Progress at Quinta Quijote...NOT
Submitted by catahoula_fan on Thu, 2007/02/01 - 09:39.
in
There's a whole lot of nothing going on at Quinta Quijote lately. Well, at least for the past two months.
Roger gave our workers a month off for the holidays, but work hasn't resumed due to one nasty neighbor. Over vacation, he put up this fence you see above to block the public road. Since that day, we've had nothing but fun (not) dealing with the confused Nandaime legal system, a total lack of communication among the powers that be in town, and a lawyer with no 'cojones'.
Well, we've recently gotten a new lawyer and are now simply biding our time until the fence comes down. Needless to say, this has been very frustrating but we haven't let it get us down (or maybe we're just drinking tons more beer).
Roger has been enjoying his down time from construction and the headaches of supervising workers, and has recently begun experimenting with milk wine. First batch was a bust, but the second looks quite promising. I'm still curious to see if you can actually make decent wine from powdered milk! Maybe I'll have a few pictures and a recipe to share in a month, sure hope so.
With construction on hold, and therefore our move-in date as well, I've been practicing my homesteading skills here at our rental in Jinotepe. My gardening has been hit or miss for the most part, but painting tires that Roger brings me and making the front yard "rustico" has kept me busy. I've had good luck with specialty lettuces, green onions and cherry tomatoes, but still can't get yellow squash or green zucchinis to do well. If at first you don't succeed...
One bit of success I have had is with making fresh cheese. Fresh feta cheese flavored with sea salt and cracked black pepper is something I'm now making as fast as Roger can eat it. Naturally, we have lots of whey now too, so I'm making Roger eat homemade bread daily. Whole wheat, rye, black russian, oatmeal dulce, cinnamon raisin......poor fella!
gringo method and Nicaraguan method
Interesting comments in your narrative - describe the problem of a nasty neighbors fence then immediately into legal systems an lawyers. A very Gringo thing to do.
Missing was the bit where you a) checked the cadastre to see whos property the fence was on and b) how the dicussion with the neighbor went and c) the underlying reason the fence went up.
Nicaraguans just don't spend good money buying a fence for fun; something made that guy dig deep in his pocket. Discover the motive and you are more than halfway to a solution.
Assuming your development would generate an income of $$$ dollars a month and its now in its second month of non-resolution you have already lost 2 X $$$ + lawyers fees. Would probably have been far cheaper to buy him off.
Ah, the Nicaraguan method,
Ah, the Nicaraguan method, buy him off. Nice. She said the gate blocked access to a public road that led to her property.
I think the final resolution was that they won their case utilizing the legal system (the correct way to handle things), used their truck to blast the gate costing the @ssh07e deep pocket money of its hinges with a police escort, and Senor Deep Pockets will probably not do that again.
Good going Melissa and Roger.
Wine and sugar
If you want a wine that contains alcohol, you HAVE to have something in there that gets to sugar at some point. Milk doesn't. Get some white wine then add some milk and thats about where you will end up. Maybe it will be as good and as profitable as Baileys Irish Cream. Go for it!
Milk wine aka Koumiss
Sugar is in milk...lactose also known as milk sugar. There may not be enough to make a wine type drink but there is sugar in milk.
The closest thing to milk wine I think would be koumiss.
http://home.new.rr.com/jjturner/koumiss.html
http://www.bashedu.ru/bashkortostan/kumys/kymuse.htm
As for mixing milk and white wine, that's just sad.
You're right on.
Kefir is from the Balkans and koumiss is Middle Eastern. It's simply a matter of converting the milk's lactose into a fermentable sugar. Basic science and messing around with enzymes in the pursuit of fun.
Roger's using Lactaid and loosely following Father Emmett Engel's recipe (he was a bootlegging priest in Alaska and a serious character in his own right!)
Let me know how it turns out
Not sure I want to try it until someone tells me what it tastes like.
yup its sad.
I saw a guy ask for Rose and the waiter mixed some red and some white.
One customer asked for a sweet red and the waiter added sugar.
I worked at the brewery where "Baileys" was invented - in the lab - and the name was invented by the marketing dept.
I bought red wine in France from a spigot on the back of a truck - bring your own bottle. And paying $8 a bottle for the same stuff in the US.
I remember the first plastic corks in bottles and the first flip-off plastic tops.
Kids being fed red wine and water at 5 years old.
My wife putting ice cubes in her wine. we are divorced now.
Is nothing sacred anymore?
Finding a good lawyer is hard
If your current one doesnt work out pm me.
Canta no LLores
Is the fence on a public road?
If it is, why not tear it down? The neighbors might get a little nastier, but if the fence is not on their property, it is not their fence.
what's the neighbours issue with the road . . .
what's the neighbours' issue with the road . . . does he want to sell you an easement to use it or something. Any thoughts on the garden's poor performance . . . soil, water, seed? I've never heard of milk wine . . . the feta sounds great . . . your goats or a neighbours?
Wish I knew what my gardening
problems were. Seems to be a whole bunch of things. I know I need a soil test kit (and once we're on the finca, I can bring in chicken manure to help that soil), but fighting the bugs has been a headache too.
I don't use chemicals, so it's been a matter of trying one organic/herbal solution at a time. I loose some plants this way, but overall I've found some things that work.
Companion planting is my next experiment. I've got a wormwood plant in the courtyard (found in Catarina, of course) and the plants surrounding it are the only ones that don't have aphids. Gotta send Roger to Catarina for more wormwood, I guess.
Wormwood is also a good natural wormer for canines, but I haven't noticed any worm problems in our dogs, so no need for that yet.
neem
neem trees and their products are supposed to be good to get rid of bugs.
Canta no LLores
I hope you're keeping detailed notes . . .
I hope you're keeping detailed notes . . . they could be invaluable to others ; ) Have you come across anything like Agricultural Extension services or a Farmer's Alamanac?
I think that wormwood makes a nice distilllate in absinthe . . . give up the milk wine and look for an absinthe recipe ; )
absinthe makes the mind go wander
Downtime in Nicaragua
Thanks for your latest diary of adventures in Nicaragua that you have shared and I have enjoyed reading. The above has me shaking my head and also a feeling of "Where do you get your patience". I guess there is no rush! What do your workers think about this fence? I presume (I know, I shouldn't this IS Nica) that they don't get paid whilst not working. Isn't someone tempted to break it down and Damn the Torpedoes!
We've done so much
head shaking we oughta have huge neck muscles by now. The patience comes from looking at the big picture. Our goal is paradise, so it's worth the headaches to achieve it. Besides, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?
Our workers are very unhappy with the situation and with the new neighbor. He's new to the neighborhood (bought his place about a year ago) and has basically put 6 families out of work with his games. I imagine he's not very popular in the hamlet of Paso Real de Ochomogo! But our workers know that Roger will prevail all in good time, and that they'll be plenty of work for them soon.
Yes I, for one, have been tempted to pull it down. That's why Roger won't let me go out there. We're doing this all by the book, following Nicaraguan law, it's just that the book takes a looooong time down here. I have made it real clear though that I WANT that slab of wood from the illegal gate. What a pretty, rustico bench top for my bar, and a great memento of more crazy legal wranglings in Nicaragua.
I think we all could learn
from your attitude and most importantly, sense of humour. That's a great Idea and conversation piece for your Bar. I have to say...not sure about the Milk Wine though!
Gelignite
in my experience solves most arguments. About a kilogram.
I do try to accept the strange folk on this site but some things transcend Religion and Politics
Milk is milk and wine is wine.
Wine is made from grapes.
Milk is made from grass (unless you're talking about making wine from carnivore's milk in which case words fail me)
You can't make wine from grass.
You can make alcohol and other organic compounds from sugars (glucose, sucrose, lactose, Godnose) using yeast with more or less pitiful results (such as Budweiser) so you could ferment milk. The result would, at a guess, be pretty much like the contents of a baby's nappy after a long day in a hot car.
Perhaps you're going for the integrated cheese-and-wine-party effect? Certainly the hangover should be impressive.
I understand there's a country called Chile not too far away - at the risk of having my French citizenship revoked I'd mention they make some wine which is just as good as the Froggy stuff. Maybe save yourself a lot of grief and try that instead?
Tis no grief,
mi amigo, but merely more adventures. Father Engel used to have a sign up stating "Engel wine! Super fine! No hangover!"
I'll have to get back to you on the hangover part.
You might not
be capable of rational thought, let alone finding the keyboard.
Don't say you weren't warned !!
Père Engel - who he ??
Father Engel was
a wine making priest in Alaska (died in 1986). Says he was visited by the Holy Mother and apparently she wanted him to make wine from whey. Something about the devil reigning unchallenged in alcohols with fusel oil.
Since he felt a divine intervention in his wine making, he was hell on the local cops. When the revenuers came by, he would say "Where are your cloven hooves? Where is your tail?" and he called the troopers Roman soldiers.
In one entertaining story he "kicked ass" on some revenuers who came by to take four barrels of his wine. He got a local fine of $500 which made some officials angry because they felt they had gotten a lot more than $500 worth of "nonverbal communication" from him.
A holey Moley
Would that there are more like him.
However the wine from whey bit is unconvincing.
Even JC didn't try that trick