Life Transplanet

Puerto Rico has nice nights.  Last night Cassie and I sat on the porch and listened to the night sounds of the coqui and the smells of the tree blossoms.  Oh and the water was back on, it was out all last night.  We ended up driving to the beach to use the outdoor shower that you use to wash off the sand at the beach!  It was kind of cool to watch the stars shining as we shampooed our hair to the sound of the waves crashing.

This morning we could hear the roosters and they actually haven’t stopped all day.  Our chickens would be jealous, the chickens here get to walk around in the streets.

I wish you could smell this!

We’ve setup a few showings for houses tomorrow in Aguada.  They are places we have been looking into for a while now on the internet.  It will be nice to see them in person.  I’ve uploaded a few pictures in a gallery from today.

Yesterday Britton and I met up with our friends Matt and Jamie to go hiking (Jamie and I) and mountain biking (Britton and Matt) up the Poudre River Canyon before we went to the Mishawaka reggae music festival. Colorado is so pretty in the mountains in the summer. Jamie and I hiked up a trail at Young Gulch and  saw a variety of things including butterflies, fields of purple flowers, bees pollinating flowers AND a rattlesnake.

That was really exciting and scary. He was all coiled up, shaking his rattle and ready to strike. I wanted to get a closer picture, but didn’t want to get too close. We had to warn all the people with off-leash dogs. She and I also walked up to Mishawaka as we were waiting for Britton and Matt to get done biking. We saw a dead bat and were offered to get picked up by a couple of guys on motorcycles. We said we weren’t too good at hitch hiking and that we’d just walk. Here are a few pictures:

Britton and Matt Mountain Biking

Jamie and Me, Hiking

Fields of Flowers

Butterfly on a flower

Dead bat by the side of the road

Rattlesnake in the Grass

This rattlesnake is so well camouflaged that I had to circle it to show you where it is in the grass. Unfortunately, all I have to work with is MSPaint on this laptop, so it looks like a little kid wrote this!

The yard is becoming quite the wonder once again. I wish it could be spring, summer and fall all year round because our house and yard look awesome and produces some terrific food in the bright sunshine. The chickens would be happier too!  But if that were the case, we might not be planning our escape to Puerto Rico!

The chicks are getting bigger. I think they are still too small to live outside, but they might be able to here in about 3 weeks. We had to put the Schnoodle baby gate over the top of the box because they kept flying up on top of the box sides and pooping.

The big chicken continues to lay her eggs in the newly constructed chicken coop, but still wants to sleep in the greenhouse. One day we closed the greenhouse to see if she would go to sleep on her own in the new coop. When we checked on her, she was sitting right outside our back sliding door, so we just let her into the greenhouse once again.

Here’s a few pictures I took today. Beware, they contain scenes of a sunny nature:

A chick exploring in the flower garden (under supervision)

Here’s the chick on my arm and the adult in background

Columbine plant (Colorado state flower) in Greenhouse

Looking up at a columbine in greenhouse

Spring is in full bloom here in Colorado. The tulips, daffodils and hyacinths are proudly standing tall. The grass is turning green, the trees are flowering. Even the dreaded dandelions are showing their pretty colors. The 70 and 80 degree weather has been such a welcomed visitor. We all (the chicks, chicken, dog, cat and people) have been enjoying spending time in the backyard. We haven’t moved the chicks or the chicken out to the new chicken coop yet, but we have started to feed the chicken there and will have to move her there soon. Anyone know how to transition a chicken from one coop to another if the original will still be around?

Two Red Tulips

Chick in our kitchen

Showing the chicks (see chick on step) around their new home (soon)

Chick on roost in coop with hay

Chick hanging out in yard under laundry basket

Pretty Pink Hyacinth

On the poll, “Daisy Style” won by a landslide. In case you were wondering what some of the “others” were, we had two blanks, and two write-ins: Yourself, and Red to wear my sexy red shoes. I was actually hoping that Daisy would win because we have so many daisies in our backyard right now that I wanted to do something with them.

When I saw that Daisy was probably going to win, I thought about how I could use them. I thought of a daisy chain necklace or possibly pinning them into my hair. Then I decided I was going to wear a flower garland in my hair. Then, I looked in my hair supply drawer and found a headband that would work perfectly.

In case you ever want to try this out, it was extremely easy. I did it on my lunch break yesterday.
1) Gather the daisies, leave about 2 inches of stem. Depending on the look, pick flower sizes accordingly.
2) Lay the daisies out in the order you want them placed.
3) Insert into the headband starting with the middle and working outword.

Back view

Front view

4) Add water and refrigerate until use.

5) Add a flowery dress, some accessories and Voila! Daisy girl!

Also added some daisy earrings

The concert was pretty fun. I didn’t know very many songs compared to Britton and it was super hot in there. It was basically an old hangar that was converted into a theatre and it felt like there was no air conditioning at all. We were sweating, and my poor daisies only lasted about an hour in there before wilting. When we first got there some girl came up and hugged me when she saw the daisies. (Yes, There were a lot of hippies!) We went out to Buca Di Beppo for dinner and that was pretty fun too. Overall, a great kickoff for my birthday. Thanks everyone for voting!!