Category Archives: Tropical

The Weeds of Our Yard

We went down to Home Depot in Mayaguez (the nearest main city with all the modern amenities you could think of) and picked up a trimmer and some more supplies to finish putting screens on the windows of the cabana. Then Britton got to work trimming the whole “front yard”.

It’s not really a yard in the same way you would think of a lawn in the states. The front area is more of a parking place, but with all the growth from the last 8 months it made it like a yard. Before he whacked the heck out of it though, I wanted to check if there were any plants that I knew of that were good. I still don’t know all my tropicals as well as I do my backyard Colorado plants, but I can tell a mango tree from a citrus or a banana (and there are a lot of mango seedlings too!).

So without further ado: Like sand through an hourglass, these are the weeds of our yard. 🙂 Please help me find out what these are or correct me if I’m wrong in my guess:


Not sure what this is, but it’s really pretty!

The Traveler’s Palm has about three babies sprouted at the bottom of it.

We found more sprouted coconut palms and the one we found and planted last time we were here looks to be doing good.


Here’s the one we planted last time we were here. I know these are coconut palms but does anyone know the type? I think they are the “water coconut” variety and not the meat coconut. How can you tell the difference? How can you tell when they are seedlings?

Anyone know what this is? Is it edible?

Mother-In-Law’s Tongue -this is a houseplant in the states but here it is a yard weed!!

There’s a ton of these types of plants on the steep side of the property. I’m thinking maybe Ornamental Ginger plant? Is the ginger in ornamental gingers edible or good for you?

These aren’t weeds, but they are Mandarin Oranges we found on a tree on the property!!

This one looks just like houseplants I have seen often. Not sure of the name though.

This is just what we found on the first 1/4 acre. We still need to trim down a little further and see the plants we planted last time and take off some of the vines from other fruit trees that we know of on the remaining 3 3/4 acres! It’s amazing how just looking at weeds can be so fascinating. I guess that’s why we go places out of our comfort zone. We learn something new from even the smallest things.

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

Bomba @ The Calypso

Last night we headed down to the Calypso to see a Bomba band that was advertised in the Coqui Rincon newsletter. Bomba and Plena is a type of music that originates in Puerto Rico with an African influence. It was pretty cool to see all the congo drums and the dance circle. The Calypso bar is a  fun place to hang out. It’s definitely a surfer favorite and a lot of Jimmy Buffet types go there every night for their drink specials and to watch the surf and sunset. We found this bar the very first time we were in Puerto Rico and thought it was really fun. We stop by there at least once each time we are down here in Rincon.

We are having fun even though most of our day hours are spent running errands and trying to contact people to help us with various projects with the house and property. So going out last night was a nice treat.

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

We Have Arrived in Rincon!

We got into Aguadilla at about 1:30am last night (local time).  The flight was uneventful to Newark and from Newark into Aguadilla.  We got our rental car and headed for the property.  It was pretty dark and traffic was light (obviously).  We got here and vines had covered up the front gate.  I got out of the car and started tearing them off by hand.  I got enough of them off, so that the gate would slide open and drove on in.


Rental Car This Morning

The weeds appear to have grown quite a bit in 8 months.  It’s about what I expected to see though and isn’t too bad.  We were able to drive the car right in over top of the ‘weeds’ and park.  I went into the small cabana not exactly knowing what to expect.  It looked about the same except the paint on the ceiling had continued to flake off, so there was quite a bit of paint chips on the bed and floor.   A quick sweeping took care of that.  We dusted off the bed and got out our covers/blankets we stashed from the last visit.  Other than a few weird noises we went to sleep pretty easily.

The Concrete “Cabana”

I feel that the first order of business will to be to get a trimmer and maybe some paint / paint supplies from the store.  That way we can start to carve out a nice spot for ourselves, then expand the spot as we move along.  We also want to get some plumbing done and maybe some more bees removed while we are here.

The bees that were removed on the last trip have stayed gone, so that’s a good sign that it won’t be a futile attempt.

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

Moving to Rincon Progress Meter

On the sidebar of this site, you may have noticed a little green vine crawling up the side. Well, we have added a new feature: the Moving to Rincon Progress Meter. It is a scale from one to 100 that will track our progress to our goal of living in Rincon, Puerto Rico. Mostly it measures the amount we estimated that we need to save in order to move there and be able to do some major upgrades to the property, but it also covers some things like ongoing income sources as well.

At this point in time you will notice we are at approximately a 35 on the scale or 35% of the way there. We estimate an increase of more or less about 5% per month on this meter. We thought this might be a fun way for those of you out in Internet-land to watch the progress we are making as we close the gap to moving and living in Rincon. We will be down visiting Rincon in just a few short weeks, so watch the blog soon for updates straight from there.

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