This frog was on the inside of our patio screen door the other night. It's just like the one that I had to catch & release from our bathroom a while back (details in a previous blog!). We don't know how they get in the house - and this one was about 5 feet up on the door. Yes, we did another catch and release with this guy too!
Saturday was spent doing chores around the house (see – not so different than back home) – including hanging some of the pictures we brought with us. Mind you, hanging pictures here is not an easy undertaking. First, you better be darn sure you know where you want them to be, because with walls of concrete, drilling a hole and putting in a “plug” for the screw not only takes an effort and makes a mess, but if it’s wrong, it’s a little more work to patch it up! So I use a little trick & cut out pieces of paper the same size as the frame(s), then I tape them up. This way I can move them around without causing damage to the wall – and can step back to view the arrangement (or live with it for a few days) to make sure it’s what I want before the drill bit comes out. Now the living room is done…on to the bedroom!
Saturday afternoon – Raphael was picking up his tools so I asked if he was finished for the day (finito para oy?) and he tells me yes, and “posible todo finito mañana” (possibly completely done tomorrow). Mañana, I ask? Si, mañana, he answers. I tell him “no, not mañana. Mañana is Sunday. You need a day off (and I say to myself ‘we need a day where we aren’t stuck in our house because you’re working in the backyard’)! Marta.” (I’m thinking this is Monday.) “Marta?” he asks. “Si, Monday, no mañana” I respond, “Monday.” He says ok but is shaking his head as he walks out to leave. Well, come to find out, marta is not Monday, it’s Tuesday! Lunes is Monday – and guess who knew that? Yup, Steve! Where was Steve when this conversation was going on? In the house! So, we were pretty certain that we wouldn’t see Raphael on Monday.
We did enjoy our Sunday. It was a beautiful day – hot, but with a nice breeze most of the day, which made for a perfect day to hang out laundry (another thing we’ve not been able to do with workers and concreto dust flying around out back, not to mention we have to string the clothesline across the yard!).
We did start a project outside. Not sure if I mentioned it in a previous update, but when they “installed” our cable/internet, they ran the coax from the junction box over the top of the ground, up our driveway then across it to the connection at the house. So when Raphael built the propane storage which also houses the cable & phone connections, he ran a conduit through the concrete so the line would be contained as it should. Our project is now to dig a trench across the driveway, then down the side to bury another conduit in which we can run the cable – and if they ever offer it in our subdivision – a phone land line.
Let me tell you – the earth here is just NASTY. It is the rockiest, grossest, mustard-colored clay that you have ever seen!! It is an absolute miracle that anything grows in it. Needless to say, it took more than a shovel to dig that trench. Now we know why all the Dominicans use a pick axes. Fortunately Raphael’s was sitting on our back porch and Steve knows how to use one (Dave – ask him about his steel-toed flip flops next time you talk to him – and yes, he still has all 10 toes thankfully!).
With the pick axe, he made pretty good progress. The trench across the driveway went fine, then he turned the corner toward the street. About a foot in he hit an obstacle. It wasn’t the first one he'd come across. Old rebar, big rocks, roots the size of my thumb – you name it, he’d already hit it. Well this was different. As he tugged on it, I could see movement under his feet on both sides of the trench and I hollered at him to stop pulling. So he got the shovel and took out smaller bits of dirt & rock until we discovered what he’d been dealing with. It was PVC pipe – 3 of them! One large one (septic) and two smaller ones (water & we believe electrical) – and fortunately he didn’t puncture any of them!! Gotta love those DR gods!! That could have been a terrible mess – and none of the hardware stores here are open on Sunday so we'd have had no way to repair them if he'd have put a hole in either the septic or the water...and we don't want to talk about what might have happened with the electrical!
We decided that was an indication that we needed to take a break from that project (plus it was getting just too darn hot). So next we borrowed the dog clippers from Tony & Linda and proceeded to give Sierra a little bit of a trim. For those of you who don’t know her, she is a border collie/lab mix, so she has some of the longer hair like a collie and it’s especially thick around her back haunches. We thinned that out and trimmed under her belly as well as behind her front legs. She also got a toenail trim (as did Dusty). She actually did pretty well – considering that from the time she was a puppy Steve has plaed a game with her where he would make a “bzzzz” noise and poke her, to which she would playfully run away, then he would chase her. Well, the clippers make a “bzzzz” sound as well, so I wasn’t too sure how well that would go but she tolerated it better than I thought she would. Once the grooming was done, we all jumped in the pool for a while!
As suspected, Monday morning rolled around and no Raphael. Honestly, neither Steve nor I was disappointed. Even as much as we’d like the casita to be done (or at least his part), we again enjoyed a day not being confined. It was another hot day – the temperature was only 91 (Denver got hotter than us!), but with the humidity, the heat index was well over 100. We again took advantage of no Raphael to use our solar clothes dryer. One would think that with the humidity the clothes wouldn’t dry, but with the heat and a breeze, the towels I hung out only took a couple of hours to dry completely!
The clouds built up in the late afternoon and shortly after 5, we had what could only be described as a full-blown gully washer! Definitely the worse storm we’ve had so far from a rainfall perspective (lots of rain in a short time) and it had some pretty bad thunder & lightening too. Bamboo, the neighbor Chihuahua, was over teasing our dogs (he can run in and out of the iron work on the front porch, but they can’t get out) and it was starting to sprinkle. His owner, Charles (remember the guy with the helmet, goggles and Speedo & the dive bombing birds?), was calling him. I hollered that Bamboo was over with us. Suddenly the skis just opened up and it started to pour. Bamboo had come inside the iron work, so I grabbed him and brought him inside. He’s a bit intimidated by Sierra (I can only imagine what she looks like to him – her at 60 pounds, him at maybe 3!) and is fascinated by Dusty (what is this curly thing?). So he hung out with us during the storm.
Sierra was a little freaked out by the thunder, so she joined me and Bamboo on the couch.
Bamboo even visited Dusty under the bed – where he (Dusty) had crawled as far back under as he could get. He’s recently developed an extreme fear of thunder – possibly from the two very close strikes we had in the recent days.
It rained for almost an hour – heavily. When it finally slowed down and the lightening had moved off into the distance, I carried Bamboo across to his house. Martine met me at the gate and thanked us for taking care of him during the storm. Silly little guy might have floated away if he hadn’t been inside!
We also discovered what happens in our yard when it rains that hard…water from the field behind us pours over the 6 inch wall along the back of our lot, floods the yard and spills into the pool! Our beautiful blue pool was full to the brim – with some not so pretty water. Guess we’ll deal with that tomorrow. And fortunately with Steve’s background, maybe we can come up with a solution for future flooding – or at least a way to mitigate its effect on our yard!
Some of you asked for a picture of the dive bombing bird. I was able to get one – if anyone knows what they are, let us know! Also, the flower picture that was in an earlier blog is a hibiscus (thanks P & Tristan!). Here’s a cool picture of one – just as it’s starting to bloom.
That's about all from here for now! Stay cool and stay tuned for future adventures from the DR!
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