The Fence and That Cat

This first photo is of the right hand part of the property - we cleared the fenceline! Yahoo! In the 10 months the house was vacant trees and grass and vines pulled down the barbed wire and horses were now travelling who knows where. We walked the entire property (2 acres) with a tape measurer and with a weed wacker (over the course of a week) unveiled the "surveyed" corners - paint on trees. 2 acres is a lot of land! Our plan is to let ranchers have horses up there to keep the grass down and slowly select trees to keep. We will move the fence progressively up the hill as we clear and maintain and plant things. That way the horses won't eat the good stuff! Today was the first day in a week that we had a horse up there - I miss them. It is great to visit a little herd of them hanging out under the 50 foot mango tree - nice I guess until they eat the mangos. (I think there will be more than enough to share - two 50 foot mango trees and another in the fenced in part of the yard.) No mango blossoms yet but they fruit starting in march so they should be blooming soon.

This photo shows the scale of everything - big! The flower is an ornamental ginger. We visited a farm that specializes in gingers, heliconias and exotic fruits. More on that later. Here's Jeff standing in front of one of twelve mature and producing citrus trees we have. We are drinking lots of "jugo" or juice and using the juice to marinade meat in as well. We have several types of oranges or "chinos," a chino-grapefruit mix, limon (lemon) and lime and sour orange "naranja agria." Anyone have any good orange recipes? Reply to this blog if you do...I've made orange cake, ambrosia (with fresh coconut of course), juice, a crushed ice-juice-sugar mix (I think they call them "batidas" here), in our brand new hi-powered blender/food processor (thank you Gary and Mary for the wonderful gift). I have been pruning off fruit laden limbs to accomplish pruning and harvesting at the same time! Sometimes the fruit drops and takes off down the long and very steep driveway and we never see it again!

Oh Dakota, I had such high hopes for you and now you are in cat prison - "no mira afuera nunca" - you will never see the outdoors again. This was one of his ten trips outdoors where we accompanied him and all was well. His first unescorted trip? I wrote about that earlier. He could have been happy and made outdoor friends but instead he disappoints.

Dakota was having another excursion here - in the good old days last week. We all happily wandered around the yard...well, not exactly, Dakota would hiss and run and hiss and run all at nothing. I think at 10 years old he is simply better off inside where the roosters can't get him and he can't pick a fight with the horses!