Almost there!

I said a few weeks ago that we were only waiting for the cistern plans but I forgot to mention the other remaining documents prior to permitting.  Our site plan should be completed soon and we're waiting on the documents to show we're current on our federal income tax and our property tax.  We couldn't do the site plan until we had the cistern design to show how the cistern and dome sit on the property with elevation drawings, septic, drain field, driveway and other items.

I pulled out the rock tumbler from the container last week and Denise has been working with her rocks she found on the island, and also ones we found when we were hiking with Cody and Kenzie in San Antonio back in February.

Denise had a few rocks that needed to be cut down or shaped before they went into the tumbler so I pulled out the Dremel and the tile saw from the container.

She found a lot of interesting rocks with great patterns inside that will be turned into jewelry and other items.  She also started cutting some older shells found near the property and discovered great designs inside.  Denise's craft room will be a busy place when it's complete. 

We collected about 16 magpie shells for the hermit crabs, and a few for craft work, although those shells are typically not that interesting once the white areas wear off.  Denise took a red permanent marker and numbered the 15 remaining shells from smallest to largest.  We placed them in the hermit crab feeding area and this morning only number 14 remained.  During our morning walk with the dogs we found number 13 about 200' down our road.  I'll put some canned cat food out in the feeding area later this afternoon and see how many numbered shells return for food.

Hmmm, what will the weather be like this week?  Oh yeah, wonderful!  This screen shot was from last week but this week is pretty much the same.  You can see the couple days were it shows some rain.  The greatest difference from Washington state weather that we love is the rain comes down, sometimes hard for about 10 minutes then it's gone and sunny again.

With all the daily sun we plan on using solar for our new house.  Our neighbor Gerry has a roof replacement coming due to some hurricane damage and was interested in the adhesive solar panels attached to his new metal standing seam roof.  We had a call with the manufacturer a few days ago to discuss the benefits of their design.  This may be an option for us if I build stand-off panels on the vertical edge of our cistern/deck.  This new design of panel does not require direct angles to the sun and with the wrap around deck we should receive power all day.  More to come.

I was given a solar panel from our neighbor Don and I purchased a small solar controller, pump and landscape irrigation tubing to trial a solar hot water heater for the tub that will be in Denise's oasis.  This is a hidden area on the property with a soaking tub.  The picture below shows my basic setup for the trial.  The solar panel charges the battery and runs the pump.  I also have the water going through a solar pad (laying over the pool) I found in the bush.  I have no idea what house it came off of but it is still in great shape and doesn't leak.  Joys of hurricane debris distribution.  The trial was very successful and I have some great ideas for the layout of the oasis.

That's all for now.

Kevin & Denise

Island Critters

Denise and I have seen a wide variety of critters on the island from cool looking bugs, to small and large lizards and iguana's.  When I remember, or have my phone with me, I take a picture of the animals and thought I'd share a few since I've been asked by friends what we have here.  Sadly most of the iguana's we've seen have been dead on the road, and I'm not stopping for a photo op.  You can click on a picture and scroll through and enlarge them. 

There are three different types of frogs and toads we've seen.  These guys are pretty cool and our cat Jack hopefully has learned not to mess with them.  We hear they have a coating on their skin that can make a predators day turn bad really quickly.  Jack found one in our room and after I put it outside he spent the next hour licking his lips trying to get it off.  Fortunately he didn't have any additional issues. 

We also have white frogs that hang out above the bathroom shower window.  That side of the house gets the rain which they like.  We have a louvered window in the shower with a screen inside and we were getting cold so I closed it after removing the frogs.  After about 2 weeks our bathroom started stinking really bad.  Turns out I missed a frog and he ended up tangled in the linkage.  Removing the rotted frog was pretty disgusting.  

This toad is huge, around the size of a soft ball!  The dogs don't mess with him and he pretty much owns the property. 

Sorry for the bad photo.  These are tropical house gecko's and commonly known as Wood Slaves.  They are from Africa and got their name by hitching rides to the New World aboard Negro slave ships from West Africa (From Wikipedia link).  These guys are camera shy but are brave enough to jump on and run up your leg.  I was cleaning up the room downstairs and moved a ladder.  This guy jumped from the ground to my leg and started crawling up to my shorts.  Weirdest feeling ever!  I put my hands around my leg and shorts and started shaking my leg until he jumped off.  They're harmless but it was a pretty funny sight as I'm trying to get him off of me.  

We have the standard gecko's too.  They are really good to have in the house since they eat many bad bugs.  I read a local forum the other day about them and a person new to the island was asking how to get rid of them.  The responses were telling the guy to leave them and that you'd have far more unwanted guests without them.  My favorite response in the forum was, "I have many gecko's in my house that keep the mosquito volume down.  One even saved me 15% on my auto insurance."  We have one in each corner of the living room and many outside.  

Termites!  Yes we have them which is another reason why wood is not a good exterior building material.  The first picture below shows the tubes they create along a walkway or on trees.  When you break them open you'll find a termite highway going in both directions.  I clear one of these off the path during my morning walk and it will be rebuilt in a day or two.  

The second picture is a termite nest in a tree.  These are about the size of a large beach ball and very hard.  The hurricane knocked many down and broke them apart but I forgot to take pictures of the insides.  Basically they have many curved paths inside that don't appear to have a structure like an ant mound, but I may be wrong.  The tree itself is locally called a tourist tree because it's thin bark is red and peels like a sun burnt tourist.  

This is a large Caterpillar that I believe is a  Pseudosphinx tetrio.  It lives on the frangipani tree.  The caterpillars typically eat all of the leaves on the tree, but we're told this is a good symbiotic relationship.  The leaves of the frangipani typically fall off in the cooler weather and since we don't have cooler weather, the caterpillars do the job.  They will completely clean off a tree in a few weeks, but wait a bit and the leaves come back.  I've searched on the surrounding trees for the pupa and would love to see the moth when it emerges. 

We have some tiny scorpions on the island that are not dangerous.  What I learned from working at the arthropod exhibit at the Oregon zoo years ago is the claws tell the story.  If the claws are large then the scorpion uses them to rip apart their prey, and only have the sting of a bee or less.  If the claws are long and slender then they use their stinger to subdue their prey and can hurt or kill a human. 

We have really cool millipedes here.  There's the larger black African type as in the picture below that can have a body diameter close to a dime.  We also the smaller black and yellow type that roam the streets and try to get into the house.   

La Cucaracha! Yep, We've got em.  So far we've seen them mainly outside in the rain forest but occasionally you'll find one in the house.  This one is about 1.5" long. 

We have the typical wasps here.  I have a coconut palm in a bucket of water getting ready to plant and the wasps have been coming by to get a drink.  I've been knocking them down and the black ants have been attacking and killing them.  You may need to zoom in to the picture below to see the ants devouring the wasps. 

Here's a few of the really cool spiders we have.  The first picture is a spider in the middle of a 6 foot web.  I was walking our property and almost walked into it.  The third picture has an amazing abdomen.  My Audubon society arthropod book is still in the container so I can't look up the names.  Leave a comment if you know the names of anything I can't identify. 

The rest of the bugs are various things I've seen.  

Pretty cool blue bee.

We also have deer that steal fruits and vegetables from gardens.  We saw some huge bulls on Mahogany drive.  

Homo sapians.  We're told that after the hurricanes last year the human population is down to 35,000 from the 50,000 on St Croix.  Denise and I added two to the count and are not leaving.  Below is our friend and neighbor Gerry enjoying lunch with us at Off the Wall during Sahmie's visit.  We had a good time while she was here and now she's back home to the Seattle rain.

This is a long post so thanks for sticking around. 

Denise and I went driving around Salt River bay yesterday to the kayak tour locations to see if they had any used ones for sale.  We ran across some people at the Christopher Columbus landing site as they were setting a dumpster.  We stopped and asked if they were in need of any volunteers.  They were so we spent four hours today with a group of people cleaning up the beach.  We had a great time and had about 75% fill on the dumpster.  The hurricanes deposited most of the large debris but there were plenty of beer bottles, cans and water bottles.  Our property is the notch on the right side of the hill in the background. 

I've been asked how big St Croix is compared to where we move from.   I took a screen capture from Google Earth at the same eye altitude and put them together.  For those of you who know the Portland/Vancouver area you'll see the size our little island. 

That's all for now. 

Kevin & Denise

Progress, Maybe?

We've had some movement on the cistern design. 

Cisterns are about $1 per gallon to construct and we need around 30,000 gallons.  This will allow us to have enough for the house and apartment all year round during drier years.  When I first talked to the engineering firm about my designs they were worried we'd have sticker shock at the cost.  I explained we had budgeted for the cost and wanted something that was functional, and would last with our domes through all types of weather.  We learned from locals that you pay for a large cistern one time, but you pay for a small cistern forever because you're constantly having water delivered.

Last week I received a design to approve from the engineering firm.  My plans, as I mentioned in the June 12th update, showed the cistern I designed to wrap around the main dome, 10' out from the house to provide water storage, and double as a solid concrete deck.  The term "Wooden deck" in this part of the world is also known as "Debris" as you can see from the picture below.  This is the house on the other side of the hill from us.  They have/had a wrap around deck that has extensive damage and multiple layers torn off on the other side.  These are the things that become projectiles and damage neighboring houses.  (BTW, this house is for sale if you're interested.)

This is the design I was sent to approve. 

The engineering firm thought they could save me some money by building a straight rectangle box.  When I explained that the main dome will have three 16' entries with 12' glass doors, one facing north, and the others to each side, all with awesome views of the sea and surrounding islands, they suggested I could keep this design and build a wooden deck around the other side.  Although their design could literally hold water, it didn't in my mind and wasn't going to happen.  I was not happy due to the continued delays and their design not in any way as I requested.  

I explained my reasons and resent my drawings.  They apologized and made it right with a plan that matched my ideas.  They did design a better channel for the water off the dome to the cistern.  The current dome on the island from the same manufacturer has a raised channel around the perimeter.  The new design created a recessed channel and a 3' area to collect water around the domes and link.

The design below is their final version that meets our needs.  I was wanting a minimum of 10' from the edge of each door to the outer edge of the deck.  Their design almost doubles that to 17' due to the angles and water collection path.  The cistern below will have five chambers that I can combine as needed to have a primary and secondary cistern.  The volume increased to 38,000 gallons which in this case is perfect for us.  I'd rather have too much water capacity than not enough.    

Future plans include a rectangular or triangle infinity pool at the front of the deck like the house a few hundred feet below us.  It's not currently in the budget but hopefully some day.  

We also have a system to collect and discharge water from the hillside above and behind the dome.  In a normal situation I don't expect much water flow since we're 80' from the top of the hill.  Hurricanes produce large volumes of rain so we'll have a large pipe going under the house.  For normal rains we'll have it directed to a secondary cistern (water buffalo), along with the grey water from the house for watering plants.

Here's a side angle of the cistern and main dome.  We're not sure what to do with the railing but we'll either have removable Plexiglas panels or a terraced area below to eliminate the need for one.  I'm waiting for the sealed plans and we'll be ready to submit our complete package for permitting.  

Last week we had a small tropical storm blow through.  We had some good winds and about 3" of rain.  The lightning and thunder were impressive and a few times shook the house.  

The storm has left over clouds that have made the sunsets comparable to Washington winters.  Two days ago they came back and did not disappoint.  It was the gift that kept on giving and lasted for over an hour.  We had the normal pinks, reds, oranges and blues with an amazing amount of greens on the left hand side that I hadn't seen before.  The last two nights were clear enough to see Puerto Rico and the adjacent islands. 

We're still waiting for the elusive green flash but will need a cloud free horizon where the sun meets the sea.  Our house will sit on a ridge and give us sun rises and sunsets so we will have plenty of opportunities to see them.   

The additional telescope lenses and filters arrived last week but the partly cloudy skies at night have made it too difficult to align the scope to track the night sky.  This is not for the old telescope I restored but the Meade ETX 125.  I was able to briefly see Mars, Saturn and Jupiter, along with four of its moons.  The closer you look with the smaller lenses, the more the tracking feature is appreciated to keep the object in the center of view.   I'm sure that once I get the alignment process down to a few minutes I'll have a better viewing experience.  

Sahmie came to the island and will be staying with us for a few weeks.  It's great to have her here.  We have plenty of things to do and people to see while she's on the island. 

Jessa's due in November so we'll take a trip to see her and the baby.   Hopefully they can come here next year.  Cody and Ryan don't have plans to visit yet, but maybe when we're in the construction phase we'll have all the kids down one at a time, or together. 


That's all for now,

Kevin & Denise (And Sahmie too)

Aloe Everybody!

As usual I've stayed busy doing odd jobs around here, and at neighbors houses.  The engineering firm said they would have the cistern plans finalized by Monday and in the mail to me.  Hopefully by Wednesday I'll be able to submit all the plans and documentation.

I harvested some Aloe Vera plants from a neighbors house a few days ago.  They were decent size averaging about 3.5" across with varying lengths.

Here's about half way through the pile.

When done I put gel in the Vitamix on low speed and ended up with a gallon of clear Aloe gel.  Many uses and easy to get, and grow on the island.  I transplanted a few to pots and to planters at the house where we're staying.  I'll transplant again once we have our property excavated.  I have 2 gallon pots from Home Depot and moved some basil and rosemary to the larger pots.  I also planted some Christmas palm seeds in pots and in the planters in the traditional 3 plant arrangement, and also a few on their own.  I'd like to get a few avocado plants in the ground soon.

Our 20' container arrived and was delivered to us June 28th.  Overall it looks good with only a minor dent in the back end, and no graffiti from the trip.  I was glad to see upon opening it that things appeared to stay where I put them.  Not that they had much room to move considering how tight it was packed, but nothing appears to be crushed or damaged from the rail or boat trip. 

Denise was happy to have access to the clothes we packed at the end of the container, and I was happy to have our tools and other items we put at the end.

Last week Denise and I went back to the Farm Pod to check the status on what we helped plant June 11th, and also to plant a few more rows with Mike & Beecher. 

Everything in the pod is doing great and the smell is wonderful when you first walk in.

The left picture is from June 11th when we planted the starts into the vertical trays.  The picture on the right is the growth on June 27th.

Here's the row of strawberries from June 11th (Left) & June 27th (right).  There are many berries forming on each tray and should be ready in a week or two.  The mint back by the door is also doing great and adds and extra kick to the smells of the pod.  (I spy Denise in one of these pictures!)

Amazing sunsets are usually a nightly event.  Every day provides a new view as clouds and colors come and go.  Today we had rain over the sea with some brief showers over land too.  We had a couple days were you could see Puerto Rico, which you can somewhat see in the picture below, between the sun reflection and the rain on the left.  It's 8 PM as I write this and already pretty cool at 79 degrees.  Hopefully it doesn't cool down much more or I'll have to close a door or two!  The absence of cold in my world is wonderful!

That's all for now.  

Kevin & Denise

Keeping Busy

Denise and I are still waiting for the cistern plans so we can submit the permit application, but we're keeping busy each day.  We helped a neighbor demo his bathroom for a few days last week.  I had a good time with the change of pace removing a wall, ceiling, shower, toilet and sink.  The finished bathroom will look pretty good.  I also worked on some electrical issues and repaired a few things for other friends in the past week.

Since the majority of our nights are mostly clear skies, with an amazing amount of stars and little light pollution on the north side of the island, I purchased a cassegrain telescope.  This type of scope allows for great day and night viewing so we can see the stars and the surrounding islands.  We had a few good nights but it's been cloudy for the past few days.  Naturally, the "mostly clear nights" haven't happened after I bought the telescope.  It should be clear Monday night so hopefully we'll have some good views.

While at a friends house I noticed an older telescope he had in the corner.  I told him about the one I just bought and told me to take his if I wanted it.  His was solid brass and had been through the hurricanes that bent the front lens mount.  The tripod also had solid brass linkages and had good looking hardwood.  Overall it looked nice and I figured I could repair it.

I decided to start the reconstruction with the telescope itself just in case it wasn't repairable.  If not it would still look cool in the new house as-is.  The optics came apart fairly easy and each of the six lenses were in great shape after a bit of polishing.  The focus ring (Bottom tube, middle, between the two screwed down rings) was seized but did release after a bit of work.  I was able to remove all the brass screws and completely disassemble the scope.  

The front lens mount required a good smack with a block of wood to remove, but the main pipe and threads were in decent shape and could be reattached at the correct angle.  With all the parts in repairable condition I got to work on the surfaces.  It had enough pitting that I needed 400 grit on most surfaces.  I wet sanded all of it and continued with 800, 1500 and 2000, finishing with #0000 steel wool.  

I considered different finishes or clear coats but figured I'd try WD-40's corrosion inhibitor.  I found it at Home Depot and figured it would be good to try on this, and the aluminum on my power tools due to the salt air.  I'll get started on the tripod in a few days.  

I've also been busy ordering, shipping, picking up and assembling the miter saw, and the mortar mixer used in the dome assembly.  I was amazed at how much assembly was required on the mixer but it went together easy.  Lucy, the big German Sheppard is posing for a picture inside.  She's loving the daily routine of our morning walks with her and Bella, Kent's bush dog.  We take two trips around the hill and every morning Lucy grabs her tennis ball and is ready to go.

The cats have been doing well.  Big Ivan as usual loves the morning and evening feeding time.  Every other time is used for sunning on the chair by the sliding door, or chilling under the bed to prep for the next feeding.  Here he had too much sun but didn't have the energy to get up and grab his sun glasses.  If all else fails, throw an arm over your eyes and continue your nap.

Tonight we had the invasion of the hermit crabs in their feeding area.  Usually we have about 50 crabs but tonight I counted at least 114.  Any time you walk near them you hear the clanking of the shells as they knock into each other.  The largest one is in a shell larger than my fist and the smallest shell is about the diameter of a dime.  

That's the latest.  

Kevin & Denise