Category Archives: Fun

Best of the Rincón Film Fest

This weekend we went to our first film festival! It was the 7th Annual Rincón Internationa Film Festival and took place at various locations throughout Rincón for about a week. We decided to go to the Best of the Fest night because it would showcase the award winning short films and we also wanted to check out the Casa Hines Mansion which we had heard about but never actually visited before.

Cassie and Casa Hines
Me at Casa Hines

We loved looking at the property and landscaping as well as the architecture. It is a beautiful place beach front and we enjoyed a nice sunset before the movies began.

mansion

Bill and BrittonBritton and our friend Bill overlooking the courtyard

Inside HinesUpstairs balcony area

We enjoyed the films from each of the categories: Fright Night, Comedy, Puerto Rican Film, Action, Date Night as well as the music videos.

Me and B at sunset

One of our new friends here even made one of the music videos called Johnny, that was featured and it was filmed almost entirely in Rincón and the music is by a local band called The Disfunction. We also watched two other great movies that were filmed in Puerto Rico: Chula and Mi CorazónMi Corazón was interesting as it had a sort of not-so-hidden message about the United States’ impact on Puerto Rico.

Overall, we had a great evening of film and fun even with a little rain thrown in.

Screen at Film

 

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (1)
  • Awesome (4)
  • Interesting (2)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

A Tuesday in Our Puerto Rico Life

Today was a fairly normal Tuesday, if there is any such thing as normal yet.

We awoke around 8:30-9am, had some yummy Puerto Rican coffee and bananas and then checked on the chickens in the coop and gave them some watermelon and cantaloupe rinds. We watered the trees including about 10 more that we planted after clearing and finally being able to mow in that area.

New trees cabana and coop
New trees we planted after mowing the area

Britton wanted to clear more of the other slope in the yard with the lawn mower and proceeded to do so. Unfortunately he hit a huge rock (as well as a lot of random things such as glass bottles and padlocks) that had been apparently thrown out into the yard years ago by the previous owner and had over time become buried under leaves and trees and whatnot.

Blades already
Our week-old mower blade below and the new one above

So we had our goal for the day: to find a new blade for the (new) mower. We stopped at Rubely’s which is the closest little hardware store on our side of Rincon and where Britton gets to practice his Spanish. He always asks me what the word for whatever it is that he is looking for before going in to the store. In this case he asked me what “blade” was. I said “cuchilla” which he always gets mixed up with cochina (meaning pig or slang for dirty pig) so we laughed and repeated the correct word a couple of times. The guy at Rubely took one look at the blade and I could heard him say “piedra!” which Britton didn’t understand and he looked back at me in the truck and I yelled back “rock!” and we all laughed. Yep a big rock must have bent that blade!

But unfortunately Rubely didn’t have the right sized blade. So we went to another store and finally found it at Rincon Rental. By then we were getting pretty hungry so we went to our newest quick-food restaurant find: Pizza Land near the Plaza. We took our Strombolis and a few beers and went down to the public beach and enjoyed our lunch while watching the kite surfers in the wind.

Britton Pizza and Beach
Pizza and beer at the beach!

This is the same beach platform that I have been doing my morning yoga classes and so I took the opportunity to practice a few poses as well.

Tree pose yoga on beach
Tree pose watching the kite surfers

Later this evening we will let the chickens roam around in the yard while we are on guard for any hawks and we water the new transplants and gardens again. The chickens will then slowly load back up into the coop as the darkness descends and we will also load back up into the cabana and watch a few shows on the computer since poker night is cancelled this week for Britton. Overall, our Tuesdays have never been better and will never be the same again. And when I reflect on this day I acknowledge that I am perfectly happy with that.

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (4)
  • Awesome (5)
  • Interesting (2)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

Ag Fair in Mayaguez =4 More in the Flock

There was an agricultural fair going on in Mayaguez this past week and our neighbor who is a student there encouraged us to meet him there and check it out. It was really fun and right up our alley. They had lots of exotic plant vendors, the USDA, and other agricultural organizations. They also had farm animals in one of the tents as well as fair food and crafts.

Ag Fair in Mayaguez

Univ of Mayaguez Pigs

I was like a kid in a candy store and was so excited about all the different plants and animals. We picked up a large lime tree that was already producing limes. We also saw a huge pen full of dyed baby chicks that they were selling for $2.

Colored chicks

The practice of dyeing chicks colors is generally safe as long as they use food grade dyes. However, there are some concerns  about the practice most notably that people often will buy a baby chick like this as a novelty item not intending to actually raise the chicken and so they get thrown away. We didn’t buy any but it was pretty tempting especially at that price.

Our friends, however, also visited the fair and they knew we were set up for chickens, so they bought four of them and played with them for the day and then brought them to us. They are so small especially compared with our now 6 week old chickens. We weren’t sure how they would work all together adding in such young ones, but they are fine! Because there are some older pullets in the flock that are watching out for them, we don’t even need to put them under a heat lamp. They just huddle under the older birds’ feathers at night.

Colorful chicks
Our friends named them already: Grinch, Tanner and Smurf shown here. Also not shown is another one called Black Eyed Peep.

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (0)
  • Awesome (5)
  • Interesting (2)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

Repurposed: A Bathroom Turned Chicken Coop

We are nearly completed on the chicken coop and it has come along beautifully! It started its life as an ugly vermin-infested bathroom on top of an old worn out deck and now has been repurposed as a chicken coop. 95% of the materials we used to build this coop came from that old bathroom. The only things we bought to make it were some paint (around $30), some nails (around $30) and some hardware wire (around $20). We also decided to purchase a paint sprayer (about $100) that we plan on using in future house projects but we could have done it by hand.

Unpainted front viewAfter we put on the siding

We didn’t necessarily have to paint it, but I’ve always thought that it takes so little to make it just a little more finished looking. Most of a makeover is the façade, but it makes such a striking difference! A chicken coop doesn’t have to be ugly! And since we will be going into it every day to collect eggs and check on chickens why not enjoy the experience? The paint sprayer made it so easy too. We finished painting the exterior in about 20 minutes compared with the 3+ hours it probably would have taken us using rollers and brushes.

Pretty coop After painting the inside and outside, hanging the door and painting the trim (with a chicken in the window)

I normally don’t like all the power tools (like the chainsaw), but I actually really enjoyed painting with this sprayer. Britton had to actually ask so that he could use it too!

Painting with sprayer

We chose a color called Cozumel, but I think it should have been called Calypso as it is nearly the same color as the Calypso Bar in Rincón! Because we had saved some time in painting the exterior and we were having so much fun with the sprayer we decided to paint the trim and inside with our leftover white paint from when we painted the cabana. It really brightened it up!

Walls unpaintedInside coop
Interior Before and After

Chicken nipples BK 1
!Gringo Loco!

Since we had a little extra time we decided to bring a few of the chickens to check out the work in progress and have a little fun!

We still have a little work to do like secure it with the wire and we are also thinking of building a porch onto the coop so we can watch the funny little birds run around. Overall, though, it has become very close to the vision we had conceived of when I drew this design months ago!

Coop plans
Manifesting reality!

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (2)
  • Awesome (4)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)