Keli and I bought a farm in Costa Rica about 1 1/2 years ago.
We were looking for a place near the beach, with a waterfall and a beautiful view of the ocean.
We ended up buying a farm that didn't have a waterfall and is two hours from the beach. Later, after the dust had settled, we tried to figure out how it was we had bought something so different from our original ideas.
The simple answer - we fell in love.
This property had huge old trees in a 15 acre virgin forest, 16 acres of cacao trees that produce up to 15,000 pounds of beans a year and lots and lots of land - almost 100 acres.
After we bought the farm, we realized that we were now caretakers of a beautiful, living organism that the original owner had built up over a 50 year period. We planted fruit trees, trees for lumber and indigenous trees to reforest the pastures.
We planted vegetable gardens, cleaned up the coffee plantation and sugar cane field and started to fix up the old barn (which had doubled as an evangelical church for many years,) so we could live in it while we built a new house and yoga studio.
We installed a solar system and fixed up an old hydro-electric system that runs on a creek that originates on our property. We were happy to have reliable electricity.
This is the original generator for the hydro-electric system - it must be 50 years old!The first few months we lived on the farm, Keli washed all the clothes by hand. I now know first hand the incredible advance in civilization that a washing machine and vacuum cleaner represent!
But most of all, we were intrigued by the vast amounts of cacao beans coming out of our plantation. We were told that they were of very high quality - an this was confirmed by "cacao mystic" we met recently who told us that the cacao devas told him that we were meant to make our high quality cacao available for cacao ceremonies (more about that later.)
We started to investigate the process (really, the alchemical art) of making chocolate. And today we have machines in both Costa Rica and in California that enable us to make high quality, luscious chocolate in both places.
In fact, after extensive experimentation, we have just started selling chocolate here in California.
More later...
