Category Archives: Puerto Rico Property

Govardhan Gardens

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Govardhan Gardens Entrance

Yesterday we visited Govardhan Gardens located between Mayaguez and Maricao. We were interested in this private fruit farm because the owner, Sadhu, has one of the largest exotic plant collections on the island. We have picked up quite a few exotics from a variety of nurseries around the island, but there were still some trees we had difficulty finding. We were excited to learn that Govardhan Gardens has pretty much any tropical fruit tree you can imagine!

Rambutan
Rambutan on the tree at Govardhan Gardens

We made arrangements with our friends Greg and Frances who were also interested in seeing his place. We took a tour of some of the property and visited his goats who were super cute!

Sadhu and goats
Sadhu and his goats

Bilimbe
Greg and Frances with a Bilimbe tree -the fruit grows right on the trunk!

In addition to fruit trees, Sadhu also prides himself on an extensive collection of rare and high quality bamboos. We are considering bamboo for a living fence along one edge of our property. But that will be another day.

Golden Bamboo
Rare golden bamboo

We picked up a nice assortment. I would have bought more, but they are quite a bit more expensive than some other nurseries, so we just stuck with the ones we have been interested in for quite some time.  It is amazing how fast our property can just go through plants. To really give it a tropical lush garden feel, it must be packed! Which is fine with me as learning about and finding new, ever-more-exotic/rare plants is one of my favorite pastimes now.

Fruit trees in truck
Truckload of more plants!

Here’s what we came away with on this trip to Govardhan Gardens:

Nutmeg– Used to make the spices nutmeg and mace. I am interested in getting a full spice collection including black pepper, cinnamon varieties, vanilla (we are currently growing), cloves, cardamom, ginger, galangal, etc.
African Breadfruit – Like traditional breadfruit, it can be used as a starch and even ground into a flour to make bread.
Dwarf Acai (2) – We have been looking a long time for acai. I love plants that are both beautiful and useful. Acai is a great looking palm tree and the fruit is one of the highest in antioxidants.
Jaboticaba- Strange tree whose dark purple grape-like fruit grow on the trunk of the tree. It is used extensively in Brazil.
Triangle Palm -This is an ornamental tree that we had been wanting for a while. It grows in the shape of a triangle and is quite striking.
Lipstick Palm- This is also an ornamental palm tree whose shaft is red-colored.
Black Sapote- According to Sadhu, if you pick this fruit at just the right time it will taste like chocolate pudding. If you freeze it and then shave it into a bowl, it tastes just like chocolate ice cream. I am a huge fan of ice cream, so I had to have this one! 🙂

I have no doubt that we will be back at Govadhan Gardens again in the future. Sadhu was extremely knowledgeable and helpful and I look forward to learning even more from him as well.

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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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House is Nearly Gone and New Electric Project

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Life has been pretty hectic around here lately. We are used to a pretty mellow and peaceful pace, but lately we have had crews of people in and around the property from sun up until sometimes past dark. While Britton and I are not doing very much of the labor ourselves (a major difference as well!), it is still pretty chaotic and stressful to have everything around you totally disrupted and noisy. Still,  things must get messy before they get pretty; it is how progress gets made after all. And we are very thankful for all the help we have had in moving towards these goals.

Missing house
Not much left!

The house is nearly gone. They are down to just the very last few beams and posts and a little clean up work. We plan to keep the lower shed room as a storage space and laundry room for the time being, but otherwise, everything will be gone super soon. It is so weird how much it is already transforming this space.

Ugly old electric line

The next thing we had to consider was the electrical line that runs from the wood house to our cabana. If we were to leave it, it would just be a pole sticking up connected to the street pole that traversed from the house through a tube under ground to the cabana. In order to take down the rest of the house, we need to remove it as well and have an electrical pedestal installed that connects directly to the cabana. We talked with an electrician who happens to be the father of one of the workers and he said he would be able to fix it. So in addition to our house demolition team hammering and tossing boards, we also had the electrical team digging trenches and sawing into our little concrete cabana. Talk about chaos!

Drilling into the house
Dust flying as the house was being sawed to the breaker box

The pedestal will be installed near the gate and will be very close to the road electrical line thereby removing the line that shoots downward where the house once stood.

work site and Pedestal from the road

After the house is down, the wood is stacked and protected from the rain, the shed is finished and the electrical system is rigged up, I think Britton and I are ready for a bit of a Christmas break! Whew!

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House is Halfway Down

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Bedroom removed from house
Popping off the top really opened up the view!

The wooden house demolition project is moving along pretty well. We had a few set backs but nothing too major and things are looking good.

Poop tube
Oops…when dropping some of the pieces overboard it accidentally broke the tube that connects the cabana to the septic. So we went a day without flushing the toilet until we could get it fixed

We have moved past the halfway point. The whole roof is down as well as the upstairs bedroom. Most of the walls have been removed. As we are seeing the insides of this old house we recognize that we would have probably needed to tear things all the way down to the subfloor in any case. The wall cavities were filled with remnants of just about every critter of the jungle and much of their waste.


Taking down a large wall…watch as all the bat guano starts flying!

It is weird to take down this house that we have been looking at (but not really using) for over a year straight through. I think we took our time in making the decision and met many people and learned the ropes for a long time before commencing such a big project. And really, with all the ideas we have for the property this is just the beginning…

Fan palm in place of house crop 2
The large traveler palm from the driveway is now visible from down below (with turkeys of course)

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