Keli Leaves the Farm!

We’re sitting Saturday morning, blogging over coffee and recovering from our day out yesterday, which was full of new sights, new people and learning.

First stop, the Israelis living in Agua Buena.  First, it should be known that whenever we go somewhere for the first time it is mandatory to get lost, and so we did drive up a big mountain for no reason and boy was it cool up there, beautiful views of course.

Iris and Ofer are a couple with three children whose names I don’t remember now.  They moved here from Israel four years ago.  One of the things that sticks out most from the visit is Iris’s comment on how nice it is to be able to drink from the tap.  Their water comes from three different springs in the surrounding area and is very good quality, it was obvious from her statement she is continuously grateful for the water.  I know this feeling well and know that there are fewer and fewer places in the world where the water is good.  The shame of this is unspeakable, so …enough of that topic.

We heard about a couple that makes goat cheese and good bread about a year ago and finally got around to meeting them.  They go to the Uvita farmers market (four hours away, by the beach) once a week to sell things that they make and grow on their farm.  When you see their kitchen you can’t believe that all the goodies they produce come from that little kitchen.  Like us, they are fanatic about organic, saving containers, avoiding buying plastic as much as possible, and they go to extreme measures to avoid any manipulation or cruelty to animals.  We bought bread, chocolate soufflé, Cheesecake ice cream, hummus, and a dozen eggs.  We had to eat anything that had to be refrigerated because of our solar power limitations at the farm now.  I haven’t eaten that much sugar in the last six months put together. ( Jim says that’s not quite true.)

The prices for things here are usually a third less than in the U.S. But their bread was about 6.00 USD.  More expensive than Whole Foods.  The bread comes in different flavors, some of the ingredients are brought to them by friends from overseas and have a very limited availability,  The flour is from a company called Konig. Here in Costa Rica it is difficult to get good quality organic food, but with the increasing Gringo population more and more good quality and diverse food is becoming available. They take it to Uvita where there is a dense tourist population, usually looking for food that reminds them of home.

    Back to farm situations; I have to say that when we mentioned that the piladora near us stopped taking coffee for dehusking and we were looking for a place to dehusk our coffee, they took us to their shed and showed us this huge waist high mortar and pestle and explained how they do all the de-husking themselves.  By hand. Wow!

Imagine, the work involved in each aspect of their farm. It is just the two of them and one worker who comes for five hours a day. I didn’t see a hammock there.  The amount of work they do there is heroic, but they are excited, and look very healthy and happy. 

They came to Costa Rica for the first time on vacation and stayed four times as long as planned.  They bought a piece of property in a sweet fishing village and when they came back a year later the whole village had turned into a tourist nightmare.  So they sold and bought a farm in Agua Buena. 

One thing though… they bought their new farm over the internet without seeing it.  And so when they finally arrived they were really surprised.  If it had been me in that position I would have been bummed to say the least.  It was a single steep piece of land very hard work to climb all day long.  But they had made it into a little paradise for themselves.  They had several tiny raised beds with covers for veggies, a pineapple plantation, hundreds of bananas and plantains, goats, chickens and they found a blackberry plantation after chopping away the brush which they use to make some of their wonderful pies.

On Saturdays they leave for the Uvita market around 4am, and to my delight they pass on the main road above us.  You know what that means!!!  I plan on meeting them on occasion to buy some of their wonderful products, and of course I’m thinking of the guests we will be hosting here and what a boon for us and our company that this is available.  It wasn’t so just a few years ago.  This is how Costa Rica is changing.

Blogging the other adventures will have to wait.

The day is calling.