Category Archives: Gardening

Guess What I Found?!

“Guess what I found?” has been our newest game. It is kind of like the chance card on Monopoly. This could be something beneficial or not so much.

For instance, one of our first “guess what I found” moments was when I found the passionfruit flowers and fruit. Then another one was finding this creepy centipede in the palm trees.

Centipede

We have heard that Puerto Rico has no venomous snakes or spiders, but that you do have to watch out for these guys! Also, the ants are intense! Tiny little ants that feel like someone just threw a bunch of needles at your feet. We have been having a hard time feeding Kitty because only about 5 minutes after we set his food down the ants swarm his dish like a petri dish. And if you try to move it they start biting you! We are definitely going to have to find a solution for that!

As for Kitty himself, he spends almost his entire day as a lump under the covers of the bed.

Lump in the bed

He’s lump, he’s lump, he’s lump, he’s in our bed.

Kitty is definitely still freaked out. He comes out for a couple of hours a day, but if he hears the leaves rustle or any loud sound, he scurries back under the covers to hide. I took him out with me up on top of the cabana just to show him that there really is nothing to be afraid of, but I don’t think he believed me.

Kitty and Cassie
Kitty and me under the big mango tree

We are still doing quite a bit of work on the landscaping and have finally been able to drive the car into the courtyard after clearing away some massive weed trees that grew about three inches thick in just those past nine months. Britton bought a bow saw (thanks Matt for the recommendation) and hacked those things down.

BK and the sierra

I am bringing out a lot of Spanish vocabulary I haven’t had to use much in an office setting. Saw=Sierra, Wire=Alambre, Piedra de afilar= Sharpening stone, etc. Good practice using Spanish in our new daily life when we say “guess what I found” in the hardware stores.

A lot of you are worried we are working too much. Don’t worry. We also know how to play! We have gotten out and met some people too. We visited a few friends and played a little poker. We are planning on going to a concert event in Aguadilla this Saturday and we have taken lots of naps and eaten lots of “guest-what-I-found” delicious fruits from our property, the Econo or Edwards Grocery Stores or from the fruit vendors parked on the side of the road.

Quenepas
Not sure what these are…quenepas? They are from the property but mostly a huge seed inside

We have had a couple of other “guess what I found” moments. Britton was up on the top of the cabana with the laptop to transfer some pictures. He yelled down to me, “guess what I found?!” and I yelled back, “Um, cat poop?” and we laughed because apparently the roof of the cabana had been used by the local cats as a poop hot spot…but it turned out to be an ACTUAL hot spot. We found open WIFI on our roof! So great! I am standing here on top of the roof overlooking the wooden house and ocean writing this!

The not-so-great thing is what we did NOT find in our bags….our camera battery charger. I think we left it plugged into the wall in our kitchen in Greeley! Ugh. Once our battery runs out we won’t be able to take more pictures or videos, so we are going on a quest to try and find one (Mom if you read this can you check in our Greeley house?).

So daily we have little wins and little challenges. It has been the perfect balance. We still have a few things we need to sort out like the zafacones for the Rincon trash pick up are apparently all out, so we have to haul out any trash we make.

All in all, every day has been an adventure with new finds around every corner.

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (1)
  • Awesome (1)
  • Interesting (3)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

Getting Settled

We are starting to get settled in. Everywhere we look, though, there is more to do! It is hard to prioritize everything we need to do. Should we weedwack the front drive in or scrape the ceilings so the paint stops flaking on our heads as we are sleeping? Or should we get a dresser so we can take our clothes out of the suitcases? Or should we just hang out at the beach?

What’s great is that we can choose how much we want to do and we can rest when we want. Britton likes to wake up earlier than me. Yesterday he cut himself a path to the starfruit tree and the passionfruit vines and we ate that for breakfast. Pretty cool.


Starfruit cut

Starfruit AKA carambola from our yard

Inside of passionfruit
Passionfruit AKA parcha from our yard

white bird

We also saw this cool white bird hanging out eating lizards. Such a strange creature with that super long neck!

We went to the Home Depot to pick up a few of those needed things. Our friends are so great, they gave us some gift certificates there and they were very helpful! We picked up a ceiling fan, a bookshelf, some tools, trashcan (zafacon! a new word for Britton to learn), paint and supplies, a chironja tree (orange grapefruit cross) and other stuff to help get us started.

Cassie in HD
In Home Depot of Mayaguez

Then this morning we kept at the jungle trimming including taking down some of the dead palm fronds from the coconut palms and the traveler’s palm.

Traveler Palm Seed bunch BK
This is an old heart of palm that weighed about 30 lbs!

Travelers Palm seeds
Such an alien world to us!

We had fun working outside with our Colorado lungs we weren’t even breathing hard, but we sure were sweating a lot! 

And after working in the yard, the local beer, Medalla Light, with limes was the perfect thirst quencher sitting on the roof of the cabana under the shade of the mango tree.

Medalla and Lime

When it gets dark we settle in and watch a show on the laptop or clean up the inside of the cabana a little. It has rained a little bit and the coqui frogs and insects turn the quiet jungle into an orchestra. I had a dream last night that all the sounds of the jungle were actually a salsa band with little insect trumpet players.

House at night with vines

So, we are slowly getting settled in. We are still in need of a vehicle (we have a rental right now) and we haven’t even started on the wood house at all, but I think we are moving at a good pace. We are really enjoying this new life. I would definitely say we are jubilados! 

 

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (2)
  • Awesome (4)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

Big Updates

Time is moving fast!  We have continued the selling, the gardens are once again brimming with food, we had an anniversary (ocho años!)….and I put in my 2 weeks notice at work.

Anniversary 8 years
On our anniversary

Spaghetti Squash out windowKitty and the greenhouse
Greenhouse is Full -Spaghetti Squash is flowing out the windows!

It seems kind of unreal and yet totally comfortable to be on our path at the pace we are taking it. A lot of the things in our lives have been taken on as challenges such as our jobs and our goals are coming to a close.  As those things wind down, we are entering into our next level.  It seems to be a pretty natural transition actually and that’s because I suppose we designed it that way.  This hasn’t been a fast process.

Peach row
Peaches Galore (from our peach tree)

We often say to each other that we want to have an “endless Saturday in summer” because we enjoy the nice weather, the laid back pace and the freedom that we have on our weekends here in Colorado on the weekends.  That of course changes to ice world here in a few months.

Adriana Jose BK
Our Friends Adriana and Jose took most of our furniture!

banana tree
Even the Banana Tree

The house is nearly empty!  Most everything that is left is either spoken for, or will be given away.  When I am off of work, I can spend more time with the remaining items and changing bills over to paperless/online and the small things. It feels like we are ready to go, but there is lots to be taken care of before we head onto our Puerto Rico adventure!

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

Summer in the Rocky Mountains

One thing we will miss when we move to Puerto Rico is summer in Colorado and the ability to go to the Rocky Mountains in less than one hour from our house in Greeley.

Nice Mountain Shot
In the Colorado Rocky Mountains this weekend

This weekend we went to a wedding of our good friends Shana and Rick in Estes Park, Colorado. We took my old ’89 Oldsmobile car because Britton’s ’98 Honda is less reliable than my car to make it up the steep grade (as we found out last year). The Corvette used to be the best car to take up the mountains because it has the most horsepower and torque of any of the three, but since he has sold it, we were left with the Honda or Olds choices. My car did ok, but it had a major miss and we had to stop various times on the way up and down the mountain.

Shana Rick Photo Op

The wedding was at beautiful Mary’s Lake Lodge in Estes on a bright, sunny, if a little windy of a day. We then enjoyed spending time with our friends at the reception.

Me Jody and Shana Me and B in Estes Park

Afterward, we walked around Estes a bit and hiked a small while at the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park.

Pine Cone close Pretty Estes Sharp rockies Me and B by a river

It is such a gorgeous place. Estes Park is interesting because unlike other Colorado mountain cities, the only attraction is the beauty of the place as opposed to ski lifts and the like.

Yellow wildflower field and devils backbone
Wildflowers and Devil’s Backbone
On the way down the slope we topped off the great day with a stop at Devil’s Backbone in Loveland for a quick hike.

Cloudy backbone

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