Final Installment of Lara's Blog!

It has been long promised and long awaited - here it is, the final installment of Lara's Blog.

Lara at home in front of the cacao drying rack

Chapter 4:

I think this may be close to week 5, but I'm losing track,  haven't been in  ´the city´ for quite some time. But I did have a visitor from San Jose--Taylor Overturf!! The time with her was great! I had a moment where I reflected and had to ask myself, if someone told me that I was to have ONE and only one social engagement for an entire summer with someone my own age and who I knew before, what would I think? or do? well, I certainly got very chatty for a couple days, and let's just leave it at that.

Taylor and Lara at the waterfall

She got the real country experience-- making chocolate (our second batch with oh so many sweet flavors: dark and milk, with cashew cranberry, roasted almond, roasted cashew, roasted peanut, cacao nib with and without cinnamon, little heart shaped molds with toasted pumpkin seeds and cayenne pepper grown and dried in the garden, etc), milking the cow, taking a horseback ride with our wonderful neighbor Dianey to an undiscovered waterfall, harvesting a banana bunch of ten layers of bananas with two sacks and our horse Miloo through the cacao forest, yucca soup, rice, beans, our own yogurt and cheese, and of course a couple snakes, a mini scorpion, cockroaches, and and and.

Melting Chocolate

She had to watch me, calmly, as I began to freak out a little more than usual about an infected bug bite on my arm...turns out its a ´nacido´--gross name, I know-- and not that thing that lays eggs under the skin. Just went to the doctor to get antibiotics. Something I'm learning is that I don't have to be physically uncomfortable to the extreme in order to do the extreme work I want to do. I can wear gloves, but don't, put on a mosquito net hat, or not, and so on and so forth.

The garden is bursting and all the beds are full. This morning after getting the bananas (the tree was huge that I chopped down and out of the middle a little snake came hissing out at me--only added to the Indiana Jones-like Sunday Taylor and I had experienced) we transplanted a bed of tomatoes, strung up some more beans and tomatoes, transplanted a row of white pumpkins and a small bed of hot peppers. Things are looking better and better. Soon I'll focus more on special projects like making chicha  (locally fermented alcohol) with whatever fruit we have: corn/ “maiz”--traditional--, pineapple, overripe quadradoes, which are sort of like bananas. I'll also make bio-char, still working on implementing a better composting system, making things from the beeswax we are getting at the coast in a few days, and continuing our weekly kombucha batches. In this climate any kind of fermentation is interesting. Jim and E even went into the forest for two hours to try and harvest cacao juice!! my god, I'm telling you all, this stuff is gold. One sip and you just can't help smiling.

Now that is a bursting garden!

Horseback riding has become one of my favorite pass-times (pastime, I get it now). I rode to work at our friend Willy's place last week and had a crazy time trying to get back in the pouring rain. I'd never ridden that horse before and it totally trusted me and I trusted him...it didn't stop raining for hours and as it began to get dark I had to rush out. Within minutes my boots were filled to the brim with water and an hour later I arrived at the river crossing...it was way too high for cars and I had no idea how deep in can be in order for horses to cross...especially with me on the back. The first time we checked it out, Miloo turned around--of course he would know better than I would. After a few minutes of resting and contemplating the situation up the hill in the running dirt and mud road, we tried again and went for it...there was a moment we almost got flushed  down the river...I think Miloo was even swimming. but I survived and the hills were covered in fireflies as the white fog surrounded me and the palm trees lining the road. Nothing else out there. Sometimes I can't help thinking, where the fuck am I? It's beautiful, that's all I know.

Rafting, oh that was about two weeks ago. Fantastic, that's all. I'm so behind on journaling that I think I'm not even gonna try at this point. I'm doing well still but excited to get back to the farm after our trip to the coast and have it be quiet again--just Keli, Jim, and me. Then I'll have a few weeks to focus on my last projects, including adopting a half acre of the cacao plantation for care-taking: pruning, and cutting off the infected pods.


Chapter 5:

Okay, falling far behind and its almost the end of July!

I have about three weeks left and I'm just returning from a sort of crazy spontaneous different vacation week on the coast and in the mountains. The boys are gone, I got time by myself, I socialized (or tried) with people closer to my own age (early 30s is as good as it gets), spent hours in waterfalls, pools and the ocean, got super sunburned, finished two books, drew a lot, surfed and healed my infected arm with antibiotics which made me feel all funky. It was rocky but refreshing to move around and break the habitual farm work and life. I actually feel like I'm aging--did I tell you people thought I was thirty/think it all the time? I don't think I want to appear thirty quite yet...

Other highlights include a few waterfall-jungle hikes and climbs in primary forest. There is so much incredible water here. I saw wild turkeys, blue jean frogs, toucans, iguanas. Even for Tico standards I think I look a bit homeless at this point. All three of us look more haggard (?) than most of the farmers. My hair is blond again and somehow turned curly/dready, I'm covered in bites or blisters, dark or red from the sun, my clothes are terribly stained from oil, banana and sugar juice, dirt, you name it. Mostly I enjoy it. Oh, and today, after returning from Panama after only a few hours (where I found some freshly dried tobacco and lots of middle school kids in uniforms making out on park benches), I finally bought my first machete, which I think I deserved now that every single Tico I've worked with has, without fail, called me "valiente" by the end of the day.

Now I'm ready to get back to the farm. The car is full of wet smelly clothes, cuttings, uprooted palmitos (heart of palm), and groceries from the giant farmers market in San Isidro. I´ll be working in the cacao forest more now and continue in the garden.

Chapter 5:
I feel like an old turtle, wrinkled-necked and stubborn, sticking my head out from below my shell. panza. Here I still am, getting quieter and quieter on my end of things. I guess this may be the closing letter for this chapter of my life. And what a whirlwind it has been.

I'm in town again, as you might have guessed, having just returned from a day at the local botanical garden. After wandering through a place like that for a few hours I realize what a geek I am for how much I love plants. But it does, too, remind me of my desire to study landscape architecture. It's funny, but it really seems like most of my interests were visible such a very long time ago. I'm thinking now of the photo mama placed in the front of our family cookbook for me: me, white blond hair in woolen tights attractively covering my diaper and two fists tightly clinging to the blender whisks, covered head to toe in chocolate.

And yes, that was me this past week all over again. Monday we made our third big batch of chocolate, of which I will hopefully bring some back with me. We even tempered it this time (getting the right crystal structure to ensure slower melting). The peanut ones are especially good and made with peanuts from a neighbor´s farm.

I realized that I finally have been accepted into the neighborhood-valley not just as Keli and Jim´s guest but as a friend of the locals. I crossed the river to visit a family who offered me all their fruits, cacao, banana, mamonchino, cookies and typically oversweetened black coffee. And then I visited Walter´s house. He has 11 siblings but lives in the house he grew up in almost as if it were abandoned. It's rice season but it's been raining a lot so the floor of his entire downstairs was covered from wall to wall with drying rice. It looked a bit like a scene out of a Marquez short story. He picked me some sapote to taste and I returned fully loaded up with goodies.

Sunday, Dianey took me on a motorcycle trip across the valley to a friend of his. This couple lives on goverment parcelled land and I felt very silly and humbled to be their guest. They have a stall-like house with a mud floor and chickens wandering around and aside from their land, have little else. But they live in abundance too and I was overcome with the gifts they gave me to carry back. Then we stopped for some chicha at a woman´s porch and hung around before returning in the rain.

Final Chapter:
A foggy morning, a bright green frog squished flat on the road, the sound of boiling water and the smell of farm coffee. My last morning at the Chocolate Farm and yes, I am feeling nostalgic. It's been 10 weeks already, at times slow--giving me the feeling that I'm actually aging--and at others simply a whirlwind. My life here, despite the many phases of this passing summer, has taken on quite a shape of its own, and it has become so present in so many ways that whatever came before it actually feels far away. It's funny how "home" can stay untouched and still remain, but my memories of Costa Rica only came to life once I made this experience happen. So, in a way, this time has been the most present yet, especially considering the extreme contrast and disconnect from my "normal" life. In other words, the fact that my hair is now curly, my skin is hairy, tan and luscious and rarely scrubbed are only the physical responses to a new environment. Let's just say that waking up at 5:30 AM naturally every morning, eating a raw snake once in a while, peeing into a bucket, spending a half hour cleaning beans or rice before cooking them, reading by candlelight and checking under my bed for snakes religiously every night before I go to bed are new habits that I've grown accustomed to.

My brother, in a recent email to me, likened my experience to Odwalla's Super Food - “crazy awesome stuff so condensed that it's almost overpoweringly interesting, and while ingesting it, you know that you're getting the most compact form of a vast multitude of experiences.” So, my time here has been like a super food, and not just produced “maybe an orange. Or a kiwi. Strange, rather vibrant, exciting, but just that -- one fruit.” I would have to agree 100% aside from the fact that I've been trying real hard not to liken beautiful and new experiences to familiar and utterly commercial products. Though I have to say that Odwalla must have a very good rep since Ky, a fellow volunteer here, likened my absolute favorite juice (cacao nectar) to Odwalla also. I believe that in his terms that was equally high praise.

One thing I know for sure is that I would never trade my experience here in the campo to another's travel vacation in Costa Rica. The opportunity to live as self-sufficiently as I have here is worth every dirty sock, every sip of vinegar-like-tasting chicha, every black fly bite and molding everything. Things tend to be more complicated here but the times of rest are all the more sweeter. I will greatly miss the delicious fruits and delicacies I have tasted here, the wonderful people I have met, the general generosity and neighborhoodly feeling. And I will take with me the skills I have learned, and the knowledge of basic processes and the patience it takes to follow through on any of them: the pleasure of making churriadas (harvesting corn, scraping the cobs, grinding the corn by hand, frying the batter with salt or dulce), of making cheese (milking, heating the milk, cooling it, stirring it, adding cultures, shaping it), and of course the immense delight of chocolate (harvesting, fermenting, drying, toasting, grinding, dehusking, grinding, grinding again, pouring, cooling, and finally eating). Just like it is with anything else, something worked hard for bears sweeter fruit. It is no different here—only that one has to beat the birds to the ripe papayas.

Birds love to eat our fruit!

The garden has been my steady companion and perhaps, in this way, a reflection of my greater experience here. It is no surprise that a garden's mulitude of activities have long been used figuratively to rely all sorts of life lessons (“reaping the benefits”; “sewing the seeds of one's own destruction”; “inch by inch I'm gonna let this garden grow”; “rooting oneself”, etc.). I enjoy learning full processes and cycles just as I enjoy turning compost, mixing soil, sewing seeds, transplanting, watering, harvesting and finally eating vegetables. And so I am happy to see that every bed in the garden now has a crop growing, the vivero is flourishing and cucumbers, celantro, celergy, tomatoes and lettuce have already become our daily bread.

Lara's Blog Chapter Three

Chapter 3:

San Vito once more on my third week reunion. Greeted by the darkest clouds I've seen in days up on the hill after the 9km climb on the dirt road. The two boys (sixteen years old and from Sonoma) just arrived a few days ago. I've already become an old timer... At times I feel a bit like the nagging or annoyed-annoying older sister but it's hard to live in such close quarters and share everything all the time.

The Boys

Things get better and more intense by the week. I definitely feel settled in here which is great. I'm also a lot more covered in bug bites (the worst of which swell up my eyes for a few days) and a couple more bee stings. I've gone on a beautiful horseback ride with the other gringo in town, Willy, and took a brief two-day trip with Jim and Keli to the beach near Uvita and Dominical, which was beautiful. We were the only ones on a perfect beach. It looks a lot like Hanalei bay in Kauaii. We covered ourselves in sand, tried surfing, collected pink and purple shells, ate good friend plantain, fish, and homemade ice cream.

Pineapple plants

This morning I planted two rows of pineapple “hijos” (the baby shoots that grow around the mother plant) and helped Raul clear the “monte“- giant brush-weeds to expand the garden.
The chilies and tomatoes came up, I harvested some cucumber and learned how rice is grown by visiting our neighbor's property across the river. I'm learning about the seasons, the crops, the little tricks about the local plants and planting from the passing neighbors and workers, and even the kids. We made sugar and it was amazing: pressing the cane to make cane sugar juice and then boiling it in a large cauldron for hours with a big fire oven underneath. the dulce (brown cane sugar) and the miel (soft, honey-like dulce) are a daily dessert.  

Kids on sugar!

 

                    Boiling Cauldron of Sugar Cane Juice

I'm eating very well. I walked more than 6 km through ´die Pampa,´ as we like to say in German, to buy two dozen eggs... and of course I got loaded up with corn bread and avocados. It's the season for avocados and I think all the locals are worried we’re running out of food so we are gifted them by the dozens as well.

When we are low on food it's time for some food gathering. And I actually feel a bit like an animal foraging when we enter the forest with a horse and some rope and empty sacks, machetes and bamboo poles. Yesterday we got plantains, quadradoes (basically fat bananas), bananas, pejibaye and bread fruit nuts. And of course we indulged in some chocolate fruit while walking through the cacao plantation. It gets me high. I'm telling you, it's the best thing I've ever eaten. And of course the “morpho” butterflies are totally out of control in there with a wingspan of at least 5 inches and phosphorescent, or at least iridescent, colors - purple, blue, green.

Okay, so these are the highlights. Of course there's also lots of muck, snakes, cockroaches, blisters and mold around too, but that’s all overshadowed for me. Thank goodness.

Lara's Blog Chapter Two

Chapter 2:

We just left the higher mountain area after it started pouring rain for an hour because we were worried the waterfall and river would flood the dirt road before we got out. Some Israeli friends of Keli and Jim's live up there and we got some kombucha mushrooms to take home. Now we’re in an agro-economic co-operative where 26 California college kids are doing a project... the first huge group of gringos I've seen since the airport. This area is not at all known for tourists. and I'm loving the rural life.

We successfully made mozzarella the other day with milk from that morning! And then at night we made pizza with it. My diet is the definition of local and I'm really beginning to learn more about trying to be self-sufficient. I'm learning to be very resourceful and inventive with uses for things. I finished sewing curtains for my room, planted a few beds of squash and zucchini, many beds of seeds and my mustard and collards sprouted today!

                                                                



OH! Today we finished our first batch of chocolate! After getting my face, arms and hands covered in chocolate from licking off all the utensils and sampling all along the way and then driving on curvy dirt roads for and hour and a half I felt pretty sick but my god, that chocolate is GOOD. Dark and milk, roasted almonds, vanilla bean and cinnamon. I want to invest in the equipment and start making it in the states. The cacao nibs themselves after roasting and de-husking or shelling the beans are to die for. All very rustic of course. “Home-style.”

I'm getting to know the neighbors poco a poco and they are wonderful. The workers are very shy to talk to me except one who made me think of the 12 days of Christmas song... the first day an avocado from his yard, then two, then four pejibaye, then two woven palm frond pyramids... then he got laid off for a while. The jokes are still going on of course.

Oldemar, one of the workers on the farm

Lara's Blog Chapter One

Chapter One:

Coming down into the Valley

So, this is my first afternoon in the town of San Vito, which is to say that I actually don't even live in this small village, nor in the still smaller village of Sabanillas nearby, but rather down the hill 9 kilometers on a wild dirt and mud road across a few creeks deep down into a mountainous or hilly valley. We don't even live in El Valle, but Bonanza. That's right: Bonanza. That all came after the 6 hour bus ride south from San Jose, a taxi ride, lots of waiting, and two flights. and so far I like it. There's definitely some adjusting going on, but actually I feel like I just got completely transported into another world and time so that the “transitioning” out of school and into summer has been jump started after just a week at home. During the day my thoughts are pretty diverted by all the bright colors, fresh fruits, the rain and slippy mud, and so many other things that it is only really at night that my normal world back at home and school can deeply sink in. And then, of course, I wake up totally astonished at the clanging hammers, loud Spanish TV, wild loud bird sounds, humid air and a big white mosquito net around me.

I live in the old farmhouse which is bright blue and turquoise. there is also the “church” which is where the kitchen is and where I do some of my hanging out, especially at night because it's buggy and dark everywhere else. Writing all this feels weird and makes me feel like I'm not actually here anymore. Internet, computer. I have no watch and only minimal electricity at the farm but its great that way. I've been sort of touring the farm and learning the ropes for the last few days and tomorrow the real work will begin. I'm to be the head of the garden—a big responsibility which makes me nervous but also excited. We pretty much grow everything we eat here so I have real pressure to produce some juicy veggies. Even the coffee we drink, the beans, the rice, the milk (and cheese! --I've already made yogurt, ricotta and a sort of feta) are all from this farm or the neighbors'. Today we dropped off the coffee beans for de-husking and roasting and grinding and then collected empty husks and sawdust for our worm box and compost. I'm going to have to start the compost system...in the tropics? One thing I've found shocking is the incredible speed at which everything rots, decays and grows here! It is unbelievable. The bananas, for example, ripen by the hour. yummy. And they are everywhere.

And a perk I totally did not anticipate is that Keli is a yoga teacher so we do a session every afternoon when the rains come. And the other is that it's only a mile and half walk down to the river to go swimming--and over a rickety suspension bridge very near its end...

Yoga studio

Okay this is getting long. Basically all you need to know is that I've now chopped down a banana tree with a machete in the forest, eaten many strange fruits that I've never heard of before, will be making chocolate soon, and sucked on my first sugar cane. I go to bed at 8 pm and wake up at 5:30 am. It feels totally normal to rise with the sun. By 10 I feel ready for an afternoon nap.

Keli on the public "road"

The Last Blog

This is my last blog entry.

The personal interactions, the clashing of cultures, the protection of the forest, the integrity of the local people and everything in between is what is interesting.
But some things are too sensitive to put in a blog.
This place can be experienced by anybody who wants to come here.

We may occasionally blog when we are making chocolate.

More Visitors! And they're teenagers!

                               Ky and Cooper after their first sample of pure sugar cane juice





We are blogging a bit irregularly now and if you want to receive an email notice when there is a new posting let us know and we will start sending an email out.
We haven't blogged in a while and this blog is an attempt at re-igniting the habit.  We have three guests here at the moment.  Lara, who got a grant from her college to do an internship here, Cooper who was invited here by us to do a volunteer stay over the summer and Ky who was invited by Cooper as a fellow volunteer and companion.

Lara has been here a month now (Wow ,time is flying) Cooper and Ky are in the second half of their month long stay.

Jim and I are preparing to take a vacation and leave the farm and all it's operations to our volunteers.

Actually, that is not true.  Cooper and Ky who are 16 years old now along with Jim have been doing a sort of sarcastic/joking thing - they say things that sound serious but don't mean it. I am learning how that works and it is starting to seep out through my lips, too - like just now.  Living with two teeanage boys has been an outrageous, challenging, and rewarding experience for us.  They have been busy every day with projects ranging from digging drainage ditches, to cutting sugar cane and making sugar, to walking an hour to the nearby village to do some work on another farm in trade for a rafting trip. Ky is working on a video of his stay and the farm, Cooper and Lara have been journaling and we have been taking pictures so there is a good record of what is happening.  But the personal development, with all its internal negotiating and re-adjusting, is the really juicy part.

Lara has given us a gift of taking over the garden operation and we are eating well from her greens.  She has a fabulous report she made for her college which maybe we can post to share the multitude of things she is experiencing here.

It is now 7:30 AM. Ky is having breakfast and writing something and Cooper is outside sharpening his new machette.  They are now making all their own decisions about what to do, and when to wake up and get moving. They've organized a trade with Willy and will leave soon to work on his farm for the day.

                                      Ky learning the proper technique for holding a pickaxe

New Video of Bullock Cart

I'm not so sure that the link to the right of the home page of this blog accurately reflects the videos that I've taken of the Chocolate Farm.


So, here is a direct link to the newest video.... A bullock cart, which turns out to be a surprisingly efficient mode of transportation when your car would get instantly stuck in a foot of mud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVIUfDFdiZ4

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.

Planting Corn

                                              Keli standing under a 2 year old breadfruit tree.

Today Oldemar started working with Freddy, and between my non-existent Spanish, and the egos involved, there has been a chaos (as Freddy put it) of communication and who is supposed to do what where, and who is supposed to listen to who.  Jim is very comfortable in uncomfortable situations and so with his ease i am eased.  But my Spanish has to improve or I'm a dead duck.

The corn patch that Oldemar made is almost finished, for the record of future inquiry, i am going to use this blog to record different things like planting times, the time it takes to do certain things and so on, so that we can refer back and have a log of information if we need it.

It took Oldemar about two days to cut and clear the brush and clean to the dirt level.   Today the third day he started adding the cal and gallinaza (organic fertalizer) to the soil.  He would have finished if he didn't start helping with the construction of Freddy's work site. That would mean that preparation and planting of say 25X25 foot area takes about two and a half days for someone who is experienced with the ways of life here.  It looks great.

Food is really much better if we can get it from the farm and it seems ridiculous to buy bananas when we must have hundreds of banana trees on the property.  It is just a matter of going and finding the bananas ready to cut down and carrying them here.  Not a simple task with out a horse and saddle.  And our saddle isn't ready yet.  And also it seems that much of the time there is not a bunch ready.  Then when they are ready fifty come ripe all at once.  Anyway we try to adhere to eating truly local food as much as possible.  Eggs are another thing.  We don't have a  chicken coop yet and the egged from the store of course are pumped with antibiotics and/or go rotten very quickly so i am asking  Oldemar and Raul to bring eggs when they have extra.  Raul's sister had eggs and today we got 18 eggs individually wrapped in torn newspaper.  It was very sweet.  We pay 100 colonies at the store for eggs.  We have been giving Raul and Oldemar a little more than that when they bring eggs from home. 

It's the afternoon.  We just had lunch and Jim is fast asleep.  I'm glad. Today he was nonstop and i just thought I'd note his day.  He got out of bed at 6:00, I'm not even sure he had a cup of tea.  It seems like such a long time ago but yes i guess he did.  I got Oldemar started on clearing the patch for the work site he was going to work with Freddy on, but soon after that Freddy and Oldemar were at the door together with conflict.  It was the beginning of a full day of going between Oldemar and Freddy until Jim just took over the job to work with Oldemar on the  new temporary wood workshop, and that way they don't have to work together. By lunch time Oldemar had stooped work for the day and was sitting with us explaining how crazy Freddy is.   Oldemar wants to work full time here.  And i am wondering if he will be able to shift his perspective to embrace all the different people he would encounter here. Both Jim and I like a wide variety of people and hold a special place in our hearts for all the eccentrics. That includes us.

By 8am, Jim met Raul and Andrea up the road to pick up the bamboo.  (The first year we were here we were offered the opportunity to buy a huge field of full grown local bamboo for forty dollars, and we have been using it for all our shade structures) They tie it piece by piece to the truck and drag it all the way here.  

Then, at the same time, the truck with the 'road rock' showed up and Jim was shoveling rock and getting the road work organized while going back and forth to check on the Freddy, Oldemar situation which needed maintenance. 

I was a  able to squeeze in a fruit smoothie for Jim at around 9:00am.  That is too much work out in the Sun with no food.  I know he loves this work and loves working hard but it's nice to see him rest. And just as i am finishing up this little story, a huge thunder bold surprises us, Jim wakes up, I'm running for the clothes line and he is going for the drying rack where our first batch of especially fermented cacao beans is drying. Then back for the rest of our much needed nap.

Awakened from a soft slumber. It's only twenty minutes since i wrote the last sentence and we are hearing in our sleep the second big truck coming for the delivery.  We forgot that there was a second delivery coming.  They have to come in small trucks so they can get down this country and often muddy road.  There is half a ton of sand that has to get shoveled off the truck, one hundred cement blocks, and many cases of tiles.   Usually the truck is arriving when we have several helpers around but now there is no one.  Jim is down there and i guess i will go help shovel just because i can't just sit here while he is doing all that work when he is stone tired.  Ahh, Freddy helped too.

Some more time has passed.  The unloading went smoothly.  The whole bathroom will be made out of cement mixed by hand since we have no grid power out here.  Both of us were amazed at the amount of cement and sand that were ordered by Carlos.

Now it is 4:30 after a little more rest, some tea.  A small diversion of capturing the beauty of this amazing moth/butterfly that was on our window.  Jim shined a flash light  on it and it has glowing blue spheres in it's wings when the light is on it, and a striking design, that looks like two open round eyes on it's wings...

And finally, music practice.  It is incredible that we will get in our music before dark today.  I actually took the second half of my practice up to the Studio and practiced there for the first time.  It was very peaceful and the view is romantic. Afterward, a nice walk down the driveway, i could hear Freddy blasting the music on the radio in the farm house with Spanish romance music, and as i went from the studio, past the farm house to the church house,while hearing the children playing up above, it actually felt like a little bubbling community out here in the middle of nowhere.

The topper for the day was the phone call we got from Jim's dad.  His sister Mary is in the hospital and was in a coma earlier.  This is big news and we are definitely waiting to hear more about what is going on with that.

We end the day with Jim doing some work on the computer and i am organizing my music lessons to go onto the computer.  It's 7:30 and ideally we should be in bed in an hour.

All this and i didn't even mention the three fantastic meals we had.  That is a whole other subject and is definitely an artistic outlet.

Yesterday a friend asked me how is it going and what i am doing and sometimes i have a difficult time answering that question. So i got inspired to try for blogging  in a day, and so... this is how the day goes by.  Every day is different.

Getting Acquainted

Freddy and his amazing traveling tool box

Yesterday was Monday and the day before was the first Sunday that we slept in and so we are getting into the schedule here on the farm little by little.  Freddy, the carpenter that will finish our house, also arrived with all of his tools. Very cute travel system, I’ll try to take a picture of his especially redesigned shopping cart with a metal locking lid. Very organized and full of things to the brim.

Last night, Willie, the only other gringo from the area, came over for dinner and Freddy joined us.  I guess it was our first party. The main topic was about the environment and the locals.   Willie speaks very good Spanish and knows a lot more about what is going on around here between the people.  The more time we spend here getting to know the politics the more we sense, and feel the different sensitive undercurrents, social behaviors, and politics that are important to understand.

Oldemar is a young man who is working for us helping to build a little greenhouse.  He is the only person we have hired from around here to do farm work who can build standard things like bamboo rain shelters (which everyone has and is part of life here) that lasts for more than three days.  He has an artist’s flare and likes to do work that interests him or else he will sneak off and go take a nap in the grass and then lie about it.  We wanted him to assist Freddy last time we were here but he wasn't around so when he showed up looking for work we were pleased. 

Well, it's late - about 6am.  I woke up and actually got out of bed at 5am just to have a few moments of quiet to myself before the bustle of the work here commences.  We are working to finish the farm house, the Yoga Studio and the new house all at the same time, to be ready for guests in the summer.

It's 12:30 now.  Oldemar did a fantastic job and finished the green house.
With the guest volunteers coming this summer it might be possible to implement some creative projects to help educate people regarding caring for their environment.  I know Willy and the realtor who sold us this property are interested in being a part of some movement to help the locals understand the necessity for change.  Although Rolando thinks the adults are too set in their ways and we will have to aim for inspiring the children. 


   

Hard headed

We are on the road to the Chocolate farm and passing through San Isidro.

Mom, this one is a story you will sympathize with. And it is good to note that sometimes the drama is just more fun to tell. 

The news is that I almost died twice.  While at the waterfall, (first time there by myself,) I slipped on some rocks and landed on my head.   To my amazement it wasn’t cracked.  Boy, do I have a hard head.  Lucky to be alive.  The real killer is when we were driving home.  We saw a young girl standing on the road and waiting for a ride as people here often do, since the bus only comes twice a week.  And as it happened she was someone we know.  The moment she got in the car I started getting dizzy.  She was wearing perfume and I tried to act normal but finally when I was about to pass out I reached up for the skylight window to open it.  Jim helped me and suggested I stand up and get some fresh air.  I was a little embarrassed because it would seem quite strange.  But I guess not stranger than telling her I’m allergic to perfume.  That always makes people feel weird.  But this was strong and felt life threatening.  After she got out it took me three hours  to recover. 

We visited a nice permaculture farm today - Fuente Verde (fuenteverdecommunity.org) a lovely development with lots for sale and six families living there.  The woman we met, Tiffany, has a son 11 yrs. old who walks a mile to school everyday.  When she talked about the freedom and the life she and her son have here and how she wanted her son to feel the rainbow of freedom in contrast to what kids go through in the states it was inspiring.  I left thinking about kids with ADHD.  How many kids would have ADHD if they started out with a mile walk amidst the forest and animals singing everyday?

Driving the Sierra de Muerte

Going over the Sierra de Muerte, we are listening to one of our downloaded podcasts.  This one is about the ability of the oceans to absosrb Co2.  Of course it is one more story about how the earth's ablility to withstand our overcomsumptive life style is reaching it's end.  We all feel this now and every time i turn around there is more news about how the Earth is saying enough is enough.  I pray that the young people of today will be able to enjoy the trees, the monkeys, the fresh water and so many other things which are the real joy of living in the natural world.

Living on the farm and introducing, or shall I say re-introducing, the idea of organic farming and respect for nature is an offering and a teaching.  Many people around the farm would spray chemicals on everything if they had the money to buy it. But with our research on finding a better price for the organic cacao we can see for the first time in the two years we have lived there an interest in growing something organic.  To hear the word organic coming out of Deanae's mouth was astonishing.  Like a dream come true.
Then, on top of that, they are planting a vegetable garden box in their yard which will diversify their food supply.  I see all this is very good for the planet but for the locals it is just a good idea that they can see will serve them. 


Picking up a Tico Times (the local English language newspaper) today i was pleasantly surprised to see many articles about the efforts of people taking steps to protect our nature.  I'm trying to focus more on the great efforts being made.  Lets give that more energy. One article is about the country's attempts to answer the calls of people who have been working for years to protect monkeys and other wild life from being harmed on electrical wires. Another article is about the increasing population of a non-native and devestating population of Lionfish in the Carribean  reefs, all written by people who are in touch with nature and have the inspiration and compassion to get involved.

This touches me with a kind of piercing of the heart quality which brings with it my own desire to help in some way or at least continue with even more fervor to live with less impact. Boy do I have far to go till i live without impact, and i bother everyone with my fanatical attitude about the use of plastic, perfumes, and  "to go" containers. That's just because time is slow.  Soon, and maybe even in my lifetime, everyone will be using sustainable products of every kind in every corner of life. 

Today we met Juan who is going to help us design a website for the farm.  He is a very young and very talented man.  He has his own website design company and has been successful to the point that when we met today the first thing we talked about is how he is tired of web design. It bores him and he is now planning on attending film school in Cuba.  No doubt he will be good at that, too.

Both Jim and I felt kind of old after sitting with him.  But it was sweet to see and feel the raw energy of youth. He will be among the leaders who will hopefully make the changes necessary to continue  living naturally on this planet.

Today i ponder how our life on the farm can further love and respect for nature.

Jim is learning how to make video and also edit so we can add fun stuff to this blog and he is threatening to make avante-guarde movies of the farm.

Back in Costa Rica and a Scorpion Mother

Keli and I are back in Costa Rica.

But this is a different Costa Rica from the countryside of the chocolate farm. This Costa Rica is more like a dirtier and more chaotic version of any ugly city in the United States. San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica is one of the most unlovely capital cities of any country in the world.

We will soon be traveling to the chocolate farm and we will be updating our blog with pictures of the fruit trees we planted last year, the weeds that have covered our garden and the termite holes that infest our new wood house.

Check out the new video of the scorpion mother at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv7Pskg1iyg

Adventures in the City

Where we get our drinking water

We’ve been in San Jose, the capitol of Costa Rica, for the last couple of days.

What a vacation! When we are at the farm it is almost impossible to imagine a life that doesn’t involve early rising, hard work, way too many projects and endless discussions about the best way to do things (discussions that I usually lose!)
The first day here in town we stayed in bed till 10 AM, watched a movie, read and generally lazed around. It felt a little bit like winning the lottery.

Yesterday we visited the Om Prem Pilates/Gyrotonic studio in San Jose. It is a beautiful, fun place that was very happy to see Keli who can offer them her services as a Gyrotonic master trainer. Its great for us because it gives us a kind of home away from home and a great way to connect with people here in town.

The clients of this studio are just the kind of people who would appreciate a visit to the Chocolate Farm. They can do yoga and Gyrotonic, refresh themselves with the pure country atmosphere and eat lots of chocolate.

San Jose is just like any other big city. It is modern, fast paced, and stressful. When they travel a couple of hundred miles south to our farm they are also traveling back in time, to a place where life is more simple, people still grow most of their own food and live in rhythms dictated by the sun, moon and seasons.

Today we traveled to Finmac, an inelegant name for an amazing cacao plantation, owned by Hugo Hermelink. 110 hectares of cacao trees. All of them are grafted trees, so they look a lot different than ours, which are planted from seeds. The grafted trees have slimmer trunks and don’t grow as high. They almost look like bonsai cacao compared to ours. The beans are very uniform in taste, even a little bland when compared to our spicy, fruity and all-over-the-place criollo beans but when you are running a big business, uniform is good.

We had a very interesting tour from the plantation manager, Ivan. I was especially interested in their fermentation process since this is the make or break point in the chocolate making process. They use large boxes, about 4 foot by 3 foot by 2 foot high, that concentrate the heat created by the fermentation. It seems like a lot of manpower is needed because all those beans need to get shoveled from box to box every day - this mixes up the beans and ensures that all the beans are fermented equally.

Hugo has some industrial sized machinery that heats, cracks, winnows and conches the beans. He produces his own cocoa liquor which he then ships around the world. This cocoa liquor is the raw material for making chocolate when added to sugar and cacao butter.

The final tasty portion of the tour was when we entered the small house where seven women in white lab coats and hair nets were making chocolate bars with Hugo’s cocoa liquor. Hugo was instrumental in helping to set up this small collective of women from the neighboring village. They take the liquor, melt it, add sugar and flavoring (ginger, mint, cinnamon, cappuccino, and others) temper it and pour it into molds.

We happened to come in when they were gathered around the table wrapping the bars by hand.  Of course Keli bought many bars from them and considers it a substitute to offer friends in CA because we are not planning on making chocolate this visit.  The bars were very good.

On the way back we stopped off at one of the several waterfalls coming down the pristine mountains and filled our water jug. Waterfalls are always the high point of Keli’s day and drinking the water straight from the falls is one of our favorite hobbies. 

We leave for California in the morning.  Keli will be in Miami for a few days and I go straight into a Diamond Heart retreat with lots of material for inquiry.  So this is the end of this chapter. We anticipate an uneventful restful visit, but know that it will probably be full of more crazy adventure.

1,000 New Cacao Trees

The cacao goddess is after us!


We found that we had no choice except to plant 1,000 new cacao trees. Even though we are trying to complete building a house and take care of the million other details involved in running a finca in Costa Rica, it just had to happen...

The seeds germinate easily, they have a lot of "potencia," as it is called here. All we had to do was buy the bags where the seeds will spend the first three months of their lives, build a shade structure, dig up a lot of beautiful dirt and mix it with the "gallinaza," which is chicken poop mixed in with rice husks, arrange for somebody to fill the bags and keep them watered and that's it! Simple...

I'm trying to upload a video of the shade structure being built but it seems to be a strain on the internet connection. Maybe later...

An Avalanche of Activity

First of all, I should say that it is completely insane to be blogging right now. We are leaving the farm tomorrow and, as always, there is too much to do.

Life has a way of sweeping us up in its path and all we can do is say yes.  For example, we have been preparing to plant 1,000 cacao trees. Our neighbor, Dianey, saw what we are doing and became interested in planting some of his own. So we talked to the biggest cacao producer in Costa Rica, Hugo Hemerlink, to find out what price he would pay for organic beans. When Dianey heard the price (more than twice what we are receiving now as the beans are sold into the conventional market,) he immediately thought of involving many more neighbors and starting a collective.

So now we find ourselves in the middle of the process of organizing the local farmers into a collective, building a new drying rack and figuring out how to do large scale, high quality fermentation.

At the same time, we are making chocolate here to bring back to the States. We made two batches, one from beans we bought in San Jose and one from our own beans. The beans from San Jose made fine chocolate but the beans from our own farm had such a rich diversity of taste - the taste was brighter and more colorful.

And then disaster struck! We opened the refrigerator door after letting the chocolate chill and it was suffering from bloom - big time! The worst case we ever saw.

It was a mystery. My best guess is that the fridge had been defrosting and the humidity in the fridge was too high.

Luckily, it is possible to melt the chocolate and bring it back to its original dark and glossy state. So, we’ve been staying up late, melting chocolate, pouring it back into the molds and crossing our fingers as we wait for it to chill.

We did not temper either batch so it means that we need to keep it chilled all the way to the United States. That is going to be a real challenge.

Another big shift that is going on now is that we are looking at selling lots on the Chocolate Farm.  As we walked the property with our real estate agent we realized once again what a special piece of property we are living on. But if we want to sell land, we need to get it surveyed, we have to get it registered, talk to lawyers, etc….

The way we both feel is that we are pushing ourselves right up to our limits all the time. In fact, it is the furthest possible thing from the stereotypical idea of a tropical paradise, lounging in a hammock with a daiquiri and paperback in hand.

Taking care of land out here is hard work. We are only now, after two years, beginning to understand what a difficult job we have undertaken.

We had to laugh a few weeks ago when we met a guy who has been looking for land for six months in Costa Rica. He told us that he finally realized that he wasn’t ready for the responsibility of taking care of a big piece of land - by which he meant 10 acres!

We have almost a hundred acres here and sometimes it seems that almost every square foot of it needs special attention.

In fact, this process of living a life in the countryside of Costa Rica has been one of the most intense growth processes of my life. There was a time two weeks ago when I got sick with bronchitis and a weird skin infection. Normally, I never get sick. The doctor said it was stress. Normally, I don’t feel stressed.

I went to bed for a couple of days after I got that diagnosis. I read, watched movies and tried to rest. But I felt so overwhelmed with all that needed to be done that I almost felt as though I was going through a physical breakdown in order to retreat from all the demands of life. I felt something growing inside me - something like a backbone or a strong inner core that is developing in order to deal with these new challenges.

See you in California!

Lots of Projects

 

Keli and Miloo

We just bought a new saddle (our first, we've been borrowing up to now,) so we will be doing more riding.

A little of this and that just to keep the rhythm of blogging.

The last two days we have been juggling all the projects here and we flow from overwhelm to solidarity many times each day. Yesterday I made feta cheese using the cheese kit for the first time.  It’s a little rubbery but tastes good.  Not sure if it should age in the fridge or out.  We’ll see soon enough. Today we decided to change our routine a little to wake up and get out to work a little sooner to catch the cool part of the day for work, and do our stretching etc. a little later. This means waking up at 5:30 AM.

This morning I made a box out of scraps to plant lettuce. Jim built a ladder of bamboo, wood and wire so he and Sergio can take look at the roof to see what’s going on with the leaks.   Later we go to the little village to see our friend Willie and take a swim in his lovely swimming hole.

Last night the pigs which are roaming around kept us up eating our compost and the little nuts from the palm next to our room.  They are really noisy, snuffling and slurping and gulping. We finally talked to Deanae about what to about them.  They belong to someone else but live on our farm.  Maybe they feel safer here.  I kind of like the fact that they are happy and roaming rather than stuck in a box like many others around here but it’s a bummer when anything you put in the ground resembling food can be eaten by the two parents and the four little piglets who look for food. They are growing visibly each day.

The weather has been beautiful here. Some rain, lots of sun, we haven’t needed to sleep with the mosquito net.  The breeze up at the studio and new house is like natural AC.

Small Things

It seems I’m always writing to keep up with each day’s adventures which, let me say, is only possible to the minutest degree.  In a way it is the same for all people.  The interactions with the world are so personal and so complex, and each persons make- up has what; some billions of connections in the brain and hormonal system different from others, depending on if this or that happened differently in the womb or in childhood.  Each situation has so much richness, so much depth, it seems when I write that I capture only a skeleton outline.

Yesterday was a suuupper long day.  We arose at 4am to meet the Israelis to buy some bread up at the main road on their way to the coastal farmers market. Then we continued to San Isidro to have a meeting.  The day included loseing our brakes, learning about  leaf cutting ants that can devour trees in a day, a first encounter with Palma mekenque trees which reminded me of Avatar the movie.

On to an early dinner at Madras, a little tropical restaurant run by a family.   We were waited on by the father who can’t have been much more than 30 or 35 yrs old.  He is one of the few who have been there or here in Costa Rica for a while; ten years.  He had a cute little cabina that he rented out for 35 dollars a night.  A restaurant, beautiful jungle around that he planted because, like most places  the land had been cut down so that McDonalds could have cheap hamburgers.  Every single feature, and I mean every single feature was made and artistically crafted by him.  Each chair in the restaurant was different and hand crafted.  Some had long sticks of bamboo tied together by wire as the back - others were made of wood, with interesting and different styles. He was really living the art of living.

  He and his wife were the only ones working there and there were two little ones running around demanding attention.  They had been here ten years but only got electricity a year ago.  I had a little conversation with the woman ( whose name I’m not sure I heard) about when the electricity goes out the laundry becomes very time consuming.  Personally I think the clothes washing machine is a gift from god.  And you can’t really know that until you live without one for a while. I may have written this in the blog before and it may not be the last.

On our way home we stopped at a nice beach which seems like only the locals know about, and had a coffee at sunset. On the rocks with our little power camp stove.  And please don’t picture us in shorts with a good tan in a lounge chair. It's always a little rougher than that.  For now, by the time we start giving tours we will have it all plushed out and organized.  Or maybe not. The sand flies come out right as the sun goes down for 10 minutes.  I was covered from head to toe as I have learned to save my ankles.  I felt like I really got one over those little pests this time, they couldn’t penetrate my armor.

Anyway I was going to skip the skeleton and go into something  more detailed to explain how I like to get lost in the nature here.  While Jim was at the café in Uvita doing some internet business, I walked across the road and found the path to the river.  Started walking up river.  There were locals playing in a couple of swimming holes, I kept walking till I settled my bag on some rocks and went to sit in the water where there was some good flow to get a leg massage.    First of all walking on rocks is kind of like a religion for me.  It changes my state of being immediately.  I just get lost in the moment with the rocks.  Of course it has to always include water because rocks are usually too hot without water.   I got to the middle and sat down, keeping a steady pressure to hold me. There is usually a way to arrange my body to get a nice massage.  For five or so minutes I stay there, then another rock catches my eye and I ponder until compelled to move and see what it is like over there, then arrange myself again.  This time I got a really good one like when I use to do hot tubs.  The water made my flesh itch like crazy and then I have to scratch.  I try to stay for as long as possible because it is so cleansing and good for me.

Many of the rocks were very slippery because algae was growing on them.  Being so close, I could notice different organisms living there.  The first one that caught my eye was a little tiny teardrop shaped seaweed-like nodule hanging on a short string about ¼ inches long.  Watching them there, I wondered how strong they must be to endure the massive and continuous pull from the flow of water pulling them down river.   As soon as I had that thought I wanted to pull on one to see how strong it really was. (For this moment I remained oblivous to the destruction of organisms I am causing by building a house and many other things.  I decided just to let them stay there and not to disturb them just because of some silly human curiosity.

That lasted about a minute.  Then, with a little guilt, I plucked one.  At first it didn’t come out, then I pulled a little harder and it popped out just like a hair on my head.  It had a little follicle on the other end of the string.  The little thing was very strong.   Even though I could pull it from the rock I could not break it. I tried one more. But then that was enough disturbance.
After that I noticed a lace-like seaweed…

Now I moved on to some sounding.  I like to harmonize myself with water environments by sounding.  I find the notes that blend into the sound of the river and usually after I do that my day goes very well.

When the House is Finished, the Work begins

Today, Luis the owner of InterDinamica, an alternative energy company, came out to visit us for a consultation.  Our solar power has not been operating very well and today we really got a good critique on the system we installed.  Lots of good ideas to maximize the power coming, and the life of the batteries.  How to incorporate the hydro power in the future, and also that wind energy may be something to look into for the future.  Luis is very good at what he does.  He studied on scholarship in Japan to become the engineer that he is.  He is also environmentally conscientious and sensitive.  I was surprised when he said he notice a good vibration here and commented that it is rare to find places like this where people live like they did fifty years ago.  Fifty years ago is when the people of this area first settled here.

Yesterday we had a meeting with Sergio, the man who built our house and Rolando, the realtor who sold us the house and has been a good friend along the way.  With Rolando translating we communicated several problems we are having.  Due to us not having enough experience with local building practices, how to build to live in this climate and Sergio not having experience doing a design different from what he is used to, we ended up with a house with a few problems.  It is dry season but here it rains a little in summer.  Such as the other day we had a nice downpour for a couple of hours.  We discovered that the house and studio leak from every door, every window, the clearstory windows at the top, the place where the balcony meets the house and through most of the walls when there is wind.  We asked Sergio to share the responsibility and so he will give us a week of his time and then we will pay for two more weeks of work to remedy this together, creatively and in many different ways.  That’s after we decide on how to treat the wood from wood-eating insects that are being well fed at the moment.

Willie, our friend who lives in the town about an hours walk from here called and we joked a little.  He was just figuring out how to get electricity to his place.  It’s like what I say to students who are just getting certified for the first time.  The journey is just starting.  Here, when we finished the house, the work starts.

For some reason I can’t sleep tonight.  Maybe that is because we decided that we have to set the alarm for 5:30 starting tomorrow in order to meet the day when the day is demanding us to meet it.  I thank God for our routine in the morning which includes some Gyro and a little meditation.  We are both fitting in our Music practice almost every day but out here where the vibe is mostly about practial things we have to be very strong in our determination to enjoy some of the non-materialistic aspects of life.  Music really does require a sense of leisure, and that is difficult (but not impossible) to manifest during this time.  (laughing to myself with that little smirk on my face that Jim notices sometimes when I write funny emails) 

Many times we look at each other and ask “why are we doing this?”  I don’t know the answer accept that we are doing this because this is what is happening.  I remember when Juliu asked me one time, “what are you doing,” while I was teaching a course somewhere.  I said “ well, I’m feeling like a feather in the wind being blown about.”  His reply - “ Are you a donkey?  Donkeys get pushed around,” or something like that.  It stuck with me because I wondered if I should be something different or have more ambition.  Many days I feel as if I am directing my life and making decisions for some desired outcome but for now I sure feel like I’m a donkey.  However, at the end of today I  have a smile  for absolutely no good reason.  I haven’t been remembering to take all my supplements and that is because I don’t feel a need for them. (knock on wood)

Trapiche Days - Making Sugar from our own Sugar Cane

 

Dianey and Anna checking on the boiling sugar cane juice

 Keli cooling down the sugar

As planned, the bulls came down the road with the sugar cane in the cart and we spent the morning extracting the juice to be boiled.  It is around 1 pm and I just went to check on how it is going, and there are about three more hours to go till the pouring.

Jorge and his family are here. It is mostly his sugar and we added a little.  I remember when we bought the farm that Nacho told us that it was the only trapiche around, or at least the biggest one and that several of the neighbors would come to use it.  We put $300  into fixing the machine that presses the cane to keep this tradition going.  Drinking fresh sugar cane juice is great and we love to use the sugar for many things including our chocolate.  This sugar came just in time to use for the next batch of chocolate we are going to make.

Last night was the second night in a row that we heard people passing by at night, and we both enjoyed the sound of the horses hooves pounding the ground rather than a motor car sound.  I remember Mt Chirripo
during my first visit to CR. There were a lot of people getting around on horses - now when I go there that is very rare.  This area so far, is a nice balance of horse and car transportation.

This is Jim writing now…

Speaking as a confirmed sugar addict, I would like to say that it is a wonderful thing when a whole community gets together to celebrate making sugar.

The kids love it because at every stage of the process there is something delicious to sample. First, of course, is the sugar cane. Then as it gets squeezed, they get to drink the pure sugar cane juice.

As it heats up in the cauldron, it boils over the edge and the kid’s job is to scrape down the hardened sugar juice, which is crunchy and sweet. After its been boiling for a while, you can pour some of the concentrated juice into a pitcher of water and it will harden into a taffy like substance - so sticky it can almost pull your teeth out.

At the end of the day, all the sugar is divided among the participants according to who contributed the sugar cane, who owns the machinery and who did most of the work. They seem to have the formula down pretty well - everybody left the trapiche looking happy with the results of the days work.

Little Treasures of Farm Life

Today we took a walk through what we call The Fruit Park.  Behind the farm house, we turned the whole field which was used as pasture for cows into a field of exotic fruit trees.  When we planted we didn’t know what we know now so not all survived but amazingly many did and it was great fun to see them all.  Jim knows what all the trees are by sight and I am still learning.

A little routine has developed between me and the kids, who’s names are Anthony, Kimberly, Jasmine, and Julieta,  so I will probably call them kids or children just to save my fingers.  After the morning’s practice time and farm work which may change from day to day (Today was the fruit park walk), we eat and then some kind of nap.  I usually give myself a Biodynamic session.  For the past week I can count on the kids waking me up just when I’m finished and we all commence learning Spanish and English together. 

Sometimes this is not so successful.   I found out that when there is a person from one language trying to learn the others language and neither of us knows the other's language at all it is like the blind leading the blind.  So I have been getting little short lessons from Jim and that gives me a head start on what to work on in the afternoon for the lessons.  Today was very good and was inspired by the difficulty in the morning when Kimberly came by and spent five minutes asking me if she can have the milk pitcher to bring down to the corral.  So today’s lesson was “Nosotros prestamos el pichel”  May we borrow the pitcher.  It turned into may they borrow Mileu (our horse) to go to town tomorrow.  They always do on Sundays to go to church but it was fun to practice the question.  It so cute to see them try to make sounds that are difficult like the le part of little was very difficult for them.  I am learning just as much…I think.

Freddy came back today and we had lunch.  Then we talked about what work would be done.  He was clear that work would start tomorrow and we all went off to nap.   I just love a carpenter who comes to work and first thing eats and sleeps.  Muy tranquillo. 

He brought back gifts for the kids too, some books for coloring that have English lessons with the pictures, plus four yoyo’s.  That will be tomorrow’s surprise.

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.