Rain Delay

Got a message from Carl letting me know they would not be coming to the job site this morning.

Our Rain-filled Parking Area

 We're supposed to be getting about twenty-four trusses for the roof delivered sometime today. Carl has been trying to get in touch with the Mennonites who have built them and also will be delivering them - hopefully, not today. Well, we'll see how things shake out.

Our poor old Isuzu, now relegated to a parking spot out in the open, no longer protected by the palapa. There's a few small repairs I want to do to it, and then clean it up and put a '$' sign in its window. That's the local sign for 'I'm for sale. Buy me.'

Our Poor Forlorn Isuzu

Mostly we are just hunkering in the bunker. Dianna's under the covers in bed, along with Chanel, Secret's on her mattress on the back porch - it's dry there, Deeohgee is fretting here in the house, because Carson, our Roomba vacuum, is running around in random patterns and she can't figure him out, Nelson's napping up in the overhead above the bathroom, Bela is under the bed - unless Carson comes and chases her out, April our oldest kitty, is in the closet hiding from everything, and I'm here in the living room, my feet up on the ottoman,writing this posting.

White Egret Checking Out the Vacant Lot

We had enough rain, that the vacant lots to the north of us began to look like small lakes. So much so, that a white egret was attracted to them and spent at least a couple of hours 'fishing.' I guess he could also have been hunting for frogs. I don't know if they eat frogs or not. I would imagine so.

I was planning to work on the gate for the doggies new run today, but guess what? I don't think so. There's always tomorrow or next week.

Frogs, and Toads, and Cats, Oh My!

We're dealing with an interesting situation this evening. Shortly after supper, Nelson wanted to go outside. April was already out and doing her thing. It's not unusual at all for either of them to be outside - sometimes for all night. So, I opened the door and let him out.

A short time later, he meowed to come back in. This also is not an unusual occurrence. In fact, it's so common, it happens three or four times a night. With my normal sleep pattern, it's really not that much of an inconvenience. However, we are seriously thinking about putting in a kitty door from the back porch to the office, so the little people can come and go as they see fit.

Unfortunately, one of the down-sides to allowing your pets outside is the possibility of interactions and reactions with local wildlife. The dogs have met with lizards, including geckos, Jesus lizards (basilisk lizards), armadillos, porcupines, snakes (both poisonous and non), various kinds of birds (doves being Secret's favorite snack), ants of assorted types, and stinging insects... So far. God only knows what they'll get into next.

The cats, April and Nelson, have so far gotten into non-poisonous snakes, lizards, including geckos, Jesus lizards (basilisk lizards), various kinds of birds (Nelson brought in a young dove yesterday, which Dianna rescued, minus a few tail feathers), ants of assorted types, and stinging insects... So far. God only knows what they'll get into next. Well, that's not true. I do know.

This evening, in fact, just a few minutes ago, Nelson cried at the door to be let back in, which I did as usual. Then I went back to messing on the computer. I heard him jumping and thrashing around. This also, is not an unusual sound. I assumed he and April were chasing/wrestling with each other as they do often.

Out of the corner of my eye, I happened to see Nelson as he came into the office. I thought I saw lots of white bits of paper. Ah, he's been back into the roll of toilet paper. What fun. But, as I looked closer, I saw it wasn't paper at all, but foamy saliva. He was slinging it all over the house, jumping around, and moving his tongue all around to try and get rid of whatever was causing the foaming.

I hollered for  Dianna (she was in bed reading or playing Friends With Words), saying something like "Nelson's gotten into the frogs now. He's foaming at the mouth." She came in a hurray.

I grabbed Nelson and we both attempted to get his mouth under the bathroom faucet. That was less than successful. I caught a claw between fingers of my right hand. Dianna managed to get some water to his mouth by just sloshing handfuls to his face while we both tried holding him. As usually happens, he became totally unmanageable in short order, so we let him down to run around.

I tried calling Dr. Sheila, but as it was after hours, there was, not unexpectedly, no answer. With a one-person shop, they have to have down time. So, next best thing, I jumped on the Intertubes. The trick is always in how you ask the question of Google. So, not being happy with the first attempt, I made in short order, two or three other attempts, finally getting a straightforward answer.

Not surprisingly, the advice was to use a hose to rinse out the patient's mouth with the outer opening facing down so as to lessen the likelihood of their ingesting more of the bad stuff - whatever it might be. The second bit was to call the Vet. Since we'd already done both of those, there wasn't much point in our going berserk any further.

I seemed to remember, that with the poisonous frogs and cane toads, if the animal ingests enough toxin to foam at the mouth and otherwise act weird, by the time you administer a water rinse, you've done about all that's humanly possible. So, it comes down to whether it's their time or not. Wait and see.

That's pretty much what we did then. Wait and see. As I started to write this posting, Nelson came up and meowed a few times to me and went running off into the living room. I told him he was done going outside for the night and to just relax. He came up to me a couple more times, with his eyes looking glazed and like he might be hallucinating. Well, if he was there wasn't much I could do about it other than pet scratch him.

Right now, he's laying right behind my chair. I just reached down and touched his nose to see if he was still with us. He is. He was sleeping, probably the best thing he could do at this time. He yawned and stretched real big and went back to sleep. It's my considered opinion that he's going to make a full recovery.

Just your usual evening panic session with family members who really can't talk that well to tell you what's going on. Hopefully, he's learned his lesson - at least for a while. The dogs did with the porcupines, so there's hope for the cats... maybe.

At Doug and Twyla's for a BBQ

Yesterday evening we went over to Doug and Twyla's new house for a barbecue. Quite the bash. Inch-and-a-half t-bones, scalloped potatoes, and a carrot salad. There was cold beer, and something I'd heard about but never seen - Three Barrel Belizean Rum, purchased from Family Market downtown.

Seldom Seen Three Barrel Rum

The steaks were done to a turn, as they say, on Doug and Twyla's custom grill - some concrete blocks in the yard with charcoal they had purchased from another store. This was something else I didn't even know was available - store-bought charcoal. Of course, it's not Kingsford, it's home-grown charcoaled wood, some of it quite large chunks, but perfectly adequate for the task at hand. I guess that's why I had never seen it in stores around here before. I probably was subconsciously looking for the Kingsford packaging.

They had even gotten two steel grates for the barbie from A & R, a local office and home supply sort of store.

Doug Managing His Barbecue

Doug, in charge of the steaks, did these monsters up grandly. They had gotten the meat from Frank's Meats and it really was excellent. All the doggies enjoyed big, meaty bones afterwords as well.

Huge Steaks Done To A Turn

What a fun evening. Doug and Twyla's house inside is reminiscent English colonial houses elsewhere in the tropics - only it's brand new and solar-powered to boot! With beautiful lights and fans and superb color choices on the walls, it's near perfect in every respect, with one tiny, little, teensy-weensy problem. Well, it's not a problem exactly, it's just that there is something missing... furniture.

Dianna And Twyla Discussing Her Kitchen

They have two white plastic chairs and a bed in the whole house! What a hoot! It was great. But we knew that going in. We brought our folding canvas camping chairs that we used to use with our RV, so there was no lack of comfy seating. The custom dining table was some plywood laid over packing bins. But, I'll tell you what! Between the great conversation, good beer and rum, and the superb food, the furnishings were the last things on our minds. What a nice way to spend the evening.

We spent some time with their two dogs - Tupelo and Lola, both about a year old and just learning how to be good pack walkers. We saw Ben, the former Copa Banana house cat. He's just a quirky as ever, their other cat, Nemo. Nemo is a big boy. Unperturbed about anything. And, their newest family member - a tiny kitten, named Basil. In true Belizean fashion, his nickname is "Fish".

Dianna Meeting Basil

Basil Getting After the Food

We made it home about 9:30 PM, well past our bedtime. Dianna gave the girls their bones from the dinner and we proceeded to go to bed.

Ordinarily, that's no big deal. But Dianna had spent several hours with Edna our new/old housekeeper (she had worked for us when we lived at Tony and Nellie's and while we were at Bob's duplex). Now she's back.

Anyway, they cleaned up a storm. The bedroom was re-arranged (if you know Dianna, re-arranging is a passion) and now included a mosquito net hung from the ceiling on a chain to miss the ceiling fan.

I asked Dianna how to get into the bed. She hollered from the bathroom, "The entrance is at the foot of the bed". I couldn't find it. So, I just lifted up the edge on my side of the bed and crawled in. When Dianna came in, she did the same on her side.

We ignored the slightly claustrophobic, clingy feeling the netting gave and turned out the light to reminisce about the evening. All of a sudden, whoomp! Midas jumps on the bed. I fully expected him to immediately get tangled in the netting and have the whole thing come crashing down on us. But, no. He found the opening and came right in! Amazing.

After the appropriate amount of scratching and petting required by Midas, we proceeded to go to sleep. Except, then he decided it was time to leave the bed. Apparently, the opening is one-way. He couldn't find it and proceeded to really get tangled up in the netting. Also, he was trying to lick it to get it away from his whiskes and it got stuck on his tongue.

By then, we were laughing hard as we worked to disentangle him from the netting. We both had visions of him getting wrapped up in the netting, going berserk, and getting the netting, and himself, caught in the ceiling fan and getting whipped around and round the room.

As we unwrapped Midas, we laughed and agreed the netting really wasn't needed all that much, that it was much more decorative than functionally necessary, and we pulled it back up to the head of the bed, where we tucked it safely out of the way so we could all get to sleep. A funny ending to a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Thanks Doug! Thanks Twyla! Thanks Lola and Tupelo, Nemo, Ben and Basil. It was great!