Category Archives: Backyard Chickens

April Update -Finca, Flowers, Friends, Fruit and Fun

Hanging with my little guy in Rincon

If it weren’t for me being a chronic photo-taker, I don’t know if I would ever blog anymore. The pictures help me to remember what we have been up to which has been a lot of fun! We have been busy with visiting friends, the flower business continues to grow (literally haha), the cabana has been booked regularly and we have seen some cool sights as well. Aeden is growing up fast and at 7 months can now sit up on his own and eats sooo much regular food! Here are quite a few pictures that tell so much more than my hands can type.

Babies grow so fast! I had no idea. Compare 1 month to 6 months

Britton and Aeden at Rompeolas in Aguadilla

We have a bunch of new varieties of flowers coming in right now

Family fun at the farm

Why is Britton usually carrying Aeden? Because he is huge in comparison to me! These pictures were taken at the same moment in time 🙂

And work -clearing out more underbrush and dead trees to plant fruit trees and flowers

One of Kitty’s last pictures 🙁

We buried him near the bridge so we can think of him every day. We miss you, Kitty. You were a good cat

I am also so saddened by the death of our former bandmate, drummer, artist, jokester and friend, Rob

We finished the concrete staircase that enters the jungle and added solar lights

Fun in Aguada

With the babe

At the pool of Casa Islena -Aeden loves kicking water

At the pool of Villa Montana too!

With his sweet little friend and our new friends

At the pool of Rincon of the Seas

With friends Tracy and Fernando

We’ve had some large orders of flowers lately!

And more and more keep growing like these gardenias

Peek-a-boo!

New variety of starfruit started growing on a tree we planted!

And our first ever Siam Rose flower bloomed! We weren’t sure about this one since it usually takes a lot more rain than Rincon gets

Grosella tree is going off!

So I brought a bag of them to Roots Bar to see what magic Sashary can make with them!

These gals are so fun!

So sad to see our good friends the Kersches move away (at Ode in Aguada)

Chicken in the bushes

We spend a lot of time outside on the farm with the munchkin

Manzano guineos as they ripen – apple flavored bananas! Not your typical store banana!

It’s a colorful time of year! Ornamental Turmeric Flower and caladium from our farm and a Reina de las flores in the market

Our little boy is growing up too fast!

Go where love grows! My two cowboys!

Yeehaw at Cowboys in Rincon

Palm Sunday procession in Rincon

Gecko visiting an ornamental banana flower

“Bienvenidos” is too cool! And a great part of Rincon

Stopped in at the Ag Fest in Mayaguez

And the ArtWalk -we don’t go out at night much anymore with the little guy

Britton, bananas and baby!

Fun seeing our friends Matt and Jamie again

Hanging at the beach

And my friend from high school/Colorado, Sarah and her family at Villa Cofresi

Pineapples are growing good!

And more bananas! These are the “Cuban reds”

More flowers! Double hibiscus and orchid

We also ate our first jaboticaba after about 4 years of waiting!

The gardens are really coming in beautifully!

Driving along in Mayaguez, this horse was standing there like “Am I not Magestic? You should take my picture!” So I did

Plantain delivery in action!

Saw these ornate Don Quixote (I assume) carved figurines in a garden store!

Check out this stinky star flower I saw walking around too!

Cool mural in Aguada

Selfie time!

Papaya grows wild here! We didn’t plant this, but we sure did eat it! Tasted like cantaloupe

Well, that’s all folks! Until the next time!

Oh and here is Aeden’s 7 month update video! Enjoy!

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Hacienda Marak in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico

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Aeden checking out the donkey Sancho at Hacienda Marak

We recently had the opportunity to visit Hacienda Marak in Mayaguez. I was very impressed with this farm as it has nearly everything I would love to do with our place only on a much larger scale. Markitto Tremblay is the owner of the property. He is the former owner of the unique boutique hotel in Rincon, the Blue Boy Inn, but has since retired to his 65 acre slice of paradise on the mountainside of Mayaguez. I have been following him on Facebook and just knew I had to meet him and check out what he has been up to. He has some exotic plants that you just don’t find in the nurseries here, a beautifully remodeled home (a former coffee plantation and hacienda), various fun animals and even the pond I have been wanting! The icing on the cake is that he is a native French speaker and I am currently taking a French class, so that was extra fun.

Some very cool plants including even apples!

Gorgeous orchids

I loved his eye for style

And landscape design

The columns and terrace area got me thinking of some fun ideas!

The pond was one of my favorite parts of the tour! Something I have been talking about with our property for a long time to put under the bridge

The animals were so cool! Chickens, goats, sheep, parrots, a dog (that looked remarkably like Schnoodle), donkeys, koi, and we gave him some of our turkey babies too to add to his menagerie!

Sancho the donkey was super friendly and fun

I have always wanted a tortoise too. I think this one is an African Spurred Tortoise

She may live to be 100 years old!

Thank you Markitto for opening your home to us! It is lovely and an inspiration to us to keep going on our tropical property!

Here’s a video of our time with Markitto. Aeden was kind of squirmy and whiny so it is somewhat choppy, but I hope it shows a little what a magical, magnifique place Hacienda Marak is!

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Spring and Easter in Rincón

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In Puerto Rico because it is a tropical environment, many people think that there are not seasons. This is not exactly accurate. While it does stay between 75-85 degrees F year round there are still subtle changes. Because we work outside a lot and we live in a cabin in the middle of the jungle we notice these changes perhaps a bit more than some people. For one thing, many of the plants begin to flower in preparation for fruiting in the summer. One of my favorite flowering plants are the robles (Tabebuia rosea). For about one month these trees add a rose colored hue to everything including the ground! It is like living in a pink snow globe especially when you see them softly twirl to the ground.

The trees and I are pink!

Roll out the pink carpet!

Turkeys enjoying the changing colors of spring

The rambutan are already flowering! Let’s hope they form fruit!

Like this grosella

The papaya and bananas are constantly producing! I love the way this trunk looks like ancient carving

I think all plants are beautiful in a certain way, but not all of them are friendly! We have been working on clearing around the cabin and replanting with fruiting trees and ornamentals. In doing so we have to clear out some pretty mean and nasty stuff like the Puerto Rican poison ivy they call Carrasco that no matter how careful I am, I always somehow manage to get on me. About 2 days after this happens I swell up really bad and start itching uncontrollably. Then my skin erupts in a pus-y mess and then finally scabs over. It is not fun!

Spring for the Carrasco plant too! Here is its flower/berry

Another mean plant are the wild bromeliads. While beautiful they have the most vicious spikes on them. I have many pokes and stings from these bad boys. They are very difficult to eradicate from an area. We just threw them over the fence line. They would make a good living fence because no one would want to walk through these!

Wild bromeliad and its thorny weaponry

Side of the cabin that we cleared of bromeliads and other brush and have begun to replant

When we’re not enjoying spring in the jungle, we have been out with friends at various events including the Stand Up Paddleboard race, and Spring/Easter parties. The 2017 tourist season was a little slow, but that doesn’t mean the partying was. One thing about living in Rincón (and I think Puerto Rico in general) is that there is never a shortage of parties! It’s a good-time island. We have to consciously choose which events to go to and which not because we’ll never get anything done around the property otherwise!

Villa Cofresí and her famous piratas during the SUP contest

Fun times with friends!

On Easter weekend we went to a friend’s farm in Aguada and set up a campground. We sang songs around the campfire and toasted marshmellows and relaxed. The fireflies came out and danced alongside us. It was truly magical!

Road through the woods to the campsite

Campsite by day

And by night (thanks Daisy for this pic)

Easter we had a wonderful time with a variety of friends!

The Van Ees

So much fun! Slip-sliding away…even with chickens!

¡Felices Pascuas!

And another party at the beach!

So yes, there is a spring in Puerto Rico even if it isn’t quite as pronounced as up north. Everything is in bloom, the birds and insects start mating more, the rains begin to come more regularly, the temperature and humidity go up a little and the ocean warms up just a bit. In Rincón the northern tourists leave and the local Puerto Rican tourists start arriving. I hope we can continue playing music through this summer, but if not, come check us out at our next show this Saturday at Willie’s Bar and Grill in the marina!

Rincón Continentals Live

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Update: Limber de Teta, Demolition Derby, Flower Power, Rincón Film Fest, Etc

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Rincón Back Road

Wow, it always surprises me when I think of what to write about for the blog. I think, I don’t really have any good topics. Then I look through my pictures and I see that we have actually been out doing quite a few things. Here are a few of them:

Rincón International Film Festival
We enjoyed a beautiful and elegant evening at Rincón Beach Resort for the final night of the Rincón International Film Festival also known as “Best Of Fest.” I like to watch all the short films that have been sifted through and chosen as the top picks. As for the resort, I have never been to this one and it was really nice. I have seen it advertised on Wheel of Fortune and it definitely has that sort of all-inclusive resort vibe. It even has a swim-up pool bar that is connected directly to the beach.

Rincon Film Fest
With friends at RIFF

Fun at Rincón Beach Resort

Limber de Teta
I saw a sign for Limber de Teta and it made me laugh. What could boob limber possibly be? So we stopped and tried it out. It was a limber (like an icee) but sold in a little baggie the shape of a boob. Pretty clever!

Sucking on a parcha/piña boob

At the Limber de Teta stand just off the 115 going towards Aguada

Demolition Derby in Moca
A friend of ours invited us to a demolition derby in Moca that was a fundraiser for his friend’s adolescent daughter who has a very aggressive form of cancer. I see a lot of fundraisers around here for various causes, but this was one of the biggest. We hadn’t been to a demo derby since the Greeley Stampede many years ago. Here it was definitely not regulation size or even in a stadium. People just sort of hung out everywhere, but it somehow worked.

One of the demolition cars

Quite a crowd in the middle of a cleared out field!

As we were watching the events unfold a the derby, a young girl walked by that caught my eye. What was in her hands? Snakes! I was intrigued and began asking her about them. She could tell that I wasn’t afraid of them and said, do you want to hold them? I tentatively said yes and she put the large python on my neck and the baby in my hands. You never know what you may find in the randomest of places!

Cassie the Snake Charmer. Starting to get a little tight around the neck!

Flower Power: Playing Music
We played our most recent show at Willie’s to the theme of Flower Power/Hippie Night and it was a lot of fun.

Playing out at Willie’s

Good times! Peace, Love and Happiness!

On the Property
We have been focusing on property landscaping a little more lately and cleanup. While we’re not completely done with the house, it is functional. So now we are making it and the surroundings pretty! The finca has grown a lot in the last 3 nearly 4 years and we are starting to see the literal fruits of our labors!

Nispero Japones aka Loquat first flowers!

Amongst the flowers of our gardens

Kola Nut flowers!

In the jungle of our yard…Hey! What’s that sound?!

We have been clearing out some pretty nasty spiky and poisonous plants lately! Check them out:

Huge harmless spider (on a 2×6 to give you scale)…a huntsman

We’ll cross that bridge when we get there

As I was clearing some bromeliads and underbrush from behind the cabin, I found this old liquor bottle. We have determined based on the markings that it is from between 1932-1964! That’s a long time to be sitting out in the middle of the jungle! This old treasure says: Federal Law Forbids Sale or Reuse of this Bottle. John Walker and Sons Ltd Kilmarnock Scotland 4/5 Quart.

Before it was Johnnie Walker, it was John Walker and Sons Ltd

The chickens and turkeys are all doing pretty good. We have to protect them a little more especially now that we are at the cabin and not as close to their coops. We collect quite a few eggs and enjoy their silly antics. Here’s some voodoo magic you can do with a chicken!