We love this rural tropical life. Here are a few fun photos from this past week or so.
Rainstorms and rainbows falling into the sea
Kitty on the catwalk
Siding on the cabin is looking really good! (And who is that handsome turkey on the deck?)
Iguana in a red banana tree
Wild fern
This loose cow has been just hanging out on the property
Laser cow and cat stare-down
The siding for the cabin has been an ongoing project for quite a few months. The first issue with it was simply deciding what type of siding to use. We really didn’t want to use T-111 as siding if we could avoid it at all. It is just sort of a cheesy, cheap material (that’s still sort of expensive) and to me it is just not the style aesthetically that I would prefer. So we looked into ordering various types of siding online, but the cost to ship something like ipe siding was more than the siding itself!
This cabin needs some siding!
So we were back to trying to find materials on the island. We have seen a few of the older style Puerto Rican houses with horizontal lap siding and we liked how this looked. A rustic sort of style that would go good on a cabin hidden in the jungle. So then the question was where to buy it, and indeed if it could be found anymore. It was not at Home Depot, National or any of the closeby hardware stores. We found one place listed in San Juan, but to save our sanity we would really prefer not to have drive there (but if need be we were trying to steel ourselves for it).
You have arrived at Comerical Toro! Woohoo
After a treasure hunt of sorts with clues from one hardware store and friends to try this or that, we finally ended up at Comercial Toro in Cabo Rojo. This is probably where we should have started for anything wood related. In fact, all the wood from the old wood house was marked from 1990/Comercial Toro. They mill some stuff and also pressure treat the wood themselves. It’s a huge facility!
With the chanfles in Cabo Rojo
We found out that in Spanish they call these boards chanfles or in English drop siding. We ordered up a bunch (hopefully enough) and they delivered them in a few days. Then the prep work came. Before we could put up the siding we needed to put in all the windows and also the trim and paint everything.
Piles to be painted
Trim and siding
Britton installing trim while a turkey inspector pecks around
Finally this week we began putting on the first few boards of actual siding! Exciting! It’s looking pretty good too! There’s a learning curve to all of this, so Britton is starting from the back and working his way to the front. The really challenging part will be the “tall side” of the house where there is no deck and it is about 20 feet off the ground. We may need Waldemar-the-Fearless’s help on that part!
First few rows of siding on the back
And then a few more!
Otherwise things are going well. When we’re not working on the cabin we’ve been playing music and hanging out with friends. Life’s good.
Went to see our friend’s band, Superluna, debut at Pool’s Bar
And stopped by Step’s Beach for a bit
The finca is coming along great. Now that the air is getting a little cooler, it’s a little easier to be outside working. We are also starting to look more and more the part of a farmer, or I like the word jíbaro, than ever before. Britton finally broke down and bought some steel-toed rubber boots for when he was slipping all over the place building the bridge and then I got some too.
Me, the turkeys and my boots -also a huge wild papaya (aka lechosa) and plantains above
They get a little hot and sweaty, but to avoid slipping and all the ants out there, they are great. I still have a tendency to just want to wear my flip-flops, but at least I have some protection if needed.
We are still growing a lot of food:
Bucket of avocados and starfruit and our “new” avocado
Since August we have eaten avocados EVERY. SINGLE. DAY! Not that I am complaining! I love avos. We even found another tree that is a different variety and super smooth and creamy. So we have a very prolific one that is great for guacamole and a less prolific one that is nice for pretty slices with the eggs in the morning. There are other avocado trees as well, but they are little deep in the jungle. We constantly harvest lots of bananas, coconuts and passionfruit. Occasionally we can reach a breadfruit before it drops, but it’s a super tall tree. Besides all this great healthy food, though, we also grow our “medicine.”
Three of the most important medicines you could have: ginger, turmeric and garlic
The famous quote by Hippocrates is still true today: Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. What you consume is important to your health! Junk food makes for junky health but on the other side, there are so many great foods out there to help it! In fact, at least 50% of pharmaceuticals were at one point derived from plants!
Turmeric and ginger growing -notice the small flower on the ginger
Here are some medicinal plants I wouldn’t want to be without:
Turmeric:
This is just an all-time super star. A powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory. It’s used to treat or help with just about everything from heartburn to diabetes! Many diseases are caused by oxidative stress and inflammation, so this root helps on both fronts. What I am most impressed with are the studies showing it could help in preventing, treating, and possibly even curing cancer! I use it any time I cook. It adds a great flavor to meals as well as a yellow color. Some of the oldest people in the world drink a turmeric tea daily. Just be careful as it can stain.
Garlic:
Recently Britton got a splinter in his finger and over the course of a couple of days it swelled up huge! He said it was hurting and beginning to spread. We were just about to the point of going to the pharmacy for some antibiotics, but decided to try garlic first. He ate about two raw cloves a day as well as placed some chopped garlic under a Band-Aid on the splinter area. Within about 4 days, he was completely healed! Garlic is a great antibacterial, anti-microbial, and anti-viral agent in addition to antioxidant and general health tonic. It is also super great for the cardio-vascular system. In addition to the turmeric, I always add garlic to our meals. Cooked is fine, but it’s a little more powerful raw, such as in our guacamole!
Ginger:
I just love the smell and taste of ginger. Another great general health tonic, ginger is probably most well known for helping with stomach aches and nausea. And like turmeric it is also useful for inflammatory issues like arthritis. I often add it to our meals or make a tea or juice mixed with carrots out of it.
Chia:
We aren’t growing this yet, but I would like to because of all the great health benefits, especially to the digestive tract and antioxidants (more even than the powerhouse blueberry). It has the best fatty acids and is super high in fiber. Everyone should eat a spoonful of chia daily or make chia pudding for a refreshing and healthy snack.
Milk Thistle: We grew this in Colorado but I don’t know of a tropical substitute, so I use a supplement for this. I mention it because it is one of the best treatments for a hangover or any type of liver problems or just to maintain a healthy liver. When our young little dog Schnoodle nearly died of jaundice, this saved her life. It was what got me interested in herbal medicine in the first place!
Recently, I have heard of another plant that I was super interested in. It is called Moringa and is often called the Tree of Life.
Moringa sapling ready to be planted
Moringa:
This sounds like the most useful tree ever! You can eat just about every part of it. The leaves can be cooked or eaten like salad greens. The seed pods, called drumsticks, can be cooked as a vegetable. The seeds themselves make a great oil and the root is supposed to taste like horseradish. You can even use it for water purification! In addition to all of these fantastic qualities, it has a ton of health benefits most notably increased vitality in general.
Britton and I planted the moringa and maví trees (as well as a durian) by the cabin
Maví:
I haven’t had the famous Puerto Rican drink, maví, yet, but I’ve heard it’s a little like rootbeer or sarsaparilla in flavor. It’s also supposed to have great health effects including lowering blood pressure. Like cinnamon (another powerhouse mainly for lowering blood sugar/avoiding diabetes), you use the bark of the tree and then make a sort of tea out of it!
I love plants of all types and there is a place here at the farm and in the gardens for them all! From the showy and ornamental to the common fruits and vegetables and all the way to the understated beauty of the medicinals. They are all welcome here!
Plumeria flower: a beauty and edible too!
Our new lifestyle suits us well. We love being outside in nature and with all the plants and animals. We eat food from the land probably close to 50% of our intake. Some of this food we planted or raised, some were here already and others like papaya just show up as a gift from the wild. We get a lot of movement naturally working and sweating outside and we eat food as medicine. We are much more social and also much more relaxed. Living this way, without really trying we have both lost about 15 pounds more or less (we don’t have a scale, so not exactly sure) and thanks to all of these factors we feel healthier than ever. Yep, I’d say green acres is the life for me!
Tropical farm life is the sweet life!
This week Britton put on the last few boards that connected one side of the bridge to the other.
Little Britton, big bridge and huge Royal Palm tree
We have been enjoying going across it, walking on it like a catwalk, swinging our legs over the edge, laying down feet to feet or head to head looking up at the birds, bugs, and iguanas in the trees.
Full length of the bridge
On the catwalk, yah!
It’s not totally done, but it is useable/walkable now. We still need to add some other bolts to it, put on some handrails and about 10 more feet to make the transition onto the bridge feel seamless. Then we need to put in rebar and pour the concrete steps to make the full connection all the way to the cabin.
Britton had to re-do a few of the stair molds because they weren’t regular rise and run
Compared to going down into quebrada and climbing back up, crossing the bridge feels like floating.
Bridge, curving steps and cabin
We love our little cabin hideaway in the woods and this bridge makes it even more fun. We have already started talking about what we can put below it. A tilapia pond? A small waterfall? Koi? Ducks? Tropical water lilies? Or all of the above. There is just so much potential with this property and this bridge is another step to helping us unlock even more.