As we’ve said in blogs of the past, we have hurricane preparedness down to a science.

It’s like fire drills in school. Repetition, repetition, and……. what was that other thing?

This year took a little longer because the cables that hold the corners of the roof on needed work. Also the hurricane shutters for the west side of the house which we ordered LAST year, are being finished just now. Thanks, Mr. Busy Carpenter Dude.

We spent all day yesterday getting ready, since the carpenter dude came 4 hours later than he said he would to cut the existing shutters to the right size. We ate dinner at 9pm.

Now, today, we hear former Senator Redfield on the radio, taking calls from people who haven’t prepared.

Local doctors need to start prescribing smart pills. Calling them “Preparation H” probably wouldn’t help, though.

Maybe it would, since doing this CAN be a pain in the butt……

A real man is a woman’s best friend.

He will never stand her up and
never let her down.
He will reassure her when she feels insecure
and comfort her after a bad day.

He will inspire her to do things she never
thought she could do;
to live without fear
and forget regret.
He will enable her to
express her deepest emotions
and give in to her most intimate desires.

He will make sure she always feels
as though she’s the most beautiful woman in the room
and will enable her to be the most confident,
sexy, seductive, and invincible.

No wait…
sorry… I’m thinking of wine.

It’s wine that does all that…….

Never mind.

He told us that he was “exempt from that”, and asked, “Oh is it the 10th already?” Later on, after he was told in no uncertain terms that he was not to drive on the beach again, he shouted to us that he had very little patience with “tree huggers” and added that we should go hug trees somewhere else.

We have come across him again and again since then, as have other friends and island family members. The guy is a con artist who makes his way from establishment to respectable establishment trying to con nice people out of whatever he can.

Last night as we were heading to a favorite restaurant, we saw him lying on the side of the road surrounded by cars, trucks and a police car. Apparently someone had beaten him up and thrown him out of a vehicle.

Vigilantes to the rescue!

Anyway, we were speaking to a friend after dinner who said that this guy was “not the kind of crazy we like here”.

I found that very profound and ever so true.

“We’re all here because we’re not all there” is one of our favorite sayings about those of us who have chosen to live on this amazingly diverse and wonderful island.

So we’re all a little off-kilter, but we support those around us who are a bit strange, but not out to rip any of us off.

We welcome odd characters – they make life interesting and entertaining.

But we take care of each other-so don’t come here if you can’t play nice.

During Sunday night’s patrol, we had 3 turtles come up, two of which laid eggs. No flipper tags on any of them, so we are naming them by their markings, size or behavior since we are not able to tag as yet. One has a deep notch in her left rear scute (Notch girl), another has an inverted “v” shape at her tail scute (Miss V) and one is small, very inexperienced, and we think has dug a series of pits at the surf line under the steep berm between stakes 25 and 35 (Grenade girl).

We went again on Monday night because last week-end there were 17 activities between Friday and Sunday, so we wanted to see what else would happen. We borrowed a PIT scanner from TNC because we were told that one season a while back one of the interns couldn’t flipper tag, so she only PIT tagged the turtles she had contact with. We had at least one turtle come up (we call her “Double Wide”) because she’s really wide – she’s fast too, and almost bowled Michael over and down the berm.

Anyway, on our first pass down the beach, we saw an activity that we weren’t sure about. It could have been a lay, but it was dark, so we decided to finish the pass to the end and see if she had come up farther down and laid. We saw a truck idling in the west campground area, walked down to the breakwater, and sat until it was time to head back. When we got to where we saw the truck, the guys were on the beach fishing. We spoke to them and they said that they had just seen a big turtle try to come up out of the surf, but she got spooked by them and went back into the sea. They thought they should pack up and let her come back to “do her thing” – very nice and very commendable (besides, there was lightning all around), so they reeled in their lines and left.

We made a note of the turtle activity that we had seen earlier and went back to our beginning point, sat until it was time to patrol again and headed west once more. This time, when we came upon the area of that activity, we saw a turtle coming up from Grenade girl’s area 10-15m past stake 32. We stopped and watched her laboriously climb up the berm. She started to body pit and after a few minutes we saw another shape in the surf where she had just come up (was it her or another turtle?) It was her, she had fallen down the berm. So she struggled up again and started to body pit. After about an hour, she started to dig. Finally, around 11, she hit roots and started to leave. Michael got close enough to try to scan for a PIT tag, but she bolted down the berm like a bat out of hell. He has a pretty good bump on his leg as a reminder of her.

By then we were exhausted and went home. Tuesday morning’s patrol showed that she came back up to that same spot and possibly laid.

Me sit an’ watch de chirren run to de wahtah trippin’ in de juice box an’ beer can an’ t’ing

Me sit an’ eat me chicken leg, undah de tree enjwyin’ de wahm breeze

De smell o’ de Pampah wi’ shit in de bush waf’ in de breeze

Me t’row me plate o’ food in de bush wi’ de Pampah fa’ de animal dem to eat

Life E Good, Meson!

Nex’ time me come – de beach i’ clean up!

Mus’ be de schtupid white people dem wha’ patrol de beach

Me cyan keep leaving me shit aroun’ fa dem to keep cleanin’!

Yah, we like i’ so!

They arrived on Friday August 6 and we moved into the house that we pay rent on across the street, which we call Hairy House because 7 of the dogs live there, and they are allowed free reign inside and out through the always open front door. It’s really full of dog bodies, dog smells and dog fur.

Hairy House has no ceiling fans , the windows are royal blue louvers, and the stuffy little kitchen faces west. In other words, if the weather is sunny and still, it is HOT. Especially in the afternoon when the sun beats down on the west side. The long, narrow “living/dining area” also has a large blue-louvered window facing west. I perspire just thinking about it.

And, of course, there’s no nice pool to cool off in. Fortunately, some of our days have been breezy and pleasant. Only a few still humid ones. So. We have breakfast at Hairy House in the morning, usually are too busy to have lunch, then we eat dinner out. We have both noticed our middles shrinking.

Instant and unexpected diet!

We were not sure how long the family would be staying, but as luck would have it, the baby showed up a day early, so it looks like they’ll only be here until Friday.  Cute little boy. 8 lbs. 3 oz. and lots of hair.

Hey, maybe he should stay at Hairy House  

Anyway the VI Energy Office has been advertising on the radio that they will give up to $5000 to people buying a new energy efficient vehicle. Wow! That’s a chunk of change!

They have been giving rebates on appliances, even televisions for quite a while, so when we needed a washing machine for SunDog House, we chose one with a good energy star rating and were promised a $200 rebate. Cool!

We went out to Frederiksted with the paperwork to apply for the rebate and were told that we’d receive our check in “10-12 weeks”. This was February 19.

However, since I have lived here 16 years, I knew I needed to make sure that would happen. So I kept a copy of the application with the name, phone number  and extension of the woman in charge, in case the time went by and we didn’t get the money. I put it in a prominent place so it wouldn’t get lost in the black hole.

After 12 weeks (the end of May), we still hadn’t received our rebate. So I called.

“Oh, the checks have been delayed, the next batch will go out at the beginning of June,” said the nice lady. She took a few minutes to look up may application and found that it had been approved.

So we waited, and at the end of June I called back. The nice lady was apologetic and said that she didn’t know when we’d get our check but she’d look into it and get back to me.

Riiiight…..

I’d probably still be waiting for her call if I hadn’t called back. By this time I was pretty irate. I did let her know that I would be contacting the inspector general of the federal DOE to let him/her know that the VI Energy office was spending money to advertise rebates, but then taking an inordinate amount of time to send them out.

She said the next batch would go out at the beginning of July.

We finally got ours then. But I still contacted the inspector general of the federal DOE through their website.

Jaccar Organic and Natural Sorbets is located in Gallows Bay where Peter Stewart’s office used to be. For those who don’t know Peter,  it’s in the same building as SEA and Anything Goes, but on the opposite side, the east side of the Arawak Building. They have a few little cafe tables set up outside and it’s usually a nice breezy place to chill on a humid tropical summer day.

Jacky and Carol are making delicious frozen and non-frozen sweet goodies using local fruits and organic ingredients (read: good for you sweets and treats)!

They are certainly a godsend to us, since we have a place to bring dozens of our (still falling) large and small mangoes.

They have delicious flavors of sorbet and frozen fruit pops; organic candies like gummy bears;  home-made walnut, chocolate chip and lime meltaway butter cookies, unsulfured organic dried fruits, local noni juice and more.

My favorite thing about them is they are consistent in their commitment to health by being good to our planet earth. Their packaging is biodegradable, even the “plastic” spoons and containers are really ones made from corn starch.

We need more small, personal locally owned and run businesses like theirs.

Call them at 340-719-6999 or e-mail jaccarsorbets9@aol.com. Better yet, stop in, say “Hi” and tell them you read about them on our blog! They’re open Tuesday through Saturday 10 – 5:00.

We grabbed leashes and jumped in the Tracker.

Sure enough, Mini and Ruby were just beyond Milgie’s, by the Church of the Bad Guitar. They seemed a little dazed, Mini came right over to Terry, but Ruby was a bit reserved. We got them home and bathed. Both seem pretty sore and exhausted. Mini had a few cactus thorns in her and is limping. Ruby is noticeably scrawnier. But they look like they’ll survive.

Thanks everyone for keeping your eyes out for them and all the well-wishes. And thanks to the anonymous caller from Milgie’s!

PS: Just listened to the message again. The caller saw one of the flyers Terry handed out while we were at the Sunshine Foundation’s Fish Fry in July Friendraiser this afternoon. I suppose you could call that Good Dogma!

We’re friendly and wearing blue and purple collars with flowers on them.

If you see us, please immediately contact Terry & Michael, as we are greatly missed.

Thanks!

Mini and Ruby