A Birthday Party and Fathers Day Celebration

It has been 11 years since John's Birthday happened to sync up with Fathers Day, the 3rd Sunday of June. Yesterday was the day, so we decided we needed to celebrate Texas style and invite some expat friends to join us for barbequed brisket, celebrate all the dads in the group and wish John a "Happy Birthday".

We found we couldn't just go down to the local Carneceria Macho (butcher) and buy a brisket. Macho didn't have a clue where the brisket cut comes from, so I found a beef chart on the internet with a layout of all the U.S. beef cuts. It has diagrams and arrows pointing to the section of the steer's body from which the cut is taken. Macho placed our order last weekend and called us on Friday to come up to the carneceria and show them how we needed the brisket trimmed. We bought two full size briskets and John when about the task of smoking them.

Each brisket takes about 24 hours at 190°F to be properly smoked and cooked. John managed to pack some Mesquite wood chips into our shipping container when we moved here in 2011. This was just what we needed to give the brisket that special Texas flavor. He started one brisket on Friday and then cooked the second one Saturday. By around 10 AM yesterday, the briskets were both fork tender perfection.

Earlier in the week, I experimented with pinto beans, trying to come up with the perfect Ranch style bean recipe. We used to buy the beans in a can back in Texas, but I managed to successfully create a delicious recipe. Let me tell you, these beans were even better than what we used buy in a can.

We always have large quantities of John's Texas BBQ Sauce on hand, so it was just a question of pulling together a few extra ingredients to make this party happen. I sliced up some onions and Jalapeño peppers for garnishing, then made two batches of Corny Jalapeño Skillet Corn Bread.

For dessert, I made a carrot cake and we bought some designer ice cream from "La Cosa Rica" that is just around the corner from our house.

Party time was set for 3 PM in our Rancho. Friends brought a few extra goodies to add to the meal and a great time was had by all.

For many of us, it had been a long time since we had indulged on a barbecue feast like this and as one of our party goers said, "Brisket was fabulous! For a moment, I almost missed Texas." Now that Macho has a copy of the beef chart, we won't wait so long to try doing this again.

Yum!
Read the whole story...

Cane Toad or Bufo Poisoning

What a scare Randy, our Jack Russell Terrorist, gave us last night. We knew it was just a matter of time before he would have an encounter with the deadly Cane Toad, or Bufo.

We had gone into town to meet friends for dinner and left da boyz, Randy and Goose, in the house for a change. Now that Costa Rica is in the green season, the rains come almost every afternoon, or evening. This is the optimum time for the poisonous Bufo to come into the garden looking for bugs. These toads are deadly poisonous to dogs and we don't want our boyz outside when there is even a remote possibility a Bufo could be in the yard.

We came home around 8:30 PM and John immediately started to do his nightly Bufo patrol. I opened the kitchen door and Randy and Goose darted around me to get outside. Too late... there was no stopping Randy. He spotted a Bufo before John could get to it and his little Jack Russell brain locked into the hunt. It didn't matter how John yelled at him to stop. Randy was on a mission.

John scooped Randy up, with Goose tagging along like a good boy behind, and rushed him to the sink in the utility room to start rinsing Randy's mouth before he could ingest the poison.

The cane the toad produces venom from two venom glands which appear as two oval enlargements behind the eyes on the head.

The glands hold a milky substances that is a neurotoxin. When ingested, it causes foaming of the mouth, paralysis, convulsions and finally cardiac arrest. This is so terrifying because all of this happens rapidly from the first onset of symptoms.

We discussed the possibility of Bufo poisoning with our vet a couple of years ago and she recommend keeping Club Soda and blood pressure meds on hand in case of an emergency.

I grabbed a bottle of club soda so John could start rinsing Randy's mouth and then shaved off the recommended minute amount of BP medication. By this time, Randy was shaking and his breathing was a little raspy. John had to pry Randy's mouth open so he could thoroughly rinse and towel dry the inside of his mouth and cheeks.

We weren't sure if the crisis was behind us, and with no emergency vet in our little town, I called a good friend of ours that runs an animal rescue shelter to see if she could give us some advice. Frances recommended we give Randy some milk with an egg and some lemon juice and told us to bring Randy to her if he got worse. Randy lapped up most of the concoction and the shaking stopped. We are so grateful for Frances and her sage advice. We stayed up late last night, watching him until we were sure the worst of it was over.

John patrolled the yard again last night for more Bufos and sent a few on a one-way, non-stop flight over our property wall. (It's important to note our neighbor property is vacant and there are no animals living there that could be hurt by a Bufo.) John found the toad Randy had bit and we were really lucky his hunting skills are not as good as they were when he was a young pup. This time Randy bit the hind quarter, avoiding the deadly poison sacs. I know John didn't get much sleep last night, he was vigilant all night, making sure Randy was on the mend.

We still have several months of rainy season left this year and as soon as the sun sets we will be on Bufo Patrol everytime da boyz want to go outside and water a tree.
Read the whole story...

Road trip to Playa Jaco the long way... via Puriscal

This morning I told John it was time for a "day off" from the daily grind of retirement and we needed to go on a road trip to somewhere we had never been. So I suggested we take a drive up to Santiago de Puriscal, to the South of us, in the mountains at about 3500 feet in altitude. From there we continued south, on the old road, Highway 239, all the way down to the Pacific coast, somewhere between Playa Jaco and Parrita.

Today was a good day for a road trip, the weather was clear and beautiful, and the rainy season is just now starting, so everything is vibrant green again.

It's only about 35 kilometers from Puriscal to the Pacific on this road, but only the first half is paved. We continued to climb up the mountain to around 4200 feet and the temperature was so pleasant we opened the window and turned off the A/C. As we came around a curve, we found this big guy parked in front of someone's house. 

We looked up to the left to see where it came from and this is where it rolled down. Can you imagine the racket it made as is came to it's resting place. The folks living in that house sure were lucky this bolder ran out of steam when it did, or they'd have been like the Wicked Witch of OZ.



There were some beautiful vistas on this road and this photo doesn't begin to do them justice.


It wasn't too long after the bolder that we came across this sight. You've heard of a "vehicle in tow", but I'll bet you've never seen a "horse in tow" without a trailer.


The driver was just coasting and the horse was just walking along behind, like a dog out for a walk on leash.


The road was pretty good for a dirt road until we came to this very narrow iron bridge. Then the road was nothing but a dirt track, about 17 kilometers of BAD road.


When we dropped down out of the mountains, we saw the remains of someone's pipe dream of a "gated community". What on earth were they thinking? Who, in their right mind, would invest in property at least 10 kilometers from a decent highway, and probably 25 to 30 kilometers to any sort of amenities, like a grocery store, pharmacy, gas station, medical care, you know what I mean, the basic stuff you just gotta have. Sheesh, no wonder it's abandoned.

So here is one finished house with an empty pool and the steel framing for two more houses. Lots of money down the drain on this venture.

It took us about 2½ hours to drive from Puriscal to Jaco Beach, and since it was already lunchtime, we stopped for some Arroz con Camerones (Shrimp and Rice) at a local seafood restaurant before heading home on the Autopista del Sol, Costa Rica's version of a super highway. The final leg of the journey only took an hour, but that 17 kilometers of BAD road took it's toll on my chauffeur.

I thinks it's going to be a "kick back" sort of evening with maybe popcorn, or cheese 'n crackers, for dinner.

Read the whole story...

Where are our lost friends???

We seem to have misplaced a couple of good friends. The last time we saw them was when we went to have lunch with them at the beautiful home they were renting in Punta Leona on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. That was way back in October, 2012.

I received an email in December, 2012, from my friend saying her yahoo email account had been compromised. She said she was going to close the yahoo account and open a gmail account. That was the last time we heard from M and T.

I've tried to find M and T on Facebook, but no luck. I know at one point M used to follow our blog and frequently sent me comments about our posts. So, on the off chance that M or T happens to see this post, please send us a note to let us know where you are and how you are. We miss you guys.
Read the whole story...

Water water, everywhere (again)

Hooray!  The city water supply, AyA, is back up and running.  No more operating toilets with jugs of bottled water.  We can shower!  We can go down to the bodega and turn on the pump again.

Oh ... the bodega has water running out from under the door.

Oh, the water is pouring out of the top of the pump, all over my tools and equipment that never made it out of the boxes yet.  Oh, hell.


This all started two days ago.  We didn't know that it had even started at all until early Sunday morning.  Pat awakened me with, "John ... somethings wrong ... (adrenaline level spikes) ... there's no water and I think the pump has been running all night!

"Yikes.  I'm thinking that I'll find the pump running inside the bodega, emitting smoke because of running dry for hours.

I grabbed the keys and ran out the back door and down to the bodega. Threw open the door.  No smoke.  Phew!  I just shut off the breaker to the pump and closed the door.  Mistake.
It took awhile to check the water tank (empty) and the various water feeds (dry) and to verify that the water meters hadn't been stolen or removed by the water company in yet another "miscommunication" at the water company's offices.

On the second trip to the street, in an attempt to find out if anybody else had water, a neighbor mentioned that she hadn't had water for two days.  Nobody in the hood had water for two days because the AyA contractor, MECA, cut the main waterline and decided it was perfectly acceptable to knock off work at noon on Saturday, without fixing it.  We'd been running off of our big tank, blissfully unaware of the situation, and then the automatic nighttime water sprinklers came on and drained 'er dry.  Great.

Even with bathrooms all over the place, it only takes a short time for a long term lack of water to get to a crisis stage.  So, off we went to the grocery store to grab some 5 gallon water cooler jugs and a bunch of more user-friendly 6 liter babies.  Since it was Sunday -- meaning that there wasn't an icicles prayer of seeing a repair happen before Monday, if then -- we really loaded up on bottles.  We also alerted friends in other water jurisdictions that we might be over Monday on a water raid, filling up newly emptied jugs.

However, Monday dawned with the sweet sound of toilet tanks filling.

Wait.

How are the toilet tanks filling if the pump is turned off?  Oh, yeah, there must be a backfeed somehow through the old casita feed and we're seeing city water main pressure.  I wonder how that works?  I thought ....

Down I tramped to the bodega.  There to my wondering eyes is a cascade of water pouring out of the top of the pump.

It happens that my failure to actually get down on the dark grubby floor and inspect the pump's plumbing after the all night run of Saturday/Sunday has lead to the current flood.  It seems that Mr. Pump had generated so much heat, while running dry, that he had melted the plastic pipe fittings coming off of his high pressure side.  Now those melted fittings were leaking at several joints, due to the mystery cross connection with city water pressure.  And running all over the floor and out the door.

Need to shut off the water and get busy.  That valve and that valve and that valve.  There.  Off ... not.  Well, maybe that valve.  Nope.  O.K., back out to the street and shut off the city's valves to both water meters.

Even with this there was an AMAZING amount of water pressure trapped in the web of stretched plastic pipe all over this stinking compound.  And, of course, the pump is the low point in all of this circuitry so when I finally broke the pipe unions at the pump, I felt like I was bailing the engine room of the Titanic.

A quick trip to the hardware store for replacement fittings; back to the bodega; grab some dripping wrenches; get to work.

Unions broken and ... wait ... what?  The undamaged pipe joints are loose at the backflow preventer valve.  Both ends.

Yep.  In an apparent attempt to save themselves a penny or two on each backflow valve, the fine engineers over in China had shortened the threaded ends of their valve so that the threads were way too short for a standard threaded plastic fitting to  engage completely and seal.  Soooooo ...

The pump "expert" who we hired for the original install of our pressure system had wacked off the ends of the plastic male pipe threads (with a machete, from the looks of things) and then wrapped those threads with a half mile of teflon tape.  It worked fine, for a year, until it all got a little over-heated.

Hey, I can play that game too.  Today, I shortened my new fittings, a bit more carefully, with a saw and file, taped the crap out of them and jammed to pump piping back together.

It might last for another year.

If the pump isn't damaged beyond use.

If there isn't an earthquake.

If there isn't some other source of heat or shaking or if Murphy doesn't show up.

Maybe I need to install a flood alarm.  And a low water level alarm.  And an automatic power cutoff for the pump if there's a flow interruption.

This could get expensive.  Heck with it.  I'm taking a nap.
Read the whole story...

The "Yigüirro", the National Bird of Costa Rica

We have an Yigüirro (ee-gear-row) that has fallen in love with it's reflection in our dining room window. It flits between the mango tree, at our neighbors, and our window, where it will perch and tap on the glass for a good part of the day.

This clay-colored robin, or thrush, is the national bird of Costa Rica. In spite of all the beautiful exotic birds found in Costa Rica, the Yigüirro was chosen in 1977 for several reasons. Due to its wide range and tendency to live close to humans, it is well known and therefore mentioned in many of Costa Rica’s folk songs, short stories and novels.

The males are also cherished for their exquisite song; during mating season, they serenade potential mates with an unmistakable tune. Click here to listen to their beautiful song.



Read the whole story...

We are finally on the Google map!

If you've ever wondered what our place is like, you can finally see our hogar (home) in Google Earth. For years we've been looking at blurry satellite images of the Atenas area and our place was just a dark smudge on the map. Last month Google obtained new images and you can clearly see our property and all of the surrounding neighborhoods.

Click to enlarge

This image was updated in March, just after our annual neighborhood fiesta and rodeo. You can still see the bull ring and the flat bed trailers where they had setup chairs for the spectators. It's too bad the image was taken at the end of the dry season... the recent rain has already started to turn the sports field green again.

So now when you think of us, you'll be able to picture us living here in our tropical paradise.
Read the whole story...

Culinary delights from our stone oven

What a treat we been enjoying this week. John brined a fresh ham and cooked it in our wood fired stone oven. The ham is just delicious and we've been fixing it every way you can think of... sliced hot, cold, in sandwiches, fried, etc. If you want the recipe and the full story click on this link:

How to brine and cook a fresh ham...
Read the whole story...