RAIN! Septic Spoke-Too-Soon, Lights Out, Cribbage...
Have you ever had the light in your refrigerator go out...? Me neither, and I have had some refrigerators for 10+ years, yet somehow our circa 2017 Electrolux by Frigidaire basic-of-basic fridge's bulb burnt out. Good luck finding anything in a dark fridge!
I feared I would never find the correct lightbulb on the island and would have to ship it down (which takes 3-4 weeks), but believe it or not, Castillo's had a two-pack and it was only $25BZ! We only suffered in the darkness for two days.
Wednesday, "rainy season" decided to kick it into high gear, bringing us needed - but almost too much - rain! Some weather stations on the island reported 7-11" of water in 24 hours - it rained from mid-afternoon and all night. Rainy season is June to November. I'm delighted that all our "black gold" dirt didn't wash down the street, but in less-desirable yet somehow predictable news, our septic pump breaker began tripping again. We presume all the rain flooded the pump since it is underground. We're mad again at Angel, who installed the pump and wanted to raise it out of the ground, for backtracking and just putting it back where he found the defunct one. Antonio came by today, and the circuits are all firing wiring-wise, so it's something with the pump itself. Nathan will dig it out of the ground tonight, then Antonio will be back tomorrow to troubleshoot. UGH.
As the rain started...before it became torrential. The "drip line" is from our roof.
It rained so hard and we had intense wind, resulting in the rain driving right at our front door for about 10 minutes, and of course, flooding our foyer. At least it temporarily slowed down the ants from coming in!
I warned my friend, Kit, to keep an eye on their sliding doors as they often leak here. She thought with all of their covered patios, they'd be okay. Later that night, she found some puddles - the rain here is pretty unstoppable when it's strong!
Naturally, all this rain is thwarting our plan to reseal our roof - it rained a few more times during the week, to where we couldn't coat this weekend. Then again, it was crazy-hot and humid, just stifling! Even if it were dry, I'm not sure we would have survived that task.
Friday, Nathan worked a half-day, and we went to The Doghouse at 2 to join their Cribbage tournament for the first time! With slow season upon us, there were only 9 players. It's a double-elimination format, and I had a bye, lost to Nathan, beat two ladies, then lost to Keith - who faced Nathan in the finals. Nathan had beaten Keith earlier that day and was undefeated, meaning Keith would have to win two in a row to win - which he did. The players were all super friendly and welcoming, it's a shame we can't go every week!
The sargasso floated back in with all of its might; I have yet to see one of the "sargasso scooper" boats working. One seems to be permanently docked at the old water taxi depot. If you look past it, the sea is still beautiful!
We ran a lot of errands this weekend, including hardware store trips, planting plants, getting plant cuttings to make more plants for free, fixing our planter that runs the length of our villa (one of the rain downspouts drains into it and collapsed some dirt). And we binge-watched season 2 of Tires - great if you need something mindless to zone out on.
Saturday night, Marv and Tanya had us (plus Kit and Brian) over for dinner and laughs - they are going back to the States until September, we'll miss having them around!
Today I started patching our porches and stairs with a fiberous concrete mix so we can seal them when we do the roof....it has now started sprinkling. At this rate, it may be January before we get three dry days in a row, and we have a solid half-day of prep work to tape off the rooftop, stairs, and patios. It would have been a full day had Brian not offered to lend us his laser level!
Wednesday, Kit and I are going to try to TNR some cats in the community - one of the original seven from Lina Point dodged the traps last fall and turned up pregnant. She had four or five kittens, we're going to attempt to round them all up to go to SAGA for snips before the cycle starts again. Kit has done this before, so I'm grateful to have her here to show me the ropes!