Bees are a way of life here and like many things we were initially freaked out about when moving here (have you seen the rats?! haha) we have taken them on as a learning opportunity. We love bees and all the work they do. They pollinate so many of our beautiful flowers and fruit trees that there is no doubt that we want to help them as much as possible.
Some of the beautiful flora we grow here
Flor de Pomarrosa
Our first bilimbe flowers!
A wild currently unknown tree with beautiful red berries (anyone venture a guess?)
However, we really don’t want them to be living inside our walls. I wasn’t too surprised when I walked past the shed and saw a few bees entering the drain area of the wall. I knew exactly what was happening. We have had so many bees building homes in the cavities of the wood house that this was kind of expected. We have in the past hired people to come and take the bees away. And some people will use poison, but there is one other way to get the bees out of your house without actually touching them or harming them! And it is by far the easiest and cheapest!
Kitty and I are on a bee safari!
Britton (and Kitty) getting down to bzzzzness
Cover yourself so that the bees can’t sting you and then just simply open up the cavity and walk away! In one day they will be gone. Bees need to have protection on both sides, so if one side is open, they will have no choice but to leave. And that is exactly what happened with this hive.
I Lots of bees! And then one day later they are gone! Easy peasy!
The next level in this game would be to actually handle the bees and put them into a beehive where we could then harvest some of their honey. But for now we are pretty proud to be able to do this ourselves! We’ve come a long way since our first house bee hives!
Here’s a funky fun video of this easiest of bee removals. (Check out 2:45 for a close up of all the bees)
Halloween in Rincón kicks off the tourist season. This year Halloween fell on a Saturday and so it was even more festive. We went out to El Bohio, Calypso and Shipwreck and had a great time. Tamboo is also a great place to go on Halloween, but it is so packed that they actually shut down some of the roads in Puntas, and so we didn’t want to mess with that level of crowds.
It’s pretty cool to see all the excited people coming down to party and vacation in Rincón. Everyone is gearing up for “season.” The tourists are happy to be here and the locals are happy to have the extra influx of money. The only downside is that the roads get more clogged and some people party just a little too hard. There is a definite increase in energy this time of year. And it was fun to be a part of the kick-off on Halloween.
I went in a punny costume: an NSA Bug
Britton wore the perennial wig -It’s interesting how people treat him differently with hair!
One of my favorite costumes of the night. My friend Kari went as Carrie!
Dancing at Shipwreck’s
Fun with friends Theresa and the Kershes at Shipwreck’s
Halloween is definitely a “gringo” custom, and it is one that they do very well here for adults in Rincón. I love it!
We have seen some interesting and strange sights lately, but they are all sort of random. So, rather than making a separate post for each one, I thought I would just share the photos of them in this post.
The first sight was of a golden domed building off in the distance as we were driving to the nursery in Cabo Rojo. I asked Britton to go off track and so we checked it out.
It turned out that it was called Basilica Menor: Nuestra Señora de la Monserrate in Homigueros, Puerto Rico. We climbed the numerous steps to the top and looked out over the city and beyond. It was a beautiful little detour.
The next cool sight was an awesome lightning show over Aguadilla bay one night. I probably snapped about 100 photos before getting the timing right for this one.
Lightning show
And finally, we were walking around checking on all the plants when I noticed a big green worm on the underside of a papaya leaf. We fed it to a turkey who had fun running around with it like it was a football. Then we looked under some other leaves and saw this fluffy chrysalis. We weren’t the only one to be interested in it. One of our ever-present gecko friends was checking it out as well.
