour

Our neighborhood road is currently blocked due to the installation of paving bricks on a 60-meter stretch of road.  At that rate they will have to block it repeatedly about six times before arriving at our driveway!  They only do road improvements once a year when the municipality gives them money, so we are hoping they will do more at a time when they re-block the road in the future.  

Here is a map of our current "back way" detour in yellow.  It takes about 15 extra minutes of slow driving to navigate with some tricky maneuvering to pass oncoming vehicles.  It is mostly a single-car-width dirt road with various cornfields, steep dropoffs, and concrete walls lining the edges.  The blue line shows our normal drive out of our neighborhood, which is the part currently blocked.  

December in Chichi

When we moved here 14 years ago, we thought the December festivities in our town were in celebration of Christmas.  However, over the years we finally figured out that they were actually in celebration of the town's patron saint, Saint Thomas.  In fact, there is so much traffic and hullabaloo in Chichi during the entire month of December, with main roads closing unexpectedly and twice the normal number of people in town, that we try to stay home as much as possible. 

Here is a video posted by a local tourist hotel in early December showing a sampling of what goes on.  

Translation:  Did you know that the Fair of Chichicastenango in honor of Apostle Saint Thomas is about to begin?  From December 4th to 22nd, its streets fill with color, with music, and with tradition.  Different celebrations and ancestral dances are in honor of its patron Saint Thomas.  The carnival rides, food, parties, and all of the magic make this fair one of the most special celebrations of Guatemala.  We invite you to live it with us, to feel its energy, and to enjoy an unforgettable December in Chichicastenango.  In Santo Tomás Hotel, it will be a pleasure to receive and accompany you during these festivities.

Address changes

I (Michael) am getting tired of "logging in," ha-ha-ha.  This is because lately I have been logging in to web site after web site to change my home address.  My parents' house has been our U.S. address for 23 years, but they have recently moved into an assisted living facility, and their home is now being rented out.  So we are moving our home base to Carolyn and Andrew's house, requiring me to change our address with at least 30 different institutions (banking, insurance, etc.), several of which have a separate login for each family member.  We will also have to change our driver licenses, voter registration, and other things like that in person when we go for our next visit to the U.S. 

And speaking of address changes, our home church, Christian Life Fellowship, is ending, so all of our supporters who have been mailing checks to CLF will also need to change the address to which they mail donations.  Now, CEED Funds will be receiving all of our donations, for which we are very grateful. 

Here is the updated information that can be found on our blog page entitled "Support the Montgomery Family":

You can securely give a tax-deductible donation to us online using a credit card, debit card, or Paypal by going to ceedfunds.org.  Select the Donate link, and then click on the Donate button next to Michael & Heather Montgomery.  

You can also donate with Zelle using Give@CEEDFunds.org, or Venmo using @CEED-Funds.  Please indicate Montgomery in the description.  

If you want to write a check, it may be sent to:

CEED Funds
25520 Upper Clubhouse Drive
South Riding, VA  20152

with the check made payable to CEED Funds.  Please write Montgomery in the memo line.

Donations via credit card, debit card, PayPal, or Venmo do incur a 2% transaction fee, while Zelle and checks are no fee options.  Recurring donations can be set up with PayPal, Zelle, or bill pay (automatic) checks.

If you wish to send a direct gift (our preferred method), and you don't need a tax-deductible receipt, please make your check payable to Michael Montgomery and mail it to 1176 Rocky Springs Road, Madisonville, TN  37354.  It will be deposited directly into our bank account.

Thank you!  We appreciate you!

Dicey detour

As we reported in an earlier post, workers recently concreted a section of the main road past our street, which didn't affect us.  That section has now been closed for several months, although we aren't sure why they haven't opened it yet to the people that live there.  However, they have now begun putting paving bricks on the part of the main road that does block our street.  Our neighborhood has two access roads: one main street that is now blocked and one back road that is virtually impassable due to parts of it being too narrow and other parts being too muddy.  

So someone had an idea to put in a new, short "detour" bypassing the roadwork directly.  It is basically a wide dirt path with one very tight switchback down the side of a hill (so tight a vehicle requires a 3-point turn to make it), then around the edge of someone's cornfield, and exiting through the middle of the community soccer field.  We ventured out this week for groceries, but our tires spun on the hill and we slid while going around the cornfield.  Heather used the word "treacherous," and Michael's term of choice was "dicey."

View looking down at the switchback.

View looking up.
Here I gooooo...
(The black marks are from 
spinning tires.)