3 King's Day brings terror to the Kruse household

Jeff headed out to hike and windsurf in Guanica and I got to work in the yard on 3 King's Day. It all started out great until...I opened the kitchen screen door so one of the cat's could go out and SMACK it slammed just as another one (Chicken) was jetting out. I didn't think anything of it until I opened the door and saw a Daniel Boone style tail sitting there on the lawn.

I was incredibly mortified and not sure what I was really looking at. I picked it up and it was a few inches of fur and no bones. Then I burst into horrified tears and realized the cat wasn't there. Crying, gurgling, I yelled out his name and he wasn't coming. I headed up to where I thought he was going and didn't see him...I tried to compose myself and called Jeff so he could come home to join in the hunt. My imagination was giving me visions of my beloved cat running to hide and die trailing a stream of blood behind him. I didn't see any blood but knew this was not good.

Jeff was in a no reception zone windsurfing away...and I couldn't find the cat. I gathered my composure and went for the food bin. Shake shake shake and all the cats came down from the hill, up from the valley or out of the house to get a meal and Chicken (the injured one) appeared as well. He stayed an arm length away rolling in the dirt and didn't seem phased at all. I picked him up and put him in a bedroom and started calling vets. Closed. Closed. Damn it...what is 3 King's Day anyway? Finally I called the guys in Cabo Rojo who saved Bepo from certain death and they were there for emergencies. This qualified. Of course there was a full house and they wanted me to come and wait forever. I gave them my file number (they've sterilized 7 of our cats) and decided that 3 pm would be the best time to bring him (it was noon when it happened).

This is Chicken's scalped tail - no skin and no puff of fur. I was too freaked to photograph the coon skin hat part.

He is climbing the ladder, sitting on my lap, trying to play in the closet and generally not caring about his tail. I had all kinds of stuff out for painting and he was getting into it. He didn't lick it, but he did flick it around as if the fur were still there. This is not good. He could get a bone infection or the tail could just die and continue down. This was just soooo awful I can't even relate how I felt/feel.

The vet amputated the scalped part plus a little extra to get a skin flap for the stump. They shaved it and now his tail looks like a corn dog. The other cats were afraid of him when he came home - the surgery was finished but he wasn't awake yet and we preferred to have him with us. Today he is meowzing and climbing the screens and wrecking havoc trying to get out of the house. He had the cone on his head but he took that off as soon as he woke up and since he isn't licking the stump we'll leave it off. The other cats aren't hanging around because we have the house closed up so Chicken won't escape. They don't like being in the porch unless they have house access too! We'll keep him in until he has at least 3 days of drugs in him in case he decides to take off for a night and after that we'll have to free him.

So here is the new screen door slower downer. While Chicken was in surgery we got this device so the door will never slam again and I will never ever again encounter this scenario again! Poor Chicken!

New Year -- New Bathroom

You may remember our very blue bathroom...probably a styling thing 30 years ago when it was put in but definitely out-of-date now. I had great turmoil trying to find tile that "matched" and ended up with tile that "went together." I was dismayed to learn that when you find a tile you like it doesn't come in different sizes - this seems to me to defy all logic. If you are making a totally neutral or especially a colorful bathroom you would think a color would come in big floor tiles and matching small shower tiles with a shade lighter or darker of the same color for walls. This is not true. This is also why every one's bathrooms look kind of mismatched. So that was an eye opener. It was also a first for us to have someone else do work. Well, the guys showed up on time, demolished the bathroom in 2 long days and took 4 days to reconstruct it. It was one guy for the demo and final day cleanup and 2 guys for tile installation.

Then I primed the ceiling and walls and painted...found new soft towels before I decided on a wall color...and Jeff put the sink/mirror/vanity things up. Here are some shots of the nice new bathroom!

No more nasty sliding doors and no nasty shower curtain!

Added storage and a vanity that hangs on the wall and has no legs to mop around.

I am really happy with the glass block wall - no moving parts to rust or get gunky. I am happy with the color scheme. I am pleased to have a towel rack inside the shower to hang my drippy bathing suit on and finally have a large mirror that I can see my head in! The previous cabinet was replaced by a mirror long ago (a year after we got here because the mirror was the size of an envelope) but the new mirror reflects light and makes the room look a little bigger. The glass block wall was pretty interesting and easy to put in once you figured out the anchoring and reinforcing systems. I could have used rounded blocks for the edge, but with a small bathroom you look straight into I wanted to continue the straight lines and had them tile the edge of the blocks. I need to do a little smoothing with more glass block mortar or put a line of white silicone on it since the tile wasn't bull nosed but other than that am very pleased!

What would I do differently? I used an 18 inch towel bar in the shower and a 24 inch one outside and would just go with two small ones. You can't fit two towels on the long bar so why not just have a small bar? I am getting used to the sit-on-top sink and may have mounted it a bit high - still getting used to it...it is a weird dimensional thing when you are used to things being flat. We need flatter doorknobs so the door will lay parallel with the wall. It didn't before but I never noticed it and now I'd like it flat (this is easy to fix- I am sure we can find flat levers here). I am getting used to the color I painted, kind of a turquoise, and it is ironic I ended up with a couple different blues in there after whining about blue blue blue... So the re-do was definitely worth it. I don't know how people deal with workers doing longer projects though - lots of dust and commotion and a definite disruption of routine.

So what's the next project? I think we will take a breather and I may prime the ceilings and paint the walls a little lighter shade of the same color. I'll paint the ceiling white. I need to paint the wall down the driveway the same color as the house...the other bathroom should get done in a few months (gotta pay for this one first) and then there is the aquaponics project which is a big goal for the year. More on that one soon, like in the next post!

Composting...starting a pile

I was asked about composting recently and decided that it is easier to show how to do it rather then explain how to do it. In this blog I'll do both. First off, there is no way to make enough compost. Here in the tropics the soil gets depleted of micro nutrients easily because of high rainfall. Throw out the idea of "mulching" things with compost because the next rain will simply wash it all away unless you are mulching things in pots or contained, raised beds. The biggest problem I have is that once I add my beautiful, loamy compost to my vegetable area the combination of heat and rain compacts it back down again and I am back where I started. Are these reasons NOT to compost? No. Composting is a wonderful thing! There should be compost factories here on the island since there is a huge amount of material. (There also shouldn't be garbage on the ground because trash pick up is free - oh well.)

First you pick a spot you can have kind of messy. Yes there are barrels you can buy for hundreds of dollars that spin so you can aerate things, that look contained and official and neat - they cost a lot, don't make much, and rust so don't bother. You can contain an area with cinder blocks, wood, metal, cement, or just leave stuff in a big pile (my preferred method). You want it to be near where you will use the stuff so hauling it is easy.

My "quick" pile is near my vegetable beds, down slope from my vetiver grass (erosion control) and near the hose so when it is dry I can "sprinkle water" it. I am lazy so I just throw a piece of cardboard over the weeds to start things off. Cardboard is great material since is suppresses weeds, decomposes well and dyes now a days are water based so you aren't making a toxic compost.

Every pile should have the first layer be "brown" chunky stuff. Good material for this is small twigs, branches, parts of palm fronds etc. You can use big branches but they take longer to decompose. Just chuk them on the pile. These chunky things will provide some aeration when things start to settle.

After that I put some more "brown stuff" - leaves. I started the pile today since we mowed and trimmed a few days ago and I had piles of stuff along the driveway and all over. It has been windy and small twigs were all over, and since we are entering the dry season a lot of leaves are dropping off onto some concrete areas and I wanted to tidy up. You want to leave the leaves where they drop if under trees and in plants since this is nature's way to make soil. When they fall onto lawns or concrete they are fair game. So I dumped them on and realized I needed some cinder blocks as the pile grew.

Next you want the finer "green stuff" - in this case I used grass from when we mowed. It blew onto the driveway and I raked it into piles and left it there for a few days to dry out. This helps kill the weed seeds and mainly I was just lazy. The green stuff adds a little moisture to the pile. You do NOT want a wet, slimy pile. If your pile ever smells you aren't doing it right.

Then I found some more leaves and dumped those on top. I raked them up from near the little wall under the avocado. Last time it rained dirt went over the wall and was mixed in the leaves as well. Sometimes adding a small layer of dirt kick starts the pile because there are micro organisms in it.

Imagine this pile is a micro organism ballroom with new critters hearing about the new club and coming through the door at all hours! This is what you want - these guys are what are going to break down your material and turn yard waste into gold.

Now you just have to wait and keep adding stuff. I keep all my kitchen waste in a zip lock in the freezer until the bag fills up and then I add it to the pile (this way I'm not running out there every time I cut an onion or not composting because I don't want to go out there). When you add kitchen stuff - "greens" - just toss it into the pile covering it a bit with the other stuff. For maintenance all you need to do it fluff the pile every once and a while when you see it getting flat. It is amazing how fast it does this. Fluff and flip and this will keep things aerated so nothing stinks and acts as an air conditioner for the microbes so they don't leave the dance floor. When things have reduced a lot you can sneak out crumbly compost from the bottom. That's it!

The best compost I have is way up on the hill. When Jeff weed whacks I rake it all into big rolls and I am building flat terraces so it is easier to walk once my arboretum grows up. When we cut down the "bad" trees all the branches were laid out where I wanted to trails/terraces to be and then all the trimmed grass gets raked on top. There is awesome compost under there but if I steal it I won't be building up my trails!

So now I am sidetracked into thinking I should start some seeds and move some starts into the real vegetable beds. First I have to get rid of these huge hot pepper trees! They are 5 or 6 feet and covered with red hot peppers - I already have so many in the freezer that I really don't want more. I dried some and ended up with burning fingers and hands for 3 days because I didn't wear gloves when I prepared them. Nope - out they come! I'll mix some fertilizer and sand into the beds and plant some stuff tomorrow.

Just as a note, you can go to the sewage plant near the little Mayaguez airport and get a load of "compost" for about $8 a mini pickup load. It is a little "hot" (meaning not all the way decomposed) and it human sewage that has been treated. I was talking to owner of BoKeana Nursery and he takes that and mixes it with regular topsoil and sells it. He had it tested and it tested out very low in heavy metals which is usually the problem with the sewage compost. Since it is a little hot you need to compost it further before putting it around any trees or plants. This is a great price if you need some soil improvement around ornamentals.

I prefer the idea of using all my yard waste since it has to go somewhere and I know it hasn't been treated, but if you are buying topsoil or compost from a nursery you may want to ask if it contains treated sewage - not that that is necessarily bad - just so you know. If you don't have enough yard waste ask your neighbors - chances are they put everything into garbage bags and sit it out near the garbage cans - free gold for the taking! So get excited and make some dirt today!

Hiking/Floating the Tanama River

This past Saturday we were lucky enough to have been invited by Dallas (you may remember a post about him and his kayaking cat) to go on an excursion of sorts to the Tanama River. We have gone down one section of the river just above the dam a couple times with the SEPRI group but this section was to have "caves" that you pass through. Mention the word "cave"and we are there. It was another early morning. We have been having a lot of those lately. We left the house at 6am and met at the Arecibo Observatory at 8. Other participants dribbled in and by 8:30 we were all there, suited up, and ready to begin a long day of fun. First we had to pile into a couple cars to drive to the take in. The Observatory is where we would come out. If you have never been to these places (and even if you have) you may not find them. We drove for probably 40 minutes on windy roads down and then up and finally parked alongside the road. We then headed into the jungle for 40 minutes or so to reach the river. Maybe it was 40 minutes, maybe it was more, you just kind of walk...taking in the scenery...smelling the smells...chatting with people you have just met and people you already know.

Then we arrive at the river bank, scramble down and plop into the water. This hike/excursion was wet 3/4 of the time. We had life vests since the water was over our heads in places. Some people wore helmets and a few had headlamps. It is always a challenge to keep things like extra shirts and lunches dry when you are submerged most of the time. I sported my new "Guano Gear Personal Pack" which is a really nice, easy to drag around...push around...carry on your back pack with a huge drain hole so you don't cart around heavy water. Elvin tried the double-garbage-bag method of putting things in zip locks inside a hefty garbage bag inside another hefty and filled with air so his camera and stuff would float effortlessly (and hopefully water-free) down the river with him. I think he had some success- but it looked uncomfortable to haul on the dry parts. The first thing we encountered was this "cave" section. This was really a cavern since it wasn't full of water and you could see a slit of light at the end. Very cool to enter a tunnel like this - a near death experience (you know, "go to the light" and all that). It was nice to just drift into the dark and out again.


The water level was low since it hasn't been raining which is good - There were lots of things embedded in the ceilings of these caverns and it looks like they fill up regularly with water. See the tiny human in the light on the left? That gives you an idea of the scale of things. This river is really in a canyon.

We encountered interesting geology like these fallen-off sections of large rock.

Do you recognize this character? From Survivor Man perhaps? Tom had the strategy of taking off the dry shirt, braving the very cold water and putting the shirt back on for the shallower sections of our journey. He is clutching his survival pack of who knows what or maybe the pack doubles as flotation? (he looks cold at any rate)

Some more neat geology.


At some parts we opted to climb out of the water and into the sun and scrambled over rocks for awhile.

There were many beautiful waterfalls...



Lots of hanging vines and some nice caverns with small holes to explore...

Most openings were really wide and you imagine how much water passes through them.


To the left in the upper part here are some caves. Unfortunately on this trip you have to keep moving or you won't make it out by dark. Jeff popped up there for a quick look-see but you have to get to those caves from above.

On the left Diana floats by this beautiful waterfall. The sun was out and peeked into the canyon in many spots really making the jungle and geology look even neater. I really like to climb and get muddy - Jeff and the others were floating down below while a couple of us did some quick exploring on a ledge above. Jeff guided us to what he thought was a carving in the rock and when we got there it was...a carving. There isn't any way for us to know if it is Taino or recent (I'm always thinking recent) - it would be an odd place for the Taino to carve something (there are many carvings in the river beds of Puerto Rico though) but it would be odder for a recent human to carry rock chipping tools to this spot and chip away to fake out explorers like us. Who knows?


Anyway, the carving was pretty neat.

Now we are at the end and have to climb climb climb (and did I say climb?) out of the gorge. We had some pretty steep spots on what started out to be a trail...then we were following the fence line of the observatory on a trail of sorts - this looks like a trail right? We went for at least and hour before emerging into a farmers field. We could see the Observatory and knew we had to go up and around it, but the last time any one had been on this "trail" was a few years ago. I know how fast things grow in my yard, so I was amazed when after 20 minutes or so a trail was found! In the states you have trails that animals keep open - deer, raccoon, possums, elk...here there aren't any mammals other than feral dogs to do that. So what keeps the trails "open"? On other excursions we were told the trails had been used by Tainos and local people for foraging...maybe that is the case here too. So now we had the really steep part of the trail. When going somewhere for the first time you just don't know what to expect and how long to expect it for. This is both good and bad. The bad thing is that is seems that you won't get out and it will never end. The good thing is that you don't know how long you have been hiking or how much further things are so you keep going at a good clip since it is getting dark, your feet are soggy, there are still rocks in your boots, the hunger pangs start and mainly it is getting dark! We locate the trail and some very old flagging. (I really need to bring a roll of flagging tape with me at all times to re-mark some of these spots.) We follow the trail out and ta da are close to the end.

Finally we emerge at around 6pm on the other side of the viewing area of the Observatory. We trudge down one last part with a Yee- Hahh and clean up a little, shuttle back to the cars, go off to the Mofongo place and have some dinner. By the time we get home it is 10:30 at night. Iraida and Bro had maybe even a little longer trip back and everyone else lives near us or
San Juan. This was a little longer than we thought it would be, more interesting than you can imagine or see from the photos, and the group was a group of really nice people. We hear there is another section that has 6 caves to pass through. We also hear that it is an even longer trip. Guess we have to wait until we get an extra hour or so of daylight to do that one! So thanks Dallas for arranging everything, a thanks to Tom for leading the way, and everyone else for another great adventure! Who does this kind of stuff?

The next morning we were back up in Aquadilla for some diving. The waves were kind of big, the current was really weird, and the visibility was around 20 (bad for here) with milky white water from all the suspended sediment. As soon as we got close to Aquadilla we saw surf boards everywhere and knew it wasn't going to be great, but diving is relaxing for your joints and mind (unless there is trouble) so we popped in for an hour or so. We came out into even bigger waves and figure diving is going to suck for a while. That's ok though - we got a bit of exercise Saturday and frankly, I need a rest!