Cock-a-doodle-dooo

Cock-a-doodle-dooooo!!!


Happy New Year everyone and we are feeling for you all back there in all the snow and cold. You guys are having a hell of a winter.

2011 is already proving to be a great year. We aren’t sure what we are more excited about…..that we finally bought land, or that we went to our first cock fight, or that we’ve got Wayne’s father and Pat coming for 2 weeks in Feb., Kim and Jim coming for 10 days in March, Rusty and Jeff coming sometime in March or April and Wayne’s mom and Kenny sometime in late spring. For sure we are more excited about the cockfights than the visit from Rusty and Jeff. Shhhhh, Rusty doesn’t have a computer (HELLO!) and I’m pretty sure Jeff can’t read. We are so excited about all the visits. We were major home sick over the holidays.

So the cockfights were interesting. Not for everyone that’s for sure. We ended up bringing 4 guys (stuffed in our back seat) along with their 2…..heeeheeeem ‘birds.’ The Panamanian’s being the gentlemen that they are figured I would be honored to assist in getting the birds ready for the fight. So I held on to them (their body temp is really high…who would have known) while the guys put the spurs on their legs. If they built houses with the same precision as they used to put the spurs on, well gee, I might not be able to reach my hand from the inside of the house to the outside….and I’m not talking about through windows and doors. I was also lucky enough to get right inside the ring, have the spurs sharpened before the big event and then introduce my bird to the other bird. After the introduction you put the birds on the ground, hold him by his tail feathers for a couple of seconds then let them have at it. It’s taken VERY seriously. Lot’s of betting, screaming, banging on the ring side…of course barking always comes into play. Now we can say we’ve been there, done that. Not really sure we need to see it again. Oh and my bird won!!! Whooohooo, we bet $10, got back $20. Ok, so we lost on the next bird…..which also explains why we had one less bird with us on the drive home.

We had a great day of fishing a week or so back. 16 tuna in about 3 hours. Not huge but certainly yummy. We are headed out again on Wed to try for Wahoo first thing in the morning then bottom fishing for a few hours after that. We are hoping for some snapper or grouper. It’s so windy here in Pedasi now that we don’t have our boat in so we’ve been going out with friends about 1 ½ away from here.

I’ve posted some pictures of the land we bought (3/4 of an acre). It’s basically one big cow patty right now. Took Fischer and Melvin there and within 30 seconds Fischer pretty much looked like a 4 legged cow pie after rolling himself around in it. Melvin decided to lie down and make a meal of it. So that’s that for them for a while. We are having a fence put up and since it’s dry season, those yummy pies should be dried up fairly quickly then we’ll bring the dogs back to run around. We are hoping to meet with an architect sometime this week. See what he thinks of our plans so far. We’ll be happy if we have something close to a house in 2 years. We aren’t expecting things to move very fast.

As always we love hearing from you all back home so please write. I’ll probably be updating my blog a little more often to keep track of the house building but I’m sure none of you care to hear from me that much so feel free to check the blog when you’ve got nothing better to do.

We are land owners!

WOW, as of Jan. 7th we became land owners here in Pedasi. This time around the process was not very painful at all. We bought land from a local family. 3000 sq meters which is about 3/4 of an acre. Now the fun begins. Plans, approvals, stamps, stamps, stamps, etc. We met with one architect already. He only spoke FRENCH. So we had a couple from SPAIN, translate for us. Hmmmm, ya think some things could get lost in translation here. Yeah, I'm thinking so. Tomorrow I call the people to do a septic inspection...I'm told they speak English. They will come out and do some tests on our land and give the ok or not. We're told it won't be a problem and things like how far the house is from the septic is 'no important'. WHAT!?!?!

Today is a holiday, or maybe yesterday was the holiday. Any way, it was some king of celebration of the dead. We just had one of those holiday's in Oct. but this was different some way. Any whooo, yesterday you couldn't buy booze anywhere and all the cantina's were closed. The town was very quite. Then at the stroke of midnight all hell broke loose. Fireworks, music, cantina's open for businss. We of course were sleeping and woke to all the excitement. I guess the living had had enough celebrating the dead and worked up a hell of a thirst. This place is crazy....and we love it!!!!!!!!!

Melvin's had his second crab attack. One latched right onto his little face. Lot's of screeching, shaking, rolling, running...on Mel's part. Finally the crab let loose but the pincher stayed on. Poor Mel. But what did he do the minute he saw another crab? He went hunting after it. Idiot!

Fischer is loving his walks on the beach. He likes his brother well enough but if Mel got carried away by a big crab I don't think Fisch would shed a tear.

We are still awaiting our health insurance approval...or not. A full day of tests and paperwork about 3 weeks ago and still no word. They must be calling in the experts to look at our liver results. HA! Doubtful, here we've probably got some of the healthiest livers in the country!!!!!