Well the rainy season has arrived.

So far it only seems to rain in the middle of the night throughout the early morning hours and only does so every few days with blue skies in between. Which allows time for the ground to dry back out, but right after the rains the ground gets very slippery and sticky. The road towards our property and the road into our property is a good hard pack that dries very quickly, but the small area around the construction site gets very slippery.

At this point we have only lost two days of construction due to the rains, but we know there will be a time when the rains might last for a few days or even a week if a big storm passes through. The good thing is that Ruben says that in August and September there is usually a mini dry season, which is good because that is about the time our lumber will arrive. The rains here seems to fall straight down with no winds which make it perfect for sitting on the porch and watching the rains and listening to all the birds. We know that there has to be a lot of rain to make this the green tropical jungle we love and so far the rain has not bothered us a bit.

What’s happening around the property

More truck loads of gravel, cement, block and rebar. There is a crew of seven that are constantly doing something, except for two breaks and an hour for lunch. Our electrical breaker room is now complete, it is where the main power comes in and will then be distributed to all the other buildings. This got started before we were here and is a little bigger than I expected, but it turned out ok because now we can put a trash can and some yard tools in there also. And yes, I know that if I cut a moon in the door it might get used for something else.

Ruben brought over a couple of banana trees for us and we got them planted right in front of the casita. One of the trees is a regular banana and the other is an apple banana and they should start to produce later this year. The apple banana is a smaller fruit that is very sweet and would probably make an awesome banana bread. Ruben wanted nothing for the plants so we traded him some basil plants that we had growing and everyone is happy.

We bought and installed a 200 gallon water tank as a backup just in case there is a big storm and something happens to our water supply. We were also looking at small generators especially since we are now getting some food in the freezer. Speaking of food, when we fire up the grill we are now cooking up extra so we can save it for a rainy day. We finally get the true meaning of that!

A hummingbird feeder got put up with a little sugar water inside and immediately it started to attract them and of course they started playing this is my feeder game like they always do. There has been a few different ones but the most common are big white belly, blue winged ones that are always here. We are constantly busy with painting, cutting plants and trying to put our own touches on our little piece of jungle paradise, in fact we have only sat on the porch a few times and enjoyed a cold beer together. As soon as we get a chance we will take a walk around the property and look for a couple more orchids to move over towards the house. At this point the orchids are not blooming so we will have no idea what color they will be, but we know they will be beautiful once they do.

One other thing that almost happened around the property was the addition of some Toucans. There is a wood carver on the highway that does amazing work, and we have been eyeing this one Toucan for quite awhile. One day we were driving by and he had another one out there and they were facing opposite directions. We talked about how great they would look in front of the main house since the house will be called Toucan Hideaway. Anyway we hymed and hawed about do we really need them right now. Then one day we drove by and he had painted them, they are a good four feet tall and carved out of a solid piece of cedar, they were perfect! So we decided to go run our errands and then get them on the way back, after all they had been there for quite awhile. Well guess what, there was another person loading both of them in their truck and taking them to their art gallery. That’s just they way it was, but at least we would never have to see them again and remind us of what we could have had if we would have decided earlier. The art gallery in San Ignacio where they went just happens to be on a road that we drive down all the time. They look really good there, but we still think they would have looked better at our place.

Since the rains have started, the tree frogs have come out and they like to hang out on the porch looking for insects. We are not used to frogs that can climb right up the side of the house and look in the windows, the ones we are use to just hop along the ground or swim. These hop right on the wall and keep climbing, I’ve heard a lot of people here refer to them as sticky frogs. They say if you toss them towards a wall they will stick. I don’t think we will be trying that.

In an earlier post I said that we seem to see new plants or animals daily. The other night we were coming back from dinner and we had to actually stop on the road so we could let this big anteater go by. He was about four or five feet long and just at a slow pace as he crossed the road. Ruben said that if a dog starts to bother them they just roll on their back and will attack with their long claws and that the dog will never bother them again. We have learned to take our camera with us everywhere because you never know what you might see.

Since I named this post wet and wild I thought I’d throw in a couple more wild things. Just outside our bedroom window in the rocks there is a big dog size turd. Now we haven’t seen any dogs around here so your guess is as good as ours at this point.

And then the other day we were driving through the village and a man stopped us, he thought we were somebody else. Anyway, it turns out that he was the local veterinarian and asked us if we had heard about the vampire bat problems they are having with horses and cattle. I told him that yes, I had read something about it about a month ago. He just wanted to make sure we were aware of it in case we had any livestock, and we thanked him for that. Kelley now wears a string of garlic around her neck, as for me, I tend to be awake all night and sleep all day for no reason at all.