"...and who knows what the tide will bring in."

     We're on a long stretch of uninterrupted beach at my place...thirty miles, almost totally empty of people.
     And though I am saddened by the trash, mostly plastic, that washes ashore creating a nasty, unsightly, and heavy workload for us - every now and then comes a treasure on the tide, like the dolphin I found years ago (see March 13, 2012 post). 
     We get pieces of coral, odd seeds, lots of pumice, interesting driftwood, hand-carved primitive wooden oars.
     But the dolphin mentioned above has easily been my favorite for years. This hand-sized, hand-carved bird is a close second.

     Thanks to Jose who found this treasure and made it a gift to me. 

     The title quote is from the movie "Castaway" which is how we feel sometimes, even though we're only eight miles by water from a lovely Italian restaurant with linen tableclothes and waiters in tux shirts.

Beach babies

    The number of visitors to False Bluff constantly increases as do the number of people buying property, so far all of them buying to the north of us. The new owners are mostly European and aren't babies - but more about that later.
     The little girl is part of the family that keeps False Bluff going when I'm not there.  The little boy is my grandson.  
     And playing in the sand is everybody's favorite pastime.

FY, FB

     (Front yard, False Bluff)

(pictures from a phone and then cropped -

 but you get the idea -

a great place for kids!)

AI? Do I believe this?

       Yes...because I was there when it happened.
     You can buy lots of brand new stuff on the sidewalks in Bluefields: belts and belt buckles, cell phone covers, bowls of fresh cut fruit, mosquito nets, and bright white socks.
     But not all of what's for sale is new, like these barbie dolls.



     Or this little toy that talks when the mirror is pressed. It seemed ideal for the youngest of us with its bright colors and a cord to help prevent its loss.        
     When first purchased it seemed to speak Spanish, although it might have been a different language...it certainly didn't speak English.
     But the toy had a bit of sidewalk dirt and so it got washed.  After that it didn't say anything at all for awhile.  But when it finally dried out it spoke English.  

     Go figure.

A third generation at False Bluff

Posting in absentia (or before absentia)

     When I'm at False Bluff I'm off grid.  
     And when I write "I'm off grid" I'm using those words in the most literal sense - because there's no grid to be on.
     Not having a grid is a temporary situation.  As of a year ago we actually have electric lines running across the property (see previous posts here) and although I've made arrangements to purchase a transformer from ENEL (yeah, you read that right: purchase), I don't have the transformer yet and when I do have it I don't know how much time will pass before the transformer will be installed and after the transformer's been installed I don't know how long before ENEL will install the meter base and after the meter base is installed I don't know how long before the house is even minimally wired (because the wiring just ain't gonna happen unless I'm on site) and once the house is wired I don't know how long it'll be before we get a booster in place so that we have internet service.
     Being the first to 'develop' heretofore 'undeveloped' land, property previously almost inaccessible, has its advantages: privacy, beauty, quiet, clear skies, sand with no footprints.....

     But there are a few obvious disadvantages as well.

      I first posted to this blog on July 16, 2011, and have worked to get a post up about once a week since then.  So prior to making a trip to False Bluff, since I know I'm going to be "off grid" for the duration, I write enough posts to cover my absence and then schedule them to be automatically uploaded at specific times, a service Google offers.
     This blog is a Google blog and Google makes this easy and Google is reliable about posting what I schedule: Google's handled three months' worth of uploads without breaking a sweat.

     Facebook offers the same write-and-schedule-a-post sort of thing that Google offers.  The huge difference is that Google delivers - and Facebook doesn't.  
     Two trips to False Bluff and Facebook blew it both times.  
     I prep for a time off grid the same way with both Google and Facebook: write a post and put it in the queue.
    But Facebook just can't seem to get the job done. Once, Facebook uploaded about four of the sceduled posts and the rest just died in queue. Another time Facebook uploaded a few, intact, but only bits and pieces of the others.
     Next trip I'll just post on Facebook before I go: I'M OFF GRID. MORE LATER.  
     On this Google blog it'll be business as usual.

Hibiscus sabdariffa, the drink

     Now I can drink hibiscus tea in Virginia. It's pricey in local Richmond stores, but I brought a pound back from Managua and that should keep me going until my next trip to False Bluff - where we now grow it.
     There are a lot of recipes and a lot of different ways of making the drink. I take the easiest and quickest route which is simply to boil the flowers about three minutes and then let them steep...fifteen minutes or so.  I often add ginger to either the hot drink or the cold; and sweeten to taste. 

     The drink looks like a good red wine or port. But reading articles, even serious ones, indicate hibiscus tea's good for lots of things. For instance, various studies show hibiscus sabdariffa is very high in antioxidants, that it has slight antibacterial effects and potential as a chemopreventative agent against tumor promotion. 
     In a study presented to the American Heart Association in 2008, researchers found that drinking three cups of hibiscus tea a day lowered blood pressure by as much as 13.2 percent in pre- and mildly hypertensive adults. Researchers have a few possible explanations for this. Hibiscus is a natural diuretic, it opens the arteries, and it may act as a natural angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, meaning that it slows the release of hormones that constrict blood vessels. 
     Hibiscus tea is not just another pretty face.

Hibiscus sabdariffa

     During my very first trip to Nicaragua I had a beautiful and tasty drink called 'hibiscus tea.' The color of red wine, the 'tea' is good hot or cold, but I couldn't find it again - until recently. Though neither the plant nor the flower look like the hibiscus plants and flowers I'm used to, the hibiscus sabdariffa is, indeed, in the hibiscus family.
     The plant is considered an annual in the area where False Bluff is, which is unusual for things that grow down here...like, I've got a hot pepper plant that's two years old that still bears like crazy and has a trunk like a small tree. 
     But the sabdariffa grows really fast and the flower blossoms are ready to harvest in a matter of months. Then it reseeds like crazy, starting the cycle all over again. In fact the plant produces harvestable flowers so fast going to try it in my Virginia garden next season.
     The tea made from an infusion of the plant's dried flowers is spectacular. The plant and its blooms are pretty boring.

This is an internet photo of the flowers because none of the plants at False Bluff were blooming when I was taking pictures.

movistar's pretty effective advertising

     There are a lot of neighborhoods in Bluefields, each with a different name:  Old Bank, Central, Beholden, Santa Rosa, Tres Cruces, Loma Fresca, Pancasan, and the list goes on.
     'movistar' recently put signs up at several 'boundary' spots for each, naming the neighborhood while advertising itself. The signs are nice. 
     And for the uninitiated, knowing what neighborhood you're in is always good.

P.S.  For those who might not already know, 'neighborhood' in Spanish is 'barrio.'

Claro and movistar

     ...are cell phone providers.  These two companies provide cell phone and other services all over Central (and South) America.  They are the two providers in Bluefields and like cell phone providers everywhere, there are Claro and movistar outlets all over town. 
     Most every phone customer prepays...and something these two companies do that I've certainly not seen in Virginia are special offers that get you extra minutes. For instance, in the photos below note that Claro's offering "6X" the number of minutes you pay for and movistar's offer is for "X5."  
     These deals are usually one day only and they work like this: if you are willing to buy, for instance, the equivalent of $20.00 USD (U.S. dollars) worth of minutes at Claro on the day the "6X" is offered, you get the number of minutes that six times $20.00 would buy you on a day the deal's not not the table.
     The "X" figure changes up or down as does the amount of money you have to spend to be able to take advantage of the offer - but what the hell - deal days are always good.

Red banana, redux

     Remember that newly planted red banana that I posted about in December, 2014 - with the pictures of how fast it had grown over a period of just three weeks?  The "not-yet-a-tree" had been planted at the base of a newly installed utility pole not too far from the kitchen.
    Here it is about six months later, starting a family of its own.

Spoor of ENEL

     And even when ENEL's not visiting and working, their spoor remains.

Mr. Julio

     There are several earlier blog posts here, with pictures, of some of Mr. Julio Lopez's hand-carved woodwork. 
     His studio and workshop are at his home; and his studio is loaded with lovely things on display that are made mostly from rosewood, sometimes from mahogany (the piece of a rocking horse, shown in the July 25, 2013, post is of mahogany and was considered by Mr. Julio to be a piece of trash when I found it at his workshop, on the ground, helping to prop up a bench).
     I try to visit him when I'm in Bluefields and often commission something from a piece of rosewood I get to pick out. He taught me early that many craftsman darken their rosewood pieces with shoe polish - so I always opt for un-shoe-polished. 
     And I always ask him to sign what he's made for me, which is what he's doing here:

     The shallow rosewood bowl shown above has a sea turtle carved at each end. The bowl is now in Richmond and currently filled with small 'officer' shells that I've collected on the beach at False Bluff (at least one local has told me these are called officer shells because they have stripes).

ENEL comes to visit

     ...often.

     ENEL (Empresa Nicaragüense de Electricidad) was created in 1994 and is the national company in charge of electricity generation, transmission, distribution and commercialization throughout Nicaragua.
     During the last couple of years ENEL installed power lines that run from the west side of the country to Kukra on the east, down the Caribbean coast to El Bluff, and then across Bluefields Bay to - of course - Bluefields.  And while much of this construction was ongoing I wrote a lot of posts about ENEL's activity on, and use of, False Bluff facilities between April and November, 2014. 
     Having electricity along the Caribbean coast - any part of the coast - was a huge surprise to us and is a game changer. All of my plans for False Bluff had revolved around solar power. Now, solar is "an" option, not the "only" option (we'd not given serious consideration to wind power because of the maintenance issues involved).
     Much of ENEL's construction work was staged from False Bluff. Watching it (and living with it) on a daily basis was interesting and thirteen posts here show the incredible amount, and difficulty, of what ENEL did to make it happen.     
     But with the precedent that our invitation set during construction in 2014, any time any work needs to be done on the lines for miles in either direction of False Bluff - False Bluff is where ENEL comes. 
     I think the crews like to visit False Bluff above and beyond the fact that being here provides easy access, and puts them close, to their work.

     And when they come to work they often stay for days, living in the house, hanging hammocks in the sea grapes, enjoying the Caribbean, cooking, doing their laundry...

and, of course, working.

Damn, I missed this...bad timing

     One of my favorite plants here at False Bluff forms a wreath around the base of a coconut tree.
     Merry Christmas year 'round (no pun intended) from nature!

     Lots of earlier posts about this zoysia grass (even when I mistakenly labeled it 'bermuda' grass), incuding how it first came to be at False Bluff.

Bearing already

     We've planted hundreds of coconut trees over the years and are still finding places for more.  Now the trees we've been planting over these years - are beginning to bear. 
     This is what the trees looked like about a year after they were planted (looking along the walkway that leads from the dock, heading toward the house with the Caribbean to the right).

     Here are the same trees in 2013.

     And in 2015 here's what they look like heading down the walkway toward the dock, away from the house...

     Among the earliest planted along the walkway is this one, the first to bear.

     Here's a close up of a machete-shaped (but green) part of the tree that will flower and then produce those huge seeds we know as coconuts.

     (Visually, coconut trees are integral to Caribbean beach life. Growing, bearing coconut trees however are a mixed blessing as I've written in earlier posts. Picking up and moving just the fruit of thousands of coconut trees is a huge chore...and with more trees being planted, constantly, the chore will grow.  But we may have solved the problem of what to do with the coconuts once we collect them from our big front yard.)

The way a coconut tree grows

     Each new frond of a coconut tree unfurls upward from the center of the tree in a tightly wrapped spear shape...

     And then opens into the shape recognized all over the world.

     Here are a few more of the young coconut trees that we've planted in the last few years.

Socorro

      I've met some incredible people in Nicaragua and one of them is Socorro Woods who is an academic, a feminist, and a friend.


     
     Educated all over the world, among other degrees she holds are a degree in History and Native Administration, and a Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies from York University in Canada. (I can't recall what degree she earned at a Czechoslovakia university she attended...sorry, Socorro.)
     Socorro published her first book in 2005. "I've Never Shared This With Anybody" is a study of Creole women's experiences of racial and sexual discrimination and of their need for self-recovery. It's a compelling read.
     While I was in Nicaragua recently Socorro disappeared from Bluefields for a couple of weeks - she went to New York where she'd been invited to speak before the United Nations.
  

     With the assistance of Nadine Jubb, she prepared and presented a paper entitled "Guardians of Autonomy and Human Rights: the Roles Played and Challenges Faced by NGOs and Civil Society in Promoting Autonomy in the Caribbean Autonomous Regions of Nicaragua."  
     Her paper was delivered to an International Research Seminar organized by the Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Morocco to the United Nations about non-governmental organizations in autonomous regions. Socorro's lived most of her life in one of Nicaragua's two autonomous regions and knows well how autonomy works - or doesn't work.

Roof repair

     On the only dry and sunny day in two weeks, the roof got fixed.
     Not too long after our roof was first put on we had some really heavy winds and, since these blew through before we'd put the netting on, they flipped parts of the new roof around and up.....  The net went on after the damage was done, kind of like many other things in life (see January 8, 2014 post). 
     Not too long after that we noticed some leaks had developed along the peak. The netting was preventing additional wind damage but wasn't fixing the damage that had already been done. According to local lore the roofing material we use has to be cut when the moon is right - weather conditions don't matter much, just the phase of the moon. 
     The new roof fronds are unloaded in a light mist, an intermission in a day of steady rain (that white pole sticking up in the background is the gate across our canal).

     The roofing material is piled up until the next morning - beside a bench with a bag full of rope that'll be used to help keep the guys who'll work on the roof safe...and to get the stuff on top of the house.

     Bright and early the next day - and for once in weeks the day actually turned out to be bright - two guys went up and moved the net aside in order to get at the area that needed work. 
     

     Once that was done, the ground man began feeding the fronds up a ladder, one piece at a time; and the new roofing, the palm fronds that were going to stop our leaks, was put in place along the peak and then netting was dragged back into position and tied down.

     I've removed old, and installed new, shingles on a couple of roofs...and the clean up turned out to be worse than the actual roof work - which is metronomically soothing. But roofing with palm fronds makes clean up quick and easy:  rake and burn and we're in a part of the world where burning piles of leaves can still be done.

Parrots by the hundred

     I need a new camera.     
     My point and shoot just couldn't handle pictures of the parrots that came out to feed the first few weeks of the rainy season: they were too far away and too active.
     They came by the noisy hundreds in all their unbelievable colors, wheeling around the house. If they'd let me get closer I might have been able to have gotten a couple of decent shots - but they weren't having any of that regardless of how careful and quiet and slow I crept toward them.
     Here are a couple of the really bad pictures I did manage to get of part of the flock that landed, screaming, on a couple of trees right outside my bedroom window. Let me tell you, waking up to twenty-five or so parrots having what sounds like an argument is quite an experience.

     And here's what they came to feed on. We've got lots of the trees that make these green cherry-like fruits.  This particular tree is just in front of the house.

     I'm told the parrots feed heavily for a short time early in the rainy season and then disappear into the forest to eat bugs until the next rainy season rolls around. I didn't even know we had them.