Casita Chuparosa

One of the first things I did when we moved in here was to build a big pile of rocks near the back of the property. The neighbors were curious of course, and asked what I was doing. “Building an iguana house” I told them. They shook their heads and walked away, not sure if I was joking.

Last May when we were here for a weekend to pay the contractor for adding a bathroom to the house (there was only an out-house when we bought the place), I got the idea. The contractor left a huge pile of river stones in the street, left-overs from building the stone wall that fronts the road. We hired a couple teenagers to carry the rocks onto our property (not that anyone was complaining about blocking the road — that is just common practice here, people just drive around the piles of construction material. Within 48 hours a small black iguana came and took up residence in that rock pile. Here he is climbing the neighbor’s brick wall, which is next to the rock pile.

Blackie the Iguana climbing the wall

So those rocks are too near the casita, and black iguanas get really big (1-1/2 meters long, without the tail) so I figured we would move the rocks and the iguanas would follow. Iguanas, now plural, as during the intervening months two more iguanas have taken up residence on the property.

Anyhow, we thus established our credentials as ‘animal lovers’ among the locals (who have a very utlitarian approach to animals — iguanas are food). So when some neighborhood kids rescued a bird from a dog, they naturally brought it to us. Isabel has an old parrot-cage (she wants a parrot but we have never found one that we can be sure is captive-bred, and refuse to buy one captured from the wild), so she put the injured bird there, with food and water.

Cassique bites the hand that feeds it

Unfortunately, the bird was too badly injured to survive, but I did get the above picture of it. It appears to me to be a Cassique (Cacicus cela) sometimes called a Yellow-rumped Cassique, or Black and Yellow Oriole. They are very common around here, our big fig tree has a nest belonging to a pair of these, a typical dangling drop-shaped nest typical of orioles, truly a wonder of architectural construction.

The only problem is, according to the distribution maps for these birds, they are not supposed to be found this far north. Either my identification is wrong, or the maps are.

I had plans to post a wide variety of information on our progress refurbishing Casita Chuparosa, with before and after pictures, and photos of the iguanas who live in our yard, and all the interesting plants and so on and so forth — but today I think I’ll just talk about the beach a little. We spent much of the day on the beach yesterday, so the impressions are fresh in my mind. I’ll have to get all retrospective another time.

We drove down to Boca de Apisa, about four or five kilometers from here. I wanted to collect some driftwood to use as fuel for my new biochar kiln. We took along some woven-plastic bags like they use for farm grains and such, and Isabel had her little hand-cart to help her wheel the bags when they are full of driftwood. I use the large sized bags (about a meter high) and just carry or drag them back to the car. Her bags are about 3/4 as large, but still hold a good deal of wood — probably 20 to 25 kilos.

Here is a view of the beach where erosion has cut into the mangrove forest a bit, leaving skeletal trees on the beach:

Skeletons of mangrove trees on the beach

The sand of the beach rises to a sharp crest, beyond which it slopes gradually down to a lagoon, fringed with mangrove forest. The driftwood gets carried up to the edge of that crest at high tide each day, or thrown over it when there is a serious storm. We mostly collect the older stuff on the high side, as it is drier.

After collecting six bags of wood (all the car will hold) we set up our picnic under a little palapa someone has built for shade, eat our sandwiches, and relax. Isabel drinks some strange apple-flavored soy milk stuff, but I stick to good old Mexican beer. We take a dip in the ocean as it begins to get hot, but the relentless sun drives back under our palapa for a bit of a snooze. Rough work this collecting firewood.

Welcome to Casita Chuparosa, Home of the Black Iguana! We are just settling in ourselves, having moved here from Chapala on October 3rd, 2008. We bought the casita last December — at that time it had no indoor plumbing, just two small rooms. But we could see plenty of potential. We have added a large bathroom, with room for clothes-washer and driers, and divided the larger room in two to make room for a kitchen. We just added a screened-in porch area too.

I’ve started a compost pile, hired a man to make a kiln/retort for charcoal and biochar, and built a nice stone pile near the back of the lot for our wild black iguanas to inhabit. So far they are resisting taking up residence, but I’m gradually dismantling their old home — a rock pile near the house, left-over stones from the wall we had erected on the front property line — so they will have no choice but to move.

I’ll be discussing all these things on this blog, along with notes on life in Mexico and observations on the rich wildlife we find in this area. I hope you will join in, and submit comments on these posts. You have to ‘join’ the blog to post comments, but don’t worry — we will not abuse your trust by sending you junk-mail! We may start a little newsletter for U.S. and Canadians considering visiting or living in Mexico, if there is enough interest. Let us know what you think!