Your House is (almost) Ready

We're still missing a couple of pieces of furniture, but otherwise, the guesthouse is ready.

Spring Means New Life

Cattle, sheep and horses graze around the ranchito. This spring we were witness to this little guy wobbling around when he was only a few days old. However, his mother didn’t let us get close enough to take a photo until recently.

Deadly Water

One morning I walked out to the fish pond and found every fish floating dead on the surface. The water was crystal clear; unnaturally so.

The night before I’d added a couple of inches of water to the pond. Nothing I haven’t done before and frequently far more than a couple of inches.

After lab tests that showed up with nothing, and calls to the water company that revealed multiple customer complaints about the chlorine smell, we’ve concluded that an employee of the water company over-chlorinated the well that supplies our area.

It is the first time that this has happened in over three years so I’m not going to lose my head over it. I am, however, annoyed that I lost about $300 USD worth of koi and goldfish, and had to empty the pond and scrub it out.

A few weeks ago I bought some small, cheap goldfish and put them in the pond as a test. After a couple of weeks surviving, I bought a few more. We’ll see how it goes.

We don’t drink this water. However, we do bath and cook with it. I’m aware of a number of fancy purification systems used by people here. Sure they kill typhoid, and all kinds of bacteria. But would they be effective with over-chlorinated water? Water so over-chlorinated that a couple of inches diluted in hundreds of gallons wipes out over 25 mature fish? Scary.

No fancy purification system for us. I think we’ll stick to drinking bottled water.