California 2 Puerto Rico

The edamame (soy beans) that I planted are doing really well! Lots of pods are hanging off of the little bushes now and they are extremely low maintenance.

Conclusion: Edamame (soy) beans are easy to grow in Puerto Rico!

I am still patiently waiting for the heirloom tomatoes to give us some treats, but they seem healthy and happy.

Just like the Kruses, our watermelon (sandia) plant never really did much and it has finally started to flourish. Today we saw the first tiny little watermelons forming on the vine.

The birds and the bees are enjoying all of our new trees and plants and are busy pollinating for us :). It’s nice to see the animals flocking to our yard since it used to be a big dry dust bowl.

Stefan and I decided to tackle a new project and have started making our front pathway. Originally we bought a cement stamp/mold thing that would form some fake rock-looking pathway, but comeon…That would be too easy!! Stefan and I decided that why make fake rocks when we know where to get real rocks that would match our steps and front planters. So, Stefan and Jerry took a trip to the quarry and filled up the back of the truck with the biggest, flattest rocks they could find.

The blue rock is only $13 per meter, so it’s pretty cost effective but the labor is pretty intensive :).

Stefan and I woke up this morning to find that Monkey’s nose has stopped bleeding! It has been bleeding for 3 days now, and it started bleeding again after her trip to the vet, which was quite concerning, but today, it has stopped and she is very happy about that!

When Stefan 1st told me that Monkey’s nose was bleeding, I figured she had a scratch and it was a little bloody (no big deal). But, no. Monkey had a constant stream of blood, with gross meaty-looking blood clots pouring out of her nose, with no reason to be found. I was raised around animals (mom was a dog breeder, hung out in vet clinics, had horses, chickens, birthed puppies, etc.) and never had I seen an animal bleeding out of its nose for no apparent reason, so that is quite concerning to begin with. Then, not being able to stop the bleeding is a horribly helpless feeling. Could you imagine your child bleeding out through the nose and having to tell them, “Well, I hope you make it through the night because it’s Sunday and hospitals in Puerto Rico are not open right now…”

Any how, after the vet visit and medication, Monkey certainly does seem to be feeling MUCH better today and her nose did finally stop bleeding, so that is very encouraging news.

The night before the vet visit, Monkey decided to sleep in the storage room, on the queen size mattress Mark let us borrow (sorry, Mark! We owe you a new, less bloody replacement)…

Lots of blood loss is scary

There is literally blood everywhere downstairs. The bed, the floor, the walls. There was even blood spatter from one end of the room to the walls on the other end (7 - 8 feet?) from Monkey trying to sneeze out the blood that was coagulated in her poor little Monkey nose. So sad! I’m so glad she is feeling better. Fingers still crossed.

Today has been a rough day so far. My trip to the vet in Mayaguez this morning was made more exciting by the fact that I was too preoccupied with Monkey and her hemoraging nose to look at the fuel gage. I left here at 7:00am and was stuck in traffic on the 115 due to road construction for about 45 minutes. By the time I took the left off of Highway 2 at the airport I was in the car for about an hour. Half way up the hill to the veterinarians office the truck started to sputter and stall out. That’s when I noticed there was no fuel in it. By the grace of Something, it kept on puttering to the top of the hill where I put it in neutral and coasted down to the vets office. They were closed until 9:00am.

Dr. Mararro was super busy. There was a family waiting there with their cat (it was hit by a car) and two other cars (miniature pinture and 3 dogs getting dropped off to get spayed/neutered). After looking at the cat, they brought monkey and I into the back room and took some blood samples from her. While waiting for the blood samples, Dr. Mararro shaved the cats leg, applied a cast and a few stitches to the kitty and said it was going to be just fine in a couple of weeks.

Back to Monkey. He sedated her and I helped him clean out her nose and held her head while he looked around in there with his doctor tools. After not finding much, we gave her x-rays to see if there was an obstruction or a tumor. He ruled out it being poison because the blood would have been pouring out both of her nostrils, not just one.

Once the Doctors wife arrived and did the blood tests, we had been working on Monkey for almost an hour and a half. The test results showed that Monkeys blood had an extremely low platelet count. Platelets are blood cells that promote blood clotting after injury to the lining of blood vessels. The normal platelet count is around 700,000. Anything below 40,000 can cause excessive bleeding. Her platelet count was around 2,000. She was diagnosed with Thrombocytopenia which refers to the abnormal function of platelets which leads to things like uncontrollable bleeding and bloody noses.

The doctor said that in human beings, blood banks provide platelets for humans that are low but that there is no such blood-bank for dogs. He prescribed her with steroids to help fight off infection, a strong antibiotic, Doxycyline, to kill the tick disease she has (which could be causing the low platelet count) and doses of vitamin K to help promote the clotting of her blood. Right now, Monkey has a 50/50 chance of making it. Basically, the antibiotic has to kill the tick disease. Hopefully, without that disease in her system her body with naturally start producing platelets again, her blood will clot on its own and Monkey will be back to 100%. Keep your fingers crossed for her.

After finding out the tough news, I had to figure out how to get home…with no gas. Luckily, our friends from Villa Orleans were in the area and they dropped off a couple of gallons of gas for me.

Ok, so this is getting a bit ridiculous. We are spending a boat load of money at the vet or on dog and cat supplies every month. Monkey’s little itchy bumps come and go (the vet has no clue, but we’ve ruled out Thyroid problems after an $80 test), cheech had his first check up at 3 weeks old (they stuck a little glass rod so far up his but I thought it was going to come out of his mouth), cheech got neutered, multiple visits to buy different tick repellents (Advantax, Frontline), neither of which worked and now, Monkey has a bloody nose.

I didn’t even know dogs got bloody noses? I came down stairs to the office yesterday and she had a slow trickle. I didn’t think anything of it, ran out to Mayaguez and when I got back her nose was still bleeding. Now though, it was clotty and coming out in big gross slicks on the floor. Summer and I got really worried around 4:00 when the blood started to flow more so we decided take her to the 24 hour care vet.

I called my buddy with a phone book and asked him to look up the 24/7 vet for us and I would call our vet to see if they had an emergency number. Our vet in Mayaguez (Dr. Morerro) didn’t have an emergency number and the closest 24/7 animal clinic to us was on the other side of the island past San Juan in a town called Chupacallos.

I hunted around on the Internet to see if I could find anything and only got more worried. According to the info I found her bloody nose is anything from a bur or stick stuck in her nose to a brain tumor. Summer and checked the side effects (her idea) of the Preventic tick collars and looked around to see if she got into any chemicals (highly unlikely that she ate anything because she is a picky eater…she’s not the type of dog that eats everything). Maybe she ate a rat that was poisoned or a lizard that is poisonous. We don’t know.

The vet opens at 8:00am and I am leaving with Monkey in 5 minutes.

Stefan and I love the show “Top Chef”, so we were excited to hear that the finals were held in Puerto Rico! The four finalist were flown in to Puerto Rico and had to use typical Puerto Rican foods in the final food challenges.

You can watch the 1st part of Top Chef - Puerto Rico, here:

http://video.bravotv.com/player/?id=259465

I’m still looking for the 2nd part…

I am so tired of getting attacked by ants!!! I honestly can’t tell you the last day that I did not get bitten by ants. The ants here in Puerto Rico are vicious. They don’t just bite you, the entire colony swarms up your foot/leg and chomp you as many times as they possibly can before you do the “ants in my pants” dance and try to swat them all off. I guess I would be pretty pissed off too if I had to rebuild my house every time it rains (currently, twice a day), but still. Why are they taking it out on me!?

Today I decided that I have to wear something other then flip flops while working in the yard, so I rifled through my closet and found the perfect pair of shoes for ant battle…

…Knee high leather Adidas. Haha. Bring it on, you little ant bastards!!! Don’t make me breakdance on your little ant colony.

Since the rainy season has started, I havn’t had to do much with the little garden I planted a couple of weeks ago. I try to pull weeds whenever I’m out in the back yard, because those suckers grow SO fast this time of year, but other then that, it has been very easy. The spicy lettuce mix that I planted has done very well and is very tasty. These pictures were taken after I have already used some of the baby lettuce for salads, and there is still plenty left.

As you can see, the lettuce grows wonderfully here in Puerto Rico! I highly recommend the spicy mesculin mix from seedsofchange.com.

The heirloom tomatoes I planted are growing well, although they are slow. The chives are a little weak looking, but hopefully they will buck up. The edamame (soy bean) plants are also doing really really well. I saw their first furry little pods yesterday. The purple bellpepper is also slow to start, but it looks like they are going to make it. For the little effort this little garden takes, I am so happy with it so far!! I can’t wait until we get some of those heirloom tomatoes…mmmmmmmmm!

Traveling in and out of Rincon Puerto Rico has always been made easier by the Aguadilla Airport (BQN) which is only about 25 minutes from Rincon. The airlines that service the Aguadilla Airport are Continental, Jet Blue and Spirit. Spirit Air flights mostly connect through Ft. Lauderdale, Jet Blue Connects through Orlando or will go direct to the JFK airport in New York. Continental flies to JFK and Liberty Newark International Airport.

Last week, I decided last minute to postpone our New Jersey visit when I was offered an airline ticket to meet a buddy in Costa Rica to catch a south swell created by a tropical storm/hurricane. The only caveat was that I needed to fly out of San Juan. No worries. I drove 20 minutes to the Mayaguez airport and took Cape Air from there into San Juan (beautiful 30 minute flight) and connected to my Continental flight through Houston to Liberia Costa Rica.

After we took off, I snapped this picture with my iPhone. The air strip is in the foreground directly to the left of the half moon looking bay. If you follow the beach up past the next point, that is Isla Verde (El San Juan Hotel, Intercontinental, Ritz Carlton) Not a bad picture for a phone.

Ariel View of the San Juan Airport

Now that Stefan is back from Costa Rica, we’ve started cooking up some of the recipes that you guys suggested. Stefan made the stuffed peppers suggested by Cris and this is how they came out:

I don’t eat red meat, so we substituted the ground beef with tofu and it was really, really good (and good for you)!

I made the salads using the spicy mesculin lettuce mix that I grew, which is also very very yummy (and easy to grow here in Puerto Rico).

Thanks for the recipe, Cris!