We had our good friends (Jer & Kris) come down for a first-time visit from Montana, where they left negative temperatures for a constant 85° down here. We met them in Placencia so they could defrost and start their trip off with a little beach time.

It just happened, that weekend the annual Placencia Art Walk was going on. So we got to cruise around and check out all the local artists and their wares. There were lots of paintings, wood carvings, conch shell art, and just about anything else you could think of. Of course, we ate at some of our favorite beachfront restaurants where they enjoyed lobster omelets and of course Barefoot Bar’s famous lobster grilled cheese sandwich. In between all the eating, there were also stops at some of our favorite beach bars for some ice cold beverages. We even got in the pool at a swim-up bar, I’m sure that’s something they never thought they would be doing in February.

While at the art walk, we did pick up a small piece for our place. It was a toucan made completely out of butterfly wings. It turns out that the artist who makes these gets a lot of his wings from the butterfly ranch right about a mile or so from our house. This was a small, simple piece, but he had some that were big and very elaborate.

After a couple of days on the beach, we headed up to our place so they could see our little jungle paradise. The roads were still muddy so we didn’t have a chance to take them to some of the caves, waterfalls, or other attractions around here. We did visit Cahal Pech ruin in San Ignacio. Of course, we went to some of our favorite restaurants and hangouts where they met a bunch of our friends. Other than that we really didn’t do a lot of other stuff, as one of us seems to have caught something leading to headaches and sore throats. By the time they were getting ready to leave all of us had caught it and we really didn’t want to do a whole lot of anything. I think they had a good trip, but we certainly could have had more fun if we all felt a little better.  Maybe on their next trip, we can get them out to do some fishing, island hopping, beach lobster bbq, or maybe some cave tubing. There is so much more to see and do here, we really hope they come back soon.

Lobster season is coming to a close at the end of the month, so we grabbed a few to take up to our place for their last dinner before they had to head home. With the art walk going on in Placencia, plus with Valentine’s Day coming up, the lobster prices were outrageous. We know a guy that is on the outskirts out of town where we had gotten them in the past and his prices were much more reasonable.

With all the recent rains over the past few months, some of our cacao pods are getting really big. This means that the seeds inside are bigger and plumper and that makes them easier to process.

Well, we finally had a little time to make some more chocolate. After the cacao seeds are roasted and peeled you end up with the nibs. We then put the nibs into the food processor and grind them to a fine powder. After that, it goes into the melanger. In case you don’t know what a melanger is, it’s a rotating drum with two grinding stones in it. After about 12-18 hours or so in the melanger you end up with a silky smooth dark chocolate. We make our chocolate at 70% cacao which is just sweet enough for the candy we make.

Pinterest has a lot of copycat recipes on how to make your favorite types of candy bars. Since we have been picking a lot of cacao lately, we thought we would try something a little different than our basic dark chocolate bars. We made a cookie sheet of Butterfinger bark candy. It tastes just like a Butterfinger candy bar, but it was missing that little bit of crunch that they have. After reading a little more, people who have made this had a few suggestions on what to add for that little crunch. They suggested grinding up rice crispies or cornflakes and mix that into the filling. In case you are wondering what the filling is it’s nothing more than melted candy corn and peanut butter mixed together. Even without that little crunch it still tasted like a Butterfinger, and there was nothing wrong with that.

Since the Butterfingers turned out so good, we thought we would try some Almond Joy and Mounds bark using our dark chocolate, coconut, condensed milk and some almonds. Making these candies as bark instead of bars is just a whole lot easier than hand dipping each piece in chocolate. In the end, it tastes the same anyway. Every time we make something like this, I still can’t believe that we actually are growing and making our own chocolate.

There is a big Ramon tree over the casita that has a bunch of ripe berries on it right now. For the past two weeks, there have been toucans in it at all times of the day. Besides toucans, it’s attracting all types of other birds too. Kelley held her phone up the other morning with the Merlin bird app open, and it identified 9 different types of birds all making noise. And that’s not counting all the other birds that weren’t making any noise.

Of course a few days after our friends leave all the coatimundis come around. This is the first time we’ve seen them in a while. At one point the other day I counted between 30-40 of them, climbing trees and rooting around the yard for insects.

Males over two years become solitary due to behavioral disposition and collective aggression from the females and will join the female groups only during the breeding season. Even when accepted into the group, males are still subordinate to the females. He will breed with various females in the group and then eventually be driven away. The female will make a nest and give birth away from the group, and will only leave the nest to find food. When the young are around 5 months old they will leave the nest to rejoin the band. Once in the band, the whole group will raise the young together including nursing, grooming, and protection.

Since the coatimundis are around again and we’ve already got at least 50 pineapples on plants, that means it’s time to set up the electric fence around the pineapples for the season. The fence only goes up around the pineapples in the garden area, so all the ones around our driveway are fair game for them.

This is not a problem that most people have, but you never know what the jungle will throw at you. Last year about this time we had a lizard get inside of the garage TV and fry the board. We ended up having to buy a new one. Well, the other night I turned on the garage TV and inside the screen is a bunch of tiny ants. I pulled the TV off the wall and sprayed it good hoping that would get rid of them. The next day they were still there, so I had to take it apart to see if there was a nest inside. I didn’t see a nest, but there were still a bunch of ants inside on the screen. I managed to get the screen exposed so that I could get to the ants. All is good now and we didn’t have to replace the TV again.

Kelley and I have been down for about a week with headaches, sore throats, congestion and just feeling weak. We are both feeling better now, hopefully we will be back at 100% very soon.