I dug out the rock/dirt and replaced it with a mix of better quality soil. I ordered all sort of interesting seeds from seedsofchange.com and decided to plant spicy mesculin mix (a lettuce assortment), scallions, tigrella heirloom tomatoes, black krim heirloom tomatoes, purple bell peppers and edamame (soy beans).

48 hours after planting the seeds, I saw sprouts!

Here is the garden on day 5:

The scallions, heirloom tomatoes and purple bell peppers also have tiny sprouts, so they are growing well too. I was wondering if the heirlooms would grow since the package of seeds had all sorts of advanced directions that I ignored in favor of throwing them into the dirt and hoping that they would grow…

We are thinking about starting a bowling league, but what if we are the only league in Puerto Rico? Then who do we bowl against? I guess we’ll have to start two leagues so we have someone to compete against?

Two things about the bowling alley in Aguadilla:

1. Don’t bowl on lane 18. The air conditioning misses you entirely.
2. Don’t drink the rum and Cokes unless you want to get really, really, really drunk.

More Rinconians getting their bowl on:

Looks like a strike for Stefan…

Summer bowled a 151, beating Noel by 1:

Stefan bowled a 169! Unfortunately Luis bowled a 170 for the win:

This is not our driveway getting paved, but it could be!

One of our friends down here that we play poker with (he has been forced to walk the driveway) offered to go down to city hall and talk to the mayor about paving our driveway with us. Everyone in our neighborhood understands that we haven’t been able to pave the driveway, but they are sick of our mud tracks and splatters all over the first 500 feet of the road. So, with that said, it is also an election year and everyone in our neighborhood (including me) will be voting for a Mayor in November. In essence, with the power of our vote alone, we are going to try to get the city to pave our driveway.

Now, I am the boss on our job site (I share this responsibility with Summer) and I have gone through the same confidence gaining evolution here. I have gained experience planning rough through finish electrical work, rough in through finished plumbing work, drywall, appliances, tiling, bathroom fixtures, fans, landscaping, painting, custom closet creations, hardwood floor installation blah blah blah. Now, I am not an expert in these fields by any means, but I am now confident in how the all of those little things effect the big picture as far as building a house.

So, you would think, that I would have learned my lesson by being a foreman on the job site at this point….but I haven’t. Last week, the neighbor hired a backhoe to excavate some rock on her property. Mark and I were on our way to Home Depot, and I asked what he was going to do with the large boulders. He said he was going to dump them somewhere, so I told him he could put the large boulders on my property and I will use them around the yard. He was cool with it and Mark and I headed to Home Depot.

When we got back two hours later, the backhoe and dump truck were gone, and they had dumped about 8 yards worth of broken up cinder block, dirt, concrete and boulders in our turnaround spot at the end of the driveway.

That’s a lot of rock to move

Ha! I should have learned my lesson and stayed on site to observe and make sure the job was completed properly. So, I spent about 6 hours pulling out the big boulders and rolling them around the yard to line the driveway and our turn around spot. When I was done with that, I started shoveling the dirt into a wheel barrel for transport, and realized that it was going to take me a week to get all of the dirt/concrete/block moved. Yesterday, another neighbor was getting some excavation work done with a back hoe, so I hiked on up the hill and talked him into coming down to our house when he was done up there (for a small fee).

I’ll post some pictures of the rock-scaping when I am done moving rocks! It’s back breaking work.

Literally. We spend at least a few hours a week, yanking those little blood suckers off of our poor pups. And, it’s not like we don’t try and protect our dogs, it’s just that nothing seems to work. We have our dogs on Advantix (a monthly treatment) and we are constantly giving them flea/tick bathes. As a matter of fact, we have bathed them twice in the last 3 days and we still spent 30 minutes picking ticks off of the dogs today.

Our friends RT and Nora had to take their dogs to the vet to be sedated in order to remove all of the ticks from them.

Another friend uses tick pesticides intended for horses, on his dog.

I don’t know what else to do. Ticks are so gross!! Does anyone else have any suggestions on how we can keep the ticks off of our dogs in Puerto Rico?!

Summer arrives in Puerto Rico I

Summer flew in almost a week ago from her three week business trip to San Diego. The entire time she was there she was working 15 hour days, moving warehouses, setting up new utilities, working with accountants and bookkeepers and I can only imagine what else. She left San Diego at 9:45pm on Jet Blue and arrived in Aguadilla around 10:00am the next day. I got to the airport a little early and decided to hang out at Wilderness (surf spot in the flight path) until her plane cruised in overhead. Here is a picture I took of her plane with my phone. Sitting on the beach waiting for her flights is definitely better than circling the San Juan Airport in the truck.

Jet Blue Arriving in Aguadilla

Summer arrives in Puerto Rico II

Not only is MY Summer here, but the summer heat is here as well! The past couple of days have been hot (but they are always hot when you are in the sun), but the evenings have been hot as well. In the winter, the nights really cool down quite a bit. It is perfect weather for shorts and a t-shirt and maybe jeans if the trade winds are blowing or there is a storm system over us. Once summer starts to hit, the evenings don’t cool off quite as much and the idea of putting on long pants becomes quite unsettling.

This prompted us (along with a visit from Brian) to install our new ceiling fan in the master bedroom and begin our research on installing air conditioning in the two bedrooms upstairs and the offices/guest bedroom downstairs.

We will be getting split units for upstairs, but Brian brought up putting in Ducts and central air downstairs since we haven’t drywalled the ceilings yet. Let the Air Con research begin! Have any of you guys made a Air Conditioning investment at your house? If so, do you have any input for us (cost, brand, pitfalls etc)? Let us know!

So, here is the skinny. Summer and I bought a very nice set of matching Kenmore Elite Appliances from Sears in Mayaguez back in July. So, in less than 10 months, our microwave is trying to transform me from Bruce Banner to The Incredible Hulk! I am going to call Sears today and see what’s up. My concern with all this (aside from turning green when I get angry) is that we built custom cabinets over the stove to fit the Kenmore Elite Microwave / Exhaust Fan. Considering our experience trying to get doors, appliances and furniture on the island, waiting for a replacement microwave MAY yield us a new Kenmore elite microwave EVENTUALLY, but I would be more inclined to think that they are going to try to replace it with a different model (hopefully the microwave convection combo model is the same size and in stock).

Rincon Bowling Night

: Tuesdays, 6:00pm

Smokey, this is not ‘Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.

This may not be ‘Nam, but it is Puerto Rico so I am not going to make any rules at all. If you would like to play, Summer and I are going to go Tuesday nights around 6:00pm and would like all of you to come. As far as we are concerned, the more the merrier (rowdier)!

If you have never been to the bowling alley in Aguadilla, it is tricky to find, but once you have been there once, you’ll never have a problem finding your way back. It is right across the street from the Walgreens and next to Wendy’s on the No. 2. It is hard to see because it is up about 40 feet on a hill above Wendy’s and they don’t have any Vegas blinking lights advertising * Bowling * Bowling * Bowling . I embedded a Google Map below with directions to the Wendy’s. You will be able to find it from there.

Bowl Aguadilla with us, Tuesday Nights at 6:00pm

Let us know if you are thinking about going. Once we get this rolling on the weekly basis, we’ll reserve lanes, set up some teams and keep an official score sheet that we’ll post publicly here. It could be that my poker habits are bleeding into the rest of my life (especially since I am no good at bowling), but I think I’d like to make a $1 wager per game (yes, an entire dollar). Ya know, spice it up a bit. Who’s in!

I have been blogging about watering our plants every day until rainy season starts (and hanging the rain gutters) but I haven’t had to touch the hose for almost a week now. It has been raining in the afternoons a bunch and for a few days, we had a low pressure system over us that sent cool weather and non-stop drizzle for two days.

Another big afternoon rain storm just hit about an hour ago and it prompted me to check the weather forecast.

Yep, that’s right. Rain, rain, rain and more rain.

Could rainy season be on Rincon Puerto Rico already?

Plants that Repel Mosquitoes:

• Catnip
• Lemon Grass (aka. Citronella Grass)
• Marigolds
• Mosquito Plants
• Rosemary

Catnip: I know what you are thinking. Catnip is legal marijuana for cats and cheech is too young to experiment with such a controversial gateway drug. Don’t worry, catnip has another very useful purpose, it repels mosquitoes! The natural oils found in Catnip is actually a more effective mosquito repellent than the highly toxic DEET. You can plant it all around your outdoor living areas and you can also crush it up, retain the oil and use it as all natural mosquito repellent (I can’t guarantee cheech won’t kill you if you do this).

Lemon Grass: Lemon grass is a delicious herb used in many Thai recipes like Thai Grilled Chicken Salad with Lemon Grass Coriander Dressing and it is also a mosquito repellent. Lemon grass (aka: Citronella Grass) is a plant that grows in clumps, and can grow up to 6ft tall. I really like the idea of having lemon grass clumps planted around the yard because this stuff smells so good and grows as fast as grass. Uh, hence, lemon grass. The long and the short of it is this. If you plant a small clump of lemon grass by all of the windows downstairs, they will be 6 ft tall clumps of mosquito repelling love in 6 or 8 weeks .

Marigolds: Marigolds repel all kinds of bugs, not just mosquitoes. We planted Marigolds around our vegetables to try to help keep the little veggy eating bugs away from our booty. Marigolds do a good job repelling mosquitoes around the house, but they are annuals (life cycle of one year), so they are not going to live year around like some the other mosquito repelling plant options.

Mosquito Plants: This plant was created for the consumer. It is the hallmark holiday of plants. This plant (in my opinion) is banking on the ’sucker’ in all of us. What scientist would name a plant the Mosquito Plant! It is marketed heavily and as its name implies, it is a mosquito repelling plant. I did some research on the Mosquito Plant and can’t find any solid evidence that these things actually repel pesky mosquitoes, so I am just going to dismiss the Mosquito Plant as an option for us.

Rosemary: YES! Rosemary actually repels mosquitoes. I love this. Rosemary is one of my favorite herbs to cook with as it has a really strong unique flavor (great for marinating lamb/chicken, infusing with virgin olive oil). Rosemary also grows year around and can grow into quite a large plant. It can become a total ground cover (if properly groomed) or a beautiful hedge once it matures. Rosemary does better in more temperate climates and tropical climates, but it grows quick enough that if you are in an area that actually has seasons, you can grow it on the porch and then bring it inside come winter. The oils in rosemary also work as an all natural mosquito repellent.