Category Archives: Homesteading

Season’s Greetings -A Photo Update from A, B, and C

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Now that we have Baby Aeden with us we are A, B and C (Aeden, Britton and Cassie)! So we thought we would make it as easy as A, B and C to say Happy Holidays and Felicidades from our home to yours! 🙂 Here are a few photos and a short video from our life recently in Puerto Rico. It has been speeding right along. I can’t believe Aeden is already 3 months old and almost sleeping through the night! Now I might have time to actually blog a little more again.


The beauty never ceases to amaze me!


Lots of yard work even in winter -Baby Aeden is lulled to sleep by the sounds of the mower haha


Cool abandoned airplane I saw off the road in Aguadilla looks like it should be in Lost


This banana tree was just asking to be photographed in this light. Gorgeous!


So was this monstera! One of my favorites in the flower bouquets and arrangements we sell


We took a little holiday photoshoot at the finca with our little Santa Baby


So cute!


Mommy’s kissing Santa!


My most precious gift!


Afterward he was tuckered out!


Check out how long this banana flower goes (with Elsa from the Farmer’s Market)


Always lots of Holiday Cheer around here (haha)


Watch out! It’s pica pica season!! eek this stuff is painfully itchy


My big boy can almost keep his head up by himself. He is growing so fast!


These prayer/blessing/curse candles are definitely a “thing” here


Close up of the “velas“

Campaign to try to prevent people from shooting guns in the air whilst celebrating the holidays -“ni una bala mas al aire” means “not even one bullet more in the air!”


He can be such a guy smiley when he wants to be. My little flower child


He IS awesome like Daddy!


Awesome Daddy trying out the Moby wrap

News Anchor Jeremy Hubbard visited us here in PR a bit ago. For those of you in Colorado, stay tuned to Fox 31 in Denver for a couple of news stories about us that should air this week and in January!


Fun times with friends


Pretty turkey boy

I think we have more than enough lemon grass -sheesh! Poor Britton was all scratched up after this!


I’m pretty sure Aeden is going to be an astronaut! lol

Oh, I love this little guy so!


Sunset over Tres Palmas

Aeden’s 3 month update video complete with turkey photobomb!

Until next time! Hasta Luego!

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Adventures in Jungle Taming: Felling a Giant Royal Palm

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A Daunting Task

It’s not all planting flowers and building trails when it comes to taming our jungle. In this case, we had one of our favorite huge Royal Palm trees die of Thielaviopsis trunk rot. It’s a bummer because it was sort of the statement piece of this “room” in our botanical garden. This occurs when palms suffer some sort of trauma to their soft core such as tearing off palm fronds or wounding it in some other way. You know, the sort of thing a huge hurricane could do. After Maria all the surviving palms (the ones that didn’t get knocked over completely or bent in half like a straw), seemed to slowly come back replacing their fronds one by one. Including this one. But then a yellowing came over the spire and then the upper green trunk. The rot had been slowly and quietly eating away at the palm from the inside out. We kept thinking maybe it got struck by lightning and would grow back, but it never recovered. Finally the entire crown just fell off. If there is no crown, a palm can’t survive.

We contemplated just leaving the huge concrete-pole looking tree there, but we knew it would eventually start rotting away and pose a safety threat when it finally fell on its own, so we decided to chainsaw it down. Chainsawing is dangerous and even with a lot of experience, you can’t always predict where trees will fall. This one was a pretty scary job, and made this pregnant lady waddle away as fast a possible when the tree started coming right in my direction. Check out the video.

In the end it all worked out and we planted a new mango tree in its place. And the jungle grows on.


It smushed a mulberry tree, some bananas and heliconias, but we managed to save them


It stinks from all the rot inside!

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Flower Power on the Finca

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Delivery of a large bouquet to Roots in Rincon during the Sunday farmer’s market

We have been dealing with some pretty heavy emotional blows lately, but one thing that always cheers me up are the beautiful plants and flowers all around our property. Some of these have taken years to bloom, but are giving us quite the show lately. I forget all of their official names, but I hope you enjoy. We have still been out to the weekly farmer’s market every Sunday selling bouquets. If you happen to be in town, stop by and say “hi.”


Me and our market neighbor Aciel who sells artisanal soaps!


Red Torch Ginger


Type of heliconia psittacorum


Shell ginger


First time this one has bloomed! Sexy pink pendant heliconia!


Early bloom on a red heliconia


These are common, but beautiful and prolific red alpinia ginger (non edible)


Pink alpinias


Common pendants (heliconia) or ‘colgantes’ in Spanish


Through the garden patch of torches


Beehive ginger AKA microfono (since it looks like a microphone)


Bromeliad inflorescence


Rare white torch ginger in our basket of flowers at the market


You wouldn’t think it’s necessary, but we run water to any area we plant because things do dry out here!

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Bench Pressing in the Jungle Gym

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Often times we say that we don’t have to go work out at a gym or own any exercise equipment because our lifestyle has it built in: our very own jungle gym (literally in the jungle). Well we recently added another piece to the gym and it was all about bench pressing!

We saw some concrete benches at a shop and we loved them because they will last much longer than the metal ones that start corroding/rusting in the rain right away. We got a backless bench for one area, and then decided we would like one with a back. Now that I am carrying more weight (lifting weights) with me everywhere I go (including on the property), I have found I need more places to sit. Plus it just makes the property even more park-like.

Small bench near the tropical gardens


The larger bench (in pieces) we put near the bridge was super heavy and we had to flatten the ground to make it work


But fits right in


Enjoying the new bench

Before we had the bench we just put a chair on the pad as you can see in this walk with Kitty through the jungle. The bench is much better!

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