Good Day for a Blog Post - Finally Got a Break from the Rain

This morning greeted us with a little patch of blue and the hope (although not fully realized) that things would return to the regular warm, clear and wonderful weather we are so spoiled to have! I took the time to wander the yard and took photos for possibly one of the final times (yeah it seems like I've been saying that for forever). We've got a lot of fruit to harvest and process and I have to tour the yard or it drops off and goes to waste. I don't like waste. We've got guineos - manzanas (my fav) and possibly little ninos? The tiny bananas are perfect snack size. There are so many kinds of bananas I wonder why they don't have more selection in the states? I want to try and grow the red ones once we move. I may have to dry or freeze some of these.

In Puerto Rico they don't distinguish between lemons and limes, they are all limones. This tree is one I planted called limon de pais (country lemon) that is a small, juicy one that usually turns yellow. I freeze the juice in ice trays (thank you Amparo for the idea) to add to water or defrost for juice.

Here's our house from the upper part of the property. We put the solar panels down since Irene looked like she was coming directly towards us! The house is a unique design and we'll miss that about it (and the view).

The upper yard where I planted my little fruit arboretum is filling in nicely. In just 3 1/2 years a blank slate is now a producing fruit factory with shade and trails. The next stop was understory flowers but that will be left to the next owners if they keep up with the plan.

I remember when this Ceiba was 5 inches tall! Now it it probably 8 feet. 2 years worth of growing. Amazing!

The Ylang ylang is just bursting with blooms due to the rain and the high humidity really sends the scent wafting around the yard and house. I started the understory stuff around this tree - mani, which is peanut (not the legume). It makes a brilliant ground cover that you leave alone, can walk on and when it gets going can use the trimmer on. Holds the soil (prevents erosion) and in the end reduces yard work. A good plan I will continue with elsewhere.

Look at the little row of blooms! When they burst open it will be overpowering! In a good way!

The wind shook loose some of the meat coconuts. These few still have water in them so they will be tasty.

With the palm this tall the only way we get the seeds (coconuts) is when the wind or their own weight knocks them down.

The rain has been plumping up all the fruit in the yard. The quenepas taste sweet and wonderful and the avocados are getting bigger. We have been eating a bunch and making my favorite (this is for real) chocolate pudding out of them. In a food processor just whirl an avocado, water (or coconut milk or water if you have it or dairy if you want it), honey or agave (sweetener) and add cocoa powder to taste! It isn't green, it isn't bizarre except that it is because it is such a normal chocolate pudding!

Who knows, maybe we will still be here to harvest some oranges? Puerto Rico isn't working much - any excuse to shut down the government is taken. This of course holds up everything for house selling and buying.

The carambola are done, thankfully. It is a beautiful tree, has bizarre fruit and although it can be used it is hard to use a lot of it. I have made carambola pickles, pureed it and used it in baked goods (banana bread) instead of oil, and cut it up with almonds and chicken and baked it. Eating it off the tree is ok but it produces pounds and pounds of fruit at least 4 times a year. There is still fruit on it and already it has flowers again.

This was this mornings view of the grey but bright morning! The sun is still up there somewhere!

Carambola...

There have been bands of crazy-rain coming and going for the last 2 or 3 days and the cats have all decided to be smart and hang out inside. I took furniture out of the porch since rain was blowing all the way in and brought in the plastic cat chairs for their enjoyment. With 11 there have been some tussles as boredom sets in so I made tunnels out of some boxes so they would be amused. Mainly they are just trying to sleep and get irritated when someone else tries to join them in their nest to keep warm!

Two panels down - Then Jeff lowered the last one.

Sharing a cushy couch.

Cats in nests.

So on the home front everything is stalled because of the weather. The appraisal is sitting in San Juan somewhere and who knows what other paper things need doing. We can't do anything until we close on this house so we are in the holding zone that is called Puerto Rico - far worse than the Bermuda Triangle in terms of getting things done! We keep looking at houses - why not? We just looked at a peach of a property that was just wonderful and a total surprise. The house is a little one (2 bedrooms,1 bath) that needs some opening up and some tile work done but it is on the most amazing why-we-moved-here property! Unfortunately it is probably 45 minutes from Jeff's work (better than 1 hour 20 so it is still a consideration) but with its price that may make it worth it. It is on an acre of shear jungle kind of near Anasco, Aguada, though technically Moca. We saw pie-tailed Whaduh birds there and there were 20 foot tree ferns and a pine forest and jungle all around. Had an easement going past the house to an abandoned long building of what looked like a few rooms (potential problem? looked abandoned) but for $120,000 list price could be had for less I am sure. We still have a number 1 pick which we made an offer on just to start the negotiations. They don't seem to want to negotiate much though. When we have a check-in hand all that may change. So once again I am playing the waiting game. Waiting to close on the house. Waiting for the weather to change. Waiting for my elbow to feel better. Waiting waiting waiting. I'm not good at it at all.



So What's Going On? I'll Tell You What's Goin' on...

Selling the house. What that means is lots of cleaning (dirt blows around and the cats and I track it all over), more cleaning, keeping the yard looking great (we are slackers sometimes but can't be right now) and being ready to respond to strange Spanish phone calls and emails. No one expects a gringo to answer the phone number so there is always hesitation. Some people want to look at it RIGHT NOW, as in they already in San German. Yesterday someone called and they were already in Guama! I had to hide the cat beds, put away a couple fly strips...you get the idea. Exciting times. It is great that people want to see it but I really hope the current offer goes through. So some of my time has been waiting for appraisers and surveyors to come...giving directions in my mangled Spanish (why don't they use tax records and a GPS?) and the whole situation has me exhausted, anxious, and full of dread and excitement all at once. It is Puerto Rico so one never knows what to expect. Lots of things can go wrong but I have started to put some stuff into boxes, which means finding boxes etc.

The other part of this is the horrible house hunting mission. We can't really make an offer on anything until we have ours sold, but if we wait until it closes we are homeless with 11 cats, so I have started looking and it is interesting, kind of fun and kind of disappointing and kind of lets you open yourself up to different ideas. We moved here to do all our adventure stuff and to be in the jungle. But being in the jungle means jungle mentality in regards to animals, garbage and noise (the dark side of Puerto Rico). Our current house is an unusual design (high ceilings, totally open, all solar powered with a couple acres) that is only 6 minutes off highway 2 but seems like the middle of the jungle! Unfortunately it is 1 hour 20 minutes each way to work for Jeff. He's sick of it. Then we drive 2 hours or more, cave for 10 hours, and drive home another 2 on the weekends.  If only we could take our house and property and plop it in Moca, Isabella or Aquadilla! We haven't been able to find anything near as nice for near the price. Or at all. It is either a crappy house that needs a lot of work with a spectacular view, a nice house on no land, nice neighborhood with a crappy house or nice house/nice neighborhood but priced too high. We aren't going to live here forever so we don't want to "buy up" and get stuck with something when we are ready to leave. In 5 years I don't think things will be better here. We don't want something we have to put time and $ into to make it livable. If we buy something in Aguadilla prices are higher, things will resell easier (lot of professional work up there) but it is not "jungle." So we look at houses and are waiting as things chug along. So I clean, box a few things, talk to people when I show the house and wander around picking and processing fruit. The Mano de Buddah is something I may want to plant again since it is just plain bizarre and great to "zest."

Lemons I would say are on the "must have" list since they are great for everything including drinks, marinades, and dressings.

I was hoping the figs would grow faster than they did but maybe at the next place they will. Kind of a stunted little bush but hey, I like figs!

I think I'll plant a Santol again because it is such a nice looking tree. I don't what the fruit tastes like, but the tree is very nice.

The Longan is kind of an ok fruit but not worth planting again. Not great looking either.

Here's Rip's creepy stare-down. He was watching as I was potting up cuttings and starts of some of my favorite flowers from the yard. I'm just digging up little starts to bring with us of things I don't recall seeing in nurseries or things that are pricey (like agave).

Rip is kind  of a teenager and is starting to assert himself...but when he is sleeping he is adorable!

This flower/shrub is kinda cool and I think I like it a lot. It was only a dollar so I am sure I can find another one. The flowers are kind of fiber-optic looking.

I've been doing a lot of laundry, too. Whenever everything starts to happen Jeff ends up getting sent somewhere for work or goes on vacation. After Mona Island we thought we were going to close on the house so he requested NOT to be sent on travel. He kind of likes going on travel because he gets to eat great food and only drive 5 minutes to work! He also is scoping out places we may want to or not want to move to. After Mona Island he was sent to Clearwater Florida (we may want to be swamp people for a while) and I was going to go but all the house stuff started up again. Sigh, I'm tired just thinking about it! Lots of wash keeping cat beds clean, towels looking good etc etc. Stuff from our Mona trip, stuff from Jeff's two weeks away...At least I get comic relief from the kitties. Tuca investigated the washer first and then Chicken decided to take a peek. Why now after 4 years of having the washer I will never know, but Rip was interested too!

Something I will definitely plant again is Mirto- it makes a thick hedge and has flowers that really really smell! This hedge was only 4 inch plants a couple years ago and now it is a wall about 6 feet tall! You can shape it or not - looks nice either way but gives more blooms and stays fuller if you whack it!

Tuca's big investigation!

I don't know what this plant is but I am taking a start - Big coral flower. Other "must have" fruit will be covered in the next post I think... so that's what's happening!

Our Furry Friends

In Puerto Rico there are plenty of disturbing things to talk about but instead of talking about how animals are thrown away like garbage I am going to talk about what we have done about it. When we bought our house (and it doesn't matter where your house is in PR it will be this way) it kind of "came" with animals. We brought one cat with us, Dakota, and all the others sort of appeared at our house hurt or hungry. What is an animal lover to do? When you drive up your driveway and find a cluster of kittens eating avocados that have fallen to the ground you have to do something.  I like to make a cat post when Jeff is traveling so he can see his little friends! Here are some old and new shots of our cluster of kitties! Blanco is like an angel. He is the son of Bepo. Bepo had a litter of kittens we didn't know about up on the hill. We didn't see milk, she was skinnier, she was hanging out at the house all day, and we thought she miscarried. We gave it a few weeks and took her in to get spayed and found out later (when I heard meowing with  my supersonic hearing and found Blanco stuck in a log) that she did indeed have a litter and they were without their momma while we kept her recuperating in the house for a few days. Talk about feeling guilty and awful. I had even asked the vet if she was nursing prior to having her spayed. We don't go to that vet any more. But he survived and is a real sweetie and the most gorgeous cat we have!

Little Rip showed up on the balcony, strutted right in and made himself at home. He is the cat with the most attitude and has grown to be quite long, sneaky and panther-like. He is pretty adorable.

Princess was the first cat we did something about. She was a kitten and was stretching on the cement one day when I saw a huge slice that went from her armpit down her side. We had a heck of a time catching her and Jeff almost broke her tail while I was throwing a blanket over her. She now sits close to me and rubs on me and is nice until you try to pick her up and she freaks out. She was spayed when we had her cut sewn up and we couldn't keep her in the bathroom - she was really really feral.

Bepo  is the mother of Blanco, Mars, Stripes, Junior (RIP) and who knows who else. Her sister Feo (who disappeared) we think was Mini's mom. Bepo was here when we moved in and we thought it was the previous owner's cat who he tried to move to his new place (1/2 mile down the road) but disappeared. We thought maybe she came back to the house she knew. Nope, wasn't his. Bepo got attacked by a dog or another cat and almost died.I found her in our porch area in a pool of green, totally smelly but alive. The vets at the Cabo Rojo animal hospital fixed her up and now she just hangs out in the house or close to it all day and night. She behaves like a normal cat.

Dakota is the cat I stole from neighbors in Washington who weren't feeding him. I sneak neutered him and he decided to stay where there was food (big surprise). He is the old guy of the group - must be 11 or 12 by now. Somehow I doubt any PR cats will live 1/2 that long.

Tuca was hand carried to me by my neighbor Amparo. What are you gonna do, have her just put it down on the ground to fend for itself? Look how little she was. No brothers, sisters, mother...no one to cuddle or keep warm with. Yeah - now I check Amparo's pockets before I let her come over!

Tuca likes to snuggle with her head tucked into her little cat bed. She is kind of normal and sleeps with us, stays around most of the time and follows me when I am harvesting or checking out things in the yard.

Mini is the most feral of the bunch and she is gonna have a tough time moving assuming we can even catch her. She is pretty smart but doesn't get along with the others real well.

Stripes is another one of Bepo's kids. He is skittish until it rains and he wants to sleep on the couch, or when he wants food. He will squirt just out of reach but when you can catch him he is limp in your arms and loves his stomach rubbed. He is a really nice cat but would be better without all the others around.

All of the cats except Mini will pig pile and snuggle. Here Blanco, Mars (orange one) and Stripes (brothers and sister) cuddle in a cat nest.

When Bepo's three kittens finally showed up they were eating avocados and were really feral. My how things have changed! Look how small they were! I even fed Mars milk replacement for a while.

We don't know where Pollo came from but she is turning out to be a nice cat. She doesn't like to be picked up but will rub and rub and rub on you, sit against you on the couch and is a nice little pumpkin head. We called her Pollo because she looked like Chicken kind of. My theory is that all cats have replacements or duplicates here. Same with chickens. You can see one of the them and think there is only one until you see both of them side by side!

Here's Blanco on the run one day when he was small. I couldn't touch him or go near him and he was fast like a rabbit!

Then there is Chicken who came to us with the real chickens. He is the best, most lovable, hang-around-me-all-the-tine cat! He is adorable!


We hate to see animals uncared for and basically thrown out. They litter the highways and roads in numbers greater than opossums and raccoons. These are domestic animals that are neglected and treated like wild animals. We have taken in this mob and spayed and neutered all of them, given them at least one round of shots (more if we can get them into a cat carrier) and regularly worm them. They give us great joy even though it is a large group. I don't know how they will transition to our next house but we hope they adjust well. Even if some of them don't we feel great knowing that these guys have had a healthy life so far and know that without us some of them would likely be dead. Even so, there were 3 others we neutered that disappeared (2 we found dead of unknown causes). While we are here we will continue to do what we can and feel good doing it! We love our furry friends!

Food, Garbage and Nuisances

WARNING - THIS IS NOT A FUN BLOG ENTRY IT IS FILLED WITH IRRITATION!!!!!!

First I'll start with the nuisances - nuisance 1 - there is a Coastal Contacts ad banner on my blog and I have been having a really shitty time trying to get a %$^% order from them! I do not want this ad on my site. I just got an email saying "thank you for your return" which of course is for an order that did not come at all. Nor did I get a slip from the Post Office or a call from Fed Ex or a tracking number or anything. DO NOT ORDER from them if you are in Puerto Rico anyway. There is no free shipping HERE despite us getting USPS. Their 1800 number doesn't even work - you have to search all over their crappy site and by chance try their international number to get through to someone who doesn't know what is going on.

Piss off 2 - I have been waiting for a jar of pet wormer pills from a Canadian company (no one in the US sends here that has this product and price). I believe it is coming since I have a USPS parcel slip that I have a registered package, but it could be some unknown delivery of something for my birthday (that is really unlikely since I don't know of anything and what I REALLY want is the cat wormer pills for my b-day anyway!) It could be taking a while since it is medicine and from Canada but it has been 8 or so days (but a holiday was in there). My fingers are crossed. USPS is one of the few things that WORKS in Puerto Rico. The gal even delivers my packages behind the gate so I don't have to go to town and wait in a line to get them!!! If these nuisances are their mix up we are really doomed and it is all going downhill!

Now on to food and garbage. I was reading on the Huffington Post Green page about a gal who tracked her garbage from her house to the transfer station to another transfer station to the dump. She tabulated all the miles that garbage traveled and it was a huge waste. The average person makes 4 1/2 pounds of garbage A DAY! I have never been a fan of garbage and since moving to Puerto Rico, where it is much more "in your face" and "on the ground" and "in the caves" and "on the beach" and "thrown out of cars" etc etc I have become outright disgusted. When I say "in your face" what I mean is - in the states all the disgusting packaging is removed before the consumer sees it so it is easier not to think about. You buy furniture and all that crap stays in the truck they deliver it in. You buy a refrigerator and the old one is "taken away." Here in Puerto Rico these are not options. Everything comes to you with all its original foam, cardboard, plastic, tape, wood etc and it is amazing. Of course there is a lot of just plain bad behavior here - the supermarkets will put one fruit on a foam tray, wrap it three times with plastic wrap, put a price sticker on it (the apple even comes with its own sticker on it anyway). Times that times all the fruit or vegetables you need on a trip and you end up with a lot of foam and plastic - or you use a lot of gas to go somewhere you can buy loose fruit/veggies. Here they actually have a person come up to you with a "paid" sticker to stick on a cat food bag or other large thing that won't fit in a bag. They even TIE a bag to the handle of say laundry soap if it won't fit in a bag. WTF? Do they think you are going to run off with a 20 pound bag of cat food? People here don't run anywhere ever! My favorite bad/non thinking behavior is little mini coffee cups that they automatically give you a lid and stir stick with and won't refill your paper cup - they will give you another cup/stick/lid if you get another mini coffee. If you refuse it they just throw it away even though it is perfectly good. They also put only 2 things in each plastic bag. Bag manufacturers make bags that are so crappy you have to double bag to carry anything and they are just too large - the bags could be half the height and use half the petroleum to make or at least make a shorter stronger one. So the answer is cloth bags, right? Not here - they continue to try to put my stuff in plastic bags and then put the plastic bags in the cloth one! It is a battle every time I go to a new checker or store. In the states I used to love it when they would put say soap, or dish soap in its own bag inside the bag - hey, it is already in a plastic bottle and I am going to use it to wash the fruit anyway...does it need another bag? Ok, so SAMS club might be better you think. No....here is all the packaging from a little trip that I haven't even unpacked stuff from yet. 

Inside the ziploc (yes plastic) box were - 6 more boxes of bags! Just think of this one example. Every store that sells the individual boxes gets them in these small boxes and dismantles it all to put them on the shelves. How many bags can a person use? It is so easy to grab a bag for cut carrots or a few grapes ... times each item, by each kid's/adults lunch and you get the idea. Are we the only country that wastes this much or it is people as a species? Then there is the lunch meat in a plastic bin, that houses 3 plastic-embalmed circular meat packets of  "slices" that are then sealed with a plastic band which apparently pops open and there is a need for two pieces of plastic tape. Is buying "bulk" really helping anything at all? I also have a great plastic meshy type bag of "artisanal" red onions - how ecological and artisanal is that? So I have 5 pounds of carrots that I peel, chop ends off of and slice for the freezer (in the plastic bags) or for in a water filled plastic container in the fridge for easy eating/cooking. This gives me more waste that at least I can compost. I think I am going to compost cardboard now too - most writing is soy based ink so it is safe to put down to suppress weeds and will rot and add fluff to the garden. So overall I am thinking about what to do about garbage and about the garbage society we live in-- I must have too much time or irritation on my hands!

On to some good food news. If you are reading this from the states you can start laughing now. The big excitement yesterday was bing cherries, scallops, frozen blueberries and asparagus! There isn't any green or colored food here. Only hairy brown vegetables that cook up white and green peppers.  The cherries are amazing and despite my knowing that they had to come here by way of fossil fuels I am enjoying the immensely. I wouldn't whine so much about food here if it were here because it was sustainably grown here. Unfortunately it isn't, 95% of food is shipped/flown here so why can't there be choices? Why can't stuff be grown here - at least the majority of what is flown in (guineos, platanos, yucca, name, pimientos)? I guess the Dominican Republic does it better! Some delightful food news is that we have terrific fruit in our yard and we always have something. If I could live on fruit we would be all set. Carambola is good enough for a few things and we get fruit like this 4 times a year. I planted more kinds of avocados to increase the season with different varieties. We have around 10 trees and they are separated so they don't cross pollinate (hopefully) and bloom at different times. We do get fruit at different times but it still isn't as long a season as I'd like since they don't keep. This year was going to be spectacular but wind knocked off a lot of the little fruits. I can't wait for this most perfect fruit! The longan is blooming nicely.

This blossom is for a corozone which is a fruit you will never eat unless you live here or somewhere in the tropics and know a person with a tree. The fruit is ripe one minute, overripe or pecked the next and doesn't store at all. Boy is it yummy though!

I go back and forth about the soursop (guayabana). The flowers are cool and the fruit is prehistoric. I chuck it in the blender, then through a sieve and use the pulp in pancakes, or breads, or make juice. I first had it in Fiji and when it is ripe and you are in the mood it is very refreshing!

The oranges are looking good. The quenepas are getting bigger. There are loads of bananas and the lemons are ripening. I've eaten some strange peanut butter fruit and of course lots of parcha! Growing your own food is very satisfying and I need to do a better job with vegetables.  I stopped planting things since we thought we had the house sold but I am ready to plant some things now since we are staying put for a while! It is hard to grow vegetables this time of year though when the rain starts. If you've got fruit and the rain comes they will crack or become like balloon animals. I need to build a structure to do it better. So those are the rantings of the day. I think I need to sort through stuff and get rid of things. We don't have all that much stuff but then again we do.