Different Here & There

What it like to live on a sailboat in the Caribbean is not the way we are living here in Kansas at the little house we bought out here on the prairie. We bought this little house out here to have a place to stay if we were out here visiting our only kid. A son that lives out here and as and investment. The investment has so far been us investing money making repairs and keeping this place up. I’m sure we can sell it for more that we payed for it but it is fun to come out here. Having a change in your every day life sometimes can be fun. Traveling 2000 miles to get here is not that much fun but is an adventure. What is different out here is we have here what most people in the U.S live with every day. We live well as boaters on our old home built boat we built but it’s not like here. Pam has a stove with an oven on our boat but it’s so hot in the Caribbean making biscuits in the morning is a maybe? In the afternoon for supper, No, just too hot. When we are here it cakes, cookies and made from scratch Southern breads Here in the basement Pam has a washing machine and dryer. In the Caribbean Pam has a bucket and a wringer she cranks by hand. Here we have a large refrigerator with every thing. On our boat we have a 5 cubic foot ice box with a 12 volt evaporator and you can make one small tray of ice a day. We have a freezer and that opens up a whole new world to us out here. Pam is a penny pincer and that is how we live and have lived all these years. Turkey on sale out here after a holiday half price can go for 50 cent a pound. In the Caribbean never under 3 bucks a pound and what can we do with a whole turkey down there and it’s hot outside. Here cut it frozen in to 4 pieces with a saw all with a clean blade and thaw out a piece as you need it. A big thing here is what will grow here that won’t grow there in the hot Caribbean sun. They live on corn down there but not what we eat here. There corn is small and with a strong corn taste. Here it’s sweet corn. There they put mayonnaise and ketchup on the grilled corn. Here it’s butter. The green beans we grow here in everyone’s garden has a bean in side if they get big enough but down there it’s pole beans and if they get as big around as the green beans up here they are so tough you can’t cook them tender. Tomatoes are a challenge down there. It’s Roma tomatoes there and they eat some raw but mostly they cook with them. They have very little taste to me. Up here the local farmers market is going on and heritage tomatoes out here are ugly but so good. Some weigh over a pound each. One slice will cover a hamburger.

They are ugly but really good.

Two week ago we had a fire in our wood heater and it felt good in the morning out here with the temperatures getting down in the 50s at night. The tempertures are going to get hotter for the rest of the week. Toping 102F.

Some of our garden is producing.

Staying Here?

How long are we planing to stay here? It depends on the Doctors out here and getting my knee replaced. Tried the last time we were here and the doctor’s offices would not let us have a say in when we could get it done. All they would say was we need to be here when they decided to do the surgery. This Doctor’s group may be going to let us scheduled this to where we can come back in the late fall and get it done. We need to get back to our boat and do things down there. I’m still working on the old boat motors we bought to replace the old car motors we put in our boat when we built it. All we could afford back then. Old used boat motors were not available as they are now. Pam has sail work to do to make a little money. The book we wrote is still not worked out completely and the art we had selected to hang in the Hays Art Gallery didn’t sale but I got a nice letter from a judge saying how nice it was. No need to complain but you can’t spend a nice letter. Art and book going online soon. To all our friends everywhere. Not famous or rich yet so money and fame has not changed me yet. Looking back on our lives as we are getting old what an adventure it has been. Happy here in Kansas as,

                                              The Adventure Goes On

Gaint Sunflowers started from seed. We will post more pictures when they are in bloom.

 

Don’t Give UP!

In Kansas missing our boat more every day. Remember it took us ten years to build our boat and along with the hard work of putting it together we had to make the money each week to buy all we needed to build it. Take what little you eared to live on and put the rest to the boat. Again ten years of dreaming living as cheap as we could and working. Working as many hours as we could everyday and I mean that everyday. Now I stared early in life building and rebuilding what I needed but as soon as Pam and I married it was us building and rebuilding what we needed. The first thing you learn living this way is you can’t please every body and some people just want to run you down if they don’t agree with you and don’t like what your doing and they never get tired if it. Most of the time it’s people that have nothing to do with what you’re doing. We both have learned to take criticism but you never get use to it. Now we have decided to write a book and see if we can sell it. One reason we are out here. With this book writing no one has said they think this is a good idea not any one but being stubborn we are trying. We have a woman that owns a book store helping us, full of criticism but she sells books. On our third proof now from the printer and it looks good to me. The big thing is how a book is put together and I’m not talking about proper English. It’s the people that look for something wrong thing with polishing a book. More fun to criticize it than read it. It’s this needs to be here and you need this there thing. Maybe we are getting through this but this takes time and is frustrating. She said, we needed a forward in the front of the book. I’m like what in the world is that? She said, “It is about the author. Some one that knows you to tell people what you are like.” Now that’s scary if you think about it and some one putting that in print. She said, “Some one of importance.” I ask Pam, “Do we know anyone of importance?” Another women we are working with is computer smart said, “I know you I can do it.” I’m glad the name of the book is Little Lies. It sound so good like I have great insight into the world around me. We used it anyway. Now for her great importance she buys books for the library at the school and the library in town here. Now we are going on with the book maybe this week when we get another proof back and now the book store owner says maybe we don’t need to do a book signing but a presentation. Another thing in all this I only finished the eight grade and was born in the Deep South. Remember no one has said I can do this. A family member even said not long ago. “Who would read a book you wrote?” With all this we have on our boat card and business card, “Never give up on the back.” Preaching and teaching is easier than the doing and this is testing our living up to never give up that is on our card. One thing Pam and I live by is try to see the good in what you are doing and where we are each day. So here it’s been cool and we sleep each night with the windows open. A little cover by daylight with it getting in the 60s, feels so good.

Tim’s Saturday night steak it is well done just the way he likes it.

Steak is so good out here in cattle country.

You can see the road over the horizon. Wide open country.

Out here this is really country and so beautiful out here to see a the road in front of you go over the horizon.

Old slow pumpers pumping oil.

So much wildlife you have to drive defensibly and every one does. A pheasant can mess up the grill in our 50 year old truck we put together to drive out here maybe not like a deer but they can cause damage.

New Experience:

I guess if we are not able to make a go at selling a book the experience is just another thing we have done in our life. Some of my art has been hanging in an art gallery out here and if we sell something or not it still goes to the experiences of presenting my art for people to see. Have a mention or something the art judge wrote on the piece I had hanging in the Hays Art Center gallery for the Smokey Hills Art Competition, made me sound talented but no offers to buy it yet. The adventure goes on.

Pamela Ann at her dock in Calypso Marina in the Rio Dulce, Guatemala

Getting pictures of our boat laying to the dock from friends down there in the Rio makes me home sick but we need to not give up and do this. Doctor appointments next week about getting a knee replacement but it won’t be long and we will be on a plane with a new Adventure happening going back with more parts to work on the boat and sailing soon. Some of our friends out here setting on there porch waiting on there favorite TV program to come on think we are crazy. Maybe we are.

                                                 The Adventure of Life Goes On

Barters

We are still in Kansas. Last week I said we was working on our book. It’s on line but we want it in paper back so we had a proof book printed and it had things wrong with it. Pam was going crazy trying to uses our computer to make the changes by herself. We tried for weeks to find some one that could help us. Finely we were talking to the woman that I illustrated a book with my art up here for her last year and she said she could do it. Now it was how do we pay her. The story of our life continues on with this. Barter. It’s been our life most of our life so why would we think it will ever change. She said she had lawnmower trouble. When we got there. Two riding mowers and one push mower all setting in her yard. Setting where they died. Put them all on a trailer and brought them here to our little house. All 3 had died a slow death. Not just one thing wrong with them. Slowly I revived them. Even at one point making a part you can’t buy broke off the motor. Timmy engineering. Another story in our life with this. I bought a metal lathe years ago going to a scrap yard. 50 bucks. Needed work. It’s a 1930 metal machinist lathe with all the big pulleys up in the ceiling. Got it working a long time ago. Use it a lot up here to make thing we can’t buy are to fix thing we can’t afford to buy. I guess it is the story of our life using junk to fix junk and living with junk.

Lathe

Barter Working

Every one happy now.Got a new proof book back and it looks fine. Three Added pitchers to the book and the pictures are in our last blog. Of coarse the truck we drive out here is a restored 72 Chevy we build up from junk. It and old motorcycle is all we have to drive out here. We have put it in the blog a lot maybe one more time won’t hurt.

1972 Chevy

Friends

We have a woman in our world that says all the time that friends you have is the most important thing in your life. When I see her again I am going to ask her if dogs count. We have a neighbor that is rich or very busy making money and it looks like he is. Has a big dog that has found Pam. The dog knows where she lives now. Our son feeds him when this man and his wife is out of town. Lives a couple of miles away from us. Remember it miles between houses out here. He looks like a herding dog if trained will heard sheep or cows. He is big, old and fat. Been stormy this week and here comes the dog hunting Pam. Open the door and he is in our house scared to death of thunder. Goes where Pam goes staying as close to her as he can till the storm is over. Storm over he is ready to go home but is so fat Pam has to help him up in the truck to take him back home.

Gus, our new friend.

Nothing like getting a belly rub durning a thunderstorm.

Starting to miss our boat now, back there in the Caribbean we built that is more boat junk we found and brought back to life that people were through with and throwing away than most people know. Things happening here with our book and art. Doing a book signing soon. Can you believe that? Me doing a book signing in a book store. This doesn’t mean we are making any real money and I just can’t bring myself to say I’m and author are an artiest yet but it does feel good doing this. I guess this is what Pam and I have always live for going on 60 years now. The adventure of life for the ones that love living it. More information coming soon for those interested it my art are the book. Working it out with the computer women. Mean time loving and old dog that need love. Working hard and dreaming hard.

                                             The Adventure of Life Goes On