A Beach Winter Solstice and Christmas

Leave a reply

We are so happy to have moved to a tropical beach town. Nearly any event can be magnified into something magical when you put “beach” in front of it.

Yin yang Britton and Cassie Xmas
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from LifeTransPlanet!

This last week we had the opportunity to enjoy a beach winter solstice party with some friends at Steps Beach. Missy is so creative and a great party planner.

Steps Beach

We shared some great food, drinks and company as the sun set.

Steps Beach sunset Sunset silohette Sparkler light

Then we had a small ritual saying goodbye to the old (darkness) and welcoming the new (light). We brought the Swedish torches from some of the trees on our property that Ben had chainsawed as well as deviled eggs made with farm fresh avocado instead of mayonnaise.

Fire and candlelight

As the evening darkened, we watched a small bonfire and played with sparklers. It was a great night! To read and see more pictures of the evening, see Missy’s post.

Then on Christmas, we went to the beach again! While I have heard great things about Puerto Rican lechón, I have not had any here before. Even in Colorado, it has been a long time since we’ve had a pig roast. But a pig roast on the beach on Christmas?! This was the best idea ever. The company was great, the pig was delicious, the drinks were flowing and the setting at Almendros Beach was superb!

Almendros beach
Fun at the beach 

Pig and People IMG_1637
Pig roast time (thanks Lowell for the great idea)!

Sunset almendros
And yet another beautiful sunset

We then spent the rest of the evening with some of our very favorite people who are just about as close to family as we have here. It was a fabulous Christmas.

Kersch Xmas
Silly friends!

Man we are blessed! Good friends, good food, good times. We even awoke Christmas morning to a few gifts! I looked out the window and saw this gorgeous rainbow appearing through a sunshower.

Rainbow2
Christmas rainbow in paradise

First Turkey Egg
We found our first turkey egg!

Earrings
And my mom gave me the most perfect pair of chicken and egg earrings 🙂

We hope your Christmas was filled with magic and all that you hoped for as well!

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (2)
  • Awesome (9)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

Bare-Handed Green Iguana Hunting and Catching

10 Replies

I had briefly mentioned it before, but one of my new pastimes is hunting and catching small green iguanas. Britton thinks I am crazy, but I really do like to do it. So far this has just been a catch and release practice, but maybe someday we will grill up some iguana tail pinchos (kabobs). These lizards are invasive to the island and are everywhere! There is hardly a day that goes by that we don’t see them on the ground or in the trees! So I have plenty of opportunities for the hunt.

Catching iguanas
An iguana and his tail

The key to catching these iguanas is to be quick and to divert their attention. You can’t be timid. You must strike like a ninja. I watched the white Garza (cattle egret) birds hunting for the geckos and found that they strike once and don’t waver.

Garza bird cattle egret
Watching these birds taught me a thing or two about lizard hunting. I can even catch the little gecko lizards as well

So I grab at the tail and hold on for dear life. They will twist and twist and try and snap at your fingers, but if you hang on to the top of the tail you will have him for as long as you want him. If he twists too much, he will break away the tail and run off. It is really weird when this happens because the tail keeps twitching and moving around like a snake for about 5 minutes! In this video, I had caught him but the tail twisted off so I tried again and scored!

The next level up would be to catch the big guys, but I am not sure I am quite ready to be grabbing at these ones just yet!

Lizard close up
A little meaner looking, doncha think?

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (26)
  • Awesome (10)
  • Interesting (4)
  • Useful (6)
  • Bummer (7)
  • Whoa (3)

Are We Hillbillies or What?

2 Replies

We are nearing the very end of the house demolition project. However, now that the house is basically just pieces of wood on the ground, everything else about our life is totally disordered. That’s what happens when you live “on-site,” I suppose.

Working in Paradise

Thursday was the craziest with activity and lots of hammer drilling from about 7am to 7pm, so Friday we needed a break (and I think the workers did too)!

But it wasn’t a true break, because I still needed to get laundry done amidst all the chaos that was left behind. I was getting a bit snippy with Britton about my “less than ideal” ability to wash and hang laundry and he stopped me in my tracks and said, “Wait, I need to get a photo of this.” Yep, it is pretty hilarious. And a good reminder to not take things too seriously. Everything will get sorted out….eventually! And if we turn into hillbillies in the process, so be it!

Crazy laundry and turkeys
Crazy acres is the life for me! 🙂

The cool thing about living amidst all the construction progress is that you get to know everyone pretty well. Well enough that when the guys heard that I had never had “pitorro” (which they pronounced pitojo), the next day they brought a bottle of it for us and a bottle for them and we all took shots (a very small one for me) from the same metal cup and said “salud!” Pitorro is like Puerto Rican moonshine and everyone has a different recipe for it. This one tasted pretty good and sweet and was made with tamarind and parcha juice, but it did pack a punch. An only in Puerto Rico experience for sure.

PitorroYou can’t be a true hillbilly until you’re drinking the local moonshine, right? 🙂

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (2)
  • Awesome (7)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

House is Nearly Gone and New Electric Project

2 Replies

Life has been pretty hectic around here lately. We are used to a pretty mellow and peaceful pace, but lately we have had crews of people in and around the property from sun up until sometimes past dark. While Britton and I are not doing very much of the labor ourselves (a major difference as well!), it is still pretty chaotic and stressful to have everything around you totally disrupted and noisy. Still,  things must get messy before they get pretty; it is how progress gets made after all. And we are very thankful for all the help we have had in moving towards these goals.

Missing house
Not much left!

The house is nearly gone. They are down to just the very last few beams and posts and a little clean up work. We plan to keep the lower shed room as a storage space and laundry room for the time being, but otherwise, everything will be gone super soon. It is so weird how much it is already transforming this space.

Ugly old electric line

The next thing we had to consider was the electrical line that runs from the wood house to our cabana. If we were to leave it, it would just be a pole sticking up connected to the street pole that traversed from the house through a tube under ground to the cabana. In order to take down the rest of the house, we need to remove it as well and have an electrical pedestal installed that connects directly to the cabana. We talked with an electrician who happens to be the father of one of the workers and he said he would be able to fix it. So in addition to our house demolition team hammering and tossing boards, we also had the electrical team digging trenches and sawing into our little concrete cabana. Talk about chaos!

Drilling into the house
Dust flying as the house was being sawed to the breaker box

The pedestal will be installed near the gate and will be very close to the road electrical line thereby removing the line that shoots downward where the house once stood.

work site and Pedestal from the road

After the house is down, the wood is stacked and protected from the rain, the shed is finished and the electrical system is rigged up, I think Britton and I are ready for a bit of a Christmas break! Whew!

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (3)
  • Awesome (1)
  • Interesting (3)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)