Tag Archives: Zika

A Summer Update: Chicks, Jams, Corazón and More

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It’s summertime and that means things are slow and hot. There are often afternoon rains and everything is super green and beautiful. Lots of fruits are ripe and the flowers are in their showiest state. We also have a few new additions to the farm.

Chicks
Mail arrival of some new chicks

The chickens and turkeys are doing a pretty good job at reproducing, but we wanted to add in some new genetics to the mix. We shared the order with some friends who are new to chickens and it’s been fun to watch them enjoy chickens for the first time. They are just so super cute when they are recently hatched. Pretty amazing that a little more than 21 days before, they were just eggs! What life energy!

Baby chicks
Three of 12 new additions!

We love to eat eggs around here and there is also quite a demand for local, pasture raised chicken eggs. So we thought we would put more of a focus on that side of the homestead.

The rain this time of year can also mean power or water outages. One afternoon the water, electricity and internet went out for about 3 hours. So we decided to go out and have a beer and watch the sunset. Reminds you not to worry so much. Worrying about infrastructure and thinking you could surely do it better than it currently is handled is a classic sign you are still stuck in the old Type A mindset filled with watches, schedules and to-do lists. When you are here things go much smoother if you just go with the island flow. Do what you can, let your voice be heard but don’t worry; they’re working on it. It’s just a little harder on a very mountainous island with limited resources, high heat and a more even work/rest balance.

Aguada sunset
Enjoying a gorgeous sunset at the balneario in Aguada

When these services go out, it’s a reminder that it’s all man-made. They certainly make life more comfortable. It’s pretty darn hot without even a fan blowing on you. But having them go out reminds you that you should probably have a backup water and electric plan and it definitely helps you appreciate them more than when they are just a given.

We have also been having some really great summer jam sessions with the band. It’s so laid back and chill and we’ve been making some really cool grooves. We jam with new people sometimes that just pop in. Our jam space at Mark’s is very unique. We even made a song called Jam Space, and as you can see in this picture below, Mark’s wife, Robin, made an awesome record for the wall of the song. ~~When the lights go down, you can hear the sounds, of eerie moves and funky grooves. It’s a rather magic place, that we call our jam space.~~

Jam Space crew
Such a cool jam space and crew of people

The finca is doing well. Summer is the most fruitful season of all. More and more fruits are coming on board. We recently harvested our first corazón fruit (annona reticulata). Very interesting! Semi-sweet with a grainy pear like custard consistency. I’ve read that it is related to guanabana or soursop which makes sense because it looks similar inside. At first it is so weird we didn’t want to eat it, but once we started we just couldn’t stop. Such a Willy Wonka world of fruit here! We’ve found that like children your first inclination is to not like something, but the more exposures you have to a certain food the more you begin to like it and then eventually love it. I would say corazón will soon be a favorite of ours the more we have it.

Corazon fruitIMG_3098
Corazón does sort of look like a heart – whole and half eaten

When we are out working on the farm we have to watch out to not step on iguanas! They are so fearless of humans, sometimes we see them AFTER we have stepped on their tails and they run off! I know they have become invasive pests of the island, but it still gets me every time that we basically have fricken dinosaurs just roaming free everywhere! Not to mention an easy source of clean meat if it came down to it!

Iguana
Iguanas are still out en force! Our finca is an uncaged zoo of them really!

It was also recently the primary election season here in Puerto Rico. Mostly it was related to senate and mayoral races, though people can vote in the primaries for the US. Too bad we can’t actually vote in the generals though! There were major caravanas (groups of cars with lights and speakers) and you wouldn’t want to accidently get stuck behind one of them or your plans for the day will include a caravan party for a few hours! A different sort of summer jam!

Elections
Elections mean posters, murals and speaker trucks of the candidate

Though Zika messaging is getting out, it doesn’t seem to really have changed anyone’s behavior that I have noticed. I thought this billboard in Mayaguez was kind of funny and misleading. Do you want Sex without Zika? Such a funny question in and of itself. Yes, the Zika virus can spread through sex, but no, they don’t put mosquito repellent in condoms!  

Zika
Do you want sex without Zika? A lot of funny assumptions in this question

We are currently working on the water hook-ups for the cabin. Britton dug a trench and placed water line from the turkey coop all the way to the cabin. He is now working on the copper interior water lines.

Turkey and waterline
Water line connects at the turkey coop and travels 300 feet to the cabin

It’s summertime and the living is easy. It’s a nice pace. Not many people on the road. Most everyone who is here is here because they want to be. Full-timers. There are some tourists, but they are mainly from other parts of the island and so there is less confusion and hiccups. There are events like the caminata of some guy to raise money for a children’s hospital and the Rincón Triathlon and of course the hot sauce contest coming up. And the flamboyans are majestically fantastic. Summer in Puerto Rico is a special time.

Flamboyant moon
Flamboyan tree and the moon

 

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Zika in Puerto Rico

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Zika, Zika, Zika! Everyone’s talking about Zika! As you can imagine, in Puerto Rico it has been a huge topic of conversation lately. As the latest “new” mosquito-borne virus/disease there has been a lot of worry, alarm and confusion. Puerto Rico is the first place in the U.S. to face the full force of this virus. Unlike in the north where they can just simply say “avoid areas with Zika” when we live here, we are much more aware. Currently, about 700 people in PR have been confirmed with Zika and those numbers continue to grow. But what does that mean? Let’s first go over what Zika is and isn’t.

aedes
Aedes mosquitoes are large, slow and striped

Zika is a mosquito-borne virus carried by the Aedes mosquito -the same ones that carry dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever. They are larger mosquitoes with tiger striping. They like to hide out in houses, under beds and in cabinets. Their eggs can withstand long periods of dryness and hatch in as little as a thimbleful of water. They don’t fly far, but travel widely mainly because of the movement of humans and other blood meals. Because of these factors, completely eradicating mosquitoes especially in the wet tropics can be very difficult, if not impossible. The Zika virus can also spread sexually for the approximately 10 days that it is active in the body.

The illness of Zika is actually overall much, much milder than most of the other mosquito-borne illnesses. When Britton had chikungunya/dengue (still not sure which), it laid him out flat for a week! Zika, on the other hand, is almost entirely asymptomatic meaning most people will not even know that they had Zika! Those who do get Zika symptoms have very mild symptoms such as a mild flu. Very few people, in fact much fewer than from the flu, are expected to die from Zika illness.

The main concerns for Zika are Guillain-Barré which is rare and temporarily debilitating but in most cases people will recover and microcephaly in infants born to mothers who had Zika during pregnancy. Microcephaly is basically a shrunken head/brain deformity that can cause all sorts of serious problems in the baby including seizures, vision loss, inability to walk, and other developmental abnormalities. In the general population this occurs in about 2-12 out of 10,000 births.

zika-virus-and-microcephaly-4-638

The increased number of microcephaly births in Zika exposed pregnant women, including the exact rate, is still not exactly known. Nor, is much else about it for that matter. All that is known is that there is an increased risk. Most reports show, however, that the increased numbers of microcephaly were dramatically overstated in Brazil and that of those that were accurate nearly all of the women had experienced the classic Zika symptom of a rash on the face and red eyes. Since only about 20% of people who are infected will experience any symptoms at all, the likelihood of a microcephaly birth is still very low.

The other factor to remember is that once people have been exposed to Zika, including women of childbearing years, we then have immunity! It is only during this short window of time while it spreads, perhaps a year, that we are immunologically naïve and will have this risk. Because it is already spreading so rapidly, it is estimated that 80% or more of people in Puerto Rico will have been exposed (and therefore granted future immunity) to Zika. It is estimated that at least 20-25% will have been exposed before this current year (2016) is out.

My Thoughts on Zika
To me, given all of this information about Zika, which is still frankly not much (I would like to know the exact expected rates of births with microcephaly in infected and symptomatic mothers for instance), I would say that the majority of the population doesn’t need to worry much at all! Zika is a very mild disease and most people won’t even know that they had it. And trying to fight off all the mosquitoes is a losing battle. Even in the states, West Nile Virus spread like wild fire and infected tens of thousands of people. Even though mosquitoes there are really only an issue for about 3 months out of the year and most people have screens and air conditioning, it still spread! It is nearly impossible to be completely locked away from mosquitoes, and many call the fight against mosquitoes (especially the aedes mosquitos) a lost cause.

In fact since it is estimated that most of us will get Zika anyway, I’d rather get my immunity early rather than delay it further and that way I won’t have to worry as much about questionable chemical municipal sprays, GMO mosquitoes, larvacide in the waterways and freaking out about mosquitoes (though I am certainly no fan of the little blood-suckers and have tried all I can to keep them away, given how much they love me I probably already have it).

Since the biggest issue with Zika is the increased risk of microcephaly, the group of people who I would be most concerned about are women who could become pregnant, are thinking of becoming pregnant or who are currently pregnant. For that reason some groups are recommending the delay of pregnancy until after the wet summer season (when presumably we’ll all get the chance at Zika immunity). Even still, while it is an increased risk, most babies born to women who were exposed to Zika during pregnancy will be normal.

I hope this summary of information on Zika that I have been reading up on has been helpful. In the meantime, I will be eating a lot more garlic to ward off these vampires and keep my cardiovascular/immune system strong to fight off any virus. ¡Salud!

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