Category Archives: Fun

The Good Life in Rincón: Beach Yoga, Local Brews and Fiery Sunsets

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We continue to get a lot of work done in the yard. We have cleared close to 2 acres of overgrown weed trees and vines. It is intensely physical work and seems endless, but we are definitely making a dent and digging out from the tangled rat’s nest that results from 10-20 years of neglecting a property in the tropics. We are planning to leave a good portion of the other two acres fairly raw and use it as a jungle sanctuary hiking trail (or paintball area maybe?).

Path to lower area
We call this Hawk Lane as the birds swoop through and it continues to open up

Britton has built the base of the chicken coop and the chickens are doing well. We’ve had a couple of fires to help us clear and some friends and neighbors have helped us and enjoyed the mesmerizing beauty of a fire with us. They called the dinners that are cooked directly on the fire “hobo dinners” which is a cute name. I think it would be fun to have a traditional Puerto Rican pig roast (lechón) some time too!

hobo
Campfire with friends

But in addition to all the work that goes on at the farm, we have also been having some fun off the compound.

We recently went to the Grand Opening of our friends’ business: Rincón Beer Co. in downtown Rincón and had a great time drinking their artisanal beer and listening to a local band called Mijo de la Palma.

Mijo de la palma    Naomi and Sage   RBC

I have also recently started going to yoga at the beach platform at the balneario with some friends. It is so peaceful and beautiful to stretch into a pose and look out over the water as the waves lap at the sand and the pelicans and white clouds float across a bright blue sky. We are going to try a Zumba class right near there soon as well. Meanwhile, Britton has been swimming in the sea.

yoga at the beach
Ohmmmm and Namaste

Additionally we have  been meeting new friends and trying out new restaurants. The other night we had a rooftop dinner with friends and watched a gorgeous sunset. Good friends, food and fun in a great place. Esta es la vida buena. This is the good life.

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Chicks in Tub and Lares Bee Festival

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The chicks are growing fast. So fast, in fact, that by 10 days we knew they were outgrowing the plastic tub they were living in and were starting to stink up the cabana! So we prepared them for their move to the bathtub from the outdoor bathroom we had removed from the deck.

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We made a couple of other minor changes as well. For instance, instead of continuing to buy pine wood shavings, we thought, why not just use grass from the property? We are also trying out a chicken bottle with a nipple (yes, a chicken nipple -haha) that our friend gave us. The chicks overall seem content in their new step 2 home.

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The only major adjustment we had to make was that on the first night we moved them to the tub, we heard something outside. Britton went to check on it and found a rat trying to get at the chicks! So we fixed up the tub with boards, concrete blocks and a rat trap and haven’t had a problem since we instituted the Fort Knox solution at night. During the day nothing has tried to mess with them, so we leave it mostly open with just a few boards and the wire mesh.The main coop is starting to come together and we’ll post an update soon when we get more progress on it.

This weekend we also drove up to Lares for the Festival de la Abeja (thanks Adolfo for the tip). We hadn’t been to Lares since we nearly bought a place there, so it brought up a lot of fun memories. Lares is in the heart of the jungle mountains and is a pretty cool old city. It’s about a 45 minute to hour drive from Rincón.

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Old building in Lares

The festival itself was pretty fun, though we were hoping for more bee information and bee-raising materials. There were mainly booths with exotic birds, plants and food vendors and also a live band. The theme of the event was: “Sin Abejas  No Hay Polinización y sin Polinización No Hay Alimentación” which means “Without bees there is no pollination and without pollination, there is no food”.

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But since we were in town, we had to stop at the famous Heladería of Lares (ice cream shop) that includes many different ice cream flavors including even rice and beans! We weren’t quite up for that, and chose coffee and mango ice cream. It was a fun day trip.

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Chirping Motivation

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Exotic Chick
The free exotic chick is a feathered leg breed

Now that we are hosting the Future Egg-Layers of America (or at least a few in Rincón, Puerto Rico) with us in a plastic tub in our 300 sq. foot cabana along with Kitty we are starting to max out space and feel the chirping motivation to start on the chicken coop. Everyone gets along fine in the cabana including Kitty because he is used to us having chicks in the house from when we had them in Greeley.

Chicks and Kitty
Kitty is more jealous than hungry, though he looks to be plotting something here

The plan is to move them from the cabana into the bath tub that was left over from the bathroom take-down in about 2 weeks and then at about 2 months into the coop. When they are full-sized chickens (around 4-6 months) we will then let them free range and use the coop as a night shelter and laying area. Area for coop
Kitty and the area we have chosen for the coop

We also plan on growing their supplemental food for when they need a little extra in addition to all the juicy bugs and grasses they will find, like this venomous centipede we found in the area we were clearing for the coop. More motivation for getting them outside and pecking away: fewer of these things! Yeek

Centipede

 

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The Baby Chicks Have Landed in Puerto Rico!

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Today we went to the Rincón Post Office and picked up our mail-order baby chicks. We had originally expected them last week, but my mom got a phone call (since we don’t have a phone) that they would be arriving this week instead. We received an email that they were en route on Sunday with an expected arrival date of Tuesday, but we thought we had better check this morning anyway just in case.

Post office
Chicks were waiting for us at the Rincón Post Office

Well it was a good thing we did because we walked into the post office and could hear their little chirping voices behind the counter! This was the first time we had ever ordered chicks before and it worked out great, all the way from Iowa/Minnesota to Rincón, Puerto Rico in approximately 24 hours! Since Puerto Rico is part of the U.S., anything that can be shipped via US Mail can come to us. In the case of live animals it is sent Express/overnight.

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When they arrived!

Baby chicks can be sent through the mail actually much easier than a full-sized chicken could. When they hatch they pull the yolk sack through their belly and can live on the nutrients of the yolk for about 72 hours without any water or feed. However, they are very cold sensitive and for that reason you must have a minimum order so that they can keep each other warm with their body heat. Once we got them home we had to dip each of their beaks into water, set up the heat lamp (they need about 95 degrees for the first week or so) and give them some food.

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Did I just hear a collective “Awww”? 🙂

We ordered 25 various chicks including some strange/rare ones that you can’t find in Puerto Rico and some that lay dark brown, green/blue, specked and light brown/beige eggs. We eventually want them to be self-sufficient and self-replicating/reproducing so we did order a couple of roosters too. We have never had a rooster either, but we can hear them all around us, so it shouldn’t be much of a change.

The company we bought them from is one of the largest hatcheries in the U.S. and every order of 25 comes with a “free rare exotic chick”. We are not sure which one we got, but it will be interesting to see. One of the puff-ball headed chicks (Polish) looked like a little runt and was about half the size as the others. It was also really listless and couldn’t stand up. We tried helping her and giving her water, but after about 2 hours, she gave up the fight. It was kind of sad, but I suppose that is how nature works. And ultimately we ended up with 25 anyhow. I can see why the company sends an extra just in case.

We are really excited to see how these chicks do and watch as they quickly turn into chickens. Britton and I still have to build a chicken coop in the lower area that we have been clearing of trees, but now we have a little more motivation. And there is nothing like a box of baby chicks to bring a smile to anyone.

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