We took a day trip up to Patillas to visit our friends Richard and Mary Jane.
Pineapple fields on the drive
It was quite a drive from Rincón to Patillas, but so beautiful to watch the landscapes change. Once we go around the southwestern corner to the Caribbean side, the waters turn majestically turquoise blue, the plant life is much different and drier and it seems to be quite a bit windier than what we experience at our place.
Lake Patillas
We drove past large Lake Patillas and into his finca. It is very private and secluded up a long steep road.
Long private road
When we arrived the party was in full swing. People were eating fish soup and drinking beer in anticipation of the main event: lechón, but of course!
Roasting up the pig on a spit
Enjoying one of Puerto Rico’s pasttimes: dominoes!
We enjoyed our time and even saw our east coast friends Fran and Steve!
Group photo: Steve, Parrot, Fran, BK, me, and our gracious hosts Mary Jane and Rick
But the biggest hit of all was when someone showed up to the party with parrots. Even Richard didn’t know who this person was, but it was pretty cool to see and hold his birds. One of them caused a kerfuffle when he would crawl onto our shoulders, get tangled in our hair and then scream into our ears. So funny.
A hit with kids and adults alike! Green Amazon parrot
As I took this photo a little girl told me in Spanish: “¡Es como un paraíso!” I couldn’t agree more
Such cool creatures! Blue and gold macaw (like in Rio said another girl)
¡Hola!
It was a beautiful day. Richard said it had been raining hard every day prior so we really lucked out with a sunny warm afternoon party. We are so grateful for these magical moments in paradise.
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)
One thing about the tropics is that there are lots and lots of rats. Lots. Everywhere. If there is a fruit tree, there are rats living nearby. If there is a trashcan, rats live nearby. Even if you don’t think there are, rats are living nearby. Same with cockroaches, but that is another story for another day.
The rats not only eat baby turkeys and fruit, they also chew thru everything including putting holes in walls and opening every container in your shed to find out what is inside or even try to chew through your screens. They poop and pee and make a gross mess wherever they live and they also carry fleas and diseases like Leptospirosis.
Rat Holes in Old House Rat Holes in Chicken Coop
The common response from many locals on how to deal with this problem is to use poison. When we first moved here and our abandoned wood house had rats living in the walls I decided I would use some poison on them per this advice. It turned out to be pretty sad. The poison makes them sick and when they come out of their hiding spot you are confronted with a sick suffering animal, but I was told at least they don’t die in the walls. Having poison around our chickens we figure is a bad idea because that is one of OUR sources of food too and I don’t want to eat poison. Plus the rats are pretty smart and will eventually stop eating the poison!
So not only are the poisons toxic and inhumane to the mammals that ingest them ( including dogs, cats, and humans ) many rodenticides present a secondary risk to animals that hunt or scavenge the dead corpses of rats. The owls and the hawks. So we decided to keep poison out of our environment as much as possible.
We do have a cat, but he is little use against the rats. He is pretty much afraid of them. I would be too, they are almost as big as he is. He does sometimes get the little ones.
Kitty with his baby rat (or mouse?) kill
After we lost a few baby turkeys to rats however, the war was on. I purchased a .22 caliber pellet gun (1000 fps) and a few rat traps. When I was a kid I had a bb gun, so again this is another skill I was able to employ here! Plus the pellet gun doesn’t fall under firearm restrictions. No license needed, no fuss. It is accurate from as far as the scope works (40 yards-ish), a better scope would only make things better. It is not a toy. These pellet guns are the preferred tool for hunting the invasive iguanas…yet another varmint story for another day.
Hunting Mongoose From Upon High
Rats are smart, resourceful and nocturnal which makes them actually fairly difficult to hunt. Occasionally you will see one out during the day, but it is the mongoose who are usually out during daylight hours stealing our chicken eggs and bothering the turkeys on their nest of eggs (and other birds of Puerto Rico)…yet again another story.
As for the rats however, night hunting makes things more difficult. So I have a head lamp used for spelunking that works great. It allows me to look around for a target on the ground or in a tree and then I can also use the scope on the rifle to hit the target. It works really well and is actually kind of interesting in a video game kind of way. Which was another training as a kid I received; I played a lot of first person shooters that required scopes and sneaking.
The rats at first were fairly easy to shoot. This gun is very accurate and very powerful and it is over pretty quickly for the rats. The pellets usually go in one side and right out the other. Then the next day I go out to recover them in the daylight. If you don’t recover them, they stink for a day or two until the ants clean up the scene.
Huuuge Rat
After a while the rats tend to catch on to what is happening. They see a few of their friends get whacked and suddenly their open behavior changes. They start to hide, they sneak and they become aware that the sounds they make, and their movements attract unwanted attention. They will also learn how traps work and avoid them. So multiple techniques need to be employed. I know I am not going to get rid of all of them, but if they are at least afraid of humans they tend to stay away from our immediate vicinity which is really all I am after.
Night rat hunting
Chasing down a rat at night in the jungle under the stars and moon watching the visible perfumed pollen move thru the light of the headlamp is actually a fun game. They will run in the shadows of the tree limbs (on the opposite side) which makes them nearly impossible to shoot….. Unless you make an interesting noise ~squeak~ and they will peak out their head to see what the noise is and THWAP!! It’s over.
Here’s a little audio of when Cassie came out rat hunting with me one night.
THWAP!
A night rat’s last night
There have been a lot of interesting scenarios play out, for instance one ran past a rock and I know it was hiding so I make my ~squeak~ noise while aimed on the edge of the rock. They will sometimes peek out with their ears at full attention. THWAP!!! and they fall over backwards with an instant death from a well delivered headshot.
Rats’ underground hideout below the chicken coop
The ones that don’t die instantly will scream to their friends and at that point it is impossible to find any more for the night. Their alert to others sends them back into their underground holes so an accurate death shot is important if you want to get multiple kills in a night, plus it is more humane. They die almost instantly. Hence the need for a powerful and accurate rifle to put them down quick.
They often scurry out of the chicken coop at night
I think many would consider this bizzare, especially if you haven’t lived in the country, but I wanted to share some of the dirtier sides of tropical life. I choose to look at it as a fun challenge even though I do not enjoy killing things and would prefer not to.
Living here really has helped me to see the cycle of life and death and how everything is connected. We have chickens and turkeys and fruit growing to feed us, but that means food for other animals like the rats. So if we want to keep our chickens, turkeys and fruit, and not get diseases and other unwanted effects from these pests we have to keep the scale tipped to our favor. Here we are an intimate part of nature and the food chain, not excluded. And in reality none of us truly are ever excluded, we just may not see what goes on behind the scenes.
Not too much to update. Life has been good. We are still playing music with the band and progressing on the cabin. We’ve also been hanging out and having a good time. We are fortunate to spend time with such a varied group of people we call our friends.
Hanging out with the band in the Jam Space after a jam
This little turkey hatched from a nest over by the cabin and was the sole survivor. Since she has no one else to cuddle with, she snuggles up with me.
Running the electrical wire at the cabin with our friend Papo
The birds making themselves at home at la finca
Enjoying a late night drink and food at Surfer Spot with friends
Lots of fun and friends at the Art Walk in Rincón every Thursday evening
