Category Archives: Fun

Pineapple, Papaya, Avocado and September Fun

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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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Cultura Profética and Rincón Fiestas Patronales

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Each year, cities and towns throughout Puerto Rico have their own Fiestas Patronales (translated loosely as Patron Saint Parties). In Rincón, I know very little about the actual patron saint Santa Rosa de Lima, but I know the parties are getting better each year (here’s last year’s post)!

Cassie and Britton at the fiestas
Having fun at the fair grounds (Plaza de la Amistad)

This year we were super excited to hear that Cultura Profética was coming to town! Cultura Profética is probably the best known Puerto Rican reggae band and their songs are often heard on the radio here. We were quite amazed in fact that they were able to bring such a huge name to our little town of only 15,000 people. A free concert in a community venue with a huge headliner? Sign me up!  And like most things in Puerto Rico, we went into it without many expectations. This could be a madhouse of people, or muy tranquilo!


One of their popular songs

The big question everyone was asking was what time would they come on? According to the event flyer, the opening bands were supposed to start around 8pm, but we had learned our lesson from last year that due to Island TIme the openers didn’t really start until about 9pm. So we thought we’d get down there around 10pm to watch another great salsa band, Plenealo and guess that Cultura would start around 11.


Plenealo

Carnival rides
Carnival rides!

We wandered around and people watched and had carnival food while listening to the openers. I really want to try this game that I had noticed last year. It is always so popular, and I learned that it is called Pica. Our friend Mike said it actually has decent odds.

Pica
Pica: A gambling game that is sort of a mix between a horse race and roulette from what I gather

There aren’t any other forms of gambling except Pica and it must be a long-time cultural thing that is allowed in Rincón only during the Fiestas.


A walk through Plaza Amistad when we first arrived

The general scene of the night is super relaxed with people milling around eating and drinking. The evening was cool and refreshing. The perfect temperature. People of all ages come and go and bring in whatever alcoholic -or otherwise- beverages or foods they want as well.

Midnight rolls around and it is obvious that Cultura Profética won’t be coming on any time soon, but by now though we are getting sleepy we are determined to see them. We find some friends and hang out (janguear) for a while. Finally, around 1:20am Cultura Profética takes the stage.

Cultura Profetica
Cultura Profética playing at the Rincón Fiestas Patronales

The show was great, but because it was so late people slowly started peeling away to go home. Their music is so chill it was a sort of lullaby. We stayed for the whole thing and really enjoyed ourselves. By the time we walked back to our truck that we had parked down by the town plaza, it was 3am! We are becoming such farmers that it was weird to be going to bed as the first roosters were crowing. But it was definitely a memorable and lovely evening to be swaying to the grooves under a tropical moon.

Thankfully today we had nothing on the agenda but a beach day with friends to recover from our late, late night out. Beach time

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Island Birthday and Anniversary

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What is so fun about living on a “vacation destination” is that you’re already here! So when we go out to celebrate something like my birthday or our (10th!!) anniversary, we didn’t have to go very far at all. We were just talking about how if we were in Colorado and planned a 10 year reunion trip to Puerto Rico in memory of our honeymoon that we took here, how much of a hassle that would be. Researching, buying tickets, getting time off, packing, arranging someone to take care of the house/animals, getting to the airport, getting screened, waiting, cramming in to the seats, waiting, cramming in again, getting unfamiliar food, finding a rental car and accommodations and then getting to the destination and fun that awaits. The reason for the trip!

Sand dollar sky
Sand dollar!

Instead, now that we live here we just get straight to the fun! We just get in our truck and head out to the beach, small island (like Desecheo that we went to last year), waterfall, cliff, cave, garden or new restaurant/club/bar/event of our choice. And we get to know these places and people who live here (friends!) much better than we would if it were just for a week or two.

Here’s how we spent a few special days on our “vacation” island we now call home.

Cassie Bday
Corcega  Beach on my Birthday

For my birthday this year, we decided to keep it low-key and just spend the day at the beach and then go out to a nice restaurant that we’ve been wanting to check out for some time. First we stopped by our favorite little food truck: Jack’s Shack which serves up local organic goodness. Then we headed to the beach. Even though it was a Saturday there weren’t very many people out and we enjoyed the long sandy beaches of the Corcega area in Rincón.

Spearfishing
Britton even did a little spearfishing, though he didn’t see much

We dressed up a little (hey just wearing clothes sometimes has become difficult with our new lifestyle) went out to Mahi Mahi in Añasco for dinner and I enjoyed, surprise!, the fresh caught mahi mahi AKA dorado. Then we went out to the little ice cream parlor in town called Tip Top. They even make some of their own ice creams with things like local mangos and tamarind.

Mahi Mahi Tip Top
Mahi Mahi and Tip Top

Ice cream
Mmmm ice cream in the Rincón Plaza!

Our friend Ariana also shares the same birthday as I do and planned another get-together at Borinquen Beach in Aguadilla as we did last year. Everyone brought something to the potluck and we were enjoying the day but the sky looked a little foreboding. People took a swim out to the rock caves and munched and talked. Then it started to rain a little…and then it dumped! We all huddled under the tiny little tent and laughed and thought that it felt like we were on Survivor, living outside in a torrential downpour. Everyone was soaked. We all shared towels and hugged each other for warmth. And it truly was just so much fun.

Survivor birthday edition
Borinquen Survivors!

Next up was our anniversary. Ten years is a pretty big deal and we had thought that maybe if the cabin was finished we might throw a party, but that was just not in the cards.

10 years yep
2005-2015! Where has the time gone?!

So Britton and I decided to just enjoy another day at the beach and out and about. We spend a lot of time at our property (we love it!), so when we leave it always feels extra special. I wanted to go to a beach we either hadn’t been to or hadn’t been in a while. Maybe Table Rock? Crashboat? But we decided upon Tres Hermanos in Añasco.

This is a HUGE public beach with a nearly equally large parking lot. The whole thing is fenced in so cars can’t drive right up to the beach but you can park along the road and there are little pedestrian entrances all over so you, or your horse, can walk right in.

IMG_0097
Tres Hermanos fence and horse tied with a hose

It was a cloudy day, but no rain. We hung out and swam for a while and took a walk to see this old boat. From a distance we thought it was possibly a ditched Yola from the Dominican Republic, but it wasn’t.

Boat and Anasco 3 Hermanos beach

This beach is really cool because you can see the Rincón peninsula from a distance and it gives you that depth that you really do live on an island! Plus, there are tons of coconut palms!

Bird flying
Pelican (I think?) soaring the palm-lined skies

Anniversary 10 years
The obligate selfie at the beach on our anniversary!

Since it happened to be a Thursday, later that evening we also went out to the Art Walk in the Rincón Plaza, had dinner at De Bocas and saw a few friends. Art Walk is always the social event of the week!

Me and Jessika
With my creative friend Jessika at the Art Walk

We love our never-ending summer vacation and on special days like these are reminded even more so how fortunate we really are to live here.

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Turkey TV: Turkey Catches a Mouse and Baby Turkeys Hatching!

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The turkeys are a constant source of entertainment here at our little farm, but lately even more so.

Turkey toms
Two of our pretty toms

The first thing was when I noticed a turkey grab something in the grass and start running around with it. At first I thought it was a gecko lizard, but really fat! Then I looked a little closer and it was a mouse! The turkey had caught and was eating a field mouse! They are really good at grabbing bugs and the small tarantulas that make holes in the ground, but that was a first to see one snag a mouse like that!

Turkey and mouse copy close up

Apparently chickens aren’t the only ones to eat mice if they can catch them! Check out the video:

The next turkey surprise happened as Britton was getting ready to walk down to the cabin. He heard some chirping sounds next to one of the piles of wood. As he looked down he saw a turkey hen sitting on a nest of hatching turkey poults. He pulled one out to check on it and the poor thing was just completely covered in ants stinging and biting at every part of it. Even the eyes! Poor baby finally hatches out of the egg and is met with a harsh world! So we cleaned them off and tried to remove any other egg shards and ants that we could and then put them back with the mom, but the next time we checked they had died. Probably from the ant bites or the mom standing up trying to shake off all the ants from her body as well.

So we decided to bring the remaining ant-covered eggs into the house. One of them was rotten and luckily we noticed BEFORE bringing it inside. You can tell a rotten egg because it is super light and with just a light tap it exploded like a lightbulb with a POP. Three of them had little beaks pipping through (and ants crawling in and out), but the other one had no sounds coming from within, so I placed that one under a broody chicken. We cleaned up the three beaky eggs, set up the heat lamp and waited not knowing if they would survive or not. But lo and behold, here they come out of the eggs! What a process of pushing and chirping and resting. The first one came out about 6 hours after bringing them inside and the other two not long after that. Of those three, two have survived and are again living inside with us. It was a hard start for them but I am glad we could help out or I am not sure there would be any survivors.

Just Hatched
The first one not long after hatching: a sleepy, worn-out baby 

Watching the eggs hatch was so interesting and heart-wrenching. Such a difficult thing to do: coming into this world. It was so hard to not help them remove the shell, but all the experts say that they need to do it all themselves. The hatching process is important to make sure they bring all of the yolk inside and are strong enough for the outside world. So we were sad to see so many of the babies perish but at the same time we were overjoyed by the new little peepers.


Second baby turkey hatching

We get to watch all of these little mini-dramas going on right outside (and sometimes inside!) every day. And while these two examples may seem worlds apart, they are actually connected. They are great reminders of the circle of life, the struggles to survive and the beautiful fragility of it all.

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