Any Time Now....but Still Waiting!

After about 5 months of buyer after buyer and bank after bank (3 buyers and 4 banks) we sold our house in San German and figured it would be only a week before we'd close on our little house in Moca. JaJa! The sellers of the Moca house added onto their first loan (probably to do work on the house) and the lawyer didn't properly file papers so there is a lien against the house for the amount of the first and second mortgages (both with the original bank). After a couple trips to San Juan the owners have gotten the proper papers filed and our friend/lawyer is working on the next-step. We are of course in xmas week and everything starts grinding to a halt. I think our thoughts of being in the house by xmas are not going to materialize which is unfortunate for the gal buying our house who kind of wanted to have xmas in the new house with her kids. Not much we can do about it. Anyway, we are pretty much packed and ready to rent a truck and go! Closets are empty...cupboards bare, down to a few cans of beans and soy milk. Almost anything that can be in a box is in a box. There is a new and improved kitty shanty town.

The refrigerator is now at the new house and while I was waiting I was plotting what I will do here, in front of the house - I'm thinking couple bird baths (cat watering holes) and grass removal/plant installation of some kind. The house needs paint and this is the time of year - hmmm, maybe yellow and white? But then again maybe sky blue (a new coat) is good?

I am wandering around our current yard looking at all the beautiful trees and thinking about what I will want to plant at the new place. A Maria Tree is a must even though it won't in our lifetime be as large as this one. Bats love it.

I don't know what this is, I call it the umbrella tree, but I have taken a small start of it.

The Santol has a nice shape and leaf. It hasn't fruited yet but I think I'll plant one.

This is a cool "money tree" that is usually sold with three stems braided. I like the bottle shaped trunk so I buy and dismantle for a single trunk. The Pomerosa is a nice fruit. Attractive and tasty so I'll plant one of those.

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The Ceiba is a tree you won't find in the nurseries. I'll have to find someone with a tree to give me a start. This start was 4 inches when I planted it about 2 1/2 years ago. The Higuera finally got gourds on it - novel and interesting. They are big suckers! I've been taking cuttings of my favorite plants and sticking them in cat litter buckets to take with us.

The kitties are hanging out and know something is up. How we are going to move 11 cats is going to be interesting! We have 2 carriers but they are too big to go two in one. We've got awkward stuff like the kitchen table, king size termperpedic mattress and scuba compressor to move. Since every round trip will be 3 hours we'll probably try to rent a truck. Our cats are too wild to go loose so we may have to rig a big box with holes or something for the back of the car! I am trying to enjoy our jungle view while I can - it'll be different in Moca.

Finally

Well, we have officially sold our home. This is a little bit sad and a little exciting and mainly just relief! Guama has been a great place to live for the past 4 years and we would live here longer except for Jeff's commute. With the job outlook there is no chance of things improving any time soon and all the engineering jobs have moved north so we are going north too.Luckily we don't have to move to the metro area, we are moving to Moca which will be much much closer to Jeff's work and everywhere we play. We are EXTREMELY lucky to have sold our home in 5 months, even though the 5 months, 4 banks, 4 surveys, 4 appraisals, new septic installation, hand rail installation etc has made  it seem like an eternity. More on that later. We will miss Amparo (our closest neighbor), Hamilton and Guillermino (previous owners/builder of our house/friends) and many other things. We have put a lot of work and love into this house and it is sad to leave, but I have a million ideas of what to do at the next place and I love the planning and doing part the most. We are leaving the new owner a great house and property. Here is the view we will miss. From our front enclosed porch we looked out at the jungle every day and night. This is how the property looks now after years of work. A hillside full of fruiting and flowering trees: grenada, ylang ylang, canister, abiu, caimito, nipper, limn, mamey de pais, and sapote, bunchosa, pomerosa, fig, santol, longan, rambutan, higuiero, jaca, cacao, mandarin oranges meyer limes, mango, avocado, guayabana, acerola, tamarind, carambola, quenepa, chinas, chinojas, flamboyance (all colors including blue), ceiba, cafe. Under the trees mani is spreading and I started planting understory gingers and flowers. Jeff is thrilled to be leaving chickens behind!We did not bring any here but they are like the cats - they just show up. Sometimes I throw corn out and other times I don't. I want to take Big Red and the white one (it isn't Puerto Rico without chickens) but we don't know if we can catch Red

For now we are lucky the new owner is letting us stay here while we buy the Moca House. That purchase is underway as we speak. In another week we should have a house up there and be blogging from our new location! Moving is exciting but full of danger. We don't know if we'll have no water Wednesdays like Rincon, or salty water like Cabo Rojo...we don't know how often the power will go out and we won't have solar. I am sure it will have a new set of disturbances (everywhere has them). What we do know is that Jeff will go to and from work in 2/3rds of the time it currently takes him to go ONE WAY! 28 minutes! I can check out water conditions with gear in the car for after work diving but if conditions suck can go to the grocery store instead or just go swimming. We will dive more I am sure. Caving will be a LOT closer. We can stay longer in the caves since it won't be 2 1/2 hours to drive home tired. We can do more of what we came here to do. AND we can sit on the deck looking out at the valley, Moca, San Sebastian and off toward Desecheo while the BBQ cooks up whatever and it will be light enough for us to eat outside when Jeff gets home. All of these are good things!