The Great Escape

Here is inside the jungle room (enclosed porch area and cat habitat - best room in the house). The doors on the right go into the house and when we leave we come out of the house, lock them, then go out the rejas (on the left not seen here), lock it with a padlock and off we go. The rejas is great because on hot nights we leave the door and the slats (to the left and right of the doors) open and get airflow all the way through and a nice jungle view. The rejas is locked so it is perfectly safe (not that we feel unsafe ever). The slats are mostly closed here, but the top is open about a hand wide for ventilation.


The rejas is locked. I am inside the jungle room looking out.

This is the inside of the double doors. It has a deadbolt that works from the inside, or opens and closes with a key from inside the jungle room.

Thank god I left the slats a little open! I put my hand through, cranked them as open as they would go and could see that the keys were where they should be, hanging on the key rack!

See? Both sets hanging there INSIDE the house while I am locked inside the jungle room with no way out! Yes, I was trying to keep Tuca the kitty inside for the night so I closed and locked the double doors and closed the slats mostly. I went out the kitchen through the metal door that can only be locked from inside. I went around the outside in the nightly search for our fat Washington cat Dakota so I could get him in. I was also trying to keep Chicken the cat inside since he may have gotten bitten in a cat fight yesterday and I want to watch the area to make sure he doesn't get an abcess. I came into the jungle room, locked the padlock, and then realized the double doors were deadbolted!!!! Panic! Shit! It is 9:30 at night. I can see though the slat that the kitchen door is open and the keys are in there. I'll just yell for Amparo the neighbor and she can go inside and get me the keys. After 25 minutes of yelling "ayudar Amparo" "help" etc etc and howling like a caged monkey I realized she probably took drugs and went to sleep. I flicked the lights on and off and on and off since our other neighbor at the bottom uses that as a signal when UPS or something arrives but she was already watching tv and headed for bed. Didn't have a key, didn't have a phone, couldn't yell any more so I figure maybe I could pull the doors open. Nope.

I had a broom in the room so I used it to sweep the other broom from outside over to where I could grab it. I untied one end of the hammock and used the rope to tie the brooms together. The broom head was heavy to I took one of them off. My shoes were in there so I also used a shoe lace to strap them together. They were wobbly without that and if I lost a broom I'd never get out!

Hammock tie up and shoelace gadget.

This is a reenactment now that I am free. When I stuck the two broomsticks through the slat it didn't reach the key rack so I needed something else.

That's when I saw it! The cat toy! A thin lightweight stick with feathers on it, just what I need. I strapped that sucker on the end with a shoelace and the string holding the feathers off it and now had barely enough to reach. The first attempt knocked one set of keys onto the table where I couldn't get them. I decided they could not fall or I'd never get out. I snaked the second set of keys onto the cat toy and slowly pulled the whole contraption in. I got the key and let myself out, took a sleeping pill and tried to forget the whole ordeal - even though it was under an hour. I guess I could have just slept in the jungle room on the cat couch and yelled for Amparo in the daytime - she would have come. I really felt I guess like the cats do when they are closed up - I WANTED OUT! So this morning I was refreshed and about to go search for Dakota the missing cat. Turns out he had an ordeal as well and spent the night locked inside the cement shed with the compressor and scary critters of the night! So all is well in the Kruse household now except for Bepo who is probably dead. I kept that cat in for 2 weeks and cleaned her wounds, gave her love and she slept on the bed and purred and rolled and was becoming a nice cat. I let her out and we haven't see her since. I think she's dead or REALLY pissed off. But now I understand what it is like to be trapped! So where was Jeff? Watching TV in Wisconsin with his family oblivious to the whole shebang.

House Painting Progress

Here's the back of the house before. Our bedroom is behind those windows and the wall to the right is where we get bat crap or bird crap splatter in the middle of the night when it gets creepy. I pressure washed the house before painting but the splatters left little brown marks so I had to prime that wall before painting.


Here's the front with my jungle green porch area (which is the same green inside) and the Tropical Mango on the rest. I have done two coats of trim, the green is done on the upper house and three walls of Mango are done. I haven't touched the rejas yet - the Jungle Green area will have green rejas and the mango areas and balcony will have mango rejas.

Here's another view coming up the long driveway. Oh, another thing on the "to do" list is to spray a copper fungicide on all the chinas (13). I pruned them when we first got here, and if I do a copper fungicide they will be all revitalized and ready to provide us with too many oranges!

Here's the view from the carport. The stuff that looks light green isn't painted and will be the dark green. The inside will be mango. I still have to pressure wash down here and do some scraping/patching and prime it since there are a couple "powdery" areas. We also will be adding things to the area for the batteries and switches required for going off the grid with solar. I'll keep paint for touch-ups.

The back is primed and ready for mango next week. No more splatter.

Here's a side view with the gingers in the foreground.

Here's the real work that is left. This wall needs to be pressure washed, primed and painted (mango). Before I can do that though we have to move the plastic shed, the conduit along the bottom leading to the cement shed/compressor/dive area. I want to paint behind it since when we convert to solar the dive compressor will be converted to an LPG powered engine and the conduit will disappear. I probably should prune the bottom of the crotons to make painting easier. And then there is the marquesina. Hmmm...when do the rains start? Why didn't I start all this sooner? It has been endless sun here for months but I know it will end and I want it all done mas rapido, not poco y poco! Yes I am impatient, but right now my hands are so sore I cannot lift a brush...

Big Project - Painting the House

You know how it is...you start in one place and then everything else looks bad! I sealed the roof and it is a bright pure white that makes everything else faded. The house is in need of some paint and I'd like some real color if I'm gonna do it. I decided I'd start with my favorite room - the screened/rejased in porch room. It started out as a pretty faded yellowish and I wanted it to be a real "jungle" room since it looks out at the jungle. It is the inside-out room. Here's the front and you can see the trim up top is half done.


My original thought is to paint the rejas in the same green, but I am now having second thoughts. I tried to paint some of the rejas in the jungle room, and it is going to take two coats. It is hard and I don't want to do all of it twice. So my latest thought is - green rejas for the jungle room in front only, and this balcony railing and rejas over the windows are going to be orange like the other walls of the house so that it hopefully takes only one coat! There has got to be a way to spray it or something instead of hand painting it. I have no idea how I will get my brush through the shutters from the inside to get the inside of the rejas. Anyone have rejas experience? I don't want it white, but spray paint sounds really easy.

I painted the top trim (one coat) today and will do the other coat tomorrow. I'll move the ladder down and do the trim under the balcony railing next week? Rejas rejas rejas. We love the rejas because we can leave the house open all the time. It will also protect things in hurricanes. I could spray it white I suppose but it would get dirty fast. Might be a good contrast since this wall will be a bright orange.



Here's the jungle room (front of house) with part of the door rejas painted green. Hamilton Jr. says the house had the front room open with just a railing at one point. That sounds kind of nice, but having it all screened in is lovely. We have a great view and that is the room I live in (Jeff lives in the TV room). When the house is done I will paint the red things (fountain and on top of the wall) orange like the other walls. I'll repaint the cement around the house a medium grey. Good thing it isn't raining. The yard just needs some watering, and can be kind of ignored for a while so I actually have time to do all this!