Category Archives: Homesteading

Are We Hillbillies or What?

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We are nearing the very end of the house demolition project. However, now that the house is basically just pieces of wood on the ground, everything else about our life is totally disordered. That’s what happens when you live “on-site,” I suppose.

Working in Paradise

Thursday was the craziest with activity and lots of hammer drilling from about 7am to 7pm, so Friday we needed a break (and I think the workers did too)!

But it wasn’t a true break, because I still needed to get laundry done amidst all the chaos that was left behind. I was getting a bit snippy with Britton about my “less than ideal” ability to wash and hang laundry and he stopped me in my tracks and said, “Wait, I need to get a photo of this.” Yep, it is pretty hilarious. And a good reminder to not take things too seriously. Everything will get sorted out….eventually! And if we turn into hillbillies in the process, so be it!

Crazy laundry and turkeys
Crazy acres is the life for me! 🙂

The cool thing about living amidst all the construction progress is that you get to know everyone pretty well. Well enough that when the guys heard that I had never had “pitorro” (which they pronounced pitojo), the next day they brought a bottle of it for us and a bottle for them and we all took shots (a very small one for me) from the same metal cup and said “salud!” Pitorro is like Puerto Rican moonshine and everyone has a different recipe for it. This one tasted pretty good and sweet and was made with tamarind and parcha juice, but it did pack a punch. An only in Puerto Rico experience for sure.

PitorroYou can’t be a true hillbilly until you’re drinking the local moonshine, right? 🙂

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Halloween, Huge Hermit Crab and A Frog Hideaway

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Recently we have seen some more cool sights. Will it ever stop being cool to us? Doubtful.

Halloween in Rincón is more about costumes and partying for the adults than it is for kids. However, our friends told us about a kid event that they were taking their daughter to and we were interested in checking it out because the alternative school (Semillas) is also a 5 acre farm just down the road from us.

Britton and moon
Britton posing with the moon above

It was quite beautiful and Halloween evening started out with a beautiful sunset setting the clouds ablaze in colors.

Cassie and Horse
Petting a horse at Semillas

Later that evening Britton and I dressed up to go out. We didn’t have much time to put together a costume since we were without a vehicle for so long, but we did have a couple of wigs and so the costumes came together pretty nicely. Me as a disco dancer and Britton as a corporate castaway on a deserted island complete with shredded shorts.

Cassie and Britton Halloween

Because Halloween fell on a Friday this year, all the bars had parties. Down at the Tamboo in Puntas, whole roads were closed off. We heard that Calypso was pretty fun too. We chose to go to Shipwreck and then ended the evening around 1am at Rincón Beer Company. The costumes here are so creative and gorgeous. I love the level of originality everyone puts into them!

Naomi Michelle Cassie

Back at the homestead we have recently found some pretty cool things as well.

Britton walked right out the cabana and found the largest hermit crab we have ever seen in our lives! The shell blended in so well with the environment that at first he thought it was a rock that was moving!

Giant Hermit Crab small
Huge hermit crab!

Then as we were walking down below in the jungle area, we stopped to admire the bromeliads that are blooming.

Frog egg flower small
Notice anything?

Frog eggs in plantHow about now?

When I looked inside the leaves of one of them I spotted a bunch of little slimy marbles. I carefully took a couple of them out and looked at them. They were frog eggs in various stages of development! Sometimes they would kick and swim around in their fluid. I was happy to see these frogs because frogs are often the indicator of a healthy ecosystem free of very many contaminants or poisons. So cool!

Frog egg
Frog in his own little bubble

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Completion of a Turkey Coop!

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Cassie and I worked all day yesterday to get the turkey coop painted using up the existing paint we had on hand, framing/cutting out the windows and putting up the final touches including the trim.  It was a pretty long day, we started working ~9am and didn’t finish until around 4 in the afternoon.

Again, a lot of time working on the coop has been spent reusing old materials which adds a lot of work but saves a lot of money.  In the end it is worth it to us.

Turkey Coop Finished (2)

We built this coop to have a similar design to our chicken coop as that design has worked out well.  This coop has a screen door to add a bit more airflow and we didn’t have an extra door laying around. There is also a trap door on the floor of this coop so that we can someday enclose the base with chicken wire and have the turkeys raise their poults underneath without fear of the hawks.  They will still need to sleep in the coop due to rats, but they will have space to dust bathe in and peck around.

We used materials from the wood house’s deck as that deck will be replaced with new lumber, and I even grabbed T-111 sheets from the upstairs bedroom.  The paint for the turkey coop was leftover from painting our cabana and the blue trim leftover from the chicken coop.  All in all we spent less than $100 on the new coop.  In new materials we estimate it would have cost close to $1000 which would have been waaayyy too much for us to spend on a coop.

Paint makes such a difference.  We know this as we have done many a remodel project but yet it still amazes us.  Before painting the coop it looked like a true to life hillbilly shack complete with a hillbilly.
BK Turkey Coop

The Turkeys are now moved in which is great because they are growing fast and have outgrown the turkey cage/tractor we had them in.  They were having to crouch to get around and there wasn’t adequate space to keep a full size feeder and waterer so we were having to check on them multiple times a day.  The coop will not only make the turkeys happier but also will be less work.

Turkey Coop Chicken Coop
Space Between (click to enlarge)

We left quite a bit of tree nursery space between the two coops.  We haven’t ever raised turkeys so we actually weren’t too sure how much space if any was needed.  It is possible to have them co-exist in the same coop but there are chicken to turkey diseases that can be transmitted.

We are happy with the results and figure for a turkey coop, the turkeys have a pretty nice crib.
Turkey Coop Finished

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Progression of a Turkey Coop

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The turkeys are getting bigger and bigger and definitely outgrowing the little turkey/chicken tractor. It is a lot more work to repurpose materials than it is to just go out and buy them, so it has taken a bit longer than we anticipated to finish.

Turkeys
Turkeys watching as the coop walls are being made

First Britton pulled the boards off the deck, then he had to powerwash them and sort which ones were usable. He had to take out all the old nails and saw off any bad parts and chop them to the proper size.

Turkey Coop
Britton and a turkey coop wall

We still had to buy a few pieces of wood as well as the roofing material. Then we were able to build the walls and the roof. Today, we are working on sourcing some of the old T-111 siding from the wood house. Then we will be installing it, building a door, putting on the wire as well as building a trap door and under area. So we still have a ways to go, but our goal is to finish it by this weekend if possible.

Turkey Coop (2)

In other news, the egg machine has started production! Just when our spirits were the lowest after the dog attack on the chickens, we found our first little white egg and then the next day a green egg! We are super excited to eat our own eggs. After the trials and tribulations of getting all these birds to adulthood, it tastes like victory.

First Egg

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