New Stuff at the New House

The first bit of news is that we FINALLY have internet that works faster than we have ever had and most of the time. It still isn't like in the states, but hey, we aren't in the states! Claro has been pretty decent and is a lot cheaper than the crappy Sprint stick we had that hardly ever worked and had a big monthly price tag. We even have a normal phone that has better reception than the shitty cell phones that are spotty at best. So we are in the new house, with Claro telephone and internet, reliable water (so far) and super short power outages that haven't amounted to even an hour so far. So far so good! Jeff did buy a super quiet, lightweight, inverter-type generator for when the windy times come. We are certain that sitting up here on a ridge is going to mean long outages at some point. Every day we see awesome sunrises, rainbows and sunsets. If the weather is clear we see ocean and Desecheo Island. Do we miss the other house? I don't. I kind of miss having chickens follow me around but I don't miss the crap and constant crowing. No, I don't miss the other house at all.

With the new house come new requirements for organization and limited furniture additions. So I went to the Stool Gallery - is it fine art? or Mr. Hanky's xmas poo on display?

Neither - after having a chuckle for 4 years of driving by this place I was oh so disappointed to find that despite the giant sign with posted hours no one was there. Inside the grimy window I could see a fine collection of what, 6 stools? Maybe it is a poo gallery after all! So the quest for backless stools continues...

Other exciting stuff is that I finally got my Excaliber Dehydrator!!! I have made a couple batches of things already. I made some Chia seed crackers, some vegetable crackers, a banana/peanut butter fruit roll up and some awesome peanut butter/oatmeal/nuts/fruit bars. All are made with only real things and no flour, eggs, etc.

One set of crackers was bell pepper, almond butter, an onion, herbs, raisins (sweetener), tomatoes and a little salt.

Everything was processed in the food processor and spread on a teflex sheet and put in the dehydrator.

Since it is set at 105 degrees all the enzymes remain active in the food so it is easy to digest and full of all the original nutrients that often get cooked out of things. Here they are done with a corn, bean and lobster salad!

I also dehydrated some of our papayas. Papaya is great on cereal, but once you cut and refrigerate it I don't like the gelatinous quality. Papayas are big so the answer is dehydration! Yum.

On the property we have red corozones. We love corozones but didn't have red ones before. These are awesome pinky/red flesh with a slightly different flavor than the others. Very exciting.

No blog entry is complete without a cat update. The cat situation has been difficult. We have done everything we can to take care of the feral monsters but it hasn't worked out for all of them. Despite going back down to San German multiple times and calling out their names, shaking food, leaving food with Amparo, chatting with the new owner and sitting there for hours....Mars, Stripes and Mini are nowhere to be found. Stripes and Mini were never super reliant on us but Mars was Pollo's best friend. These three never made the trip to Moca. Bepo disappeared on day 3 never to be seen again. After 3 weeks of showing up for meals morning and night Princess decided to hit the road. I looked for bodies, smelled and hiked around for bodies and they are nowhere to be found. I just hope they are together (right) or lost (sure) somewhere in the surrounding jungle. The property here has a lot of trees but no flowers or shrubs under them. The cats like to take cover when the nap and feel exposed here. Pollo has turned into a lovely little cat who sleeps on the bed now and the others come and go and hang out as usual. Only Blanco is having trouble. He went on a long walk about and scared me but then reappeared! He won't sleep inside and won't go in the marquesina. I don't know where he goes but we will cover the deck before the rainy season and that will give him a warm space out of the elements! Our friend David literally ran over this cat (as in the car straddled it) on highway 2. He brought it to us and I named it Jack because of the Jack-o-lantern colors.  Now I am pretty sure it is a Jackie. She is a delightful terror. I hear noise and go into the bathroom and find this...

She stands on her hind legs and runs up the toilet paper pulling it all off the roll! Another of her antics is the cat box. If she wants attention (always) she dives into the cat box (usually after I have changed the litter) and makes a dive. I can hear what's going on and pull her out and she makes a squeal and dives back in kicking litter all over. Bad cat. I get over it, roll a ball for her and watch the sunset. Yeah, I love the new house!