The picture above is the (almost) full moon the other night from our backyard. It was really cool with the clouds around it and the colored ring created by the light reflecting on the clouds. Very cool! We love that we can go out in our yard at night and actually see the stars (if there aren’t clouds, of course)…something we couldn’t do back in Littleton!First, a dog story…on Saturday morning, Charles and Martine left for Punta Cana (a town on the eastern side of the island about a 7 hour drive away) to pick up her daughter who had flown in there from France. They were going to be gone until Tuesday and were taking Bamboo with them. Wow, was it quiet around here! Bamboo, as you know, is the neighborhood watch dog and we’ve become accustomed to him barking if anyone who doesn’t “belong” comes into the area. And our dogs have gotten quite used to Bamboo showing up at the front door first thing in the morning – or very shortly after we open it. They usually tussle for a while and go out back to “water” the vegetation as a group. Bamboo hangs around for a while, then goes to visit Archie (at Tony & Linda’s), then home, then back for round 2 of visits later in the day.
Well you can only imagine what those 4 days were like for Dusty and Sierra! Each morning they would go out on the front porch and look over toward Bamboo’s house. When he didn’t show up, sometimes they would woof – as if to say, “Hey, Bamboo, we’re here!” Other times Dusty would lay on the front porch and whine. It was interesting that as much as you’d think that Bamboo was pestering them when he’s here that they would miss him that much!!
And boy, when he got home, were they excited!!! I think he may have been in fear for his life because Sierra was jumping and barking and carrying on like he’d been gone for months – and Bamboo wasn’t sure what to make of the commotion – or that big, black dog moving around like that. Fortunately she didn’t crush him and they’ve now settled back into their daily routine.
Monday around 5:45 a.m. the power went off (yes, again). I was still in bed, but Steve was up working out. Then right around 7 I heard silence (can you really hear silence??)...which meant the batteries had died because even the fans that normally run off of the back up batteries had quit! So our batteries lasted less than 2 hours! Not good!!! I got up and we opened up the house to let the cool morning air in - not knowing how long it would be until the "street power" came back on. We do have our generator, but it seemed a bit silly to crank it up to make my morning coffee! We waited for a while and the power came on a little after 8. I quickly turned on my coffeemaker and about 10 minutes after it was finished brewing, the power went out again…and now our inverter was clicking. I walked across to Tony & Linda's house to see if their power was off - which it was - so that explained the inverter clicking. With our batteries being dead, I think it was trying to draw from what little power it had gotten back when the street power had come on. We decided that we probably would have to buckle down and buy a new set of 4 batteries since ours were likely toast at this point. Oh goodie - another expenditure (around $500-600)!
Steve called Michael, the electrician, to set up a time for him to come and get our generator set up (so we can use it when the street power is off to run the house circuits). He was actually able to come right over, so Steve asked him to check the batteries. Just for a frame of reference, one battery is connected to the next one to the next one to the next one, then to the inverter, so there are a series of cables running from battery to battery. And Steve had just cleaned all of the corrosion from the terminals the day before. Michael climbed up to where the batteries are mounted on our outside wall and as he was checking the connections, two of the cables literally came off in his hands! The corrosion had worn through the connector! Somehow it was still connected but by just a very small piece - which means that the batteries were not getting a full charge from the inverter when the street power was on. Hmmm…that could explain why our batteries were not lasting!! Michael replaced those cables and said he’d come back Tuesday to check and see if the batteries are charged up as they should be - or if we need to by new ones. We were definitely hoping for the former!! He made a list of the things he needed to get to do the rest of our work and said he’d be back on Wednesday a.m.
Then the rain started. Come to find out we were experiencing a tropical “wave” which later went on to become Tropical Storm Bonnie. Sunday we had a nice, gentle, steady rain for several hours – and it cooled things off nicely. But Monday...it was really muggy, then kaboom - it poured!! And this time it flooded our pool - water running in over the sides - yucky, greenish brown water into what had been our very nice, clear pool...bleah!! Now we were facing getting that water cleaned up, which we knew could take several days. Tony came over for something else and he suggested alum, which is a flocking agent (? I had no clue what this was…now I know.). Apparently this alum stuff causes the particles to clump together to make it easier for the filter to pick them up. Steve was familiar with it and agreed it might do the trick, so we decided to get some and see how that worked...our fingers were crossed!
We had a very nice day Tuesday. We have decided we need to take a few hours each week (or maybe even a whole day – gasp!) and get out to see and enjoy this new country we call home. We were planning to get an early start and go into Puerto Plata and walk along the malecon (it's the street that runs parallel to the ocean and is about 3 miles from one end to the other) and back, have breakfast and run a few errands while we explored the town a little more. Well, it was raining when the alarm went off, so we turned it off and went back to sleep! Slept until about 8, then had breakfast at home, got cleaned up and by then the rain had stopped. We still did a walk on the malecon – it was just shorter since it was cloudy with sprinkles on and off and we didn’t want to get caught in the rain. We had lunch – which was a very sad version of “hot” wings. The temperature may have been what they meant because the sauce was definitely not hot…it was BBQ sauce! Guess if we wanted to start a wing business, there might be a niche for it. Then we wandered around town. Here are some pictures of the sights from that day (notice-no moto pictures - can you believe we didn't see anything "unusual" on a moto that day??):
While we were in Puerto Plata, we bought a meat grinder so we can make our own sausage. We're not sure why but all the sausage you get here has been ground to a texture of mush - it's gross! We'd been looking for a grinder and found one yesterday. We plan to try our hand at sausage making this weekend. We'll see how that goes!!
And as is typical on Tuesdays, the power went off…for an extended period of time. We were gone, of course, but Linda told me it went out around 11 or so. We got back around 3 and our batteries were still holding, so we were quite happy about that! Generally it will come back on between 5 & 6, but for some reason it didn't that night until 8 p.m. On top of that, our internet was out as well! But the internet company did come out and got it fixed (for the whole neighborhood) around 7 or so. Needless to say, we didn't do much online that day!
Michael, the electrician, came on Wednesday to get our generator set up so if we need to use it to power the house, we can. We had him move our batteries from their current location (mounted on a wall outside the house) into the propane storage casita we had built.
There's enough room for them and two large propane bottles, so it will be much easier to check the water levels and maintain the batteries if they are in there. Plus they will be better protected from the elements which should help them last longer. AND there is ironwork that locks so that should keep them secure so they don't grow legs and walk off!He ran into a bit of a snag however. He can’t find the plug that needs to go into the generator at any of the ferrerterias around here, so he will go to Puerto Plata next week to see if they have them there. If not, we may have to order it online and wait a bit longer. But at least we can still use the generator to run the refrigerator, some fans, and our computers if needed, using a regular heavy duty extension cord, so it’s nice to know we won’t be completely powerless – nor will we have to subject Zuki to running for hours in the driveway with a cord hanging out her window!!
As of Wednesday, the pool was looking somewhat better but was still nowhere near where it needed to be for me to put even a toe in it! On Tuesday you couldn't see anything in it because it was so murky. By Wednesday you could see the lights, which are about a foot or so down from the top of the water, so it was slowly clearing. We had put some of the alum in it but as suspected, it looked like it would take more than one dose. But we were making progress.
On Saturday we put in a full day of work around the house…laundry, cleaned the house, yard work. Glenda had brought down a wheelbarrow full of plants she was thinning out of her garden. We “stuck them in the ground”…now we’ll see if they grow! We also moved some large rocks from the side of the house back under the palms and since we had some smaller rock left from the work Raphael did, we put it back there as well. We’re hoping to spruce up that area a bit – and with the rock, keep some of the mud under control. It’s a work in process, but hopefully with the help of the plants from Glenda, it will be looking much better soon!
Speaking of Glenda and her plants…she has a rather extensive, if not eclectic, array of plants and flowers in her yard. She likes to see what she can get to grow and has many plants that she doesn’t even know what they are, but if she likes them, she keeps them. On Friday, I had taken something we’d borrowed back to her and we were walking around her yard and she was showing me the plants she was going to thin out (in preparation for the wheelbarrow load she brought me!). I knew what many of them were – and saw one plant that was about 2 ½ feet tall with very distinctive leaves on it. I said, “Glenda, what is this plant?” She laughed and said she didn’t have any idea, but thought it was pretty so had kept it. She showed me where she had several more – and how she’d cut them back a bit so they’d get “bushier”. Well, you should have seen the look on her face when I told her what I am pretty sure they are…marijuana plants! She was shocked – and honestly didn’t have a clue! I told her the pictures I’d seen of the leaves looked very much like the leaves on these plants.
I went home and got online to find pictures of pot plants. Sure enough – that’s what she’s got! I printed out a couple of the pictures and gave them to her. Al has been giving her all kinds of grief ever since. I don’t know if she’s going to leave them or get rid of them, but I guess if you don’t know what they are and aren’t using them for any other purpose than decoration, why not?!
And the pool is finally back to (almost) normal. It’s taken the entire week – several cleanings and many different treatments to get the pH and chlorine levels right. Who knew that having a swimming pool would be so much work!? But we were able to swim again on Sunday – and we are hoping it will be quite some time before we get that kind of rain again (or never would be ok too!).
Oh – and guess who was waiting outside our front door when we got up this morning? Dusty and Sierra were whining and carrying on – sniffing at the door – and yep, Mr. Bamboo was ready for his morning visit as soon as I opened the door. Oh – and he’s got “sit” down pat, so we’ve moved on to “down” (lie down). He’s doing quite well with that too…I’ll have him trained soon. Now I just need to learn the commands in Spanish and French and teach him those too!
That about does it from here for now. Hablar con usted la proxima semana! (Talk to you next week!)
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