California 2 Puerto Rico

It’s weird for me to go from working out in a gym 4 times a week, to not really knowing what to do with myself, since we moved to Puerto Rico. I guess it’s just transitioning from Southern California to Puerto Rico, but I certainly got a workout today, while working in the backyard. Killing two birds with one stone!

Here is what went down…

First, grab a cinderblock from the cinderblock pile:

Run the cinderblock 100 yards to the other side of the house (and place in line):

Repeat 15 times.

Run down to the dirt pile and shovel dirt into the wheelbarrow:

Run the wheelbarrow up the hill:

Shovel dirt into cinderblock “planter”:

Repeat steps 3 - 5 ten times.

Everything was fairly easy, except for running the wheelbarrow up the hill. That was HARD. I had to get a running start at the bottom, which would get me half way up. Then I would have to set down the wheelbarrow, (so it wouldn’t slide back down) and reposition my feet. Then I would literally have to inch up the rest of the way. I’m sure my neighbors probably were watching me and laughing their butts off.

Nonetheless, we got a nice temporary planter around the backside of the house so we can start growing out our jungle

After planting some ginger, birds of paradise, etc.

So I was was reading a trashy celebrity gossip magazine today (I have to catch up when I’m off the island ;)…), and there was an article about Martha Stewart and her pet miniature donkeys…

MIniature donkeys?!? What?! Awesome!!!

I have never heard of miniature donkeys before, but that is EXACTLY what Stefan and I need! We have gone back and forth on what sort of animals/pets we want to have for the property, in order to keep the jungle growth in check. First we thought we wanted goats (or a small flock of pigmy goats), but goats eat EVERYTHING, including the young trees we have planted, gardens, palms, laundry, shoes, the house, etc. Then we thought that perhaps we should get a horse or a cow, since they are good mowers, but won’t eat our trees, but I think Stefan and I are both intimidated by having such a big and powerful animal such as a horse or cow (I was leaning more towards a cow…ha). So, how perfect would a pair of mini donkeys be?! Look at how cute the little beasts are!

Couldn’t you imagine Monkey and Cheech riding Buck Rogers (the mini donkey) around the property while Kuta is herding them all?!?

I am SO looking into how much it would be to buy and fly a pair of mini donkeys to Puerto Rico…

p.s. I’ve always wanted to be Pippy Longstockings, so I am going to carpe diam, damn it!

I am officially living in Puerto Rico full time now, and since I don’t have any property or assets on the mainland, I decided to take advantage of the very generous tax breaks both the federal U.S. government and Puerto Rico give to businesses that move their mainland companies to Puerto Rico. I am currently in the research stage and will be hiring a firm out of San Juan that has both Certified Public Accountants and Lawyers that will graciously help me through the entire process of setting up a Puerto Rico Corporation, filing for tax exemption, showing my business history and appearing with me in front of a committee that will question my business and its move to Puerto Rico (for a fee). I don’t think it is as easy as setting up an S-Corp back on the mainland.

It is my understanding, that because I am in the service industry (Marketing) and that 90% of my clients are not in Puerto Rico, if I employee 5 residents of Puerto Rico (can be gringo or Puerto Rican as long as they live here) I can qualify for a Tax Exemption. This tax exemption will completely relieve me from having to pay Federal Taxes and will reduce my state taxes to 7% after all of my deductions. I also we will not be double taxed. I only pay taxes on my business once, then all the profits are mine at the end of the year. If I pay myself a salary, I will have to pay taxes on that (but I can write that off as a PO) Now, 5 employees is about all I would like to have (I used to have almost 40), but it would be worth bringing them on just for the tax break!

The problem with having employees is that you have to work harder. You need to have a plan for them everyday and most of all, you need to make sure they don’t all asleep on your desk. Cheech’s first and last day on the job:

Cheech, you’re fired!

Tonight, I am in an extremely clean and dog free house. After watering this morning, I pulled all of the furniture out of the living room and gave the entire upstairs of the house a deep clean. It has really needed it. We have had a lot of rain this winter and every time we get a little mud in the yard….the dogs track up the house within an hour.

At the end of the day today (a few minutes ago), I sat down on the couch and looked up the driveway through our cool ass teak window/doors at the front of our house and felt completely stoked on the house we have built (still building) and the fact that it is in Rincon Puerto Rico. Summer and I have been having so much fun exploring the island(mostly looking for construction supplies), learning the language (we would like to be fluent), eating the fruit, avocados, mangos, drinking the coffee and eating the quesittos, building our house, surfing, snorkeling and running our businesses. This place is rad.

I think this is the feeling people (sales guys) refer to when they describe the “Pride of Ownership.”

Is all of my hard work landscaping just taming the property or is landscaping the property taming me? I have been at it a lot lately and now I am quite enjoying it. I have come to the conclusion that I will be doing at least fifteen hours of yard work every week for the duration of my life at our house here in Rincon, so maybe enjoying the yard work is a good thing. Although it is still difficult land to work, it is getting easier two fold;

1. I am using the tools in a more efficient manner
2. I see the light

I am using the pick, a sharpened shovel, sometimes gloves and a giant steel bar that I can drop to the ground with a boat load of digging power. I have the hoses hooked up to one another so that I can water any plant/tree in the front yard without having to dedicated time to attaching hoses and switching water sources. I clear out all of the weeds, flatten an area to catch rain water (instead of it flowing right on past), backfill with a mix of potting soil, pete moss and local dirt. Then, I cover the dirt above the root structure with pebbles and rocks from around the property to shade the soil from the sun (it is amazing how much a little shed helps keep moisture in the soil)

When we first started landscaping (back when we had the topsoil dumped for the grass in the front yard) it really seemed like we had a long way to go. We knew that there wouldn’t be much immediate gratification (aside from the lawn) as far as mature plants and trees. Well, I think we have been working hard on the landscaping for a few months now, and I am starting to envision what it will be. It is hard to imagine what your front yard could look like when it is baron, dry, rutted and rocky. For me, I saw a few before/after pictures of other peoples yards and realized how fast and big a lot of these plants can get. Seeing those before/after pictures along with the solid schedule of planting in the front yard and now I am daydreaming in my hammock about a fruit and vegetable producing front yard that has plenty of shade, flowers to trim and privacy.

This first picture is of a young Canango tree. The Canango tree is a fast growing tree that will reach heights of 12 meters in just a few years. This tree produces the Ylang Ylang flower, made famous by Channel No. 5 perfume, which will make everything within 20 feet of the tree smell like it just finished a relaxing four hour aromatherapy session. Needless to say, we will be planting the Canango Tree and its Ylang Ylang flower in close proximity to the front master bedroom windows. Those trade winds will blow the fragrance through our master bedroom 24/7.



Ylang Ylang Flower | Potted Cananga Tree


I am envisioning the front of the property by the gate filling in with big trees. The ficus we planted right in the center of the yard will get huge, allowing us to plant things under it that will need shade and 30 feet further up the hill is the gate. I have planted about seven avocado trees in that area. As they grow up I’ll keep snipping them and try to keep them lower to the ground and fill in more space. I also planted a few different types of avocados that produce at a different time of year. I can see friends planning their visits around avocado season (or mango, or orange, or guava, or papaya). Here is the biggest of our avocado trees on the property (I just planted it today)






Avocado Tree | Five foot tall sapling


We don’t really know what we are going to do with the driveway yet. It is going to stay like it is for a while (both our trucks have four wheel drive 4X4) so I decided to plant some heliconia around the tree. It seems like a good enough spot to me. They will spread like crazy and should give us some beautiful flowers at ground level. The tree I planted them below is an African Violet. It has great flowers up high at certain times of the year.






Red Heliconia | African Violet Tree


This Egret or White Heron landed while I was taking pictures of the new Avocado tree. It is amazing what happens when you start to get some green. This property was so dry and baron after we scraped it that we weren’t getting any birds, coqui’s or any signs of life. It is cool that this guy decided to show up while I had my camera. I didn’t know it until I looked it up a few minutes ago, but the White Heron is all over the tropics eating fish, frogs and insects. Does this mean that our property is inhabitable by insects now (the bird is eating them)? This picture with the arrows of all of the plants we have put in the ground doesn’t show the 10 or 12 trees above me on the hill and you can’s see another half a dozen beyond the leaves of the palms. It is going to look good in a couple of years if I keep this up.






Great Egret | White Heron


Strange as it seems, I don’t own the water that is runs through the water table under our house. The Puerto Rican government owns it. Even stranger than that, is that the government leases it out to privately held companies to sell water to people that live on the island. Crazy water people.

Summer and I have kicked around the idea of using well water as it is much cheaper than city water and it will allow us to water our plants without limit AND we could have good water pressure in the house. As it stands, if the sprinklers are on it is gonna take you a long time to get the shampoo out of your hair. The thing is, we just didn’t see the practicality of spending a couple of thousand dollars on a well when our water bills are so cheap. Well, all that changed last week.

Apparently, our water bill is simply an estimate based on our water consumption over the past year. So, every month they save money by not sending out meter readers by just estimating. We have been paying between $18 and $45 dollars a month…not too bad considering we are watering, living, mixing cement etc. This past month, we go a water bill from the water company. But this bill was after the meter reader read our meter and calculated how much water we had used over the past 4 months versus how much water we were charged for. There was a big difference. I got a water bill for $425. Time to investigate a well.

Watering our new plants and lawn…$425 worth

Summer and I like to send postcards. They are quick fun ways to say hello to friends. The problem is, Rincon doesn’t have any cool postcards. They are all super old and not quite cheesy enough to be cool. Maybe Summer and I should make cool postcards for Rincon. hmmmm….summer is the genius with PhotoShop…here is a digital postcard for personal websites, blogs and social networking sites that I made. I bet she’ll do a better job.

Just right click the picture to save
it to your desktop OR past this code into
your MySpace profile or comment field:

<a href="http://www.ca2pr.com"><img src="http://www.ca2pr.com/images/rincon_puerto_rico_0708.jpg" /></a>

Today Stefan and I took Drew (who is in town visiting) up to The Goat House. The Goat House is a former drug dealers house, that was seized by the government. It seems that the government has forgotten that they own the house, because it has remained in the exact same state for over 15 years.

Walking in to The Goat House:

View from the first floor of The Goat House

The Goat House is a place where local kids sometimes hang out, drink rum and watch the sunset, and there is a reason for that…There is no place that has a better view of Rincon!

The view from the roof of The Goat House:

I took the panoramic photo of the view above, today, and pieced the pics together real quick, but I think you get the general idea of how awesome it is. Famous photographers (Aaron Chang, for one) have taken quite a few photos from the roof of the Goat House. But, you can sure see why!

Stefan, Sheena, Shay and I were dining at The Lazy Parrot tonight and I came across a sign from the Animal Rescue Foundation of Rincon Puerto Rico. A.R.F. of Rincon is a non-profit animal rescue and they are in danger of shutting down. A.R.F. of Rincon is staffed only by volunteers and is funded only by donations. Unfortunately donations are slow to come by for an animal rescue in Puerto Rico, so they are currently only able to run two days a week due to lack of funding.

I’m a total animal freak so I’m going to do what I can.

I am going to donate and figure that it would be a good opportunity for anyone else that would like to donate to this good cause, as well. ARF’s website certainly is lacking and donations can only be sent via mail (helllooooo 1990’s). So, I have set up a way to easily donate via this website:

AND, to sweeten the pot, I will personal MATCH any donations made here (up to $1000). One month from now, I will take any donations made here + 100% and I will mail a check to A.R.F. of Rincon.

A.R.F. of Rincon is a legit non-profit and donations are tax deductible. I will make sure anyone that needs receipts gets them (just let me know).

Lorenz has a chicken in a bag, in his trunk. It’s his new pet.

Stefan and I ran into Carrie (Lorenz’s girlfriend) at the convenience store today and she told us that Lorenz was in Ponce and apparently he decided to buy a chicken as a pet.

I think Lorenz may be drinking Jameson.

(only in Puerto Rico…)