Chickens Archives - La Colina Project

Sea Songs & Chicken Woes

February 11, 2019February 11, 2019
by Beave

There comes a time when even the most reliable of us gets tired and has a break down. This appears to be the time for Pauly our Polaris Razor ATV. We are in possession of a brand new rack & pinion that appeared under our mate’s Mum’s Californian Christmas tree and was duly smuggled down. With great skill, new tools and patience we remove the old one in situ neck deep in a bunch of jungle and install the new. We start her up and she runs and steers like a dream until she doesn’t anymore. We get a good 10 minutes out of her. Slightly depressing.

We resign ourselves to assistance and a trailer is dispatched to remove her to a location more equipped with skill and tools. Steering apart there is a worrying noise coming from the rear CV joint and after a further quickly arranged smuggle we have a new CV joint from Canada. Our genius new favorite mechanic manufactures parts in his magic workshop and presents us with a sparkly clean and fully functional machine in but a few days. Turns out our deep jungle mechanicing has been of excellent quality but we had somehow installed a brand new faulty part! He manages to repair & reinstall the original parts. Our friends are flying back to California and so we send the pointless brand new much travelled faulty part back with them to return to Santa for a full refund.

We have agree to deliver Limonada (our dodgy pick up truck) in exchange for a happy working Pauly. We have decided to sell it and remove the many issues that accompany her from our lives. In a fit of over enthusiasm and confidence our now much loved mechanic agrees to buy her! We take his lovely arm off. Farewell Limonada!!

All is well again. We don’t have to bounce around in the thirsty van at snail’s pace anymore. Speed and efficiency is restored to our lives. Good job as the rivers and roads are drying up and slippy dust and slidey stones have coated everything. Our joy lasts but a few days… there is a sudden and inexplicable horrible noise coming from the drive shaft. The trailer is called in. We are back in the van.

Our chickens are having a rather disastrous few weeks. Late one night the frantic flapping wings and strange munching noises awakes me. I am curious and little wary so investigate from the safety of the balcony. My torch disturbs silent dark shapes that move quickly away from the chicken house. I take a large sharp stick and brace myself to take a closer look. Something has eaten the side of the chicken house and the chickens are extremely unimpressed. Chief suspects are Coatis. They look cute enough but they are far from it when they are hungry or cornered. We keep the chucks inside for a day or two to settle. Egg laying has all but stopped. Coati’s attack does not make for a relaxed egg-laying environment.

In but a week we are down to three chickens. An egg layer and Sister Bland have vanished. Snakes/eagles/coatis/dogs all love a bite of chicken. A few days later we collect our very first white egg. Chickens only lay the same coloured eggs. The conclusion is that Sister Bricklebank, the last of the original five, is laying eggs at last!! The good news is short lived. Three days later she has vanished too. Down to two chickens. I return home after Sunday Birria breakfast to a disturbing find. The intact body of another chicken is abandoned on the path to our house with gruesome evidence of a clean kill. Coatis have been spotted who are almost certainly the culprits. We are down to one chicken.

Our lovely mechanic has not only agreed to return Pauly in full working order yet again but is to deliver us six replacement chickens. We are designing a Coatis proof area for our single remaining free range chicken and her new mates to be slightly less free, certainly less rangey and many times safer.

In exchange for Limonada our mechanic has also agreed to give us a lump of cash and manufacture us a bespoke trailer for Pauly. The trailer will be used to fetch and carry dirt, tools, sand, plants and gravel but also have removable seats so we can ferry more people around. Theoretically this removes the need for a pick up truck for the foreseeable future. For now the vehicle fleet is down by one needy and costly machine.

There is, however, the long forgotten jungle jeep. We bought this machine a full 16 months ago. It is still in the unbelievably lazy mechanics shop in Chapala. The news is that the American wife of this lovely but entirely useless Mexican mechanic spotted that having vehicles in the shop for over a year is not the best business model and pretty much fired him. She has taken the helm and in the past few weeks made it drivable and is currently working on the paperwork. We are advised that we can collect her so we arrange that. The day arrives to leave but the latest news regards the availability of fuel means we have to postpone. There is pretty much no petrol in the state of Jalisco. Even Guadalajara has very little. Long lines at Pemex stations for hours to collect a very limited amount. We abandon the trip. The jungle jeep is still, unsurprisingly, in the shop 4 hours away but somehow it feels closer. The vehicle fleet will soon, perhaps, be up one more needy and costly machine, maybe.

There is an outside chance the jungle jeep is coming home

The yoga deck has manifested. Many hours of wood preparation, cutting and reinforcing, sanding, careful placement, staining and sore backs later we have a rather splendid yoga deck. There is more to do. Handrails, tiling and a roof commeth soon. But we have a functional yoga deck from whence we do yoga and see birds and jungle and listen to the noise of those bastards cutting down the jungle to make their road. Thankfully we can’t see them and they have all but moved on for now but there has been much pointless but cathartic cursing in their direction from the peaceful sanctuary of our yoga deck.

The Mexican fuel shortages alongside the inexplicable USA Government being closed for a month has seriously reduced the amount of tourist traffic to San Pancho. Mexicans can’t get here as they are saving their fuel for food collection and other such activities. Americans, we are told, just can’t make sense of the nonsense happening at home so are’t traveling anywhere. We are selfishly delighted as less people in town is an altogether nicer vibe and we have still been very busy with our guests. Some shops and businesses in the town are less happy about it.

We are treated to a rather spectacular lunar eclipse in the jungle. It’s 11.30pm and there is just enough night sky showing through the canopy. We stand in the moon shadows of the jungle watching the earth’s shadow moving across the moon’s face. Slowly she turns a rather extraordinary shade of red. Mesmerising stuff .

This is a real photo delivered thanks to the skills of John Curley.

The dusty roads have been settling in the baking sun and, in places of high traffic, long buried power conduit is emerging. In some stubborn areas we have trenched the lines deeper and deeper, under roots and rocks and packed with clay. This happens with irritating frequency. Despite the effort the stuff still pops up now and again. I am walking the steep pathway back up to the house and stop to examine a particularly frustrating spot and add a few rocks to the trench to make it heavier. It is a good job I stopped as some yards ahead of me a huge lump of heavy Bromeliads falls loudly and dramatically from very high up directly onto the path ahead. I calculate, slightly paranoiacally but pretty accurately, that they have fallen in exactly the spot I would have been if I had not stopped. Saved by a dodgy conduit trench.

My son Jake has left his life in Europe and moved to Mexico for a few months of rest while he contemplates his next adventures. He has had three months in Berlin and a couple in Dublin working the high end bar scene where he has been “deprived of daylight, children and nature” It’s a wild and exciting life until it isn’t anymore and so this is a much needed break. San Pancho is short of a good cocktail bar so there are endless possibilities. He is broken in immediately with yoga deck construction followed by the great gravel day.

We are awoken to the news that a large dump truck has arrived with many tons of gravel and is keen to unload it. We ordered it only a few days ago and were expecting a few weeks before it arrived but here it is. Much maneuvering of the huge truck and we have a medium size mountain of gravel in front of the casitas where there are a few sleeping guests and a motorbike. Our guests are thankfully understanding but we can’t leave it here for long. My slightly hungover son is armed with shovel. A painfully physical number of hours later the mountain of tiny rocks becomes a series of paths and a large gravel area hiding what was previously an ugly patch of post rainy season mud and weeds. The guest and motorbike are free to go. Good effort but we are both fully and totally exhausted.

Jayne has two girlfriends from Vancouver staying who are keen to help. While we are moving bucket after bucket of increasingly heavy rock our friends are keeping busy creating new flower beds areas. The girls have taken a trip to the local vivero (plant nursery) and returned with a van bursting with trees and plants and bags of earth and tiles. As they create new rock lined earthy areas we lay pathways around them. Various plants and trees are abundantly placed, fertilised and watered. We now have Cacao, Coffee, Fig, Lemon, avocado, grapefruit and orange trees. We also have much better knowledge about how to keep all this stuff from ending up inside cutter ants or dead from lack of attention.

At the same time we are transforming the outside space one of our more ambitious girl friends has taken on the task of tiling the floor of the Brick Sh*t house shower block.

It has been an unexpectedly intense, highly productive flurry of satisfying activity. We now have planted flower beds and numerous trees surrounded by gravel pathways and a tiled shower room. It’s properly tidied the place up.

A large group is assembled and primed for what turns out to be a not so super Superbowl Sunday. The mass of people who gather are great fun. It’s a real excuse to get everyone together. The venue is our French friends restaurant in town where we helped them install a large projector to show endless surf videos interspersed with American Football matches these past few weeks. Despite the game being historically mind numbingly dull it saves us all from paying any serious attention to it. This allows us all to interact and imbibe a touch more than is absolutely necessary . A very good day that we refused to allow a very poor game to spoil.

There are semi-secret moves in motion to create another sunset burn on the beach at Los De Marcos in the next few weeks. We have a theme (the majestic local Fragata birds) and a location and actual officially real world permissions from officialdom. We are now in the process of arranging a select eclectic audience and getting something sexy arranged to burn. We have surveyed the burn site to make sure there are no turtle nests to disturb and have banned fireworks that would disturb the birds & wildlife. When all goes to plan it will be a fun, relaxed and a low stress event. After our initial coco lady man burn during the Summer Solstice last year our upcoming Fragata burn is attracting much attention and enthusiasm. Good to have the ever expanding coco lady man crew back together.

On the 24th Of February we invite anyone and everyone to create a Fragata bird out of any size and of any burnable media and bring it to the North beach in Lo De Marcos. It will become part of the art installation we will burn at sunset. Invoke in your Fragata bird the many and varied things you wish to release from your life that no longer serve you. This is an opportunity to let go of them all in the fire.

We take the unusual and wise decision to take a whole day off. Our first whole day off for many many weeks. Friends arrive and we start with a long jungle breakfast of freshly baked Southern style “biscuits” and squeezed oranges. An overdue sprawl at our majestic waterfalls is followed by a walk into town to see sunset. The sea swell is high and the waves lift us as the sun turns the sky a thousand shades. Pelicans dive bomb into the sea catching fish all around us as we float and watching the show. We are required to dive under the larger waves to save from drowning. While the waves move loudly over our heads we notice a stunning phenomena. Under the waves we can clearly hear the whales singing. Distinctively different sonic tones as calfs communicate with their mothers. Clear and unmistakeable whale song. Unbelievable but we all confirm it’s really happening. A glorious humbling moment of immersion with nature. A fine day off we concur.

Our last chicken has followed us around like a puppy for days. She is clearly a little lonely by herself. This comes to a sudden end as Jayne spots a dark shape appear suddenly from the jungle and carry her off. Ironically this just one day after this honorary facebook post dedicated to her by one of our guests:

This is Cinnamon. Cinnamon is the only survivor of the La Colina Project chicken assassin. She has avoided its murderous clutches because she is a feathery ninja. And has Cinnamon let the trauma of watching her sisters be picked off one by one stopped her from living her best jungle life, or laying her morning egg, or having dust baths in the sunshine or sassily posing for photos as she struts all over the place? HELL NO. Cinnamon is one BADASS MOTHERCLUCKER. We should all be a bit more like Cinnamon.

Jungle Journal

Armadillo in the fridge & a techno handbag

January 18, 2019January 18, 2019
by Beave

The New Year is upon us all and we get to look ahead with the benefit of looking back. Making loose plans to make our lives better, happier, easier, more fulfilling Working out what is working and what can be improved. No pressure. We can all prevaricate easily for a month and if nothing changes we will be well into 2019 so can drink just as much and settle into the same comfortable bad habits guilt free.

We have identified a missing element that we have not prioritized enough in 2018 and is a game changer. There is a lack of excellent music in our lives because we haven’t invested in a reliable music device that is practical and impressive enough. We are motivated to fix this issue quickly. During a rare visit to the big city we are tempted by a huge Mexican electronic box with the promise of loud Mexican style music delivery with a microphone to further irritate the neighbours. We are seduced and buy one. The big black box of promise lasts an hour of blue-toothed tunes before picking up some random clicks, farts and whistles that don’t really add to the experience. Our $28 USD investment is perhaps not the value we were looking for.

Our mates who run the Cerveceria in town use a rather sexy single box of tricks to ply excellent quality tunes upon its customers. We identify one and return the big black box of promise and exchange it for what looks like a high tech handbag. It’s sound is amazing and we now have no excuse to trawl our endless supply of obscure and classic tracks hidden on endless devices. Over a three month period during 2017 I transformed my entire CD collection of thirty years into a tiny plastic box. This box is now delivering a frightening amount of music through my laptop to the techno-handbag and into our jungle. It’s fab.

These past days have been a rolling feast. Xmas Eve we were presented with extraordinary freshly caught fish and other white food. Our friends who have one of the most impressive homes in the town and a strong Norwegian heritage feed us their traditional white pre-Xmas fare.

The Beef Wellington Xmas day get together goes swimmingly. Great food and company till just late enough. Lots of help with tidy up in the morning. Again our free bar created considerably more booze than we started with. We again are reminded of fairly significant impracticalities when creating four Beef Wellingtons in the jungle. The most obvious of these is that the only oven we have is a treacherous hike down a very slippy hill, a jungle road, and a contortion through a cow gate to get to it. The secret to creating good food out here is mostly not dropping stuff. Our twin burner on which we cook pretty much everything has become a single burner and recently started to manufacture soot at an alarming rate.

We have succumbed to circumstances and taken a further plunge and invested in an oven for the tree house. It takes some rearranging of fridges and space to make room but somehow it all slots in. The fridge is cleaned out before moving it. The same fridge that only days before was home to an Armadillo that the neighbours were trying to keep fresh as a treat for their boss to eat. Bonus is we find some forgotten delights. Mustards and precious horseradish. The oven being so close does have the advantage of encouraging pecan pie and other delights to appear more regularly. It also means that I will not have to make four separate 20 minute missions in the dark to babysit one Beef Wellington ever again. Henry our new horno (oven) is installed. Let’s see how he works out.

There are further additions to our lives which have been coming for a long time. I have been constantly and enthusiastically informed over many many weeks that there are two things that my life cannot be complete without. I am less persuaded by the argument but have a strong desire to change the conversation so I surrender and drag two of the heaviest chairs I have ever had the joy of owning up our many stairs and somehow squeeze them into our lives. She is very happy. As is the cat that is now permanently installed in one of them.

Sad news. Hey–hey our half chewed chicken became, as predicted, eagle food. Well a snack anyway. We do miss the ugly little thug. The culprit has been identified as the large evil bugger we spotted on the chicken house. It’s a Collared Forest Falcon; the top bird predator out here. They are also called orgasm birds. At sunrise and sunset they make a distinctive high pitched sound that is often mistaken for particularly successful love making. Oooo-OOoo-OOOoooo-OOOOOoooo-AAAhhhhhhhh….. We have heard them often but didn’t associate the noise with such a beast of a bird. It’s an endangered species our remaining chickens will be pleased to know.

Collared Forrest Falcon full of chicken.

Worrying news. Pinto/Tripod (the dog that adopts us when it suit him) is AWOL. It’s been an officially worrying amount of time since we have seen him. Food on our balcony remains uneaten. No late night cacophony as he chases some beast up a tree. Our friend is missing. He is a remarkably hard arsed jungle dog and it would take a lot to bring him down so we have faith he is still around somewhere taking up a better offer. He is a tart for attention and food as known by everyone who has met him. This scruffy, stinky, battle hardened character is well loved and has an impressive international fan club. We await his return.

Our new president “AMLO” has certainly showed his intentions in his first month. It’s not going to be simple or painless to change the old ways. There have been highly disruptive propane shortages due to the government not allowing price increases. Hot showers are a rare thing these days in even in hotels. There is also a National fuel (petrol) shortage, which is grinding entire states to a halt. There is a previously accepted process where 48% of Mexico’s petrol is stolen and sold back to Pemex (the National petrol stations.) AMLO decided this was not going to continue so stopped the flow. Only official outlets are supplying fuel now. The Pemex stations that were forced to buy from the black market are shut off. In Michoacán there are over 90% of petrol stations without fuel today. Thankfully we have a small stash of propane and our local Pemex is buying legitimately so we are not as affected as most. Interesting times for Mexico. We just hope and pray that AMLO gets his way and doesn’t get stopped by less democratic means.

I have been banging on about our soon to be yoga deck now for months. As with any truly yogic project it’s on its way in it’s own time and space. Breathe and relax. Don’t stress. We found the necessary stuffs to keep the jungle out of our wood and make it the required colour. I have applied it to the main beams and will slowly work my way cutting to length, sanding and treating the 120 pieces of planking. We have the necessary tools and even the hardware. So no more excuses. My piles of wood look more like a deck every day. I’m hoping it’s own time and space converges with mine in the not too distant future. But no stress right? Just breathe in the varnish fumes.

We now have deep bassey playlists in our background thanks to our techno-handbag. Mixed in with our auto-generated lists of tunes appear short excerpts from Spanish language lessons. This is not a bad thing. Most recently we had Tom Waits followed by a 5 minute Spanish lesson followed by Rage Against the Machine then George Michael then 2 minutes of past tense grammar. These sneaky Trojan horses are helping my Spanish, which needs it.

We know a universal truth. Paying guests means much laundry and thankfully we have a heap of them. The girls in town are loving the business and we are becoming aficionados at recognizing a queen sheet from a matrimonial. Skills you never knew you needed. Good to have an income and make ends meet at the end of the month for a change. It’s our first season so we have a heap to learn but so far so good. Had really cool guests from all sorts of places near and far. Very nearly everyone gets what we are doing and 5 star loves us. Long may that continue. Validation always feels good and is motivating to make things even better in a positive way. Worth the challenge of the very few needy buggers and the endless loo buckets. Metaphorically and physically dealing with other people’s shit.

Pauly our Razor Polaris ATV is unwell. There has been dodgy sounds coming from the rear CV joint for a few days. This has distracted us from the clunky steering. We try and make a slow turn near our house and the steering goes completely. We are immensely grateful we were not traveling at any speed and our only problem is having to fix the thing where it stopped in the jungle. One of our fabulous mates is going to California to see his folks for Xmas and we ensure that there is a shiny new rack & pinion under his Mum’s tree to smuggle back to us post haste. Another mule is recruited from Canada to sneak us in a tiny little CV joint axle. We are resigned to be without our beloved and exceptionally useful ATV for a number of weeks. Django our trusted and much loved big blue van is employed. We thankfully just replaced her transmission and she is running well. Limonada the pick-up is still too thirsty and unreliable and we make plans to replace her. Life certainly slows down without Pauly.

We receive news about Pinto/Tripod. Despite being enormously well fed and medicated against fleas and ticks and in generally great shape our happy dog has been “rescued”. Some white woman “gringa” randomly decided to relocate Pinto the jungle hardened pack leader and find him a new less exciting suburban home. Bloody cheek! I‘m doing some research to see if I can trace this irritating self-righteous idiot and return Pinto to his exceptional jungle life. The search is on.

New Year Eve we deal with a significant influx and exit of guests and finally and gratefully we head out to meet friends at our favorite restaurant in town. The place is packed with familiar faces filled with excellent food. The Chamorro is a thing of beauty. Whenever my body needs energy or my heart needs to sing I have a 10 hour cooked Chamorro. The boys take a whole shank of pork and cook the life into it with oranges and herbs and just the right touch of care. Carlos is the chef here. I tend to avoid the young wannabes and head to the oldest slowest ladies to cook for me here. They are magicians. They really understand how to make the simple, the spectacular. Carlos is a young pretender with epic skills and all the love. He must have the best Grandma behind him somewhere. I love the Chamorros here. A large table of happy hungry heads share the last three with hot fresh tortillas and wash it down with complimentary truffle and mushroom soup left over from the posh menu. New year arrives in a blare of excellent noise from a DJ in a tree , highly dodgy pyrotechnics, tequila and many friends. Perfect.

It’s been another extraordinary year.

Uncategorized

Jungle Xmas & Thanksgiving-gate

December 24, 2018December 24, 2018
by Beave

It’s a few days after we land back from UK that we understand the extent of the changes that have happened since we were away. In just a week there have been vast swaths of jungle completely destroyed by bulldozers and chain saw teams. Bird sanctuary and Jaguar habitat gone forever. The Auto-pista highway from Guadalajara to Puerto Vallarta has been spoken of for decades and we were aware it was heading our way before we bought our land. The reality now it’s here is sickening. The small village of Tiqueeleechi very close to us has had a 60M corridor of jungle ripped out of it. We can hear the distant machinery and chainsaws every day from our tree house.

We take a breath and a sharp machete and head out in the Razor to examine what’s happening close by. We climb a hill about half a km from our gate. From the top we can see huge areas of trees grounded and the yellow dirt where the highway will sit clearly visable. It hurts to look at it.

We take the Razor down rivers of mud where roads were only weeks ago and find total destruction. Trees laid everywhere and a huge mud super highway stretching for may kilometers North. This is the direction they are coming from. To the South hectares of jungle are already wounded and even more marked out for the heavy machinery to flatten.

We approach a resting chainsaw crew who reassure us that they very much doubt the highway will be seen from our land but it’s only a guess and it doesn’t make the tragedy of this senseless destruction any easier to take. The highway is a pay/toll road. In Mexico they are only used by the wealthy or the bus companies selling premium tickets as they are too expensive. Your average Mexican is not going to spend more than a day’s wages to make his trip from Guadalajara 2 hours quicker. They will take the old 200 death highway. This new highway is going to be empty, expensive and an environmental disaster like all the other toll roads we have used. Too many people have been paid off so there is no stopping the thing now. Too late for the new government to step in.

A previously beautiful remote jungle walk

The existing 200 highway continues to prove fatal. Your average Mexican drives like a maniac. A bus carrying passengers to Guadalajara is run off the road by some idiot and rolls down into the jungle. This takes place very close to us and is traumatizing for everyone who witnessed it. The bus was destroyed and there were many fatalities and horrendous injuries. Despite this there is still a frightening number of wreckless morons on the road every day. We are lucky we don’t have to commute anywhere and when we do drive it’s invariably during daytime. Our driving style is defensive to say the least. I drive like a scared granny with one eye and Jayne is a biker so automatically assumes everyone else on the road is a drunk blind twat and that helps.

On a more positive note there is art in our jungle again. We encourage everyone to leave no trace but leave us art. We were blessed to have one of our favorite artists staying with us who has epic skills with oil paints and has just spent the last year travelling the world perfecting hand-poke tattoos.

She has surveyed spots for murals and has started an elaborate sign for us on a lump of parota wood. She had to leave to attend a posh exhibition of her work in London but will be back with us early next year when we intend to kidnap her for some weeks.

Actually turns out she is back with us a bit sooner. We get a message from the airport soon after dropping her off. She has taken Pauly’s British passport and left hers behind. She does not have shaved hair or mustache or any other resemblance in the slightest to Pauly. She is effectively stuffed. Has to return to us for a few days extra and rebook flight to get to London just in time. She is not at all phased by the added sun and jungle days.

We are all invited to US Thanksgiving. There is a crowd of six of us on the land and we arrive mob handed to a beautiful seafront property with a private beach. Although many hours late we are the first to arrive and settle in for a huge feed. More folk arrive as we carve up turkey and start tequila matching everything. Turns out tequila goes with everything. The sunset is stunning and the moon is full. We all become thankful as newts.

A slight hiccough comes as we try and leave. Our pick up truck is squeezed in a tight space and during much maneuvering manages to catch the large front security gates and make them an unhelpful new shape. No drama as our very understanding hosts employ a guy who arrives and quotes for the repair and takes a rather hefty deposit for the work. Turns out the bloke was a chancer who has no intension of mending anything and disappeared. The receipt for the cash was a fake. Cheeky bugger. A local chap mends the gates in no time for pretty much no money. Deposit gone and lesson learned.

Love is expressed by different cultures in different ways. In Mexico love is expressed by volume. If there is a speaker playing it is on full volume. Bigger the speaker the more love. It’s insane. If there is a wedding or quinceñera party in San Pancho we can hear it out here in the jungle as if it was just outside. Amazingly bad music played very very loud.

We are invited to an early Xmas party out at an organic farm through which we have met many good people. It’s an impressive set up run through volunteers and a dedicated full time crew. They produce organic vegetables, cheese and dairy and sell it from a shop in Lo De Marcos. All goes very well until further conversation is made impossible. A large group of highly loving musicians turn up and blasts our faces off with fairly terrible versions of all the traditional Mexican hits…. The boys then bring on their beloved horses to dance. How they have such affinity with these animals I do not know. They are in beautiful condition and dance pretty much in time to the crap music. It’s a sight to behold.

It’s tourist season again. The days are bearably sunny, new restaurants are opening and producing exceptional food this year. Nights are cool enough to sleep. It’s altogether rather pleasant. With all the Thanksgivings over we now experience a great influx of Canadians and Pacific NW Americans who are here escaping the snow for the next 6 months. Xmas is coming fast and the town is busy… and so are we. Guests are arriving and paying us to stay. We sorta kinda forgot about the intricacies paying guests which is very much a lot of the point of the place. We have been too wet and warm and are out of the professional hosting habit. It’s back to laundering sheets and employing my legendary patience. We seem to be avoiding the idiots that can’t work out where the beach is and attracting a more jungly sort this year which is good news.

So we have all sorts of ambitious plans to create and refurbish but have spent most of our energies transforming our rental casitas and apartment from soggy and rain-washed to clean and sexy places to stay again. It’s working out. Thankfully guests like what we offer a lot and our bookings are looking good for the next few months. The jungle destruction machines and chainsaw teams are moving away from us for now which means our guests are no longer treated to the not too distant sounds of engines, falling trees and reversing alarms from 7am to 9pm. At it’s worst, it was still better than the roosters in town we are assured. It turns out we won’t see the highway from any part of our land which is a massive relief but we will have to arrange for some guerilla bamboo planting in the next months to create further sound barriers.

More worky work is lined up for after Xmas. We have a heap of wood ready to be varnished , placed and screwed. I have spent a week or two making the stuff taste foul to termites. Termites will take out a solid 4×5 beam in less than a year out here. By soaking the stuff in a mix of diesel fuel, engine oil and a particularly nasty behind the counter toxic red fluid it has a fighting chance of surviving 5 years. The right screws have arrived from USA with friends along with a new impact driver and other essentials we can’t get here. Just in time. My beloved much abused Makita that came with me 15 months ago from UK actually burst into flames in my hand. Didn’t know they could do that.

The soon to be Sky Yoga Platform. Currently just old termite infested lumber.

Our chickens need to watch themselves. A new morning visitor is a huge black eagle with a white face and long striped tail. Size of a teenager. It’s taken to sitting on top of the chicken house and scaring the feathers off them. To be fair it is a huge mean looking scary thing. We can shout it away but it’s not scared and looks twice it’s size in flight. Its very possible it could take off with a chuck in each talon.

The new chickens continue to provide eggs, as is their purpose. Sister Bricklebank & Sister Bland are, however, heading nearer to the pot. To add to the mix our friend who is studying to be a vet saved a small scraggy chicken from the mouth of a dog. She mended its legs with lolly sticks and delivered “Hey-Hey” to us to adopt. I had a strong word with Hey-Hey about not becoming a rooster and giving us eggs and to add authority I pointing my machete right at her. This daft little thug was not paying attention, she jumped on my machete and then sat on my shoulder and pecked my ear. For the past week we have had a small chicken that looks like a dog has chewed it follow us everywhere while regularly nesting on my shoulder. When we leave the house she gets in through the cat flap and eats the cats food and leaves chicken shit everywhere. Mausetrappe is nearly as unimpressed as we are. I have taken to launching her off the balcony as a discouraging strategy that seems to be working.

We have a rather successful birthday party at our bar. We have the place restored from the rains and lit up and ready to go. The waterfall/pools above our land create a magical secluded spot and to have a unique exclusive jungle bar close by is a proper bonus. We have a friend cater for us and deliver endless shrimp and some excellent form of pig to soak up the refreshments. Everyone is fully refreshed for the mandatory scorpion hunt. It’s a great night and reminds us that we have a great venue.

Our exclusive Jungle bar venue ready to take on the masses.

Invisible during the day and day-glo ravers at night

Xmas is now upon us and we have decided to stay in the jungle. There is no tree nor snowman nor Santa nor turkey nor pudding nor presents nor tinsel nor baubles in sight. We love the lack of Xmas stuff. Not being total humbugs we have invited anyone who wants to come over in the afternoon to do so and bring food and tipple. We will set up at the bar as the venue. It occurred to us today that we have had over 30 people absolutely confirm they are coming. If they all indeed arrive and bring food and booze then it’s going to be an event. We have created the makings for four large Beef Wellingtons which is pretty much the most complicated choice for a stress free Xmas but we are going to give it a go. We and our full compliment of guests will standby the beef with a lightish refreshment in hand and see what happens next.

Gold thread spider. One of many throwing massive webs this this of year.

This fella is destined to be a belt.
Found close by when laying water pipe.

**Love & Feliz Navidad to Everyone from La Colina.**
What is not given is lost.
Be Kind

Jungle Journal

Snake Tricks & a Flying Robot

August 19, 2018August 19, 2018
by Beave

The trees are magnificent. Empowered by rain they wrap around each other for support while extending branches of thick foliage across the sky. Perfectly lovely if you are not a solar panel trying to avoid shade. A group of electric guest fans, a couple of fridges and some cloudy days have taken their toll on our batteries. The fact we have a very limited sunshine window and growing tree shadow is less than helpful. Our heavy generator is brought into the battery house and plugged in to top them up. The trees around the panels are getting careful attention as we decide which of the branches 150 foot off the ground are going to get it. There is lopping in our future. We put the word out for someone brave and daft enough to take this on.

We have been gifted a number of obscure objects over the months. Amongst the haul are two very distinctive shaped machetes from the Revolutionary Army in Columbia. They are considered less tools than considerably effective weapons. Originally they were part of the FARC armory before there was a weapons amnesty. Subsequently and corruptly the collected weaponry piles were sold on to buyers in USA. We were gifted them as an American friend headed north. We have found an alternative use for them. When sharpened the heavy multi-faceted blades are very effective in destroying the endless growth that is overtaking us. Our standard machetes will take off the leaves and shoots but leave the roots. We are effectively pruning the buggers and making them stronger! Our FARC versions take the whole of them out in one go and scatter them elsewhere. Brutal but effective. Good luck coming back from that! Everyday I carry one with me wherever I go and, poco a poco, the paths are clearing up and the jungle is, for a very short period of time, tamed. False sense of achievement I suspect.

During one of my slow journeys through one of the jungle paths I am slowly clearing the worst of the greenery that is right ahead of me. I scatter a few tiny palm start-ups into the bush, which in the corner of my vision moves in a very familiar way. A few feet away from me is a dark green snake of significant size. Its black and white head is a foot above the ground and very still while looking straight at me. In contrast there is a whip lizard flicking its body wildly around as it vanishes at great speed down the snake and is rapidly fully swallowed with the exception of the very end of it’s tail that stick out the side of the very contented snake’s mouth. We stare at each other motionless apart from the odd twitch of the lizard’s tail. I reach for my phone to take a picture but I don’t have it with me and for a fraction of a moment I divert my eyes. The snake vanishes. It was right there and now gone. The bush moves slightly directly in my vision and the snake reappears like a vision. Exactly in the same place and in the same position. It hadn’t moved but had vanished and reappeared right in front of me. A snake with an invisibility cloak?? How do they do that!!??

I have watched snakes do this a number of times here. I found a modest size python curled up in the pool house and because I had thick gloves on and was hot and sweaty and in no mood to be buggered about by a snake I picked him up and threw him out into the bush. I then watched as the thing uncurled itself to its full length and make a slow movement by which it dissolved into the ground and vanished. I looked for it for a good while before giving up to extraordinary camouflage.

I am at the pool and I hear Jayne making noises from the tree house that sound a little distressed. Nothing too panicked but certainly some form of unhappiness. As I get closer to the source I hear the word “snaaaaiyke”. I get to the balcony armed with traditional long machete and see a good size green, blue and black snake poking its head out of the plants with a surprised looking frog in its mouth. Half the frog has turned a disturbing yellow colour so the snake is most likely poisonous. I put the end of the machete blade under the frog and lift the snake’s head upwards. I follow its body through the plants and can see that most of the snake is hanging over the side. By lifting its head its weight shifts backwards and both snake & frog fall off. I instantly look over the side and see absolutely nothing. I return to underneath the house exactly where it fell. No sign at all although at all times my machete is very much at the ready.

Bananas have ripened and we are ready to create all things bananary. Jayne is less than delighted.

It’s officially over 25 years since there has been so little water falling from the skies in mid August. In 3 weeks time we will have been in Mexico for a whole year. At that time last year San Pancho had a foot of water flowing down the streets and the arroyos (rivers) were full enough to stop us getting out here to our land for a month! Today there has been no rain at all for nearly a week. No gut wrenching thunderstorm for many weeks and all the rivers are dry. There is ground water. Thankfully our well is full enough and our new pump delivering up to a tinaco full a day (which for us is outstanding). For everyone without a well this is not good news at all. Unless we all start the dry season with full wells and good water flow in the rivers there will be huge issues down the line. We are dancing for rain right now.

While we make good with our water and fill up all our tinacos there are some repairs to do and some pumps to install and general maintenance stuff on the to do list. There are many thousands of large biting ants in endless marching lines that criss cross the jungle floor. They regularly chose to march exactly where I am working and bite my feet to make some territorial point. It proves how humid it is that even the shortest climb into the jungle is so completely exhausting. I return from very light work completely bitten and scratched and mucky with sweat. I have found an added fun experience to avoid. The ground has hidden within it large and very strong thorns. I managed to get one to go entirely through my sandal and half and inch into my foot mid jungle climb. If a ginger man screams abuse in the jungle and no one is there to hear does he make a sound?

Sister Allenby has followed Sister Flowers into the chicken jungle black hole. We are down to three jungle chickens. Jayne insists they have both fallen in love with local roosters and eloped. My theory involves slightly more violence and a snake and/or an eagle. The remaining brood are properly freaked out so have likely witnessed something traumatic. We need to encourage the survivors to nest in their house and not the trees. It’s safer and I’m not climbing trees to collect eggs that may or may not appear in the future. We relocate the house in a clear open spot and after much buggering about mange to get them locked in. A few days of house arrest should reeducate them, google has told us.

There is a common effect of coming out here and staying with us for a while. Be warned. Folk don’t want to go home. It’s slightly more than end of holiday blues. The space and pace here are seductive. Returning to an overpriced, overworked society where ones values can’t be expressed and ones expressions are undervalued is not easy. The politics above the wall doesn’t help with motivation either. So we get a good amount of good people wanting to be our neighbours.

The search for land/property is a well trodden path here but it’s not easy to navigate. Almost everyone has a story about buying land and some of them are sadly pretty tragic. There is a real need for independent honest trustworthy guidance to get through the red tape of owning property in Mexico and not get screwed. Estate agents work on USA style commissions. They get a whopping 4% of the value of the sale from the seller and a further 4% if they act on behalf of the buyer too. That’s a big lump and so the temptation to get sales complete at any cost is strong. There are many locals (Mexicans) who do not trust the system and sell directly. Anyone can act as agent in any sale in Mexico. No training or qualifications required.

In our time here we have been offered many plots of land and have quite a portfolio that had developed without trying. We also have a growing list of potential buyers that know and trust us. We also have very effective contacts that we trust in the industry that can get us all the information any buyer needs (but doesn’t know they need) faster, cheaper and more accurately than by any other means. A team of us are in discussions about how to offer these services that we are finding are greatly needed.

This coincides with a change in the way things are generally administered by officialdom. In the past week the six officers in charge of agreeing building permits in our area have all been fired. It’s not uncommon for building permits to be agreed with the help of a donation and the paperwork issued but not registered. In these cases the building work does not have genuine permissions and the documents are useless down the line should there be any real inspections. Expensive business corruption. The new AMLO anti corruption promises appear to be happening. Proper officials are being employed to do official properness in Mexico! Now it’s not who you pay donations to but more who you know that’s important. It’s a well needed and popular change.

Drones bloody drones. Drive me nuts. Whining, buzzy, oversize flying pests invading your privacy unannounced, without permission and unwelcome. They appear on the most deserted beaches and idyllic spaces just to make the experience worse for everyone except the entitled twat who is making his video.

That said with extreme reluctance I have to accept that they have become quite amazingly evolved bits of robotic engineering and they can take images that are highly impressive. Our mate arrives from South Africa via the rest of the world on a very large motorbike with very limited luggage and a brand new drone. It’s compact, sexy mate black, sleek and has anti collision lasers and remote self steadying probes installed in every orifice. It has the invaluable added feature of being reasonably idiot proof . It takes flight and hovers in our faces a few feet from the balcony. It won’t come any further as it has sensed idiots and won’t land at our feet. I reach out and grab it to pull it in. It’s motors and rotors rev aggressively and the thing pulls away from my grip in an escape pattern. Idiot proof.

It takes a surprisingly short time to use up all the battery life and the SD card with images taken from a few feet to many hundreds of feet away. We respect the thing for its elegance in flight and for clearly being a lot smarter than any of us. With a good number of edits and a search for un-copyrighted music we can use in the background (there are algorithms on social media that catch you using copyrighted music they tell me !!) our mate creates for us a short video introduction to La Colina. We like it a lot. I still want to train hawks to take drones down on every beach but this little flying robot was a lot of fun for while. https://vimeo.com/285364199

Digging in 90% plus humidity is a short lived activity. I get motivated to create or modify a drainage trench and set about it with shovel and pick with as much energy and enthusiasm as can be mustered. It’s usually about 10 minutes into smashing the rock filled earth that the dizziness sets in. The warm soupy air that I’m gasping for seems to contain more damp than oxygen. I breathe the wetness hard into my lungs as all the fluids pour quite literally from my body soaking the ground around me. Enough. I stick my sodden shirt to the balcony to dry and limp to the shower where I exchange my sweat for fresher stuff. I put a towel on the bed and lie down aware of the itchy burning heat on my skin mixed with the entire lack of energy or enthusiasm. Mausetrappe jumps up and grabs my legs while chewing at my feet. She is also overheated and slightly crazy. The largest electric fan we have is directed at the bed and revives us both very very slowly. This process can be repeated many times a day.

We hear again of a dear young friend who has passed this week. Died at his home in California of a seizure after a weekend surfing with friends. It’s very sad. Counting our blessings everyday.

Our favorite pub/bar that is currently open closes next week till mid September. Endless Summer is a bar in Los De Marcos about 10 minutes up the highway. It’s a Canadian branded place with lots of TVs showing all the sports the Canadians care about (hockey) and does a passable Poutine. For non Canadians that is the posh French name for a plate of chips and gravy with cheese. Authentically cheese that squeeks audibly when you bite it but that is a rare thing outside of Montreal. It has a dartboard with terribly bent darts with loose flights so that’s traditional. This bar has the major advantage of having a very high concentration of good people so the lack of draught Guinness and premier league football is forgiven. We are on our way there now to offer our support and assist with reducing the stock levels.

Jungle Journal

The Cake Distraction

August 7, 2018
by Beave

The thunderstorms when they arrive are extraordinary. We are floating in the pool watching large drops of rain falling and landing painfully on our faces. We retreat to the house as the dark sets in and the weather gets serious. The sky flashes constantly with sheet lightening. Then the fork lightening hits very close just behind deafening thunder that shakes the house and moves the air around us. Everything lights up bright as day. This lasts for a number of hours without a break. We hide in the tree house and watch the show. A vast amount of water is dumped on the jungle that happily sucks it up.

The fireflies are here in force now the water has turned up. When the moon is waning and the nights are darkest it is pretty much impossible to tell where the stars stop and the fireflies begin. It’s stunning.

My Dad is unwell and we arrange to return to the UK to see him and clear out our house to make it more saleable. It’s tough to leave this place emotionally and logistically. We have our man guarding the land & have cancelled a booking or two. We have acquired standby flights, which saves us a large chunk of cash. We pack light and accept a lift to the airport.

We are arriving in the UK about the same time as Trump. London is rammed with protesters. Only the Brits can come up with such spectacularly abusive banners and be encouraged by the London mayor to wield them in public. My daughter is front and center in Trafalgar Square under the Trump blimp balloon. Very proud Dad.

Aircraft seating is designed for humans of different dimensions to me. My shoulders are wider than any seat on any plane. My legs are long enough to jam in front of me if my knees touch my nose. It’s not pretty. Sleep is impossible. 11 hours of numbing contortions later we land in London. We are collected and taken for a quick lunch by Jayne’s Uncle and then head to Lincolnshire on the train loaded with newspapers & cake. The jet lag kicks in properly. The words on the page are blurred and the cake remains uneaten. I watch the countryside pass by baked by unfamiliar sunshine. Everyone we meet bangs on about the heat wave. The UK has a single week of sun and there is such a drama and hose pipe bans as standard. It’s been sunny here now for months and the population is going nuts. World Cup football and no rain. Doesn’t get better than this.

We finally arrive and my Mum collects us from the station. We have arrived in a state of hallucinogenic fatigue with stale clothes stuck to us holding newspapers and cake. We spend a few hours struggling hard to stay awake until dark when we have planned to give in. I am fully jet lagged. My brain is effectively useless. I realise how useless when I set about unpacking. My backpack has our two laptops, a tablet, kindle, all my most important paperwork and pretty much everything of any value that we own. It’s not there. It’s not anywhere. It’s vanished. I’m gripped with slow gut gripping panic. I have a clear memory of moving uneaten cake from next to my backpack as we left the train. It must have been on my back. The car is searched a dozen times as is every inch of the house. No mistake our lives in a bag is missing. We are in the car driving the 30 minutes back to the train station. The rising level of stupid mixed with anxiety and the growing realization of the many many consequences of losing ALL our most important things does not make for a good driving state. We somehow arrive at Grantham station without an incident.

At this point our angels conspire to save us from our imbecilic selves. Grantham customer services happily confirm that I am indeed an idiot. I was distracted by cake and left the bag on the train. It has been found at the next station 20 minutes drive away. We manage to avoid collisions and police speed traps and arrive at Newark Northgate station customer services. The boys there recognize a moron when they see one and give me an appropriate amount of banter. The bag is returned. I can’t remember being as grateful. I get back to the car and realize I am without my wallet. I return to Newark North Gate station customer services to prove beyond any doubt what a complete fool I have become. They look at me with almost disbelief as they remind me I put my wallet in my newly returned bag. I thank them once again and invite them all to Mexico. They clearly never want to see me again. Bloody cake.

Darlington in the sun. We have rented a van and arrive at my house which we emptied in a massive hurry 10 short months ago so we could rent it out. It’s currently for sale as we intend to move our kids inheritance to Mexico (with their permission). We very cleverly created three hidden spaces in the house where we have stashed all the things we didn’t throw out or sell. We are here to clear these spaces. One is an entire cellar and the others are attic spaces. Memory is a strange thing. We have very generously been gifted a storage area at a friends house which is more than adequate for the few boxes of stuff we need to move. Three days of hard graft later our friends now hate us. Their house is now home to a full size Elvis, two mannequin wives and four rammed van loads of our ever expanding stuff.

Our great value standby tickets from London Heathrow to Mexico City require us to be at the airport for 9:30 pm to grab the first two spare seats available. This involves a long sweaty airless hour and a half tube ride from our friend’s flat in London in the heat wave. We have acquired two suitcases which are rammed with all the best 25kg of things we have rediscovered along with as much hardcore cheese and marmite as we could squeeze in. We are fully laden and exhausted and ready to fail to sleep for another 11 hours. This was not to be. We have chosen the busiest week of the year at Heathrow. First week of school holidays. Everyone wants to go to Mexico City. The flight is overbooked and we are 11^th and 12^th on the standby list. Not happening today. Maybe tomorrow. We stash our bags and return to the delights of overheated London.

Tomorrow comes. This is the busiest day of the entire year at Heathrow. No seats. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow comes. With immense relief that we don’t have to get on the suffocating tube yet again… we fly away. Thankfully we have spent two unexpected days in steaming hot London abusing hospitality, eating well, loading up on Guinness and catching up with friends. Some of which we said goodbye to 3 times. We even squeezed in a visit to the National Portrait Gallery which is entirely impressive. This was my favorite. “An angel at my table” by Miriam Escofet . A portrait of the artist’s mother.

We are relieved and delighted to be home. We unload our massive amount of cheese and marmite into the Razor and head back to the land. The rains have been regular since we left but nothing dramatic and to our surprise the arroyos (rivers) are still dry. This is unusual. Never been this dry this late in the year we are told. As we drive there are clouds of butterflies surrounding us. Many types and colours and thousands of the buggers. There are clusters of them all over the place. We disturb them walking around and are covered. It’s extraordinary.

We are straight to work. We have to get water pumping and we install our third water pump which we have brought with us from the UK. The second pump proved to be worn out. Probably was running without water in the well and stuffed the motor. Anyway our third pump is running like a champ and we are back to full tinacos in no time. The rain tends to wash out some sections of road quickly so I am deployed with pick axe to create water trenches leading the flowing water down drainage channels rather than removing our road. So far they have worked well which means I will have to create more of them. We have Hurricane John and Hurricane Ileana whipping things up out past Baja so we are expecting a huge water dump sometime soon.

In our absence the rains have taken down our devil fruit tree ( as Jayne affectionately calls it due to her deep seated loathing of all things bananary). We have rescued all the fruit we can and to Jayne’s great delight they are ripening slowly on our balcony.

We have three sets of guests arriving in the next week so we have to set about making the pool sexy and clean all the cabanas. We remove all the sheets from the beds and find half of them to contain mouse nests! With mice in residence. Mausetrappe is deployed. Everything washed and replaced and we add an electric fan next to every bed. It’s inhumane to not have a fan handy in this humidity.

Our house is in one piece but now sits in a huge mass of green foliage. It’s machete time. The boys have spent two solid days on hands and knees removing as much of the new growth as they could. It’s a losing battle these days but we keep at it. We survey the massively overgrown land. It’s only been two weeks but it’s changed so much. There are vines that you can watch grow in front of you. These vines are brutal and not just a little spooky. They have overtaken the area underneath the solar panels where my sunflowers and bougainvillea were happily getting bigger and better. The bougainvilleas are tightly wrapped in vines but I manage to save about a dozen. The sunflowers have not faired well. The vines have lifted every one of them out of their earth bags and broke them into pieces and dragged them off. I take the machete to the murdering swine. It’s a futile gesture as they immediately regroup. It’s going to be a long battle.

Mausetrappe has certainly missed us. We locked her out when we were away and constructed a temporary enclosed house that we attached to the cat flap. We couldn’t take the risk of coming home to large piles of rotting mouse bits. She has forgiven us and spends a great deal of time clingingly wrapped around our feet. The chickens remain dumb and ugly. Three have full sets of tail feathers now but Sister Bland remains stubbornly bare arsed. Despite the lack of any signs of intelligence they do have their lucky moments. The cutter ants raided their chicken coop and made off with most of their food. There was a long line of ants bearing huge loads of grain headed directly into the jungle. Exactly where all four chickens were waiting . Chicken feed with bonus ants. They scoffed the lot.

Dragon flies are appearing. Brightly coloured and often in pairs attached in a push-me-pull-you copulation flight pattern. The bright day-glo lizards have returned and dart around the bush at great speed. The dogs here are experts at catching them. It’s pretty much their go-to snack.

So life has returned to a somewhat normal state of affairs if such a thing exists here. The World Cup ended up in France of all places and won’t be coming home anytime soon. Hose pipes are banned throughout the UK and surprise surprise we are expecting more rain. The pool is our sanctuary and still worth the constant attention it demands. We are fully stocked with Marmite and also have the added bliss of a fridge filled with proper mouth punching Cheddar cheese in which we indulge with dollops of original Branston pickle. Now that’s paradise for ya.

Jungle Journal

Spider Eyes and a Chicken Nunnery

June 22, 2018
by Beave

So I’ve been banging on about the rains coming for weeks and they finally arrive early and in style. Last night was the second night of rain. We have spent a very sedate day sweating and both recovering from my man flu. We mostly watched Netflix and waited for sleep to take us. No rush. The nightly chorus of tin whistle bugs is done and at midnight we drift off. At 1 am I am awake. The jungle is in instant shadow as the whole sky lights up in flashes. It’s chucking it down. Real tropical rain. The roof is holding up well and the ground is soaking it all in (for now) so there is little to worry about. Then the frogs kick off.

Considering how dry and water free it has been up to this point it is illogical in the extreme that all of a sudden a few hours of rain can create all the frogs. Where have they all suddenly come from?? I can’t count how many but the noise is deafening. Can’t hear the rain for them. I spend the next 4 hours in my man flu misery reading and listening. Amongst many others I identify a “base cello’ frog, a “scooter with a bad battery trying to start” frog and a particularly irritating “everything is hilarious and I’ve just huffed some helium” frog. The rains reduce by 5 am and my book is finished. The frogs care not and are still having a good old sing. I pass out.

The frog orgy has left without cleaning up. The evidence is everywhere. Frog and toad spawn had filled the previously dried up jungle pond. The sight of the swimming pool is shocking. There are about two dozen large frogs in there. I manage to rescue the few survivors and then start the body count. I fish them out of the pool and arrange them on a rock for curiosity purposes. It’s carnage.

I arrange the dead frogs on a rock beside the pool and return to the tree house. We are somewhat surprised by a high pitched scream. The local pool company has turned up for a visit and the girl who is examining the pool has just discovered my frog rock display. She is loudly unimpressed. Her colleague is highly entertained.

Curiously this whole frog rave lasted only two nights. They are still out there being irritatingly loud but this is an after party crowd. They now sound like clowns with bike horns and give it their all for about 20 minutes then shut up for an hour… then start again. It’s better than it was….

We now have lots of water. The well is filling up again (just in time), we have three out of five full tinacos, the pool level has improved, all the plants and herbs are thoroughly watered and the solar panels are washed. These are all good things.

Last week we wondered why our solar batteries were low. A brief examination of the panels showed that in just over a week the entire solar array had acquired a thick coating of twigs, leaves and muck from the shedding trees. How we had any power at all was a mystery. As our ladder was being used elsewhere an enthusiastic, brave and acrobatic friend who was visiting climbed up with broom and removed all the crap. Battery power renewed in no time. It was on our list of maintenance jobs to do this regularly but now there is no need. The rains have polished them to a sunbeam friendly gleam.

It’s time for planting stuff out. We have bougainvilleas to place on the fence line. Also a spontaneous planting of sunflower seeds has produced a dozen or so competing shoots that need a home. We have collected orchids in dormant state and tied them to trees. Theoretically these will suck up the moisture in the air and flower in a month or two.

I have had a nagging request for some time. Someone wants chickens. The opportunity presents itself when we get a call informing us that a local vet-student has chickens to rehouse. Our friends are bringing her and her family over to meet us on Friday… with chickens. I spend a day building a chicken nunnery tractor. A nunnery because it will NOT be housing any bloody roosters. Sorry girls. The purpose of the tractor element is to allow the chickens to eat all the scrub and insects underneath their home and then we move it along. In this way the jungle floor is fertilized and cleaned progressively and the chickens are safe, dry, fed and producing eggs. Chicken safety out here is something we need to understand better. Pretty much everything eats chickens. Eagles, snakes, jaguar, ocelots, us. They are famously delicious. Have to see how that turns out. The process of building all day in a ginger puddle has left me exhausted. I have been fooled by a few cooling showers and protective afternoon clouds and managed to get dehydrated.

I recover with pints of homemade Jamaica (pronounced “hamica”), AKA cold hibiscus tea, which is a red plant base that we boil up to make a concentrated syrup. Added to a heap of water and ice with lime juice it is as refreshing a thing as we have found. There is an endless jug of the stuff in the fridge.

My recovery is somewhat disturbed by the sound of the cat fighting with one big fat cicada type bug. It’s the ones that make all the racket at night fall. Now they are loud enough half a mile away but having one being chewed by a cat a few feet away is deafening. I drag myself up and grab a cloth. My first attempt at rescue only manages to scare it into a limping flight with its one remaining good wing as it attaches itself to the window screen. It’s bigger than I thought. A good handful. I make my move but it’s too quick and noisily collides with my face and disappears in silence. It’s nowhere to be seen. Mausetrappe and I look at each other in confusion. I feel a scratching sensation and am then startled out my wits by a massive noise in my ear! The little sod was hiding on the back of my neck!! I grab him and throw him hard onto the floor. The cat pounces and diverts the thing under the sink. He is silent again. Not for long. The cat gets him in her mouth. The sound is unbelievable. I grab him. My whole hand is vibrating wildly as it screams. On the balcony I shake the cloth in my hand and I see him shoot directly upwards into the trees. Gone. It’s raining and very dark. Around me there are slowly moving majestic lights. The fireflies are back!!

Mango season is upon us. I was put off mangos by spending a lot of time in Montreal. There was a phase of putting mangos on everything. It was trendy to have eggs and bacon with a lump of mango. Bugger that! I am , however, seduced by the laden local mango trees. Each mature tree produces up to 250 kg a season. We had to consider that when looking at land with a dozen mango trees. Thats literally tons of mangoes to deal with. The little ones taste better than the big ones.

Another welcome return is that of the toilet paper butterfly. This is unlikely to be the scientific name but they can best be described as a lump of toilet paper floating around in the wind. They are bright white and huge. The wings are far too big to be efficient so they kinda flop around randomly and somehow stay in the air. Inelegant but stunning to watch.

The chickens arrive. They are an ugly bunch. Dirty brown with bare arses. Tail feathers are optional we discover. The chicken nunnery is placed outside our balcony so we can keep them under review for the first few weeks. The ground is uneven so we create a rockery around the nunnery to discourage beasts from getting in. The chickens are installed and we decide to keep them locked in for a day or two so they learn this is where they live. Not necessary. Despite the door being left open all day the chickens don’t move from their luxurious perches in the shade. We learn that organic free-range chickens are mainly conceptual. Despite acres of lovely range to be free upon most chickens prefer to stay inside and view the outside from the inside. Despite being agoraphobic & antisocial our five chickens appear happy enough. I have decided to name our nunnery inmates. Sister Kwafi, Sister Pybus, Sister Bricklebank, Sister Allenby & Sister Bland. Any comparison with anyone with similar names is entirely deliberate. Eggs are in our future.

There have been a few nights now of heavy to very heavy rains. In retrospect many things have indicated rains were coming. The lime trees started to bear fruit again and we found a heap of bananas appearing the week before the rains came. We found a tomato growing wild next to the house, the last flower on the vanilla orchid appeared and was pollinated and the roof got fixed, all the very day before the rains came.

The ground is alive with bright glowing red beetles. We spend some hours at the waterfall pools and they are everywhere. Individually they are fascinating but they have a trick. They gang together and make balls of themselves. A bright red shape the size of a golf ball. I have no idea why. It doesn’t seem an efficient love in and there is no feeding frenzy going on. See how long they last. They are harmless and very, very pretty.

There is a phenomena that I was convinced was fake news. If you shine a torch or headlight at a certain angle into the jungle thousands of tiny glowing lights reflect back at you. Every one of these lights is a spider looking back at you. Well I had these lights shown to me a few times but refused to believe the spider story. This was until the tinaco above our tree house sprang a leak and I needed to change out a fitting immediately and the sun was setting. It’s not something you would chose to do without daylight but I had no choice. On the way up the hill my headlight caught a mass of reflections, which I ignored until the tinaco was fixed. On the way down the hill in the dark I decided to explore these tiny lights close up. Unbelievably its true. I got close enough to confirm that the closest dozen lights were indeed spider eyes reflecting back at me. They were only tiny spiders but they shone like diamonds. Spooky.

And with the rain comes the crabs. It’s a famously strange and wonderful sight here in Nayarit to see hundreds of thousands of large pink crabs heading a kilometer for the sea after hibernation all year. If you are in the way it’s described as biblical. There is no avoiding them! We have avoided them as we are just far enough away from the sea. Just. The run to the ocean is over now but the bodies of those that didn’t quite make it are everywhere.

The bugs have changed again this month. We had weeks of tiny little buggers that felt like grains of sand when you caught them trying to nibble on you. More recently there is a medium sized loudly buzzing night time arrival. It’s a good job we have the nets on the bed. You hear them first and then see them head butting the fabric screen loudly. It’s impossible to sleep with these antics so I have taken to punching them off the net. They cope with this tactic rather well. Despite getting a full knuckle punch in their face they come back at you! They have heavy armor that looks like a nutshell. It can take two or three well placed punches to put off a “nut bug”. The cat is far more efficient and crunches them loudly and leaves them in a pile for me.

The Summer Solstice is upon us. The longest day. Tomorrow in the UK Christmas cards start appearing in the shops. It is also the anniversary of the burning of an effigy on Baker Beach in San Francisco over 30 years ago from which the Burning Man event evolved. One of the founders of the event died recently and there is a worldwide acknowledgement of gratitude for the connections this event created. My life would certainly be very different if those guys hadn’t decided to burn something on a beach that day. So to mark the occasion we gather with friends both new and old and knock up a “palm man”. We collect mango margaritas and head to the beach. It was all rather beautiful.

The rains have held off now for a week. What appeared to be the rainy season coming early was actually the back end of Hurricane Bud. The first of the season. The real rainy season is due soon enough. We are preparing slowly.

There is no doubt that Mexico is now a great footballing nation. It only takes a single goal but timing is everything. We watch this goal live from our friend’s restaurant packed with locals. We also endure an hour of waiting for the Germans to equalise but incredibly it doesn’t happen !! Torture to ecstasy. The place goes nuts. Moscow will be out of tequila in the morning. We have the might of glorious South Korea next. Despite the dull as ditch water England performance against Tunisia Jayne’s footballing needs are satisfied. We are, however, asking ourselves if getting up at 6 am on Sunday to watch England v Panama is worth the effort… probably.