April 27, 2019 this week in review

 Penny looking for eggs

Cloey found some

We spent Easter Sunday with Jeremy and Anna and friends. The kids had an egg hunt; the adults ate too much. At least, this one did.

 Penny and Jeremy in "the pool"

Vivian in her "floater-mobile"

 
On Adventure Tuesday we took Anna, Jeremy, Penny, and Vivian to La Parguera. It wasn't exactly the adventure we thought we were going to have but it was the adventure we apparently needed. Anna and Jeremy were a little (!) distracted trying to get details on the closing on the sale of their house here and word about financing on their new house in Michigan. (More this in a minute.) Elaine was distracted waiting for information about what day we could get the new police horses and if our trailer guy was available when the government agency said we could get them. Just a little tension. We couldn't go out in the little skiffs to the mangrove islands because it was too windy and choppy. But there is a beach with an "ocean pool" so we played there and then hung out drinking beer and snacking in town. Very gentle, very low key. Like I said, not the adventure we thought we were going to have but the one we needed. Anna and Jeremy had never been to La Parguera so at least we got to show them that before they leave.

Ah, yes - that. In very short order Anna and Jeremy got an out-of-the-blue offer on their house  At almost exactly the same time, Jeremy got word he is being promoted to a new position back in Michigan. They were looking for a house in Michigan and practically feel into a deal on a house very near Jeremy's family that is already setup for special needs. Vivian's growth and development is a constantly wonderful surprise but no one can predict what her future will be. With this house, they are prepared no matter what it is. And the house has a pool for Penny!

So They are leaving. That is probably the hardest thing about living here. People come, you get close, and then they leave. Anna and Jeremy are going to be especially hard to lose. They are family. And as Carole says, "I love the family I chose!" And their moving away so soon after Rolf's death is especially especially difficult.

Carole and Vivian

 Yunque (in the back) and Jibaron (in the front) - our two new horses

 Yunque meeting Chocolate and KTJ for the first time

After all the craziness, the two new horses, Yunque and Jibaron, finally came home on Friday. The trip from Bayamon to here was pretty uneventful. The first meeting was quite eventful. Nothing really bad, i.e., no body and no horses got hurt, but fences came down, fence posts were broken and for a while mayhem ensued. The good news is when the fences were down and they all cavorting together, there was no fighting. A lot of shouldering and nuzzling and pushing but no fighting. That's bodes well. Things eventually calmed down. KT, Choco, and Cass spend the night grazing in a pasture (poor babies!) and Yunque and Jibaron spent the night getting used to their paddock and the electric fence.

This morning I did what in hindsight I should have done in the first place: I put separator fences between the paddocks so the horses can see each other but can't get to each other. Today that has worked so far. We'll see what the night brings. 

Cass, Yunque, and Jibaron just before the fences came down 

They are pretty horses and - in spite of some news reports - in good health. They need work and they need to get used to their digs and herd-mates, and they will. They just need some time and patience. 

An exciting week. I'm hoping to get in the water tomorrow. It's supposed to be flat and calm and no rain. We'll see how the fences are.

Monday, April 22, 2019 The REAL Earth Day

An octopus's garden

Today is the real Earth Day. It's hard to believe the first Earth Day was celebrated 49 years ago - and our planet is in worse shape than it has been in all of human history. If I had to point to two things that - more than any others - got us here they would be greed and lust for power. Sad but true. (It seems those two issues are at the heart of most of our problems.)

Here is another Earth Day ocean reminder. Not even Mr. Spock's tri-corder could count all the different lifeforms in this photo. Can we really afford to lose even one? I don't think so. 

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children." -- Native American Proverb

April 21, 2019 (still not) Earth Day

I can't believe got that date wrong. Somehow I got in my head that Earth Day was the 20th, not the 22nd.

I did my first surf photo shoot in almost exactly two years yesterday. As you may know photographing surfers was a frequent, favorite activity before the hurricane. It was one of the things I missed during the long darkness without electricity or Internet. Even after power and Internet access were restored, There was so much work to be done - and so few potentially paying surfers around - that it just didn't make sense to spend my time photographing the few, mostly local surfers (who rarely buy photos anyway). Then we moved more than twice as far away from the surf beaches. The ROI on time and gas spent was negligible. So I never got back to it. Until yesterday. That was a private shoot for a friend, with a few bonus photos thrown in.

Today's (still not Earth Day) Earth Week ocean reminder photo is my friend Kari. She is brilliant and beautiful. She loves the ocean, is committed to protecting it, loves to surf, and is an absolute joy to watch when she surfs.

The reminder is there is beauty everywhere on, above and below the surface, and lots to love and protect in the ocean. Treat her like a lady

April 20, 2019 (not) Earth Day

(Note: no it's not Earth Day! I jumped the gun. Gotta get new glasses! Whoo-hoo! two more days to post ocean photos!)

Today is Earth Day. It's kind of been lost between the fire in Notre Dame and the fact that it falls on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter.

Today's Earth Day ocean reminder is of one my favorite ocean creatures: reef squid. There are so many cool and unusual creatures in the ocean but reef squid are among the coolest. They are aware and wary of our presence in the water but unless we do something sudden and/or stupid, they usually don't swim away. In fact, if you lay quietly in the water, you can play with them. They normally keep their tentacles together in front of them. Sometimes they bend them down, sometimes they bend them up. If you put your arms out it front of you in the same position as their tentacles and then follow them - up, down, middle - it becomes like a dance. Elaine loves to play with reef squid like this. That's how she got her mermaid name: Dances with Reef Squid.

So it's Earth Day. Every day needs to be Earth Day. Honor Mother Earth and Mother Ocean. We need them a whole lot more than they need us!

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy it. If you have any questions about island life or comments you'd like to make, feel free to post them here or email them to prsurfphoto@yahoo.com. I love hearing from you.And feel free to let others know about this blog. Maybe they'll like it too.

April 19, 2019 Earth Week ocean reminder

Tonight is the April full moon. For today's Earth Week ocean reminder here is one of my favorite snorkeling photos "Full Moon Under Bajuras." This huge brain coral, just below the surface, always reminds me of a rising full moon.

Whenever I snorkel there between Shacks Beach and Bajuras, I always look for this coral. It's one of those things I just can't stop photographing. Here's another shot from a few years ago.

April 18, 2019 Earth Week ocean reminder

You don't have to go deep to find the beauty of Mother Ocean. I found these guys in about a foot-and-a-half of water while snorkeling at Shacks Beach. Reminder: treat Mother Ocean like your life depends on her.

I hope I am preaching to the choir here. How can we, as individuals, make change happen?

First, be the change you want to see. A cliché? Maybe, but true none-the-less. Whether you live on an island, surrounded by ocean as we do now, or near the Great Lakes like we used to, or a river or stream or just visit a local lake in a park. Be the behavior you want to see in others.

Take a hint from backpackers - "take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but foot prints" and scuba divers - "take nothing but photos, leave nothing but bubbles." If you bring something to a beach, take it home with you, whatever it is.

Sunscreens are popular especially early in the summer season or on that mid-winter tropical vacation. Many sunscreen products contain oxybenzone and/or parabens. These chemicals are toxic to corals and other marine life. Even if you live far away from the ocean, your sunscreen can still be harmful.
Oxybenzone and parabens are not filtered by waste-water treatment plants. The sunscreen you shower off after at day at the beach winds up in a near-by stream or lake and eventually in the ocean. Research and use one of the environmentally safe(r) products. There are a number of them out there. 

Limit your use of single-use plastics like water bottles. I know it's hard. Our island is addicted to single-use plastics. But work at it. At least reduce your own dependence on them. National Geographic has a program called "Planet or Plastic," a multi-year effort "to raise awareness of the global plastic trash crisis."


All your personal choices matter.Take personal responsibility to make the planet just a little bit better. After all, this is the only planet we have. (Another cliché, I know.)

April 17, 2019 Earth Week ocean reminder

Beautiful delicate sea plume corals grace "the wall" off Rincon. This is today's Earth Week ocean reminder of how incredibly beautiful Mother Ocean is beneath the surface. Please, treat Mother Ocean - and all the lakes and rivers that feed her - like your life depends on her!

April 16, 2019

A diver descends

It's Earth Week. As a reminder that 71% of the Earth's surface is covered with water, this week I'm going to post some of my favorite underwater photos. Hey, we live on an island. We are surrounded by ocean. But people here still need to be reminded - or taught - how important Mother Ocean is to all of us, how we need to take care of her; this is not optional. If she dies, we die. We all need to treat her like our lives depend on her!

April 15, 2019

Tax day. Ours are done and filed.

So, horses. First of all, our horses are just fine. They are enjoying their "new" digs. They like have so much room to graze in.

Horses of Hope, our therapeutic riding center, is up and running, albeit more slowly than we thought it would.

Last fall. the government of Puerto Rico disbanded the two mounted police divisions on the island as a cost saving measure, pretty much with no guidelines for what would  happen with the horses. First we heard they were going to be sold for $25 each. Then we heard they were to be donated to non=profit organizations that did work in the community. Early in October, Elaine and Marie went to Bayamon (a city in the San Juan Metro area) to look at the horses, evaluate them, and put in a request.

It wasn't much of an evaluation. The horses were in stalls. The only way Elaine could see the horses move was a handler brought them out of the stalls and walked them up and down the aisle. Okay, based on the best information they had, Elaine and Marie chose four. When they got home, Elaine wrote a request for those four animals. The response was zero None. Zip. Nada. Between October and December Elaine emailed and called numerous times with the same result: no response.

Then on late in the afternoon of Thursday, January 3, 2019, she got an email from ASG, the government surplus agency. She could apply for the horses. The application deadline was Thursday, January 10 - one week. January 3 was the Thursday before Three Kings Day, arguably the biggest holiday of the year in Puerto Rico, an island that loves its holidays. Because January 6, Three Kings Day, was on Sunday, the official holiday was Monday. But many people, including pretty much everybody from ASG also took Friday off. That meant there was no one to talk to or ask questions of until Tuesday. It also meant two working days to assemble more than 17 pages of documentation supporting our application. Since one of the biggest sticking points was financial stability, since we are a new organization, Elaine also had to secure pledges of financial support.

ASG gave her a little leeway and she got the application in. Two people came out and inspected our "facility." They were okay with just about everything except the fact that we had no shade/shelter. The polices horses are used to being in stalls, not turned out, and they need shade. So we build two shade areas, one here on our property, one on the church property where we actually do therapy. They seemed okay with that. Beyond that, every week, sometimes every day, brought a new round of paperwork to be submitted, all with ridiculously tight deadlines. Elaine always complies. At the same time there was no information coming back about what or when we might hear about any horses we might get.

I will say this for the people from ASG: I really think they're doing the best they could with what they had. With no guidelines in place and minimal resources, they had to make up the process as they went along. It became one of the biggest bureaucratic CYA of all time. And to be honest, not without reason. Everybody, from the police officers who used to ride these horses (who were fired when the units were disbanded) to PETA to the "horse people" on the island (many of whom want the horses) to those of us legitimately trying to acquire the horses to other government agencies, is looking over their shoulder. Pretty much no matter what they do, they are pretty sure something is going to bite them in the ass.

To complicate all of this further, some of the horses were obtained with federal grant money. That means the Feds have to sign off on any plan to re-home those horses. They figure those horses won't be available until summer. 

In what has become the SOP Elaine got a message about the 1st of April that said "tomorrow" is your one chance to come see the horses. So off she went again to Bayamon. When she got there she was told "they" believe we can only support two horses so we're only getting two. Fortunately, the two that we want are not Federal horses and should be available "immediately," or at least before summer.

On April 11 a radio station published an online story about the treatment - or mistreatment - of the horses. Again, in fairness, the horses were getting minimal level care - grain, hay, stalls cleaned out. but these are well-trained horses that are used to being out and worked everyday. They have now been standing in stalls (granted, big stalls, but stalls none-the-less) for more than six months. They have no turn out, no exercise. It is criminal. Again, the people on the ground are not the ones ultimately responsible. Whoever in the government/legislature who decided to do this with no provision for how is ultimately responsible.

Elaine got a call just before the news article was published asking if she would come to Bayamon on the 23rd of April to sign the contract. Then last week, after the article hit, they asked if she could come "tomorrow." Uh, no. "How about Tuesday?" Well, send me a copy of the contract so I can read it.

Mostly, the contract was okay. She did insist they add a paragraph that said ASG guarantees the horses are in good health and another insisting they turn over all records of their care, medical, hooves,feed, etc. It took some doing, but in large part because they were feeling the media pressure, they agreed and agreed to hurry the changes to the contract.

Whew! The upshot of all this is, today Elaine went to San Juan and signed the contract for two horses. She also got to see the care records in Bayamon (we'll get them when we get the horses) and talk to one of the police officers remaining to care for the horses. (His horse is one of the ones we're getting.) And, while she was there the vet - who is also one of our vets - came to vaccinate the horses, something Elaine has been insisting on.

Now we have to make arrangements to get them moved from Bayamon to here net week. ASG wants this to be a done deal! After the bad press, they need a good news story.

We are excited about it. We've got some prep to do but we'll be ready for the new arrivals.

April 14, 2019

Okay just these few more then we'll talk about horses, I promise. The main reason for posting these is to show the three above. This is the flower of one of the cacti in our yard, The blooms are about eight inches long and six inches or so wide. They randomly come out at night. The blossoms don't last very long; they are usually gone by the next evening. They were such a surprise and surprisingly beautiful.

April 13, 2019

Flowers are all over the photo-sharing sites I frequent. Many of the photos shared are bright but pale, soft focus, pastel. One woman I follow does these exquisite very narrow focus shots of flower petals or stamen with one single perfect water droplet balanced on them. As I said, they are exquisite. The first photo is my attempt at this type of flower photo (sin water drop of course). You know, it just doesn't work for me.

Try as I might, my flower photos are coming out harder, sharper, darker.  I found these lovelies in one of our pastures. I got a few shots, intending to come back when the light was better to try to get the softer look. Before I could get back, a horse stepped on the plant. Oh, well, next spring!

Here are a few more, just to show you what I mean.

Okay, probably enough about flowers. Time to start talking about horses. Stay tuned.

April 12, 2019 Spring has sprung

Spring is here. For our friends up north, it is very very welcome. In spite of the fact that we have "perpetual" summer, we do have seasons. They are much more subtle, but we do have them.

We don't have any true deciduous trees, like maples or oaks, that lose their leaves in the fall and then re-leaf in the spring. We do have trees, like the almond trees, that shed their leaves in cycles all year. Then there is this tree in our back yard. It loses leaves every day of the year, enough that they have to be raked up every couple of days (and I hate raking leaves; I'd rather shovel snow!). Up until a couple of weeks ago that is. Right after the equinox, it dropped all of its leaves, bags and bags full of them.

 

At the same time it started sprouting new leaves

and these crazy flowers.

The flowers all morphed into these:

which are now dropping. (LS - remember "nuts in the tree?")

That may not be the strangest tree in our yard. This one has huge orange flowers. The clusters are 14" to 16" across.

They are bright and beautiful in the early morning sun.

In the middle of the clusters of flowers are seed pods that look like  alien life-forms that could swallow you whole. They look like they should wiggle; fortunately they don't.

More flowers tomorrow.

April 11, 2019 From this morning's walk on the beach.

We are still under water rationing, 24 hours on, 24 hours off. There are rumors (sound familiar - some things never change) that if things don't improve soon, i.e., if we don't get significant rain, we may go to 24 hours on, 48 hours off. Fortunately, we have experience with this. 

One thing rationing does affect is my going to the beach with Coda Bear. We can only go to the beach when we have water and I can wash him. On the off days we go for walks on the Paseo Lineal, the walk-and-bike trail along the ocean.

Today was a water day so we went to the beach.

The ocean is very flat right now so no waves crashing on rocks like these from a a couple of days ago.

There is always something interesting to shoot. Sometimes I just have to look a little harder.

MARIA log, April 3 Day 193 Tuesday

I've been diving at Crashboat several times since the hurricane. I'm kind of used to the idea that it is now a wreck dive.

The dive today was supposed to be with two friends. Neither of them could make it so I went alone. This dive was both magical and surreal. The juxtaposition of swimming through the wreckage and listening to the distant whale song was incredible. As I said, surreal and magical at the same time.

(Full disclosure: I did not record the whale song in the video. It is from iWhales on Soundcloud. I tried to record the sounds as I heard them during the dive, but the audio in my underwater camera just wasn't up to it. The idea here is to give you the sense of what I heard and felt.)

NOW; I haven't heard whales in the water since that dive a year ago. I listen every time I get in the water. I didn't see any whales from shore this season either. They were out there - others saw them. but I didn't. Next year.