Remembering Wally - It's Been 3 Years

Wally was the best boy ever. We got him from Purebred Rescue and he was our life for almost 10 years. He was an English mastiff and we loved him. He was huge, sensitive, serious, gentle and really goofy! The cats had him whipped into shape and he did what they wanted! He loved whipped cream from the can and would pull Asian pears off the tree. One time I went shopping and put the bags on the floor and went outside for a minute. When I came back he was kind of making a muffled whimper but his mouth was shut. It took me a while to figure out what happened, but when I pried open his mouth he had a whole bagel in it and his teeth were pressed down into it and it was stuck! Crazy boy. Another time we gave him a cow leg to carry around and he tried to get out of the house with it and the sliding glass door wasn't open enough. He was a really dumb dog and wouldn't drop it, didn't think of twisting it, he just kept pushing and pushing in an effort to get out. We loved our boy.

He had his own mattresses but he was really a lap dog - all 170 pounds! He only wanted to be with us. Another time we took him camping and it was raining so he tip-toed (picture it, he was huge) and calumped right between us in the tent. As he got warmer and relaxed he stretched his arms and legs and almost pushed me out the tent! Here I am sleeping on the very edge where it is a little wet with a huge dog stretched out in doggy bliss!

He loved to sit in the sun on the grass and hang out. When we were at work he slept by the window or in the closet where his mattress was. He would tip toe to his closet and put himself to bed around 9 at night. Where's Wally? If it was after 9 he had slipped out, around the hall corner and gone to bed. We loved him.

Pig

Jeff got back from Atlanta and we just LOVE the Mayaguez airport - no lines, no hustle-bustle, just a little plane and the 2-6 other people who are there for it. You can arrive 20 minutes before you leave and get there right on time to pick people up. For $60 to San Juan it saves hours of driving which at 5pm on a Friday night is a very good thing! Here's his plane...

There he is with an older passenger.

Look what treasures he brought with him! Sticky rice (enough for a 1000 people - didn't come in a smaller amount), my favorite chocolates and look!!! chocolate with bacon!!!!! Is there anything bacon isn't good with?

Then I whipped out the first no-bake "raw" dessert I've made and we pigged out on that after we had zucchini "pasta" with a fresh no-cook sauce. The dessert is rich and yummy with cashews, walnuts, dates, coconut oil, carob and cacao powder, orange zest... a sweet and wonderful dessert without eggs, milk, butter, and no sugar (it is in the dates). The white layer was like whip cream and the chocolate area like a mousse with a cookie like layer surrounding it all.

Then I was out and about and encountered another odd site on the road. This time it was kind of in our neighborhood. A really big Pig! Trotting in the road, until I stopped to take a photo, the giant hog was on a mission of some sort. Maybe it was an escape mission or foraging the garbage cans for more food maybe.

The scene was something else you just wouldn't find in the U.S. We lived in a rural area of Washington and saw raccoons, opossums, bear, deer etc all the time but somehow it just wasn't the same. Yup - like living in the movies (or a third worldish country).

Tortoise and the Bear and Other Rainy Day Stories

Only in Puerto Rico...is every day like living in a movie. I have seen cows in pick-ups, goats, roosters in the front seats of cars, horses and owners full speed on the main highway, horses without owners on the highway, milk cows in trucks, cars stuffed with cut grass, meat cows attached to tow balls on vans on the main highway (2) going 5mph at night...but today it was goats, horses, and then a flatbed truck with a BEAR and a TORTOISE heading to the zoo I assume. Couldn't really photograph the scene since I was driving...

Since it was going to be rainy all day I figured I'd make a food run to all-the-places-I-could-think-of-in-the-west that might have some of the ingredients I need to make "raw" recipes. First stop was Naturo Centro in Mayaguez, then the Ann Wigmore center in Aquada (hopefully for a spiral slicer - nope), Superfoods in Rincon and home. This was a few hours since I got caught in Aguada in the middle of a funeral procession - cars with speakers on top blasting out crap and a parade style car decked out in flowers - they do death kind of over-the-top here. Sometimes wailing people walking in the streets behind...  Back to the food. I found nutritional yeast and Sriracha hot sauce...

Raw cashews (should have gotten more since they will be gone in 2 recipes), two kinds of dates...

liquid smoke that you add to young coconut and dehydrate to make a crispy bacon like texture, oat grouts and carob powder, silken tofu (for desserts and sauces - can't eat too much soy though), and seaweeds for rolls and crunchy stuff.

Other goodies for cooked stuff (don't think we will go all raw) - corn pasta and sun dried tomatoes and green chiles!

I got back and it was cold and windy and rainy. The cats were huddled together and stinky - I just washed all the cushion covers and their beds yesterday during the hot morning hours... Rip was snoozing on his own.

6 of them took over the couch...

Tuca picked the basket...

Princess takes a stretch...

The house is like frickin Dr. Doolittle's with chickens all over. 3 of them have babies trailing around. There are 4 roosters (about 3 too many).

This hen has been sitting on in a ridiculous spot that became a waterfall and is due any time now. More babies if they really hatch.

When the rain let up I discovered more coconuts while I did a quick yard tour. Gifts from above that I now need to process - 3 more to add to the pile.

The pile gets bigger and bigger and I really need to crack them open, food process them and dehydrate them.

While I was sleeping the Pitaya bloomed again - and the one a few miles away in the trees had spent blooms on them as well.

It was raining so hard last night I didn't check so I didn't get to see the flowers.

I did a quick-peek harvest of parcha, a papaya, guineos (bananas), mangos (the "good" ones aren't ripe yet), and a few carambola. I know what I'll be doing tonight and tomorrow. I'll dehydrate stuff tomorrow if there is sun and make purees tonight.

The sky was very very black.

Then the mail guy called with a couple packages! One I was expecting and the other a total surprise! I got an early birthday package!!! With my very favorite only-chocolate-that-matters kind of chocolate bars - World Market Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt. Enough bars to give me a heart attack. Also our favorite rice noodles...and a book Jeff has been listening to on tape (I much prefer reading but then again I am not in the car 3 hours a day) called Blind Descent which is about caving of course. Glad we canceled the cave trip scheduled for today!

The other package was caving stuff! I can not find women's size 6 work boots here. I took a risk and ordered a couple different kinds (one expensive and the other less expensive) hoping one would fit at least and I lucked out and they both fit! Currently I am down to one pair since the sole separated on the other pair and won't even work taped up! Panic set in since I can't go caving without good boots! I haven't wanted to use my only boots in the yard! The other thing is neoprene pants that fit really well and will be perfect for caving but probably won't last. They are only 1.5mm which means they will get torn up pretty easily. The nice thing is that they have a drawstring waist, are form fitting, provide a little padding and warmth. In caves stuff falls down when it gets heavy and wet and muddy, things get torn up easily and it is easy to get cold in wet caves. I wear a 2mm full wetsuit usually which keeps me cleaner (it is one piece), is flexible and gives padding but sometimes the pants will be nice if the cave isn't very wet. Looks like Jeff ordered another dry bag which we really needed.

Well, that's enough procrastinating....I've got fruit to process before I go out tomorrow and REALLY harvest things!

Rip - The Latest Addition

The front of our house has a rejas/screened in porch and the cats cleverly pulled one of the screens out a little so they can come and go. This gives them a safe spot when running from "bad" cats and rain. Last week I was sitting on the couch and saw a little flash of color that wasn't the usual color of cats we have. I slid open the door just in time to see a little kitten trying to sneak in for some nibblies. Instead of running away, it turned back and ran toward me and you know what happened next...

He's really cute and kind of Siamese-looking. He is really friendly and just wants to be with us! He doesn't have manners yet but has learned to use the cat box (still working on biting through the fingers to get to food). He has managed to piss off the pride to the degree that Princess and Mini don't even come around anymore (it has been 3 days). I think it is a good trade - one friendly, cuddly one for 2 spooky ones. At least they can't reproduce as they go on their journeys.

We are calling him Rip. He has an old-man face kind of like Rip Van Winkle and he sleeps and sleeps and sleeps (when he isn't ripping around chasing things or stalking the other cats).

He is pretty cute and like all Puerto Rico cats is a hybrid of sorts. His front legs are too short, his face is too old looking and he is bow-legged.

I think we are gonna keep him (ya, like we were going to ignore him). Where did he come from? Our house doesn't really have other houses close...he is too little to have trekked down from Maricao. Where is his mother and where are his siblings? Poor little guy needs a home.

He needs a stuffed mouse...and a cool floor to lounge on...

and some grass blades to bat around...

He is one lucky cat and when I get back from St. Croix (aquaponics course) he will go in for round one of shots... then neutering...rounds 2 and 3 for shots. So rest in peace little Rip - we will love you and take care of you. Just stay out of the fruit bowl!

Chicken Problems

So we moved our old solar dehydrator down to where the chickens roost so we might possibly get some eggs from them. Well THAT hasn't quite worked out. We have eggs all over the place but we can't eat them since we don't know when they were laid. Eggs all over the place in non-obvious spots where we can't see them, and hens sitting in harms way that don't move and suffer "mishaps." (more about that later). This white hen was sitting on about 18 eggs and I spotted her when I was harvesting parcha. She is right under the parcha mound in what becomes a stream or raging river depending on the rainfall amounts. I start checking up on her daily and one day I hear a faint peep. The eggs were starting to hatch!

I could hear a faint peep and when I sat and watched saw the first little guy under her. There was another dead looking wet slimy one that would peep occasionally and then stop then peep then stop but wasn't under her. I moved it over and hoped for the best. So I spend the better part of an afternoon watching these things hatch out - the babies in the eggs peck a little circle, they move occasionally, she kind of rolls the egg, it pecks it's way out after a few hours and then lays there peeping once in a while while fluffing up.

To make a long story short, in the end there were six that were trailing her around the next day. 4 were dead in the nest (I think she suffocated them) - 3 fluffed up but dead and a few that never fluffed. There were some eggs that didn't hatch at all. I pushed the dead ones out of the area since ants were invading and hoped she would be a good mom. Today there are 5 chicks. Number six couldn't really keep up. I would hear it peeping and would go and retrieve it and bring it to its mom and siblings and it would be left behind again. I figured I either had to raise it or ignore it. If I raised it it would be heartache when it became a "pet" and something got it so I let nature take its course. Now there are 5. In the end there will be only 1 or 2 since the birds swoop down and take them. For now I enjoy watching them grow up.

So I am in the yard and see this thing coming up the driveway. It doesn't belong here. Turns out to be a mutant chicken that somehow flew in. It has a comb that flops to cover one eye, it doesn't ever stand upright, and only one tail feather. It also has a pathetic crow that doesn't even sound right.

I put out corn and it can't even see until it does the hair toss to flip its comb out of the way!

I swear - if it is mutant, pregnant, injured, sick or disturbed it makes its way here!


This hen was almost hacked with the machete. I was cutting down a platano and after it fell I bent down to cut closer to the ground and I saw her just sitting on a pile of eggs. She never peeped, squawked or made any effort to move. Her nest was in grass at the base of the platano. She sat on the eggs a long while and then I guess gave up and nothing hatched.

This nest is abandoned - no one sits on them.


Lots of eggs everywhere but none we can eat since I don't know how long they have been there.

A sad mishap in the yard happened yesterday. Jeff weed whacked the feathers off one of the wings of yet another hen sitting on eggs. He was using the trimmer (very noisy) and made a pass and the stupid hen was hit and flew up and away. She has a nasty bare spot on one wing and has left that nest for good it looks like. It wasn't even a nest, she was just sitting in the grass. If it were a pet hen we would take it to a vet but I can't pick it up so it is on its own. Eggs everywhere and none we can eat. None that will hatch. I even relocated a couple eggs to the base of trees to give them a similar but better location. Nothing. Oh well.

Enough of the Heavy Stuff ...How about Cute Stuff?

I was in the pathetic garden area today trying to loosen up and amend the soil so I can plant new stuff when I saw 3 of these little guys. I don't think they are the usual geckos so I watched them for a while and am pretty sure they are baby iguanas? The whip of a tail, the claws, the markings and the big fin thing on its back all look pretty iguana-like. It was also a different color than the usual geckos, kind of a pale green instead of brown, tan, black or bright green. They were walking differently too.

Here are the hatched babies. 14 eggs turned into 8 hatchlings with two that didn't fluff up by nightfall (and were abandoned) and a few that look like she suffocated them while they were in the nest. The 8 turned into 7 in front of my eyes as a huge guaracao (not sure on the spelling) swooped in and snatched one. Now she is down to 5 and there is another replica - another grey chicken with 5 chicks (they are newly hatched though). I saw the two hens and broods together on the lawn today.

Last week was falling into a pattern of light rain in the afternoon and all the cats come in and spread themselves around. Chicken I guess wasn't feeling pig pile social and decided to snooze in the fruit bowl. I shouldn't let him do this, but how can I move him?

Here's creepy Blanco. These cats contort into the weirdest shapes.

His little face is so pink!

Tuca is the ugliest cat...but she has nice eyes that look like she uses eyeliner. She looks like and sits up like a meer cat.

Dakota is still kicking around. He is old now (around 12 or 13) and not so photogenic. No cute poses here! He actually hangs out with the other cats now.

Mars is less spooky now and seems pretty darned comfortable on the couch.

She was one of the ones rescued from the log. She was sooo tiny I didn't think she would make it. I had to give her milk replacement which was hard because she wouldn't let me come close. She has a little belly on her now! You never know what you will see on the road. This is not far from our house, just down the road a bit. This herd of goats is supposed to be roaming the hills grazing, but instead has decided to take a neighborhood tour eating ornamental flowers out of peoples' yards instead.