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
I have come to know that I am very motivated by music. When I start my days I usually listen to music and drink coffee before getting started on whatever project or goal I have set for the day. One of these tunes that pops up every so often is the song Time by Pink Floyd.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
The song to me is about a lifetime and what we may want to accomplish before a our life slips past. This idea has been important to us in general; we didn’t want our working lives to take up the entirety of our adulthood. Not that we didn’t enjoy a lot of different aspects of it or that it wasn’t beneficial to us, but we had written down some goals. Some scribbled lines… and that is what brought us to Puerto Rico.
Every year is getting shorter; never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
The scribbling of lines has continued!
Before we begin a large undertaking we write stuff down. We make plans, we figure, we think and we try to create in our minds as accurate of a picture we can of what we want to create. This is important because we have found out that being as specific as possible helps to manifest our dreams into reality. We just completed the major part of the bridge and staircase leading up to the cabin and I wanted to show the drawings and the nearly finished product.
Scribbled out Bridge Plans Actual Bridge
We had even laid out some plans for the staircase on the other side, which we just completed a few days ago. When I looked back at our idea book it was pretty similar!
Bridge and staircase between Palms Actual Bridge and Staircase Different Angle
These were not easy challenges to accomplish. It required leveraging both human and material resources. I hired some help for digging the footers and making the forms. We used leftover wood from the wood house for 50% of the bridge and for making all of the concrete forms. The wood house we took down has turned out to be a tremendous resource!
The concrete steps probably have more time left in them than my body does.
Path that leads to the Cabin
We continue to put trees and plants in the ground as much as we can because they also will require time. It can take many years for even a grafted fruit tree to produce and we want to work with time in that regard. Contrast this with our previous jobs where we felt we were working against time; when is the next vacation, what time do I get off?
Our lives are going to be over at some point regardless of anything, but we get to choose how we spend our time. If we enjoy something we try to expand upon it and utilize time as one of our resources instead of something to dread and count down the moments until we reach the finish line. It is also tough because one never knows when their time is going to be over, or when we may not be able to physically do the things we are doing any longer. Both Cassie’s dad and my mom died earlier than anyone expected. It has helped us to realize that all of this is fleeting and you’d better get out there and do what you can!
Your time is a personal thing. Are you using it the way you want to?
And with that;
The time is gone, this song(post) is over
Thought I had something more to say……
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.