Nationwide Outage; Plans Approved; Pregnant Cat; House Pricing...
As you may surmise from the main photo, sargasso is back with a vengeance. It is really piling up on the reef side of the island, faster than most businesses can dispatch it. Depending on the wind strength, it is getting pushed into the river - last Tuesday it nearly covered the entire surface, and was flying by!
We also saw an unexpected, nationwide power outage last week - for over two hours. BEL (our electric company) never did say why. Right in the hottest part of the day.
Alex, our architect, let us know that CBA gave final approval on our plans faster than expected, and I met him on Thursday at the water taxi to pick up our certificates and two stamped copies of our blueprints. Big sigh of relief to have that item checked off!
The Lina Point Litter of cats that started at seven last August, I thought was down to two - one orange and a black one. I feed them a few times a week, and Thursday night while cooking dinner, I realized that they had found me:
Our cats were briefly mildly interested, then went back to snoozing.
Friday I went down to Lina Point and saw one of the two torties that I thought had passed - I hadn't seen either of them since Christmas (I remember the date specifically because a tourist who had a tortie stopped to talk to me when I was feeding her). And...she's pregnant. UGH. Far enough along to have nipples past her fur. She can't be more than 8 months old herself, a tiny girl. A local rescue was TNRing this litter, but one escaped her...and I now know which one. I don't know if SAGA would take her, or what to do to help, so if anyone knows (aside from, "bring her inside your house" - we have three already and one has immunity issues), please reach out!
Our gardening has so far netted me two small pear tomatoes that I was able to get before the birds and/or iguanas, and one baby watermelon. It's vine died, we don't know why. Getting black dirt delivered is still on my "to do" list, along with fence paint. And taxes.
We have a lot of irons in the fire that tend to have urgent requirements, so I keep getting distracted.
Monday while on a court Zoom meeting, we finally received a construction contract from our preferred builder. I expected a ton of detail, costs laid out, specifications on materials...instead, we received a total cost with three payment incriments and a total that is DOUBLE what we had budgeted for the build. AYE. Meltdowns ensued. We have committed considerable time with this builder and thought we had it figured out. He called shortly after and was going to check bedrock depths on our property - we told him to pause, we're way over budget and need to reevaluate. He offered to meet us to discuss the build in person, which we did yesterday after Nathan finished work.
Both sides bounced some ideas off of the other, and supposedly the builder bids with pretty high-end finishes (but how would we know, right...?) so they are going to put pencil to paper and try to chop some serious dollars out of the budget. We really like this company and their references rave about them. They would be very much in budget IF our property were in town, but being boat-access-only is slaying the costs. The company seems willing to work with us - when I first saw the bid, I figured they didn't want the job and that's why they bid so high.
Off to start dinner - have a great week!