Simple Sunday Culebra

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, 

trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything 

to git attention we do, except walk? Alice Walker

Culebra Dawn

Awake early, I thought I'd see if I could catch the chicks huddled up in their little night ball. But light had already started touching the sky and they were up and wandering around, quietly peeping. When I came inside they all ran over to me, hoping I'd have a treat. Did you know chickens love mung bean sprouts? Now you do. It's a great way to get some chick attention, which some of us will consider equals personal affection. It's how chicken people roll.

The sky was pink, mellow, soft, when I went into the coop. It is pretty tranquil in there, which might seem surprising with eight peepers, but somehow, the mindlessness of it is very relaxing. Maybe I'll start a Coop Therapy thing. Come sit in the coop for 20 minutes. 20 bucks. Peace out.

So then I wandered around the yard awhile. A lot of leaves have fallen off the genipa tree, literally carpeting the ground. It's pretty beautiful. I used to rake up all the sea almond and genipa leaves but this year I'm leaving them. I figure they are better where they are than in a big heap down the yard. At least that's my thinking. No one rakes a forest and if left to its own devices, forests seem to do pretty well...

New leaves coming on to the genipa. This is the female one with no fruit on it, unfortunately.
Or maybe fortunately, they can be a big mess...no one could eat that many!

By the time I looked back down the yard, there was a color riot going on. The whole world turned pink and gold. While I'm not into the color pink, it looks very attractive on the world.

Dawn changes second to second and only minutes after this, it was just another nice morning in Paradox. Zowie!

And now, a public service message from Mary Ann at Coralations.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If anyone wants to lose 2, 3, or 5lbs of ugly DIVE weights OVERNIGHT, look no further! 

The Culebra, Ocean Explorers are in need of DIVE weights for the coral farming project. 

Yes this is truly an AMAZING OVERNIGHT WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM, and if you check this out on SNOPES, it's for real! 

Why, I just donated a few lbs myself, and now I look and feel absolutely PETITE (but don't check that one out on snopes!) 

.............................also looking for old wetsuits for our skinny kids! 

Please write maryann@coralations.org if you can help

Thank You   <>< <>< <><<<<<

 

Mary Ann Lucking
Director 

CORALations
P.O. Box 750
Culebra, PR 00775
www.coralations.org  
787.556.6234    
email:  maryann@coralations.org

Have a surreal Saturday! Do something full of splendor.

Culebra Free Range Friday - It's All About the Cheese

At almost too late o'clock, it has been brought to my attention that this is National Grilled Cheese Month. How I overlooked this, I'm not sure, but indeed, I did. The reason it was brought to my attention is through Closet Cooking's recipe for a Sweet Chili Chicken Grilled Cheese Sandwich. When I read the title, my first thought was about what a friend of mine would have to say about that, which would be something like "Leave my grilled cheese sandwich the hell alone!". This is much the same response I get from this friend if I suggest putting anything on popcorn other than butter and salt. In fact, dressing up simple foods is just not really an attractive option to this friend, whereas I love to play with marinades and new tastes; especially because I eat a lot of chicken and it helps me to keep liking it. So to me, this recipe sounds good, sort of like marinading chicken in my mango hot sauce, but different. No worries, friend, I will never inflict this on you. Maybe the chicken, but not disguised in a grilled cheese sandwich. I promise. 

The following was posted on facebook last night and I thought it put a lot of good things together for the world we live in, right now. Maybe it is even more Pollyanna-ish than me, but the last bit, I'm claiming, for future reference, to the next person who tells me 'I'm bored.' 

Go forth and be a force of the awesome. Do epic shit.

If you are too tired/relaxed/don't care to do epic shit, you are in good company.

Have a fiercely lived Friday! Do something fearlessly.

Home is a Good Thing

No matter whether you've gone 3 miles or 3000, for a week or a month, no matter that you've had the most wonderful time of your life off the turf of being your own total self, it is still always good to come home.

When I am gone housesitting, I still come back twice a day, to feed and play with the cat, and now the chicks. The cat was not happy that I was gone. She would turn her back, nip my fingers and be contemptuous as only a cat can be. That was then. Last night she, quite simply, quite calmly, pushed as close as she could get and stayed in bed with me the whole night through. Of course, with us, that mean until about 4 a.m.

The chicks have been moved into the big house. After an initial 'what what what' series of frantic peeps, they started exploring, checking out the new digs from corner to corner and as high up as they could jump. Until dusk, when suddenly, it was very big. Peeps of oh no! sounded as they huddled together in a corner I'd fixed up for them to do just that. The last stroke of sun quit the sky and silence. Chickens are funny that way. Of course, around here, chickens never know what time is proper to make noise, but I intend my chickens to be as the chicken god intended. Quiet in the dark. Yes.

The other day I headed down to the beach for sunset. There were a few others there, some winding up a beachy afternoon, some there for the same reason as me, to watch the sun go down, the sky go painted, the water go metallic. And it did.

Beach chair (you won't find this in Walmart)

When was the last time you played with water?

Beach moon surface

Ahhhh, there goes the sky

One last look

Another big thing happened yesterday. But I can't tell you what it was! Just kidding. You know I tell you every single thing that happens or has ever happened to me in my entire life. All of it. Including what comes out during life regression therapy, back when I was the handmaiden to Cleo (we called her Cleo, but not to her face, of course). Oops, digression alert.

The big thing is, work has started on the houseboat! It's been moved to an undisclosed location (I'ld tell you but then I'd have to put you to work) that makes it accessible by jumping on. I was so happy, I ripped down a bunch of rotten paneling. What better way to express joy? 

And here we are, the royal we; bread making ends (tomorrow the last day until next fall) and other projects begin. Who's on first?

Have a thromping good Thursday! Do something to talk about.

Ruby Tuesday

I had a good walkabout yesterday, for no other reason than that I could. But it mainly started because I parked by Arte Fango and started thinking about how horrendous it will be if the proposed three story hotel goes in. I wandered down into the back and watched land crabs scurrying into their holes. I thought of all the fill that would be needed to have something solid to build on. I thought about the mangroves that would illegally have to be destroyed. It just seemed impossible that anyone would do this to such a lovely setting, for no other reason than greed. Development doesn't have to be a bad word, it just so often is associated with greed and lack of caring for the natural world, it has taken on a negative meaning for the most part. Sad.

When I was little, and not so little too, I always had a hiding place. Maybe it was being the third child, maybe I just liked hiding places. I'd find them or make them, some tiny, some comfortable, never elaborate, never far away, but more a bolt hole when there was no one there to send me for a time-out, I sent myself.

Drawn to books or art that portrays hiding places, I usually know one when I see one. Sometimes it is the most obvious thing, almost in plain sight, but invisible to most. Like Culebra.

 Good morning!

Have a touch of tender Tuesday. Do something tellingly.

Late Start, Hot Town

You know how sleep is often hinky when you aren't in your own bed. Or when the bed you are sleeping in has a few extra bodies in it, pleasant as they may be. But we finally all settled down and with the shutters closed, it was cool and lovely and the sun didn't see my face until it was well over the horizon. Sleeping in until almost 7 might not seem like much to some but I was thrilled.

With yesterday being the official Earth Day, I had all of these interesting posters from the Department of Agriculture I thought I was going to post, but I didn't. Now I will.

How do you like your soft drink now?!
The reasoning here is at once simple and complex and...scary. I think I'd either
never have sugar again orstart eating it by the handful after rationing...

I find amazing the self-sacrificial tone of so many of the 'from the top' encouragements during WWI and II. Not only were people encouraged to plant, grow, can and carefully consume their own food, but to eat less of certain foods that more could be turned over not only to our own troops, but to our allies as well. And the endorsements made so much sense! They are not only completely relevant to our world today, they are by-words for many causes going on currently. War not being among them, actually.


When did we stop sacrificing for wars anyway? And why? Is it because they don't call them wars much anymore? Or that we have planned distraction enough to ignore them, them as the actual war, them as the soldiers, them as the government who is really us? There sure is a lot of metal getting stolen. How does it happen that the food supply that feeds those in...ok, never mind. Yes, be glad you don't live in my head...this way you can just step away from the computer slowly before clicking it off.

Two pounds a month! Of course, back then, sugar wasn't in everything we purchased...hmmm

Don't waste it. What a concept!

I love this one; it has a lot of info, you can click to enlarge it.

When I started gardening, you could go to a county  Extension Office and get all sorts of free booklets, pamphlets and advice on everything from canning to building goat milk stands to raising bees. There were classes held as well. Why not have that happen again to help create jobs and help people find a way to help themselves? Classes in urban gardening, how to create a community garden...yes, the info is all out there but it's a harder row to hoe by yourself. So to speak. Pun intended.

I think I've posted this before but it's so great,  I have to post it again.

I'm patriotic as can be--And Monsanto's junk won't worry me!

Which just goes to show, you don't need to lose your style
when wearing overalls and a bandana and...a soldiers hat.
No brim included.

The British posters of both great wars seemed more urgent, scarier and a bit more exciting, more energetic than ours. Of course, having bombs dropped regularly on your neighborhood might have been a factor. Probably that.

I mean, who wouldn't get out of their way?
They are going to kick some serious recycling butt.
Paper Metal Bones. Sounds like a scary game. Oh yeah, it was real.
Oh yeah, it still is. Oops.

So get your ass out of the HOV lane and join a car-sharing  club!

This has so much potential that I believe
I will leave you to devise your own entertainment.

I think it comes down to, how real does something have to be before we take preventative actions that are clearly hovering on the have-to rather than choose-to wall? Maybe there is an aspect about how good your imagination is for cold, hunger, fear, survival. And maybe it's just more fun to go play. Plant a tomato plant anyway. You'll be glad you did!

Have a more than monotonous Monday! Do something like the Mambo.

Simple Sunday - and Earth Day Too!

Mother Earth labors. 

Have an extra Earth around?

Then treat her kindly.

(I suggest using full screen here. Have an excellent Earth Sunday!)

Some Culebra Colors

I'm up on the hill now, but as I was getting ready to leave, this sailboat and speedboat were each moving across the bay, one in a roaring froth of foaming white water, one in a gentle swath of white sail.

Up on the hill the world is different. Overviews really are viewed over, sounds rise up like smoke - voices and vehicles, roosters and dogs, from not just a neighbor or out on my street, but from ground up to my ears, a whole hillside of sound. Not quite a cacophony, but like aural tracers, my ears almost twitch looking for sources.

In the middle is a great playground that just got a fresh paint job. At water's edge is a house compound that also just got a fresh paint job. Nice work! Especially if you like purples and blues...and I do.

But I'll take corals too.

One of my chores up here is to keep the plants happy, something I really like to do. My usual goal is to get something wind blown and ragged to have at least one bloom by the time the home/pet people get back. It's really windy up here, a lot of the time and it's a tough environment for plants, but somehow, most of them hang on, year after year.  

This volunteer tomato out in the side yard is producing some of the best cherry tomatoes I've had for a while.

Frangipani over Vieques

It always takes me a day or so to adjust to being up here. Dogs, for one thing. They are not cats. 

They stood there, staring at a) cats b) the sound of dogs barking below c) the wind, and I could read their doggy minds. "If we didn't have these damn fence collars on, we'd be sooooooo on it!"

There is the cat (one of two) here that I fostered as a wee one, now grown up. There must be something about cats with definitive tail tips that makes them awesome cats. 

And now, down to the chicks, down to the Cat, down to the water's edge. It feels like Saturday.

Have a be special Saturday.    Do something searching that you find.