The Trade Winds of Change

Greetings Dome Blog Followers,

Sorry for the delay in my posts, the past month has seen many changes. 

Kent, our 83 year old friend, neighbor, and owner of the house where we're staying died March 3rd.  Denise and I moved in with Kent Mid May last year and have been caring for him.  He had a terminal lung disease and heart issues, and was on oxygen 24/7.  In the beginning we would get up with him in the morning and cook him breakfast, have lunch available in the fridge, cook dinner and spend the evening with him watching his TV shows, or listening to his many stories.  His long time friends said he was 83, but lived the life of a 115 year old with many stories of his adventures.  Denise and I were staying in a second master bedroom at the end of the house, adjacent to his room so we could assist him at night, if needed.  Kent's health started to decline in the past few months and he was needing more nurse visits and full time assistance during the day, more than we could provide while trying to build a house.  The downstairs apartment was empty, so we were moving down there to give our room to full time nurse.  Here's Kent with Denise back in July when she went to Minnesota with him.

Kent's three kids, all in their 60's, have been on the island at various times sorting through the house and weighing the decision to keep or sell the house. Initially their plan was to let us stay here until our house was built, but the condition of the house and general monthly maintenance costs may be changing our living arrangements.  I won't go into the details but we're working on plan A, B, C... for where we're going to live.  We've had offers from other friends and neighbors so we're grateful for all the great people we met on the island.  I've been designing a 10' x 20' temporary house next to our 20' container on the property.  I'm working with the trucking company and excavators to prep the area and get the container moved and septic tank installed.  The roof will collect the water into a water buffalo storage tank until the cistern is built, and we have solar and a generator for power.  The property is isolated, quiet all day with the wave sounds, millions of stars at night, and the nice breeze from the trade winds in the afternoon.  It will be small, but we live on an island with big plans in the works, so it's all good! 

Our friend BJ hooked us up with some new tires and wheels for the jeep.  He had a friend that was building a jeep from the ground up; he had everything but the jeep.  He couldn't find the vehicle he wanted so he decided to sell the wheels.  The day after he sold them he came back to BJ's asking for them back because he'd finally found a jeep he liked.  Too late, they were already sold to us.  The rotten rock on the island can be sharp so having the larger tread helps to avoid flats. 

Our neighbor Ryan is the IT director at a local private school and asked for help on his fiber network due to our past communications experience.  I worked with some of my old vendor contacts and helped him order fiber inspection and cleaning equipment (thanks EXFO for your help).  Denise and I went down one Saturday morning to teach him how to use the gear and saw a big work in progress.  Here's some Cruzian fiber management for all our communications friends reading the blog.  He's slowly getting his network in order.  A fusion splicer is his next major purchase. 

Excavation started again a few weeks ago but it was hit and miss because of equipment and the rocks. Smith's jack hammer was doing a good job but he hit a rock the size of a vehicle.

The hard blue granite would not break or budge after many hits with the hammer.  Once he cleared the rocks around it he exposed the rotten rock base, but couldn't get the angle to chip away the rock.  The dozer could not break it free from its hold.  Our only option was to get a bigger hammer.  They reached out to their contacts and were able to get a track hoe with a very large hammer.  Within five minutes the large rock was broken into around five larger pieces. 

With the large boulder out of the way the large hammer could work on the rock face behind the house location. Unfortunately the dozer broke a water pump and couldn't clear the hammer debris, so we were stuck not being able to chip the rock at the base to make a vertical wall.  With the equipment failure we were going to be down for the weekend.  Turns out they were going to charge me to keep the track hoe over the weekend, even when not in use, and they were trying to charge me a 6 hour minimum per day, not per-job as the standard, so I sent him on his way.  $2,700 for nine hours of work, including transportation cost was enough for me. 

Chico had his friend Richie come out with his Traxcavator to keep the excavation going since he needed to do some major repairs in addition to the water pump.  Richie's machine is $15 more per hour but it has a 2' wider bucket and could move more rock.  Here's Richie clearing the terrace area above the house pad.  All the rock debris below him is covering where the large boulder was.  The edge of the dozer track is a 20' drop. 

One afternoon Richie got too close to the edge in the fill on the left side of the picture and almost rolled his machine down the hill.  After a few hours he was able to get another machine on the property to pull him out. 

My parents, Jim and Bonnie are visiting on the island.  Originally they were going to stay in the apartment downstairs but Kent's death changed the plans a bit.  Our friend Gerry offered his guest house for them so they've been enjoying their stay, and taking care of Gerry's dog Cosmo while he's away.   

We started their tour with a trip down to the property.  My mom was all ready to help with the excavation.  Too bad Smith didn't leave the keys to the back hoe. 

We piled into the jeep and headed up the hills to the top of Blue Mountain, a whopping 1,096' to see the views of the island.  Our road to the property is at 800' so we're also pretty high up too.  The highest peak on the island is in the west end at 1,160' but we didn't drive to the top.  We've explored many parts of the island and took a trip out to Point Udall, the southernmost part of the US.  Buck Island is in the background. 

Buck island is one mile wide but looks short and round from our perspective at the property. 

Yesterday we took a trip out to our friend Roniel's house, the VI honeyman.  When we arrived, Roniel had the smoker and a bee suit ready for my mom.  He took her down to the hives and gave her an up close tour of the bees. 

The green racks holding the hives are what Denise and I helped him build last year.  They're designed to strap the hives to the rack and stay put during a hurricane.  He lost a few hundred hives during the last hurricane, and about 40 more after the storm during the drought.  This design should help during the next storm. 

My mom had a great time and was able to see one of the queens.  She's the larger bee on the right side. 

We took a tour of his garden, banana and plantains, and left with honeycomb, papaya, bananas and other good stuff. 

Last week we drove through the rain forest and explored Creque dam.  Denise and I had driven past it a few times and enjoyed our stop with my parents.  The 45' high arch dam was built in 1926 to store water for Frederiksted.  It was designed to hold nine million gallons but is now shallow and full of silt.  Denise and I walked across the top, but my mom and the other dam visitor in the picture stayed at the railings end. 

We hope to get my parents out the the Farmpod today and maybe lunch at the Serving Spoon II, a local food place with great flavor. 

I woke up early today to work on this blog entry but found the internet was still slow.  Denise came out from the bedroom and said she thought we had another rat in the tool room because of the noises we had been hearing.  We went back to the bedroom and found one of the land crabs outside our door.  The locals say they're good eating and I miss dungeness crab from the NW, but decided to move him off to the side yard instead.  If he comes back we might have some crab dinner. 

Our plan was to go to Puerto Rico Sunday for a few days with my parents but the work on the property may keep us here. 

That's all for now.  I'll try to update the blog a little sooner if we have some down time during all these changes. 

Kevin & Denise