Last Monday we attended and I participated in the 2nd Annual Rincón Hot Sauce Contest. It was a pretty rainy day, but cleared up quite a bit toward the evening. I competed with a mango-jalapeño sauce that was somewhat similar to my award winning sauce, Hot Kiss, from last year. I gathered and used the mangos that continue to grow and fall from the huge tree above our cabana.
Some mangos and jalapeños
I also made another cute label. This time the sauce was called Mango Jalapeño Tango.
Britton says they were “salsa” dancing 🙂
Considering the rain and cooler weather there was a pretty decent turnout. We had fun trying all the different salsas. Of course there were some that were just too hot for my taste and took a whole can of beer to wash the burning sensation away!
Set up at the Rincón Balneario
¡Cuidado!
We hung out for quite a while. We even saw our neighbor and his uncle hanging out at the Balneario bar. I had him come over to the event and I think he regretted it. His face turned bright red after eating the burning peanuts. I tried to warn him to only have one peanut but he ate about 3! Pobrecito!
Our neighbor José on the far right turned the color of Britton’s shirt after eating the pique.
Later that evening the psychedelic/rock punk band Blacks en Tela played live and we enjoyed hanging out and hula hooping. About half-way through they tallied all the votes and announced the winners. I won 1st place for best label art and 3rd place for best flavor overall! Not too shabby! (You can find a full list of the winners at this page.)
Jamie, Trina and I were three of the winners and we won these great tie-died shirts
It was also the evening of the summer solstice and we saw a beautiful sunset before the full moon. Overall a fun, fantastic evening. Thanks Frances and Greg for all your hard work in putting this together!
It’s summertime and that means things are slow and hot. There are often afternoon rains and everything is super green and beautiful. Lots of fruits are ripe and the flowers are in their showiest state. We also have a few new additions to the farm.
Mail arrival of some new chicks
The chickens and turkeys are doing a pretty good job at reproducing, but we wanted to add in some new genetics to the mix. We shared the order with some friends who are new to chickens and it’s been fun to watch them enjoy chickens for the first time. They are just so super cute when they are recently hatched. Pretty amazing that a little more than 21 days before, they were just eggs! What life energy!
Three of 12 new additions!
We love to eat eggs around here and there is also quite a demand for local, pasture raised chicken eggs. So we thought we would put more of a focus on that side of the homestead.
The rain this time of year can also mean power or water outages. One afternoon the water, electricity and internet went out for about 3 hours. So we decided to go out and have a beer and watch the sunset. Reminds you not to worry so much. Worrying about infrastructure and thinking you could surely do it better than it currently is handled is a classic sign you are still stuck in the old Type A mindset filled with watches, schedules and to-do lists. When you are here things go much smoother if you just go with the island flow. Do what you can, let your voice be heard but don’t worry; they’re working on it. It’s just a little harder on a very mountainous island with limited resources, high heat and a more even work/rest balance.
Enjoying a gorgeous sunset at the balneario in Aguada
When these services go out, it’s a reminder that it’s all man-made. They certainly make life more comfortable. It’s pretty darn hot without even a fan blowing on you. But having them go out reminds you that you should probably have a backup water and electric plan and it definitely helps you appreciate them more than when they are just a given.
We have also been having some really great summer jam sessions with the band. It’s so laid back and chill and we’ve been making some really cool grooves. We jam with new people sometimes that just pop in. Our jam space at Mark’s is very unique. We even made a song called Jam Space, and as you can see in this picture below, Mark’s wife, Robin, made an awesome record for the wall of the song. ~~When the lights go down, you can hear the sounds, of eerie moves and funky grooves. It’s a rather magic place, that we call our jam space.~~
Such a cool jam space and crew of people
The finca is doing well. Summer is the most fruitful season of all. More and more fruits are coming on board. We recently harvested our first corazón fruit (annona reticulata). Very interesting! Semi-sweet with a grainy pear like custard consistency. I’ve read that it is related to guanabana or soursop which makes sense because it looks similar inside. At first it is so weird we didn’t want to eat it, but once we started we just couldn’t stop. Such a Willy Wonka world of fruit here! We’ve found that like children your first inclination is to not like something, but the more exposures you have to a certain food the more you begin to like it and then eventually love it. I would say corazón will soon be a favorite of ours the more we have it.
Corazón does sort of look like a heart – whole and half eaten
When we are out working on the farm we have to watch out to not step on iguanas! They are so fearless of humans, sometimes we see them AFTER we have stepped on their tails and they run off! I know they have become invasive pests of the island, but it still gets me every time that we basically have fricken dinosaurs just roaming free everywhere! Not to mention an easy source of clean meat if it came down to it!
Iguanas are still out en force! Our finca is an uncaged zoo of them really!
It was also recently the primary election season here in Puerto Rico. Mostly it was related to senate and mayoral races, though people can vote in the primaries for the US. Too bad we can’t actually vote in the generals though! There were major caravanas (groups of cars with lights and speakers) and you wouldn’t want to accidently get stuck behind one of them or your plans for the day will include a caravan party for a few hours! A different sort of summer jam!
Elections mean posters, murals and speaker trucks of the candidate
Though Zika messaging is getting out, it doesn’t seem to really have changed anyone’s behavior that I have noticed. I thought this billboard in Mayaguez was kind of funny and misleading. Do you want Sex without Zika? Such a funny question in and of itself. Yes, the Zika virus can spread through sex, but no, they don’t put mosquito repellent in condoms!
Do you want sex without Zika? A lot of funny assumptions in this question
We are currently working on the water hook-ups for the cabin. Britton dug a trench and placed water line from the turkey coop all the way to the cabin. He is now working on the copper interior water lines.
Water line connects at the turkey coop and travels 300 feet to the cabin
It’s summertime and the living is easy. It’s a nice pace. Not many people on the road. Most everyone who is here is here because they want to be. Full-timers. There are some tourists, but they are mainly from other parts of the island and so there is less confusion and hiccups. There are events like the caminata of some guy to raise money for a children’s hospital and the Rincón Triathlon and of course the hot sauce contest coming up. And the flamboyans are majestically fantastic. Summer in Puerto Rico is a special time.
We recently went to one of the most beautiful weddings we’ve ever been to of some wonderful friends. We are so happy for them! It was held right on the beach by the Marina in Rincón and the reception was directly adjacent at the posh restaurant, La Copa Llena.
Awesome tropical decor
Fun, friendly guests!
The beautiful and happy bride and groom! We love you, Tommy and Juni!
Once you are married, you can’t help but think back to your own wedding whenever you go to a wonderful wedding like this. We also thought about our honeymoon to Puerto Rico that ultimately brought us full circle here.
Take a long gander at this man in pants! First time he’s worn pants out in nearly 3 years! Wonders never cease! We can actually clean up from time to time! haha
The food was a delicious modern take on Puerto Rican cuisine
And we danced the night away!
The gorgeous bride and me! Someone said we looked like sisters. What a compliment!
This was our first wedding we attended in Puerto Rico and it was fantastic! It’s pretty cool for them to have a “destination wedding” right where they live! Congratulations to the bride and groom!
One of our favorite parts of this big project we call our property/finca is the tropical gardening. When we first arrived, there was just a huge mess of competing underbrush, weedy trees, thorny bushes and vines that we could hardly walk through. Certainly not what you would probably think of when you imagine tropical gardens.
After some initial clearing efforts in 2013: Hawk Alley
Making our way through the property when we first bought it in 2011
There was very little in the way of broad leaf classically tropical looking plants. We weren’t even sure that it was possible for us to grow them since Rincón can be quite a bit drier than some other nearby areas like Mayaguez and into the interior mountains. We thought we’d give it a try anyway.
Growing bananas is one of the most beautiful and fruitful of our tropical gardening
We give a little extra water to the new transplants than they would otherwise receive, but the irrigation is fairly minimal. We are constantly adding new plants and choosing new sites and always looking for new gingers, heliconias, bananas, palms and other tropical ornamentals, edibles and exotic fruit trees.
Britton buying some ginger and heliconia starts at the Rincón Farmer’s Market
It’s an art to leave the jungle for the most part in tact while also making trails that are walkable even in the rain and planting new additions that we can tend to. We are getting better at it every day. The most densely planted area we call the Tropical Garden.
Britton looking cute with his umbrella in the Tropical Garden
It is down from the turkey coop and immediately west of Hawk Alley: the Roble tunnel of trees that hawks like to cruise through. It is really starting to fill in now and I love that this will be our walk to the cabin when we move there. Eventually we will probably put in concrete steps and other amenities to make the walk a little easier, but even in the rain it is already a nice little stroll through the jungle. Here you can take a virtual walk with us in the rain from the tropical garden to the bridge and cabin.
Tropical gardening is one of the most enjoyable aspects of our time here. We look forward to creating more and more lush tropical areas around the property. As these initial plants grow we will be able to separate their corms and transplant them too. When we need a break from the work of the cabin, this type gardening is a fun and easy reprieve.
Speaking of the cabin…it is almost all fully lit up with electricity woohoo! Next up…water. Then we can water the new tropical gardens over there too!
