Yes, I have an electric garage door. And yes, the house is big. All the rooms are big, and 2 of them have a high vaulted ceilings that are good for keeping it cool. And man, if I play music with my Bose speakers, the acoustics are amazing. Without carpet or furniture or curtains, the music bounces off the walls and ceiling of those big rooms and it sounds like I am in a concert hall. Maybe I'll just leave it unfurnished for the acoustics.
What I don't see a lot of here but I am interested in getting is solar panels to generate my own electricity. I'm all about renewable energy and sustainable living.
Grafting, hmm. So how does that work, graft bearing branches of avocado onto some other tree species? I'll have to check into it. I'll also get some mango trees and more breadfruit trees and whatever else I can buy at the nearby nursery.
After a week of living here I decided I am happy living like a Jamaican with no A/C and no hot water. If I open the windows and let the breeze blow through it is very comfortable at night, even in July. Actually more comfortable than my house in Boston this time of year, as in the US houses are built in a way that traps heat. One way I am un-Jamaican is I like to sleep with windows open. Mi nah understand how so many Jamaicans sleep with windows shut tight and a fan blowing hot air around. Also, why don't Jamaicans have screens on windows? Such a simple inexpensive thing and it keeps the mosquitos out. I need to screen up all my windows - high on my to-do list.
I love listening to the sounds around me at night. A mix of animal sounds - crickets, tree frogs, dogs, farm animals - together with music wafting in from neighbors. It's really nice.
A big difference here that I'm still digesting is the level of security in most Jamaican homes vs in the US. I grew up in the New York suburbs, and then moved to Boston suburbs, in neighborhoods with houses and lawns. Where I came from almost nobody had fences around their property, and the few that did were regarded as un-friendly/un-neighborly. Houses generally had no more than a door-handle lock and were trivial to break into; I had to break into my own home in Boston a few times due to forgetting key. Farms in the US usually have no fence around them and nobody goes in to steal crops. Here, on the other hand, I already feel like I'm living in a fortress, with grated windows and padlocked gates, and everyone is telling me to also build a fence around the whole property with a locked gate in front. People are telling me that absence of a fence will be taken as an invitation to come steal my fruit. Really? I don't like feeling like I am all locked in & keeping the world locked out. But I guess one does what one needs to do. Oh well, I'll work it out.
Anyway, really enjoying my new life.
Peace and love,
Richard
Originally Posted by rtitle
