The Wee Mule

With two suitcases full of surprises for her Panamanian pair, Mom Clem hopped a flight to visit us here in Boquete. It was a veritable Christmas morning opening her bags full of our special requests from "The States". This included Randy's oldie-but-goodie electric orange juicer (the oranges bordering our property are sensational but the juicers they have here are crap), our fly fishing wading boots (since we've now found the rivers in which to use them) and Hormel chili with Fritos. I miss Sonic Frito Chili Pies SO BADLY! Here is a picture of Mom and me enjoying a delicious chili pie together...

We affectionately called Mom our little mule. She hauled our goodies down to us and then after a wonderfully memorable visit, lugged 21 bags filled with coffee from our very own Mañana Madera (very exciting!) back to the US for friends and relatives to enjoy. Thanks for a wonderful visit Mom-we love you!

Dirt under our fingernails

Our terraza is completed at last! We are busy adding colorful plants and flowers around it to distract from the purple floor. We've planted and transplanted and gathered this and that from various tiendas and from the tropical plant laden roadsides. We've got a whole new little garden going for less than thirty bucks. One thing we learned though is not to start planting things during the dry season. The rainy season starts in May so hopefully we can soon rely on Mother Nature to quench our pequino jardin's thirst.

The Fish Find

Although the gorgeous and crystal clear Boquete rivers look like perfect trout streams, unfortunately they don't house fish. This is because of pesticides in the water that kill the bugs that the fish eat. However, the Rio Chiriqui Viejo, just an hour and a half road trip away turned out to be a different story.

During our excursion we (Randy) caught not one but TWO (very small) trout! The even better news is that though he didn't hook one THAT time he did see trout in the Rio as big as ten inches! Ah, the perfect appetite wetting adventure and reason to return and fish another day. Being able to catch fish on his fly rod regularly is a big contributor to Rand's happiness so needless to say, we are both thrilled about the fish find.

We'd planned our fish quest on the same day we were scheduled to pick up some new furniture we'd had built. The drive home took us past the wood workshop where two Adirondack rockers, one chair and small table made out of teak were supposedly built and waiting for us. Well, wonder of wonders, the local guy from whom we'd commissioned them actually had them ready ON TIME (such a rarity here in Panama). All we had to do was load up The Gopher with our new goodies. Hopefully our still unfinished terraza will be done someday so that we can actually put our new furniture to good use.

Suspended

The David Fair is underway. We'd heard that the fair brought vendors from all over Central and South America, so we drove the 35 minutes to see what we could see. It was better than we had expected and we spent several hours browsing the grounds.

We feel like we got a pretty keen deal on a pair of hammocks from Ecuador. The pair cost us just $25. They are the perfect addition to our still unfinished yet already extremely enjoyable terraza. More photos in the Gallery under 'Boquete 2008'.

Casa de Pigott First Steps

We've signed on with a builder, Heriberto or "Toto" for short. Toto sent a retro (back hoe) up to our property to remove the coffee trees and a couple of dead trees from the areas where our home and road will be. We are staking out the property tomorrow and Toto will hopefully break ground on the future Pigott Casa this week.
And so it begins......we couldn't be more excited and READY!

Serene Scene

The fellow who is building our terraza told us that it would take him less than a week to complete the entire project. He said "By Saturday the terraza will be finished". We are 3 and a half weeks in currently and counting. Maybe we'll have a finished product THIS coming Saturday, a week from today. Hey, he said "Saturday", right? He just didn't say WHICH Saturday.....

The stained concrete floor was supposed to be chocolate colored but turned out kinda purple. They had little bags of red and black tint and kept throwing more red down because they were quickly running out of the black. We kept saying "Menos rojo, mas negro!" They ran out of stain with only a third of the deck concreted so now there is a pronounced line where they "joined" (scary since concrete doesn't bond to concrete) the previous day's dry side with the next day's application.

However, the view is so beautiful that we scarcely notice the botched floor. Yesterday afternoon was our first time to sit together on the terraza in our folding chairs and take it all in. WOW, what a serene scene!

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?