Well after something of a busy time, I finally have a moment to sit down and wish our readers a happy new year. We have been full since the end of November and we now have a little break until our next guests arrive.
Fishing has been superb, with the highlight for us a 70lb nurse shark caught by Steve Polley from the end of our dock. Very expertly handled on 20lb line and a 2 3/4lb rod, and witnessed by an admiring crowd including Ian and his little girl Ariel, who had her first close up sight and touch of a shark. Steve Wade, Steve Polley, Sue Polley, Ian Zeffert and Larry Schlorff all had memorable fishing firsts, including snook, tarpon, bonefish, permit and much more.
Steve and Ros Wade stayed with us for five weeks, and they are now more or less part of the family, they are promising to come again next year. We had to examine their luggage carefully when they left, as they were threatening to kidnap Faye and Suzie Q, as did Steve and Sue Polley. I think the dogs were a little tempted by the thought of delicious Sainsbury’s dog food!
We had some rather chilly (by our standards) weather at the beginning of December, a low sat over the western Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico and didn’t seem to want to move. The rainy season has gone on and on, but seems to have more or less ended now. By the middle of the month much nicer weather set in and we had day after day of very calm weather, perfect for fishing with just a little light cloud to cool things down.
One of the fun things which guests have been doing this winter is spending time catching pretty little fish from the end of the dock. These included a sea horse – one of two which we have spotted hanging around the posts of our dock. Steve P caught this by hand, though we disallowed this from our record list! Our little black and yellow pet fish, Nemo and Nemetta, resisted capture to the end. Probably the best small fish caught was a 10” long leather fish, caught by Sue P, quite a monster for this species.
The big news is, I suppose, that we now have our backup generator up and running. Having run just on solar seamlessly for 18 months, the day the generator was installed we needed to run it. A combination of a full house with some of the strangest, most overcast weather we have experienced meant that the solar couldn’t cope on its own – at least, not without having to cut back electricity consumption drastically, which is not ideal when we have guests. The generator has coped beautifully, it runs very quietly and the fuel consumption is excellent, so we are very pleased with it. It lives in the new generator building, which Rambo has built behind the old generator building, and which is surrounded by an area which will become a garden, with a cane fence. It is painted a fetching lilac colour, and actually looks quite nice.
Christmas was suitably jolly, with traditional Christmas dinner with turkey, roast potatoes, stuffing, peas and yes, brussels sprouts! We also had Christmas pud surrounded by hibiscus flowers and carried out to the veranda in the dark, looking very pretty, finally cheese and port. Ian joined us for dinner, and he enjoyed the “white woman food” and the Christmas traditions.
So what lovely pressies did you get, I hear you ask? Well, Chris had two boxes of his favourite sweeties, Maynard’s Wine Gums, also we had a lovely Sunday newspaper and a dvd from Robert, and a cd holder for the truck from Sam and Martha, shortbread and Harrod’s jam from Steve and Ros, oh, and I got three new chickens.
The chickens are kind of punk looking with sticky out feathers, I spotted them at Maya Centre, the village where the jaguar reserve is situated, while we were stopping off to buy Maya crafts. I asked the lady there if she would sell me some, and went back and bought two hens, a black one and a white one. The lady gave me a small brown one as a Christmas present – not sure if it’s a rooster or a hen, I hope it’s a rooster. They are called Holly, Ivy and Tinsel.
Tinsel was put into the broody coop where Wozina was sitting on some eggs. He is rather small, so he was safe in there rather than being loose with the main flock. After a couple of days, Wozina abandoned her eggs, figuring that there was a lovely baby there that she could have for her own, without all this sitting around. I had to hastily put another broody on the eggs, hopefully I noticed in time that Wozina had left them, and they should hatch in a few days time. Meantime, Wozina thinks Tinsel is the most lovely baby in the world, and makes a huge mother hen fuss of him all day long. The pair will be moved to the main coop if we manage to hatch the eggs.
We have too many roosters at the moment, so next week we will be doing a bit of culling, not our favourite job, but we will have some nice coq au vin to show for it. You really can’t get sentimental about the chickens. We only name those we plan to keep as broodies or roosters, and some of the layers get named.
Well, now we are about to watch Man Utd and Newcastle on TV, come on you Reds!
Fishing has been superb, with the highlight for us a 70lb nurse shark caught by Steve Polley from the end of our dock. Very expertly handled on 20lb line and a 2 3/4lb rod, and witnessed by an admiring crowd including Ian and his little girl Ariel, who had her first close up sight and touch of a shark. Steve Wade, Steve Polley, Sue Polley, Ian Zeffert and Larry Schlorff all had memorable fishing firsts, including snook, tarpon, bonefish, permit and much more.
Steve and Ros Wade stayed with us for five weeks, and they are now more or less part of the family, they are promising to come again next year. We had to examine their luggage carefully when they left, as they were threatening to kidnap Faye and Suzie Q, as did Steve and Sue Polley. I think the dogs were a little tempted by the thought of delicious Sainsbury’s dog food!
We had some rather chilly (by our standards) weather at the beginning of December, a low sat over the western Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico and didn’t seem to want to move. The rainy season has gone on and on, but seems to have more or less ended now. By the middle of the month much nicer weather set in and we had day after day of very calm weather, perfect for fishing with just a little light cloud to cool things down.
One of the fun things which guests have been doing this winter is spending time catching pretty little fish from the end of the dock. These included a sea horse – one of two which we have spotted hanging around the posts of our dock. Steve P caught this by hand, though we disallowed this from our record list! Our little black and yellow pet fish, Nemo and Nemetta, resisted capture to the end. Probably the best small fish caught was a 10” long leather fish, caught by Sue P, quite a monster for this species.
The big news is, I suppose, that we now have our backup generator up and running. Having run just on solar seamlessly for 18 months, the day the generator was installed we needed to run it. A combination of a full house with some of the strangest, most overcast weather we have experienced meant that the solar couldn’t cope on its own – at least, not without having to cut back electricity consumption drastically, which is not ideal when we have guests. The generator has coped beautifully, it runs very quietly and the fuel consumption is excellent, so we are very pleased with it. It lives in the new generator building, which Rambo has built behind the old generator building, and which is surrounded by an area which will become a garden, with a cane fence. It is painted a fetching lilac colour, and actually looks quite nice.
Christmas was suitably jolly, with traditional Christmas dinner with turkey, roast potatoes, stuffing, peas and yes, brussels sprouts! We also had Christmas pud surrounded by hibiscus flowers and carried out to the veranda in the dark, looking very pretty, finally cheese and port. Ian joined us for dinner, and he enjoyed the “white woman food” and the Christmas traditions.
So what lovely pressies did you get, I hear you ask? Well, Chris had two boxes of his favourite sweeties, Maynard’s Wine Gums, also we had a lovely Sunday newspaper and a dvd from Robert, and a cd holder for the truck from Sam and Martha, shortbread and Harrod’s jam from Steve and Ros, oh, and I got three new chickens.
The chickens are kind of punk looking with sticky out feathers, I spotted them at Maya Centre, the village where the jaguar reserve is situated, while we were stopping off to buy Maya crafts. I asked the lady there if she would sell me some, and went back and bought two hens, a black one and a white one. The lady gave me a small brown one as a Christmas present – not sure if it’s a rooster or a hen, I hope it’s a rooster. They are called Holly, Ivy and Tinsel.
Tinsel was put into the broody coop where Wozina was sitting on some eggs. He is rather small, so he was safe in there rather than being loose with the main flock. After a couple of days, Wozina abandoned her eggs, figuring that there was a lovely baby there that she could have for her own, without all this sitting around. I had to hastily put another broody on the eggs, hopefully I noticed in time that Wozina had left them, and they should hatch in a few days time. Meantime, Wozina thinks Tinsel is the most lovely baby in the world, and makes a huge mother hen fuss of him all day long. The pair will be moved to the main coop if we manage to hatch the eggs.
We have too many roosters at the moment, so next week we will be doing a bit of culling, not our favourite job, but we will have some nice coq au vin to show for it. You really can’t get sentimental about the chickens. We only name those we plan to keep as broodies or roosters, and some of the layers get named.
Well, now we are about to watch Man Utd and Newcastle on TV, come on you Reds!
posted by Sue Harris @ 10:25 am
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