August Update

August update

There was an earthquake near Ormoc (about 150 miles north west of us) July 6. Its epicenter was near the electric generating plant and it knocked out power. We were in a full blackout for about a week. We used candles along with 2 rechargeable flashlights. People with generators went into business charging cellphones and tablets. About a week after the earthquake President Duterte visited Ormoc. He told the power company it was unacceptable to have a complete blackout in the region. He ordered to start rolling black outs. After that the power was cycling on and off about every 2 hours. When asked why the grid was not switched to the power plant in Maasin (about 150 miles southwest of us), the power company stated the capability was in the development stage. The power company continues to work on it and we are down to about 1 outage a day. We usually lose power around supper time for a couple of hours. The predication is the power outages will continue until September.

Other than the power outage not much has changed since our last blog, see Home Again.

Even though it is suppose to be the dry season, it continues to rain about once a week. There is an inter-tropical convergence zone in the area that causes erratic weather patterns with stagnant calms and rain. When I think the coconut husks are about dried out enough to burn, it rains again. We had to start putting them in the fence line to decompose.

We continue to process coconuts (see post  Coconut). We processed almost 3000 mid July ending up with 13 bags, about 1000 pounds of dried meat. However, after processing, the price dropped to an amount we did not want to sell at. On 08/16 the price came back up and we took 9 bags (about the limit our Revo can haul) to the mill and made a decent profit. One of the benefits of holding the meat about a month is that the moisture content was 4 percent and we did not get docked much weight. On 08/17 we harvested our trees again and will process again soon. As a plug for Wonder Gloves, bought at Midway Wholesale, I processed two batches of coconuts with one pair of Wonder Gloves before they wore out. I can only process one batch of coconuts with the local variety of gloves from KYK Tools. (I had bought a pack of Wonder Gloves when we were in America in May.)

The clutch actuator on the Revo went out again (see Toyota Revo, AKA I Miss Auto Parts Stores ) . I took the part off and took it to the local mechanic who said he would get one on his next trip to Cebu. I bought new seals for the actuator, rebuilt and reinstalled it on the Revo. After a couple of weeks we asked the mechanic about the new part, he did not get it, he wanted to take the old one as a sample. This is out of the the question, I will keep rebuilding it when it goes bad.

On a return from a recent trip to Sogod to do some banking, we had a blow out on a tire. We got the spare on and returned to Sogod and found a tire vendor with good commercial tires to replace the blown out tire and another tire that was beyond its life span. Set us back about 7000 pesos (about $140).

JJ continues with his school and is doing good. He has become fluent in Visayan.

We have a new puppy, Trixie. She has some sort of muscle/spine thing going on that makes her run and sit funny. Do not tell her, she does not know. It was a neighbor's puppy and probably would have been killed if we did not take it. She is a cute puppy. Unlike 99% of the people around us, we keep Trixie on a rope for the leash law. She does get her exercise when we move the goats. She thinks she is a goat dog. She chases them so they get up the stairs to their pen.

Flor took JJ, Abet and our store keeper to Pampanga to bring her brother Marlon back to Hinunangan. Pampanga is north of Manila and it was over a day's bus ride each way.

About a week later Flor and Marlon went to Davao by ferry and bus for a funeral. Over a day's travel each way. They caught the ferry at the Liloan Ferry Terminal.   It is very nice and not as un-organized or chaotic as other terminals we have used. (See post Stranded!!!!!!! ).

We continue to work on the house. I do miss the convenience of the stores in America; Midway Wholesale, Ace, Home Depot, Harbor Freight, etc. Trying to find the proper hardware/material (by American standards) is a challenge here. If the proper hardware/material is not available, you have to make do with other hardware/material. For example, hardware such as a flat-head screw about 1½ inchs long. Finally found some at the 4^th of 6 "hardware" stores in the area.

We have been using the refrigerator in the shed/store for our cold storage. We had been thinking about getting a small refrigerator for the house but did not want to pay another delivery charge from Tacloban (abut $80). Towards the end of July there was a truck load sale in town and we bought a refrigerator for the house. Cost about 13000 pesos (about $250).

The balikbayan boxes arrived 08/22/17. We will be distributing the arts supplies and hygiene supplies in the next couple of weeks. (also in post Home Again.)

The seeds from America we planted were a hit and miss (also in post  Home Again).  The okra are planted in the rice field. However, with all the rain the ground is too wet for them and they are struggling.  The tomatoes were planted in the field as well and were drowning. We filled some cement sacks with dirt and transplanted the tomatoes and most of them survived and look good.

The sweet peppers in the field drowned and did not survive If we could keep the critters (2 legged and 4 legged) out of the asparagus it would be doing better. I think they will be okay eventually and instead of winter putting them into dormancy, we will stop watering them in dry season next year to force them into a couple of months of dormancy.

The pole beans looked good. They jumped out of the ground and started climbing on an old fish net attached to the coconut cooker. However, before they started putting on beans they turned yellow and wilted.  We did manage to harvest some beans.

The sunflowers jumped out of the ground and looked good. However, all the rain drowned 3 of them and something else started cutting the roots of them. We have 4 that might actually mature.

 The mammoth pumpkins also jumped out of the ground, the vines looked great and put on flowers. But no pumpkins have put on. We think the coconut trees make the soil too acidic for the American variety of plants.

Thank you for following.