Category Archives: Philosophy

The Ups and Downs of Life

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First the good news:

We have been looking for screen doors for the cabana since we got here.  We checked the Home Depot in Mayaguez and they simply don’t sell them.  They don’t sell the aluminum frames to make them either.  We had heard that there are people who will make them but we just hadn’t either taken the time to find them or they were hard to find.  Not sure which.

One day when we were traveling up to our friends house in Pico Atalya and we passed Rincón Aluminum Works.   We stopped in and asked about screen doors and they asked us for our phone number in return.  Well we don’t have a phone.  This makes it a little more difficult for things like appointments.  We gave them our directions and crossed our fingers that they would find us.  We didn’t see them on the day we figured they would be around so we stopped back by on another day.  They hopped in a truck and met us at the house!  Measurements were taken and we gave them a deposit.

Well today they showed up for the installation!  I am not really used to watching while someone else works, which is sometimes nice and refreshing.  Especially after our whirlwind of sadness that occurred just a few days earlier (more on that below).

Screen Door (6)
Installation of the Back Door

Screen Door
New Screen Doors Installed!

Now for the bad news…. The other day early in the morning we found 2 of our neighbors dogs in the yard.  At first we thought a dog was just giving the little turkeys a hard time in their cage, then we saw a dead rooster and another of their dogs running about.  We later came to find a total of 4 of our birds had been killed.

Roosty
Roosty Under a small Tree

It was hard to wake up to this and has been another life lesson.  Life and death is something that we seem to encounter more directly and more often with our new life here than we ever were back in the suburban life we had in Colorado.  We often have conversations about what it feels like to see death because it usually is hidden.  This is why when I brought the dogs back to their owner I also carried along the carcass of a dead chicken;  Trying to emphasize and share what his lack of responsibility had caused, and that there are implications that we had to deal with even if he didn’t.  What makes it more difficult is that we are friends with dogs owner and that adds a lot of complications to the matter.

Another interesting thing we have noticed is that generally speaking, people don’t seem to care about a chicken.  We found this out when we petitioned the city of Greeley trying to allow people to have a small flock of backyard chickens.  The attitudes towards these animals by the general population is so radically different than that of dogs and cats.  Chickens aren’t on what I call the “love list”.

We have chickens not only as a source of food (eggs) but we also enjoy watching them and raising them from chicks and as pets, so it should be no surprise that when they are killed, it hurts.  The only similar thing we can liken this to is to imagine that your dog, or dogs, were brutally killed by another persons animal.  If this had happened the outpour of sympathy would be apparent!  When you tell someone that 4 of your chickens died, it’s like “Oh….and??”.   Even from the organization who was in charge of fostering the animal that killed them gave a similar response.  Aren’t they supposed to be animal lovers?

I suppose there is a love list and an order of priority with worms somewhere at the bottom and human children at the top.  The children of ones own country being above all other countries.  I’ve noticed this pattern before and see it yet again.

Needless to say we are really on guard for dogs as potential threats to our chickens and they are once again locked inside the coop.  We had done this for the hawks, but the chickens had grown to a size where the hawks ‘were no longer an issue.  It is hard and disheartening and takes a lot of momentum away from us to have setbacks like this.  Discouraged and deflated for a few days questioning what we were doing and trying to achieve.

So the screen doors gave us a renewed sense that all is not lost, there will be ups and downs and try to know that we need to accept the things we cannot change, have the courage to change the things we can and have the wisdom to understand the difference.

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Power Down

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Power was out all day yesterday 6am-10pm.  This also means that the water is out because they use pumping stations to get the water up the hills and to the houses.  It isn’t uncommon to have the power out, but it usually comes back on within an hour or so.  Many of the houses here have water tanks on the roofs and generators; we don’t.

When the power is out to the neighborhood we can hear the generators humming in the background.  It makes me wonder what they’re powering in the middle of the day?  Almost all the stoves here are gas and a fridge will hold its cold like a cooler for hours on end if not a day if you don’t open it.  Are they watching TV?  Running an air conditioner?  I can only speculate.

For us we still have water that flows in the pipes because we live at the bottom of the hill.  We both had enough to take cold, quick showers (lower pressure), watered all the plants and even filled our swimming pool but we eventually ran dry.

BK Pool
Enjoying a cold popsicle before it melts while dipping my toes in the pool

We found out that we became more ingenuitive.  We were using the pool water to fill the chicken and turkey waterers, we were using battery power on the laptop to watch TV and movies, used fire to cook and even caught rain from the sky to drink.  Eventually we realized that we really don’t have to do anything or be anywhere so we slept…a lot.  It was a power down for us too.

Later that night we went for a drive to meet up with a friend and saw that the whole town was without power.  Stores were closed, places were dark.  Signs everywhere “No hay luz”.  People were playing dominoes under the city building lights that obviously had a backup generator, there were people at the beach sitting around drinking in the dark.  I suppose these folks also realized they didn’t have to be anywhere either and there wasn’t a way to force that to change.

So it also becomes a practice in patience and not having control.  We noticed it aroused a lot of anxiety in some people too, especially when the repairs were ‘supposed to be done at 4pm’ and the lights were still out and there was no internet to tell us what to do! When people are out of power, some feel out of control, powerless!

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The light of the moon seems brighter when there is no other light

Not having these basic services makes me reflect upon how dependent/independent I am on services and how dependent society as a whole is upon them.  We were dependent upon it because of the food we keep in the fridge, yet independent because we can pick some fruit, kill a chicken or iguana and eat it fresh on a fire with no need for electricity if we needed to.  We use city water but can catch it from the sky.  It sparked conversations about consumerism, survivalism and humanity.  As consumers we look to buy gadgets to fix things we perceive as a problem like buying a generator or tanks to hold water.  As homesteaders we try to look to ourselves and resources on hand to satisfy those needs and purchasing as a last resort.  The realization is that independence is both essential and impossible at this stage in time.

For now things are back online in Rincón. Electricity, water, internet and even the trash trucks are doing their thing.  I think it is a good thing to go without services every once in a while.

 

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Use Your Outside Voice

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You know when you were a kid running around like crazy and getting into all kinds of adventures (aka trouble) and making lots of noise and laughing a lot?

Justin and Me
My brother and I as kids

Then, some adult, usually your parent or teacher would say, “Calm down and use your inside voice”.

And then, slowly and strangely, somewhere down the line, we become the adult?

Yah, well, sorry but we’re changing back. Britton and I have had a complete revolution from our life as adults and are turning back into kids again. It wasn’t exactly a calculated decision. It just sort of happened. Kind of like becoming adults. We have just sort of become kids again.

We spend so much time now just living and playing and laughing at all our mistakes and the strangeness of life again that it was bound to happen. We are outdoors so much more and are doing so many things that kids would do, we sometimes have to remind ourselves that there are still people who have to wake up at a prescribed time, stay in the lines, keep doors shut, wear clothes (or shoes), have schedules and clocks, and act “normal”.

We don’t anymore.

We now have extra time for whatever. The first things that start to come back when you return to being a kid again are creative pursuits like art, music and games.

Cassie and GuitarLearning to play the guitar

I have heard that a good guide for where you should orient yourself in setting your life’s path/purpose  is to ask yourself what you loved to do as a kid. A kid of around 10-12, when you knew a little bit about your choices and preferences, but you still just knew how to have fun and not take things so seriously. Give it a try and see what you come up with and how it aligns with your life now.

When I was a kid I LOVED summertime, swimming and animals. If I could have designed my life when I was about 10 years old it would have been a constant summer of swimming, playing with friends, reading, drawing, learning new things and having lots and lots of animals.

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Now: Lotsa turkeys!

When Britton was a kid he had a BB gun, went swimming daily in the summers, messed around with technical gadgets, played guitar and bass, played outside with friends and enjoyed video games.

Sounds pretty close! We’ve added in a few other interests, but basically…our lives have come full circle back to being kids again. Kids with a few more responsibilities, but a kid’s life none-the-less.

Still, sometimes we get caught in our old, adult-like ways. For instance, talking at a relatively normal indoor  volume. When we are outside we are often busy with something: turkeys or chickens, pulling weeds, watering plants, sawing down trees, making trails, etc. And so if we talk normally to one another and are on two sides of the yard, we can’t hear each other and so we end up saying it multiple times. So now, we remind each other to “use your outside voice!”

Just today we took a long walk around the property. With four acres of jungle, this is not a quick or easy task. It took us about 2 1/2 hours to hike around and clear some trails.

Almond tree
On a huge upturned tropical almond tree in the bottom of the quebrada of the property

We have many large mango trees all over the jungle and so we are going to call it mango tree trail.

Mango magic tree
Mango tree at the base of the quebrada that would make a great treehouse or campfire area (when dry)

It is pretty amazing, actually, that we haven’t even really seen half the property. But it makes it fun too…every kid loves doing some exploring. And we always find cool stuff.

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Not sure what plant this is but it was growing on top of another plant

Shell Ginger
There is a huge shell ginger plant that is growing from the front gate area all the way down the slope
Peach tree
The peach tree has even flowered!

It has been such a kick to be a kid in a grown-up’s body. Sure there are those pesky responsibilities that we didn’t have as kids, but there are also all those resources we didn’t have then too. And don’t forget the things that you wanted and weren’t allowed as kids, we now CAN have and do as adults. It’s the best of both worlds, really.

And I don’t mind saying that loudly.

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Face to Face with a Hawk and Our Food

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The other day we had a chicken escape from the coop.  We can’t catch 1 chicken easily at first.  It takes about 10-15 minutes for them to start to miss the flock at which point I can grab one of the other chickens to use as bait and then the escapee will just walk over to me and I can pick her up and put them both back.

We went up to the cabana for a while and I decided that I should go put the chicken away before we forget.  I walked down and as soon as I turned the corner I saw a huge hawk standing at about 2 and a half feet tall on the ground next to the coop.  It took my brain a few seconds to realize what was going on.  As I looked I saw that the hawk is probably the ugliest monster I’ve seen out here so far.  It was actually shocking at first and I think that is what took my brain the longest to react.  “What the hell is that?!?” On the ground they are not the soaring majestic creatures they are in the sky!

I finally figured out what was going on, that the hawk was on top of our stray chicken and was staring at me and giving me that “What are you going to do, human?” look. Well I grabbed the biggest rock I could find, threw it while yelling at the stupid thing.  I missed with the rock, and it tried to fly away with the chicken.  The chicken was too heavy and it fell into the brush.  I yelled for Cassie to come out and she showed up happy to see that I was ok, but she was confused as to what was going on.  I gave her a short version of the story “Hawk, big, I scared it, it flew away and dropped the chicken over here somewhere!!” she helped me to find the chick and when we found her she was still alive.

It didn”t take long to figure out that the chicken couldn’t walk.  She could move her neck and her legs, but sat mostly sideways and couldn’t stand up.  We have read that the hawks know how to paralyze their prey and it appears that is what it did to our chicken- or immobilized her at the least.

Hawk Chicken Attack
Chicken In Sick Bay

We waited a day and it just wasn’t doing any better.  She just layed there on her side and looked unhappy.  Not eating, not drinking.  I decided that rather than having it suffer and die in the house, it was an opportunity to learn how to butcher a chicken, something we haven’t done yet.  So I got my supplies ready, read up on how to butcher and skin a chicken and did the deed. We skinned her rather than pluck her because there is so little meat on a 8-9 week old chicken.

BK First Chicken butcher(2)
Preparing an Old Stump for a Chopping Block

It was fairly easy to actually kill the chicken once it had been decided. The hardest part was that we didn’t actually want to cull her; we were caring for her and were hoping for her eggs! But we were doing it because it was necessary. We thanked the chicken for her life. There was very little blood and it was over very quickly. The skinning and removal of organs was very quick as well. Within 10 minutes after the first chop we were grilling the small amount of meat that resulted. Talk about fresh!

After we ate the little meat that there was we reflected on the entire event that had unfolded.  We, for the first time in a long time, came face to face with the fact that when we eat meat, we are eating a formerly living breathing creature. That life must eat life to live! The chickens, the hawks, us! We all are in a cycle of life and death. We also reflected that we are so far removed from that basic fact that it seemed so strange to kill and eat our own food -or even grow it for that matter.  Shouldn’t it be the other way around?  Shouldn’t it feel weird to NOT be connected to the food we eat?  The food that incorporates into our body and forms us? I have eaten a lot of chicken, but this was the first time I felt that I understood the emotion that is involved with taking a life to feed ourselves.  The chicken we buy in the stores is totally sanitized of life, even though it too is killed.

I can see why people raise factory chickens and buy butchered processed meat.  It’s easier.  It is easier to raise a chicken in a 100% controlled environment where hawks and predators cannot get them and the chicken itself can’t get away.  It is easier to not be faced with killing, with death.

Chicken Dinner
Our Small Meal

In the factory model, part of the plan is to remove us from the killing.  Another part of the plan is to control the chickens’ environment as close to 100% as possible to avoid hawks, skunks, foxes and whatever else may want to kill and eat them from doing so.  It removes the emotion so that we can treat life like a sterile factory component instead of the full down and dirty details that make life, life.

I can’t treat chickens like that.  I can’t leave them cooped up all day, they LOVE to peck and forage in the dirt for their food. We only let them out when we can watch them and protect them from hawks until they get bigger, but occasionally they might escape like this unlucky chicken. And I suppose this means that a hawk or me, might catch and kill one of them from time to time.  So be it. The chickens live a life worth living and I have a meal worth eating that I appreciate so much more than those factory chicken meals.  I am glad that I was able to learn and prepare my own food and I am glad this chicken got to be outside often and forage for food and do what a chicken does.  We are learning a lot out here and are growing as people. As for the other chickens, our hope is that as they get bigger the hawks will leave them alone and the roosters will do a good job of protecting the flock. It is all a big learning curve.

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