Our First Building Project

We are building ourselves a terraza so that we will have a spot to sit and enjoy the shade, or as the case might be, take shelter from the rain while our house is being constructed over the next 8 months. The terraza has been in the process of being built for the past 10 days and during that time, the work has moved along at a slow but steady pace. However, today a lot happened including the cementing in of the four wood posts. Randy gets all the credit for how good these posts look. He picked them out himself - NICE JOB! For more pics of the terraza's construction, see our photo gallery.

Canine Survivor/Lord and Lady of the Land

Great news! The little rot pup survived his poison jerky ordeal. He and his brother and sister are as spry as ever and happily lope along with us each day while we are up hanging out and working on our property. We spend our days there using our new, gleaming machettes cutting and trimming this and that. Here is Rand posing with his. We've also bought gardening shears and gloves and will soon invest in a rake to get Mañana Madera (our name for our property) all cleaned and pruned. It already is proving to be a big job to get it all in shape but we do it con gusto (with pleasure) because after 2 years of being "on the road" without a permanent home, we now finally have some land to call OURS.

Veneno (Poison)

A dead brown dog appeared on our property followed by a dead black one. Hours later that same day, we were walking around our property accompanied by our neighbor's three CUTE Rottweiler puppies. One of the pups ate something off the ground and broke into convulsions a few seconds later. The puppy gobbled down a piece of what proved to be a poisoned piece of beef jerky. A traumatic scene for sure. Desperate to save the rot, Randy and our friend Thomas force fed the little guy cooking oil to prompt it to purge, which he did, but the jerky itself never came back up and out.

We alerted the dog's owner and the pup was taken to the vet. Unfortunately, we fear it may have been too late and the insecticide laced jerky (which a local friend of ours suggests was likely used to douse the meat) may have claimed him. We haven't seen that rot, OR either of the other 2 (shown in the picture) on our property since.

Brings about a new awareness for us of how careful we'll need to be with our future pooch.....

Our New Chariot - "The Gopher"

A four wheel drive vehicle is a good thing to have here in Boquete. While the majority of the roads are paved and generally good, there are areas on some of the mountain trails that are rocky and muddy, especially during the rainy season. For our peace of mind, Rand and I decided to find a 4 wheel drive to provide that little extra uumpfh if and when we should need it.

That being said, obtaining a used vehicle in Panama can be a scary undertaking since a lot of folks are very rough on their rides and don't put in enough, if any, maintenance and TLC along the way. Not to make a negative blanket statement, but most won't tell you that the transmission is hanging on by the hair of its chinny-chin-chin prior to you forking over the dough to buy it. However, we are optimistic that our new purchase which we affectionately call "The Gopher" will serve us well for a few years.
Here it is, posing in all its glory next to the Cascada del San Ramon-The San Ramon Waterfalls. Isn't it cute?