The arrival of our first guest! And lots of pictures.

Lara, our first guest, enjoying a bowl of her mother's granola. (Debbie, your granola is magnificent!)

                                      Bullock cart delivering our new fence posts

This is our new yoga studio, as seen from the road.

You've heard of "its a dog-eat-dog world," haven't you?

Well, out here in the country, its a spider eat  moth world. This was a startling sight, even for us country folk.

                       Raul and Andreas, two of our workers. They are laughing because at first they put on a very solemn appearance for my camera. Then I asked them to look like tough guys and try and look mean...

                                       Keli, walking down the "road"

This is a rare moment  - I am sitting in an Internet cafe with nothing better to do than try and update the blog.                                                                                                           

I know it has been a long time since our last update. We have been so busy getting ready for our guest, Lara, who is on a 10 week visit to help us out here on the farm. We were really stressing out, trying to get all the details in place for her before she arrived. We were remodeling the original farmhouse bathroom and shower, cleaning up the house and just generally trying to get everything in order so she wouldn't be too depressed at the thought of spending two and a half months here.

Then, it turns out - due to my dyslexic mistake - that she is arriving three days earlier than we had planned and the construction is two weeks behind our original, very generous time estimates.

But once she got here everything fell into place. She doesn't mind that she has to use our shower for now or that her new home is a construction site. She is flexible and understanding and those are very valuable qualities around here.

What we have discovered is that even one more person makes a huge difference to the farm. Its not just her youth, enthusiasm and energy - its that it takes almost the full efforts of two people just to maintain the farm and its infrastructure. So when a new person comes and they can devote themselves totally to the new garden and making compost and planting seeds... it makes a huge difference.