Botas por Ellas y Otro Cosas

Finally, after trying to find work boots for women I hit the payload! Hurry hurry ladies, make tracks to Sears (believe it or not) and pick up some boots! I have been looking for a long time without any success for kids boots or ladies boots and have dreaded a trip to San Juan. At an unplanned trip to the mall I see the sign - "Nueva...botas por ellas" and if you buy one pair the second pair is 50 percent off! A double good day! I now have two size 6 women's boots that are perfect. There was one 5 1/2 left and a lot of bigger sizes. Who knows if this will be a permanent item or not. We've decided we can't "maintain" the whole property. Some of it we will have to let go, so we have totally cleaned up part of the upper area by cutting the "bad" trees, piling up downed trunks and sticks and stuff and moving rocks out of the way of the trimmer. I am raking downed grass to where I want to put trails (to help terrace it) and then we will leave it for 6 months. Wish us luck!

Finally we have our truck rack! We gave a neighborhood guy that Hamilton (previous owner of our house and good friend) knew a couple hundred bucks about a month and a half ago so he could build us a rack for the truck. We were starting to think this would not happen and bango...he comes through. When Jeff brought the truck over to put it on we discovered that the truck bed is not square - there is a two inch difference between the front of the bed and the back - who knew? A little bit more cutting and welding and here it is.

This will make kayaking easier - much easier to strap them down side by side without things hanging out and moving around.

Here are my first Ylang ylang blooms. It seems like I just planted the darned thing and it has got a dozen small flowers on it. When the humidity is up they smell very very good despite their small size!

Muchos Gatos- Cat in a Bird Cage (not on a hot tin roof)

When you look at their little faces you know you have to do something, but there are so many cats roaming around that it is difficult to decide what you can and can't do. Who needs help the most? Who gets along with whom? Who do you want in the house and who will be on the outside? Who gets all their shots? Who gets wormed and gets monthly (costly )heart/whip/hook/tapeworm medication. Chicken Little was the first on our list since he was a friendly little guy who came to us with a group of chickens and wanted to be in the big house. We love him. Then Princess, a feral little brat, showed up with a huge barbed wire gash in her side so she got the full treatment - gash sewn up, spay, all the shots, worming etc. We still can only touch her when she is eating, but she slept in the house for the first time last night in the laundry basket! Then came Bepo, who we think is the mother of Junior and Princess. She was in great need since she had already had a couple litters we think. She got spayed and the shots and everything and is doing well. But a couple days ago it was Pollo Pequeno's big day.

Yes, it is a bird cage you see Pollo Pequeno in. We couldn't catch her or touch her so we started to feed her in the neighbor's bird cage and a couple days ago we slammed it shut! Chicken and Princess gather round telling her that they have been "in the box" too and it turns out alright!

The night before, Chicken and Pollo (you can see how she looks like a small Chicken Little) curled up together before he came in for the night.

Chicken is whispering sweet nothings in her ear.

Maybe he heard us talking and is telling her it will be alright? Nice moment for the little guys.

Junior is next on the list for the "spay/neuter day" on the 6th. He is a big boy and very friendly with us so he will get the total treatment. Zoom in on his little face - he looks like a jack-o-lantern. Anyway, we are doing our best for these cats to keep them from reproducing and being ill. We don't want more and try to discourage others from joining in. Each cat can get pregnant every three months and have 3-8 kitties, so each one that we spay prevents 32 new cats from showing up in the year. We hope we can keep our little group happy and healthy!

Another Wall (avoiding doing the bathroom)

The hill outside the kitchen door is kind of a mess. The land was cut away here and this slope has grass all over it and a million of those awful trees. I did my best to clean it up but the soil slowly erodes down, the grass comes back and the trees sprout freely.

We use this door all the time as the gateway to the backyard arboretum and it just never is tidy.

So I decided that we needed a little wall to hold back falling dirt...separate lawn from planting area and make it easy to mow and maintain. We didn't want cinder blocks because I didn't want straight. The land also goes up and down and straight would mean excavating a lot. I don't have a problem with that, but straight lines don't need to be everywhere! So we opted for more pricey but easier landscape blocks. This is the first "dry run" to figure out the lay out.

This is the adjusted dry run. Curves are hard because there is a tendency to make them impractical (too curvy)- difficult to mow near. I also had to consider the up/down part and ended up basically terracing in a way.

Here's the final thing - a slight curve that makes it easy to mow and follows the ups and downs and ins and outs of the hill. It looks a lot better and we will at some point continue it. We'll see how it holds up in the rain. The blocks are level left to right and tilt back into the hill slightly. If the rainy season gets here and erodes more soil we can just add another layer by placing the blocks on top - they are extremely easy to work with!

I've also decided not to fight things as much. Grass grows really well so I am on the grass replacement plan - new ornamental grass goes in, gets established and then bad grass is out. That should help stabilize the hillside and be more attractive and low maintenance. Then I'll chuck some flower seeds out, put herbs in pots out of the weed/cat/chicken zones (this is their "spa" area) and it will look nice. We can also sit on it like a bench. Over time this will look pretty nice I think and I'm pleased already.

Flan de Calabaza - Wow

I'd seen the calabaza in the supermercado but was not impressed. I was only impressed by the size of the ones I've grown - little did I know of the creamy goodness these hideous blobs could produce! I've never been a pumpkin fan - hate pumpkin pie and can barely eat pumpkin bread. I am telling you that these pumpkins are not like pumpkins. First off, look at this. I boiled chunks for 20 minutes and drained them and put them in the blender. No fibers. Bright orange. Very aromatic! My neighbor told me of another neighbor who makes the best calabaza flan (but she is in Fajardo for a few weeks). So I took it upon myself to make a flan even though a pumpkin one sounded kind of disgusting and I'd never made a flan before. For one thing I am not an egg fan and some recipes use 8 or 9 eggs. Yuck. I found a recipe that sounded still marginal but used fewer eggs. I also didn't trust the gas stove to properly regulate the temperature enough to do it on the stove top so I did it in the oven and here it is coming out. Doesn't look like much.

It kind of cracked when it cooled but here it is when I flipped it out...

Here is a little slice of something delightful! Not overly sweet, not super eggy but very very yummy and something I will make many times I am sure.

First the caramelized sugar for the bottom of the pan - 1/2 cup sugar. Just sprinkle in a frying pan and move it around with a spoon until it is golden and pour it into your 8-inch pan. Boil: cut and boil the calabaza (you want to end up with around 3 cups of puree) Puree: put drained calabaza in blender and whirrrrr until you have a nice puree Beat: 4 eggs in a bowl Add: 1 12 ounce can of evaporated milk, 1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk, vanilla and cinnamon and cloves Pour mixture into the pan over the carmelized sugar (which should be hard already) and place the pan in another bigger pan filled with an inch or so of water.Bake for 1 hour 20 minutes or so at 350. Cool on counter and then for a few hours in the refrigerator before flipping onto a plate. Cut it and pour the sugar syrup back over it. Yum!

Supposedly you can do this in a double boiler on the stovetop but it sounded iffy to me. The ingredients are things I never have cooked with (evaporated and sweetened condensed milk) but things I will reconsider and keep on hand. The sweetened condensed milk had around 23 grams of sugar (less than I thought) so a slice of flan has about as much as a coke (29 grams in 8 oz and what glass is only 8 ounces?). I am telling you that this is really really good. I have heard of breadfruit flan but can't quite visualize doing that yet. It just sounds wrong! Another note on calabaza - it supposedly doesn't freeze well in chunks (I am experimenting). You can freeze it as cooked puree or mashed stuff and that might work for muffins or breads or something - I'll try that too. But for now, flan makes it to the "favorites" list up there with Mango Chicken Curry (#1) and Best Ever Banana Cake. Flan - try some today, easy to make.