Some source of protein is required.
Get a bunch of chickens and you'll have poultry and eggs. The
chickens here now are free range and roost in the lemon tree. When
they lay eggs, the monkey searches them out and breaks them before
anybody can find them. You need a lot of chickens. No coop? What
is that? Put the tin laying on the dock on top of it and add some
roosts and brood boxes and fill with chicks and you'll have chicken
in six weeks. Put the chickens in there at night and you can have
eggs starting the next day. I guess the chicken coop will have to be
kept closed at all times and the eggs laid at night can be salvaged.
If the coop is left open it will only serve as a central point for
egg stealing, egg smashing mayhem.
I tried to fix the ballcock on a toilet
but grew frustrated when the water service kept coming and going.
The cisterns are going to be relocated up the hill then gravity feed
will provide water. This makeshift boat pump is completely
inadequate and runs near constantly, with the slightest flow of
water. An air tank is in order.
Food and water. Need food and water,
then work on the other stuff.
Making Coconut oil.
The first phase of making coconut oil
involves husking coconut. The technique employed here is to bang
the coconut on a pointed stick. The stick was soft, rounded, not
working well. Why don't you use a coconut splitter? Never heard of
it? I drew a picture, a simple device that looks like flat jawed
pliers with three foot handles, crafted out of rebar.
Ok, I'll go get some nispero and make a
new stick. Nispero is ironwood, so dense it doesn't float and so
hard a nail cannot be driven into it. I walked down to the dock,
crafted one and walked back up stairs.
Amanda in a black dress and Rain in a
tank top and gym shorts. cracking open coconuts by smashing on a
stake. Once cracked, the core is drilled to remove the coconut water
after which it is cracked with a machete a task Amanda was
undertaking, “I love doing this.” Please stop swinging that
machete in my direction. Must have said it twenty times. Each time
she complied followed by more attention to the task than any regard
for others by.
Once the core is split the meat is
extracted and grated, then pressed to extract the oil. I discovered
a far faster way.
Building a stone wall
Karl, Sam and Dan walking down a steep
hill to the beach to get some aggregate and cement, carrying up to a
flat spot to mix in a wheel barrow and then carrying down the steep
hill in five gallon buckets. Quite a change from the seventeen year
old cursing the task of raking the lawn.
Topo, The monkey is back. Who knows
what he has been up to? Over to the other side to commune with other
Capuchins? No black eyes, so he hasn't been fighting with the much
larger howler monkeys. Maybe just eating bugs and raping small
mammals, but that seems a little tame for the hellion.
Michelle: “I'm so glad Topo is
back.”
Me: “I'm so glad that rash on my ass
is back.”
The Ngobe workers are on the dock
tearing down what remains of the original house.
I'm too sick and weak to be of much
help.
Monkey jerked off and emitted some
thick green fluid, licked it off and went on his way.
12:03, Why is there no power? The
generator pull cord was broken. Why didn't anybody tell me? I
searched the bodega for tools. What a sorry collection and what an
amazingly disorganized lot it is. Still it took but about 10 minutes
to fix, but having to resort to polypropylene means it will have to
be properly fixed after I secure some braided nylon cord.
It's been raining like hell, there is
but little water left. What the fuck? The concrete mixing takes but
a few gallons a batch. I'll have to look into that.
Visitors
While we were
gathered for lunch Michelle saw a boat approaching her boat house.
“TOM!” “TOM!”
It wasn't Tom, an
anticipated volunteer but three people dressed to the hilt in “I
think I'm Jungle Jim” garb. Michelle yelled, “Did you talk with
the owner before coming here?” “Yes, we did.” “Well, I'm
the owner and you didn't talk with me, come up here and let's
discuss.” The threesome started up the hill. There was a quick
change of heart. “I don't want people just entering my sanctuary.”
They were greeted by Michelle and me, both casually carrying 30 inch
machetes. “Who are you and why are you here?” The guy flashed
some plastic from a distance of 50 feet and said that he was with
some research institute here to take photographs and some samples of
frogs. C'mon, that compact camera is not what a research institute
would use. Frog poachers. These little frogs, so abundant here,
exist only on this little island and go for $400 apiece on the black
market. “You need to leave now.” They headed down but veered
off near a large patch of dead leaves, the preferred habitat of the
frogs. “Go directly to the dock, do not walk off the the path.”
These guys had no shame, they continued but after repeated orders
made their way back on the path and returned to their boats. Damn
Michelle was pissed and went off to her office to do God knows what.
Topo jumped over the deck, swung
through the hammock bit Dan on the leg and returned to his perch on
the railing. Dan went batshit, “I hate that little bastard.”
The monkey started screeching and causing a huge ruckus. Dan
responded by holding his hands over his head with a charge. Topo
hopped back on the railing and perched on the thatched eves. Another
job well done. “What can I dick with next?”
We had lunch, I think it was a small
bowl of otoy, yet again. Damn I'm hungry. In the boat with a
couple of girls. Let's go see if we can find a market that sells
some vegetables, if I continue eating nothing but starchy roots I
think I'll die. One little wooden shack on the water after another.
No we don't have fish or vegetables. I dropped everybody off and
went on a quest finally buying out the last of the chicken that will
be available around here for at least a week.
We had chicken for dinner and for the
first time since any of the people have been here, we were finally
sated.
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