Category Archives: Gardening

Random Update: July 2017

Once again it is time for the slices of life that don’t necessarily deserve a post of their own but have been fun and/or interesting.

We recently went to a beautiful celebration of life at a boutique resort in Añasco called Yukayeke. It was very touching.

Sunset
Amazing sunset

Beach Memorial
Gathering of friends

Yukayeke pool Playing music at Yukayeke
And a pool party

Crab cage
It’s still crab (Juey) season here and a few people are out on the street offering them for sale

Abandoned
I love to stop and see the abandoned buildings and the fantastic graffiti art

Cassie mural

Doorway

Flamingo
Even a flamingo!

Closet
We finally hung the closet pole and shelf!!

The cars on this island are almost as fun to watch as the people! So many questions…

One car
From this… a custom car that could never clear most of the potholes here

Two car
To this…a makeshift moving van?

Car balneario
To this…an abandoned and stripped out car. Why are there so many jugs of water?

Harvest
Back at the farm, we’ve had quite the abundance of food and beauty!

Breadfruit
Breadfruit – Pana in Spanish is also an expression here that means pal or friend

Peace Lily
Peace Lily is blooming

Limes
Our first limes from a tree we planted!

Bridge
The cabin side of the property is filling in nicely with plants and the afternoon rains cause the quebrada to flow beneath the bridge

Ms Puerto Rico
The clothing selection in some stores is pretty fun -I had to try this one on: Ms Puerto Rico!

Broken Piraguas
Even the piragua cart breaks down sometimes!

Cassie and Britton
And the beach is always awaiting us

 

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Random Photo Update: June 2017

It’s that time again to sort through all the photos that have no other real place but in a random photo drop. All the little moments in life add up…

Cassie Abandoned Cassie in the window
I love checking out old abandoned buildings!

Cassie abandoned 2
Front

Britton and the tree
Yard work is always humbling in its scale

Baby Hawk 2
And its rewards like seeing this young hawk up close

Bird on a banana leaf
Or this little guy

Cabin in the jungle
Back side of the cabin as it is currently

Abandoned House
At another cool abandoned house

Vikinga
Randomness of life here…Viking helmets and old nuclear reactors

Buena Vista 2 Edit
So breathtaking -Spanish wall overlooking Pools Beach in Rincóñ

Pare sign
You know it’s a surf town when…

Turkey
At the international folkloric music/dance night in Rincon -people from all over the world came like Turkey!

Jenn Cassie Culture
Slovenia! (With my funny friend Jenn! haha)

USA
I thought the fiddles, overalls and square dancing was a funny representation of the USA, but somewhat accurate I suppose for folk dancing

Junk in your Trunk
Now that’s what you call a lot of junk in your trunk!! 😉

Mushrooms
Check out these cool mushrooms growing on rotting wood

White gingers
White torch gingers at our finca

Caterpillar
Plumeria caterpillar munching away

Moth
Sphinx moth

Boqueron
Beautiful Boquerón -standing

Boqueron chillin
And laid out (thanks to Amanda for this photo)

Horny Cassie
You never know what you might see…ram horn helmet and a skeleton at a restaurant!

Crazy VanThat’s quite the paint job!

wreck 2
And that’s one heck of a wreck!

Jeff and Britton Cassie fedora
Laura and Trevor Salsa night

We went out salsa dancing with fedoras at a place called Hydra and had a lot of fun! It’s a cool, hip place and while I love salsa dancing and music it does seem to be dying off as a popular music style here on the island. Bachata, merengue and reggaeton are far more favored at most bars. Salsa is like 50’s sock-hop music would be to most people stateside.


We got some moves- haha!

Piramide Pyramid
Yah, you know there’s just a random pyramid in Aguada

Shell
Such beauty! Hermit crabs abound

Motorcycle ride
A nice guy at a bar gave me a ride on his motocicleta!

Crabby
And these guys found a land crab at this place! Apparently it is juey mating season!

Britton and Roberto
Good times with friends like Roberto

Cassie up
Fun at Spanish Wall

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Update: Limber de Teta, Demolition Derby, Flower Power, Rincón Film Fest, Etc

Rincon beach road
Rincón Back Road

Wow, it always surprises me when I think of what to write about for the blog. I think, I don’t really have any good topics. Then I look through my pictures and I see that we have actually been out doing quite a few things. Here are a few of them:

Rincón International Film Festival
We enjoyed a beautiful and elegant evening at Rincón Beach Resort for the final night of the Rincón International Film Festival also known as “Best Of Fest.”  I like to watch all the short films that have been sifted through and chosen as the top picks. As for the resort, I have never been to this one and it was really nice. I have seen it advertised on Wheel of Fortune and it definitely has that sort of all-inclusive resort vibe. It even has a swim-up pool bar that is connected directly to the beach.

Rincon Film Fest
With friends at RIFF 

Cassie Rincon Beach Resort RIFF with Markus and Daisy
Fun at Rincón Beach Resort

Limber de Teta
I saw a sign for Limber de Teta and it made me laugh. What could boob limber possibly be? So we stopped and tried it out. It was a limber (like an icee) but sold in a little baggie the shape of a boob. Pretty clever!

Britton sucking teta
Sucking on a parcha/piña boob

Limber de teta Artesan Boobs
At the Limber de Teta stand just off the 115 going towards Aguada

Demolition Derby in Moca
A friend of ours invited us to a demolition derby in Moca that was a fundraiser for his friend’s adolescent daughter who has a very aggressive form of cancer. I see a lot of fundraisers around here for various causes, but this was one of the biggest. We hadn’t been to a demo derby since the Greeley Stampede many years ago. Here it was definitely not regulation size or even in a stadium. People just sort of hung out everywhere, but it somehow worked.

F Cancer Demo car
One of the demolition cars

Demolition crowd Demolition Derby from above
Quite a crowd in the middle of a cleared out field!

As we were watching the events unfold a the derby, a young girl walked by that caught my eye. What was in her hands? Snakes! I was intrigued and began asking her about them. She could tell that I wasn’t afraid of them and said, do you want to hold them? I tentatively said yes and she put the large python on my neck and the baby in my hands. You never know what you may find in the randomest of places!

Snake Cassie edit
Cassie the Snake Charmer. Starting to get a little tight around the neck!

Flower Power: Playing Music
We played our most recent show at Willie’s to the theme of Flower Power/Hippie Night and it was a lot of fun.

Willies Hippie Night
Playing out at Willie’s

Hippies Kenny Markus Cassie Hippie Night
Good times! Peace, Love and Happiness!

On the Property
We have been focusing on property landscaping a little more lately and cleanup. While we’re not completely done with the house, it is functional. So now we are making it and the surroundings pretty! The finca has grown a lot in the last 3 nearly 4 years and we are starting to see the literal fruits of our labors!

Japanese Nispero Flowers
Nispero Japones aka Loquat first flowers!

Cassie Jungle 2 two
Amongst the flowers of our gardens

Kola cola nut flowers
Kola Nut flowers!

I hear something BK
In the jungle of our yard…Hey! What’s that sound?!

We have been clearing out some pretty nasty spiky and poisonous plants lately! Check them out:

Huge Spider Huntsman
Huge harmless spider (on a 2×6 to give you scale)…a huntsman

Cross that bridge
We’ll cross that bridge when we get there

As I was clearing some bromeliads and underbrush from behind the cabin, I found this old liquor bottle. We have determined based on the markings that it is from between 1932-1964! That’s a long time to be sitting out in the middle of the jungle! This old treasure says: Federal Law Forbids Sale or Reuse of this Bottle. John Walker and Sons Ltd Kilmarnock Scotland 4/5 Quart.

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Before it was Johnnie Walker, it was John Walker and Sons Ltd

The chickens and turkeys are all doing pretty good. We have to protect them a little more especially now that we are at the cabin and not as close to their coops. We collect quite a few eggs and enjoy their silly antics. Here’s some voodoo magic you can do with a chicken!

Out and about
And then of course there is the randomness of being out and about around the island. You just never know what you might see.

Whole lotta cans
Like a HUGE can of cans!

Muscovie duck
Beautiful duck, I think a Muscovy in a lagoon

Surfrider crewHanging out with Surfrider and a high school science club doing water quality testing 

Mural
Cool new mural on a derelict building

Cassie derelict house
And nature reclaiming this one

Not even for one second
This sign made me laugh…No! You can’t park here, not even for one second

Sana
One of our favorite little food stands, Sana, moved across the street by the Post Office

Socato fruit
And at the Pulguero in San Sebastian I spotted these huge fruits. They call them Socato

Chilling cassie
Hanging out at one of our favorite bars, Olajas in Aguada

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Random Photo Update: Life in Toon Town

Here are a few photos that don’t probably deserve a post on their own but are just a part of the slice of life living in Puerto Rico. Sometimes the scenes and places we end up just seem so surreal, like we are living in a dream or some sort of cartoon. Sometimes it’s very strange, sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s just strikingly beautiful. But whatever it is, we’re living it up!

Palm Tree Cassie
The beach is always right around the corner

Ardilla Mongoose crop
I finally got a photo of the mongoose! The little egg bandit!

Turkey bridgeTurkeys need to cross bridges too! This particular guy is the hope for the future of our turkeys. The last surviving male.

Corazon
We are harvesting more and more of our own fruit from the finca like this corazón, a fruit that looks like a heart

Bilimbe
And these interesting bilimbes that are juicy and so sour but leave a cool buttery taste in your mouth

More plants
And we went out and got some more plants too!

Kitty
I forgot to mention that Kitty is adapting well to the move over to the cabin too

Cassie Aquario
Out and about there is always something cool to see and do

Barrita Los cocos
Like this little Coconut Barrita

Hibiscus Flor
Or this amazing hibiscus flower right in the plaza that took my breath away

Britton and beer
Check out the view from this roadside liquor store

Mannequin house
And there is nothing like the bottom half of a naked mannequin to draw attention to your store! 🙂

Britton congas
One of the conga players from the balneario came down and practiced with us in the jam space!

Sunset
There’s never a shortage of spectacular sunsets here!

Sunset
Marina Sunset

Sangria Cassie
And new spots to check out like Pal Monte

Cassie Ultimo Brinco stand
Which is just up the road from El Ultimo Brinco, Rincon’s little waterfall spot

Cassie wanted  Anthony Loops and Cassie
Or at the restaurant Cowboys which is like a little slice of Colorado in Rincón (with friend and musician, Anthony Lee). They even have rodeos here!

Cowboys Rubberneckers
And we got to see our friends play some country music – the Rubberneckers

Viking B
And if Puerto Rico is like Toon Town, we are now part of the loony fabric too! Here’s Viking man at the beach!

Cassie contemplating coco
Or the contemplation of a coconut in an abandoned house without a roof

Colorful downtown
And everything is so colorful!

Bienvenidos a rincon
Rincón even has the cartoon-like welcome signs!

Cassie rock
And did I mention the beach is around every corner?

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