Exciting Times at Valley View!

It's been a while since I posted anything! Just too busy I guess. Going back a way we had a nice Thanksgiving with Jeff and Diane.

JC (aka Barbara) got in some quilting before her sewing room got turned into the guest room.

Valley View, our little slice of Paradise in Jamaica has four participating families - the Dimocks, the Spiegels, the Laughlins, and the Hollenbacks. This winter for the first time all four families were represented at the same time!

The Hollenback's are the most recent participants, having purchased the Elliott share back in the spring. Bob came down in late November to start working on their home here. He has made tremendous progress, getting the remaining upper floor cast and a lot of the electrical and plumbing work done. His goal is to get the downstairs room livable by the time Nicelee comes down in mid-January, and at this point, it looks like he'll make it.

Meanwhile, down at the Dimocks we have upgraded the kitchen with a new stove. Here's the before and after pictures!

The stove is a cute little 20" four burner gas stove with a real oven. JC is very happy with it, as it makes it much easier to see what she is cooking in the pot. The stove came with this helpful piece of advice on the packaging:

Up at Casa Spiegel, Binghi and Tom installed railings for Charlie. The porch is now much safer and feels much bigger.

Of course, Tom and Binghi have been working on tile. Tom left some tile out on the porch  overnight and the cats decided to give him a puzzle to solve in the morning!

Solved!

Binghi has done some very nice work by the back patio and is finishing up a cute piece on the porch.

That's about it for now, so I'll close with a hearty holiday greeting and the requisite sunset picture.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We're Back!

We flew back to Jamaica for the winter on election day. Philadelphia was fogged in so everything ran late. We got to Montego Bay about an hour late, and by the time we had done our usual mega-grocery run we finally arrived at Valley View at about 7PM. The plants were looking great, as usual.

Our resident feral cat Stripey was happy to see us - actually she was happy to see our leftovers...

Some of our fruit trees had gifts for us for the first time. Both of our avocados had fruits, and our "Ortanique" tree has a few oranges. Well, it was sold to us as an Ortanique tree, but the oranges had tasty juice. Our sour orange is bearing lots of fruit again, and our plantains and bananas are all bearing fruit.

Our Mimosa bush is blossoming like there is no tomorrow, which is making our hummingbirds very happy.

We got settled in and went right to work. JC got her sewing room set up and started on a quilting project, and Tom went to work on more tile for the front porch.

When we started planting below the house ten years ago we were assured that the various palms would not obstruct our view for at least thirty years. Wrong. It's ten years later and a good bit of our view is now palm trees. But down at the north end of the porch we still have a pretty nice sunset view!

Winding Down

My, where has the time gone? We've already been here for most of our time and will be heading back in just a couple of weeks. Out Royal Palm has been blooming like crazy, and our other plants are also very happy.

Barbara was invited to go visit the Kendal Basic School (ages 3 to 5) and had a great time telling stories and reading to the kids.

The older kids come over to our place to work on their homework.

We've had one stray chicken living here for quite a while now. Unbeknownst to Tom, she moved into his shop and created a nest out of sight under one of the shelves. When we had that pointed out to us by Binghi we looked and surprise! There were 7 eggs! We left one and ate the rest.

Our resident feral cat, Stripey, has been eating scraps on the porch. Here it looks like she is a little worried by the dinosaur!

Our friends Bob and Nicelee Hollenback came for a visit, and that was enough to pry us loose from the hill and down to the ocean.

When they arrived they announced, much to our surprise, that they had been thinking about the unfinished octagon house at Valley View, and were wondering how to get in touch with Estelle to open discussions about possibly buying it. The stars must have been aligned just right, as Estelle was actually here in Jamaica, and we were all able to get together at our house a few days later.

They hit it off, and in less than a week Bob and Nicelee had made an offer to Estelle and had accepted it.

Binghi and Tom have continued work on the tiling, and the outside wall at the entrance to the porch is now completed. Binghi was commissioned by Barbara to work on the ends of the counter in the kitchen, which has brightened that area up.

Up at the top of Valley View next to the tower was a multi-stemmed Bastard Cedar. These are a not a very pretty tree, but they make it up by being horribly messy, littering the ground around them with sticks and little "ball bearing" fruits. These can make the footing quite treacherous. So we finally decided the time had come to take the bastards down.  Here are the before, during, and after shots.

Quite a difference! A couple of days ago, Binghi and his friend Steve came over and had Tom weld up a spit for roasting a pig. It worked quite well, even though it decided to rain for the first time in two weeks.

Tom also fit in time to weld up a section of grate to try and keep the goats off our porch when we're not here. Here is Barbara painting it with red primer.

And of course we still have wonderful sunsets!