Red Jungle Fowl on a nest of eggs. Our neighbor friend says the hen will stay on the eggs for a month and then bring the babies down. I've checked on her for a few days and she is still up there....very very quiet...(I leave corn for her so she doesn't have to leave and forage)
Yesterday was a very successful day. We accomplished not ONE but SEVEN things in ONE day! Unheard of. Just about everything takes a day to do. Here's what we did: 1) bought plain printer paper and tried to find 13x19 matte photo paper (no luck there) 2) checked to see if my contacts were in (nope) 3) went to CAICO with our marbette receipt and got a check back for $148 (insurance for the car up to 300,000 was $308 a year and the mandatory marbette insurance everyone has to have was $148 so in reality 300,000 worth of insurance costs around $150). Also are getting information in English about health insurance. 4) found the "free tree" place and picked up the goodies pictured above 5) went to Rincon to meet some new friends and fellow newcomers to PR 6) picked up some groceries at SAM's club and found the unexpected there....kayaks!!!!! Very exciting. The free trees we took are Sauco amarillo, Pteracarpus (don't know which one), Teca (which is Tectoma grandis - teak), Higuero (which I don't think is a tree), Capa prieto (Cordia alliodera). I had the guy write the names down and how tall and wide they get and have been trying to find out the real names so I could research them a little more. The Pteracarpus we could at least see the full grown tree but the others it would be nice to know something about. USDA site doesn't have them and I must be searching incorrectly for info! They do have Moralons there but I bought one previously and don't want to go wild with loads of 80 foot trees! There is an assortment of seedlings but if you don't know what you want or what something is... Anyway, go to the University and take a left through the gate and stay left until it heads down a hill into houses and up on the left (before you head down) is a shade bed and that is it. When you see the "Pay for stuff" nursery on the right you have passed it. (but go back to it after you collect your trees) A nice opportunity to reforest with native trees for free!
So SAMS club finally had kayaks, or I should say kayak. We had given up after checking in SAMS for 7 months now. In Puerto Rico if you see something and you want it you have to get it right then or it will be gone and there won't be any more. Seriously. SAMS had 6 kayaks total with no more coming. Well you can't do anything with one kayak, so they called Ponce for us and Ponce SAMS had 2 kayaks. They were put on hold and the plan was to get them by 11am. When I went out to feed the kitties this morning I saw that "Princess", the teeny weeny kitty, had a large gash under her arm. We'd been trying to decide what to do about the feral cats. We took in Chicken Little and neutered him and all that, but can't afford to fix them all. Today unexpectedly decided that! We had to take her in before she got an infection from the gash. So we went to the vet and she was on vacation. We got referred to a vet in Cabo Rojo who seems like a really good guy and understands the dilemma. He also understood that we would never be able to catch the feral Miss Princess again to bring her back so he is spaying her and giving her shots and everything and keeping her overnight as well. He couldn't get her out of the carrier either (getting her in was no easy matter). So I guess we have another cat! Maybe not in the house but at least safe and non-reproducing. Maybe if she is free of worms she'll get bigger. After dropping the cat off we went and got the kayaks and stopped in Yauco to look at cement tables/benches.
We found some new cement amigos for the yard - yes they are a chicken family...rooster, hen and three chicks. Things for the cats to play on. The chicks were $2, the rooster $12 and hen 8 ...hard to resist! We also found the cement table we wanted much less expensive than the one we were looking at in Aquadilla. The Aquadilla one had mosaic tiles on it and was $360. There was a mosaic one in Yauco (looked the same) for $335. But...they had a plain round cement one with 2 benches that they are painting for us for $160. Sold! I just want somewhere else to sit that won't have to be taken in in windy weather, that won't rust, rot or mold. Cement is the answer! They had all kinds of neat geckos and frogs and suns etc to attach to the outside walls of your house and fountains, pedestals etc. A great place! It'll be sanded and painted by next week - yeah! So tomorrow is a diving day, pick up the little kitty, plant some new trees, move the cement chickens around clean up the flying termite bodies from inside the house. We finally had rain and got a swarm of the flying guys around the screens. I used a blow dryer to blow them out, dry them up and then we shut the slats. I'm sure it will be like it never happened tomorrow. What unexpected things will tomorrow bring? After a good rain you never know...
1 comment:
Jeff and Katrina,
Big kudos to you for trying to repopulate the finca with fruit and native trees. I believe the higuero (I think you said it was native) refers to the native tree that produces the gourds you took pictures of a while back. Its kind of a shrub/tree and truly an endangered species. In fact, that old gourd tree (by the old bomba de agua and by Wandy's house) is really really old and I never saw another one anywhere else in PR. I would encourage you to take a healthy branch of the old gourd tree and try to plant/water it to see if it gets started. It would really need a lot of TLC for a while. Here is a link for info:
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CRPO6
Higos also translate to figs so I don't know if your higuero tree is really a fig fruit tree (not native) or the native gourd tree.
By the way, there used to be a very old (very tall) capa tree not too far from where you installed the troll bridge. Unfortunately, I think Hurricane Georges brought it down.
"La Jolla" or the dry water stream used to have a lot of "guama" trees and there was even a "jagua" tree. Both are native and produced delicious & interesting fruits. I'm sure if Amparo sees them she would know what they are immediately.
Best,
Hamilton
Post a Comment