Tag Archives: park

Colorful Aguadilla

Apparently the artist who painted the town (literally) of Yauco has been going around the island and finding other similar neighborhoods to paint. We had heard that Aguadilla got the touch up as well and just had its grand hurrah a little bit ago. We spent the afternoon wandering around and stopped by Rompeolas by the sea for a bite to eat. It is pretty cool, but I think it would have been a little neater had they changed it up a little (maybe polka dots instead of patchwork?). Still very eye catching and a fun little jaunt up many a flight of stairs.


From the park, El Parterre, in Aguadilla looking up; it’s hard to miss!


The subdued park is such a contrast


El Parterre park was very old European in design

I am still surprised people live in this type of hodge-podge and very poor neighborhood. There is no way this would be allowed to fly in modern building codes, but I think they have been sort of grandfathered in from long ago when these were just squatter shanties during the sugar cane days.


Britton carried Aeden all the way to the top!


Having fun!


Look, we are camouflaged!


In a little side room/casita the residents encouraged us to take pictures


Britton and the little monster


Here fishy, fishy


People hanging out watching all the tourists check out their houses


One guy ran out of his house and chased us down to give us these old calendar photos of how Aguadilla was in the olden days


Cool detailed murals all around


From the road


Some areas up there still hadn’t been repaired since the hurricane


We had a nice lunch seaside at Rompeaolas


Look at that sweet smile!


Near Rompeolas there is a HUGE ceiba tree


It had dropped its petals everywhere!


Some of the real boats of Aguadilla


And Aguadilla’s gorgeous shoreline as we drove home

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Bench Pressing in the Jungle Gym

Often times we say that we don’t have to go work out at a gym or own any exercise equipment because our lifestyle has it built in: our very own jungle gym (literally in the jungle). Well we recently added another piece to the gym and it was all about bench pressing!

We saw some concrete benches at a shop and we loved them because they will last much longer than the metal ones that start corroding/rusting in the rain right away. We got a backless bench for one area, and then decided we would like one with a back. Now that I am carrying more weight (lifting weights) with me everywhere I go (including on the property), I have found I need more places to sit. Plus it just makes the property even more park-like.

Small bench near the tropical gardens


The larger bench (in pieces) we put near the bridge was super heavy and we had to flatten the ground to make it work


But fits right in


Enjoying the new bench

Before we had the bench we just put a chair on the pad as you can see in this walk with Kitty through the jungle. The bench is much better!

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Pineapple, Papaya, Avocado and September Fun

Our tropical food and other adventures continue daily.

Papaya
Fresh, delicious papaya

This month we harvested our first papayas as well as our very first pineapple. I have never been a big fan of papayas because to me they smell a little like vomit. But this variety was actually pretty good and didn’t have the smell.

Pineapples are probably up there as one of my very favorite fruit, and we’ve had such issues with root rot here that I got so excited I just had to wear our first little harvest on my head along with some home-grown bananas! Haha, poor Britton always has to put up with my silly shenanigans.

Cassie chiquita - Copy
Just call me Chiquita

In addition, it’s avocado season in full steam. Nearly every meal and snack now includes fresh avocados. Each evening and sometimes morning we go scour beneath the avocado trees. We have found four large mature avocado trees and we have planted another 8 or so, that are off-season varieties so (hopefully) soon we will be so overrun with avocados we won’t know what to do! Most days we’ve collected about 5-10 large avos. It’s amazing how much you can extend a meal when you have avocados. We have them with our eggs in the morning, with salads at lunch and with pretty much anything for dinner (nachos, rice and beans, etc).

Scambled eggs
A typical daily breakfast is almost all home grown -avos, mangos, starfruit, and scrambled eggs. We look forward to growing our own peppers soon too

Iguana hammock
Large orange iguana hanging out eating our fruit too- on the parcha vine!

The animals are all doing well. The baby turkeys are now living in the coop in a smaller cage and we take them out for walks daily until they are hawk-proof (about 3 months old). And of the two chicken chicks that survived from the original 6, one was a hen and the other a rooster. The hen is a gorgeous black chicken mix of auracana and Jersey giant and lays really cool  green olive-colored eggs. The rooster is beautiful and huge, working for his place in the pecking order.

Chickens
The birds crowding around Britton at dinner time

There are still four large male turkeys toms, and we need to decrease numbers because they fight a lot. But we want to wait until we have a stove and fridge to properly handle them. In the mean-time they are looking more beautiful than ever.

Pretty turkey
Turkey looking good 

We are in the midst of a large project that I will write about once it is completed, but we have had quite a few days off as well. We have been going to the beach, hanging out, and playing music with friends.

Steps Beach beauty
Afternoon rain clouds form at Steps Beach after we went snorkeling and the water turned an amazing color

September is a quiet month in Rincón. The local Puerto Rican tourists have left and the North American tourists haven’t arrived yet. There are afternoon rains nearly daily, threats of hurricanes, and the heat can be super intense to work outside. (We take LOTS of showers and have all the fans on after sweating outside!) But I still wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Cassie legs
When we’re not working we spend a lot of time just chillin’ in the Big Sky park of our yard with its ever changing painting

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New Trail Near Ramseier Farm Park in Greeley

They are building a new trail/path  near our house. The trail is by the Ramseier Farm Park that they just recently finished. The park has a nice long walking path that circles the 15 acres. On one side of the park is an irrigation ditch, ditch #4 I believe. Cassie and I often walked the ditch after visiting the park.

What they are doing is making a concrete trail that links the park’s trails with the ditch. I have a feeling they may eventually link that up with the Poudre River trail which would be awesome for us!


New Concrete Pathway


Before…This is what it looked like a few years ago -just a weedy ditch trail

The Poudre Trail goes along the Poudre River all the way to neighboring towns of Windsor and Fort Collins.  This would link our neighborhood with it!  It makes walking or biking a lot easier/safer to get to other areas. I think we may have been one of the first to use it as it hasn’t been advertised as open yet. We are ready for summer bike riding once again!


Putting America to Work

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