Author Archives: Britton

Falling out of Summer

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The weather has had a pretty big change here.  As I say that Puerto Rico just experienced Irene!  So I suppose change is all relative.

Once a year Cassie and I like to camp out in our backyard in a tent that was given to us as a wedding gift.  I spent quite a bit of time camping up in the mountains when I was growing up.  While it was fun, it’s one of those things that I have done quite a bit so it isn’t something that I feel I need to do.  Sleeping outside under the stars with Cassie is a lot of fun and we don’t have to drive, pack food, pack clothes and figure out all the details involved with a ‘camping trip’.


Our Tent

I used to also camp out in my backyard as a kid and across the street at my friend Matt’s house.  It was a lot of fun and I am sure parents enjoy it because your sleepover (loud kids) is outdoors!

We figured we had better get our once a year backyard camp out done because we have entered into the Fall season (maybe not officially, but you can feel it).  The weather is cooler, the veggies are ripe and the growing season is slowly coming to an end.  We’ve been getting more food from our garden lately too.


Fruit, Vegetables and Eggs

With the change in season we are starting to think about Puerto Rico too!  I hope there isn’t too much damage to the property, but if there is we can just fix and mend like we usually do!  We really enjoy our summer here in Colorado, but the winter is so long it will be nice to have a place to go where we can plant, pick garden and camp out!

I hope all our friends are doing well in PR after Irene.  The few Facebook posts we’ve seen indicate it wasn’t too bad and I hope that is the case.  I’d actually like to be down there for a tropical storm / hurricane at some point.  Just for the experience of it.  Not a major one of course!

A Perfect Circle at Red Rocks

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Well things have been getting pretty stressful lately with my job and rentals.   I have been thinking to myself “self, you need a break or you’ll go crazy”.  The universe responded and my friend Jimmie invited me to go to a concert with some tickets he got for free from a radio station!

It had been a while since I’ve been to Red Rocks.  It is by far one of the best places for a concert.  It’s outdoors, it’s in the foothills and the rocks and soil as the name implies is/are red!  That is where Colorado gets it’s name from “Red Colored”. 

The show was great, the energy was amazing and the light drzzle of rain was refreshing.  It really has lifted me up and given me some very postitive energy to attack some of the things I’ve been going thru.

Videos have already hit the internet!  They have signs everywhere that say “no cameras or recording devices”.   Well…Everyone has a cell phone. The sound quality sucks, but it gives and idea of what it was like.

Cheap Tix to Cheap Trick

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Every year here in Greeley (at least for the last 80 or so) we have a July 4th celebration put on by the Stampede.  It used to be a community “potato festival” as that is what was grown in this area..Potatoes.

Somewhere along the line a private company took over ownership of the fair.  Since then it’s turned into a bigger and bigger deal.  They run the parade every year, the rodeo and the island grove park carnival.   One of the benefits to this is they draw in some pretty big names in music. They’ve had Def Leopard, Kid Rock, Keith Urban and numerous other acts.

Last night we had tickets to Cheap Trick and rode our bikes to the fairgrounds.  Blue Oyster Cult opened up for them.  I think we were the only people that rode our bikes.  The people watching the gate kind of laughed as we rode past them and bypassed the $10 parking fees.


Ticket Stubs

The fair has increasingly gotten more and more expensive.  I’d imagine back in the days of the Potato Fair it was pretty cheap to walk to the park.  They’d have some games and maybe a baking contest.  Now it’s $10 to park your car and another $5 just to get into the park.  A Turkey leg will cost you $8 and a lemonade $4.  That makes the regularly priced tickets to see Cheap Trick($17) not so bad in comparison.   We got them for $5 which is usually the cost to just walk around.  Not bad!


At the show! You can see the meat packing plant in the distance

The concert was pretty good.  We recognized a few of their songs from the radio and there were a few people that seemed to know every song.  I am sure this was a pretty big deal for them.

We got an “Indian Taco” (that isn’t really a taco and isn’t Indian either) as we walked around the food court.  We ran into a few people that we know and then watched the concert.  Overall it was a fun night .

Walking around the fair grounds after dark

Killer Bees in Puerto Rico?

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Well this episode of our Puerto Rican adventure is coming to a close.  We fly out tonight and head back to Colorado.  It’s simply an indescribable experience to go thru what we have.  We’ve basically started our life’s movie back up.  In this movie there are new characters, new adventures and new challenges to overcome.

When we bought the house we knew that wood wasn’t desireable and put our offer in with the intent of tearing down the house that current sits atop the property.  We have gone back and forth in our minds if tearing it down or fixing it up is the best idea.  Being here for a few weeks we’ve seen some of the issues with a wooden house.  They aren’t the safest place to be in a hurricane, they are more prone to pest issues, the wood doesn’t last very long in comparison to cement. 

It was kind of a suprise when we saw bees living in the upper bedroom walls of the house.   Not something we had planned on. 


Bees on the outside of the house trying to get in (click for larger view)

Cassie and I had taken a bee keeping class in Colorado so we do have just a small amount of information about bees.  Here in Puerto Rico the chances are very good that these are the African interbred version -Africanized bees- also known, by the less-informed, as killer bees.  In our classes they had informed us that “killer bees” are more aggressive towards European hives and attackers.  They are more likely to leave their hive and form new ones as well.  But their stings are not more deadly or anything like that. They are pretty much the same just more likely to survive/thrive in tropical environments. For traditional bee keepers they are less desireable because they are not as docile and in Colorado it’s just too cold.  If they abandon their hive they have less food to make it thru the cold and they die.

Cassie called the university (Mayaguez) and got ahold of a local bee keeper.  Jose came out to the  house and assessed the situation.  Apparently there are 4 separate colonies of bees in the walls upstairs!  LOL.  Cassie and I were kind of shocked.  I mean, we knew there would be unexpected problems but we just hadn’t thought of bees.  Lizards?  Sure.  Cockroaches?  Sure.  But bees? We hadn’t thought of THAT!

This is apparently a problem with the wood houses.  These bees have been living there for a very long time.  One of the colonies has ~30,000 bees.  We spoke to the previous caretaker and he said that Kathy (the previous owner who passed away in the house) lived with the bees and wouldn’t move or kill them.  He said she was a “hippy”..lol.  I can believe that she didn’t have much of an issue with them.  We were in the bedroom several times and they just went about their honey business not really minding us at all.  Still though….I’d want them gone if we were to try and live in the wood house.

Jose (the bee guy) turned out to be a really cool guy.  Very friendly and energetic.  We even went to his place of work where they do agricutural research for the University of Mayaguez:

He gave us about 30 mangos and we bought a few trees there for the property.  When we got back home we planted them.


We’re excited to see how big these grow when we get back!

It was a lot of fun to learn about new plants (which we are constantly doing) from people who live here.  Katrina Kruse has been helpful in sharing her experiences with growing various plants/fruits.  It’s very different than home and we feel like little kids asking what everything is.  “What’s that?” ,”What’s that taste like?” ,”What’s that called again?”

Well back to the bees…. We weren’t sure what to do but we figured even if we tear down the house, the bees would have to be removed.  Well Jose and his friend Moses came over to start removing them because they wanted the hives!  It was quite an experience.


Moises and Jose in the beehive part of the house and outside

Once the got the wall opened up here is what there was:


Cassie is smiling but was actually freaking out because a bee was crawling on her leg at this moment

Since they’ve removed the hive we’ve been stung a few times.  Before that we didn’t have any problems.  I assume they let out the pheromones that let the other bees know the hive is under attack.  The remaining bees are picking up on this.  Bee stings hurt!


After the bees have been removed


A piece of the comb

We have so much more to write about.  We found out more from the caretaker about Kathy, we have more stories about the bee keepers and a few other side adventures!  This will take another week to really try to explain! We’re really enjoying life here in Rincon even with all the unknowns and are not ready to come back! This has been a kick (or is it sting)!