Monthly Archives: June 2011

From One Jungle to the Next

2 Replies

We got home yesterday after a torturous day of travel (red eye and 2 lay-overs) to a jungle of our own at our house in Greeley. All of the plants had filled in the front area and the grass was overgrown especially in the backyard where it gets lots of fertilizer in the form of chicken poop. Of course, this “jungle” is nothing compared to the one we just left, but it was kind of nice coming home to Colorado in full summer bloom…made it feel a little bit more inviting than had we come back to negative 20 degree weather.

Colorado Flowers


Colorado Flowers filled to the brim

In comparison, I have to remember we left plant life and vegetation that looked more like this:


Puerto Rico Sea Grapes


Puerto Rico Flamboyan Tree in Bloom


Tall Grass in Backyard in Greeley


Tall Grass in Puerto Rico

Ok, so there’s really no comparison there.


Britton with Machete and a King Palm if I’m not mistaken

We’ve never needed a machete to walk through our backyard in Greeley, but we definitely did in Puerto Rico! 🙂


We also don’t have a beach with a defunct nuclear power plant (Domes Beach) in Greeley -ha

We are feeling bittersweet about being back in Colorado knowing that there is a whole other world in Puerto Rico just waiting for us to get back to it…but we have so many ideas on how to make it an awesome property that we have to work and save a little more money to get down there for good. It’s kind of nice being back to all the comforts of home and this new perspective will help us make our home there even more comfortable. In the mean time, we’ll enjoy the Colorado summer and the miniature jungles that come with it.

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (0)
  • Awesome (0)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

Killer Bees in Puerto Rico?

8 Replies

Well this episode of our Puerto Rican adventure is coming to a close.  We fly out tonight and head back to Colorado.  It’s simply an indescribable experience to go thru what we have.  We’ve basically started our life’s movie back up.  In this movie there are new characters, new adventures and new challenges to overcome.

When we bought the house we knew that wood wasn’t desireable and put our offer in with the intent of tearing down the house that current sits atop the property.  We have gone back and forth in our minds if tearing it down or fixing it up is the best idea.  Being here for a few weeks we’ve seen some of the issues with a wooden house.  They aren’t the safest place to be in a hurricane, they are more prone to pest issues, the wood doesn’t last very long in comparison to cement. 

It was kind of a suprise when we saw bees living in the upper bedroom walls of the house.   Not something we had planned on. 


Bees on the outside of the house trying to get in (click for larger view)

Cassie and I had taken a bee keeping class in Colorado so we do have just a small amount of information about bees.  Here in Puerto Rico the chances are very good that these are the African interbred version -Africanized bees- also known, by the less-informed, as killer bees.  In our classes they had informed us that “killer bees” are more aggressive towards European hives and attackers.  They are more likely to leave their hive and form new ones as well.  But their stings are not more deadly or anything like that. They are pretty much the same just more likely to survive/thrive in tropical environments. For traditional bee keepers they are less desireable because they are not as docile and in Colorado it’s just too cold.  If they abandon their hive they have less food to make it thru the cold and they die.

Cassie called the university (Mayaguez) and got ahold of a local bee keeper.  Jose came out to the  house and assessed the situation.  Apparently there are 4 separate colonies of bees in the walls upstairs!  LOL.  Cassie and I were kind of shocked.  I mean, we knew there would be unexpected problems but we just hadn’t thought of bees.  Lizards?  Sure.  Cockroaches?  Sure.  But bees? We hadn’t thought of THAT!

This is apparently a problem with the wood houses.  These bees have been living there for a very long time.  One of the colonies has ~30,000 bees.  We spoke to the previous caretaker and he said that Kathy (the previous owner who passed away in the house) lived with the bees and wouldn’t move or kill them.  He said she was a “hippy”..lol.  I can believe that she didn’t have much of an issue with them.  We were in the bedroom several times and they just went about their honey business not really minding us at all.  Still though….I’d want them gone if we were to try and live in the wood house.

Jose (the bee guy) turned out to be a really cool guy.  Very friendly and energetic.  We even went to his place of work where they do agricutural research for the University of Mayaguez:

He gave us about 30 mangos and we bought a few trees there for the property.  When we got back home we planted them.


We’re excited to see how big these grow when we get back!

It was a lot of fun to learn about new plants (which we are constantly doing) from people who live here.  Katrina Kruse has been helpful in sharing her experiences with growing various plants/fruits.  It’s very different than home and we feel like little kids asking what everything is.  “What’s that?” ,”What’s that taste like?” ,”What’s that called again?”

Well back to the bees…. We weren’t sure what to do but we figured even if we tear down the house, the bees would have to be removed.  Well Jose and his friend Moses came over to start removing them because they wanted the hives!  It was quite an experience.


Moises and Jose in the beehive part of the house and outside

Once the got the wall opened up here is what there was:


Cassie is smiling but was actually freaking out because a bee was crawling on her leg at this moment

Since they’ve removed the hive we’ve been stung a few times.  Before that we didn’t have any problems.  I assume they let out the pheromones that let the other bees know the hive is under attack.  The remaining bees are picking up on this.  Bee stings hurt!


After the bees have been removed


A piece of the comb

We have so much more to write about.  We found out more from the caretaker about Kathy, we have more stories about the bee keepers and a few other side adventures!  This will take another week to really try to explain! We’re really enjoying life here in Rincon even with all the unknowns and are not ready to come back! This has been a kick (or is it sting)!

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (1)
  • Awesome (1)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

Struggles of English Speakers Learning Spanish

Leave a reply

When an English-speaker first starts learning Spanish, there are a few things that are harder than the others. For me, some of these I still struggle with. Usually it is because there is no English equivalent, or the equivalent is not used very much.

This is a list of the common struggles an English Speaker faces when learning Spanish:

Por/Para =Both of these can generally mean “for” but there are lots of differences of when to use one and not the other and other things they can mean too (like by, in order to, and idiomatic expressions as well). And if you make a mistake and use the other one it can actually make a meaning change. For instance, if you said -“Compré las flores por Susana” instead of “Compré las flores para Susana”, you have completely changed the meaning. The first one with por means that you bought it for her because she couldn’t buy them herself -she was unable to buy them so you bought them FOR her. The second one, with para means that you bought them FOR her, like as a gift. As you can see, por and para are confusing to English speakers and will probably be a lifelong challenge when learning Spanish. This is one we can tackle more in-depth in a future post.

Imperfect Tense -In English we don’t really have an imperfect tense, but to describe it basically it is for things that are ongoing in the past. Like things you did on a regular basis, not just a one-time event. Like “Cuando era joven” means “When I was young” -it was not just a one time moment, but a continuous one. Or “Estudiaba casi todos los días” instead of “Estudié por una hora” – The first one means “I used to study almost every day” the second one means “I studied for one hour”. This is one that I can usually do correctly, but every now and then there is that grey area of whether that was considered which type of “time”.

Estar/Ser- This is another struggle for English Speakers learning Spanish because in English there is only one “To Be”. In English we ARE all sorts of things. We ARE our age, we ARE our feelings, we ARE our gender, we ARE in our location. In Spanish, there is this designation which descibes which type of thing we ARE or it IS. Estar is usually used to describe something that could easily change. It is something momentary. Ser on the other hand, is used to describe something that is more permanent. So while “Estoy en Puerto Rico” (I AM in Puerto Rico)  is temporary, “Soy de Colorado” (I AM from Colorado) is permanent. Like por and para if you make a mistake, it can mean a difference in understanding. For instance, if you said “Estoy listo(a)”  it means “I’m ready” If you said “Soy listo(a)” it means “I’m smart”. Or if you said someone “está enfermo” it means they are sick (temporarily). If you said someone “es enfermo” they would be “sickly” -or of a permanent disposition of being sick.

Subjunctive– If you hear English-speakers complaining about Spanish, it might just be because of the Subjunctive tense. Subjunctive is not really a tense, but a mood, or a feeling of uncertainty/desire. We used to have it a lot more in English when people used Old Shakespearean English, but for the most part it has been stripped from our normal speaking. Even in phrases where we still use it, we see a slow transition away from it. For instance, “I wish I were a millionaire”  (subjunctive) is often changed to “I wish I was a millionaire”  (indicative).  Other examples of English subjunctive could be “The lawyer recommends that he stay in the country” (stay instead of stays) or “The rules require that you be at least 50 inches to go on this ride” (be instead of are). In Spanish it is used much more in phrases like “Dudo que vengas“, ( I doubt that you [will] come) “Es importante que escriba a su madre” (It’s importante that he write [or writes] to his mother). In indicative, or certain tense, you would say “No dudo que vienes” (I have no doubt that you [will] come) or “El escribe a su madre porque es importante a él” (He writes to his mother because it is important to him).

Of course there are the tricky irregular verbs, gender changes, the rules of pedir vs preguntar, saber vs conocer and always new vocabulary, but those are easy compared to these struggles. This is just an overview without much explanation on how to learn these rules, but it’s good to be able to recognize some of the more tricky parts to learning Spanish, so you can spend some time focusing on these troublesome areas. In the following months, I will try and focus on some of these specifically.

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (1)
  • Awesome (0)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (2)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

Power On Power Off (Random Updates)

Leave a reply

Cassie was taking a shower this morning and the light went out.  Hmmm.  It’s the first of the month and the previous owner had scheduled the shut off, but we should have averted that by getting everything moved into our name.  It is also ‘power outage Wednesday”.   It’s tough to figure out which one would have caused the outage??? lol  We confirmed with a local at the coffee shop that his power is out too, so we remain hopeful that is our case too. 

That reminds me of the story of finding how to turn on the power and where the heck to go!  When we were on our quest to get the power in our name we stumbled upon a long time local “Cindy”.  We were talking to her and she drew us a treasure map. 


Treasure map

We followed the map and did find exactly what we needed.  The power company!!!


Reminds us of the Darma Inititave in the TV series Lost.

Today we woke up and laid around for a bit listening to the sounds of the jungle.  I usually sleep on top of the covers but the last few nights have been getting kind of cold!  Something I didn’t expect.  When it is hot I’ve found that leaving the windows open and a fan is all I need to stay cool.  

Since the windows are open nearly all the time we started getting quite a few mosquitos.  We went to home depot and bought some materials so I could  put up some screens and since then we’ve been good.  We do have an occasional bug visitor, but not like we had before the screens.


Making Screens

So far that is about the only improvement that we’ve made.  We’ve been tempted to paint but stopped short of actually doing it.   We kind of want to relax, we both work 40hrs + (with my new job 50hrs) a week.  Plus we have our rentals and various other endeavors that keep us very busy.  Our goal was to buy the place and we are pretty happy with achieving that.  Also we are happy that the place is as livable as it is!  The kitchen sink needs to be hooked up, the roof needs to be sealed but otherwise we’ve been pretty comfortable.  That was somewhat unexpected.   We could have made do in the wood house, but I think the shower would have needed to be completely redone.  I may have opted to just convert it to an outdoor shower under the deck.   So many ideas.

We have occupied a lot of our time with trips to the beach.  It seems like the obvious thing to do.  

We also got caught in the rain a few times. It usually only lasts about 30 minutes then the sun comes out again. Very refreshing!  Here is a video of us “trapped” under some trees.

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (0)
  • Awesome (0)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)