Tuesday 6/10- Ramie’s repairs, as he is known with some of our friends, is getting more and more work coming in. Today he had a request to go repair a house in the neighborhood where we used to rent.
The owners are in the process of selling their house and need some plumbing and electrical things fixed that will probably become issues during the inspection. It didn't take Ramie long to do the work today, but he knows he will have to go back to work on a few more things later.
For quite a while Skye has been suffering from what we think is something like athlete’s foot. We’ve been using a medicated cleaner that our regular vet recommended when she had a yeast infection in her ears and it cleaned that right up, however this foot issue has been going on for almost 2 months and now her feet are starting to blister between the toes and she licks and chews them until they are nearly raw. The medicated cleaner just isn't clearing it up so this afternoon we are going to take Skye to a different vet. We’ve decided to try a new vet in Palmar Norte, which is about an hour south of us, because we’ve heard nothing but great things about this guy.
The appointment was at 2:30 today, and of course Skye was super excited to go for a ride. However, once we got to the vet her attitude changed, and she turned into a big baby. She has never been to an actual vet’s office since we’ve had her, though, so it's not like she knew what this place was. We’ve always had our regular vet who comes to our house, so whatever instinct she has, it made her uneasy. We had to sit in the waiting area for a while before we were called in and you could hear the dogs who were in recovery from surgeries whimpering or barking in the back room, and this clearly made her super nervous. So nervous, in fact, that she insisted on sitting on Ramie’s lap, making him hold her while we waited. She wouldn’t even take a treat from me, and normally she loves treats!
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| I dont like this at all! Something is up! |
When we finally got called back to see the vet, who spoke very good English, he asked why we were there. We explained the situation and then we got her up on the table so he could take a look. The vet spent the next 45 minutes explaining in great detail what he believes the issue is, what may be causing it, how to prevent it, and so on. He was in no hurry at all and wanted us to understand what was going on with Skye. The diagnosis was basically a severe case of athlete's foot, but the question is what deeper issue is actually causing it? He believes that it is stemming from some sort of allergy. He said it could be anything from something in the food she eats, to cleaning products, herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers we use in our yard, or even the grass itself. Most of the things that we use are pretty natural and non-toxic, but if it could be food or grass that she’s allergic to, it could very well be the “non-toxic” things that we use too. He prescribed some medications, gave us our instructions, and we were done.
We went to the counter just outside the waiting area where we were given the meds, which included 10 days of prednisone & another pill (I don’t remember what), a spray for cleaning her feet, cream fungicide, and an anti-itch spray. All in, we spent $140 for the 5 medications, and 45 minutes of the vet's time. This is one of the great things about here, medical care, whether it’s for humans or animals, is almost always so reasonably priced compared to the US.
The second we walked out of the waiting room Skye calmed down and was super curious of the resident cats that were wandering around the store that the vets office was located in. As soon as we got home we got her started on the meds and cleaned her feet. Now we just have to continue this for a couple of weeks, keep an eye on it, and hope it clears it up!
Wednesday 6/11- Today Ramie’s team found their first turtle nest of the season with 106 eggs. Congrats Team Turtle! We hope for a successful season!
Saturday 6/14- It has been quite a while since we went to see Benny the chiropractor, and both Ramie and I were feeling quite creaky. First thing this morning we went to go see him to get an adjustment.
After our adjustment we had plans to go on an ATV ride with Karen & Dennis.
This would be their first ride with us, so we wanted to show them our route and some of our regular places. After a nice, scenic ride to the top of the mountain, we stopped at the waterfall near the coffee plantation to take in some scenery. We thought about climbing it, but the ATV tour was there, and the guides said that they have recently seen some very venomous snakes near the path, so we opted to not take the risk. The next stop was Don Emilio’s coffee plantation for a cup of coffee and a bit of Baileys, and then to the restaurant where we always smell the smoked meat, for lunch. It’s only the 2nd time we’ve stopped at this restaurant, but they are 2 for 2 on being delicious. We will be sure to stop again sometime when we are up the mountain!
Sunday 6/15- Happy Father’s day!
Since we had our “outing” for the weekend yesterday, today was all about catching up on things around the house. We spent a few hours working on the blog and cleaning the house, then we hit up the grocery store to restock on things that we needed for the next week or two.
Monday 6/16- Ramie was called to work with Randall this week. This job was located in a gated housing community that is quite expensive, estimated values of homes in the range of around $1 million and up, like way up! The house that they had to work at was for sale and on the market for $6 million (yes, that’s US dollars). The lady that owns this house has decided to move out of Costa Rica and wanted to bring some of her belongings with her to her new/future home in El Salvador.
This morning Ramie met Randall and his son Tyler (who lives in the US and visits during his summer vacation) at the shop before they hopped into Randall’s truck and headed up to the job. Once they turned off the Costanera (highway), it took another 30-45 minutes to get to the house at the top of the mountain. Due to the size of Randall’s truck, it was very slow going up the mountain! When they arrived, they had instructions to start in the guest house. It turned out that the guest house was roughly the size of our own house, if not bigger, and the pool was for sure twice the size of ours! It was a clear morning and the view from this house was amazing! Sorry no pictures, though, because they were too busy working.
Per the instructions, they loaded the particular items of furniture onto the truck.
Then it was time to go to the main house. Instead of hopping back in the truck with Randall, Ramie saw some stairs that headed to the main house, and he and Tyler took those instead. While Randall drove the truck around and backed it down the driveway to the garage, the stairs that Ramie & Tyler took led to the pool area of the main house. There was a sliding door that went into the kitchen and living room, so they walked in and started walking through the house trying to find the front door to meet up with Randall. Hallway after hallway led them to various rooms and each door out led to a zen garden area. Ramie and Tyler wandered around for what seemed like quite a while and still couldn't figure out how to get to the garage, the house was that big. Instead of continuing to search through all of these doors and halls, they decided just to walk through the garden and eventually found a door that led to the driveway.
If you can’t tell by the description so far, yes, this house is huge! The living room had 30’ tall ceilings, the master bedroom had its own room-sized closets, there were separate bathrooms and shower rooms, and even an office. Later he learned that there were 4 separate bedrooms, each just as massive as the master! While Ramie was describing it, he said that one could easily roller skate through this house and have plenty of space without anything in the way. This was all in addition to that separate casita or guest house that’s the size of our house, with it's own pool, on the other side of the zen garden. This whole property was completely insane! Honestly, who needs this many gigantic rooms?! Especially since they think that woman lived here by herself. You would think that a house that is selling for $6 million dollars would be well kept, right? Well, it turns out that clearly wasn’t the case because Ramie said that just by looking around he could tell that a LOT of things needed to be repaired. For instance, every wall sconce in one of the main hallways looked like they were loose and falling off the walls. The tiles still needed to be grouted in one area, and it looked like the house had been left somewhat unfinished. The walls themselves were kind of nasty and needed to be scrubbed and cleaned. The worst part about it is that this house is only about 1 year old. How could it deteriorate to such a poor condition so quickly!? Easy, this is the tropics. It takes no time at all for things to start falling apart here without constant attention, and that was something this house was lacking.
Anyways, back to work. There was a lot of furniture, and 40+ bins that needed to be brought back to the warehouse where they would palletize them and get ready to load them into the truck that would bring them to El Salvador. The guys worked hard and loaded Randall’s truck with as much as they could until they couldn't fit anymore on it. But, there were still more things that had to be moved! I guess they will have to make another trip later. With the truck fully loaded with the first batch, it was time to head back down the mountain.
Randall made a couple stops on the way down to check the straps and make sure nothing was shifting, as it was not exactly a smooth road. You know, its the typical Costa Rica dirt mountain roads that we often describe. When they finally made it back to the warehouse, they had to unload everything that they just put on the truck. This whole thing took the majority of the Monday.
Tuesday 6/17- It was back to work for Ramie today, as the guys had to go back up to that big house to finish loading the rest of the items that didn’t fit on the truck yesterday. All said and done, they moved 2 full truck loads of bins and furniture out of this house. That was a lot of stuff, and Ramie and Randall thought it was an absolute waste since much the furniture was in very bad shape, starting to rot, and full of mold, and should have probably just been thrown away. It was disgusting just to handle it, so why the owner insisted on paying for it to be moved to their new home, we have no idea! She is the one with the money, and probably more money than brains. By the time they had it all unloaded at the warehouse, this again took most of the day, and they will have to spend more time making the pallets so it's easier to ship, but that's another job for another day.
Wednesday 6/19- Today Ramie got word from Randall that they had to go back up to those rich houses in Costa Verde Estates. Ramie asked if it was for more things for the same lady, but that wasn’t the case. Today they had to deliver some furniture to a different house. It turned out that someone decided to go antique shopping and have the antique furniture shipped to their house here in Uvita. Again, we don't understand what was going through these rich people’s minds, because if you’ve ever spent much time in this area you should understand that antique furniture, and many things designed for use in different climates, just don't hold up here in the jungle. Ramie went to the warehouse first again this morning to help load this furniture (onto a regular pick up truck this time instead of Randall’s big truck) and made the same drive up the mountain again. When they arrived at the house they had to wait for a friend of the owner to come and inspect the furniture. They unwrapped all the protective material from the pieces, and sure enough, as suspected by people who think things through a little bit more than the owners, it was already completely full of mold! Again, this is pretty typical down here, and why people think doing things like this is a good idea, we will never know! The friend who came to inspect wiped off the mold the best she could, and directed them where each piece needed to go. Thankfully there were only 3 pieces, but 2 of them had to be carried upstairs to the 2nd floor bedrooms. The guys spent just under 2 hours unloading these 3 pieces before heading back to the warehouse.
It was around lunch time and they were hungry so Randall made a call to Papuchone, a guy in town who owns a little breakfast spot and delivers empanadas, sandwiches, frios (cold fruit drinks) and coffee around town from his motorcycle. He often comes by the warehouse in the morning and the guys will stop for a quick bite to eat, but since they were on the road today, they missed him at the shop.
Unfortunately he told Randall that wasn’t available for a delivery right now. As luck would have it, though, as they were driving along the highway they passed each other so Randall flagged him down. Papuchone turned his motorcycle around and came back to them to sell them some lunch on the side of the highway. Yes, this is them eating their lunch on the side of the road after flagging down a guy on a motorcycle. Something like this could never just happen anywhere back in the US, at least anywhere that we know of!
Thursday 6/19- As if 3 days in a row of working with Randall wasn’t enough, this morning Ramie was back at the warehouse for day number 4 to work on making those pallets of all that ladies stuff from Monday & Tuesday. Since there were 3 of them working, they were able to finish the majority of it today with only a few things left over for Randall to take care of later himself. There would be a box truck coming from El Salvador sometime in the next week or two to pick everything up, so as long as it was ready to go by then, they were ok.
Earlier this week I got a message from Tracy saying that she was looking for some interaction and asked if we wanted to go out to Los Gatos for dinner one of these days. We like going there because their food is really good and nearly all of it is hand-made, from scratch, in their own kitchen, but Tracy had a bit of an ulterior motive as well. She was planning a “volunteer appreciation day” for the pet rescue that she volunteers for, and Los Gatos has a “life size Jenga” game that Tracy wanted to see if she could borrow for that day. As always, we enjoyed the food and company, and Tracy got to borrow the Jenga game.
Friday 6/20- Even though we had just gone out to dinner with Tracy last night, Val and Marshall wanted to check out the new Jumanji Bar and invited us to go with them. Jumanji is located where a different restaurant that we really liked used to be, but we heard that they completely remodeled the place and it’s an entirely different experience. They were having a Mexican food themed night, and we all like Mexican food, so we had to check it out. The rumors were true, it looked completely different other than the awesome view of the ocean. The food and atmosphere were pretty darn good, and we all agreed that this is somewhere that we will go back to. They had a sign hanging on the wall that I should have snapped a picture of but I didn’t, that says “The best pet-friendly karaoke bar in the jungle”. I’m not so sure about karaoke, but I will say that it has good food and a good bar, and the fact that it is pet friendly is just a bonus!
Saturday 6/21- Another week has gone by, and we try to reserve the weekends for our own stuff. We didn’t have any fun plans for the weekend, but we did have a lot of chores to catch up on since Ramie had been working at other people’s stuff all week. He spent the morning doing yard work before it got too hot out and I worked on cleaning the house just a little bit deeper than I usually do. We had to run into town for some errands and got to play “elf” while we were out and about. With Geoff back in Canada and today being their anniversary, he asked us to pick up and deliver flowers to Tracy, so we took care of that before heading back home to keep up the chores.
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| Skye loves to go for car rides, and if she has to wait in the car, she loves to pretend she's driving! At least she is attentive.. or maybe she was staring at dad in the store in front of her.. 🤣 |
Monday 6/23- The third and final gate wall art project that Ramie has been working on has finally been finished. The first 2 pieces used the whole gate, but this last piece had to have some extra work done on it because it needed to be narrower. Ramie was able to get the last piece cut, welded, ground, and painted, and it was now time to hang it.
We aren't 100% sold on how they look in this position, but perhaps they will grow on us. I think if they went from the ground to the ceiling and filled the space completely, they would look better, but that just wasn’t be possible with the way they were made.
Since Ramie took over managing the three little Casitas at the entrance to our neighborhood, he has been working on coordinating with the cleaners to come on their monthly schedule, the landscapers to keep things trimmed up, and all of the little maintenance things that go along with long-term rentals as opposed to Airbnb properties. The old cleaners that the prior owner was using just weren’t responsive to Ramie, they wouldn't message him back and when they finally did it would be late at night. Ramie tried to keep using them at these houses, and asked several times to schedule the cleanings, but eventually their communication stopped all together. Fine, whatever. They will lose this job, as Ramie has other cleaners available who we have a relationship with, so Ramie to the Rescue with the connections that he’s made and another new job for our regular cleaning company that we can count on.
Tuesday 6/24- Today Ramie would be dealing with a little bit of a different issue with the 3 new rental casitas. The new owner of that property does not have a bank account in Costa Rica, and he needed a way for his long term renters to make their rent payments. The solution would be for Ramie to open another account in our name to keep the rental money separate. Not only would it make it easier to keep track of rent money received and expenses going out on those particular properties, but it would also help when it was time to transfer money between that owner (Josh) and Ramie. Going to the bank here is not a quick or fun task, but he would take care of this chore today. He headed off to the bank this morning with the expectation that this may take a while. It turned out that opening the account was super easy and didn’t take long at all. He learned that he didn't even have to go into the bank to do this and the teller showed Ramie how to do it from his phone. That whole process took less than 5 minutes!
Since he was at the bank, he had another task to take care of. Ramie’s bank card for our account had expired and he needed to get his new one. He received an email last week saying that it was at the bank and he should come to pick it up. He asked the teller for his new card, which, one would think would be another 5-minute process, but it turned out that this took over an hour. After signing numerous pieces of papers and feeling like he had signed his life away, they finally passed him his new card. Ramie told them that in the US they just mail you your card and it isn’t complicated at all. They just laughed and said "we know". As we’ve discovered (and have described to you so many times) leave it to Costa Rica to complicate the simple things!
Thursday 6/26- For the past week, maybe longer, Ramie had been coordinating a project to get the road in our neighborhood fixed. There are some big mud holes and wash outs, and overall it's just kind of rough to drive on. After getting multiple quotes and messaging the neighborhood group to bring the neighbors into the process and allow them to vote on what option to go with, the work is finally getting done today!
This morning Ramie met with Victor, a contractor who is mainly known to do road repairs and has all the equipment to do it properly. Ramie got right in there to direct him on what we were trying to accomplish, and actually rode on the equipment with Victor for a while, pointing things out, until he got a good start.
We have been talking about putting a tile backsplash in the kitchen for quite a while, in fact, we had purchased the tile for that job back sometime during tax season. Between all of the other things going on in our lives and helping other people with their projects, we just haven’t gotten around to doing it yet.
Today was finally the day when Ramie would tackle the tile job. He didn’t get a super early start on it today like he sometimes does with his projects, because how long could a simple backsplash take, right?
He worked all day and all afternoon on the job that seemed to be taking much longer than expected, and as he was getting closer to the last section of wall he realized that it didn’t look like he was going to have enough tile to finish it.
When he was at the store awhile ago he saw they had more in stock so he ran to the hardware store to get some. When he got there, they only had 4 pieces left and we probably needed 5-6, so he went to ask if they had any more somewhere else perhaps. They said they had 20 pieces left and went back to the shelf to look. They showed him the tile, and what they pointed to had the exact same SKU number on it but was a completely different tile. They explained to him that the manufacturer has changed the style and the particular one that we need isn’t available any more. Well that is confusing, and doesn't look good for us. I guess they were also able to check with the next closest store in Ojochal, and they didn’t have any of the matching ones left either.
Ramie bought the last 4 pieces and came home to figure out what we would do now. The next closest store was about an hour away whether we went to Palmar Norte or San Isidro. It was already getting late in the afternoon and even if we decided to go right now, we might not even make it to the store before they closed. Instead of trying tonight, Ramie kept going to finish up with the last of the pieces he did have. As he got closer and closer to the end he started puzzling together the “fall off” pieces from the other tile that he had to cut earlier, and through what was probably nothing more than pure luck, he was able to finish.
After the last pieces were put in, we put the kitchen back to a somewhat usable state so that I could throw together some dinner for us, and that would be all for today.
Saturday 6/28- With all of the tile set yesterday, today Ramie would grout it so that we could put the kitchen back together completely. He started working on the project right away in the morning today, and it was a good thing too since the hardware stores close early on Saturdays, and guess what… he had to go back! It turns out that he didn’t have enough grout to finish the job, so he had to go buy another bag. Man, for a small “simple” project like this, we really weren’t very well prepared! While Ramie was working on the grouting today, I worked on getting some more blog posts ready for you all to read.
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| Finished and everything back together... |
Monday 6/30- Today was the first day of what would be a very busy week for me, probably the first of a few very busy weeks for me, but it would be a very good kind of busy and would be quite beneficial to me in the end. Today I had a new employee starting, and I would be in charge of training her. I was very excited about getting a new addition to our team, not only because she would be someone I could bounce ideas off of, but also because once I got her up and running on how our firm operates, I would have a back-up that I could trust, meaning I could take some time off without leaving the firm in a bind. This is a very happy, busy day for me, and I’m excited about the future of us working together!
We ended up getting some rain over the weekend and Ramie was watching how the road repair was holding up and shedding the water off. Unfortunately, as he suspected, we would need more material brought in to fill the rest of the holes.
Ramie snapped some pictures of the road and put it out on the Whatsapp group for our neighborhood. He asked who would be willing to contribute to the expense of the extra material, and somewhat surprisingly, almost everyone was on board. Once this was confirmed he ordered the material, except this time we would go with crushed rock for these areas instead of the material that we had put in for the base. There is a gravel pit at the entrance of our road, and they sell this material and would deliver it for free, so we just had to pay for the material and the cost of the machine to spread it. No problem at all!
Instead of sitting around and waiting for them to deliver the material, Ramie had to drop off Dusti for the routine maintenance that it needed. He drove Dusti to the shop and walked home. He then jumped in our truck to go dig through a pile of scrap metal to look for some extra material for his next project: a homemade smoker. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to find much metal that would work for his needs, but he did come back with some. This man just never ends with his projects, right? I guess it’s good to keep him busy and out of too much trouble! When he got back from his “treasure hunt” he saw that the road guys were working on spreading the rock out, so Ramie went to monitor how that was going. After about an hour of helping this 2nd set of road guys determine where to put the additional material, Ramie reached back out to Victor who did the first part of the work to ask if he would use his compactor to pack down the new material. Since his compactor was actually still sitting by our house waiting to get picked up, Victor said he would be happy to compact the new material on our road, and he would even do it for free since the machine was already here and it wouldn’t take long. Awesome!!
The Official Casa Costa Breeze end of June rainfall total was 27.03 inches
Pura Vida!
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