Hi All,
The good news is I haven’t heard from any of you that you’ve gotten snow recently!!!
Yahooo….we’ve got more visitors on the schedule. My bro and his wife in November..possibly for Thanksgiving!!!!! Then Brenda and Kenny in February (with another couple too…the more the merrier). I love having visitors to look forward to.
The last 6 weeks have been jammed packed. Work started on the deposito (storage shed) and we are just about ready to have the roof put on. Wayne started out wanting to do all the block work himself. HUGE undertaking and it was taking a long time. Our friend Alice…in addition to making a kick ass lasagna…recommended a guy who was like Flash Gordon with the blocks. It was whirlwind of blocks and cement and a week later all the walls were done! We are under the gun to get it finished before the middle of June because our container from the US will be here and we need a secure place to put our stuff. Having a deadline isn’t a good thing in Panama. Manana, manana, manana!!!
Wayne’s proven to be a pretty good jefe (boss) so far…He only had one guy walk off the job site….in tears. COME ON….TEARS!?!?! Good kid but loved his cell phone and figured on this one particular day it was ok to take 2 lunch breaks while the rest of the crew worked. So Wayne said a little something and after stewing for an hour, the kid starts packing up his stuff and choke breathing trying to hold back the tears. Wayne felt terrible. Oh the drama. They were able to work it out and he did come back to work. Things went along just fine UNTIL OF COURSE he got paid, drank himself silly and was a no show on Monday. Wayne’s not a good babysitter, so came the end to that relationship. He’s got a great guy working with him now. Shows up EARLY and EVERY DAY even if he’s just gotten paid.
We also had our well put in. 170 feet deep. We had hit water at 40 feet and were jumping up and down thinking how cheap this was going to be. Ok, so I guess you don’t just stop there….you’ve got to go down past rock, through rock, blah, blah, blah. In any event, crystal clear water and plenty of it.
BIG news. We got our electricity hooked up. We were told it could take up to 6 months. Start to finish, I think it took us 3 weeks. We can’t take the credit though…it was our friend Martin who worked his magic. We met Martin at our local cantina….bought him a few frosty ones, became friends, found out he was an electrician, hired him for some work and then further found out he was the God Father of Electricity. So for the price of a few cold ones, $20 bucks to the guy who climbed the pole and made the connection, we are live!!!! All legal too which is something!
Now that we have electricity we can start the roof. The materials for our windows and doors have come in and work has started on those. Our worker guy, Manuel and I have been de-barking our support beams which are a wood called canalu. Really neat stuff and looks great after it’s cleaned, sanded and varnished. It comes from the mountains.
Had a crocodile on our lot a couple of days ago. A baby…3-4 feet. No idea how he got in and neither did he as he couldn’t figure out how to get out and back to the water down below. Wayne was finally able to get him to bite onto a piece of steel rebar and then fling him over the fence. A few locals took full advantage of this and the poor fellow ended up on their dinner plates
Also had a snake a couple weeks back. Fischer tried taking him on. It was either a coral snake or the kind of snake that looks like a coral but isn’t deadly. How’s that go….Red next to black kills Jack. Red next to yellow is friend of a fellow. Shoot, or is it Red next to black is a friend of Jack and Red next to yellow will kill a fellow. See my confusion. Any way, nothing a machete can’t fix. The next day the ants had completely eaten him and only his skeleton remained.
Then, yesterday we had yet another snake. Wayne thinks it was a Fer de Lance…one of the deadliest snakes in the world. Our friend, who is kind of ‘in the know’ says it wasn’t. So that’s good news as they will actually go after you. So we are still trying to figure out what it was. Again, machete fixed the problem. What exactly was I thinking when we decided to move here!? Our house will be built up by about 2 feet. People say this will help keep snakes out. Hmmmm, last time I checked, snakes knew how to climb.
In between the construction of the deposito we’ve been able to get out and have a little bit of fun. Our friends Greg and Eva have a great piece of property down along the river and have great parties. Lots of food, wine and mosquitoes!!! A shout out to Pete for bringing me that Jungle Juice and to Jim for bringing me the Boy Scout’s first choice in bug spray. DEET! DEET! DEET! Come on, I dare you to bite me!!!!!!!!!!
Our friends Kristine and Mitch returned to the US for a 2 ½ week visit and we were lucky enough to watch their 2 dogs. Melvin’s father (P-nut) and brother (Q). So we had 3 Chihuahua’s and Fischer. Our neighbor actually asked us when our friends would be back to get their dogs! HA!!!!! How about after you kill all the roosters, hens and chickens in your yard. Speaking of chickens. Somehow the 3 Chihuahuas cornered a chicken in our bathroom. I thought the crowing was louder than normal and I didn’t remember having a hole in our feather pillows. Hmmmm something must be going on. Sure enough we had our very own cock fight right here behind our toilet. It was a total photo-op but I do have a bit of a heart and felt the chicken needed rescuing more than I need a picture. Poor thing, half his feathers were flying throughout the house and his little heart was beating out of his chest. Q (Melvin’s brother) sneezed for the next day and half. I guess he’s allergic to chicken feathers.
A huge fair was recently here. Spent the day there with Ed and Cindy. Kind of like the Big E…but no fried dough with chocolate sauce. Total bummer. Plenty of ice cold beer and farm animals so really, do you need anything else.
The pups are great…NOW. Had a rough time for a while. Poor Mel…we decided to have his ‘nuggets’ snipped. So cute they were. I didn’t want to do this but Wayne did…yes, I’m blaming Wayne. Any way, the first surgery did not go well as he swelled up and his blood wouldn’t clot. So a second surgery was done and this was to take his little pals completely off. He’d been under so much anesthesia that his little body couldn’t take it. He actually started dying right in my arms. Rushed him back to the vet and they cleared his throat…he was choking to death. Ugh, what a horrible day. Through all this we found out both dogs had Tick Fever. So they have been on a 28 day cycle of meds to clear that up. They are feeling MUCH BETTER now and although Melvin might be a little lighter in some areas, he’s making up for it in his belly. Fat little burrito! He is calmer which makes Fischer a very happy boy.
Our citrus trees made it through the dry season and are doing great. I planted a few pineapples and they are really taking off. I heard a year or 2 before I will get fruit. The papaya’s are already about 2 feet high and should have fruit in a year or so…if they don’t get blown over.
As I always say, please email us and let us know how you are doing. We really miss everyone. Oh what we’d give to belly up to a bar with some good old friends and family. Ok, ok, so we have no problem with the belly up to the bar part J
Cheers everyone. COME AND VISIT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh and happy anniversary to us! We’ve been here a year as of May 21st. Who would of thunk!
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