179. The Tax Season is Over but it Doesn’t End There!

Its Over Its Done GIFfrom Its Over GIFs

Tuesday 4/15- You might remember from our last blog post that we are babysitting Luna right now, as Randall and his wife are out of town for a long weekend. Bright and early this morning Ramie got a call from Randall saying that he had just received a call from someone in his neighborhood to let him know that his other dog, Hunter, got out and was roaming around the neighborhood. While they always find a sitter for Luna, Hunter typically gets left at home inside of their invisible fence, and Ramie goes over there every day to feed him and give him some scratches. Hunter must have been bored and tired of being alone and took the shock from the collar so he could go explore and have some fun, otherwise the battery in his collar may have died. Randall would be back in town this evening, but they couldn’t leave Hunter out all day, especially when they live so close to the highway, so Ramie went to catch him. Instead of putting him back in the invisible fence by himself (and in case the battery had died or something), Ramie brought Hunter back to our house for the day to play with Skye and his sister Luna.

Hey, I know you!

Since the dogs would be picked up today, Ramie decided to give Luna a 2nd bath so she was nice and fresh when she went home.

Husky Dirty GIFfrom Husky GIFs

Since she spends her days at the warehouse rolling in dirt her white fur was more tan/brown, and when you give her scratches your hands would turn brown. Bath #1 happened when she arrived and we decided that a 2nd bath would help even more.

After a couple of hours of the dogs playing together, Ramie noticed that, things were just too quiet. What were the dogs up to? Ramie called to them, and none of them came running. Hmm, that’s not a good sign. Ramie walked around the yard and to the lower part of our property and found Skye pacing near the creek. She had a very nervous look on her face (more than our typical nervous dog) and was looking back and forth between Ramie and the creek indicating that something may be that way. Ramie quickly figured out that it was Skye’s way of telling him that “Hunter and Luna went that way, but I’m a good girl and stayed here”. This situation kind of reminds me of the kid who is kind of a tattle-tale, but was also the one saying “but I was good, right?”

Figuring out what had happened, Ramie came back up to the house and got changed into long pants, cotton shirt, rubber boots, and bug spray, his exploring in the jungle gear, and went for a walk in the creek to see if he could find the two runaway dogs. I guess Hunter wasn’t done exploring today, and his sister Luna tagged after him.

The creek goes near the highway and into town in one direction and to farm fields the other way. The highway direction was not good, but the other option wasn’t any better because there is a Caiman that lives in the deeper pools of this creek just a short distance from our house toward the farm fields. Ramie saw two sets of dog prints in the mud, and followed them as far as he could before he saw that they turned back. UGH, where are they!? He was really hoping that they hadn’t found their way to the highway and decided to head back toward home. While it wasn’t far, it was down the highway and through town, and lots of dogs seem to get hit on this highway because people don’t pay attention, are bad drivers, and some just really don’t care. Once he was back near our house he went up into the empty lot on the other side of the creek calling their names, but still didn't see or hear them. Back into the creek he went and started walking towards town, and that's when he heard splashing and running towards him. Sure enough, here comes Hunter running down the creek towards him, but where was Luna? All of a sudden Luna appeared from the empty lot and poked her head through some brush, she jumped down into the creek and came to Ramie as well.

With Hunter and Luna back in our yard Ramie swears Skye was telling them that they were naughty and should not have done that. After their field trip this morning, Hunter was all wet and muddy and Luna who was white and soft just an hour ago was now all wet and muddy too. I guess it was time for another bath! Ramie tried to give Hunter a bath, but that turned out to be impossible; he wanted nothing to do with that! Ok, Ms. Luna, it's time for bath #3. After that, and now that all the dogs are back in the yard and safe, Ramie had a stern talking to Hunter and Luna (well, mostly Hunter) about how that was a very naughty thing to do. The dogs seemed to understand that what they did was bad, and the rest of the day they stuck around the house and were pretty calm.

Puppy Eyes GIFfrom Puppy GIFs

Other than doggy adventures, what else did we do today? Well, after talking about it for years, we finally booked a long-weekend “tourist trip” trip for ourselves to La Fortuna. We went to La Fortuna on one of our vacations years ago and made friends with the host/owner of the Airbnb that we stayed at and we have always said that we would make it back up there again. La Fortuna is about a 6-hour drive north of Uvita, there is a volcano and hot springs to enjoy, and in our opinion, it’s the perfect place for an after tax-season getaway. Now that tax season is over, we can take a little bit of time away without feeling too terrible about it, so we decided to book it now and get it on the calendar. In 3 weeks we would get out of town for 4 nights (but you better believe I’ll be taking the rest of that week off work for a stay-cation as well!). Now we had something to look forward to, and I would get some much-needed rest and relax time away from work.

If you didn’t pick up on it in prior blog posts, I was absolutely exhausted from tax season. My brain didn't last more than just a few hours of work and it would stop functioning properly. For the rest of this week and most of the following week I worked partial days, no more than 5-6 hours per day, to let myself start the recovery process. I wasn’t able to take any time off yet, though, because the boss at my main job was taking some time off and I had a lot of work to catch up on that had been put off for the last couple of months during the big push for filing the 2024 tax returns. I had to get caught up with things because in a few weeks I would finally be taking some time away.

Thursday 4/17- Now that tax season was officially over and any tax work that Ramie had left could be done at his leisure, it was time for him to start working “full time” at Karen & Dennis’s house to install their solar setup. Ramie had been helping them get their solar panel order figured out, but they don’t actually have those yet. He had to wait until the construction on the house was completely done and signed off on before he could start anything with the solar install and today he was finally able to get a good start on the project. There were some parts that he didn’t have, though, and they still needed to pick them up here in town, but unfortunately, it’s holy-week (the week before Easter), which means that many places are closed starting as early as Wednesday, and the hardware stores would be closed until next week. I guess Ramie would be getting a few days off from continuing work on this project too.

Mosaic was open this evening, though, and Val & Marshall invited us to hang out with them for some dinner and drinks there. While it isn’t Wine Wednesday or even a typical Friday evening out like we usually have with them at Mosaic, we agreed to go out and celebrate the end of our Tax Season.

Saturday 4/19- Today both Ramie and I spent a good chunk of the day hard at work on the blog. Since we were so busy for the last few months, the blog has been severely neglected, and we don’t have any more ready for you to enjoy. We had to go all the way back to Christmas to finish that, and catch up on everything since then! It’s a good thing that there wasn’t a whole lot to write about during tax season, so that maybe one day we will catch up to closer to real-time! (FYI, I’m finally writing THIS blog about April in July. Once I get behind, it takes forever to get caught up! We’ll continue to keep our fingers crossed to catch up before NEXT tax season!)

Sunday 4/20- Happy Birthday Skye!

Dog Birthday GIFfrom Dog GIFs

Our smart girl is now 2 years old.

It is also Easter, which means that it is our friend-iversary with Geoff & Tracy. I know I write it every year, and yes, I know that Easter happens at a different time every year, but it is easiest for me to remember that the first time we hung out with Geoff and Tracy was on Easter of 2022… so Easter will be our annual friend-iversary.

Because it’s Easter, most things are closed. Also because it is Easter, it’s kind of a “spring break” for Ticos and a lot of the people from the city come south to the beaches to celebrate, so we would NOT be celebrating at a beach. Instead, we did something that we always enjoy doing together, we went for an ATV ride! Over the river and through the woods (or jungle I suppose), but we aren’t going to grandma’s house, and it isn’t Christmas time! We went on a similar route to the one we did on our almost “overly adventurous” ride back in January, only this time we purposely avoided that scary detour.

Road Hazards happen, there was a fallen tree blocking our path. Good thing we are prepared.

Clearing the way, almost there!

On top of the world!

Yes, way down there is our little town of Uvita!

We stopped at one of our new favorite lookout areas to see the beautiful views of the ocean and the valley. We stopped at the abandoned ruins of what looked like it was a house, or was going to be a house, at some point, and even found some Easter lilies blooming. Tracy also found some other wild jungle plants that she picked to plant and try to grow in her yard.

We made another stop at one of our little pitstop spots for a break, to stretch our legs and get a group picture to commemorate the day...

and while we were standing around chatting, all of a sudden a car pulled up to where we were, traveling from the opposite direction. They stopped to ask whether the road from here to Uvita was passable, and told us that they were trying to get to a popular tourist waterfall. Where we stood at that moment, they were about 2 hours away from where they were supposed to be, and had gone in totally the opposite direction from where they started. We were trying to figure out how they ended up where we were, because they left from Uvita and it's only about a 45 minute drive by highway/ paved road to the waterfall that they were trying to find.

We were absolutely shocked that this car had made it this far and assured them that it was quite a wild road in the direction that they wanted to continue going, and that they wouldn’t be able to make it in the vehicle that they were in. Unfortunately, even though they had probably already been traveling for over an hour, they would have to turn around and go back to where they came from and use the typical route to get to the waterfall. It already seemed that their nerves were quite frazzled, so it was a good thing that we were there to tell them to turn around. After chatting for a little while, they said that they were going to go find somewhere for a beer and re-evaluate their plans for their day, and they turned around and got back on their way. We hung out here for a while longer before heading in the same direction that they did. As we were driving, we realized that they were able to make it as far as they had because the road in this direction was not as adventurous as the road we had come from, but we kept joking about running into them again. We stopped for some more scenic overlooks and side quests, and eventually ended up coming through a little town. Wouldn’t you know it, there was a pizza place with a bar, and sitting at a table right along the sidewalk were the tourists from earlier having that beer they said they were going to find! They made sure to yell and wave at us as we passed by and we honked the horn and waved back. We were glad that they had made it back to civilization. We made a quick stop at the far end of town for a short break and sure enough here they came. They stopped and confirmed the route back to Uvita and thanked us again for the help that we offered. Will they make it to their destination? We will never know unless we happen to bump into them again!

Happy Easter, this is about as close as we got to church today

We kept on our way, and eventually found our way back to the waterfall that we sometimes go swimming at. Geoff and Ramie decided to swim, but Tracy and I thought it was a little bit chilly for that, so we stayed back and watched the boys. When they were finished in the water, it was time to head home… kind of.

Where did Geoff go?

Take my hand!

Oh, I guess you can stand there!

We made a quick stop at our house to change clothes, pick up Skye and a few other things, and then headed up to Geoff and Tracy’s to keep the day going. It wasn’t until evening that we got home, gave Skye some much deserved birthday snuggles, and then headed to bed.

Dad went in to go to the bathroom and she sat there to make sure he came back out

Monday 4/21- Bright and early Monday morning it was back to work again for both Ramie & me. Instead of working at home on the computer, though, Ramie would be working up at Karen & Dennis’s again to continue the installation of the smart panel & wiring for their solar. As I mentioned before, they are installing the same setup that we have, so Ramie knows pretty much what he needs to do. They will have to make a decision soon about the solar panels, but they pretty much have decided what they are going to start with and it’s just a matter of ordering them. They wanted to get this first part done now for a few reasons though.

So that as soon as they DID get the panels, they would only have to focus on getting those installed, and then they would be up and running.
So they could use the inverter & batteries (charged from the grid) right away as a whole-house battery backup for when the power goes out.

As we mentioned previously when we were installing our solar, the power goes out a lot down here. Even if it isn’t storming or anything like that, the power will blink on and off many times per day, and not only is it irritating, it’s also not good for appliances and things like that. With the parts of the solar system that Ramie is installing now, Karen and Dennis will be able to charge their batteries from the grid and then have that back up going when the power blinks off. That in itself is a good reason to get this up and running as soon as they can, so that’s what Ramie would be doing. He spent all day Monday through Wednesday working on the wiring up at their house while I continued the same old thing at my job sitting at the computer.

Thursday 4/24- Ramie and I both took the day off from work today to make a shopping trip to San Isidro. It’s been a while since the last time we were there, and it was time for us to restock on things again, as well as look for a few other things that we can’t get or don’t want to pay a premium for in town. Plus, we heard news that they would be repairing a bridge along the way and that there may be huge slowdowns, so we wanted to make one more run over there before that road construction begins.

We did all of our normal shopping and don’t have anything very exciting to report this time, except for one very strange find… We stopped at an outlet store that sells what we suspect are returned items from Home Depot or something similar and found that they were selling snow blowers and snow shovels. I’m not exactly sure why anyone down here would buy a snow blower unless they plan to get very creative with it and turn it into something else!

Our main reason for stopping is because Ramie wants a tile saw. Of course, we had one when we were in the US, but sold it not thinking we would ever need it (just like a lot of things that we now think would have been really nice to have held onto). Ramie has already bought tile to do a backsplash in our kitchen and now needs a saw to cut it. We didn’t find a tile saw at the store with the snow blowers, but he did end up finding a really nice one at a different outlet store.

Friday 4/25- Today was pretty much a replay of Mon-Wed of this week. Ramie worked on installing solar, and I worked on work.

Saturday 4/26- It was the start of the weekend again, and I FINALLY had one with no work AND no plans! I have literally been waiting months for this!! I had 48 hours that I could do whatever I wanted to with no schedule and no expectations.

How would I spend this time? Well, we started the day with chores. So many things have been put off during tax season and it truly was time to catch up on some of the neglected items. Ramie worked in the yard for a good chunk of the day and I started cleaning the house and cleaning out and organizing the freezers. Does it ever happen to you that the freezers seem to be full, but you have no idea what’s in them? Well, that’s how I’ve been feeling and it’s time to figure out what is actually in there, and maybe come up with some meals that use some of that long-lost stuff.

We found these huge caterpillars eating our plants. They would eat an entire large leaf and only leave the stick before moving on to the next leaf.

Snow? Not quite, just ice from the chest freezer. Removing this should make more room!

Our freezer got sick and vomited

Almost got it finished.

When I was done cleaning, it was time to sit down at the blog for a few hours again.

Sunday 4/27- We didn’t do anything fun or exciting today either, and I was very ok with that because I really didn’t even want to do anything! It was just another slow day around the house doing whatever we felt like and whatever had to be done. I hope to have many more days and weekends like this in the coming months!

Monday 4/28- Its that time of year again when we paint the wall separating our yard from the neighbor's. Ramie had pressure washed it right after the rainy season ended, but then it sat and sat with its flaking paint while we were busy working. Since things have slowed down a little bit, Ramie decided that he would dig through the paint cans in the bodega and get to work. Unfortunately we didn't have the darker shade of blue that we used last time so he opted for a grey color that we had. We have no idea where this grey came from or what it was for, and it didn't match anything else, so we might as well use it up!

The Official Casa Costa Breeze end of April rainfall total was 14.10 inches

Thursday 5/1- Do you remember how I mentioned that Karen & Dennis didn’t have their solar panels yet while Ramie was working on installing the rest of the system? Well of course you do and if not, then you need to go back to the top of this blog post and start over. 😅

Well they made a decision on which ones they were going to order, and made a deposit earlier this week. Today the panels were delivered, so Ramie’s next job would be installing and wiring them so Karen and Dennis could start charging their batteries through the solar instead of through the grid. Ramie also had a few other jobs for other people that he worked on today. So many people that we know value Ramie’s help around their houses, and he’s starting to be referred out to people that they know as well. Ramie is picky & choosey about how much he takes on and what he can really help with, especially right now when he’s busy, but it’s nice to know that people value him and his work!

Friday 5/2- Today Ramie would be hanging out with Karen and Dennis again, except instead of working on their house, he offered his time to go to Panama with them and show them around.

Van Halen GIFfrom Van GIFs

They had been itching to go there for a while now but wanted either Loren and Nancy or Ramie and I to take them. I wasn’t able to tag along with them, but Ramie’s schedule opened up before Loren and Nancy’s so today would be the day. They hit the road around 7am and the drive was good for the most part, but there were several construction zones where they had to wait for ridiculous amounts of time to pass, so the normal 2 hour drive took much longer.

Once they arrived at the border, the first stop was the liquor store. Ramie helped get them started with how it worked to buy stuff here, then Ramie went to place his own order. Once everyone had their liquor shelves stocked up it was time to head to City Mall to do the main shopping. Before that, though, Ramie wanted to make a quick stop at one of the auto parts stores to look for some door edge protector. They pulled into one of the larger ones and Ramie went in while Karen & Dennis waited in the car. The employee at the store ended up directing Ramie to a guy selling what he needed out on the street. Ramie asked how much it was and they guy gave him the price for protectors for two doors of 5,000 colones. Ok that comes to about $5 per door. Ramie agreed and the guy asked how much he needed? Ramie told him how long to cut the pieces, the guy cut it and handed it to Ramie. Ramie then handed the guy a 20,000 colones ($40) bill and the guy said thank you, and that was all. Uhhh, no! Ramie told the guy “No, no no, 5,000”. Of course this is all in Spanish so sentences were a little bit choppy. The guy proceeded to change the price on Ramie and told him it was 5,000 per foot and Ramie had 4 feet of this stuff that wasn’t exactly what he wanted but was willing to pay the 5,000 ($10) for. For this price he REALLY didn't want it! The problem is, the guy had the money now. Ramie argued with him about the price and the guy decided to give him 10,000 back instead of the 15,000 change Ramie was expecting. At the end of the day, instead of this costing him $10 it cost $20. Yep, he got Gringoed! It happens. Later when he got home, Ramie messaged Randall about all of this and Randall assured him that it's very common and that things like this have happened to him as a Tico too. These guys on the streets are scammers and even Ticos get Gringoed, but this whole situation still really pissed Ramie off. Just another experience that he will learn from and remember to look out for.

Anyways, back in the truck and on the way to the mall Ramie helped Dennis navigate through town and to a parking lot. Of course, all along this street you have the guys trying to flag you down to park in their lot for tips, and there are people waving and yelling and cars everywhere, so it's very chaotic. They finally got parked in a parking lot nearby, walked across the street to the store, and each grabbed a cart and started the tour around. First the hygiene section, then upstairs to the electronics, clothing, shoes, hardware, etc. Once you were done upstairs, it was back downstairs for the groceries. In total, they probably spent a couple hours there walking around trying to find things on their list, which isn’t so different from the first couple of times we shopped there. They each had a full cart and it was time to check out and make the drive home. Once on the road home, Ramie asked what they thought about the experience. Since it was their first time and they of course were overwhelmed, they were unsure if it was worth the time to drive there and back for what they got. They did say, though, that the liquor was certainly worth the drive and Ramie agreed, but groceries and most of the rest of the stuff? Maybe not so much.

Saturday 5/3- Today the turtle reserve that Ramie volunteers at had an open to the public event. They had different programs and stations set up for learning about different animals in Costa Rica, and we signed up for a program to learn about butterflies. We showed up early (like we always do to pretty much everything) and started by going to the stations that were set up to learn about bats, turtles, and crocodiles. The program about butterflies was kind of neat to attend. We learned about all of the stages, from laid egg, through the caterpillar and cocoon stages, and finally into the butterflies. We got to see each stage up-close and in person, and got to walk through the butterfly garden. We also learned that each butterfly has a particular “host plant” that they lay their eggs on and that there are particular types of plants that the different species of caterpillars prefer. It was very fun and educational.

Since we were already in Ojochal, we stopped at one of the viveros (plant nursery) that we like down there and bought some more plants for our yard, then stopped at the pescaderia (fresh fish shop) to pick up whatever they had today to cook up for dinner. Of course, the next step when we got home was to plant our new plants. Ramie decided that he wanted more hummingbird/butterfly plants along our fence line both to attract more humming birds and butterflies, and once they grow bigger they turn into a pretty hedge for privacy. We ended up buying 12 of those and some other interesting things that caught our attention. It didn’t take long to get everything in the ground, and now we just wait for them to grow.

Removed some of the red plants to make room for different ones, and had other varieties of plants on standby to be planted next.

This evening we decided that it was time to switch things up for Skye. We have a whole bin of “extra” toys for her that she doesn’t always get to play with (because there are probably literally about 30 of them, and what dog needs 30 toys?!). We took away a couple of her toys that she really doesn’t play with too much now and put them back into storage, and selected a few from the extras bin to let her choose from for her next few months. I kept her entertained in our bedroom while Ramie laid a bunch of toys out on the floor in the living room. Once they were laid out in a line he called her to come. In the lineup were both brand new toys, and a few of the ones that she had before but had been put away in a previous round of changing out the toys. She trotted out into the living room and saw all the new toys lying there. She walked to each one and sniffed it. Then went back to just a couple, and sniffed those again, eventually she picked up a new ball and the two old ones that had been put away once before, Puffball and Stingray. Yes, all of Skye’s toys have names, and when you tell her to go get one, she almost always gets it right. She’s a very smart girl!