BRRRRRRR, It's cold!!

Denise and I arrived in Seattle Washington Tuesday.  We'll be off island for about 3 weeks to visit Sahmie, then down to Vancouver for Ryan, and Salem Oregon for Jessa and her new baby girl coming soon.  We'll also be seeing parents, friends and other family in the area while we're here.  We visited Cody and Kenzie on our way to the island in February so we won't see him this time around. 

We stopped in Puerto Rico on our way to Washington and got a closer view of the mountains we can see from our property, 76 miles away.   One of these days we'll fly over and spend some time here to see all the good things my sister Karen talks about.   Hard to believe our little islands population is only 1% of Puerto Rico's. 

Island temperature is typically 74-88 degrees, and the lowest temp in the last 6 months was 68 degrees.  Fall in Seattle is just as we remember it, cold, wet and rainy so a warm cup of coffee is a great way to start the day. 

Sahmie took us for a walk around Juanita Beach Park on Lake Washington in Kirkland.  You can see downtown Seattle in the picture below.   We stayed fairly warm and the rains held off until later in the day.   

We were quickly reminded that island life is far different than the mainland.  Most people in Seattle, and other areas avoid eye contact and stay in their own little worlds.  Saying  hello or good morning to a stranger seems to leave people with a startled or annoyed response.  When you enter a room on the island you address the room, not a single person with good morning, good afternoon, etc, and usually the entire room responds.  Walk up to a store counter in the mainland, and you just ask for what you're looking for; you don't dare do that on the island or you'll be ignored or addressed with a stern "Good day".  Every conversation is started with a greeting and a sincere request of how you are doing today.  It's something Denise and I appreciate and love about the islands.  Before we moved we had fun walking in downtown Portland, seeking eye contact while saying hello to see how many people would respond in a polite way.  Try it in your city and I believe you'll be surprised at the responses.  

It's hard to believe Sahmie graduated UW around six years ago.  During her time in college, and living in Mercer Island, Kirkland and other Seattle areas afterwards, Denise and I have spent a lot of time up here and know the city pretty well.  We had a good time walking around, hitting some of the usual tourist spots like Pike Place Market.  The picture below if from the new market area that recently opened.  

Back on the island, our friends and neighbors, Dave and JoAnn, in the apartment below Kent's house where we're staying, decided to move back to South Carolina.  They had purchased and shipped a 2017 Jeep Wrangler, and shipped their Toyota Prius here but didn't want to ship them back.  Denise and I had Jeeps in the past and needed one for some rough roads on the island so we bought theirs.  The Jeep has the towing package and we still need a better way of hauling larger house supplies;  we'll either sell one of the cars and get a trailer, or buy a cheap truck.  

The Bush Cook/Chef Cook Denise and I have been helping to prepare for was last weekend and was a great success.  Here's a few links to articles on the event: St Croix Source , VI Consortium

The owners of Sejah Farm, Dale and Yvette Browne are wonderful people who had lost almost everything in the hurricanes.  Much of what they didn't lose was stolen shortly after.  This didn't stop them from pushing on to have the second annual Bush cook.  Denise and I felt lucky to be at a time in our lives where we could spend a few months and help make it happen.  We had a great time and made many new friends along the way.  

Here's what we started with for the market tables.  We took Rum barrels and cut them down to 27 1/2 inches and used communication reels for table tops.  Dale and Yvette had an idea to use the leftover barrel tops and another reel to extend the tables.  I cut out pieces of the tables and built supports so they could be positioned in any direction like a baggage claim belt.  It worked well and the cut out pieces were painted with chalkboard paint and used as price signs in the market.  

Here's the final product.  I cut left over barrel bands open, welded them end to end, and screwed them to the table edge to hold the barrel top produce bins on the tables.  

Here's Denise helping a customer in the market on the first day of the event.  Patrick is an employee of the farm.  

Dale and Yvette changed the layout of the market tents for the event.  The original layout is shown in the outside table picture above with the white tarps.  We had to come up with an idea to keep the water off the tables in the tarp valley, so we decided to string wire between the ridges of the two tents, and use barrel staves as a support structure to divert the water.  It ended up working well and made the market appear more open than before.  Note to self: Do not try to put up a 20 X 25' tarp on a frame during a windy day!  We almost had a Marry Poppins moment but wrangled them down and fully secured them to the frames.  

The tent crew came in and erected the chef station tents.  Next came the electricity, water and work shelves for each tent.  20 chefs were scheduled for the event so Denise used barrels from near the market, and rolled another 85 barrels over 330' feet to the tents while I built the counter top areas using 5 barrels per station, lathe boards and sheets of PVC board. 

Here's the final product early on the first day, before many guests arrived.  It was a three day event with the first day being a demonstration day.  This featured a few local chefs showcasing their talents to teach islanders how to use local fruits, vegetables and meats to create an inexpensive meal. 

The second day was the chef cook competition.  Entry to the event gave the guests access to all the foods from the local chefs as they competed for the top vote.  All of the chefs created excellent dishes featuring chicken, goat, rabbit, pork, vegan and vegetarian options.  Kimba Kabaka, chef and owner of Café Roots-n-Kulchah, won first place in the Bush Cook with his slice of roasted breadfruit topped with ackee and a spinach ricotta sauce.

The final event on Sunday was a five course dinner featuring a few of the local chefs.  One local restaurant closed down for the evening so the staff could work the event.  When we arrived Denise worked the ticket area while I worked on a few electrical issues before the dinner started.  They had good participation for the event and the weather was perfect.  Denise and I enjoyed the evening but forgot to grab a few pictures. 

The Browne family and their friends are great.  We look forward to our continued friendship and help on future bush cooks, or any other project they may have to rebuild their farm.  If any blog readers are interested in helping out they can make a donation on their website sejahfarm.com   You can read more about them and their achievements for island agriculture on their website. 

That's all for now.

Kevin & Denise

Plans submitted to CZM

Today marks 5 months since we've arrived on the island!

Our site plan is complete and the entire package has been submitted to the Coastal Zone Management department for review.  We had to have the house and cistern plans, site map, topology, flood zone and other maps, adjacent neighbors report and proof of current property and federal tax payments.  This is a 45 day process where they take the info and create a packet for adjacent neighbors.  They call us and we go pick up the packets and mail them certified to the adjacent neighbors within 150' of our property.  Those neighbors have 30 days to review and contest any development plans.  We were told this is mainly for commercial use and there's never been opposition to a private home.  Either way it's a long process but we're moving now.  Once the CZM process is complete then the plans are sent to the Department of Planning and Natural Resources (DPNR) to approve our building permit.

The site plan below shows the placement of the domes, driveway, cistern, septic, drain field and elevations.  There's also cross section views but I didn't add them here.  The added stuff in the upper left was not part of the submitted plan and only for this blog.  It shows the location of the rock area I mentioned in the last post, along with the trail from the house, up the hill through the rocks, west to the camping area we created last week, and over to Tito, the tourist tree.

The Tito area will be another private sitting area overlooking the sea.  I mentioned in an earlier post that Tito the tourist tree got his name when we were here in February buying the property.   The entire property is in the jungle so this is a private area, and a pretty large tree with a great canopy.  A few months ago I dug out a flat area above the tree with the intention of building a retaining wall using the rum barrels from Sajah Farms.  Now that we have a few barrels Denise and I went down and started construction of the wall.

The picture below is the Tito area, the tree and the sea are on the right.  I forgot to take a picture before I started digging on the hill so it may be hard to visualize what it looked like with a flat area. 

Here's what it looks like with one barrel in place.  These barrels are heavy with 1" thick oak slats and heavy steel bands.  The land in this area of the property is about 75% rock and 25% soil.  Denise and I dug out the area for the first barrel and used a gravel screed to separate the rocks and soil.  I created a rock base, set the barrel and filled it 50%with rock.  The barrel is offset at a 10 degree angle.  As we dig out the next barrel position we'll put the rock in the existing barrel and the dirt over the edge.  Once the next barrel pad is ready I'll set the barrel, bolt them together in the middle with lag bolts, and fill it with the rock from the next location.  When complete we will have a slightly curved retaining wall with 6 or 7 barrels and a rock pad.  I'll probably use large flat rocks from around the property for the pad, but that will probably wait until we start excavation.  This will give me access to a greater selection instead of hiking the jungle and breaking my back hauling them up or down the hill.  Stay tuned.  

Denise and I have continued our volunteering at Sajah farms and finished the tables for their bush cook today.  Below is the advertisement for the event.  Our friend Mike Straight from the Farm Pod will be one of the chefs.

Dale from the farm went to one of the communications companies and picked up some of their recycled plastic cable reels to be used for the table tops.  These turned out far better than the wooden reels we originally had since these are smooth topped.  The barrels in the picture below are not on level ground so they appear to be crooked, but are all straight and a standard 30" height.  We made 21 tables, 5 garbage barrels, 3 bar tables and 3 coolers for the bartender.  This has been a lot of fun for us.  I've got some ideas for lights using barrel rings, and a few other ideas for other items we will create.

Yes, it's another awesome sunset!  This was from a few days ago when we had a full moon, or pretty close to it.

The moon was so bright as one of our quick showers passed over that we had a moon rainbow on the hill below us.  I couldn't get a good picture with my cell phone but added the one below.  You might be able to see it if you look at the right side of the tree branches down to the house below near the center.  There was no color, only white light bent around the shower below.  It was really bright and I wish I could have captured a clear picture.  Denise tried with here Canon camera but it was too late and faded away.     

Here's a picture of one of our 5 minute showers Wednesday as it passed to the west providing a great rainbow.

Leftovers from tropical storm Kirk will hit us tonight with some wind, rain and lightning, but the sky is still 50% clear and turning a nice orange and pink color from west, all the way to the east as the sun sets.

The sounds of the jungle at night are amazing with the the waves from the sea, bugs, frogs, night birds and the occasional rain shower.  It may not be for everybody but we love it.  I included a an audio recording and hopefully it will render properly in this blog.  (Update 9/30/18: Video should be working.)  We discovered that your brain shuts off the sounds while you sleep and you still hear anything around you that's not normal, such as a door closing.  If I wake up at night it takes about 15 seconds for me to fully hear the sounds again.  Pretty cool phenomenon.

That's all for now.

Kevin & Denise

Weather, or not.

Not much to report on the home.  We're still waiting for the site plan to be finished to submit all the paperwork.  Hurry up and wait, but it's not really a big issue since we're in the danger month for hurricanes and I'd prefer to not be mid construction and have one hit, or deal with washout from heavy rains on the excavated portions. 

Tropical storm Isaac is on its way but appears to be slowing and weakening according to the hurricane center.  The one in early July was pretty mild and this one appears to be the same.  Helene behind it will head north out of our way.  Good luck to my friends on the east coast for Florence.

The last two days have been calm, possibly the calm before the storm.  With winds below 5 mph the sea has been calm leaving the interesting currents visible.  The clear skies between the islands gave us unobstructed views of the US and British Virgin islands, and views of Puerto Rico we hadn't seen before.  On a really clear day we can see all three of Puerto Rico's main islands but the views a few days ago were amazing.  Sorry, I didn't take any photos, but you can see the US and British islands through the clouds in the one below.  

As I said in my last post, weather here typical doesn't vary from day to day, or throughout the year.  I was curious about the amount of rain during our brief showers, and the trade winds that come through in the afternoon so I purchased a weather station.  Mike and Beecher from the Farm Pod had been using the Acurite version that uses your phone or computer instead of a dedicated external reporting station.  They were happy with the results so Denise and I purchased one and installed it 18' up on two 3/4" EMT conduits.  This will provide accurate data without mechanical interference and turbulence to skew the results.  Here's a link to the station data on Weather Underground which is also accessible through the link on the upper right hand corner on a full web browser.  Knowing the rain collection area of our home, and the data from the weather station, I will have a better idea of the volume of water added to our cistern after a shower using this calculator.  It's more a curiosity for me since a simple measuring stick dipped in the cistern would provide similar data, but I tend to be a bit nerdy and like to know more.  

Denise and I met the owners of Sejah Farms after a discussion about rum barrels.  That's the short version but basically I was looking for some barrels to use in a few of Denise's oasis areas on the property and heard they had some.  I'll talk about that later in this post.  Yvette mentioned they were going to use some of their barrels for their bush cook, a yearly farm to the table event.  They were wanting to make coolers, chairs and other items out of the barrels but their workers had not been around.  Since I had plenty of free time while we waited I volunteered our time and tools to the project.  Denise and I built three coolers that will be used at the bartenders tent and are working on some designs for chairs and other items.  

I played around with different base designs using barrel parts.  These things are heavy and will be much heavier when filled with ice and drinks.  

The chair designs are a bit tricky.  The barrels are charred so we'll need to incorporate a design that can be easily reproduced on about 30+ chairs and not have the person covered in any charcoal.  Below is one that I started with a base cut to try some ideas for the back rest.  

I've been doing other work around to keep busy working on our dishwasher that started leaking, and fixing a neighbors refrigerator.  I've also been working on our mini garden.  We don't want to plant anything on our property near our home site until the excavation is complete so we're planting things in pots for now and will move them later.  

We have Thai, lemon, Italian and Lettuce leaf basil, rosemary, oregano, chives, lemon grass, peppermint, Genip trees, avocado's, soursop, cherry tomatoes, mango, spider lily, sweet banana peppers, common peppers (an island pepper), coconut and Christmas palms, cilantro and star fruit.  The star fruit tree next to the garden area dropped all its fruit and is now in full bloom again and covered with thousands of bees.  It's a pretty cool sound when you stand close.  Hopefully the seeds from the dropped fruit will germinate soon.  My mahogany seeds haven't come up yet but it took the neighbors about 8 weeks to pop up.  

Our property has some really cool hidden areas in the jungle.  I've hiked most of it and marked areas of interest with the GPS.  It's only 1.2 acres, but the brush is thick on the hillside and easy to miss things 20' around you in all directions.  Two specific areas are a hidden reading-sunbathing area on a large rock outcropping, and a private seating area under Tito, the large tourist tree.  

Here's the before picture of the rock area.  I came across this one day when I was alone exploring the property and thought this would be a great area for Denise to sit, relax and enjoy the awesome views.  I cleared the brush and exposed more boulders below.  This gave me additional ideas on how to sculpt the area.  

After a few days work I had cleared the brush and created rock stairs to the top.  These stairs lead to the trail to the West that ends at the Tito oasis about 60' away.  The path I cut between includes the perfect camping area so plan on sleeping outside for at least one night if you come to visit.  

I wanted to accent the rocks but showcase the surrounding vegetation.  Our friend and neighbor Gerry is doing some work at his house and removing a bunch of aloe vera plants.  These are some of the ones I mentioned a few months ago when I harvested some gel.  I hauled a bunch down and planted them around the perimeter, with a few on the trail too.  We built a 1/4" gravel screed and sifted the top soil from the rock as I built the stairs.  This provided additional soil on the aloe plants.  I used the leftover small rocks to fill in the cracks of the large stair rocks, and the larger ones for fill in other areas.  

The triangle seat rock in the top middle was about 15' up the hill.  I saw this upper area as a great seat or throne and wanted to move the rock down the hill.  Gravity was against me but everything went as planned as I slowly rolled it down.  The last turn was crucial and it could have ended up rolling too far but it all went as planned and became the perfect seat.  Denise calls it King Kevin's throne.    

The Tito oasis will utilize the rum barrels as a retaining wall.  I'll dig out the hillside behind about 10 additional feet and fill the barrels with the rock.  At this point I don't plan on starting that area until the road and driveway are cleared.  Work smarter, not harder!  I don't want to carry the barrels through the brush.  Denise hauled a double love seat plastic chair gifted to us by Gerry down to Tito so we have a usable area for now.

Our friend Ronda arrived Saturday and will be staying with us for the next eight days.  She's enjoying the weather and the views.  

I'll leave you with the rainbow of the day picture brought to you by our five minute shower.  Enjoy!

  

Kevin, Denise and Ronda too. 

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